—RUPA MARYA AND RAJ PATEL, INFLAMED

Over the past few weeks, our Real Food Media family in Chicago and Minneapolis—as well as folks across the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard—have been waking up to local news headlines boasting the worst air quality in recorded history. Smoke from Canada’s worst wildfire season yet is to blame, even making its way all the way to Europe.  

We don’t have to tell you that these record-breaking fires—and the increasing severity of fires, heatwaves, and other extreme weather events worldwide—are the unmistakable mark of the climate crisis. While residents of affected regions are cautioned to stay indoors, those most affected are invariably workers—from window washers to street vendors to farmworkers—with few or no employer protections and scarcely able to give up a day’s income to avoid polluted outdoor air. 

A whole host of urgent measures are urgently needed to protect those most vulnerable to climate chaos, and stop greenhouse gas emissions at their source—such as the way we produce and distribute food, contributing about a third of all emissions. This year’s US Farm Bill offers one pathway for needed progress (see below to take action!).

We should also not lose sight, as Rupa and Raj reminded us so evocatively in Inflamed, of how colonialism has damaged our relationships with one another and with the earth. One example of this is how Indigenous practices of fire stewardship have been jettisoned in favor of fire suppression—a move that has dramatically increased the risk of dangerous wildfires. 

Decolonization—of our relationships and worldviews—must occur side by side, and in conversation with, the policy work if we are to soothe our global inflammation. 

In community and solidarity,

Tanya, Tiffani, and Christina

Read Issue No. 64 of the Real Food Scoop

The post Real Food Scoop No. 64 appeared first on Real Food Media.

The world has never used as many pesticides as it does today, and the United States uses more than any other country, including some of the most dangerous pesticides that are banned in other countries. With the release of a US Edition of the Pesticide Atlas, a powerful compendium on the state of pesticide use and why it matters, leaders at prominent US civil society organizations working for common sense pesticide action, including Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America, the Center for Biological Diversity, Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action, and Real Food Media highlight the alarmingly persistent use of toxic pesticides in the United States—and what we can do about it. 

The US edition of the Pesticide Atlas is one of five published around the world as part of the Germany-based Heinrich Boell Foundation’s series. Other editions include Germany, EU, Kenya, Italy, and Nigeria.

New chapters in the US edition include:

• A snapshot of pesticide use in the United States and the connection between pesticide production, use, and the climate crisis from Margaret Reeves and Asha Sharma of Pesticide Action Network North America;

• A look at how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to properly regulate pesticides and how this has led to the heavy use of dangerous pesticides, and subsequent devastation to biodiversity from Nathan Donley and Lori Ann Burd of the Center for Biological Diversity;
• An overview of pesticide industry PR tactics to deter and delay action on pesticides from US Edition editor, Anna Lappé, and journalist and co-founder of US Right to Know Stacy Malkan;
• A story of dedicated organizing for common sense pesticide regulation on the Hawaiian islands from Executive Director of Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action, Anne Frederick.

“Sixty years after Rachel Carson warned us of the terrible toll of overuse of pesticides here and around the world, the United States continues to use more pesticides than anywhere else on the planet, including some of the most hazardous pesticides banned in other countries. With rising rates of cancer, infertility, and metabolic disorders alongside a biodiversity crisis, taking action on pesticides has never been more important. This report arms us all with the facts, and inspiration, to do so.” — Anna Lappé, editor of the Pesticide Atlas-US Edition and author, funder, and sustainable food advocate   

“With a billion pounds of pesticides used each year in the US, the American public reasonably expects that these chemicals made to kill living things are tightly regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency. But unfortunately that’s not the case. As a result, Big Ag in the US relies on pesticides that many other nations have banned because of their severe dangers. Tragically, that regulatory failure causes the greatest harm to farmworkers and their children and our nation’s most endangered wildlife, particularly pollinators.” — Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity.   

On April 26, 2023 at 10:30amPT/1:30pmET join Anna Lappé in conversation with contributors to the US Edition of the Pesticide Atlas in a webinar to share key highlights from the Atlas and their implications. The conversation will center on how we can collectively better understand the connections between pesticide use and public health, the climate crisis, and biodiversity as well as dive deeper into how to understand the policy barriers and opportunities for action on pesticides here in the United States.  Register for the free webinar. 

Contact Info

Anna Lappé

Editor, Pesticide Atlas-US Edition

Food Sovereignty Fund Director, Panta Rhea Foundation

Founder, Strategic Advisor, Real Food Media

anna@realfoodmedia.org 

The post Launch of the US Edition of the Pesticide Atlas appeared first on Real Food Media.

In the ensuing decade, we have been thrilled to see the conversation about food systems grow—and so we were delighted to see the latest missive: The Washington Post’s feature on the environmental cost of the food we eat. But we were disappointed with its narrow focus. By pitting one food against another—rice or potatoes? salmon or cod?—the piece misses a big opportunity to help consumers think about the climate consequences of their food buying decisions. 

One of the reasons our food system is a driver of environmental crises, including the climate crisis, is because of how food is grown, particularly our system’s dependence on the fossil-fuel based inputs of pesticides and synthetic fertilizer. Pesticides are fossil fuels in another form: 99 percent of all pesticides are derived from fossil fuels. And greenhouse gas emissions from nitrogen fertilizer alone are greater than all commercial aviation worldwide, noted a recent report by the Center for International Environmental Law. The good news is that, unlike aviation, we have technologies to free agriculture from fossil-fuel dependency through methods like organic and regenerative agriculture. Indeed, these production systems—that reduce the burden of costly and polluting inputs like pesticides and fertilizers—were identified as key climate solutions in a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. So for readers who want to lighten the environmental load of their diet, reaching for the organic label or seeking out products raised with regenerative practices is a powerful place to start. 

We’re pleased to see mega-platforms like the Washington Post take on these big issues—we hope these deeper connections get exposed. 

FYI — Unpublished LTE 

As someone who has been trying to raise the alarm about the environmental impacts of the global food system for years, I was delighted to see The Washington Post’s headline: “This is the environmental cost of the food we eat.” But by pitting one food against another — rice or potatoes? salmon or cod? — the piece misses a big opportunity to help consumers think about the climate consequences of their food buying decisions. One of the biggest reasons our food system is a driver of environmental crises, including the climate crisis, is because of how food is grown, particularly our system’s dependence on the fossil-fuel based inputs of pesticides and synthetic fertilizer. Pesticides are fossil fuels in another form: 99 percent of all pesticides are derived from fossil fuels. And greenhouse gas emissions from nitrogen fertilizer alone are greater than all commercial aviation worldwide, noted a recent report by the Center for International Environmental Law. The good news is that, unlike aviation, we have technologies to free agriculture from fossil-fuel dependency through methods like organic and regenerative agriculture. Indeed, these production systems—that reduce the burden of costly and polluting inputs like pesticides and fertilizers—were identified as key climate solutions in a recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. So for readers who want to lighten the environmental load of the foods they eat, reaching for the organic label or seeking out products raised with regenerative practices is a powerful place to start. 

Anna Lappé | Founder and Strategic Advisor, Real Food Media |Author, Diet for a Hot Planet

The post Raising the Alarm on Food and Climate Connections appeared first on Real Food Media.

A powerful work of history, essay, testimony, and polemic, Amitav Ghosh’s new book traces our contemporary planetary crisis back to the discovery of the New World and the sea route to the Indian Ocean. The Nutmeg’s Curse argues that the dynamics of climate change today are rooted in a centuries-old geopolitical order constructed by Western colonialism. At the center of Ghosh’s narrative is the now-ubiquitous spice nutmeg. The history of the nutmeg is one of conquest and exploitation—of both human life and the natural environment. In Ghosh’s hands, the story of the nutmeg becomes a parable for our environmental crisis, revealing the ways human history has always been entangled with earthly materials such as spices, tea, sugarcane, opium, and fossil fuels. Our crisis, he shows, is ultimately the result of a mechanistic view of the earth, where nature exists only as a resource for humans to use for our own ends, rather than a force of its own, full of agency and meaning.

Writing against the backdrop of the global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, Ghosh frames these historical stories in a way that connects our shared colonial histories with the deep inequality we see around us today. By interweaving discussions on everything from the global history of the oil trade to the migrant crisis and the animist spirituality of Indigenous communities around the world, The Nutmeg’s Curse offers a sharp critique of Western society and speaks to the profoundly remarkable ways in which human history is shaped by non-human forces.

The post The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis appeared first on Real Food Media.

Drawing on thirty years of research, Goulson has written an accessible, fascinating, and important book that examines the evidence of an alarming drop in insect numbers around the world. “If we lose the insects, then everything is going to collapse,” he warned in a recent interview in the New York Times—beginning with humans’ food supply. The main cause of this decrease in insect populations is the indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides. Hence, Silent Earth’s nod to Rachel Carson’s classic Silent Spring which, when published in 1962, led to the global banning of DDT. This was a huge victory for science and ecological health at the time.

Yet before long, new pesticides just as lethal as DDT were introduced, and today, humanity finds itself on the brink of a new crisis. What will happen when the bugs are all gone? Goulson explores the intrinsic connection between climate change, nature, wildlife, and the shrinking biodiversity and analyzes the harmful impact for the earth and its inhabitants.  

Meanwhile we have all read stories about hive collapse syndrome affecting honeybee colonies and the tragic decline of monarch butterflies in North America, and more. But it is not too late to arrest this decline, and Silent Earth should be the clarion call. Smart, eye-opening, and essential, Silent Earth is a forceful call to action to save our world, and ultimately, ourselves.

The post Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse appeared first on Real Food Media.

In 1979, an idealistic 44-year-old Black woman named Nettie Mae Morrison moved with her husband to Allensworth, 75 miles south of Fresno, in California’s Central Valley. 

“She wanted to be a part of history,” said her son, Dennis Hutson, who was in his mid-20s at the time. The town had a distinctive past. It was founded in 1908 by Allen Allensworth, a man born into slavery who became the first African American to reach the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. About 3 square miles in size, , it was the first town in California founded and governed by Black people—and it served as a beacon of possibility for Black people all over the nation, its population growing to around 1,200 people. 

But the community soon fell on hard times.

In 1914, the Santa Fe Railroad Company moved its rail stop from Allensworth to nearby Alpaugh, a majority-white town, dealing a major blow to Allensworth’s economy. That same year, Col. Allensworth died after being struck by a motorcycle during a visit to Los Angeles. 

It was access to water, however, that proved the most challenging. 

According to California’s water regulatory agency, “The company that sold the land to Col. Allensworth,” the Pacific Farming Company, “didn’t fulfill its promise to build an adequate water system, leaving the growing population with debt and dry wells. Drought struck the Central Valley soon after the town was founded, which led to poor crop yields and further decreased vital water supplies.”

In 1966, the town suffered another blow when officials discovered arsenic in the drinking water, and by the 1970s Allensworth no longer appeared on most maps.

The town’s storied past and ongoing challenges were what drew Morrison there, Hutson said of his mother. She dedicated the rest of her life, from 1979 until her death in 2018, to Allensworth, where she joined church efforts and nonprofit campaigns against local polluters and rallied to secure clean drinking water for the community. On weekends, her five grown children joined her in her efforts.

Decades later, two of her children—twins Dennis Hutson and Denise Kadara, felt a similar calling to Allensworth. Hutson, a Methodist preacher and Air Force chaplain living in Las Vegas at the time, remembered his frustration that little seemed to have improved for local residents despite his mother’s many efforts. As recently as 2020, nearly one-third of the population still lived below the poverty line. 

“[I asked myself], ‘Why doesn’t the government do something?’” Hudson recalled. “A voice [in my head] responded, ‘Why don’t you do something?’”

So in 2007, Hutson and Kadara, age 54, and Kadara’s husband, Kayode Kadara, decided to buy 60 acres from a retiring farmer in Allensworth, calling it the TAC Farm (TAC originally stood for The Allensworth Corporation, an entity that has since been dissolved.) Over the next few years, Hutson moved from Las Vegas and the Kadaras from Half Moon Bay, California, to settle in Allensworth full-time.

Their goal was to create a Black-owned, Black-operated farm that would honor Allensworth’s legacy and boost the local economy in the Valley. They began to farm a mix of collards, okra, mustard greens, watermelon and black-eyed peas because, as Hutson said, “I’m going to grow food that I know Black people want to eat.”

The Central Valley is sometimes called the nation’s breadbasket, producing about 8% of total agricultural output and nearly 40% of the country’s fruits and nuts. But climate change poses a serious threat to the region’s farms. Annual average maximum temperatures in Allensworth, and the surrounding San Joaquin Valley, which is part of the Central Valley, increased by 1 degree F from 1950 to 2020. That figure is projected to increase another 4 or 5 degrees F in the next 30 years, according to a state-commissioned report released earlier this year. The region is also experiencing its most severe drought in a millennium, according to a separate study published earlier this year in the journal Nature.

The extreme heat and drought don’t just threaten crops. These conditions make farm work more dangerous for workers and pose critical health risks for surrounding communities, according to Chantelise Pells, a water-systems researcher at UC Merced and co-author of the state-commissioned report.

“When you compound the expenses of air conditioning, poor air quality and limited access to water, [the climate crisis] is a huge economic burden for low-income communities,” Pells said. “They have to make a choice of whether to suffer in the heat or not have enough money to meet their basic needs.”

According to the same report, hundreds of thousands of residents in the San Joaquin Valley—many of whom are farmworkers—do not have access to clean drinking water and instead rely on store-bought bottled water. More frequent heat waves, which are often accompanied by poor air quality, increase the economic burden on low-income communities in the region that already experience disproportionate rates of asthma and heat-related illnesses.

Lack of rainfall and snowmelt runoff also mean farmers rely more heavily on groundwater, a practice that has become unsustainable, experts say. And amid the water scarcity, small-scale farmers like the Hutson-Kadaras are struggling to compete with larger farms.

“Most small-scale farmers don’t have the means to dig deeper wells and compete with large farms for access to groundwater,” said Angel Santiago Fernandez-Bou, a researcher at UC Merced and another co-author of the state-commissioned report.“During a drought, this can be a big problem for small or disadvantaged farmers.”

In 2007, for example, Hutson dug a 720-foot well on his family’s property, only to discover that his neighbors, who operate larger-scale operations, have wells thousands of feet deep. He realized that meant his well—and the farm’s lifeline—would be at risk of drying up long before his well-financed neighbors’ water sources would. (Around 42% of public wells in the San Joaquin Valley are at risk of drying up due to current drought conditions, according to the state-commissioned report.)

”When you are in the midst of a drought in a state that is having severe water challenges, it seems to me that you would rethink how you do your farming,” Hutson said, “—that it would encourage you to consider other ways to provide for your livestock [while] at the same time trying to provide for your environment.” 

In 2011, the Hutson-Kadaras participated in an organic farming training program, where they learned adaptive practices, such as enriching their soil with organic compost and installing windbreaks—hedges of trees to protect crops against wind—that would limit their reliance on synthetic fertilizers, reduce soil erosion and conserve water. 

In the past decade, the TAC Farm has adopted other climate friendly practices, including closed-loop agriculture—a technique in which farmers recycle nutrients and organic matter material back to the soil.The Hutson-Kadaras also raise rabbits, feeding them organic alfalfa and using their nutrient-dense manure as fertilizer. 

Hedgerows and windbreaks reduce soil erosion, minimizing soil disturbance, which in turn leads to less dust and fewer pollutants in the air. Healthy soil increases water retention, leaving more water in the aquifers. The cover crops add fertility to the soil, reducing the need for agrochemicals that pollute the air and water. The benefits of these farming practices, if adopted widely, reverberate throughout the surrounding community, according to Pells.

“Using regenerative practices [like cover cropping and reducing tillage] is a win-win,” Pells said. “It improves water and air quality, while lessening the economic burden on the farmers themselves.”  

The experiences over the past 15 years have convinced the Hutson-Kadaras of the importance of small-scale and cooperative farming. The benefits aren’t just environmental, Hutson said. Surrounding communities have been shown to benefit economically as small farms generate jobs and circulate income among local establishments. 

State officials are now looking to the Hutson-Kadaras’ farm as a model for developing a new generation of small-scale, sustainable farmers. Earlier this summer, state lawmakers earmarked $10 million in funding to help Hutson and Kadara develop a farmer training program that focuses on sustainable practices and cooperative methods that can help fight the tides of climate change and transform the Central Valley into a more economically and environmentally sustainable region. 

The program will primarily recruit burgeoning Black, Indigenous and other farmers of color in an effort to close some of the racial disparities that are rampant in food and agriculture. After 7 months of training, participants can lease a small plot of land on the Hutson-Kadara’s farm for the next 2½ years and sell their goods to local cooperatives. (While land access has been, and continues to be, an issue for many beginner farmers, organizations like Minnow exist to facilitate the transfer of land into the hands of California’s farmers of color while advancing Indigenous sovereignty.) 

Drought and extreme heat notwithstanding, Hutson said his dream—to make Allensworth once again a beacon of hope for Americans of color—is slowly becoming a reality. In June 2022, California state Governor Newsom set aside an additional $32 million dollars in the state budget for Allensworth—a majority of which will go to building a new visitor center that will connect the town’s history of Black self-determination with its future as a sustainable and equitable farming hub.

“I want Allensworth to be known for training and producing the next generations of cooperative, small-scale, sustainable farmers—whether they are Black, Latinx, Indigenous or Asian,” Hutson said. “That’s what I hope for and that’s what we are working toward.”

This article was made possible by a grant from the Open Society Foundations for Nexus Media News.  Nexus Media News is an editorially independent, nonprofit news service covering climate change. 

Header image: LA Times

The post How a Methodist Preacher Became a Champion for Black-Led Sustainable Agriculture appeared first on Real Food Media.

The post Microplastics in Pesticides and Fertilizers: poster child for the last thing we need right now appeared first on Real Food Media.

Just east of Birmingham in the U.K. sits the sixth-largest university in the country, Coventry University,  home to 38,000 students and a relatively new center for the study of agroecology — a burgeoning field of social and environmental science.

Founded in 2014 and nestled on 9 hectares (22 acres) at Ryton Gardens, the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) provides an academic home to 45 full-time research staff and more than 50 Ph.D. students, nearly half hailing from outside the U.K., including Africa, Asia and Latin America. From its inception, the center has taken a transdisciplinary approach, employing the knowledge and skills of social scientists, natural scientists and artists-in-residence. More than 50 master’s students and 42 agroecology practitioners are graduates of its program, and it’s recognized internationally for its work on alternative food networks and “agroecological urbanism” — the concept of bringing agroecology principles like diversity and mimicking natural ecosystems into urban food planning — and is now at the forefront of pushing agroecology and food sovereignty forward.

Following her feature for Mongabay about agroecology as a leading solution to climate change in response to the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report calling for urgent action, author and sustainable food advocate Anna Lappé is interviewing leaders in the field of agroecology education, research and extension. She begins with Michel Pimbert, founder and director of the center, to better understand Coventry University’s work bringing agroecology to much wider attention. The interview was conducted by email and has been edited lightly for length and clarity.

Mongabay: Let’s start at the beginning. What’s the birth story of the center?

Michel Pimbert: In 2013, the university invited staff across the schools to pitch ideas for new areas of research. Much to my surprise, my proposal for a significant new center on agroecology and sustainable food systems was very well received! The university understood that hardly any research was going on in agroecology at the time, whether in the U.K., Europe, or beyond. Lucky for us, the vice chancellor and his team were quick to see that creating a new agroecology center would be a unique selling point for the university. This led to the birth of the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience. Since then, we’ve received significant investments to recruit staff and Ph.D. researchers, attract international talent, and build a strong global research program on agroecology and sustainable food systems. Across all this work, and from the very beginning, we’ve emphasized the need to include peoples’ knowledge in ways of knowing and the co-creation of knowledge.

Mongabay: You’ve talked about the concept of “cognitive justice.” I had never heard that phrase before I heard you use it. It’s quite provocative. Can you share what you mean by it and how it relates to your approach to teaching, learning, and knowledge dissemination?

Michel Pimbert: The term comes from our philosophy of knowledge. Unlike many mainstream institutions, we reject the idea that academic knowledge is superior to the knowledge of Indigenous peoples and peasant farmers. This is what we mean by a commitment to “cognitive justice” — and I see it as key for agroecology, which aims to combine farmers’ knowledge with ecological science. But it also matters more generally for our work on decolonizing curriculum and transforming research for a just and sustainable society.

Mongabay: “Resilience” has become quite the buzzword, but it’s always been central to your work — it’s even in your name! How do you bring a study of resilience into your programs?

Michel Pimbert: When we focus on developing agroecological practices for resilience, we mean resilience to the climate crisis and to market volatility. We focus on how building farmer and citizen knowledge to improve agroforestry, intercropping and polycultures, evolutionary plant breeding, integrating livestock in agricultural systems as well as promoting shorter food webs to link producers and food eaters are all key to such multifaceted resilience. Another research strand is community self-organization. By that, we mean a focus on how — and under what conditions — communities can collectively mobilize their knowledge and agency to respond to crises like floods, droughts, and other natural/man-made disasters, and self-organize for managing alternative food networks and local governance.

Mongabay: Right. You often emphasize how agroecology is not just about what happens on the land but what happens in power structures, too. How does that show up in the CAWR’s research?

Michel Pimbert: Yes, exploring strategies for transforming governance — for agroecology, food sovereignty, and the right to food for all — is a key priority for the center. For that reason, research at the center also focuses on local to global policy choices that are needed to tackle threats to people and nature, and to promote agroecology and sustainable food and farming systems. We also look at institutional choices such as land tenure that can support large-scale shifts towards agroecology. 

Mongabay: Can you share an example of a research project that embodies your center’s cross-disciplinary approach?

Michel Pimbert: Yes! I think the contributors from all around the world who used stories, poems, photos, and videos to create Everyday Experts: How people’s knowledge can transform the food system demonstrate well this transdisciplinary approach. It’s also a powerful showcase of how people’s knowledge can help transform the food system towards greater social and environmental justice.

Mongabay: You talk about the co-creation with movement partners for your research?

Michel Pimbert: Our partnerships grow out of conversations with social movements and peasant organizations. We are often asked to include them in funding bids or to provide research support for projects they have prioritized. One of the challenges is the typical donor approach, which does not allow open-ended, flexible, process-oriented projects of co-inquiry that social movements often require. Donors often have what I call a “log frame mentality” — one that is rigid and overemphasizes quantitative objectives.

Mongabay: In a recent Mongabay feature, I talked about how the latest IPCC report centers agroecology as a key climate solution. Are you excited by its new popularity?

Michel Pimbert: Yes, it’s exciting to see the greater acceptance and understanding of the potential of agroecology since the center was founded eight years ago. However, it’s important to stress that funding for agroecology remains pitifully small — the lion’s share of public funds continues to support industrial and “green revolution” agriculture. Agricultural policies and subsidies continue to support larger farmers and the use of agrochemicals that massively harm people and the land, and fuel runaway climate change. What’s more, I would caution that as agroecology becomes more popular, we have to resist the watering-down of ideas and cooptation; it’s important to continue to commit to an agroecology that transforms the dominant food regime rather than one that seeks to conform with it.

See more of Mongabay’s agroecology coverage here.

Mongabay: How does biodiversity intersect with teaching agroecology?

Michel Pimbert: Conserving and enhancing biodiversity — both domesticated and wild — is key for agroecology. Moving from uniformity to diversity on the farm and the wider landscape requires an emphasis on much higher levels of biodiversity. Take pest management, for instance: instead of relying on petroleum-based pesticides, agroecological solutions address on-farm pests by diversifying local ecology to enhance the abundance of natural enemies of pests and diseases. To reduce soil erosion and loss of water, these methods focus on planting diverse cover crops and terracing. To buffer against climate extremes, diversity-rich agroforestry creates micro climates, and on and on and on. Agroecological practices based on the use of greater biodiversity also enhance dietary diversity that is essential for improving health and combatting malnutrition.

Mongabay: How has the climate crisis impacted how you approach research? 

Michel Pimbert: A focus on climate change was built into the center’s program from the start. The center’s climate scientists have been modeling changes to develop better prediction for droughts, floods, and forest fires in Africa, Europe and Asia. Agroecological approaches to climate adaptation are explored in Africa and Europe as well as Central America. We also do policy research aimed at exposing corporate greenwashing and the threats posed by nature-based solutions and net-zero plans that are now promoted by post-COP26 finance for climate change.

Mongabay: From your center’s research, what are you seeing about how agroecology can scale to meet global nutritional needs?

Michel Pimbert: Agroecological practices have been shown to increase production in the developing world. By harnessing more biodiversity on the farm and in food chains, agroecology can increase dietary diversity, something that is so badly needed today, including in wealthy societies hooked on junk food and highly processed foods. However, to be clear: Agroecology should not be seen as another technical fix for hunger and malnutrition. Agroecological production that enhances the availability of a diversity of foods needs to be part of a wider societal process of transformation that prioritizes equitable access to land and other means of production, fair access to — and distribution of — food, and supports people’s agency to claim and realize the right to food for all.

See related: From traditional practice to top climate solution, agroecology gets growing attention

Mongabay: It’s clear that what you’re calling for is massive transformation. From your vantage point, what are its greatest hurdles?

Michel Pimbert: In this moment, there are two starkly contrasting models of development, each seeking to radically transform food and farming. The first focuses on modernizing and sustaining capitalism through the promotion of what is being called the fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The 4IR relies on robots, gene editing, remote sensing, big data, drones, vertical farms, cell-cultured “meat,” digital technologies, and the “internet of things” to manage plants, animals, and the wider farming environment, as well as the entire agri-food chain. The second pathway emphasizes food sovereignty and agroecology.

Mongabay: Let me guess which pathway your center promotes.  

Michel Pimbert: Clearly, food sovereignty and agroecology — and we are not alone: I’m inspired by countless programs around the world who share our vision. But the dominant discourse on modernity and progress, government policies, and funding priorities still favor the energy-intensive 4IR — and thus, frustratingly, continue to fuel the climate crisis, mass species extinction, and the economic genocide of farmers. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the financial and corporate actors who disproportionately benefit from the emerging 4IR are its biggest boosters and pose the biggest hurdles for a transformative agroecology based on diversity, decentralization, autonomy, and democracy.

Mongabay: It’s such a dark time in so many ways — from a persistent global pandemic to senseless wars and climate crisis-induced weather extremes — what inspires you amidst all this?

Michel Pimbert: Despite all the odds, I am inspired by the many people-led initiatives that are helping to reinvent food and farming for a more convivial, just, peaceful, and sustainable world.

The post Food for All: Q&A with Michel Pimbert of the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience appeared first on Real Food Media.

It was my first in-person event since the start of Covid, and I was delighted to be with my mom and my dear friend Davia Nelson of Kitchen Sisters. If you catch me smiling at folks in the audience it might be my husband, my daughter, my brother, my 4th grade English teacher, my kids’ school principal… it truly was a family affair. My mother and I got to talk about the anniversary edition and all the fun we had pulling it together. You can learn more about Diet for a Small Planet at 50 and get yourself a copy at our website here.

The post Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Diet for a Small Planet at the Bay Area Book Festival appeared first on Real Food Media.

Too often, the environmental discourse has failed to include and uplift the very communities on the frontlines of environmental justice movements. Despite the undeniable fact that Indigenous communities are among the most affected by climate devastation, Indigenous science is nowhere to be found in mainstream environmental policy. And while holistic land, water, and forest management practices born from millennia of Indigenous knowledge systems have much to teach all of us, Indigenous science has long been ignored, otherized, or perceived as “soft”—the product of a systematic, centuries-long campaign of racism, colonialism, extractive capitalism, and delegitimization.

Too often, the environmental discourse has failed to include and uplift the very communities on the frontlines of environmental justice movements. Despite the undeniable fact that Indigenous communities are among the most affected by climate devastation, Indigenous science is nowhere to be found in mainstream environmental policy. And while holistic land, water, and forest management practices born from millennia of Indigenous knowledge systems have much to teach all of us, Indigenous science has long been ignored, otherized, or perceived as “soft”—the product of a systematic, centuries-long campaign of racism, colonialism, extractive capitalism, and delegitimization.

Here, Jessica Hernandez—Maya Ch’orti’ and Zapotec environmental scientist and founder of environmental agency Piña Soul—introduces and contextualizes Indigenous environmental knowledge and proposes a vision of land stewardship that heals rather than displaces, that generates rather than destroys. She breaks down the failures of Western-defined conservatism and shares alternatives, citing the restoration work of urban Indigenous people in Seattle; her family’s fight against ecoterrorism in Latin America; and holistic land management approaches of Indigenous groups across the continent.

Through case studies, historical overviews, and stories that center the voices and lived experiences of Indigenous Latin American women and land protectors, Hernandez makes the case that if we’re to recover the health of our planet—for everyone—we need to stop the eco-colonialism ravaging Indigenous lands and restore our relationship with Earth to one of harmony and respect.

The post Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science appeared first on Real Food Media.