How Small Farms Can (Sustainably) Feed The Future

"Small farms farm better.

And large farms can’t.

Small farms are the best hope that we hold of feeding a future of 9 billion (and beyond). At the same time they hold the potential to redistribute wealth, conserve biodiversity, secure livelihoods for some of the world’s most marginalised and ensure a continuation of traditional cultural relationships with the land. They are truly our most sustainable option."

"Sustainable development in agriculture would ensure that the economic, social, environmental and cultural needs of present and future generations are met. Sustainable agriculture rests on these four pillars."

Links to two articles about ancient Seed Savers

Hunting for the ancient lost farms of North America

2,000 years ago, people domesticated these plants. Now they’re wild weeds. What happened?

The Future of Food: Happen Films

"Our short film about Wairarapa Eco Farm CSA, now with captions. Be sure to check out http://happenfilms.com for more free documentaries."

Protect our soil

AND

"A species that destroys the soil, destroys itself." Me

The Guardian: Permaculture in Malawi

Permaculture in Malawi: using food forests to prevent floods and hunger

   Read original story

Permaculture projects in Malawi are developing sustainable food systems. It is time the development sector took this ‘marginal hippy movement’ seriously

Award winning short film on how to be self sufficient

New Report Debunks 'Myth' That GMOs are Key to Feeding the World

Published on

Wednesday, April 01, 2015

by

Common Dreams

Study upholds value of traditional methods 'shown to actually increase food supplies and reduce the environmental impact of production'

by

Lauren McCauley, staff writer

 

About 70 percent of the world's poor are farmers, and to raise them out of poverty requires access to basic resources such as fertilizer, water, and the infrastructure to properly store or transport crops to market—not expensive, resource-intensive GMO seeds. (Credit: La Montañita Co-op)

 

Whole Earth Summit: [FREE & ONLINE] March 11-13; 4-10pm EST

Whole Earth Summit: [FREE & ONLINE] March 11-13; 4-10pm EST

 Remember: This event is free and online, so you can join from anywhere. Feel free to invite friends and family by sharing this link > www.WholeEarthSummit.org.

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Schedule

TUESDAY, MARCH 11TH (EST)

4:00 - 5:00pm - HOSTS Janell Kapoor & Stacey Murphy: Vision, Inspiration, Collaboration & Action
5:00 - 5:15pm - Vandana Shiva: Seed & Food Sovereignty
5:15 - 6:15pm - Raj Patel & Nikki Silvestri: Love, Purpose & the Food Movement
6:15 - 6:30pm - Cantave Jean-Baptiste: Haitian Seedbanks & Community Security
6:30 - 7:30pm - Brad Lancaster & Geoff Lawton: Regenerative Action & Abundance
7:30 - 7:45pm - Marla Spivak: Honeybee Allies
7:45 - 8:45pm - Joel Salatin & Peter Bane: Growing Sovereignty
8:45 - 9:00pm - Mark Lakeman: Activating City & Planet Repair
9:00 - 10:00pm - Jason McLennan & David McConville: Desiging Living Buildings & Systems

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12TH (EST)
4:00 - 5:00pm - Bill McKibben & Hunter Lovins: Energy & Capital 
5:00 - 5:15pm - Majora Carter: 
5:15 - 6:15pm - Lonny Grafman & Rob Avis: Appropriate Technology & Community
6:15 - 6:30pm - Johnny Weiss: Solar & Renewable Energy
6:30 - 7:30pm - Sepp Holzer & Dr. Dieter Duhm: Healing Water, Healing Love
7:30 - 7:45pm - Allan Savory: Holistic Land Management
7:45 - 8:45pm - Jacquie Berger & Anna Lappe: Food Systems: Global to Local
8:45 - 9:00pm - Karen Washington: Urban Farming Movement
9:00 - 10:00pm - Charles Eisenstein & Vicki Robin: Transformational Leadership

THURSDAY, MARCH 13TH (EST)
4:00 - 5:00pm - Grandmothers Mona, Rita, & Flordemayo: Vision & Action for a Healed Earth
5:00 - 5:15pm - Bill Twist: Awakening the Dreamer
5:15 - 6:15pm - Starhawk & Rob Hopkins: Practical Action for the Commons
6:15 - 6:30pm - Sacha Stone: Human Sovereignty Movement
6:30 - 7:30pm - Nina Simons & Terry Tempest Williams: The Art of Engagement
7:30 - 7:45pm - Susun Weed: Wild Food as Medicine 
7:45 - 8:45pm - Gemma Bulos & Osprey Orielle Lake: Women, Water & Climate Change
8:45 - 9:00pm - Rachel Parent: Kid’s Right to Know 
9:00 - 10:00pm - Ryan Eliason & Ocean Robbins: Food Revolution & Social Entrepreneurship

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This FREE & ONLINE summit is dedicated to you, your community, and life on earth for generations to come. If you have any questions at all, please contact our support team at Support@WholeEarthSummit.org.

Food MythBusters – Do We Really Need Industrial Agriculture to Feed the World? (video)

Why do save our seeds?  Perhaps this video will be of interest.

Bamboo makes a great crop. Try bamboo shoots in a stir fry along with your more regular vegetables.

Organic Can Feed the World - The Atlantic

Thursday, 8 December 2011

"There isn't enough land to feed the nine billion people" is one tired argument that gets trotted out by the anti-organic crowd, including Kopperud. That assertion ignores a 2007 study led by Ivette Perfecto, of the University of Michigan, showing that in developing countries, where the chances of famine are greatest, organic methods could double or triple crop yields.

North Bank Community Garden Bellingen

"My hope is that we can finally put a nail in the coffin of the idea that you can't produce enough food through organic agriculture," Perfecto told Science Daily at the time.

Too bad solid, scientific research hasn't been enough to drive that nail home. A 2010 United Nations study (PDF) concluded that organic and other sustainable farming methods that come under the umbrella of what the study's authors called "agroecology" would be necessary to feed the future world. Two years earlier, a U.N. examination (PDF) of farming in 24 African countries found that organic or near-organic farming resulted in yield increases of more than 100 percent. Another U.N.-supported report entitled "Agriculture at a Crossroads" (PDF), compiled by 400 international experts, said that the way the world grows food will have to change radically to meet future demand. It called for governments to pay more attention to small-scale farmers and sustainable practices -- shooting down the bigger-is-inevitably-better notion that huge factory farms and their efficiencies of scale are necessary to feed the world.

Suspicious of the political motives of the U.N.? Well, there's a study that came out in 2010 from the all-American National Research Council. Written by professors from seven universities, including the University of California, Iowa State University, and the University of Maryland, the report finds that organic farming, grass-fed livestock husbandry, and the production of meat and crops on the same farm will be needed to sustain food production in this country.

The Pennsylvania-based Rodale Institute is an unequivocal supporter of all things organic. But that's no reason to dismiss its 2008 report "The Organic Green Revolution" (PDF), which provides a concise argument for why a return to organic principles is necessary to stave off world hunger, and which backs the assertion with citations of more than 50 scientific studies.

Rodale concludes that farming must move away from using unsustainable, increasingly unaffordable, petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides and turn to "organic, regenerative farming systems that sustain and improve the health of the world population, our soil, and our environment." The science the report so amply cites shows that such a system would

• give competitive yields to "conventional" methods
• improve soil and boost its capacity to hold water, particularly important during droughts
• save farmers money on pesticides and fertilizers
• save energy because organic production requires 20 to 50 percent less input
• mitigate global warming because cover crops and compost can sequester close to 40 percent of global CO2 emissions
• increase food nutrient density

What is notably lacking in the "conventional" versus organic debate are studies backing up the claim that organic can't feed the world's growing population. In an exhaustive review using Google and several academic search engines of all the scientific literature published between 1999 and 2007 addressing the question of whether or not organic agriculture could feed the world, the British Soil Association, which supports and certifies organic farms, found (PDF) that there had been 98 papers published in the previous eight years addressing the question of whether organic could feed the world. Every one of the papers showed that organic farming had that potential. Not one argued otherwise.
The most troubling part of Kopperud's post is where he says that he finds the food movement of which Pollan and Nestle are respected leaders "almost dangerous." He's wrong. The real danger is when an untruth is repeated so often that people accept it as fact.

Given that the current food production system, which is really a 75-year-old experiment, leaves nearly one billion of the world's seven billion humans seriously undernourished today, the onus should be on the advocates of agribusiness to prove their model can feed a future population of nine billion -- not the other way around.

Organic Can Feed the World - The Atlantic

Perennial Staple Crops of the World

Coppiced mulberry leaf on contour at Las Cañadas for human food and
goat fodder. Overstory of nitrogen-fixing acacias.

Perennial Staple Crops of the World

This is a link to a website with some very useful information about some of the food crops we can or may be able to grow in our Bellingen locality.

Here is a tiny sample of this extensive information source.

Chaya/Tree Spinach (Cnidoscolus chayamansa), or Mayan spinach, is a shrub of the tropics and subtropics. It tolerates arid to humid conditions, in lowlands and highlands. Though raw leaves contain cyanide, the cooked leaves are very nutritious. Yields are very high, 20-30 tons per hectare fresh.

Katuk/Sweetleaf (Sauropus androgynous) is an Asian shrub with delicious leaves. Unlike most woody leaf crops it can be eaten raw. It likes humid tropical lowlands and thrives in the shade of fruit and nut crops. The protein content of fresh leaves is 6-10%.

Moringa/Drumstick Tree (Moringa oleifera, M. stenopetala) is a small tree of the tropics, thriving in arid and humid climates. The dried leaf is incredible nutritious, and used by nursing mothers in much of the tropics. If allowed to grow to tree form moringa produces nutritious pods, but for leaf production it is coppiced. Yields of moringa leaf are very high, 10-50 tons per hectare.

See also  SurvivalGardener.com