SUNDAYS
February 26th, 2023
and March 5th, 2023
3pm - 5pm EST
A virtual series of talks with more than 30 prominent organic farmers, scientists, chefs, and climate activists. Register here!
Session 1: How Does Regenerative Differ From Organic?
We will discuss the history and meaning of the two terms. How have chemical companies worked to discredit “organic” while also embracing the term “regenerative”? Can both of these groups use the word without confusion and compromise? Finally, which version of regenerative are the billions of dollars in USDA funding for “climate smart” supporting? Can chemical companies that promote “no-till” practices using herbicides and fertilizers really be “climate smart”?
In the face of powerful greenwashing, this session explores the question of how to promote a united, worldwide movement for a saner agriculture… and quickly!
Session 2: Is Tillage Evil?
There is a dogmatic push to move all farmers toward “no-till” practices for better soil health. But, are the concerns around tillage justified, given organic farmers have increased soil organic matter for decades with tillage and cover crops? “No-till” outside of organic agriculture includes the termination of cover crops with herbicides, along with the continued use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. An unexpected side-effect of this chemical “no-till” includes increased run-off of surface applied fertilizers, soil acidification, and greater herbicide use. This has led some scientists to wonder whether the focus on soil health should be centered around the use of synthetics instead of tillage.
In light of all these new findings, this session discusses what practices we should be encouraging farmers to adapt to mitigate climate change.
Job post: https://www.mltn.org/job/land-trust-coordinator/
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The Land Trust Coordinator conserves riparian and upland properties in service of the Downeast Salmon Federation’s mission to restore Atlantic salmon and other sea-run fish species to the rivers of Downeast Maine. These responsibilities include designing and brokering the transactions necessary to conserve important riverine and upland habitat in Downeast Maine; raising land acquisition and conservation easement funds, managing our holdings to Land Trust Alliance accreditation standards, and raising the funds necessary to finance the Land Trust’s operational expenses.
PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Be a regional leader educating and inspiring regional residents in the importance and benefits of land and river conservation
- Develop and cultivate relationships with all landowners from whom we hold conservation easements and lease agreements
- Works in teams with DSF Habitat Restoration and Fisheries staff and partners to improve the suitability of our properties to optimize ecological function
- Develop and cultivate relationships with landowners of high-priority lands
- Cultivate and steward funders via site visits, personal communication, and other outreach
- Identify and evaluate conservation opportunities; maintain a catalog of high priority lands
- Create and maintain a catalog of DSF’s land ownership in each of our priority watersheds
- Establish and maintain partnerships and productive relationships with state and federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, and academic institutions to identify and pursue innovative land and river conservation projects
- Complete the LTA accreditation process
- Supervises, trains those staff assigned to the DSF LT activities
- Monitor our current holdings per LTA accreditation specifications
- Coordinate volunteers to perform stewardship tasks
- Prepare and present Land Trust conservation, grant, and project reports for Board and committee meetings
QUALIFICATIONS
- The ideal candidate will have a knowledge of aquatic ecosystems, riparian management, and community-based fisheries management
- At least three years of applicable experience in riparian ecology, fisheries biology, and/or land acquisition
- Experience in community relations and environmental stewardship
- Experience with conservation easements and property acquisitions
- Experience working with, or as part of, a non-profit organization
- Experience managing budgets and grants
TO APPLY
Please submit a cover letter and resume to: [email protected] with Land Trust Coordinator in the subject line.
The webinarThis webinar will serve as an introductory session to provide key elements for understanding the phenomena of the digitalisation of food systems from seed to stomach (also known as the 4.0 revolution in food and agriculture). This is a free and open teach-in, organized in two 45 min teach-ins with 15 min for Q&A. A moderator will provide additional information and respond to questions in the chat during each session.
Session 1: Power and technology: the digital food chain | By ETC Group What is “the digital food chain" and what networks of power are behind it? What are the technologies involved in the "digitalisation'' of each link of the agrifood chain? What is the role of artificial intelligence and data mining? We will explore the connections between big corporate tech and food players and digital platforms, assess corporate concentration in these sectors, and unpack the role States play when it comes to deploying technologies and enabling monopolistic practices. We will introduce the concept and political implications of bio-digital convergence.
Session 2: Food, data, and capitalism: a new business model | By IT For Change We will explore key elements enabling us to better understand the new digital economy and surveillance capitalism and how it is being applied to food. What is the connection to green capitalism and the financialisation of nature? What is data in this context, and particularly, data for food systems (also increasingly known as “surveillance agriculture”). We will share elements of the geopolitics of digital deployment (for example, China’s creation of a Digital Silk Route).
Dates, times, and languages
Both sessions of the webinar will be presented in two different schedules: June 29 >> Languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese (best for North America, Latin America, and Europe) Session 1: 12hs PDT / 14hs Mx / 15hs EST-Chile /16hs Bra-Arg/17hs Lisboa/18hs SpainSession 2: 13hs PDT / 15hs Mx / 16hs EST-Chile /17hs Bra-Arg/18hs Lisboa/19hs Spain Click here to register for 29/06 and add to your calendar!June 30 >> Languages: English, Portuguese, French (best for Africa, Europe, and Asia) Session 1: 09hs Congo/10hs London-South Africa /11hs CET-Mozambique/ 12hs Nairobi/14.30hs India/ 17hs ManilaSession 2: 10hs Congo/ 11hs London-South Africa /12hs CET-Mozambique/ 13hs Nairobi/15.30hs India/ 18hs Manila Click here to register for 30/06 and add to your calendar!
Further information
Current rapid technological changes include the ongoing deployment of programs to transform food chains and the intensification of corporate mergers and ventures among big ag and big tech. There is an urgent need for civil society movements to understand and assess what these changes mean to the defense of the peasant food web and food sovereignty. This introductory teach-in is part of a series of activities under the “Food, Data and Justice Dialogues” to build capacities to assess digital technologies in food and agriculture, an initiative of the JustNET Coalition and of The Long Food Project. For any additional questions or information requirements, please contact Soledad Vogliano [email protected]
Introduction
Living with Machines invites you to join us for two events with Professor Jo Guldi, where you will hear first hand from one of the world's leading digital humanists. During this event, you will get insights into recently published historical research on global land rights and land reform and understand more about how the humanities is an area of extreme potential for growth in data science.
Event 1
Jo warns of an age of pseudo-history promoted by GPT-3 and easy algorithms, fuelling nationalism and populism. Jo will contrast the naive use of algorithms with "hybrid knowledge," the exciting domain where data-driven analysis of large-scale textual repositories meets critical thinking from the humanities and social sciences. This event is suited for a cross-disciplinary audience.
Event 2
Jo will present on her latest book, The Long Land War, which tells a story as old as human history: the global struggle over food, water, land, and shelter. The Long Land War focuses on technology and expertise. This event is open to the public.
This event is organised by The Alan Turing Institute, Living with Machines and the British Library. This event is free to attend and you can attend in person or watch online.
About the event
Event 1: Pseudo History and Digital History: The Dangerous Art of Text Mining
Jo argues that a world awash in text requires interpretive tools that traditional quantitative science cannot provide. Text mining is dangerous because analysts trained in quantification often lack a sense of what could go wrong when archives are biased, incomplete, or evidence the suppressions of the past. Jo's talk will review a brief catalogue of disasters created by data science experts who voyage into humanistic study.
It finds a solution in “hybrid knowledge,” or the application of historical methods to algorithm and analysis. Case studies engage recent work from the philosophy of history (including Koselleck, Erle, Assman, Tanaka, Chakrabarty, and others) and investigate the “fit” of algorithms with each historical frame of reference on the past.
Event 2: The Long Land War: The Global Struggle for Occupancy Rights, 1881-1974
The Long Land War tells a story as old as human history: the global struggle over food, water, land, and shelter. The book follows rent strikes, political movements and ideas from Ireland and India to the United Nations, Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the rest of the developed world, tracing the intersection of popular protest, nationalism, Communist and capitalist ideology, and utopian schemes involving the potential of small-scale technology and large-scale maps. Through struggle, those movements redefined private property as a collective resource whose value was its ability to support food and housing.
Jo Guldi will tell the history of state-engineered “land reform” projects from their triumphant origins in Victorian Ireland to their quiet assassination by the United States in 1974. She introduces land reform as a movement forged by a complex diversity of international actors, among them Irish peasants, Hindu saints, development analysts, economists, and indigenous farmers. Her research examines the success and failure of land reform against the complex interplay of Cold War ideology, United Nations schemes for improvement, World Bank dogma, grassroots activism, and human shortcomings.
The 1974 coup cast poor peoples around the world into a state of dependency on landlords: it has made a world of occupancy rights increasingly difficult to imagine. Today, land use represents a major key to the governance of climate change. We can apply the lessons of the past to the governance of climate change today, but we only have a vanishingly small window in which to do so.
Visit https://orfc.org.uk/orfc-2023-call-for-ideas-and-proposals/ for more information!
IN-PERSON Conference, Oxford, UK
This is going to be bigger and better than ever! In addition to our regular venues, we will be taking on rooms at two new sites: The Story Museum, alongside St Aldates Church and the Northgate Centre, next door to the Oxford Town Hall. All the venues are within a 5 minute walk of each other, so there will be plenty of choice of sessions as well as places to meet up. There will also be more tickets available for January, which is good news for those who have missed out before.
Length of sessions
In response to your feedback, the sessions in Oxford will remain at 90 minutes. This should give you a good amount of time to present your ideas and take questions, or to break into groups to explore the topic further. However, it will reduce the amount of sessions, so we apologise in advance if we can’t take your proposal further.
Format of sessions
You can suggest a talk, a panel discussion, a workshop, a practical demonstration or something else entirely! There will also be space for cultural events, including music, dance, theatre, storytelling etc, so please be creative and let us know what you have in mind.
New speakers welcome
ORFC has a very strong and vocal community, which we are delighted to see return each year. However, we would also like to encourage new speakers to come forward, so this year we are limiting the number of sessions that any one speaker can take part in to TWO. We hope this will encourage new people to share their views and experiences with us. You don’t need to be a seasoned orator, we just want to hear what you have to say. (This new policy should also help with our scheduling nightmares!)
Speaker tickets
ORFC always asks everyone who attends the conference and can afford to pay for their ticket to do so, regardless of whether they are a speaker or a delegate. The reasons for this are twofold: firstly, we want to encourage speakers to be a part of the whole conference and not just their sessions; and secondly, we want to keep the conference affordable to all, and this is only possible when speakers who can afford to pay, do so (especially as a third of conference attendees are speakers!).
However, if cost would be a barrier for speakers to attend, please let the conference team know directly on [email protected]. (This will not affect whether your submission gets accepted.)
Conference topics
The conference never sets a theme, as we want to hear about your interests and concerns. However, we always welcome new and innovative farm practice sessions and personal accounts of your farming practice and food or farming enterprise. We also want to hear about the work you’ve been doing, especially if it involves differing groups and individuals. We look to you to suggest pressing issues that the ORFC community needs to consider and discuss.
The topics covered are broad in scope. They include general themes such as agroecology, food sovereignty, climate change, biodiversity, food and farming policy, economic democracy, land and food justice, workers’ rights and land-based spirituality. However, we are also interested in the ‘offbeat’, so please do send this “Call” to other groups and organisations that might not be on our mailing list.
Timeframe for submissions
We will be looking through the submissions in late June/early July and aim to contact everyone – whether you’ve been successful or not – in August. This year, we will be asking you to have your session organised earlier as we will need speakers and programme details confirmed by mid-October. Bar a last minute Covid variant, this should make for a seamlessly organised hybrid conference!
John DiMartino, Jr. is a Hudson Valley, New York based wet plate collodion photographer and educator specializing in authentically made ferrotypes (commonly known as tintypes).
visit john's website here.
After working for the United States Environmental Protection Agency for over 20 years, he became demoralized by the dismantling of environmental regulations by the Trump administration. He concluded that he could no longer be a party to it and decided to leave to pursue his artistic interests. He apprenticed and assisted John Coffer for 3 years at Camp Tintype, the world’s leading teaching center for all things wet plate. He makes all of his own chemistry, black japans (a process where a thin metal plate is coated with black varnish and then dried in a heated oven) his own iron plates to create historically accurate ferrotypes, and uses only natural light.
During these highly polarized times, he strives to make art that promotes acceptance and empathy. He is interested in people, their histories and their stories, how they interact with each other and their surroundings and how that informs their world view. He wants to explore what connects us as opposed to what drives us apart, an especially relevant and worthy pursuit given the current climate of divisiveness and us vs. them.
The wet plate collodion process he now works in is a perfect medium to explore these themes. It is a difficult, time-consuming process requiring attention to detail. The artist must block out all the noise, be present and engage with the subject and task at hand. The process itself embodies chaos, as chemistry and technique all must coalesce at the right moment in order for the image to materialize. The finished tintype is a one-of-a-kind image etched into a black-japanned iron plate using silver and light. It has weight to it. It is to be reckoned with. While holding it in one’s hand, the viewer contemplates the themes presented, forming a connection to the artist and the work.
Greenhorns is excited to work with John and capture the beauty of Pembroke in this historical art style.
| Still time to register at early bird rate! The registration period to participate in the 5th World Congress on Agroforestry 2022: Transitioning to a Viable World is ongoing, and the early bird rate is still available until April 1st, 2022. You are warmly invited to register for this congress that will take place in Québec City, Canada, on July 17-20, 2022. Virtual participation will also be possible. You can also register for our agroforestry field trips, some touristic activities to discover the surroundings of Québec City and the banquet which will be held on July 19th, 2022, in the beautiful Château Frontenac, emblem of Québec City. Visit our website to discover the themes of the plenary and parallel sessions, the workshops and side events which will take place during the congress. Thematic days for emerging researchers (July 17th, 2022) and Québec agroforestry actors (July 19th, 2022), will also be organized. Don’t forget to visit our website regularly as this list of activities and events will increase over the next months. The cost of registration is adapted to the participants’ profiles, according to their needs and capacities. Your live presence will allow you to receive a participation certificate or, for Québec agronomists and forestry engineers, training credits. Early bird and presenting author registration deadline: April 1st, 2022 To register, click on the green button below: Registration rates and formMoreover, financial help will be available for some participants in the 5th World Congress on Agroforestry. You will find the details of the options offered on the Congress website at www.agroforestry2022.org/en/financial-help. Be aware: the deadline for application to some grants is March 20, 2022. For up-to-date information on available financial support, eligibility criteria, and how to apply, visit the website and please do not send requests for more information via email. Université Laval, one of Canada’s largest universities, was chosen by the International Union for Agroforestry (IUAF) to host the 5thedition of the World Congress on Agroforestry, for its great reputation as leader in the areas of research, innovation and sustainable development, and as one of the first universities worldwide to offer a complete curriculum in agroforestry. |
A new video report from Mongabay's ongoing series visits the Bribri people of Costa Rica where women are reclaiming power through agroforestry.
You can also read Mongabay's article* on Bribri womens' agroforestry work and how they've leveraged their knowledge and skills as a form of resilience.
"In Costa Rica, agroforestry systems are known as fincas integrales, a seemingly disorderly system that reminds one of the creative mess of a tropical forest. Timber trees such as laurel (Cordia alliodora), cedar (Cedrela odorata) and mountain almond (Dipteryx panamensis) dominate these agricultural landscapes.
Under their shade grow fruit trees such as orange (Citrus sinensis), lemon (Citrus limonia), star fruit (Averrhoa carambola), soursop (Annona muricata) and sapote (Pouteria sapota). These in turn give needed shade to medicinal plants such as comfrey (Symphytum officinale), goosefoot (Chenopodium graveolens) and hombre grande (Quassia amara), used to heal respiratory diseases and snake bites, among other uses.
These plantings make the community nearly self-sufficient, as they provide food, construction materials, and medicines. 'In Bribri territory of Talamanca we found a complex multi-strata system with more than 30 tree species,' says Ricardo Salazar, agroforestry professor and researcher at the Costa Rica Institute of Technology. 'Each tree offers different services: timber to build houses and boats, firewood, fruit for food, and crops such as cocoa and banana that could provide extra income to the families.'"
Young, budding farmers and foodies, this one is for you - cheese-lovers, in particular!
The Anne Saxelby Legacy Fund offers 17 to 22-year-olds month-long, paid apprenticeship opportunities on sustainable farms. The fund was created in honor of Anne Saxelby, renowned and beloved proprietor of Saxelby Cheesemongers in NYC, and aims to engage young folks in sustainable farming and community work.
The application is due on April 1 and the one-month long internship will take place in June or August. The apprentices will be paid, fed, and housed. Check out the list of participating businesses.
An Apprentice will:
● Pair with a participating farm or food business for a one-month working apprenticeship.
● Apprentices will participate in farming and production activities and will follow a curriculum that gives a general and overarching experience of the operation.
● Participants will be housed, fed, and compensated for their time and travel.
Download the ASLF Apprentice Application Here.
Work will depend on the farm and the season but participants should expect a variety of conditions and experiences available on a working farm. One should be prepared to work outdoors in variable weather conditions. Chores conducted in facilities may include a production facility such as a cheese making room, dairy barn, cheese cave, or a pop-up at the farmers market.
The application is open to young adults 17-22, with consideration given for those in life or career transitions that have led them to a desire to work in Food and Agriculture
Other states with precious aquatic resources and similarly icy winters have taken a stricter approach than Maine has, what can we learn from this. A look at their website is also instructive, these organizers have mobilized massive support to successfully revoke the mining permits in the Boundary Waters in Minnesota.
Here is a recording of last week’s great session focusing on the geology, tailings management and health impacts of metallic mining in our specific location here on Cobscook Bay. Thank you again to our expert speakers! And here are a few images from Andrew Stancioff’s presentation of similar metallic mines currently in operation.
You can watch all the previous events on www.pembrokecleanwater.org/events page.
As Pembroke considers an ordinance to regulate mining, the larger Cobscook region is having a conversation about why the small number of potential jobs related to mining metal is not worth the risk to the entire rest of the economy, the water, the fishing, the children, the future. Cobscook Bay serves as a nursery for the marine food web of eastern New England; it is currently endangered by a proposed poly-metallic silver mine in Pembroke, Maine that poses unacceptable risks of contamination for this relatively pristine region, currently under consideration as a National Heritage area. Known to the Passamaquoddy people as “Dawnland” this is a place renowned for sealife— pollock, cod, haddock, scallops, herring, sea urchins, lobsters, and now aquaculture-- Cobscook Bay is the largest producer of farmed salmon in the state of Maine. Historically, there had been over 27 canneries on these shores; these have now closed. Today, the conservation value and economic value of this landscape are well understood.
We cannot afford contamination here. The economy here is totally reliant on our natural resource base, 10% of residents hold commercial fishing licenses, tourism, logging and forestry, balsam wreaths and blueberries are our biggest employers in very small, scattered coastal towns—we don’t have other industries to fall back on here and cannot afford to ruin the natural wealth that drives prosperity and quality of life. Federal, state and private investment in the expansion of the wildlife refuge, fish passage, connected regional parks, and trails system has drawn tourists from across the country; these protected habitats make for healthy rivers and bays that sustain both recreational and commercial fishing.
Far from being a ‘job creator’ for Washington County, the proposed “Big Silver” mine instead looms as a ‘job destroyer’. A foreign corporation, Wolfden Resources LLC, has started preliminary operations in Pembroke with a mere 16-page work plan submitted to the DEP—early-stage exploratory mining is highly deregulated in Maine, but even these early diggings pose a risk to our drinking water, as 1600 foot boreholes may bring water into contact with metals-bearing rocks, and the high sulfur content of those deposits can create sulfuric acid, mobilizing heavy metals into the groundwater. The distance to Cobscook Bay from the proposed mine site is negligible (1.5 miles) and toxic material from the mine is very likely to spill into the local drainages, the local aquifers, and inCobscook Bay.
There are no metallic mines currently in operation anywhere in the world that meets the descriptions now being presented by Wolfden. All are unsafe and many have ended up as EPA superfund sites that have to be cleaned up at taxpayers' expense.
Unfortunately, after a 40-year informal moratorium on metallic mineral mining in Maine, the mining law of 2017 leaves much to be desired; among other weaknesses, although mining supporters state that the law bans open-pit mining, the law instead stipulates that open-pit mining up to 3 acres per mining operation is permissible. We have much work ahead to address the shortcomings of Maine’s mining regulations as well as enforce the rule of law as it is currently written.
January 30th, 2022 & February 6th, 2022 3-5pm EST
Last year we moved our Real Organic Symposium online and over 1750 unique attendees registered for our live sessions (1030+ were farmers) plus an additional 491 viewers registered to view the recorded sessions between February and August 2021. Our 2021 videos are now free and viewable with no ticket requirement on our website (view them here).
We're returning in just over 2 weeks with two sessions instead of five, a possible mid-week gathering for those who can't make it Sunday and extra content we had to leave on the cutting room floor, live networking and breakouts, a virtual expo, and again offering free recorded access for farmers and students (registration required). Feel free to use the code REALJESSICA10 to save 10% on any ticket price ($15, $40, or $65 based on what you can afford). Links to apply for scholarships are found on the website as well.
Read on below for more information or pop over to our website to see our full list of speakers, a short trailer preview of some killer quotes, and more!
If you're able to help us spread the word, you can find a media kit of images and sample text here. Feel free to reply to me if you have any questions or issues registering. I hope to see you all there!
Real Organic Virtual Symposium 2022: Milk & Money
How do we protect what we have worked so hard to build over the last century? What is the impact of personal choices compared to political change to move beyond the fringe into mainstream markets and what will protect us from corporate greenwashing, money, and power?Find out at our 2022 Virtual Symposium, here's what to expect:
January 30, 2022 3-5pm EST: “Milk & Money” explores the impact of the massive influx of industrial-scale dairy into the organic sector. What happens when a few “organic” dairies in the arid West outproduce the thousands of family-scale dairies across the country? What are the differences in production practices? How can the farmer affect the quality of the milk you drink?
February 6, 2022 3-5PM EST: “Protecting Organic” brings together the farmers and eaters who are building a saner agriculture for a better future. What successful models have brought about real change? How can we multiply their impact? How do we protect what we have worked so hard to build in the organic movement? What is the impact of personal choices compared to political change?
Featuring Michael Pollan, Leah Penniman, Dan Barber, Lindsey Lusher Shute, Paul Hawken, Eliot Coleman, Rep. Chellie Pingree, Severine Von Tscharner Fleming, and of course - a LOT of farmers. Plus live discussion breakouts and one-on-one networking options!
All funds raised through this symposium further the work of the Real Organic Project to offer their add-on certification and support to USDA-certified farms at no cost!
Learn More & Register Here https://bit.ly/3tjqIZN
By ANDREW CLINE | November 26, 2021 at 12:19 a.m.
The Biden administration is waking up to the soaring demand for minerals and metals driven by Western nations transitioning to new energy technologies. Now events in the state of Maine are alerting them to the challenges created by state and local governments.
A years-long fight over a proposed copper and zinc mine in Maine led the state legislature to pass in 2017 what activists bragged was the toughest anti-mining law in the country.
The law banned open-pit mines larger than three acres. The Natural Resources Council of Maine, an environmental activist group that fought for the law, called it a “big win for Maine’s environment.”
That assessment is up for reconsideration in light of a new discovery. This summer, four years after the passage of Maine’s mining ban, what is being billed as the richest hard rock lithium deposit in the world was uncovered — in Maine.
We are Pembroke Clean Water Committee.
We live in this town. We want clean water.
You can reach/join us at [email protected]
Check out our Facebook page here, or the “Friends of Cobscook Bay” Facebook page here.
You can reach them at [email protected]
From the Associated Press:
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Most Americans know about atrocities endured by Native Americans after the arrival of European settlers: wars, disease, stolen land. But they aren’t always taught the extent of the indiscriminate killings.
Members of the Penobscot Nation in Maine have produced an educational film addressing how European settlers scalped — killed — Indigenous people during the British colonial era, spurred for decades by cash bounties and with the government’s blessing.
“It was genocide,” said Dawn Neptune Adams, one of the three Penobscot Nation members featured in the film, called “Bounty.”
She said the point of the effort isn’t to make any Americans feel defensive or blamed. The filmmakers say they simply want to ensure this history isn’t whitewashed by promoting a fuller understanding of the nation’s past.
At the heart of the project is a chilling declaration by Spencer Phips, lieutenant governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
Issued in November 1755, it gave “His Majesty’s Subjects” license to kill Penobscots for “this entire month.” The reward was about $12,000 in today’s dollars for the scalp of a man, and half that for a woman’s scalp. The amount was slightly less for a child. Settlers who killed Indigenous people were sometimes rewarded with land, in addition to money, expanding settlers’ reach while displacing tribes from their ancestral lands.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HERE
In the Portland Press Herald this week Sierra Club officially endorsed Our Power: “The choice is ours. We can be captive customers of CMP and Versant’s profiteers or save Maine dollars while investing in better, more reliable service, and a more rapid and affordable shift to clean energy.” We couldn't agree more, which is why we are so excited to have such an important environmental group join our team.
Sierra Club went on to say: "A consumer-owned utility is a far better business model. Governed by its customers and bold climate mission, [a consumer-owned utility] can support renewables and electrification of homes and transit by borrowing money at a much lower rate and with more willingness – because it’s our utility.”
Our current investor-owned model is failing: “...they are profit-maximizing monopolies, shareholder-owned companies who are guaranteed a high rate of return on their investments by federal law. In the case of CMP and Versant, they’re owned by foreign banks and governments, and they operate to maximize investors’ profits — not the interests of Maine ratepayers."
That’s why Our Power volunteers are hard at work collecting signatures in all 16 counties to provide Mainers a climate-forward alternative to CMP and Versant. These next two months are our final chance to secure our initiative on next year’s ballot. Stay tuned for more information about this exciting development.
Acid mining is a serious threat to water quality in an area that not only provides clean water to Cobscook Bay but is also a potential source of water to Sipayik, Passamaquoddy Reservation located in what is known now as Pleasant Point. After 40 years of moratorium, Maine is now operating under a new mining law, said to be one of the ‘cleanest in the nation’, passed under Governor LePage in 2017. This rule has created high regulatory standards for “advanced exploration” and “mining permits,” as evidenced by the failure of Wolfden Resources to get a zoning change for their proposed mine in.
However, under current mining law and DEP rules companies such as Wolfden can easily begin the ‘exploration’ phase of digging. Indeed, this is most concerning to local people as there is exploration currently underway at the Big Hill in Pembroke, ME just 2 miles from Cobscook Bay and adjacent Passamaquoddy Bay. Local citizens and the Passamaquoddy Tribal Council have become very concerned about these activities.
The prospect of large-scale polymetallic sulfide mining poses a major threat of groundwater contamination. Learn about the citizen efforts and how you can join the movement to stop mining in Maine.
Join our friends @bioneers at the #Bioneers2021 virtual conference to experience how some of the wisest among us are bridging the space between worlds.
Prices increase on 10/15, so register now for the best rates!
Discount Code - bc36f2
Our friends at Bioneers have launched an exciting new newsletter dedicated to telling the stories of a food system that can be fair, healthy and regenerative. The newsletter, Food Web, will explore how a transformed food system can be a source of community wealth, creative culture, and individual health, as well as a way to fulfill our sacred calling as humans for environmental stewardship. Subscribe here to get this resource delivered to your inbox.
Food Web, the latest Bioneers newsletter, which shares the stories, explores the issues and celebrates the leaders whose work builds local food systems that serve people and embed ecological stewardship into agricultural practices. The diverse stories of food culturally and spiritually nurture our identity as humans and inspire the quest for food sovereignty – the right to define, design and determine how our food system will serve nature, individuals and the community. Food sovereignty is a grassroots movement that is taking power back from an industrial system that sickens people and damages ecosystems. This democratic, locally-adapted movement is building a food system that is fair, healthy and regenerative.
Sign up for the Food Web newsletter and learn more about how a transformed food system can be a source of community wealth, creative culture, and individual health, as well as a way to fulfill our sacred calling as humans for environmental stewardship.
POLLINATORS UNDER PRESSURE
“Climate change and the environmental crises it has created is placing tremendous pressure on our planet’s pollinators and their natural habitats. Tree Media has created a film that will inspire human action – and will provide the resources necessary to empower individuals to protect pollinators, their habitats, ecosystems and thereby our global food supply.” - Leonardo DiCaprio
Three films on the plight of pollinators and the actions we can take to ensure their survival and that of humans and ecosystems everywhere. EP 1 Premiered at the National Press Club in Washington DC and The Smithsonian June 2018. EP 2 premiered at the Miami Film Festival.
EP 1 POLLINATORS UNDER PRESSURE
EP 2 FARMS AND POLLINATORS, UNDER PRESSURE
Ballymaloe Cookery School Online continues to grow. We have a number of events coming up…We recorded a BBQ cookery course with a few of my favourite recipes on Saturday last. This will be available from July 8th for our BCSO members and for anyone else who would like to book. Our next Fireside Chat takes place on Thursday 5th August and we’re thrilled that Thomasina Miers will be our guest this time.
Tim and his team are bringing up an abundance of beautiful, fresh organic produce from the farm and gardens every day. It’s brilliant to see so many different vegetables stocked in the Farm Shop for our local community to enjoy.
The Bread Shed is busier than ever baking White Yeast Loaves, Naturally Fermented Sourdough plus Savoury and Sweet Treats. Maria and Karol are ‘working flat out’ in the Fermenting Shed developing lots of new recipes and wild creations. The Micro Dairy has a new product too, a delicious Milk Kefir made using the raw milk from our tiny herd of Jersey cows. We’re all super excited because we’ve just got word from the Department of Agriculture that we can sell our Raw Milk Camembert in the Farm Shop, local markets and further afield if we like but we just want to sell it as ‘cheese from here’.
We are in Week 10 of the April 12 Week Certificate Course so excitement and anticipation around the exams has begun to build. We are really looking forward to welcoming students for the 5 Week Summer Cookery Course. Unfortunately, due to the recent quarantine announcements between UK and Ireland, we have had a couple of cancellations on the July 5 Week Course, starting on July 12th so if you know anyone who might love this course or is looking for a career path into the world of food, please spread the word.
I’m over in West Cork at present, snatching a few days out from the school for a bit of rest and to recharge the batteries. It’s been a difficult year with Covid for so many different reasons but the future looks bright and we have such a brilliant determined team working with us we will hopefully get back to some sort of normality before too long.
Keep safe and well and please do keep in touch.
Written by Paul Molyneaux for Maineboats.com
One evening before a storm, all the water seemed to drain out of the harbor. Rocks that were coated in pink coral and the hold-fasts of storm-torn kelp got a chance to breathe air, maybe for the first time. Then the big swell filled the harbor again, well above the tide line. The sea touched sun-baked gray rocks that seldom tasted salt water. It was like a mini-tsunami, but more fascinating than deadly.
You have to be really lucky to see something like that, or spend a lot of time in a place. For me that place was Haycock’s Harbor, a narrow fjord that slices into the Maine coast close to Canada—far from yacht clubs and waterfront dining. Haycock’s is a half-tide harbor, you can only get in and out twice a day for six hours at a time—three hours before high tide and three hours after. The handful of people who work out of Haycock’s Harbor always become very tide conscious; they watch the phases of the moon and plan accordingly.
It’s not a place you can just go to. On another rare evening a sailboat hove to in Grand Manan Channel, sails luffing just off the mouth of the harbor. The solo sailor hailed me as I rowed by with a few bags of periwinkles—wrinkles, as we call them. He had shaggy black hair and ragged clothes, and he stood with one hand on the shrouds. I looked over the boat, a thirty-something foot wooden ketch named Atlantic Parrot, painted a fading green and looking a bit rust streaked and sea-worn.
“Do you know the way in here?” he called.
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“Can you guide me in?”
I looked at the harbor, and considered how to do that—me in a little dory, him in his big boat. “I’ll come aboard,” I said, and he agreed. We furled his sails and he started his engine. I started off giving him directions, but then I ran to the bow and with an upraised arm, showed him which way to steer.
The entrance to Haycock’s Harbor begins with a passage between two jaws of jagged rocks into the outer harbor. There a couple of lobstermen keep moorings to use while they wait for the tide. I piloted the boat to the right of the big plastic balls floating on the surface, and hugged the right-hand shore to get over the deepest spot in the bar at the head of the outer harbor, and then up through the gut to a line of weir stakes driven years earlier by Colie Morrison. I’d rowed past and talked to Colie when he and his brother Maynard were driving those stakes. Colie had an awkward eye that went adrift when he looked at you so you had to focus on just the one he had trained on you. A more amiable man you’ll seldom meet. He was a first-class rigger and a master welder. “I can mend anything but a broken heart,” he used to say. I couldn’t help thinking about him as the motley sailor—Steve, he’d told me—backed the engine and I threw a clove hitch round one of those stakes.
“You’ll have to work this out with Wayne,” I said, pointing to the lobsterman’s skiff. “He’s got a 36-foot lobsterboat he ties right there.”
I jumped back in my dory, cast loose and rowed up to my mooring at the very head of the harbor.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE BY By Paul Molyneaux ON MAINEBOATS.COM
This spring scientists, Indigenous people and climate movements came together to stop the SCoPEx project's attempt to carry out a solar geoengineering experiment in Kiruna, Sweden.Next week, Michael Mann, Raymond Pierrehumbert, Jennie Stephens, Tom Goldtooth, Naomi Klein, Åsa Larson-Blind, Bill McKibben, Vandana Shiva and Greta Thunberg are coming together to drive home the warning: solar geoengineering is not a climate solution.We want you to join us for this livestream event on June 9 from 11am-1:30pm EDT 5pm-7:30pm CET
Catchy headlines about silver bullet fixes often downplay the real and profound risks that such technologies pose — including potentially devastating harm to ecosystems, increased droughts and extreme weather events, and the disruption of food production for millions of people around the world. These impacts would affect all of us, but would fall most heavily on Indigenous peoples and communities in the Global South. The illusion of a technological quick fix could also delay real climate solutions, putting both present and future generations at risk.
With billionaires funding projects, governments now actively subsidizing geoengineering research, and proponents pushing for real world experiments, this technology is no longer a distant and abstract risk. It is a pressing concern for communities, youth and climate movements around the world. One such project — the highly controversial SCoPEx solar geoengineering experiment — was scheduled to take place over Saami Indigenous territories.
Together, scientists, the Saami Indigenous people, Swedish and international climate movements were able to defeat the experiment. This same coalition is determined not to let any similar experiments happen on Indigenous land or anywhere else.
FROM Bangor Daily News FULL ARTICLE HERE
AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted on Tuesday for a proposed amendment to the state Constitution providing “a natural, inherent and unalienable right to food” in a move that could lead to a referendum on the question.
The bipartisan bill from Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, would protect Mainers’ rights to collect food as long as they do not trespass or steal from another or abuse public lands or natural resources. The exact effect of the bill is unclear. Maine’s agriculture department was neutral on the bill but noted it would be likely subject to court interpretation
The idea has been floated in prior bills before, most recently from Sen. Craig Hickman, D-Winthrop, and has a wide array of sponsors, including House Majority Leader Michelle Dunphy, D-Old Town. An amended version was backed in a 104-41 House vote, easily clearing the two-thirds threshold eventually needed in both chambers to send it to Maine voters. It goes to the Senate.
Made in Maine in conjunction with MOFGA from 100% certified organic materials. Effortlessly carry the practical needs of rural living everywhere and support one of Maine's most thoughtful and productive community organizations!
- The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association(MOFGA) is excited to announce a collaboration with Anchorpak to create a 100% Certified Organic Cotton Canvas bag designed and sewn in Maine. This limited edition bag was designed specifically for MOFGA, and features the MOFGA logo. The bag is specially priced for this limited edition run. Each bag will be made to order. Choose the size that works best for you Small or Large.
- $20 from each purchase will support MOFGA's programs: educational sessions, apprenticeship programs that train new generations of young farmers, public policy initiatives around agriculture and sustainability, access to local organic foods within our communities.
Featuring the MOFGA logo printed by Liberty Graphics, Anchorpak's well researched comfortable bag design, 4 easy access pockets and a large central cargo space.
By Severine v. T. Fleming, Greenhorns Director
Labor, youth, curiosity, sweat.
In a society obsessed with mechanisms and scalability, are we forgeting the critical agency of our incoming generation to drive forward the needed solutions?
As these trillions pour out.. it is our once-in-a-lifetime chance to pay forward the cash of an extractive era. To make reparations, to those who would inherit a living earth. Pay us to restore the land. What I loved so much about the NOFA report is that it spoke about motivations, preferences, knowledge transmissions.
It talked about the humans doing the work.
A growing of skill and foresight. Learning from our elders.
It is not a solution if it doesn’t involve, and value WORK. We are a big-brained, clever ecosystem managers. We need to manage ecosystems, not just datasets, memes, protests and representational art-works. We risk becoming the bibliographers of our own extinction. The evolutionary momentum of the human species gives us the right to participate in our own survival, just like every other animal. And participating doesn’t mean only VOTING, doesn’t mean only SHOPPING, doesn’t mean OPINIONS. Participating means interacting with land. It means access to land. It means access to the work of healing our earth. It means safety in that work. It means food .
What work exactly? The work of planting back hedgerows, urban forests, riparian strips, roadside vegetative buffers, prairie strips, cover crops. The work of re-claiming a functioning agro-ecosystem. The work of protecting school-yards from dust. The work of preparing for and cleaning up from fire. The work of mulching !! This is work in our working lands, it is hand-work, it is hard work, and it is work that we all need done.
It is not a solution if it doesn’t involve, and value WORK.
It is not a solution if it exploits those whose bodies our whole society needs most for the work they can do.
It is not a solution unless the plan includes paying a fair wage.
Unless it includes training and teaching
Unless it includes a logic of reparation, restoration.
And that logic is the best hope for our belief in this social democracy. The logic that is kind towards the future, that logic can bind us together so that we can hold on.
The logic of environmental justice, the logic of water-infiltration, the logic of diversity. The logic of tending. The logic of accumulating leaf litter buzzed over by intact insect ecologies.
In policy circles there is a focus on mechanisms, agronomy, the soil/ carbon outcomes. The monetary incentives, the payments to landowners, the voting or non-voting USDA designated ‘owners’. Owners of a conquest that made a dustbowl. Owners of a carving out. We are all owners, none of us are owners.
We are in debt to a dying planet.
Unless we create an active, welcoming, facilitated social and economic path for young people into the work of land-healing, organic farming, cattle-moving, tree-plating, swale-building, pasture-seeding. We are all doomed. In Africa, in South America, in North America, everywhere. Land is a gift.
Everywhere you look the land is cold, wet, churned, crushed. Everywhere you look the land is desiccated, blowing, gullied and slack. Everywhere you look the land cannot meet the expectations of humanity no matter what chemistry, no matter what artificial intelligence. Only life can make life.
In Taiwan this year 5% of the land is laid fallow to prioritize the use of irrigation water for making micro-chips. For export to the world. In country after country the best land is used to grow crops for export. To remove rainforests for soybeans. To remove kelp forests for cattle feed. To remove prairie grasses for corn. To export, to over-produce, to waste, to poison.
I challenge us all, and myself included, to type less and plant more. Lest we become ‘elite bibliographers’ click clacking away on our computers, sucking our commodities through the global supply chain, sucking up any possibility for another world by consecrating the commercial fakery with life-force.
We are the living earth. The living earth deserves our life force.
The young people are angry for a reason.
Sharing is the only way.
Socialize the healing.
Revive the CCC, make college free.
Healthcare, housing, good fair wage
You’ll see, plenty of us will show up to help.
We want to help. We want to work.
Socialize the healing.
Protect us, give us a place to act out our hope
Give us a way to participate in our own survival.
Socialize the healing.
I send this white paper to find out which other organizations would like to roll up their sleeves and contribute to the thinking and strategic planning for how and where and in what order such work could be achieved:
CIVILIAN CLIMATE (LAND) CORPS
CONTEXT & VISION
On January 27, 2021 President Biden signed the Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, which included a directive (Sec 215) for the Secretary of the Interior, in collaboration with the Secretary of Agriculture and the heads of other relevant agencies, to develop a strategy for creating a Civilian Climate Corps Initiative. The Initiative would “mobilize the next generation of conservation and resilience workers and maximize the creation of accessible training opportunities and good jobs,” and “conserve and restore public lands and waters, bolster community resilience, increase reforestation, increase carbon sequestration in the agricultural sector, protect biodiversity, improve access to recreation, and address the changing climate.”
As described above, this initiative would strategically address multiple needs of the American people. However, we believe that this moment — as we aim to “build back better” from the devastating effects of the pandemic — provides an opportunity to be even bolder. We propose that the Biden Administration expand its vision from a Civilian Climate Corps to a Civilian Land Corps, in order to simultaneously address a number of the President’s top priorities, including:
- tackling the climate crisis and other environmental challenges;
- - providing economic and educational opportunities to young people (including free college tuition and/or debt relief);
- - revitalizing rural economies;
- reducing unemployment and incentivizing higher wages (by reducing the number of young people competing in the jobs market); transforming the American agricultural system towards regeneration, sustainability, resilience, and justice; increasing the health and wellbeing of millions of Americans; and, critically, building social cohesion across America’s rural-urban cultural divide and fostering a sense of shared civic engagement.
- All eligible, interested 18–25 year olds would be enrolled in a year of national community and environmental service, for which they would receive a salary/stipend; vocational training and environmental education; free healthcare; and free tuition at public colleges/universities and/or debt forgiveness. Even if 3.5M young people (roughly the number of high school graduates each year) were to enroll in the CLC, the total cost of the program would still be less than $250B. While much of the value of the program, in terms of social and environmental benefits, are difficult to calculate, just the avoided costs of climate-related natural disasters would easily offset the costs of the program.
WHAT IS AT STAKE
Across the US, our rural and agricultural landscapes face unprecedented climate challenges, drought, flood, increased storms and a decline in soil health. Meanwhile, communities in these same rural areas suffer disproportionate food insecurity, job loss and fallout from the economic disparity and decline of main streets and small businesses, particularly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a time marked by polarity, paralysis, and unemployment, meaningful mobilization for ecological repair and constructive work on the land could help protect our hometowns and home regions for the climate changes ahead.
WHAT WE KNOW
Whether young or old, documented or un-documented, owners or non-owners, all of us depend on this land. We all need functioning, resilient working landscapes, clean air and water, and nutritious food. Investing in the health of our landscapes thus serves all. Land-based work has been a place of entry in this country, for both immigrants and young people. As we seek to provide much needed employment and opportunity, work on and with the land, in rural and urban settings alike, can provide broad social, economic, and environmental benefits.
INVESTING IN THE FUTURE
We believe that the federal government has a great role to play in creating thousands of great jobs in land and community healing. Among other co-benefits, this proposed vision for a Civilian Land Corps represents a sizable and meaningful re-investment in rural America, where such support has tremendous potential to mobilize young people and encourage social entry into rural areas with more affordable housing. Such investment offers increased vitality, economic diversification, greater food security, environmental justice, carbon sequestration, and other climate benefits. Mapping and projections are needed, but at the end of the day, REAL, physical human work on the ground is needed to help these places prepare for and buffer the present and future consequences of climate change.
GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE
We want our young people to feel pride of place and confidence in the future, to be ready to strive and innovate. We can inspire them by re-investing in ecological resilience, in beauty, on public lands, on private lands, even on civic lands in towns and cities. Imagine a nation where vibrant parks and urban forests produce shade and food for communities, where highway roadsides are beautifully vegetated, where rivers and waterways have healthy forested edges and well maintained trails and trail-heads, where soil and wind erosion from intensive agricultural operations is buffered by large scale hedgerows of native plants, protecting nearby residents from dust and poisons. Imagine a nation that employs its best ecological thinkers, scientists, landscape architects, technologists and conservationists in mapping the points of intervention with a program aimed at enhancin our “green infrastructure,” affirming the reality that a healthy, functioning ecological system is our best homeland security.
A SAFER FUTURE FOR ALL
Our working landscapes are imperiled by the changing climate, but also by a long history of short- term thinking in the caretaking of these productive ecosystems. Shared physical, outdoor work can help prepare our landscapes for what is here and what is coming. In the process, a new generation of land stewards will spend serious time with diverse co-workers, experiencing the pride of transformation and regrowth. We feel that we can build back better by finding common ground in
Civilian Land Corps: Vision Statement 2
the “Common Ground” of our shared ecology.
NOT JUST A SERVICE PROGRAM, A JUST PROGRAM
Like Americorps or LandCare Australia and in the tradition of the CCC Civilian Conservation Corps of the New Deal era, the aim of the Civilian Land Corps is to create dignified work, vocational training, professional development. For a nation that has often relied (and exploited) indigenous peoples, migrants, enslaved people, new immigrants, prison inmates and guest workers to do the work of building railroads, harvesting crops, planting forests and construction. Justice is well served by a prominent and patriotic program that communicates clearly the gravity of our situation as well as offering a coherent plan of action. Dignity and purpose of working for our shared health- a Land Corps that offers real vocational training, large scale ecological restoration outcomes, along with a living wage and social entry into rural areas.
Sunfield Biodynamic Farm and Waldorf School seeks a Farm Educator to join our faculty for the 2021-2022 school year. The position starts July 1, 2021. The Farm Educator will help develop and deliver the school’s Agricultural Arts curriculum. The position also includes the development of relevant portions of Sunfield’s Summer Programming for 2022. Sunfield’s school year begins September 8 and runs through June 17.
Sunfield Waldorf School began in 2005, and serves approximately 150 children from preschool through 8th grade. Daily, children and teachers work with animals, plants, gardens, compost, walk and play on the land, and steward this magical place. Our dedicated faculty of 13 includes a growing list of lead teachers, assistants and specialties instructors. The faculty enjoy a strong colleagueship, deepening their work through Anthroposophy and a connection to the land and farm life. Sunfield maintains a committed and supportive administrative team that participates in the life of the school and farm.
Qualifications/Responsibilities:
Waldorf School:
● Provide Sunfield’s grade school children (ages 7-14) hands-on experiences with animal
husbandry, gardening, and food cultivation.
● Collaborate with faculty and staff on curriculum development and student behavior
management.
● Create and sustain a large school garden.
● Care for farm animals outside of school hours.
Summer Programming:
● Develop and provide relevant instruction for summer camp programming for the 2022
season and beyond.
The Farm Educator can expect to receive mentorship from Sunfield’s Education Director, Farm Director, and Waldorf Faculty. There will also be opportunities to work with and mentor the Sunfield Farm Interns. Successful candidates have experience in education and familiarity with, or interest in working within the Waldorf approach. They will be dedicated to supporting a variety of learners, including gifted students and students needing additional accommodations. They should have a passion for holistic agriculture, and an openness to Anthroposophy and Biodynamic Farming. Skills and interest in Animal Husbandry is crucial to lead the farm education programming. Applicants with an interest in long term employment are preferred. Compensation: Compensation is dependent upon experience. Shared housing is available on site.
This is a full time exempt position, eligible for health, dental, vision and life insurance, as
well as paid holidays, vacation and wellness leave.
To Apply: Qualified and interested candidates please email a letter of interest, resumé, and 3
references to [email protected]
Location 111 Sunfield Lane, Port Hadlock, WA 98339
Sunfield is committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
Follow The Land Gardeners (UK) in the garden, from seed sowing to compost making.
The Cobscook Bay is world class. We may be a faraway region without much human density or economic concentration, but as far as fish habitat is concerned we are prime real estate. The rivers flowing into Cobscook Bay, the 22-foot tides, the cold water, the massive seaweed ecosystem and the churning of nutrients drive the herring, drive the mackerel, drive the plankton and drive the whole into a place of marine productivity of global significance.
We have the fattest scallops, the last remaining Atlantic salmon runs, abundant mackerel and herring, enviable clams. So much of our economy is based on natural resource economies from our forests, our bays, fishing, boat building, tourism and recreation, forestry and aquaculture. We live here because of the extraordinary scenic beauty, and now is a time we need to protect what we cherish.
Thanks to the wise stewardship of local residents, fishermen and women, town planning boards, code enforcement officers, the work of indigenous advocates, tireless action of conservationists and the sheer magnificence of nature, we have an abundant and relatively healthy marine ecosystem here. One that we all enjoy.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE (Written by Greenhorns founder/director Severine von Tscharner Fleming)
If you are one of the many people worrying about our food and where it comes from, you’re not alone! And now there’s a new reason to worry. A silent earthquake is fracturing our food systems. These new cracks are spreading all the way from digital giants in Silicon Valley and Seattle and shadowy asset management companies on Wall Street, through the industrial food chain…...heading for seeds... shop shelves...and the food on your table. So what’s going on? (Find out more at www.etcgroup.org/who-will-control)
HERE is the accompanying report to the above video.
The Black Institute and The Church of Stop Shopping celebrate the end of Spraying Bayer-Monsanto’s pesticide “RoundUp” in NYC Parks —The New Law will go into effect May 22, 2021
Longtime Community Leader and founder of The Black Institute Bertha Lewis and artist/activists Rev. Billy Talen and Savitri D from The Church of Stop Shopping worked with a diverse coalition of New Yorkers to encourage NY City Council to pass The Poison Parks Bill, which at long last bans the use of well-known cancer-causing pesticide Glyphosate in Public Parks citywide.
The bill was carried by Council Member Ben Kallos and passed unanimously on Earth Day April 22, after 7 years of activism, advocacy, detailed mapping, and the critical filing of Freedom of Information requests by the Church of Stop Shopping, which revealed racist patterns in applications of the toxin and increased exposure in low-income neighborhoods already burdened by environmental injustices. The Black Institute created the annual Poison Parks Report , instrumental in bringing council members on board. Other members of this coalition include Kindergarten Teacher Paula Rorgevich, Doug and Patti Woods, the Richman Law Group and Beyond Pesticides. It has yet to be signed by Mayor DeBlasio but will go into effect May 22nd.
Environmental Justice advocates believe that the Poison Parks Bill, which is the most robust in the country, can be duplicated in many other communities throughout the US, increasing pressure on the Federal government to enact a national ban as exists in Germany, France, Australia, and many other nations and regions. At the public announcement Director of the Church of Stop Shopping Savitri D said,”Let this work be a beginning, an alarm, a symbol, a salvo —- let’s learn how to exist on earth without killing the earth.” Watch HERE
The success of the bill is testament to collaborative strategies developed by Earth Justice movements around the world. Activists create visibility and pressure while advocates lobby effectively and build constituent support. To that end, The Church of Stop Shopping created dozens of public events, performances, and interventions against the use of glyphosate (commercially known as Monsanto’s RoundUp) in NYC’s public spaces, and publicized the issue in communities throughout the US and beyond. They led the annual “March Against Monsanto” parades in Miami, Chicago and New York and, in 2016 opened for Neil Young on his “Monsanto Years” tour. They have also “visited” the largest glyphosate factory in the world in Luling, Louisiana and laboratories in Davis, CA; St. Louis MO; Boston, MA; and Chicago IL.
“You put your blanket down, maybe you’re laying with the love of your life, And while you’re kissing and smooching you’re getting poison all over you. That’s nasty.” Bertha Lewis, The Black Institute
For the first time in over 100 years, agricultural freight has been transported by sail from Maine farms into Boston Harbor. Maine Sail Freight is both an art installation and a platform for an important discussion about trade and how a look into the past might give us a glimpse into the future of trade and how it might affect fishermen and farmers in the region.
After you check out the amazing PHOTOS from Lawrence Braun, take some time to WATCH a film about Maine Sail Freight from The Greenhorns to get a better understanding of the vision and concept behind this project.
Maine Sail Freight was a project of the Greenhorns and was part of our work to support farmers and a diversity of collaborators with a commitment to the rebuilding of rural economies through sustainable agriculture, small business entrepreneurship, and teamwork.
We have also supported multiple other sail freight projects, including Vermont Sail Freight and Caribbean Sail Freight.
Thanks to partners Crown of Maine Organic Cooperative, MOFGA and Maine Grain Alliance for their support.
Disparity to Parity: Balancing the Scales of Agricultural Policy for Racial Equity & Climate Resilience
Earth care requires wise agricultural and food policies that mandate fair pricing and update supply management to build a racially just, economically empowered, and climate resilient food system. In short: moving from Disparity to Parity.
Please join the National Family Farm Coalition, Federation of Southern Cooperatives, American University Center for Environment, Community, and Equity, and our partners in a roundtable conversation to dig deeper into the history of disparities in our food system and policy ideas that can move us toward achieving parity. This will be the first in a year-long series.
Featured Speakers:
Cornelius Blanding - Executive Director of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund
Liz Henderson - New York Farmer, Northeast Organic Farmers Association
Jose Oliva - Campaigns Director, HEAL Food Alliance (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor)
George Naylor - Iowa Farmer, Past President of the National Family Farm Coalition (clarityonparity.com)
Sarah Lloyd - Wisconsin Dairy Farmer, Dairy Together
Co-hosted by American University's new Center for Environment Community & Equity; the National Family Farm Coalition; and the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund
Co-sponsored by ActionAid USA, Agrarian Trust, Farm Aid, Food & Water Watch, Food Solutions New England, The Greenhorns, HEAL Food Alliance (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor), Johns Hopkins Center for Livable Future, National Young Farmers Coalition, North American Marine Alliance, Northeast Organic Farmers Associations-Interstate Council, Wisconsin Farmers Union
With deep gratitude to the AU School of International Service 2021 Practicum Team for their hard work on this project: Brad Wilson (farmer, mentor), Fatu Jambawai, Matt Penberthy, Emma Marks, Shivang Bhakti, Milagro Ventura, Nicola Rampino, Abigail Haughton, Emma Wilcher, Susan McRae and Loryn Baughman
https://www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm%3Fid%3D282CCF15-155D-451F-67991A3280E8BA3F
https://www.mnopedia.org/civilian-conservation-corps-minnesota-1933-1942
https://www.pbs.org/video/oregon-experience-civilian-conservation-corps/
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=a205b06f8d7e4c5ab5658e11951673a0
WEBINAR: strategizing to achieve racial justice, curb corporate capture, diversify farming, and steward land & water by updating supply management & fair prices.
The divisions between rich and poor, rural and urban, Black and White, landed and landless, Main Street and Wall Street look as wide today in the U.S. as they have ever been. To understand the depths, causes and remedies of this situation, a diverse group of farmers, activists and scholars began exploring the notion of parity and supply management together nearly two years ago. That journey has led to an array of essays, videos and conversations on parity, and how the lives of everyone involved in the food system would be changed with true parity and social peace.
The National Family Farm Coalition, Federation of Southern Cooperatives, and American University Center for Environment, Community and Equity are co-hosting a free webinar on Friday, April 23, introducing the Disparity to Parity Project, from 1:00pm to 2:30pm Eastern Time. You may register here.
This roundtable conversation is the first in a series to dig more deeply into the history and intersectionality of disparity in our food system, and the policy opportunities that can move us toward parity.
Featured speakers:
- Cornelius Blanding - Executive Director of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund
- Liz Henderson - New York Farmer, Northeast Organic Farmers Association
- Sarah Lloyd - Wisconsin Dairy Farmer, Dairy Together
- Jose Oliva - Campaigns Director, HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance
- George Naylor - Iowa Farmer, Past President of National Family Farm Coalition; clarityonparity.com
For some excellent insights into the discussion beforehand read this article featuring several of the webinar speakers: https://civileats.com/2021/04/14/could-fair-prices-supply-management-change-the-game-for-bipoc-farmers/.
This webinar is free, but click here to reserve your place today. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with details for joining the meeting.
We look forward to seeing you.
In collaboration with: NFFC + Federation of Southern Cooperatives + NOFA-NY + HEAL Food Alliance + Wisconsin Farmers Union
In March 1933, within weeks of his inauguration, President Franklin Roosevelt sent legislation to Congress aimed at providing relief for unemployed American workers. He proposed the Civilian Conservation Corps to provide jobs in natural resource conservation. Over the next decade, the CCC put more than three million young men to work in the nation's forests and parks, planting trees, building flood barriers, fighting fires, and maintaining roads and trails, conserving both private and federal land.
The CCC was President Roosevelt’s answer to the environmental and economic challenges facing the country during the height of the Great Depression. Enlisting 250,000 workers in just two months, the CCC was an ambitious undertaking that brought several government agencies together. The Department of Labor recruited men from the ages of 18 to 25; the War Department clothed and trained them for two weeks, and the Department of Agriculture designed and managed the specific work assignments.
After planting three billion trees in nine years of service, the CCC dissolved in July of 1942. President Roosevelt’s attempt at turning it into a permanent agency failed, yet the legacy of the CCC continues to live on in the hundreds of campgrounds, hiking trails and swimming holes still enjoyed by Americans today. In The Civilian Conservation Corps, four alumni Corpsmen share their experiences of poverty, racism, hard work and brotherhood from their time in the CCC, the tale of one of the boldest and most popular New Deal experiments.
Hannah MacInnes is a Freelance Journalist and a regular interviewer and Podcast Host for the How To: Academy, chairing interviews, panels and debates across a wide range of subjects and current issues.
We are delighted to invite you to listen to a selection of experts in this year, 2020, the super year for nature and biodiversity. The future of nature – on which we depend to thrive and survive – needs action now.
Our broken food system is a major driver of biodiversity loss, but can be transformed and can be a pathway to biodiversity preservation – and regeneration. Our experts explain why, and explore how governments, businesses and individuals can make this happen.
Massachusetts-based organization Nuestras Raíces is currently hiring for two positions at its 30-acre farm site in Holyoke, MA.
Nuestras Raíces is a grassroots urban agriculture organization based in Holyoke, MA. Nuestras Raíces’ mission is to create healthy environments, celebrate “agri-culture,” harness our collective energy, and to advance our vision of a just and sustainable future. Nuestras Raíces programs span across their 30-acre farm, La Finca, community gardens across Holyoke, and downtown commercial kitchen.
To apply, please see application instructions included in job descriptions.
Both roles have an intended May 1, 2021 start date.
Credit: An Rong Xu for The New York Times
The island is going to great lengths to keep water flowing to its all-important semiconductor industry, including shutting off irrigation to legions of rice growers.
HSINCHU, Taiwan — Chuang Cheng-deng’s modest rice farm is a stone’s throw from the nerve center of Taiwan’s computer chip industry, whose products power a huge share of the world’s iPhones and other gadgets.
This year, Mr. Chuang is paying the price for his high-tech neighbors’ economic importance. Gripped by drought and scrambling to save water for homes and factories, Taiwan has shut off irrigation across tens of thousands of acres of farmland.
The authorities are compensating growers for the lost income. But Mr. Chuang, 55, worries that the thwarted harvest will drive customers to seek out other suppliers, which could mean years of depressed earnings.
“The government is using money to seal farmers’ mouths shut,” he said, surveying his parched brown fields.
You may already know that we’ve been making big efforts to convert a variety of our farm’s machines to battery electric power but this year we’re tackling the farm’s single biggest emitter: our delivery vehicle! We’re going to replace our aging diesel van with a first-of-its-kind Elec-truck. By partnering with conversion pioneers at Ecotuned automobile we will convert a 6 ton Ford E450 cube truck into a clean, green, veggie-hauling machine – our farm’s only delivery vehicle! So, as of later this spring, our farm will deliver every organic vegetable we produce to our hundreds of local families with zero emissions.
The project is costly and innovative and that’s why I’m seeking your assistance. We want to both raise some money to reduce the financial burden but, more importantly, we want to RAISE AWARENESS that this kind of project is not science fiction and we don’t have to wait for Amazon or Tesla or others to lead the way and follow a decade later. Nor should we allow the foot-dragging pace at Ford and GM and their kin to lead us further down our path to climate catastrophe. Big changes to the way we haul and deliver goods are already possible: in fact, most of the technology is already decades old! Please help to share this project widely as changing perceptions is really the bigger target of this project.
We sincerely believe that if people see a small farm like ours with limited means converting our only delivery vehicle to electric power it may change how they see their own personal and business decisions regarding emissions and transportation.
Help us get the word out and/or make a donation to ensure the success of this project and we will keep working tirelessly to provide the proof that change for the better is possible and attainable.
~ Reid AllawayTourne-Sol co-operative Farmles Cèdres, QC