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Versaland is a 145-acre permaculture research farm in Iowa City, Iowa. Science-focused and early stage, Versaland (with you!) will plant 12,000+ trees in the 2016 season while continuing to develop our ponds, earthworks and Keyline installations. Versaland operates custom-built machinery, an electric tractor and many other farm innovations. Hosting skill-specific workshops throughout the season including […]

"PhotosynQ is an open source software and sensor platform where communities can identify, research, and implement new methods to solve their local problems. Our initial focus is on agriculture, where we’re bringing together researchers, extension, crop consultants, and farmers to develop precision ag solutions in markets largely ignored by ‘big ag’ (small farms, niche crops, […]

Enter the Young Farmer Success Act, which would extend the student loan debt forgiveness granted to persons in public service by the Higher Education Act of 1965 to full time farmer and farm workers. It's in the senate now!  What you think? Is farming an act of national service? Then join up with the folks […]

If a comic illustration can read like an heart-stirring anthem plays, then the one below would have all of us on our feet hollering along with our eyes closed. Quite honestly, greenhorns, I teared up a little reading this comic this morning. Leave it to Bill Watterson to tell you just what you need to hear when […]

14 women who work every day to improve your food 3. Severine Von Tscharner Fleming Based in Chaplain Valley, NY, Fleming is an activist, farmer, founder and director of The Greenhorns, a grassroots cultural organization that advocates for a growing movement of young farmers and ranchers in America. Fleming founded the Society for Agriculture and […]

cooperative development where ecology and economics meet Cooperative Design Lab (CDL) is 9-month cooperative development program serving cooperative projects in any stage of formation. Originally a collaborative between the Resilience Hub, Cooperative Fermentation, and Cooperative Development Institute, Design Lab is now in its second year running and is the only program of its kind offered […]

The "Diggers' Song" (also known as "Levellers and Diggers") is a 17th-century ballad, in terms of content a protest song concerned with land rights, inspired by the Diggers movement, composed by Gerrard Winstanley. To learn more, click HERE!

The film presents the social and economic history of the Great Plains -- from the time of the settlement of the prairies, through the World War I boom, to the years of depression and drought. The first part of the film shows cattle as they grazed on grasslands, and homesteaders who hurried onto the plains […]

As a quick thumbnail sketch, permaculture is an ecological approach to the design of whole systems. It is an ethically bounded framework of ecological design that can be used to design everything from landscapes and farms to business enterprises and other cultural projects, on nearly any scale. On the surface, permaculture is often about designing […]

These design templates are meant to be implemented on common landscapes. While they use temperate climate species that grow in the northern hemisphere (hardiness zones 4-7), documentation about underlying patterns is provided so substitutions can be made for different growing conditions and desired yields. Check out this awesome and exciting PDF to learn more!

...Let’s say last season I had a 70 foot bed (roughly 500 plants) of Bells of Ireland. Each plant produces between 6-8 stems that are tall enough for bouquets, for a total of 3-4,000 stems. Bells are great bouquet filler and I like to use three stems in each one to make things go fast. […]

They are almost there with less than $1500 to go! Help these micro goat dairy people if you can, HERE!

[vimeo 154439089 w=500 h=281] Together, the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) and Racing Horse Productions presents Expired? Food Waste in America. The film is visually compelling, full of all kinds of trivia worth knowing (for instance: there's no federal standard on how to create an expiration date?), and poses some real compelling food for thought about how our […]

Andrus is the kind of guy who puzzles over why, in the face of tremendous evidence, people continue to do things they know are ultimately maladaptive. You followed our great journey from Maine to Boston all summer, but do you know where all this Sail Freight business started? With a Vermont grain farmer named Erik Andrus […]

It's no secret that we love the Grange School. We're here to remind you that applications for their Spring term, which starts in April, are due in by Feb. 20. And, as any farmer can tell you, cold as it may be right now, the summer semester is right around the corner! CALL FOR APPLICANTS: […]

Arann Harris can be found on his family farm herding sheep, singing and dancing in the barn with toddlers, teaching elementary kids sustainable farming, producing concerts in a cornfield, or performing in Northern California's finest music venues. No matter what hat he's wearing, his heart and soul are in his work, his music, and his community. We want […]

Three Students Design & Crowdfund Radical Sustainable Educational Center For more than a year, students at Cal Poly Pomona College’s School of Architecture in Los Angeles, CA, have been designing an education center for Huerta del Valle Community Garden. The community where the garden and future education center are located is one of the most […]

This brave defender of the land was arrested standing up to the bulldozers and heavy machinery destroying the soil today at the Gill Tract Farm in Albany, CA (just north of Berkeley) on San Pablo and Monroe Ave. To learn more about this controversy, click HERE!

There have been several stories lately about the poisons of teflon and the down-right corruption from DuPont (influencing the EPA, among other agencies). There is currently a corporate lawyer battling it out with DuPont in order to get the many people affected by the manufacturing of teflon their settlement, but there's a long way to […]

Beyoncé's "Formation" makes many statements about social and political realities in the U.S., but song and video perhaps speak especially strongly to black women in academia. Truly, Formation by Beyoncé is the hype track of Black Women everywhere, but Academia is such a special place that I feel it has an especially stark meaning to those of us […]

Meet Ross Gay: Gay is an associate professor of English at Indiana University. His most recent book of poetry is Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015). He is a poet, essayist, community orchardist, gardener, and kettlebell teacher. During his fellowship, Gay is working on a kind of response, or update, to Virgil’s […]

The recent legal challenge brought by TransCanada seeking $15 billion in damages over the Obama Administration’s decision to reject the Keystone Pipeline, has raised new questions about the TPP. The suit was brought under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which grants corporations special rights to challenge U.S. laws and undermine climate policy. The […]

20-22 May 2016 The Kerrygold Ballymaloe Literary Festival of Food and Wine is a weekend filled with fascinating facts, inspirational stories, intriguing discussions, incredible knowledge, fantastic music, fabulous dancing and of course, delicious food and drinks. It is the only festival of its kind in Ireland and has created an important hub for food and […]

Katie Sanderson is a chef on the move. For the past five years she’s been putting on imaginative food events in locations around Ireland: a café for artists in a Dublin gallery; raw food dinners in a forest in Wicklow; a seaweed-themed restaurant in a boatshed in Connemara. She’s nomadic in her home life too. […]

An updated version of Dr. Phillip H. Howard's Who Owns Organic info graphic is now available here. When Howard, who is an associate professor at Michigan State University, first made the info graphic is 2012, a number of independent organic brands had been acquired by larger food corporations. Howard updated the chart because, as he […]

I can almost hear organic farmers across the country rolling their eyes, cover cropping: this is news? And, I know, I know, you've been doing this for years-- but, yes, actually there's some real good news here: New York Times writer Stephanie Strom's report, "Cover Cropping: A Farming Revolution with Deep Roots in the Past," indicates that the […]

Greetings from Twig Farm! We're a small goat dairy in West Cornwall, Vermont. Kidding season will soon be upon us, and while baby goats are unquestionably most adorable animals of all time, sadly we cannot keep all of our darling doelings. That's where you come in! Our registered Alpines boast superb genetics, bred for hardiness […]

Zika Outbreak Epicenter In Same Area Where GM Mosquitoes Were Released In 2015 The World Health Organization announced it will convene an Emergency Committee under International Health Regulations on Monday, February 1, concerning the Zika virus ‘explosive’ spread throughout the Americas. The virus reportedly has the potential to reach pandemic proportions — possibly around the globe. […]

Who is Richard Berman? Richard “Rick” Berman is a longtime Washington, D.C. public relations specialist whose lobbying and consulting firm, Berman and Company, Inc., advocates for special interests and powerful industries. Berman and Co. wages deceptive campaigns against industry foes including labor unions; public-health advocates; and consumer, safety, animal welfare, and environmental groups. Non-profits linked […]

From wellnesswarior.org The concept of carbon farming is relatively simple. The industrial agricultural system we’ve developed over the last 60 years, while being incredibly productive, robs the soil of carbon and other nutrients. Carbon, in the form of soil organic matter, is the thing that gives soil life. Techniques like cover cropping (never leaving the […]

February 15th We accept general (non-fellowship) applications on a rolling basis year-round. Image: This Is Where We Live Now (detail), ©Kathryn Lien, 2015 (www.kathrynlien.com) VERMONT STUDIO CENTER'S february 15th, 2016 FELLOWSHIP DEADLINE The Vermont Studio Center is pleased to announce the following 55+ fellowships available at our February 15th, 2016 deadline: OPEN TO ALL 25 […]

The veins of trains run deep in our souls. Watch this documentary about how amazing they are. [archiveorg lovethosetrains width=640 height=480 frameborder=0 webkitallowfullscreen=true mozallowfullscreen=true]  

(excerpt from Eat Less Water chapter Wheat and Water) December 31, 2011 I followed the rain clouds along the two-lane road leading to With the Grain farm. On a slope above the wheat fields was a small house, home to John DeRosier, his wife Leaf and teenage son Noah. Near the house stood a barn […]

Fort Worden, Port Townsend, Olympic Peninsula, Washington,  April 15-17, 2016 http://friendsofthetrees.net/sites/default/files/images/MHGMCPoster-2-image.jpg To learn more about this conference, click HERE!

The October 1929 crash of the American stock market ushered in a major economic depression that would effect nearly every US citizen. The hardest hit were unemployed young men and returning World War I veterans. One out of four employable people (a 25% unemployment rate), estimated to be 12 to 15 million, lost their major […]

The New York Chapter of the American Chestnut Federation (ACF) is offering a $200 reward for the discovery of the largest living Chestnut tree in New York. And $50 for any trees that are over 14" DBH! As Jerry Henkin, librarian for the Northern Nut Grower's Association (NNGA) writes, "There is a tradition for this […]