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SolarCulture (a PineGate Renewables project), is an initiative developed to enhance environmental stewardship, promote sustainable agriculture, and collaborate with the community to support research with a goal of encouraging smarter solar through science. They have just recently opened a solar apiary in Jackson County, Oregon. The project is two pronged, it aims to tackle both […]

Russ Finch is the ultimate grandaddy of Farm Hack . He designed a greenhouse in his backyard that is heated using geothermal energy. Despite the fact that winter temperatures in Nebraska can drop to -20°F, the retired mailman grows oranges, lemons, grapes, pomegranates and more without paying for heat. The setup he uses draws on […]

Check out this awesome article written by very good friend of the Greenhorns, Jean Willoughby for Yes! Magazine. Jean writes about the recent changes within the farming movement. Her article focuses on the increase in the number of voluntary transfers of land and resources to people of color as a means of reparations for past […]

In the southwest German city of Freiburg, there is a successful co-op of some 260 people who are participating in successful organic vegetable gardening and sharing the costs and risks. Whatever the harvest, good or poor, it’s distributed to all members. Cucumbers are allowed to be bent, carrots entwined, the occasional lettuce smaller than average. […]

ReGroup.Farm is the tale and reality of a group of Boomers, Gen X-er's and Millennials found themselves on a farm in the Midwest. They recognized that something very interesting was happening in society at large, that in spite of all the division and decay of rural towns, that these phenomena can be reversed. In fact this […]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gZF2_T8WeQ&w=468&h=266] Drumduan school, in the Scottish highlands, offers it's students a unique and emancipatory education experience free of any form from exams or standardised testing. It's educational focus is on participatory and practical education. Academic study is enhanced and balanced with movement, music and artistic work, with crafts, foraging  and outdoor activities. Students learn through […]

Growing Magazine recently published a good examination of community finance, community resilience and community agriculture - the CSA model. They profile 3 different farms: Brookford Farm in NH, Norwich Meadows Farm NY, and Prairierth Farm IL, all of whom are practicing a modified, diversified form of CSA and are thriving! 

The Common Friars are men and women, married and single, lay and ordained, of an emerging monastic order in the Episcopal Church, seeking to understand and live out what it means to be a Christian disciple today. They do this by placing the utmost importance on being connected to the land, to each other, and to […]

The NY Times published an interesting article recently about Kimbal Musk's (brother of Elon) foray into farming. Mr. Musk is promoting a philosophy he calls “real food,” which nourishes the body, the farmer and the planet. It doesn’t sound much different than what writers like Michael Pollan and everyone who has ever helped start a […]

Forest fires have become an increasingly significant issue in the last decade and it seems as though nowhere is safe from the death and destruction that they bring. Few places have to contend with fires on a large a scale as Portugal. The fires this year killed 64 people and destroyed tens of thousands of […]

Solar cookers could not be more simple in many ways, their basic means of operation catches the suns rays and uses this heat to cook food. Some use aluminium coated plastic to do this while others other means to achieve the same effect. Either way, the opportunities afforded by solar cookers go far beyond household […]

As part of their True Blue project, Fibershed, have recently released a report on the processes and practices involved in the making of blue indigo dye.  They explain the idea of a closed-loop ideal indigo dye production system which "moves from soil to dye to textiles and back to soil." The basis for the report […]

An interesting wind powered sailing initiative that is documenting different low-tech solutions from around the world.

[vimeo 47713837 w=640 h=360] We should all be so lucky.

Local fresh health food for all persons! Please help!

Great things are happening at the intersection between social justice, farming, and faith. Watch the latest episode of outland to get inspired!

Two of our favorite things: regenerative land stewardship and videos of goats doing adorable things.

A great read on open source in agroecology-- its history, potential, and-- ultimately-- its utter necessity.

An interactive website that allows you to find perennial farms anywhere in the US.

Nichki Carangelo, of the delightful Hudson Valley-based, cooperative Letterbox Farm Collective, has just finished a publication on the commercial production of pasture rabbits. Funded by a SARE grant, "Pasture Rabbit for Profit" is an easily digestible, practical resource for farmers intended to guide readers through the start-up phase of their own pasture-based rabbitry. It includes a full […]

Regenerative Enterprise, or the idea that business doesn't have to suck so much. Wait! Don't go: before you think I'm about to preach to the choir on creating businesses that go beyond the extractive model, or throw some vague "Be sustainable!" nonsense at you, don't worry. Enter, the Regenerative Business Institute, a nonprofit with its roots in permaculture and […]

Can we use insects to convert food waste into animal feed?

A great initiative coming out of Amsterdam, that brings a community, professionals, and artists together to solve a food waste challenge

An excellent infographic.

Tech companies and the digital economy don't have to be all bad!

Accelerating Appalachia is a "word HUB for sustainable business," providing training to, coordinate mentorship for, and encourage financial investment in organizations who are "solving big problems with their business models." They work predominantly with women entrepreneurs, look to support students, and have even had farms in their accelerator program. If all of this sounds revolutionary […]

The NYS Agricultural Mediation Program is offering scholarships for mediation training to folks rooted in rural agrarian communities.

The folks at Kiss the Ground give us a lesson in biomimicry, an extraordinarily useful concept which can basically be summed up to "don't waste time reinventing the wheel."

This recent submission to our series on whether or not hydroponics should be considered organic comes from Joanna Storie, a Doctoral candidate in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences of Estonian University of Life Sciences. She takes a similar stance on hydroponics to our last contributor, adding that hydroponics are not sustainable […]

Throughout its seven years, Hellgate Farm has always done things a bit differently than other urban farms in New York City- from raising backyard chickens and housing an apiary, to producing its own hot sauce. Hellgate Farm is not your typical urban farm. Last season, crops were grown in over seven plots of land throughout […]

North Bengal's small-scale tea farm movement is growing rapidly.

Audre Lorde for the win!

'Tis the season for nailing down your crop plan for the Spring! (Hypothetically, this would have been on our to-do lists for early December ago, but I can't be the only one whose holidays got the better of her business agenda, right?) Is this your first time crop planning? Looking to upgrade your system? Maybe you're feeling […]

Creatign farmer focused credit union in Maine.

A photo tour of Les Recontres, a radical hands-on skill-sharing event in France hosted by French farm hacking heroes l'Atelier Paysan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvyD2o7w24g Small farmers movements and defending subsistence both depend on a new worldview. We can't think in a mechanical rational way and personally relate to nature. We also can't  patriarchy and capitalism and simultaneously do something about today's sexual division of labor - or colonialism. Though the revolution is coming from the bottom up (and could only come that […]

[vimeo 147721444 w=640 h=360] Shacksbury Orchard out of Vergennes, VT is collecting  lost apple varieties and creating remarkably distinctive hard ciders from them. In the best thing since Rodolph came to the Island of Misfit Toys, the orchardists have grafted a Lost Orchard, propagating 12 carefully selected wild and heirloom apple varieties to over 1000 trees. […]

This seems like a combo we could use more of: according to Ecowatch, "this hospital prescribes fresh food from its own organic farm." The reporting in the linked article accurately articulates a move we hope to see more of in Western Medicine: a holistic approach that recognizes patients as members of large societal systems in […]

Between the Sky and the Earth In times of google maps are the evidences of detecting and viewing lands; we read them, we move according to them, we navigate with them, we get lost and we found ourselves with them.

A new Report by the folks of Land for Good and the University of Vermont delves deep into the complicated terrain of Farmland Investment Models, aiming to provide farmers the nitty-gritty needed to evaluate whether or not a model like this could work for them. While Farmland Investment models are diverse, the basic idea is as follows: 1. […]