Blog

Tomorrow January 25th on the Heritage Radio Network, Greenhorns radio talks to Jeff Conan, Senior Forest Campains Manager at Friends of the Earth, a global activist network that campaigns for international environmental and climate justice. Much of Conan's work focusses on the toxic legacy of palm oil production in Gautemala. Maybe you already knew that the […]

Influenced by agribusiness giants, the rating mechanisms of a World Bank index threaten the seed sovereignty of small farmers globally. Please help!

Looking to hone your French while farming? The Montreal community food hub, Santropol Roulant, is hiring two interns for their 2017  season. Santropol Roulant uses food as a vehicle to break social isolation between generations. Creatively and collaboratively, the organization seeks to strengthen and nourish local community with their novel approaches to active community engagement, […]

La Via Campesino is a tenacious international "peasants" movement long admired by the Greenhorns. (We covered them in a 2011 blog post about their food sovereignty youth training program and a post earlier this year on their declaration against the powers that be.) They seek to unite peasants, landless agrarians, woman farmers, and rural youth to fight to […]

Man! We're always asking the same question! Seriously though, this is a great episode, both for those looking for a good primer on the subject and a fascinating case study for those who already know a lot about it. The podcast delves into the soya market in Argentina, global ag subsidies as a whole, and, as […]

NPR's The Salt, on why the USDA is purchasing $20,000 worth of cheese to help US dairy farmers-- and why it doesn't really make a difference to the big dairy industry. If this piece whets your appetite to understand globalization and milk production, we recommend you keep on down the rabbit hole with this Modern Farmer […]

Have you been listening to Earth Matters?? This fabulous podcast series gives voice to indigenous activists, environmentalists, and people around the globe working for social justice. We cannot recommend it highly enough. Hailing from Australia's community radio station 3CR AM, Radical Radio, you can stream episodes online or download straight form iTunes. The link above will bring […]

International Conference on Agrarian Reform La Via Campesino, The Peasant's Movement Marabá, 15 April 2016 From 13 to 17 April 2016, in Marabá, Pará, Brazil, more than 130 delegates from 28 countries around the world were brought together as part of La Vía Campesina and allied movements, as part of the International Conference on Agrarian […]

Looking for a good way to rewind after work this week? Raj Patel, economist and author of the groundbreaking Stuffed and Starved, has a list of fun (yes, actually fun) movies about food. HIs favorite? Tamporo, a Japanese food about a noodle business, a truck driver, and love of food.

Yellow Seed, a nonprofit organization that facilitates connections between farmers and fair markets, recently partnered with Impact Hub Berkley, a social impact working hub out of the Bay Area, to host six curated working groups to focus on Collaborative Trade. The project was called From the Ground Up: Change Accelerator and aimed to "design healthy, global food supply chains […]

[vimeo 107812653 w=500 h=281] This video is put out by Fairphone, an Netherlands-based company that produces smart phones with opaque, open, and more socially-responsible supply chains. If this sounds like a plug for the company, it's not, per say. If you're going to get a smartphone, Fairphone is obviously a great alternative to larger corporations. But, what […]

I don't know about you, but the list of words that I can actually read is French is pretty short, spans the length of soufflé to the lyrics of "Lady Marmalade." So, when I look at this website, I can just barely string enough cognates and context clues together to glean the most basic and […]

Somaliland's harshest drought is decimating the herder way of life and displacing thousands. By Ashley Hamer Hargeisa, Somaliland  - Swaths of Somaliland, a fragile, internationally unrecognised nation-state in the Horn of Africa, have been racked by one of the harshest droughts in two decades which is destroying livelihoods and pushing families into destitution. When a […]

[vimeo 142048712 w=500 h=281] Farm Hack 2015 from Sylvie Planel on Vimeo.

In their call for signatories, the organizers of the World Forum on Access to land write: "The current situation – persistence of hunger, population growth, exclusion, massive unemployment, environmental crisis and loss of food sovereignty – as well as the persistence of acquisitions, leases and land concessions, invite us all to revisit the issue of access […]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku9edEKvGuY] Staying on theme, The Hacker Wars (embedded above) is a full-length documentary about the war over who controls information on the internet. You catch it all on youtube for free-- which might be an excellent way to round off the Labor Day weekend. Anonymous writes, "The Hacker Wars tells the tales of the anarchic […]

Democracy Now on the (nearly) unbelievable story of they extent to which Canada's oil industry has stifled the country's democracy, silenced its scientists, and crippled its environmentalist movements. It is bananas, and it is worse than you would have imagined. "Well first of all, the government has shut down the majority of scientific research in […]

Excerpted from Ronnie Collins's essay Regeneration: Global Transformation in Catastrophic Times: We must begin to connect the dots between fossil fuels, global warming and related issues, including world hunger, poverty, unemployment, toxic food and farming, extractivism, land grabbing, biodiversity, ocean destruction, deforestation, resource wars, and deteriorating public health. As we regenerate the soil and forests, and […]

Soil Not Oil International Conference Friday-Saturday, Sept. 4-5, 2015, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm Memorial Civic Center Complex, 403 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond, CA 94804 Note: Dr. Vandana Shiva keynote speech is on Friday, Sept. 4, 7:00 pm The September Soil Not Oil conference will bring together farmers, climate scientists, land-use experts, and many others to discuss […]

Here at the Greenhorns love art and we love farmıng and we love creative subversive people, and so you might imagine that we really love creative subversive art about farming. We've blogged about these guys a few times before, and we are delighted to remind you that they're still creating great art all the time. The above […]

The international prize called the Premio Daniel Carasso aims to reward an international renowned research scientist who, through cross-disciplinary researches, has innovative and realistic approaches in order to develop “sustainable food and diets for long-term human health”. The Premio is open to scientists working in fundamental or applied research in nutrition, food studies, food technology and sciences, […]

For any young farmers with the ability to travel, this would be a great experience.  As part of its biennial conferences, IUFN is happy to invite you to a new international workshop, LAND FOR FOOD. It will address a central question : How can we reconcile land use policies with local food policies?  Held over two days in the […]

This farmer in Suffolk  has moved her innovative dairy, using crowdfunder to make it happen.  She runs a small, commercial dairy with suckling calves.  Take note, follow her work, and pitch in if you can! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl5OG8B-0gM&w=560&h=315] Crowdfunder  Fiona Provan's Calf at Foot Dairy in Suffolk is unique and very special. Fiona's small herd of 100% pasture-fed Jersey […]

The Movimento dos Trabalhdores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) will be holding its Sixth Congress in February, 2014 amidst its celebration of 30 years of struggle for agrarian reform, social justice and democracy. The movement's 2 million members have spent the last year preparing, debating and discussing in preparation for this historic gathering. Mobilizing 15,000 movement leaders […]

if you can read spanish!  Here's the site: Projecte Gripia

Seems like a work in progress, but a great idea.  Graines de Troc It is a online platform where everyone can share and trade seeds. We all build the same available list. Each shipment of seeds is worth a token that allows members to choose any variety in the list. Swapping is an opportunity to try another […]

via the Field Liberation Movement.  Way to go, Belgians! On May 29th 2011, hundreds of activists decontaminated a GM potato field trial in Wetteren (BE). They pulled up genetically modified potatoes and replaced them with organic varieties, which are naturally blight resistant. The voluntary introduction of 108 genetically modified potatoes in the environment was carried out […]

I'm here from the USA with a focus on charting the organizational work of young farmers across Europe. Throughout this  month I'll be meeting  social entrepreneurs, farmers, organizers and activists who, undaunted by the complex, multidimensional  ecosystem and broken economy of food, are working together to fix it. Documenting these projects, evaluating,  and sharing ideas […]

The story of an environmental activist (Dr. Vandana Shiva) and a farmer (Bija Devi) and their fight to preserve heirloom seeds in India amidst great opposition.

Help 'em out! In the first 20 days of our Kickstarter project to raise funds for a film exposing land grabs in Papua New Guinea, we have raised over $11,000 from 66 individual contributors. The vast majority of those who have given are first-time supporters of the Oakland Institute, which is exciting to see. And we are grateful to our friends who […]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBO8UL-INXA]

you'd want to be involved with these folks:  Trees for the Future Since 1989, Trees for the Future has been helping communities around the world plant trees. Through seed distribution, agroforestry training, and our country programs, we have empowered rural groups to restore tree cover to their lands. Planting trees protects the environment and helps […]

Prince Charles: 'If I didn't do this, who would?' Britain's best known organic farmer on soil, sustainability and the unity of all things by  Tim Adams for The Observer, Sunday 14 August 2011 There is a sign as you turn into the drive at Highgrove that reads: "Beware. You are entering an old-fashioned establishment". After […]

Here's a great article passed on to us by greenhorn Emma Young. The Savory Institute: Healing the World’s Grasslands, Rangelands and Savannas This is the first of a two-part interview with Allan Savory, President and Co-Founder of The Savory Institute, an organization based in Zimbabwe that works with farmers, pastoralists, and ranchers to restore degraded lands […]

Nora of Strongtree Organic Coffee Roasters in Hudson says that the specialty coffee market is screaming about global climate change, crop failures, drought, supply chain dysfunction, and in general the feeling that their sector is a canary in the coal mine of the global food system. here is a small project that is quite hopeful,  […]

a good model. from the  The European Council of Young Farmers

from the Post Carbon Institute. Post Carbon Institute has assembled 28 of the world's leading minds in the areas of economic, social, and environmental sustainability. While their areas of expertise range far and wide, one shared question binds them: How do we manage the transition to a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable world? Read more […]

The Wanås Foundation is a non-profit art foundation located in the south of Sweden on an estate consisting of a medieval castle, an organic farm, and a sculpture park. Since 1987, the Park holds a constantly growing number of permanent works by internationally renowned contemporary artists. The focus is on sculpture and installations, most of […]

Cote de Fer is a commune in the Southeast department of Haiti. There are 6 communal sections and approximately 64,000 people. It is estimated that at least 70% of the population in this region does not have access to a toilet. Cote de Fer is a very agricultural region and the majority of families depend […]

from the ny times, with quite an amazing photo! European Farmers’ Anger Spills Into the Streets of Brussels BRUSSELS — After months of complaints by European dairy farmers angry over low prices, protesters in Brussels on Monday poured milk onto the streets, hurled eggs and other missiles, and started fires that filled the air with […]