‘Regenerative’ Agriculture is Disunifying, and that is Okay

It is time for “regenerative food systems” to radicalize or get out of the way, to step aside and allow human-scale, disruptive, actually diverse and localized collectives to emerge and feed the world, one community by one community at a time.

Silage and the silence of the corncrake

Dublin, Ireland. We are seeing the first good days here, leading up to the golden days of mid-summer, and I’ve been talking to elderly friends here in the Irish countryside about what they used to do when the sun shone. The answer, of course, was that they made hay. When farmers heard the cry of … Read more

Agroecology must open up to additional dimensions of transformation

Agroecological research has proven that agroecology and local food systems bring a range of goods, including making better use of resources, spending less on packaging and materials, using less transport, and health benefits. Why then is its implementation not supported more broadly?

Rabelais in Russia, or the man on a chair in a hat

I’m beginning to embrace the notion that there are hierarchies we cannot simply transcend through history, and that they must be honoured. But, per Rabelais and Bakhtin, that doesn’t mean we can’t invert and relativize them, make fun of them and insist on keeping them at arm’s length while we get on with the more important business of the people’s life and livelihood.