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Q&A: How Community Land Trusts Help to Preserve Farmland

Modern Farmer

For more than four decades, the executive director of the Schumacher Center for a New Economics (which she co-founded with Robert Swann in 1980) has been tending to a land-use movement in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, driven by innovative ideas for cultivating affordable access to farmland. HVS: Let’s start with the basics.

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NATIONAL PARKS

The Lunatic Farmer

As a landowner with hundreds of acres of upland Appalachian hardwoods, I would sit there and watch a bevy of bureaucrats carve off massive pieces for logging in what are known as “below cost” timber sales. But at least the Secretary of the Interior wouldn’t, with the stroke of a pen, be able to give private largesse to millions of acres.

Ecology 90
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Stewarding Success: Conservation Stewardship Program

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

It does this by providing farmers with financial and technical assistance to actively manage, maintain, and expand conservation activities – like cover crops, rotational grazing, ecologically-based pest management, buffer strips, and the transition to organic farming – even while they work their lands for production.

Acre 98
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ALMONDS AND MILK

The Lunatic Farmer

Lake Shasta, built in 1945 to meet the needs of six million residents and irrigate a third of California’s farmland is at 33 percent capacity. An acre of almonds requires more water than just about anything except leafy greens. Without getting into the health tradeoffs, let’s think about the ecological tradeoffs. Almond milk.

Ecology 52
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We Need Regenerative Agriculture, But How Can Farmers Fund the Transition?

Modern Farmer

His 2,500-acre family farm is patchwork across 40 miles of land the family owns and leases, and grows organic corn, soy, wheat and specialty crops such as beans and peas. Somewhere between 10 million and 20 million acres is, we believe, possibly a tipping point where regenerative organic ag could become inevitable,” says Taylor.

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Opinion: To Make a Real Impact on Climate Change, We Must Move Beyond the Carbon Footprint

Modern Farmer

The research from the University of Michigan-led study seems to show that fruit and vegetables grown in urban ag have a carbon footprint six times larger than that of “conventionally grown” food (meaning, on rural farmland). However, when you divide a large number (i.e., from U.C.

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How Centuries of Extractive Agriculture Helped Set the Stage for the Maui Fires

Civil Eats

The catastrophic fire that just ravaged more than 2,000 acres and at least 2,000 homes on Maui, and claimed 114 lives and counting is inextricably linked to the island’s agricultural history. Maui’s last sugar mill, the 36,000-acre Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar, Co. (HC&S), They put up a mansion; they have a horse.