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In Hawai‘i, Restoring Kava Helps Sustain Native Food Culture

Civil Eats

By reviving Hawaiian self-sufficiency and healing the scars left by plantations, Trask said, awa [presents] an opportunity to restore our sovereignty and our ancestral connection to the land. The rise of plantation agriculture uprooted Native communities, replacing local food systems with sprawling sugarcane and pineapple fields.

Food 129
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In Fire-Stricken Maui, Sustainable Land Management Is Key

Modern Farmer

Peppered throughout some 500 acres of charred pastureland, he found sizable patches of grass left unscathed by the blaze. The fire burned right around them,” says the 73-year old rancher and owner of Diamond B Ranch, noting the intact areas—some as big as a quarter acre. Some areas of grazed pasture on Diamond B Ranch went unburned.

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Meet the Taro Farmer Restoring an Ecosystem Through Native Hawaiian Practices

Modern Farmer

Sprouting deep within the verdant pleats of Oʻahu’s Koʻolau Mountains, Heʻeia stream winds through Kakoʻo ʻOʻiwi , a non-profit organization centered on a six-acre taro farm, before emptying into the wide mouth of Kane‘ohe Bay. One acre can bank about a foot of water,” he says. “If

Acre 125
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The Community Organizing Effort That Helped Save an Urban Farm in New Orleans

Modern Farmer

Grow Dat is a seven-acre urban farm with 13 full-time adult staff, and a rotating crew of teenagers who work there after school. They learn how it’s on land called Bulbancha by Indigenous people from the region, how it used to be a plantation and then, once it became a park, how it was white-only until 1958.

Farming 86
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Can Linen Make a Comeback in North America?

Modern Farmer

As textile mills began to proliferate, the cotton grown on Southern plantations, which relied on the labor of enslaved people, proved to be a cheaper option than flax. It spans hundreds of thousands of acres in Europe and Asia. The latter tended to fare better in the North. These days, the flax grown for linen is an industrial crop.

Textiles 120
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These State Lawmakers Are Collaborating on Policies that Support Regenerative Agriculture

Civil Eats

On a crisp weekend this past fall, 30 state legislators from across the nation descended on TomKat Ranch , an 1,800-acre ranch focused on regenerative agriculture in Pescadero, California, an hour south of San Francisco.

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Climate Solutions for the Future of Coffee

Civil Eats

million acres of shade-grown coffee, much of it bordering protected natural areas. A coffee plant wilts in the sun on a plantation near Manizales, Colombia. The agriculture department backs up this recommendation with technical assistance. That help is working: 96 percent of the coffee grown in Mexico is now shade-grown.

Yield 143