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A Bigger Conversation’s Director, Pat Thomas, shares insights from the ‘Agroecological Intelligence’ project, which spoke with agroecological farmers and growers to establish a criteria for adopting new technologies. But not everyone buys in to this narrative.
The need for greater access to land, so that younger generations can have a role in equitable and accessible food production – most particularly in agroecological food production – is critical and demands that we find new pathways beyond ownership to invite their participation.
But where Bergen Community College aims to foster new farmers in a suburban-urban environment through vertical farms and hydroponics, Walla Walla’s program will expand upon an existing agroecology curriculum geared toward its rural students, many of whom may be seeking to bring their education back to family farms or other local agriculture.
However, as with all social-ecological systems , change in any part of the system necessarily requires or causes change in other parts of the system. Who manages land determines which scientific perspectives, crop choices, traditions, and skills shape the landscape, with profound implications for its ecological sustainability.
Next, they purchased a no-drill seeder together, and it allowed them to plant rows of grain directly into orchards and pastures without tilling, a practice known to benefit the soil. Over at Tool Legit, the farmers share similar goals of farming ecologically and productively at a human scale, which lends to knowledge-sharing, too. “It
He used a conventional approach: He diligently mowed his animals’ pastures to control weeds, added lime to make the soil less acidic, and applied fertilizer to boost productivity. And agroforestry has broad ecological positives that aren’t necessarily reflected in the raw accounting of carbon offsets.
The couple show a real passion for nature, as evidenced by the sign at the entrance of their farm which reads, “Ecology now!” And for agroecological farmers and growers, this poses some difficulty. Troed y Rhiw is an 8.5 Finding appropriate machinery for field-scale organic horticulture is hard.”
But as we understand ecological systems better, we have come to realise that, while they can be very resilient, at some level of degradation they reach tipping points at which they flip into new states far less conducive to human life. We have also found that cattle are ideal for grazing our wood pasture sites.
Removing livestock for even 10 years from this land can cause an ecological disaster in grassland communities.” But when livestock graze on the same pasture repeatedly, plants don’t have the opportunity to recover and will die. “We “Obviously, farming crops and rangelands are not compatible,” she says.
About once a month, I gulp when I pay £24 or thereabouts for my bird, which justifies its steep price tag because it is reared to the strictest legal ‘traditional’ and truly free-range standard, a slow-maturing variety fed on pasture and cereals, killed at 81 days. How often have you heard that said?
xlii] Agroecological farming systems have been demonstrated to increase biodiversity on farmed land: plant species increase by 20-95%, insect species by 23%, and pollinator numbers by 30% in organic compared with conventional farming systems. Ecological Entomology 40, 124–135 (2015). cattle industry. xvii] Milazzo, F.
Virginia Tech and Virginia Cooperative Extension’s project team conducted 11 semi-structured interviews and conversations across Virginia to learn and better understand farmers’ and ranchers’ agroecological motivations and overall values related to the protection and conservation of water resources.
As always, there was much to explore at the Conference with an array of workshops and deep dive sessions arguably dominating the more academic talks on topics like Trauma and the Land and The Interbeing of Agroecology not to dismiss those deeper discussions which are important to have, but perhaps practice is having a moment?
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