Shifting African policy towards women and agroecology
The role of rural women and smallholder farmers in African society has been highly undervalued. This is so despite the fact that around 80% of Africa’s population is dependent on smallholder agriculture, it is the backbone of the rural economy, and women provide over two-thirds of the farm labour. There is clear evidence that agroecology […]
Land rights and acequia culture in Milagro Bean Field War (1988)
As directed by Robert Redford, The Milagro Beanfield War is a diverting account of how little guys join forces to fight big-bucks interests. Though this is a life-and-death issue for land conservationists, Redford handles it with a light touch. In his Milagro, land rights are not a matter for the social agenda but an occasion […]
8 Principles for Managing A Commons
Elinor Ostrom, a political scientist at Indiana University, received the Nobel Prize for her research proving the importance of the commons around the world. Her work investigating how communities co-operate to share resources drives to the heart of debates today about resource use, the public sphere and the future of the planet. Based on her […]
Occupy the Farm
OCCUPY THE FARM tells the story of 200 urban farmers who walk onto a publicly-owned research farm and plant two acres of crops in order to save the land from becoming a real-estate development. This direct action set up a vibrant tent village on land destined to become condos, while their crops blocked the development […]
Increasing Demand For Farm Loans Forecasted for 2016
The Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) loan programs provided over 37,000 farm loans to farmers in the U.S. over the past year, an increase over the previous year. The FSA programs include loans to beginner farmers and socially disadvantaged farmers, down payment loans, and microloans. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition’s blog analysis provides additional data and links […]
Out-of-State Farmers Express Interest in Washington Farmland
Droughts are not stopping out-of-state farmers and property investors from wanting to purchase or lease Washington owned ag lands. Pacific northwest farmland continues to increase in value. Read More: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/31/washington-state-farmland-finds-out-of-state-buyers.html
Succession Plan has the Community in Mind
A 153 year-old family farm in Saratoga Springs, NY gets a plan for the future that could include education, a farm incubator and more. From an article Dennis Yusko in The Times Union: One of the city’s last and best-known farms would be preserved as a community resource under a partnership planned between its owners, […]
Farmers walking away from their leases in the Midwest
A report from Reuters News Service: Across the U.S. Midwest, the plunge in grain prices to near four-year lows is pitting landowners determined to sustain rental incomes against farmer tenants worried about making rent payments because their revenues are squeezed. Some grain farmers already see the burden as too big. They are taking an extreme […]
Cooperative Farms in Upstate New York
By Kathryn Shattuck from The New York Times It was time for the running of the bulls. As Ron Cieri watched from his ATV this summer, his farm manager, Jim Ingram, unleashed five hulking males into a verdant Catskills pasture, where 80 brood cows — a patchwork of red, black and white — grazed with […]
Workers in Maine Buy Out their Jobs
By Rob Brown, Noemi Giszpenc and Brian Van Slyke from truthout.org On remote Deer Isle, Maine, the movement for a more just and democratic economy won a major victory this summer. More than 60 employees of three retail businesses – Burnt Cove Market, V&S Variety and Pharmacy, and The Galley – banded together to buy the […]