All Blog Posts (18)

Here is an example of a school programme for sustainable agriculture and environment that also delivers food security and nutrition benefits:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/business/global/28iht-RBOG-CAPE28.html?_r=1&src=busln&pagewanted=all

 

34 schools around South Africa follow a three-year Organic Classroom Program. The…

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/world/europe/08iht-italy08.html?_r=2&ref=europe&pagewanted=all

 

This is a heartwarming win-win story of farmers from Punjab stepping in just at the right time as Italians began giving up on dairy farming along the Po river valley. There are shades of Yuba city in California where Sikhs from Punjab settled…

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http://www.countercurrents.org/brooks090811.htm

 

"At present, the most relevant project we have in this field is Nutrire Milano (Feeding Milan). It is an initiative promoted and developed in Milano by Slow Food, Politecnico di Milano, Facoltà di Scienze Gastronomiche and several other local partners. This project aims at regenerating the Milanese peri-urban agriculture (that is the agriculture near…

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Japanese natural farming pioneer Masanobu Fukuoka talks of the ideal of ‘do nothing’ agriculture. For him this is a spiritual principle, the Zen ‘mu’, as much as a practical guideline for the practice of sustainable agriculture. No chemical inputs, no genetic manipulation, no machines and no cultivation. In his small farm in Shikoku he consistently achieved better yields with higher biodiversity…

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Oct 26: Many readers of this blog are familiar with the work of Manzil led by Ravi Gulati. He mentors groups of what we euphemistically call 'underprivileged' children and youth. The focus is on learning from the world and learning for the world (livelihood and service). Ravi says that we should never forget that books are an imperfect approximation of the world and that real learning can only be by doing. Today nearly twenty of his incredibly creative and confident students are visiting the… Continue

Sept 20: My friend Arun and I had just finished planting radishes, turnips and carrots on ten odd raised beds. Exhausted by work in the unusually hot autumn morning, we sat down for a late breakfast with the farm team of Ram Singh, Kuldeep and Sukhwinder. There was a shout at the gate and a wry Haryanvi Jat, sturdy peasant-warriors that straddle three religions and the India-Pakistan border, of our age walked in. Rati Ram owns 11 acres of land right next to our Model Farm at Village Pathreri.… Continue

The Government of India as a part of its state planning under the eleventh plan is promoting Small and Medium Enterprise to enhance the rural income and ensure rural development. National Afforestation and Eco-development Board as a working body of Ministry of Environment and Forests, is facilitating Joint Forest Management Committees for their sustenance by implementing seven Small and Medium Forest Enterprise pilot projects through its Regional Centres in seven different… Continue

Dear friends,

Please tune in to the Sarvodaya, Stanford blog on sustainable agriculture at

http://sarvodaya.stanford.edu/susticulture.html

February 27, 2009

Op-Ed Contributor

Yellow Is the New Green

By ROSE GEORGE



Woolley, England



IN the far reaches of Shaanxi Province in northern China, in an apple-producing village named Ganquanfang, I recently visited a house belonging to two cheery primary-school teachers, Zhang Min Shu and his wife, Wu Zhaoxian. Their house wasn’t exceptional — a spacious yard, several rooms — except for the bathroom. There, up a few steps on a tiled platform, sat a toilet… Continue

For some thoughts see Wade Davis piece:

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0706-01.htm

Dear friends,

Check out Michael Pollan's article and the discussion it inspired on the NYT website:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?s=5

You can listen to an NPR interview with him at:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200801043

Tropics face food crisis by 2100

Cindy Seigle / Creative Commons; some rights reserved



In the tropics, higher temperatures can be expected to cut yields of the primary food crops, maize and rice, by 20 to 40 percent, according to the study in Science. Rapidly warming climate is likely to seriously alter crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century and, without adaptation, leave half of the world’s population facing serious food shortages, according to a… Continue

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/StoryPrint.aspx?ID=NEWEN20080076497&ch=633649384324157500

Our Model 'Urban' Farm at Bilaspur, 65 km from Delhi is coming along nicely. Heartfelt thanks to the four owners for letting us use the 6 acres of land for demonstration and training, to Sonalika Tractors for donating a tractor, to Sterling Agro for financing the purchase of buffalos and HSBC Bank for sponsoring the signboards. FFF's founding members have of course pitched in with their own time and money to get things going and our wonderful volunteers - Bittu, Mintu, Kuldeep and Joginder -… Continue

The recently concluded world food summit observed that urban populations are likely to be more exposed to rising food prices than their rural counterparts: they are more likely to consume staple foods derived from tradable commodities and are less likely to produce a significant share of their own food or produce for sale. Anticipating this, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has been advocating urban and peri-urban agriculture — to improve food availability in towns and cities, to… Continue