Section » Farming
Shedding light on a permaculture farm: Review of “Bioshelter Market Garden”
As small farmers look for ways to cut costs and increase their profit margins, they focus more attention on the energy used on the farm. Whether they implement energy efficiency measures or find ways to produce home-grown energy
More articles
Minding common ground: “Poly-farming” in northeast Ohio
Just about any road I take that leads me out of Wooster, Ohio, very quickly guides me past vast fields of corn or soybeans. Agriculture plays a vital role in Wayne County’s economy, and for several
Goats: An overlooked pasture-raised animal
Goats grazing in Ethiopia (iStockphoto) Goat meat is already very popular around the world – the Washington Post claims that goat makes up almost 70 percent of the red meat eaten
On the trademarking of ‘urban homesteading’: The Original Best Most Complete Post on the Subject™
By Mat Rogers, Director of Agrariana Language and terminology are an integral part of the food movement. Making distinctions between agricultural practices deemed vile and reprehensible, in favor of methods moral and healthful, is a critical organizing
Getting plowed: Kristin Kimball’s captivating “Dirty Life”
Kristin Kimball on her farm in Essex, N.Y. Photo by Deborah Feingold The first time I heard of Essex Farm, I was working a kitchen/garden internship at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Vermont. The school sent me to the Northeast Organic Farming Association’s 2009 conference, where I carefully
Tipping sacred cows: Reviewing “Meat: A Benign Extravagance”
Mainstream culture and news abound with broad statements about our food system and the choices we make about what we put on the dinner table. Surely you’ve heard that if you want to save
Olney Friends School in Ohio grows food to grow enrollment
The farm-to-school movement has been gaining ground lately as advocates encourage administrators to bring more local food into school cafeterias. But at Olney
One sick chicken
With a few exceptions, the animals on my farm are not pets. My sheep and chickens have jobs to do -- eating grass and bugs, making eggs and meat and babies. If they don't do their job, they don't stay on my farm. My Buff Orpington in happier, healthier days. That isn't to say that I don't treat them
Notes from a new farmer: Q&A with Michael Gallagher, Square Roots Farm
In every school, there is a legendary former student -- the one whose academic prowess knew no bounds. "Brilliant," people marvel about this student, even decades later. "That kid was brilliant." (Or, here in New England, you might hear: "Wicked smaaaaaht.") At my daughter's school, that individual is
Fish tale: Walmart’s sustainable seafood pledge has a long way to go
When big corporations make pledges to improve their sourcing practices, it's important to hold them accountable. After all, it's easy to hold a press conference pledging a new green policy; it's not so easy to fulfill the
Comments Off • Read more »
Grow vacancies: Gene Fredericks is thinking inside the city’s big box
They're the bane of urban and suburban areas alike: the vacant, boarded-up K-Marts and Home Depot Expos, squatting like concrete cowpies amidst a landscape of weedy parking lots. But where most people
Comments Off • Read more »
San Francisco set to approve zoning changes for backyard farming for cash
Summer of urban-ag love: The Bay Area is known as a bastion of urban farming and the local food movement, but "laws governing land use are still stuck in another era, one that frowned on farming in the city, especially in residential areas," reports Zusha Elinson. When Little
Foraging restaurant and suppliers adapt to new rules
Forage gleans a new strategy: When Forage restaurant opened in Los Angeles's Silver Lake neighborhood, they used produce from customers' backyards to supplement their normal produce purchases, paying for the backyard produce with food or drink from the restaurant and often noting the donor's name on
Want to grow food on City of Oakland land? Here’s how
By Stephanie Paige Ogburn We’ve all seen it: the vacant lot down the street that gets full sun, or the underused city park choked over with weeds. And many of us have thought: I bet that would be a great community garden space, if some enterprising growers
Comments Off • Read more »
Russ Parsons on ‘Four Fish’ — the one food-politics book to read
Net prophet: "There are few things in life more complicated than sorting through the various ethical implications of which fish you should be eating," writes Russ Parsons in this review of Four
