Musings on sustainable food systems, agriculture vs. agroecology, and more!
One of the first writers that got me (as so many others, I presume) interested in food politics was Michael Pollan. His book “In Defense of Food” , along with “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “A Botany of Desire”, really flipped the switch in my mind on what kind of politics I wanted to specialize in. Well, today … Continue reading The Biography of a Cow
Whenever we think about food security, we think about grain crops, yields, and whatever ends up on your plate. However, as I already discussed in this post about efficient cooking stoves, we tend to forget that most food (specifically grains) has to be cooked before it can be consumed, so that cooking fuel becomes part … Continue reading Can A Bamboo Revolution Increase Food Security in Ethiopia?
One thing that I cherish about academia is the plurality of opinions and the richness of debate on any topic people care about. This is also translated into research, where facts are as quickly uncovered as they are disputed with alternative figures, making things even more complicated (as well as more interesting) with each and … Continue reading MORE Facts About Livestock – Let the Debate Begin!
After Japan was hit by an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear meltdown in 2011, it was clear that recovery would take a while. This was particularly true in the agricultural sector of the coastal regions affected by the catastrophe, where rubble- and sea water-soaked soils made planting nearly impossible. Overall, irrigation canals, roads and … Continue reading After the Tsunami – Which Way Forward for Japanese Agriculture?
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) recently wrote two blog posts about one of their papers called “The Roles of Livestock in Developing Countries“, in which their authors argue that the livestock sector needs to be studied and assessed in a much more disaggregated manner in order to acknowledge the roles and impacts of livestock … Continue reading Livestock: The Good, the Bad, and the Facts
Continuing with our mini-series, after our first installment, let’s turn to a buzzword that has gotten a lot of attention in the last years: grass-fed and/or pasture-raised animal products. What is the label’s motto/what does it stand for? The idea of grass-fed ruminants and pasture-raised other animals is that this production method is much more … Continue reading Labels Unveiled: Grass-Fed and Pasture-Raised
Cuba is such a funny case: according to this article, agroecological farming principles are the norm, more than half of its farms use organic production methods, and it is a leader in urban agriculture – but yet, most of these developments are less the result of a coordinated policy shift than a survival mechanism that … Continue reading Cuba At The Crossroads
The challenge with large governments (such as the USA’s) is that they produce huge packages of legislature that only few individuals can understand in its entirety. Thus, everybody focuses on what they are interested or specialized in, and there is the potential to slip things in that legislators aren’t aware of or don’t understand the … Continue reading What Is The "Monsanto Rider"?
In preparation for my Sustainability Economics exam on Thursday, I decided to combine the necessary with the fun and write about a concept that I will hopefully remember come Thursday – the Planetary Boundary framework championed by Johan Rockström from the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Rockström starts with arguing that the planet has moved into the … Continue reading Transgressing the Earth's Boundaries
“The food crisis can only be conquered with even greater intensification.” “A new ‘Green Revolution’ to match that of South-East Asia is needed to improve yields further.” “Organic farming is a cute idea, but it will never replicate the yields of conventional agri-business.” Who hasn’t heard those arguments? And felt defeated by the challenge to … Continue reading Research Breakthrough: Less Inputs = More Yields?!