There are many hard lessons learned from the pandemic. One is that our food system needs a serious reboot. Luckily, we need only look to nature’s cycles for clues on how to fix it.
In a circular food economy, food waste becomes valuable, affordable healthy food becomes accessible to everyone and innovation uses a regenerative approach to how food is produced, distributed and consumed.
A new study finds that if all parts of the food system are included, food production is responsible for as much as 40 percent of global emissions.
Emissions from food production, already considered one of the biggest contributors to climate change, have been underestimated for decades, potentially skewing the pledges that countries have made under the Paris climate agreement to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, according to new research.
Every year, much of North America and the world is drenched in the weedkiller glyphosate (the key ingredient in Roundup). Is this safe? Or are we living in a giant test tube?
Since 1974, in the U.S., 1.8 million tons have been sprayed on crops, forests, road sides, waterways, golf courses, lawns and school grounds. Worldwide, 9.4 millions tons have been applied (1). In British Columbia, hundreds of thousands of hectares of forests have been sprayed, with research showing that the residue can linger in some forest plants for up to 12 years (2).
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US (and the EU) have a great part of the immense wealth of the richest countries in the world in 2021. This wealth is more than sufficient to provide for the needs for food, water, health, housing and education of the global population.
The urban food forest in Browns Mills, Atlanta, is one of more than 70 such initiatives scattered across the United States: all the work of volunteers determined to fight food insecurity through urban agriculture.
Farmers in parts of the Prairies are worrying about crop failures and water-deprived livestock, and communities are already facing local water restrictions and at least one forest fire, as the region enters a period of near-record dry conditions.
Later this year, the United Nations is set to hold a historic Food Systems Summit, recognizing the need for urgent action to disrupt business-as-usual practices in the food system. But far from serving as a meaningful avenue for much-needed change, the summit is shaping up to facilitate increased corporate capture of the food system. So much so, that peasant and indigenous-led organizations and civil society groups are organizing an independent counter-summit in order to have their voices heard.
How cannabis can be part of an affordable housing future — not just one for eco-conscious elites.
Winter in Paris is notoriously clammy, and this winter was no exception. But Gregory Ferembach didn’t need to turn on his heat much. One reason? The walls in his public housing building are lined with one of nature’s best insulation materials: hemp.
“We’re never cold in winter,” Ferembach said in French. “The kids walk around barefoot all the time, or even in their underwear.”
