By anilb on September 15, 2009
Greening the Tribhuvan University
This is the piece I wrote for the Kathmandu Post, September 15, 2009. I know it will be very hard for those who are involved in ‘higher education’ in Nepal. After all, they came there to escape the soil. But the way Tribhuvan University’s central campus Kirtipur’s landscape is, it purely symbolizes utter lack of societal concern, expropriation without accountability and frozen and degraded vision of a university that has increasingly less connections with the living world in it, around it.
This is one part of 6-part essay on transforming TU. I will post others as soon as they get published in my regular column
Posted in Food and the world |
By anilb on September 14, 2009
M S Swaminathan is India’s Normon Burlag, who introduced green revolution to India in the 1960s as a part of the strategy to deal with hunger. The result has not been any less hunger, but generally degraded food production system. He is now claiming that the route to food security lies in introducing genetically modified crops. Here is Vandana Shiva‘s powerful rebuttal to it.
Posted in Anil's entries, Food and the world |
By anilb on September 13, 2009
Posted in Food and the world |
By anilb on September 13, 2009
Read this CSE report about innovative initiative to convert human wastes into methane gas for cooking and liquid fertilizer for farming.
Posted in Food and the world |
By anilb on September 13, 2009
You might want to check in with this CSE report on serious drought unfolding all over India. But it was more than monsoon that was to blame, it argues. The change in the cropping practices from the ones suited to the local climates to the ones dictated by the arrival of green revolution technologies including the high-dam powered irrigation water is the major reason why farmers are all of a sudden finding it hard to deal with the unsettling climate changes.
Tomdispatch is reporting that drought is becoming a worldwide phenomena that is disrupting the food and agricultural production system all over the place.
Time to wake up to this and begin refocussing on building resiliant local systems.
Posted in Food and the world |
By anilb on September 12, 2009
The AjamvariFarm blogging had slowed down a bit. Blame on me, but it was also my laziness to figure out the best way of posting. Now that I have discovered scribefire, it’s going to be regular, at least three in a week, but expect more.
My writings will focus on issues of sustainability, good life, farming, seed sharing, wilderness (of mind and the world); and many many more things.
I will get back to you regularly now and if you can please also subscribe to our feed!
Posted in Anil's entries, Food and the world, Transforming Actions |
By anilb on September 12, 2009
quick answer: living soil and living farming communities. These two are the invaluable nuggets I gleaned from reading Wendel Berry. Michael Pollan in his recent post on the New York Times gives credit to Wendel Berry for bringing about transformed consciousness within North America about local, sustainable, viable food production, living systems. My friend Tom Philpott has been reporting pretty optimistically the interesting initiatives that the US Department of Agriculture is doing. Well, the North Americans had their presendial family, with clear lead from dear second lady Michele, to dig up the lawn and convert some of it into productive organic vegetable/fruit garden. Let’s take some cues from all these–pretty exciting times!
Posted in Food and the world | Tagged farming future, food systems, white house |
By Elizabeth Enslin on August 21, 2009
The UN recently released a World Food Programme Report announcing what many in Nepal must already know: hunger has reached alarming levels in much of the country, especially the western hills.
In the face of such widespread suffering, it seems a bit trivial to celebrate one small experiment like Ajamvari Farm. Yet several weeks ago, the World Food Programme and European Union announced major investments in agricultural projects to support small farmers — especially women — in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Gemmo Lodesani, Director of the WFP liaison office in Brussels, explained the reasoning:
…one of the best ways to make sure people have access to food is to help small farmers increase production.
Of course, those of us involved in small farms and alternative agriculture have know this for years. And we also know that productivity needs to be balanced with sustainability and health for people and the environment. However, it’s good to have official recognition that the efforts of small farms where people simply grow and eat food can make a difference to the bigger problems of the world.
Posted in Food and the world, Nepal food crisis | Tagged hunger, poverty, small farms, United Nations |
By Elizabeth Enslin on August 17, 2009
Depending on the season, here are some vegetables you might help plant, harvest, or eat during your stay at Ajamvari Farm. Inspired by my work there fifteen years ago, I now grow these in my short-season garden in the mountains of northeastern Oregon.
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Do you have a favorite recipe for preparing these? Or is there another vegetable you learned to love in Nepal? Please share in the comments section below.
This post is included in Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday for August 21. Check out the link for lots of other posts on healthy food and sustainability.
Posted in Ajamvari Inspirations | Tagged vegetables |
By anilb on August 4, 2009
I finished reading Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food today. Pollan effect is great, and it has made me ever more determined to go back home as soon as possible and re-sume (!!!!) what my mind/soul/body is craving–to do gardening/farming. It was heartening to receive an email from Cynthia Watts of Samata School in Jorpati telling me that she read part of my essay, “For Breathable Future”, to her students there. If it works out fine, someday I want to work with the kids in gardening and developing what Pramod calls food pedagogy.
Food connects us with the world in some of the most profound ways. Therefore, our choices regarding food, have deep ramifications. It determines whether we sit in the chair for hours or stretch our legs in the garden; whether we suck our eye-sockets in front of the TV or relish in the serenity of bird-chirps; whether we get obese, or stay trim; whether we are educated about our food or remain ignoramus and thereby good target of food industry; whether we know our neighbors or believe that the characters we see dancing in TV are somehow part of a mystical global village; I can go on.
My next essay for the Kathmandu Post is going to be on food crisis–which is looming all across the country and all over South Asia.
Posted in Anil's entries, Food and the world, Nepal food crisis |
