Degrowth & Agriculture – Resilient food production and distribution
ABOUT THE COURSE:
The focus of our course was to explore the relation between degrowth and agriculture. Starting with an introduction to the current state of things - the ever-expanding industrial agriculture, then field visits to farms in the region, and finally a critical analysis of existing alternatives. To achieve this the course had to happen as close as possible to our area of interest and away from the city. We wanted the participants to experience a part of the Masovian country-side. Not a select group of organic farms and engaged activist-farmers but the average, regular farms using conventional methods, people worried about their livelyhoods and considering solutions primarily on the basis of economic yield in relation to labour.
It is not easy to find an affordable place near Warsaw that can accommodate more than 30 people and we finally settled for Walewice - an 18th century noble palace complex with a stud farm. It is beautifully set among vast fields and an old picturesque garden, and also, importantly, it is close to Bogoria Górna where a new permaculture project is being established by our collaborators from the Transformacja Foundation.
We slept in the former coach house, now hostel, and worked in the spectacular interiors of the palace equipped with heavy, carved furniture, gigantic tiled stoves and adorned with paintings of the royal family which gave us an opportunity to reflect on the feudal past of the region.
These interiors notably bore witness to an affair between Maria Walewska and Napoleon Bonaparte the result of which was the birth of Count Alexandre Joseph Colonna-Walewski, Napoleon's first, albeit unofficial, son.
The question of weather was an important aspect of the course planning process and forced some limitations on the choice of premises. As temperatures in March in this region can be as varied as -10°C or +20°C we had to be prepared for the worst and had to abandon upfront the idea of a camp. In the end we were quite lucky and most of the time participants were able to do groupwork outside in the sun or take a stroll in the adjacent gardens in the rare occasions of a break in the otherwise intensive programme. Nevertheless on the last morning we woke up to a layer of frost - clearly an example of possible temperature amplitudes at that time of the year.
The course happened to coincide with two important astrological events: a partial solar eclipse that some of us managed to admire through an old compact disc, and the spring equinox - traditionally in Poland a day of pagan celebrations welcoming the new season and parting with winter. The latter is symbolically acted out by preparing a doll named Marzanna, then setting it on fire and floating down the river.
Perhaps Friday was the most important during the course because we spend the whole day outside of Walewice, visiting local farms and interviewing farmers. The programme for that day was prepared by Maggie and Łukasz Nowacki and they also invited us to see an old manor park where they plan to set up a permaculture garden and run a CSA. On that day we prepared our own food with the help of Marek Golonko of Margines, a vegan cooking cooperative and at the end enjoyed ourselves by the fireplace.
The closing round after the whole course was somewhat surprising when participants, encouraged by our trainer Czapka, started theatrically acting out the highlights or funniest moments of the course: scenes of a film we watched, favourite warm-ups, the drunk mayor of the village, and so on. As always the main problem expressed over and over in the feedback round was the lack of time for more activities, more programme and more convivial time together.
Index of content of the module.
INTRODUCTION
The subject of the module is an alternative food production and distribution in the context of degrowth theory.
The aim of the module is to introduce the following issues from the degrowth perspective: a critique of industrial agriculture, overview of possible alternatives, such as local and organic production, cooperatives, Community Supported Agriculture, and a critical analysis of the functioning and results of these alternatives.
CONNECTIONS BETWEEN AGRICULTURE AND DEGROWTH
1. Critique of industrial agriculture.
- Relations between agriculture and degrowth - an introduction.
- Critique of the growth society based on the example of agriculture
- How international growth policies influence agricultural practices:
- Example 1: EU legislations and farmers' practices related to them. Description of life stories of conventional farmers (visits to the conventional farmers): What do they produce? How do they do it? What are the conditions of production? What changed after Poland joined the EU? What the farmers can and what they cannot do acording to the legislation (antibiotics, medicines, conditions of production)? How they sell their products? What problems do they face? Would they change into alternative farming? Why? What do they need to change?
- Example 2: International trade legislation vs. food production and distribution.
2. Overview of possible alternatives
- Alternative systems of food production and distribution as a potential for change of socio-economic relations. The role of cooperatives and CSAs in degrowing the economy.
- Description of the role of peasant movements in the socio-economic global change.
- The story of one CSA or a cooperative.
3. Anthropological analysis of degrowthFood and agriculture alternatives.
- A socio-economic analysis of the food production and distribution alternatives.
- An exercise based on a critical (ethnographic, economic, sociologic) text.
- Conclusion we can derive from this critique: what are the risks of the alternatives, what are the limits, what should we avoid?
1. CRITIQUE OF INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE
Land UsePolicies in the EU – Costs and Benefits of the Agricultural Growth, by Ladislav Jalinek
An excerpt from the presentation on the training module “Agriculture in the de-growth economy”, Walewice 18-22 March, 2015.
Ladislav Jelinek, Martin Luther University, Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Policies, Halle-Wittenberg
Agricultural growth in Western Europe has been enormous over the last several decades. Until the Green Revolution (early 1970) the annual rate of growth was above 3%, though currently the rate is slightly above 1% (Noleppa et al. 2013). Undoubtedly, the growth was possible due to the industrialization of the agriculture. The way the food is produced and the supply chains have changed dramatically. Nevertheless, agricultural policies have played an important role in the industrialization and growth in the EU, known as Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The CAP is one of the key European Union policies which impacts the farming sector in many aspects; it will redistribute around 363 bil. Euro over seven years (2014-2020, European Commission 2014); there are around 12 million full-time farmers, together with down- and up-stream sector the figure accounts for 46 mil. of jobs (European Commission 2014). Besides, the CAP implicitly influences also more than a half billion European food consumers and other stakeholders like landowners or rural residents and visitors. Many of these stakeholders are represented by well-organized professional (lobby) groups and associations, many of them have strong influence either on national or the EU bodies. Therefore most of the political changes that the EU bodies put forward usually precede long-term negotiations.
Undoubtedly the CAP has succeeded in several aspects. The European agriculture became highly productive and efficient in supplying the private goods which was also the effect of public support. The farmers are ensuring highly flexible food supply, while they have to keep relatively high standards relating to the veterinary and phytosanitary conditions or food quality. Besides, production of some commodities exceeds the consumption so the EU is an important food exporter (meat, grains) [1]. Also marginal lands are maintained in production, particularly due to agri-environmental support that prevents their abandonment.
But as agricultural modernization progressed, the ecology-farming linkage was often broken as ecological principles were ignored and/or overridden. It is fair to say that this phenomena is common worldwide, not only in the EU farming sector. Agricultural scientists have arrived at a ageneral consensus that modern agriculture confronts environmental crises (Altier, 1995). Evidence has accumulated showing that whereas the present capital- and technology-intensive farming systems have been extremely productive and competitive they also bring a variety of economic, environmental and social problems. The European agriculture is not an exception.
Despite the abovementioned successes of the CAP, more and more evidence shows that the very nature of the agricultural structure and prevailing policies have led to the environmental crisis by favoring large farm size, specialized production, crop monocultures and mechanization.
Most agriculturalists had assumed that the agro-ecosystem/natural ecosystem dichotomy need not lead to undesirable consequences, yet, unfortunately, a number of “ecological diseases” have been associated with the intensification of food production. They may be grouped into two categories: diseases of the ecotope (homogeneous landscape unit), which include erosion, loss of soil fertility, depletion of nutrient reserves, salinization and alkalinization, pollution of water systems, loss of fertile croplands to urban development, and diseases of the ecosystem, which include loss of crop, wild plant, and animal genetic resources, elimination of natural enemies, pest control mechanisms. Under conditions of intensive management, treatment of such “diseases” requires an increase in the external costs to the extent that, in some agricultural systems, the amount of energy invested to produce a desired yield surpasses the energy harvested (Altieri et al. 1995).
Today, for example, monocultures have increased dramatically. Available data indicate that the amount of crop diversity per unit of arable land has decreased and that croplands have shown a tendency toward concentration (e.g. Imhof et al. 2004). There are political and economic forces influencing the trend to devote large areas to monoculture, and in fact such systems are rewarded by economies of scale and contribute significantly to the ability of national agricultures to serve international markets. The regional consequences of monoculture specialization are many-fold (see e.g.Altieri et al. 1995 or http://nature.berkeley.edu/~miguel-alt/modern_agriculture.html [2] ).
So, given the pressure on natural resources over the whole EU, the CAP is attempting to address some of these challenges. Among the political measures are the following: simplified cross-compliance which is a compulsory basic environmental set of requirements and obligations to be met in order to receive full CAP funding. Further, there is Green Direct Payment which rewards farmers for respecting three obligatory agricultural practices: maintenance of permanent grassland, ecological focus areas and crop diversification. In addition to these there are measures within the rural development programs: agri-environmental climate measures, organic farming, Areas of Natural Constraints, Natura 2000 area and investment supports. In other words, farmers get more if they sign up to agro-environment commitments – for example, using fewer chemicals, leaving boundaries uncultivated, maintaining ponds, trees and hedges, protecting wildlife, etc. Several studies across Europe attempt to answer a question of how those measures are (will be) effective in achieving the ultimate environmental goals.
CAP is also constantly criticized from various groups, but it is fair to state that their policies have been changing as well, in order to react to the new demands from the society. Discussion whether it succeeds or not goes however beyond the scope of this summary.
Undoubtedly, the agricultural policy in EU is also costly. Farmers represent 5.4 percent of the EU’s population and they generate a mere 1.6 percent of the Union’s GDP. Yet they receive 47 percent of the EU’s total budget through CAP handouts. Besides, there are also costs for the administration and implementation of the agricultural policies as well as the expenditures on control mechanisms (e.g. maintenance of the land parcel identification system that has to register each piece of land eligible for public support). However, farmers are getting the increasing proportion of these payments for the public goods provision, which would otherwise have not been supplied by the market.
Another concern relates to the fairness of the payment distribution. Since more than half of agricultural support is distributed as area-based payment, consequently approximately eighty percent of CAP aid goes to just 25 percent of farms (with regional variation). The biggest slice of the subsidy pie is handed to the mega-farms and vast agro-industrial companies. This is particularly true for the regions which inherited large scale farm structures (but not only). Hence a question of who is recipient of the agricultural subsidies and who is a beneficiary is inherently debated.
Industrialized agriculture is also dependent on fossil fuels in two fundamental ways: through the direct consumption on the farm and, due to indirect consumption, to manufacture inputs used on the farm. For example in Spain for each unit of energy available in the form of food 6 units of energy have been consumed in its production, distribution, transportation and preparation (Infante Amate et al. 2013). Similar results are provided in a Danish study: the current agricultural system of Denmark consumes 3-4 times more energy that it produces (Markussen et. al. 2013). Ever increasing part of the energy consumption requires the transportation of the food (for more see i.e. Report for DEFRA, Smith et al. 2005). In this context Clausing (2014) claims that it is obvious that an agricultural transition evoked by the depletion of fossil fuel will be accompanied by food price hikes, not only because of rising fuel prices but also because the agro-ecological alternative is significantly more labor-intensive. Therefore, it leads him to ask questions like: Where will labor come from? Will de-urbanization in near future occur? How poor people will be protected from the increasing foodprices? We could obviously list more such questions.
Footnotes:
- Though there is significantly lower share of productive land per inhabitant in the EU than in other exporting regions.
- It is claimed that cultivated plants grown in genetically homogenous monocultures do not possess the necessary ecological defense mechanisms to tolerate the impact of outbreaking pest populations.
Bibliography
Altier, M.A. 1995, Agroecology: the science of sustainable agriculture. Westview Press, Boulder
Clausing, P. 2014, Thoughts on Agricultural Transformation. A contribution to the Degrowth conference in Leipzig.
Smith, A. Watkiss, P. Tweddle, G. McKinnon, A. Browne, M. Hunt, A. Treleven, C. Nash, C. Cross, S. 2005, The Validity of Food Miles as an Indicator of Sustainable Development. Final Report for DEFRA.
EC. 2013, Overview of CAP reform 2014– 2020. Agricultural Policy Perspective Brief No. 5 (December 2013). Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/policy-perspectives/policy-briefs/05_en.pdf
Infante Amate, J, Molina M.G. 2013, “Sustainable de-growth” in agriculture and food: an agro-ecological perspective on Spain´s agri-food system. Journal of Cleaner Production 38. 27-35.
Imhoff M.L, Bounoua L, Ricketts T, Loucks C, Harriss R, Lawrence W.T 2004, "Global patterns in human consumption of net primary production". Nature. 429, 870–873. doi:10.1038/nature02619.
Markussen, M.V., Ostergard, H. 2013, Energy Analysis of the Danish Food Production System, Food-EROI and Fossil Fuel Dependency Energies 6 (8). 4170-4186.
Noleppa S. Witzke, A. Cartsbourg, M.2013, The social, economic and environmental value of agricultural productivity in the European Union. Impacts of market and food security, rural income and employment, resource use, climate protection, and biodiversity. HFFA Working Paper 03/2013.
case studies.
Further recommended reading
Dietz R., O´Neill D. 2013, Enough Is Enough. Routledge. London.
Schumacher, E.F.1973, Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered. Harper and Row Publishers, Inc., New York, New York.
Lievens, L. 2010, Agriculture in a degrowth society: helpful indicator for the transition. Transitory indicator for paradigm shift. Conference proceedings. 2nd Conference on Economic Degrowth For Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity
A list of reading materials is also at the web page of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy: http://steadystate.org/discover/reading-list/
Websites:
Adams, R. T. 2008, "Large-Scale Mechanized Soybean Farmers in Amazonia: New Ways of Experiencing Land", Culture & Agriculture Vol. 30, Numbers 1 & 2 pp. 32–37
Kimbrell, A. 2002, The Fatal Harvest. Reader. A Tragedy of Industrial agriculture, Island Press, Washington/Covelo/London.
Bonanno, A.; Busch, L; Friedland, W. H. 1994, From Columbus to ConAgra: The Globalization of Agriculture and Food, University Press of Kansas.
Hellin, J & Higman, S. 2004, Feeding the Market: South American Farmers, Trade and Globalization, Kumarian Press, Bloomfield.
Magdoff, F., Foster, J.M.; Buttel, F, ed., 2000 Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness. Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment, Monthly Rev. Press, New York:
Report on outdoor activities in Bogoria Górna, 20.03.2015, by Małgorzata Andziak
AIM
We prepared a programme of outdoor activities in the village of Bogoria Górna, community of Zduny, Łowicz county. The main aim was to show the problems and characteristics of villages in this region to participants of the GROWL meeting. Additionally we discussed alternative ways of development of the villages based on social participation.
During visits at 4 selected farms the participants were able to:
- find out in detail about the problems of particular farmers resulting from the size and structure of the farm and the specific ways of cultivation and cattle raising.
- ask the farmers about the strategy behind their investment decisions and the balance between gains and losses.
- observe if and in what way the EU policies, subsidy programmes and state level regulations affect the way land is managed or the plant varieties that are chosen for cultivations or the way animals are raised.
AGENDA
The meeting in Bogoria Górna took place at the People’s House thanks to the provost of the village and the Farmer’s Wives’ Association. The agenda was prepared and conducted by Małgorzata Andziak of Transformacja Foundation:
10:00 – arrival of the participants
10:15–12:15 – visits at the farms (first group), at the same time the second group prepares lunch during culinary workshops led by Marek Golonko of the Margines Social Cooperative.
14:30–15:30 – lunch
15:30–17:00 – visit at the historical site of a former manor in Bogoria which is currently developed into a permaculture farm. “Net of Life” exercise led by Łukasz Nowacki – exchanging observations between the two groups about their farm visits.
17:15–18:00 – presentation by Łukasz Nowacki about the methodology of groups functioning according to ideas of Community Supported Agriculture.
18:00–22:00 – dinner and fireplace
22:10 – departure
REPORT
An overview of the visited farms.
The farms were chosen to best demonstrate the position of an average farmer from central Poland. Although the types of principal cultivation or animal raising differed substantially in each of the farms they were the most common strategies among farmers of this region. As a result the participants could familiarize with the most common structure of a farm and interview the farmers in detail about their attitude to managing land, the problems they are facing and the economic balance of the farm.
1. The area of the first farm is ca 15ha. The owner of the farm is a widow who currently rents the land to her brother-in-law. The land is mostly cultivated for different types of cereals, some of them for animals raised by the farmer (corn for silage, oat, rye, triticale) and others for additional income (wheat). The land is cultivated in a reasonable way: multi cropping in form of legumes is used for tillage and manure is distributed once a year. The farmers use only qualified seeds from the Seed Central (mostly hybrids). According to them collecting own seeds is not viable because it requires too much work without guarantee for good yield. Additionally synthetic fertilizers are used and the crops are preemptively sprayed with chemical compounds. This way of cultivation is preferred by the farmer because it requires relatively little labour and investment and is mainly used to harvest fodder for animals raised on another farm. The extra income mainly from selling wheat is unstable because it depends on the market price and is treated only as a supplementary bonus and not as a main income.
2. The second farm is more complex. The owners are a married couple: the husband is raising dairy cattle and cultivating crops for fodder (meadows, cereals); the wife is occupied mostly with cultivating tomatoes and red beets. Additionally they own a small apple orchard. The tomatoes are cultivated on 2ha and sown with qualified seeds from the Seed Central. In April the seedlings mature in an unheated polytunnel and in May they are replanted to the field. The farmers choose a hard sort of tomatoes sold to a nearby processing plant in Łowicz for purées, concentrates and canned tomatoes. They use low-growing, spreading varieties. Preemptive chemical spraying is used immediately after replanting or if any diseases occur. The harvest was conducted manually up to now but this year for the first time a combine harvester will be used. The farmers are associated in a producers’ group which bought the combine and will rent it for harvests. The profitability of this type of cultivation makes up for 60% of the entire income of the farm. Still the farmers do not plan to expand the tomato cultivation because it is very labour consuming – for most of the tasks workers have to be hired and there are not many willing in the area. It is also a risky plant because tomatoes are very sensitive to frost and diseases and it is easy to loose the entire crop. The farmers are willing to experiment with new crops but they are not eager to find new distribution paths. They would be interested to cultivate directly for the consumer if such an opportunity would arise. This is already the case with the apple orchard where an intermediary purchases apples (also the leftovers) for a German producer of juices for kids. Because of that these apples are not sprayed and new, more resistant varieties of apples are experimented with (the seedlings come from the Fruit-growing Institute in Skierniewice).
3. The next farm is currently occupied only with raising dairy cattle. The milk is picked up every second day by a milk plant from nearby Łowicz. Cows are raised in a closed cycle meaning they are bred, reared and eventually milked at the farm. The animals are kept in the cowshed at all times. Adult cows are chained in boxes on raised litter. There is no possibility of letting the animals to graze outside because the soil behind the barn is high-grade and is used to cultivate cereals for fodder. The farmer is considering to expand the barn so that the animals would have an outdoor area available. He could then also forego the boxes and chains. The farmer cultivates 20ha of land comprised of meadows and cereals. The entire crop is grown for cattle fodder, only health supplements (vitamins, minerals) are bought outside. The farmer used EU subsidies during 10 years to build and equip the cowshed, he pays off a preferential loan on a quarterly basis and has not experienced any serious financial problems so far. He owns a basic set of land cultivation machinery only during harvest he rents a combine harvester. He treats the aerial subsidies as a bonus to pay his own labour. He is the only person responsible of the entire farm, but is sometimes helped by his mother-in-law with easier tasks like cleaning the tappers. His wife is professionally active and the children are still small but already start helping in spare moments. The farm had not yet had problems with overrunning milk production quotas and did not have to pay fines but this is an exception among the farms in the area where this is a common problem.
4. The last farm is mainly occupied with rearing pigs in a closed cycle – from sow to porker. The are of the farm is about 8ha and the entire crop (oat, triticale and straw for litter) is used for pig fodder. The animals are kept inside in closed boxes at all times. The porkers are delivered alive to the slaughterhouse after reaching about 150kg in weight. The wife does most of the work with animals and the husband is working as a driver, he helps with the hardest tasks during his free days and takes care of the crops. The wife claims rearing pigs becomes less viable from year to year and is considering abandoning it altogether. She does not however have a ready plan about what to raise instead. The farmers use land subsidies but there are no subsidies for pig rearing. The land is cultivated the same way every year – multi cropping is not used. Only manure (from cows and pigs) is used in spring and in autumn straw leftovers from the harvest are tilled. Additionally calcium and synthetic fertilizers are used. The farmers buy qualified seeds every three years from the Seed Central and then collected and used for sowing for two years. The seeds are processed before storing them at the farm. Most of the machinery used for cultivation or processing of the crops is owned by the farmers, only for harvesting they rent a combine harvester.
OLD MANOR IN BOGORIA
After lunch the participants visited the site of a former park in Bogoria – the leftovers of what used to be a 150ha manor. Currently there are only ruins of the estate left but the trees are in good shape and are protected by law. Apart from three monumental trees – a 400 year old oak and two linden each 200 years old – the area is surrounded by 150 years old parkways planted with hornbeam and linden trees. The parkways used to divide the former orchards and are an element commonly used in XIX c. manors. Unfortunately the old orchard froze and died in the winter of 1989 leaving only three apple trees of the kosztela variety.
During a stroll through the park the landlady told about development plans for the area: the establishment of a permaculture vegetable garden and a forest garden. In the future agroecological workshops are to be conducted at the site in cooperation with the Foundation Transformacja (about organic cultivation of vegetables, fruit, herbs and mushrooms). Additionally a Community Supported Agriculture project will be established in order to foster cooperation with local farmers willing to change their cultivation habits.
During the visit participants used the “net of life” method to exchange observations from the farm visits. First the group exchanged critical comments about the way of cultivating and managing the land and attempted to understand the reasons behind. Then they discussed how change could be introduced and what kind of factors would be necessary.
After returning to the People’s House the participants were presented with the methodology of establishing Community Supported Agriculture projects and the permaculture way of cultivating land. Discussions were continued at the fireplace.
2. OVERVIEW OF POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES
In Warsaw we can observe a dynamic development of alternative initiatives around food production, distribution and consumption. We list a selection of them below. For this type of course we recommend a visit and practical exercise in any initiative of this kind. It is especially useful if the members of an initiative can introduce participants of the course to the history of the initiative, the profile of its members, its achievements and the problems that the people face. During the GROWL course in Poland we have visited the Dobrze Food Coop also mentioned below.
Typology of Food Projects in Warsaw (a selection) by Wojtek Mejor
Cooking collectives
- Food Not Bombs
- Informal, non-hierarchical group. Main aim is to provide free, vegan food for people in need. Fully self-financed. Products are obtained mostly by dumpster diving or asking leftovers from local markets. Activities are irregular and group members vary. No fixed kitchen or venue.
- WoKu @ Syrena [Social Kitchen]
- From German "Volksküche" - social kitchen. Ephemeral, informal, non-hierarchical cooking project centered around the Syrena squat. Main aim is to provide cheap/free food for people willing to socialise or contribute. Products are obtained mostly by dumpster diving or asking leftovers from local markets. Funds obtained from selling meals (prices are voluntary) are invested in the squat. Activities are irregular and group members vary.
- Chujowe Żarcie [Shitty Food]
- Informal, non-hierarchical group. Main aim is to provide cheap food at concerts and activist events. Products are obtained mostly by dumpster diving or asking leftovers from local markets. No fixed venue or kitchen.
- Margines [Margin]
- Once an informal vegan catering collective now a registered social cooperative offering catering services and running a small vegan restaurant downtown. Main aim is to provide livelihoods to group members and promote vegan food. Most clients of the catering services are NGOs and clients of the restaurant are either declared vegans from an extended network of the collective or employees from nearby offices.
Food Co-ops
- Warsaw Food Coop
- Informal group functioning since 2010. Their main aim is to provide vegetarian food products to group members at a cheaper price and directly from the producer or at least omitting as many intermediaries as possible. Shopping is done once a week and orders are collected via a custom-made online system. A 10% margin is added to the shopping to cover transport and extra expenses and for cultural and political activities of the group.
- The organisational structure is made of rotational working groups that are assigned to tasks. All decisions are taken by means of consensus. Group size varies from 20 to 40 active members. All venues the group used had been made available for free by friendly organisations.
- In 2012 members of this group organised the influential 1st Open Food Coop Congress in Warsaw with financial support of the UNDP.
- Dobrze [Good] Food Coop
- Group founded in 2013 with the aim of opening and running a cooperative grocery shop. Fixed venue exists since 2014 and is open to members and non-members 6 days a week. Most products in the shop are organic or from trusted producers, only vegetarian products are sold. The running costs of the shop and salaries of 4 employees are financed from membership fees and margin charged on products sold to non-members. The 100 members are required to work at least 3h per month on behalf of the cooperative. Formally registered as a non-profit association. Important decisions are taken consensually by the entire collective on general assemblies. Cultural and political activities are an integral part of this coop's strategy.
Box Schemes and Purchase Groups
- Rano Zebrano [Collected at Dawn]
- Online "marketplace" and transport service providing access to quality products directly from local producers since 2014 (or 2013 in its earlier form). Founded by Warsaw Food Coop member and activist Przemek Sendzielski. The service is registered as a private company and is financed by charging margin on the products and an extra fee for the transport. Also offers the option to form purchase groups to save on logistics and transport costs. Part of the products are certified organic.
- Chillibite
- Informal group founded and managed by culinary blogger, writer and photographer Kasia Marciniewicz since 2008. Aim of the group is to obtain high quality products from Poland and Southern Europe directly from the producers. The products obtained this way are either cheaper by omitting intermediaries or not available at supermarkets. The group counts over 200 members that meet every month to pick up their orders and socialise around the subject of food.
- Lokalny Rolnik [Local Farmer]
- Startup cofinanced from EU funds founded in 2014 by Grażyna Sławińska and Andrej Modic of Farmers Direct company. The online service provides a platform where members can join or start purchasing groups and get in contact with local producers. The company charges 12,3% margin on top of the products. The coordinators of the groups receive remuneration or discounts on products. During the first 6 months of functioning more than 25 purchasing groups were created with over 2000 members. The groups are often formed by owners of bars and restaurants.
Regular Producers' Markets
- Bio Bazar
- Producers' market open twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. 80% of the products are certified organic the rest are tagged regional. The event was established in 2010 by Agnieszka Saternus and Kinga Nowakowska of Myecolife – a small and unsuccessful organic food distribution company. Since then more than 2000 people visit the market every weekend. The price range varies but it is known to be relatively expensive and many celebrities are seen shopping there. The market is currently operating in old industrial factory buidings but the historical site is scheduled for demolition to make place for an office complex. The bazaar will be moved to a new site especially designed for that purpose.
- Targ Śniadaniowy [Breakfast Market]
- It started in 2013 as a small neighbour's food market in the Żoliborz district in Warsaw where founders Bianca Torossian and Krzysztof Cybruch live. Now it is a registered trademark and functions in several cities in Poland. According to their website more than 21000 people visit the events every weekend across poland. The weekend market hosts small producers of food products like jams, sausages or ice cream as well as restaurants and catering firms. Although it is centered around food there are also accompanying entertainment activities like workshops for children, presentations, concerts, etc.
Community Supported Agriculture
- RWS Świerże Panki
- The first CSA project in Poland, considered a pilot project and closed after the idea cought on. The group started forming in 2012 after successfull presentations of CSA members from Garten Coop, Freiburg and Biospotrebitel, Prague on the 1st Food Coop Congress in Warsaw. The CSA reached a total of about 25 households and the season lenght was 20 weeks with weekly deliveries to Warsaw. The farm Świerże Panki is about 120km away from Warsaw which made transport costs very high and limited involvement of members in voluntary work at the farm. The venue for meetings and deliveries was made available for free by the owner of Boutique Bed & Breakfast Hostel who is actively involved in social campaigns and projects.
- RWS Dobrzyń nad Wisłą
- Is a single farm running two CSAs and two food cooperatives simultaneously.
- The CSA Kooperatywa Południowa wa founded in 2014 and consists of 36 households. The pickup place is outdoors under an overpass and is conducted simultaneously for coop and CSA members. Priority is given to CSA subscribers. There are three types of boxes available for CSA members: single (450PLN) double (600PLN) and family (800PLN). Prices are per season.
- The CSA Kooperatywa Grochowska was formed in 2015 and has 34 households. Meeting point was made available by CAL (Centre for Local Action) on PAca street 40. Two types of boxes are available: double (600PLN) and family (800PLN).
- Season lenght on both groups is 20 weeks and about 60 types of vegetables, fruit and herbs are available not counting their varietites. Decisions are taken by majority vote but in crisis situations the farmer has the say. The initiative and coordination is on the farmer's side. According to coordinator Adrianna Augustyniak communication, effectiveness and popularity of the group was boosted by use of social media (Facebook).
Further recomended readings:
Bebbington, A. 1993, Modernization from below: An Alternative Indigenous Development? Economic Geography, Vol. 69, No. 3, Environment and Development, pp. 274-292.
Desmarais, A. A. 2007, La Vía Campesina. Globalizationand the Power of Peasants, Pluto Press, London.
Janssen, B. 2010, Local Food, Local Engagement: Community Supported Agriculture in Eastern Iowa, Culture & Agriculture Vol.32, Issue 1 pp. 4–16.
Edelman, M. 1999, Peasants Against Globalization: Rural Social Movements in Costa Rica, Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Netting, R. 1993 Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable Agriculture, Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Step by step guide for CSA / PSC, by Łukasz Nowacki
(Community Supported Agriculture / Permaculture Supported Community)
Who Can Start a CSA?
- Farmer driven / Producer-Initiated CSAs – the majority of CSAs are started by farmers interested in alternative marketing and strengthening their connection to consumers
- Consumer driven / Member-Initiated CSAs – a group of interested consumers works together to find a local farmer to produce their food
- Farmer co-operative / Multiple-Producer CSAs – several farmers band together to provide consumers with a wide variety of products
- Farmer-consumer co-operative / Producer-Member Initiated CSAs – a group of interested consumers and producers works together to create a local market to produce and distribute / buy local food
How to Get Started?
- Meet with Potential Members
- Establish a Core Group
- Develop a Business Plan
- Create a Budget
Meet with Potential Members
- Start with the people you know best: friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, etc.
- Existing groups or communities (environmental groups, businesses, churches, community action organizations, health food stores, fitness centers, schools, civic organizations, etc.) are a perfect place to find members; use their meetings and newsletters as way to spread the word about CSA and recruit members
Establish a Core Group
- The core group is comprised of the farmer(s) plus several consumer members and is reponsible for working out the details of the CSA
- Core groups broaden ownership, spread the workload, and decrease the chance for farmer burnout; much of the organizing work of a CSA can be done by a core group
- The core group generally does NOT deal with farm-based decisions – these are left to the farmer (s)
- Activities may include crop selection, helping determine share prices, payment schedules, organizing distribution, volunteer activities, newsletters, special events, etc.
Develop a Business Plan and Budget
- Both done by the farmer but consumers may help
- Budget should meet the true costs of production and organizational costs and provide a fair salary for the farmer
- Capital expenses – land, equipment, structures, tools, irrigation, etc.
- Labor expenses – farmer and worker salary and benefits etc.
- Operating expenses – seeds, plants, water, taxes, fuel, supplies, etc.
Share Price and Payment
- Share prices, amounts of produce distributed, and length of season vary among CSAs
- Most CSAs offer full shares and half shares
- Half shares usually cost more than half the cost of a full share
- Decide on length of season before setting price
- Some CSAs offer a choice of paying in installments
Determining Share Price
- The biggest contributing factor to CSA burnout and failure is setting the share price too low
- A waiting list indicates that people will pay more for a share
- If members are complaining about getting too much food or lots of people are splitting shares, the share size is probably too big
Methods for Setting SharePrice
- Sell at market price
- Approximate market value
- Calculate costs
- Established community farm model
Methods for Setting SharePrice: Sell at Market Price
- Most farmers use this method
- Charge members a set amount, then give them a share of produce which would cost them that amount if they bought it elsewhere – usually use farmers’ market prices to determine value
Methods for Setting SharePrice: Approximate Market Value
- Estimate how much a family spends on veggies for the season (consider where they currently purchase them) – this is the share price
- Decide on what you want your income to be (you need to know what your farm can produce and its supply and labor requirements)
- Divide the gross income by the share price to come up with the number of shares you can offer
- Example – if members spend about 500 Euros for 9 months of veggies, and your goal is to earn 25,000 Euros you need to sell 50 shares
Methods for Setting SharePrice: Calculate Costs
- This method takes more time but provides detailed accounting for farmers and members
- First decide how many shares you can produce from your land, and then figure the costs for raising that amount (include farmer and worker labor for growing, harvesting, distributing, and ALL production costs)
- Divide the farm budget by the number of shares and you have the share price
Methods for Setting SharePrice: Established Community Farm Model
- Farmer works with members to determine overall budget and share price
- Requires a very committed community, but provides for real costs of production from year to year
- Farmer calculates income requirements, production costs, and farm expenses for the year – full cost of farm operation
- When the total farm and farmer needs are determined, that figure is divided by the number of current or potential members
- Works best if number of members is high
Share Payments
- Full payment at beginning of season minimizes bookkeeping and assures income
- Many CSAs offer payment plans to increase accessibility to low-income members
- Some CSAs subsidize or donate shares to low-income families or homeless shelters
Working Memberships
- Some CSAs offer a few work-share memberships to members who work on the farm a certain number of hours each week
- The work-share membership may cover all or part of the cost of a share
Shared Risk, Shared Bounty
- A unique characteristic of CSA is the concept of shared risk between the farmer and the members
- Some CSA producers write a statement explaining that they will grow vegetables for a certain time period to the best of their ability under the conditions of that upcoming season, and that the members agree to share the risk and are expected to contribute their share price no matter what the season brings
- CSAs generally do not refund money in the event of crop loss
Recruiting Members
- Best advertising is word of mouth, open houses, field days, group presentations
- Brochures should explain the concept of CSA; the benefits of CSA; the story, vision, and goals of your CSA; what products members can receive (how, when, where); share price; how members can join; and whom to contact for more information
- Try to provide a harvest schedule and an idea of what may be included in each delivery (early-season, mid-season, late-season)
Retaining Members
- Many CSAs have a high turnover rate, losing between 25-70% of their members each season
- CSAs that encourage shareholder participation on the farm have better retention
Tips for Retaining Members
- Make the farm feel like a second home – communal workdays, social events, youth activities, etc.
- Educate members – provide them with a schedule of when to expect their shares of certain fruits and vegetables
- Offer classes on canning and storing, etc.
- Renew memberships in the fall, rather than waiting until spring
- Decide what the “Top 10” vegetables are for your area and increase the quantity and length of season of these
- Continue the newsletter during the winter months, to help members stay connected
- Select varieties for eating quality
- Grow something different, like cut flowers, mushrooms, and berries
- Perform end-of-the-year surveys, and use these to help plan next year’s crop
Member Feedback
- Conduct end-of-the-season surveys (be sure to provide feedback to members on the survey results)
- Provide suggestion/comments box at the pick-up site
Member Education
- Important part of the success of CSA – how to eat seasonally and locally
- Many people today are not accustomed to preparing and eating fresh food, so direct communication from the farmer can help members transition from the supermarket model to the CSA model and to the PSC model
- Special events on the farm
- Newsletters
Newsletters
- Try to provide weekly or bi-weekly throughout growing season
- Provide a list of what’s in the week’s harvest
- Info on how to wash, store, prepare, and preserve produce
- Recipes and nutritional information
- Farm updates – crops, weather, pests, yields, what produce will be coming in
- Encourage members to help with newsletter
Community-Building Events
- Offer a variety of events
- Know your members’ ages, families, and interests
- Schedule and promote events early in the season
- Have food as the central theme of all events
- Provide hands-on and participatory activities
- Incorporate animals into the event
- Farm field days and work days
- Seasonal festivals
- Educational workshops
- Youth education activities
Crop Production for CSA: Growing Experience
- Farmers must have experience in growing large quantities of lots of different vegetables before signing up any members
- The more experience you have, the more stable and secure your members’ food supply will be!
What do Members Want?
- Members prefer the traditional, basic, and familiar veggies they are accustomed to buying (small amounts of exotic produce are welcome!)
- Fruit is in high demand
- Most members do not favor large quantities each week – members sometimes drop out of CSAs because they feel overwhelmed by the amount of vegetables
- Members generally prefer wide variety rather than a large quantity
- High-quality, clean produce
How Much Should I Distribute?
- Weekly shares vary in size and variety over the course of the season
- Typical CSAs offer an average of 10 pounds of produce each week (may range from 5 pounds/week early in the season up to 20 pounds/week in late summer)
- Aim for 5-12 different types of produce each week
Planting and Harvest Amounts
- The best way to determine how much to plant for your desired yield is to measure and record the production on your own farm over several years
- You can estimate a vegetable yield according to local growers experience
- Selecting Varieties
- Plant a number of different varieties of each crop in succession to provide a long harvest season
- Choose varieties based on flavor
Develop a Crop Plan
- A well-thought out crop plan is absolutely essential to a successful CSA
- Succession planting is critical!
- Spread out the harvests so members don’t receive all of the crop at once
- Use season extension techniques to lengthen the season
Distribution
- On-farm pick-up
- Central distribution site
- Farmers’ market distribution
- Home delivery
- Some CSAs offer a choice of 1-2 days to accommodate a variety of schedules
Other CSA Products
- Cut flowers
- Baked and canned goods
- Poultry and eggs
- Meat and dairy products
- Fiber
- Honey and beeswax products
Supplementing Products from Other Farms
- Benefits
- Increased diversity of products
- Reduced risk
- One-stop shopping convenience
- Drawbacks
- Extra labor
- Extra bookkeeping
- Increased costs
Ways of Increasing Diversity Without Supplementing
- Distribution at local cooperatives
- Distribution at farmers’ markets
3. ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF DEGROWTH FOOD AND AGRICUTLURE ALTERNATIVES.
By Agata Hummel, Pete Luetchford & Jeff Pratt
During the GROWL course in Poland we have proposed a critical exploration of degrowth alternatives. This idea stems from a lack of deep analysis of the initiatives that a degrowth movement supports as a result to the critique of the growth economy. We wanted to avoid an idealistic approach to the process of building alternatives. The aim was to broaden our awareness of obstacles and internal as well as structural problems that activists face in their practical efforts. Thanks to this kind of analysis we hope to construct a body of practical knowledge available to all activists that would like to learn from the problems of others in order to improve their own work. We think that activist anthropology has a particular role in this task. It studies and describes alternative social organizations and its functioning. Therefore ethnographic materials constitute an excellent source of knowledge about social alternatives.
We have proposed an ethnographic exercise described in detail in the TTT module. Our excersise is based on the chain of thought presented in the book of Peter Luetchford and Jeff Pratt: "Food for Change: The Politics and Values of Social Movements". The authors have been acompanying us from the begining of GROWL alternative and even before. This is how they describe the content of the book and how they conceptualize motivations, challenges and problems faced by activists.
"The book is a study of alternative food systems in Europe, based on case studies inItaly, Spain France, and England. It draws on many disciplinarysources, but principally those of anthropology. Anthropology has long insisted that the economic is not just the activities we get paid for, but all the ways people produce exchange and consume things, services, knowledge. The book draws on a long history of research on how people think about the morality of different kinds of economic relations, and on how monetary value and other kinds of value co-exist and interact. It is also ethnographic: based on working with smallgroups of people, observing, discussing and recording over manymonths, sometimes with repeat visits over many years. It has been important to all to draw on the voices of those active in these movements, and make accessible their insights and critical perceptions. (...) In the case studiesthere is only one example of people who draw directly on the ideas ofthe de-growth movement, a small group of neo-rural farmers in theTarn (southern France). However their ambitions overlap with those found in a number of other contexts: the struggle to achieve greater autonomy from the corporations which dominate the mainstream food chain, the desire to produce and to live more sustainably, the attempt to create economic relations based on mutuality rather than the maximisation of monetary value.
(...) The farmers in ourcase studies have very mixed backgrounds: ex-sharecroppers, exday-labourers, long-established farming households and neo-rurals.They are all struggling to create farming systems which are analternative to the mainstream, at a time when small farmers across Europe are in crisis. There are three interlinked processes which have created this situation. First is what hasbeen termed the industrialisation of agriculture, a technological revolution which has steadily replaced farm-labour by industrially produced commodities: machinery, chemicals to maintain soil fertility, pesticides and herbicides to control crop loss. Over the last 50 years this has reorganised agricultural production, creating new economies of scale, specialisation, and an energy intensive model of farming which is at the centre of debates about sustainability.
The second process is the integration of markets through the reduction of tariff barriers and mass transportation systems. Britain experienced this first in the c19th, but in places like Andalusia the destruction of local food economies only happened in the last 30 years. Now farmers have to compete on price with all the others in the EU, and to avariable extent with everywhere else in the world.
The third process is the rapid takeover of our food supply by the supermarket chains. Four firms sell three-quarters of all food bought in UK. The world’s largest groups – Walmart, Carrefour, Tesco, are all global operators. These are the crucial players, creating the space where all the other processes take effect. It is their logistical operations which make large-scale farming and specialisation so prevalent, and where global market integration is realised.
(...) Our case studies have at their centre groups of farmers who are trying to create some autonomy outside the main circuits of capital, and put their energies into a range of non-commercial values while maintaining a minimally acceptable livelihood. For some it is simply the old ambition to maintain a farm intact and the land ‘in good heart’ to pass on to the next generation. This can merge with a more contemporary concern with sustainable farming practices, or with producing fresh food, free of pesticides, to local markets. It also includes strategies to create closer links between producers and consumers, and built either around locality or horizontal networks.
In analysing these strategies we used the concept of a closed economy: the attempt to keep the fruits of labour and creativity, the goods and resources it generates, within the bounds of those who produce them. The boundaries are those of particular domains: the household, the locality, the network. The contrast is with the open economy of the mainstream, which is experienced as a constantly destabilising force, sucking out value and reducing autonomy. The term echoes the language of the farmers in the case studies, whether they were talking about the practice of organic farming or being exploited by whole salers. It also owes a good deal to the work of Gudeman and Rivera (1990) and to Ploeg’s account of the New Peasantries (2009). Two additional points. Closure is always relative, and thought of as such, though there are a few activists in the Tarn who embrace a vision of complete autarky. Secondly value refers to both the monetary return to their labour, and to the other values, food quality, sustainability or mutuality with which they are engaged, and which are threatened by the mainstream food-chain. The co-existence and tensions between these two kinds of value are a constant theme in the farmers’ reflections.
Similar strategies for increasing autonomy are found in all the case studies. They reduce the cost of farming inputs through rotations and mixed farming patterns where the waste from one activity is the input to another. Many farmers have switched to organics to reduce production costs, in addition to those who do so as part of an explicitly anti-capitalist ideology. If expensive investment is needed, never borrow money from a bank: use savings from the boom years, or off-farm employment, or versions of micro-credit. They create co-operatives to share-costs of production and distribution. They forge non-monetarised economic relations to share labour, seeds, machinery, surpluses. The Dutchcall these ‘closed wallet transactions’, in the Tarn they arecalled ‘troc’ and similar terms exist elsewhere. These arenetworks of mutuality.
(...) If the mainstream market, with its supermarket prices, does not generate a livelihood for farmers, then in order to get a fair return to their labour they need a ‘justprice’. This is in one sense a very old issue, revived by the historical and anthropological research on the moral economy. It poses the problem of how to create an economy based on mutuality, rather than unfettered market relations and monetary value which makes everything commensurable, reduces qualities to quantities, and squeezes out non-monetary values. This is particularly evident in thestrategies of the French neo-rurals who are informed by de-growthphilosophy." (
Pete Luetchford & Jeff Pratt) Footnote: This fragment is taken from the authors unpublished presentation of the book.
In our exercise we have chosen one particular anthropological text written by Pete Luetchford on functioning of a food cooperative in Andalusia. It tells the story of the cooperative Pueblos Blancos. Pueblos Blancos developed as an alliance between the cooperative, which was politically inspired by former jornaleros (paid rural workers), and more individually motivated family farmers. Its political culture was showing a preference for local markets and consumers. The objective was to establish short commercial circuits so that people who live nearby could benefit from eating Pueblos Blancos’ products. It was also meant to compete with the prices of conventional products sold in the long commercial circuits. Local production-consumption links therefore suggest an alternative to capitalism – a rural world maintaining relationships in which producers and products are known and trusted.
At the very beginning of Pueblos Blancos the group, that was politically inspired by former jornaleros, had to compromise their original values of producing mainly for self-consumption (and sell only the surplus) and accept to open for the bigger market (open economy). This compromise of the political ideas for the benefit of economic profit was one of the main causes of conflict inside Pueblos Blancos. The text focuses on the problem of the conflict between open (market) economy and closed economy proposed by activists as an alternative to an economy conceived as unjust, inhuman, based on competition and exploitation.
Our exercise consisted of role playing. We proposed the workshop participants to enter in the roles of the people described in the text and try to feel their problems and to propose solutions. We believe that this kind of exercise, and others with a similar objective, should be part of the degrowth critique of the socio-economic reality, both the mainstream and the alternative.
Bibliography
Luetchford, P. 2013, "Andalusia, Spain" [in:] P. Luetchford & J. Pratt, Food for Change: The Politics and Values of Social Movements, Pluto Press, London.
Further recomended readings:
Guthman, J. 2004, Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California, University of California Press, Berkeley.
Guthman, J. 2004, 'The Trouble with “Organic Lite” in California: A Rejoinder to the “Conventionalisation Debate”'. Sociologia Ruralis, 44 (3): 301–16.
Luetchford, P. & Pratt, J. 2013, Food for Change: The Politics and Values of Social Movements, Pluto Press, London.
Pratt, J. 2009, "Incorporation and resistance. Analytical Issues in the ConventionalizationDebate and Alternative Food Chains", Journal of AgrarianChange, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 155–174.
Premat, A. 2012, Sowing Change: The Making of Havana’s Urban Agriculture, Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville
Links to movies, books & more
PART ONE: critique of industrial agriculture
La semence dans tous ses etats
A documentary by Christophe Guyon concerning the endangered traditional seeds, the loss of biodiversity, and its serious complications on the fate of human societies.
Fed up!
FED UP! answers many questions regarding genetic engineering, the Green Revolution, genetic pollution and modern pesticides.
Deconstructing supper
We learn startling information about the milk we drink in North America and meet Indian farmers and activists fighting to keep traditional farming practices alive.
Our Seeds (2008)
The film explores the relationship between traditional biodiversity and traditional culture in the wide-ranging locations and shows that there are the same problems and solutions in each of them.
Seeds of Sovereignty (2013)
This film is the follow up to our landmark 2012 film Seeds of Freedom, narrated by Jeremy Irons. Find out more and watch more films at seedsoffreedom.info
Planet for Sale: The Food Crisis and the Global Land Grab (2011)
Food Fight (2012)
A fascinating look at how American agricultural policy and food culture developed in the 20th century, and how the California food movement rebelled against big agribusiness to launch the local organic food movement.
Seeds of Freedom (2012)
The story of seed has become one of loss, control, dependence and debt. It’s been written by those who want to make vast profit from our food system, no matter what the true cost.
seedsoffreedom.info
Unser taglich Brot / Our Daily Bread
A wide-screen tableau of a feast which isn't always easy to digest - and in which we all take part. A pure, meticulous and high-end film experience that enables the audience to form their own ideas.
Food Inc (2008)
Robert Kenner lifts the veil on US food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of the government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA.
Farm for the Future (2009)
BBC documentary on the precient global farming and food crisis, filmed in the UK.
The World According to Monsanto (TV 2008)
If they control seed, they control food, they know it - it's strategic.
We feed the world
Insights in the modern agriculture and modern food supply
Solutions locals pour un desordre global
Claude Bourguignon refers to the use of heavy machinery as a kind of “pissing contest” that has little to do with practical agriculture and everything to do with the militaristic aggression that supplanted primarily female-centred food-production methods that prevailed for thousands of years before the combustion engine.
"Εκεί που έπεσε ο σπόρος..." / Where the seed fell (in greek)
Primary school students make a film about the consequences of genetically modified plants.
Growing Doubt
The impact of genetically engineered herbicide tolerant crops in Argentina and the US. For more info: growingdoubt.org
Ilha das Flores
It tracks the path of a tomato from garden to dump with the help of a monotone voiceover and a collection of bizarre images.
King Corn (2007)
A fun and crusading journey into the digestive tract of our fast food nation where one ultra-industrial, pesticide-laden, heavily-subsidized commodity dominates the food pyramid from top to bottom - corn.
Growing Change: A Journey Inside Venezuela's Food Revolution (2011)
The filmmaker's journey to understand why current food systems leave hundreds of millions of people in hunger.
PART TWO: alternatives to the industrial agriculture
What's Organic About Organic? (trailer)
The film illustrates that the organic food debate extends well beyond personal choice and into the realm of social responsibility.
Go Organic! (2007)
This series of films provide a refreshing education on the current state of agriculture, pointing out positive sustainable and organic practices that you can take part in.
The Meatrix I, II, & II ½
Louis Fox, 2006, 10 min., animation, New York, NY
Frankensteer, Ted Remerowski and Marrin Canell, 2005, 10 min. segment., doc, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada & U.S.A.
Back to the Land…Again, Gretta Wing Miller, 2006, 20 min., doc, Wisconsin
Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, Faith Morgan, 2006, 20 min. segment, doc, Cuba
Good Stewarts – NY Premiere, Dulanie Ellis, 2006, 19 min., doc, Ventura County, CA
Ladies of the Land – WORLD PREMIERE, Megan Thompson, 2006, 29 min., doc, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, NYC
Fresh: New Thinking about What We're Eating (2009)
The underground documentary that became a massive grassroots success, FRESH is the embodiment of the good food movement.
Homenatge a Cataluna II
A documentary, a research project, a story of stories about the construction of a sustainable, solidary and decentralized economy.
Another World (2013)
A film about the grassroots initiatives in Greece that form another world right here and now, away from the crisis and beyond capitalism.
Natural Farming With Masanobu Fukuoka: Minimal Effort And Abundant Yields
Full-length documentary following the legendary Masanobu Fukuoka on a visit to India.
The Permaculture Concept (1989)
Permaculture A Quiet Revolution (2008)
Edible City: Grow the Revolution (2012)
The stories of the pioneers who are digging their hands into the dirt, working to transform their communities and do something truly revolutionary: grow local food systems that are socially just, environmentally sound, economically viable and resilient to climate change and market collapse.
Locally Abundant (2012)
An educational documentary film.
Education for a Sustainable Future
Coming Home: The Reinvention of Localized Economies (2009)
A timely and profound documentary about an alternative kind of economy, the opposite of the ‘free-market’ capitalism that has led us into our current morass.
PART THREE: more..
Dirt Full Movie
Formidable Vegetable Sound System - Yield (Official Permaculture Music Video - HD)
Learn Permaculture Design for Free
Seeds of Permaculture: If It's Beautiful, It's Better (2013)
Establishing a Food Forest the Permaculture Way (2008)
Moon Planting Guide
Guerrilla Composting - How its Done!
South African Students Grow Veggies to Feed the Local Children
Christie Walk: A Piece Of Ecocity (2011)
Grasp The Nettle (2013)
Sustainability in Exile: Tibetan Farmers Cultivating Compassion
7 Days In Community: A Manifestation of Love (2014)
Down To Earth: Small Farm Issues In a Big Farm World (2013)
Perma Kultcha (2010)
Perma Kultcha Part 1
Perma Kultcha Part 2
Perma Kultcha Part 3
Miracle Farms, a 5-acre commercial permaculture orchard in Southern Quebec,Canada
Permaculture in Costa Rica
Permaculture Paradise at Val and Eli's Garden!
Corporate Couple Become Permaculture Activists
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