Agroecology and a Bill in the UK Parliament

In five days, a bill will go through Parliament, a wonderful opportunity to get a national conversation growing on changing agricultural practice for the benefit of people and ecology and people as part of ecology.  It may have little chance of passing, but heigh-ho, we’re all in this for the long haul!  I learned about it from the World Development Movement blog.

The bill introduces concepts of animal welfare, food wastage, bio-diverstiy, pollution, good water practices, rural livelihoods and more.  It’s great!  Read the text of the bill here.

And here’s a basic definition of Agro-Ecology:

“Agroecology is the framework which will allow us to scientifically address multiple interrelated objectives of economic viability, social equity, and environmental integrity. An agroecosystem may be a field, a farm, or a larger region such as a river valley.  Implicit in agroecological research and education is the idea that knowledge of ecosystem relationships will allow farmers to manage inputs and processes in agricultural production systems and thereby optimize for productivity, sustainability, stability and social equity.”

Thanks to this really interesting website for the quotation above as well as the graphic at the top.

This is the page from Campaign for Real Farming with explanation and a how-to-be-involved.  If you are reading this in the UK, please contact your MP.  Let’s get this conversation happening!

Guava Jelly, and Some Links

A SONG, THEN A COLLECTION OF INTERESTING LINKS

I’ve decided I’m not going to write a post about Guava Jelly, even though Bob Marley singing about it is happy and sexy.  Enjoy the song and feel reprieved…

Instead I am going to share all those web links that accumulate in files on my computer. I guess these offerings of links really do illustrate the Kitchen-Counter-Culture approach to food, cooking and eating.  Here goes:

A farmer in the Philippines inspiring soil health with Lacto-bacillus (the critters in our ferments)

And the Importance of Good Soils in Harnessing Carbon as a response to Climate Change

and a piece on a visionary seed-saver in India connecting Climate Change and diversity of rice varieties.

How the Quinoa brou-ha-ha may be conceptualised differently in the North and the South issues of “malnutrition, commodity markets, land degradation, and globalisation.”

There’s a campaign that’s very important protecting the interests of small and poor farmers in Africa against the land-grabbing and market-dominating tactics of big corporations–Read this Red Pepper article as well as this interesting portal.  Here’s a link to the World Development Movement campaign.  This is important. Food Security for people means small systems, not being marginalised in the big ones.  Where we still have any leverage, we must use it.

An interesting piece on the world history of Rhubarb and how to think of it as a savour ingredient– I’ve used it really successfully in Indian “curries” (whoops, sorry!) so can vouch for this.

A recipe for an alternative soy sauce though calls for beef stock.  Interestingly I remember being suggested a vegan beef-stock alternative as a good mixture of black-strap molasses and soy sauce.

A wonderful list of things to do with dandelions — I love these kind of lists — and there are so many more ideas as well.  Dandelions, in their abundance, are such an incredible gift, and feeling thankful for them is a spiritual practice of spring and summer for me.  Here’s a recipe for Spicy Fried Dandelion Flowers.  And a piece on Dandelion Root and, among other things, dehydrating them.  A few weeks ago, inspired by Pascal Baudar of Urban Outdoor Skills (operating in dry Southern California so very different from my cool moist world here), I made a kimchi with lots of dandelion leaves– it turned out really well.  Get ready for a fun Dandelion post from Moi-Meme coming up in the next few weeks 🙂

Getting personal: After all those years I had migraines, small ones and large ones, I did come to believe a leaky-gut hypothesis, and pretty much feel healed by eating very very low (though not no) gluten and sugar.   This article talks about a the role of Zonulin in Leaky Gut syndrome from a Paleo point of view.

Here’s a fun list of ways to get fermented foods in your diet throughout the day, for health and healing maybe of that Leaky Gut…

Last but not least, and on a differetn and happy note, this seems like a really fun thing to do with children who, like mine, were or are Roald Dahl obsessed: Lickable Wallpaper as in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.