A report from the 1st Organic Farming Congress at Bahçeşehir University in Turkey.
Natural agriculture
Orion Magazine has a short article about shizen nouhou, or “natural agriculture,” as practiced by a Japanese spiritual group called Shumei. This was founded by a certain Mokichi Okada, who after living through two world wars decided that agriculture could be one of the ways we can learn how to respect life, and thus heal the world. But a special kind of agriculture, involving no inputs at all, lest the land think we no longer trust it. It sounds crazy, I know, but the story of sophisticated Tokyo urbanites reconnecting with the land is rather affecting.
Garden Mosaics
Garden Mosaics is “a science education and outreach program based at Cornell University that has been thriving in more than two dozen cities” in the US and has recently spread to South Africa. Marianne Krasny, a professor at Cornell, kept a blog of her 2006 trip to southern Africa. I wonder what they think about urban fruit gleaning…
Nitrogen has negative effect on species diversity
N from agriculture depleting grassland diversity.
Reconnecting the food chain
“Alternative food networks” are good for you.Â