In November 2012, Sophie, Asher and I finalised our acquisition of just under 50 acres near Second Valley, on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula. This comes after a number of years looking for land, weighing the merits of buying and dreaming of a regenerative, permaculture-based small farm. It’s an exciting adventure, and the process of our developing relationship with this patch of ground is now being documented at the blog Trees, Bees and Cheese. We invite you to check it out.
Greenhorns: 50 dispatches from the New Farmers’ Movement
Edited by Zoë Ida Bradbury, Severine von Tscharner Fleming and Paula Manalo
Published by Storey Publishing
A few years ago, a young graduate and aspiring farmer with the spectacular name of Severine von Tscharner Fleming began profiling new American farmers. What began as a documentary film project has, in the ensuing years, grown into a thriving network with the mission of recruiting, promoting and supporting a new generation of agrarians. Drawing on the diversity of their members, the Greenhorns network utilises “avant-garde programming, video, audio, web content, publications, events, and art projects that increase the odds for success and enhance the profile and social lives of America’s young farmers.”
North America, like Australia, has an aging farming population. As a majority of farmers drift into their late 50s and early 60s, the absence of a new generation of aspiring farmers taking on the responsibility of food production has furrowed brows in farmers’ organisations for some years. The recruitment of “millions of rough and ready protagonists of place to care for our ecosystems and serve our country healthy food”, a “critical meeting of minds, bodies, and land”, forms the foundation for the Greenhorns work, it is not just a new crop of farmers they seek. Rather, it is the transformation of the food system into one that nourishes communities through a model of farming that is ecologically sound, locally-focussed and small(er)-scale.
In the inner southern suburbs of Adelaide, a small group of permaculturalists have been gathering to experiment with artisanal food skills. From cheese-making to sourdough, they’ve been exploring and sharing the skills that make good food. To herald the end of summer, we sourced 180kg of tomatoes from local farmer’s markets and had a go at making passata. A 15-hour food preservation epic, our kitchens are now lined with long-necks filled with crushed tomatoes. This film is a little something I shot amid the spraying tomatoes and bubbling barrels.
Another of my experiments with the 5×5 format (5 shots, 5 seconds each, using only background noise) from Adelaide’s Australia Day parade, celebrating the many cultures that make up our community.
Made by Hand is a new short film series produced in Brooklyn, New York, celebrating, in the words of the creators, that “which is made locally, sustainably, and with a love for craft.” It’s a thoughtful, beautifully assembled series, the first piece a portrait of Brad Eastabrooke, of Breucklen Distilling Company, and the second, shown above, a piece on writer-turned-artisan-knife-maker Joel Bukiewicz of Cut Brooklyn. The films are inspiring, and offer insights into the nature of craft, the value of objects well made, and the kinds of communities that spring up around and in support of good, honest crafts.
See the full series at Made by Hand.
An experiment in marking time: the year of two houses, two bikes and four pumpkins, illustration by Joel.
Ever since reading Jay Griffith’s book Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time, I’ve been fascinated by the extent to which our relationship and understanding of time is culturally constructed. Our system of numbering off the days and years and months and weeks, and splitting the year into four neat quarters bears little relationship to the reality of their origins: the cycles of the moon, the changing of the seasons.
This is an edited version of a presentation Joel gave at the City of Unley’s Sustainable Garden Design seminar in late 2010.
New and creative approaches to growing food are germinating in communities all over the world. These approaches demonstrate that the benefits of sustainable food growing can reach far beyond the act of gardening. Some build community or aim to improve health, while others address issues of food security or offer strategies for building sustainable local economies, and some are a combination of all of these. In many cities, grassroots food projects are strengthened by the support of visionary local governments.
Many important community food initiatives, like food co-ops, farmers’ markets, community-supported agriculture and school and community gardens are now familiar and are established as important components of the movement for local, community-based food. However in backyards and street-corners other, sometimes less visible, strategies are also contributing to the transformation of our cities.
Filed under adventures, community, diy, gardening
A Mad Scientist’s 50 Tools for Sustainable Communities
By Leah Messinger, reposted from The Atlantic, Mar 23 2011, 11:12 AM ET 2
The "Liberator" Compressed Earth Brick Press, designed by Open Source Ecology. Courtesy of Open Source Ecology
In the middle of rural Missouri there is a physicist-turned-farmer looking to redefine the way we build the world. Marcin Jakubowski is the mastermind behind a group of DIY enthusiasts known as Open Source Ecology and their main project, the Global Village Construction Set. The network of engineers, tinkerers, and farmers is working to fabricate 50 different low-cost industrial machines. A complete set, they say, would be capable of supporting a sustainable manufacturing and farming community of about 200 people almost anywhere across the globe—a “small-scale civilization with modern comforts.”
Filed under adventures, community, diy, food
DVD copies of An Urban Orchard have now completely sold out (thanks, enthusiastic community food advocates!) However, the complete film will shortly be available for free viewing and download online. Stay tuned!
“A delightful film that highlights the power of everyday people to effect positive change. A must see for anyone interested in securing a food future for their community.”
– Phil Dudman, Landshare Australia
Tracing the history of food gathering and production on the Adelaide Plains, from the Kaurna Aboriginal nation to present day backyard gardens, An Urban Orchard is a celebration of growing and sharing good food.
In the inner southern suburbs of the city of Adelaide, South Australia, local residents meet to share the bounty of their backyards. Around the table of the ‘Urban Orchard’ produce exchange, people from diverse backgrounds share their knowledge of food production and preparation. While deceptively simple, the exchange is a rich opportunity for building community, reducing waste and powerful element in emerging local food systems, where the talk is more often of ‘food metres’ than ‘food miles’.
Focussing on the emergence of homegrown fruit and vegetable exchanges, the film follows the journeys of local gardeners involved in the exchange and offers inspiration for other communities to build more just, sustainable and local food systems in their neighbourhoods.
After acquiring a copy of Lynda Brown’s The Preserving Book, Jeremy promptly developed a rigorous program of regular DIY preserving workshops, hosted by our very own contender for South Australia’s smallest kitchen. (Despite its size, our kitchen’s generosity of spirit, if not space, seems infinite, with successful cheese-making workshops as well as daily cooking duties completed with cosyness and ease).
With a parade of syrups, cider, champagnes and cordials, the DIY Preserving Autodidactory program has been largely successful, although not always in the direction intended. Adapting one recipe for mint cordial, Jeremy also brought a selection of other herbs (fennel, lemon verbena) to test in the same proportions as the mint. The highlight, even better than the original mint, was fennel: sweet, punchy and ever-fresh.
Finished, homemade herbal cordials, complete with labels courtesy of Giles
Filed under adventures, community, diy, food
Little House on the Plains 