Agrarian Sparks in the Winter Dark

Reader Contribution by Steven Mcfadden
Published on December 1, 2010

As Earth tilts on her axis away from the Sun and toward the inky depths of winter’s night sky, darkness seems personified in a host of grim reports on the state of our environment, including imminent “drastic climate changes” explicitly foretold by the top scientists now gathering for a Climate Summit in Cancun, Mexico.

For those who monitor developments on the land and with our food, the darkness fairly gushes from the latest report from the UNs Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

In November the FAO warned that world food price increases are “dangerously close” to crisis level. This level was last attained in 2008 — a year when prices peaked as a consequence of unstable climate, crops being used for biofuels, and raw financial speculation for profit. In the gnawing aftermath of that upward spike in prices came increasing dearness and scarcity of food staples, then political instability, and finally food riots in over a dozen nations. Darkness.

Just now, according to the latest FAO report, the broad global index that they employ to measure food prices has risen to 197 points and is accelerating upward. This mark is stumbling close to an index value of 200 points, which was the point at which the food riots erupted two years ago.

A catalog of suffusing darkness could well go on and on. Yet amidst this darkness — indeed framed by the darkness — are sparks of light that draw my attention and fill me with a positive passion. For the sake of that passion, with this blog post I cast to the cyberwaves a handful of 21st Century agrarian sparks to flash in the winter dark. May they convey warmth and inspiration.

An international conference on agrarian themes just concluded in Poland, having attracted participants from India, Russia, England, Wales, Canada, Holland, Sweden and Germany.  Together they issued a resounding 21st Century Manifesto for Food & Farming. In part, the manifesto reads:

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