Note to new foragers;

while you are learning about the species you want to harvest, also learn what sustainable harvesting looks like. Learn about invasive species management, and agroecology. A lot of people start with the book Braiding Sweetgrass, by Dr Robin Wall Kimmerer. It is approachable, and covers the Honorable Harvest really well. The Poor Proles Almanac podcast and Substack are both incredible sources of information as well.

In general, tho, you should start by knowing this:

- If a species is native, and especially if it is rare on the landscape, do what you can to encourage it. Don’t over harvest, clear away invasives around it, save and spread its seeds. Maybe even hand pollinate it if needed.

- If a species is not native, feel free to harvest much more of it. Discourage its spread, but you don’t necessarily need to remove every single one you see. For a very small select few non native species, a little bit of spreading can even be okay. But be sure you know what you are doing. In general, it is better to remove a non native species than to let it stay. Keep native seeds on you to replace them with. I carry around little dime bags of seeds.

- if a species is Invasive (not native & choking out native species) remove as much as you can without damaging the local ecology. For foraging this might mean you harvest a ton of yellow charlock, even more than you need, because you see it choking out wild lettuce. This is a good thing to do (at least where I am). Because the charlock will overtake everything. But if you start managing in other ways, like tarping or tilling or spraying, keep in mind that oftentimes the medicine can be worse than the disease. If you spray a field of charlock you don’t get wild lettuce, you get more charlock.

Anyways, good luck!

On the border of Peru and Bolivia, the Waru Waru—an indigenous Quechua word that means ridge—are once again protecting potato and quinoa crops as they did in the region 2,000 years ago. "It is an agricultural system that lets us face climate change, which has changed the seasons of the year. It is very beneficial in times of drought and frost," farmer Cesar Cutipa, 42, told AFP. Puno lies on Lake Titicaca about 3,812 meters (12,507 feet) above sea level. Farmers have made six Waru Waru nearby in flood-prone fields. Furrows form a rectangular platform, where planting is done. Surrounded by water, the planting beds are up to 100 meters long, between four and 10 meters wide and one meter high. The water around the plants creates a microclimate, absorbing heat from the sun during the day and radiating it back at night to ward off frost in sub-zero temperatures. "The Waru Waru cannot flood during the rainy season because they have an intelligent drainage system that reaches the river. They have many advantages," agronomist Gaston Quispe told AFP. In 2023, when Puno suffered one of the largest periods of drought in almost six decades, Waru Waru helped farmers cope with lack of water and avoid food shortages. The area is home to mostly indigenous farming communities, mostly Quechua in Peru—and up the Andes—and both Quechua and Aymara in Bolivia. "We are able to live here peacefully because we have our potatoes, our quinoa and barley. We can be in peace without going to the city," said 22-year-old farmer Valeria Nahua.

In response to last year’s record-breaking heat due to El Niño and impacts from climate change, Indigenous Zenù farmers in Colombia are trying to revive the cultivation of traditional climate-resilient seeds and agroecology systems.

One traditional farming system combines farming with fishing: locals fish during the rainy season when water levels are high, and farm during the dry season on the fertile soils left by the receding water.

Locals and ecologists say conflicts over land with surrounding plantation owners, cattle ranchers and mines are also worsening the impacts of the climate crisis.

To protect their land, the Zenù reserve, which is today surrounded by monoculture plantations, was in 2005 declared the first Colombian territory free from GMOs.

Interesting editorial on the progress on research into introducing parasitic wasps from their native range to control spotted lanternfly populations, with a striking observation that the research into pest eradication is the only thing that got entomologists the funding to study the native lanternflies in north america. Did you know there were native lanternflies in north america? I didn’t know there were native lanternflies in north america

Quoting the article:

Lanternflies are one of many groups of animals that remain virtually unknown in our own backyards, says Yanega. It baffles him. If NASA discovered a distant planet that was home to 10 million life-forms, we'd stop at nothing to learn about them.

"We live on a planet right now that has 10 million undescribed life-forms on it, and nobody seems to give a shit," he says. "I wish I could show them to everyone."

hello! I've just found your blog and that's AMAZING, but I have a question: what do you think about industrial food? it's super low quality, and furthermore, they produce a lot of trash as plastic (unnecessary) packaging! It would be easier just to say "starting eating organic food", but for poor people, buying grapes or apples, even not organic, costs more than buying cookies full of fat, sodium and carbohydrates (not talking about all the chemicals). I personally, think about non conventional food plants as an alternative since most of them are super resistant to weather changes and easy to rise. I wanna know what you think about

Hi! Thanks for getting in touch. The long and short of it is, I hate industrialised farming. It pollutes the air, soil and water, poisons and impoverishes farmers, increases the likelihood of zoonotic pandemics, reduces the genetic diversity of plants and encroaches upon wildlife territories. We need a massive return to local, small-scale regenerative agriculture if we are to feed everyone and equitably share the earth with other species. But you’re right, it has to be done in a way that’s just and fair for people who can currently only afford plasticked, pesticided and processed food, as well as making a living for farmers. We’re all on the same side here, but people often don’t realise that. I also think we need to massively diversify our food plant range - a system that relies on just a few staple crops is insanely vulnerable, especially with more and more extreme weather coming our way. So many plants I was raised to think of as ‘weeds’ are not only edible but highly nutritious and often medicinal. Where are the dandelion farmers? The mycologists selling turkey tails? And foraging should be taught in all schools so kids can feed themselves in the wild and pass these skills on to future generations. As with most climate solutions, I don’t think it’s an either/or - I’d welcome pretty much any solution as part of a wider melting pot of alternatives. The only thing I won’t budge on is that we have to change, because the way we in the North and West farm right now just isn’t sustainable.

Intro to U.S. Agriculture Book Recommendations

Requested by @languagesandpain

Healing Grounds by Liz Carlisle

If you're interested in agroecology this is a great place to start. It highlights a handful of Black, Latino, and Asian American farmers and their lives, history, and research. It's a great all-around book too because it touches on animal agriculture, produce, and mushrooms (which I don't see get talked about much), and also different methods like agroforestry and pasture systems.

Grain by Grain by Bob Quinn and Liz Carlisle

This book is basically the story of Bob Quinn and his farm, there's a lot of good info in it. This is the first book that really struck home to me that I need to listen to people in conventional agriculture even if I personally don't like it, because there's important experiences that need to be heard. It touches on topics like converting farms to more sustainable methods, heirloom crops, and how we deal with food/diet related science in the US. I don't have any health issues of note, but after reading this book I found an organic bread with Kamut wheat in it to see how it was, and it totally takes away any white on my tongue when I'm eating it daily. Pretty fascinating.

Perilous Bounty by Tom Philpott

This book widely covers major problems in US conventional agriculture, mostly covering major agriculture corporations and environmental impacts but also some labor issues, and small/mid size farm struggles. I'm not going to lie, this one is depressing. I generally do well with tough topics but near the end I had to put it down a few times because it was making me feel a bit hopeless. Which I fault the author with a bit for not dealing with better, because we need more hope to be able to believe these problems are fixable. He also doesn't cover the eastern US which irks me a bit because the south is a major agricultural region. But overall, a lot of great info and some interesting ideas for solutions near the end.

With These Hands by Daniel Rothenberg

I haven't actually read this one yet, but I've read sections. It looks like another tough read, but covers the experiences of migrant farmworkers across the US. Definitely trigger warnings for modern day slavery, racism, abuse, and more.

Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations

I found this one to be a bit pessimistic honestly, but I read it a while ago so I dont remember what exactly bothered me. But it's a good overview of agricultural collapse through history, soil science, and issues in soil today.

Lentil Underground by Liz Carlisle

(Can you tell I've read all of Carlisle's books yet). So this book didn't really make much of an impression on me. But I'm recommending it because if anything it kind of illustrates the tediousness of policy change, changing people's minds, running an unconventional farm. It's a bit boring compared to the other recommendations but if you're in the industry there's things to think about in it.

Non-book recommendations

For a while was listening to Real Organic Podcast. After about 10 episodes (not in order) you notice they start to really repeat a lot of ideas. But they have a lot of episodes that highlight problems with chemical use, water use, how movements like organic get co-opted by big corporations, and more.

I also recommend the news website Civil Eats. They post a lot of book recommendations, as well as cover a whole variety of agricultural issues across the world.

If anyone has any additional recommendations feel free to add on! I'm always looking for more books >:)

Poll remake so it ends in a week instead of a day

*useful here meaning like, can be made into crafts but not necessarily edible

**critical meaning like an evaluation; not in the negative sense

I love farming i love having soil under my nails I love planting seeds I love tending the sprouts I love collecting the harvest I love having clothes covered in dirt I love carrying heavy objects around a field i love admiring the insects i love being grateful for rain I love eating the food and sharing it with the community!!!! I love it all!!!!!!!

I wonder if there’s a way to kind of reconcile the technology gap between industrial agriculture and more agroecological and regenerative systems.

As environmentally friendly and appealing as it is to think about small diversified farms, there’s simply not enough people in agriculture growing food for that to be a realistic scenario for national food production (in the US, I know many other countries produce low-technology with more labor). But at the same time almost all agricultural technology is developed for large, monocrop farms, which makes it hard to imagine technology application for diversified farms that would make it easier and more efficient.

I think especially when those of us on the left imagine these changes we can be idealistic, and want to mentally separate ourselves and the future from existing production methods and markets and consumers. But to realistically develop a sustainable food system that can feed a state or feed a country, we do need to think larger scale. Rather than going back in time, or making things extremely small scale, we need to consider connecting the gap between industrial food production and regenerative practices.

okay, who wants to learn about the (potential) return of the Dust Bowl?

I'm trying to figure out my audience for a communication project

I found this link on Facebook, it is resources for disabled farmers and gardeners.

Feel free to add more links and tips in the reblogs.

If Ugandans have a social safety net, it is woven from banana fibers, and if there is a clear path to socialism, it will be lined with banana leaves. The lusuku model, premised on intercropping and smallholder farming, could be the basis for national agrarian reform that improves the lives of Uganda’s agricultural workers without accelerating the destruction of the natural environment. Uganda faces increasing difficulty feeding itself because of climate extremes and land degradation, and this affects farmers more significantly than anyone else. Moreover, since the 1990s, the ruling National Resistance Movement regime sold off and dismantled most of the coffee, tea, and cotton growers cooperatives, leaving smallholder farmers in the hands of the predatory middlemen which cooperatives had been established to protect them against. Unable to collectively bargain and exposed to dramatic fluctuations in the market prices for cash crops, many people left rural areas to search for employment in cities. This has been a driving force behind the massive inequality between rural and urban workers. Ugandans now produce more food than they consume, even exporting to other countries in the region, yet 41% of people are undernourished, and agricultural production has decreased over the last 20 years. For the most part, the strategy pursued by Uganda’s government has been to encourage the development of ecologically disastrous intensive agriculture for export, privileging foreign investors rather than developing the infrastructure that would benefit peasants. Indeed, while more than 70% of Ugandans are employed in agriculture, the sector only receives around 4% of public investment, and projects aimed at helping smallholder farmers have had very little success, even by their own standards. Many of the government’s investments in agriculture very clearly advantage larger landowners, to the detriment of the poorest farmers. For example, most of the government’s investment in labor-saving technologies has been spent on tractors, which are great for large plots but largely unaffordable or unsuitable for the average farmer, whose plot is usually between 1-3 acres large. However, a socialist transition premised on agroecological reforms could make use of the existing lusuku model to create the kind of growth that actually improves poor farmers’ lives without destroying their environment. This could begin with reestablishing cooperatives and engineering agricultural prices around social needs and goals, like guaranteeing access to food. Research from around the world has shown that while large, monocrop plantations are good at producing huge volumes of one crop, smallholder farms are more productive when evaluated on a per-unit area and are capable of securing national food sovereignty. Why, for example, should Ugandans buy rice imported from Pakistan or Vietnam when banana intercropping yields more calories per hectare than rice? Lusukus could feed the nation without relying on foreign experts, development aid, or the capital-intensive inputs now being imported to grow for export. Because lusukus are far better for the soil, they also improve the nation’s capacity to resist severe floods and drought, effects of climate change that hit poor farmers hardest. In these ways, the lusuku model could provide a sustainable path to socialist development.

This makes some of the practices we'll be implementing, and I'm glad to see them getting more attention.

WINECAPS HEAL THE SOIL, ARE SAFE TO EAT AND ARE VERY INEXPENSIVE. BUY SUBSTRATE FROM A RELIABLE PROVIDER AND GUERRILLA GARDEN THEM ALL OVER YOUR CITY OR TOWN NO ONE CAN STOP YOU AND THEY WILL SPREAD AND HEAL

Reading and learning about agroecological practices and syntropic agriculture is like a fucking minecraft healing potion for my soul.

I would really like somehow someway to put my education in agriculture towards a social movement -- in food sovereignty and sustainable systems, and things like that. But honestly I have no clue how to do so. Where I am agriculture is very dominated by more privileged white farmers that can afford technological and chemical solutions to problems, and so conventional ag is the dominant system. Everything I've read thus far makes it sound like the only way to influence that group of people is to establish a farm myself and have them come around eventually by proving I'm not insane (and proving that I make a profit), which would require personal capital that I simply don't have and couldn't get for years (if even, in this economy). There is a city nearby but it doesn't have an urban agriculture movement like a lot of major cities do, as far as I'm aware at least.

Idk, I've been spending a lot of time frustrated at the existing possibilities of what I can do where I am with my degree, that maybe I haven't been thinking and learning outside the box enough. I think I'm going to move towards learning more about grassroots movements and organizations and being a good community member. I feel that might reveal a door I can't see right now.