Lloyd Kahn, former shelter editor for the highly regarded Whole Earth Catalogue, provides a tour of his property in Bolinas, California. Kahn shares the story of his longtime involvement in designing sustainable architecture, and in the lifestyle publishing business. This video (thanks to faircompanies) provides a glimpse into a life devoted to green building, and spreading knowledge on ways to become more self-sufficient.

Here’s another video of this sustainable building, and publisher pioneer:

This short film was shot by Jason Sussberg, a documentary film graduate student at Stanford University, in September of 2010.

Roger Doiron is founder of Kitchen Gardeners International, a network of people helping to rebuild the local food economy. Doiron advocates for the creation of more backyard food gardens, increasing public awareness over important food matters, and redefining national agriculture and food policy toward more sustainable models. In this video, Doiron humorously outlines the subversive nature of growing ones own food, and highlights the more serious environmental and political challenges facing our food supply, and related public health concerns.

Michael Reynolds in Garbage Warrior,
a film by Oliver Hodge

“I feel like I’m like in a herd of buffalo, and they are all stampeding toward a 1000 foot drop-off—and they’re just running over the edge. And I’m in that herd, and I’m like—I ain’t going there!”—eco-architect, Michael Reynolds

Garbage Warrior, a 90-minute documentary film, is the story of crusading architect, Michael Reynolds, to create news ways of building homes that are beneficial to the environment, and promote sustainable living.

But there has been a recent return to growing food. Many families have dug up a space in their backyard (heck, some in their front yard!) to grow some beans or tomatoes, others have joined a community garden, and some are growing potted herbs on their balcony.

In Missoula, MT, they are taking it a step further with a program called Garden City Harvest. Their intent is “to build community through agriculture by growing produce with and for people with low-incomes, offering education and training in ecologically conscious agriculture, and using our sites for the personal restoration of youth and adults.”

Local journalist Jeremy N. Smith has documented the process in his new book, Growing a Garden City. It tells the story of the people involved in the program and explains how it can be replicated in other communities.

“People know about local food now. They know about community farms and gardens. They’ve heard about a teeny piece of it, but this book shows all those teeny pieces put together and you see the bigger picture for the first time.” -Jeremy N. Smith

KECI news segment on “Growing a Garden City”:

h/t to What Can a City Farm Accomplish?

Oxfam America (and their GROW campaign) is asking people everywhere to start a conversation about your food and where it comes from by holding a Sunday Dinner on October 16th. Invite friends and family over for a meal, or have a potluck, and begin an exchange. Oxfam will provide free materials such as placemats, recipe cards, and even a Sunday Dinner discussion guide (pdf).

“At the most basic level, your World Food Day Sunday dinner conversations should focus on the food you eat and where it comes form. Ask your guests to remember that the food they buy at the grocery store or farmer’s market may have been grown by small-scale farmers here or somewhere else in the world. Despite facing resource constraints, like access to land and water, and struggling to adapt to a changing climate, farmers continue to work hard to earn a living – and to provide food for their families and yours. Oxfam and our supporters are focusing on helping the poorest farmers in developing countries around the world.”

Words of support for World Food Day from Desmond Tutu:

Don’t you think it’s time to start a dialogue, or maybe expand it? If this is something you’d like to host yourself, be sure and get your order in for free helpful materials prior to October 12th.

h/t @oxfamamerica

“For three days, Eat Real will offer people a real alternative to industrial food,” said Anya Fernald, founder of Eat Real Festival. “At Eat Real, we want to throw the food makers and farmers of the Bay Area a great party and give local residents a chance to taste something different. In addition to something new and delicious to eat, we also have something to learn – this year we’ll be featuring a communal bread oven and a craft food market that showcases skilled food professions such as baking, cheesemaking, and butchery.”

Check out the video from last year’s Steer Butchery Competition, to get a sense of the craftsmanship that goes into cutting meat:

If you’d like to show off a bit of your own food craft skills, there is a DIY Contest with several categories to choose from: homebrewing, honey, infusions and liqueurs, pickles, and preserves. Each category will be judged by local food enthusiasts, and winners will walk away with bragging rights for a year!

And to top it off, the 3 day event is free, and “all food at the festival costs $5 and less, and all food incorporates regionally-sourced, fabulous, and sustainably-produced ingredients.” If you’re in the San Francisco area this coming weekend, head on over to Jack London Square in Oakland – grab a bite, pick up some tips, and meet some awesome food growers, producers, artisans, and cooks. Sure sounds like a good time to me.

Willem Treep and Drees Peter van den Bosch

“It is a new kind of distribution company: a local-for-local distribution company. Willem and Drees started bringing local fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables within a radius of 40 kilometers [just under 25 miles] to local supermarkets. These are conventional retail stores like Tesco and Wallmart but then smaller in size as the Netherlands have smaller sized supermarkets. We also bring fruits to catering locations. So what we are actually establishing is a breakthrough from mass standardized production to local biodiverse produce.”

Recently Willem & Drees was nominated for a Triodos Bank Heart Prize. If they win the prize of € 10.000 (just under $14,000), they hope to continue building their new endeavor of bringing locally grown seasonal foods to the communities throughout the Netherlands, which in turn would help build a local food economy and cut down the number of food miles for each product brought to market.

Deadline is September 21st, if you would like to give them of vote of support.

Here is a short video of Willem Treep and Drees Peter van den Bosch, talking about what they do. It is in Dutch, but you will get a visual sense of what their project is about:

And, a short video from Environmental Transport Association (ETA) showing how our food miles can add up quite quickly…entitled: Buy Local:

h/t @WillemenDrees

An idea to help bring food to some of these communities was hatched by four students attending Bainbridge Graduate Institute and was aptly called Stockbox Grocers.

“Stockbox Grocers is a convenient mini store that is tucked into a reclaimed shipping container and placed into the parking lot of an existing business or organization. Imagine dozens of stores, located throughout urban food deserts and within walking distance of home, work, or school. The stores are small – but they are designed to offer the produce and essential grocery items needed to get through the week.”

Besides being recently awarded prizes for their ingenuity, Stockbox Grocers just passed their Kickstarter goal of $15,000 and opened their first shipping container store in the Delridge neighborhood of West Seattle. Big congrats on their success.

It may not be the answer, but it’s a start.

Watch the video to get a better sense of what is inside and what it’s about:

h/t @Cocoxochitl, aka Mud Baron.

Slow Food USA is hoping to bring awareness to preparing homecooked meals for less than $5 a person by initiating a $5 Challenge on Saturday, September 17th:

“The goal is to take back the ‘value meal’ – because slow food shouldn’t have to cost more than fast food. We’re asking people to share what they do in their kitchens and with their families to cook fresh, healthy food on a budget. Together, we’re learning what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to change in order to make good food affordable and available for everyone.”

Take the pledge, find a hosted event near you, get recipes for meals under $5, and bring back fresh food to your family table – “because slow food shouldn’t have to cost more than fast food.”

h/t @EcoCentered post: Slow Food USA’s $5 Challenge: Eating Sustainably on a Budget

Despite overwhelming consensus among the global scientific community that climate change must be taken as a serious threat to our continued survival, there is little political will to respond. As the science itself predicted, we are now experiencing extreme droughts, fires, storms, floods, and record-breaking temperatures in greater frequency and severity around the world, so when will America (and the world) respond to this increasing threat?

That’s the goal of The Climate Reality Project, a 24-hour live streaming event that brings the world’s top climate experts together to share their current knowledge about climate change, and to convince those that do not believe in the science itself, or who mistakenly believe that many scientists are themselves skeptical of the science, to reconsider their views, so that the politicians (those who wish to keep their jobs) will step up to the challenge.

Founded and chaired by former vice-president Al Gore, the Climate Reality Project begins live streaming at 7PM (Central Time) tonight in Mexico City, and travels around the world before ending at 7PM tomorrow, in New York City.

As Al Gore pointed out today on the NPR show “Talk of the Nation”, who do you wish to believe about climate change, the Koch Brothers, Exxon-Mobile, and Governor Rick Perry, or 98% of the scientific community that share the unequivocal view that climate change is real, and that it requires our immediate attention?

Tune in live, and you decide.

photo courtesy of Front Yard Coop

It’s a solar powered unit that moves across your lawn as the day progresses.

“The deluxe “Full Monty” version of our Coop offers both a solar powered electric fence and a motor that slowly propels it back and forth across your yard. This unique feature turns a 4 x 8 foot pen into a limitless free ranging space for your birds.   It stores power from a solar cell in a marine deep-charge battery and inches along your yard at a safe and subtle 16 feet per hour. When it bumps into something, the circuit board reverses the coop’s direction.  This distributes the flock’s impact on your lawn and spreads its beneficial manure, and constantly offers your birds fresh forage.”

There’s still the water issue, but it might be fun to have chickens out front. Not sure if the city officials in Oak Parks, Michigan, would agree, though!

Originally posted on Earth Techling.

Jan Weber—As We Sow Documentary

This new documentary uncovers a food and farm system made up of very different and often opposing views of how farming should be done, where it should be done, and to what end. Farmlandia lies at the intersection of Big Ag and the independent farmer and rancher, revealing the harsh realities of a distressed, dysfunctional—if not broken—food system and the seeds of a not-so-quiet revolution aimed at changing it.

For those wishing to learn more, and to donate to this worthy project, here’s a link to her Kickstarter Farmlandia campaign.

For a current status of her journey: Farmlandia updates

“About three years ago I impulsively moved from Philadelphia to Portland and lived with a friend who was involved with the Portland craft beer industry. I was blown away by how instantly warm and welcoming this community was-it was unlike anything I had ever seen. The craft beer community quickly became my second family, and I started incorporating my background in video production by making short videos for friends’ beer blogs, festivals, etc. I started going to more events and met more and more people in the community and in the industry. I began to notice a huge disconnect between the vast amount of women beer consumers and the sparse number of women who worked in the beer industry. After meeting inspirational women like Sarah Pederson, Tonya Cornett, Lisa Morrison, and Teri Fahrendorf, I knew that I had to make a documentary celebrating the amazing women in the industry and introduce others to the community I had fallen in love with. This documentary has been funded by fundraising events and through Kickstarter, and would not have been able to be completed without the support of the community. I can’t thank everyone enough.”

The premiere will be at the Bagdad Theater, August 20th, in Portland. Details here.

Be sure to check out the trailer:

The Love of Beer from Lingering Illocutions on Vimeo.

“Charcuterie is defined as the cookery of meat, but in the past 700 years, it’s become so much more. From the Pâtés and Terrines of France to the Salumi of Italy and Spain, the world of Charcuterie is rich with tradition. This short documentary highlights two of Charcuterie’s rising stars, Lawrence and Lee Ann Kocurek of Kocurek Family Charcuterie in Austin, TX.”

Be sure to watch this beautifully crafted video by Christian Remde, of the Twelve Films Project:

Charcuterie – A Documentary from Christian Remde on Vimeo.

Be sure and check out this new documentary, “Farmers Markets: Love at First Bite”. It was produced by the folks over at Only at Farmers’ Markets.

Go to original post, Farmers Markets at Your Fingertips: How the Community is Using Our Open Data.

“It couldn’t be simpler: you show up with your freshly harvested lettuces or lemons and share or swap them for some plums or potatoes. That’s it. No money changes hands.”

The Berkeley Crop Swap is a project of Transition Berkeley and they plan on meeting every Monday evening at a public park along the Ohlone Greenway.

Is there a crop swap in your community?

Originally posted on Berkeleyside.

h/t @lettuceeatkale

“…the average American produces about 4.4 pounds of garbage per day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and in Mexico, households create 30 percent more trash than Americans. It all seems insignificant at first—a Starbucks cup here, a sandwich box there—but pretty soon you’re sweating while hauling giant Hefty bags to the curb yet another week in a row. Let’s stop being so trashy, and let’s start this month.”

Need some ideas? Check out this video with author and blogger Jonathan Bloom, who makes several doable suggestions for any householder.

Go to original post: The GOOD 30-Day Challenge: Waste Less

In a stunning reversal, the U.S. Delegation of the Commission, after 20 years of dogged refusal, removed their opposition to allow GM labeling as a right of nations to pursue. As a result, GM labeling rights are now written into the Commission’s Codex Agreement, providing a legal standard that will shield any nation that enacts GM labeling requirements from retaliatory action by the World Trade Organization.

“We are particularly pleased that the new guidance recognizes that GM labeling is justified as a tool for post market monitoring. This is one of the key reasons we want all GM foods to be required to be labelled – so that if consumers eat modified foods, they will be able to know and report to regulators if they have an allergic or other adverse reaction.”

—Dr. Michael Hansen, Consumers Union

Go to post: GMO labelling

Commercially grown iMeat; circa 2020

My vote is for iMeat, in honor of technology in general, and more specifically in homage to the Apple corporation, for representing among the best in breed of what scientific innovation can bring us. Technology to deliver us the cow meat, the pig meat, the goat meat, all without the animal itself—now that’s efficiency!

According to a recent post in the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper, Artificial meat could slice emissions, say scientists —efforts are well underway to grow meat under lab conditions to reduce the environmental impacts of traditional livestock production, and to help ensure adequate meat supply for future generations.

I am reminded of Wendell Berry who warns us about respecting the limits of science, and how scientific solutions often introduce new problems in their wake (nuclear weapons technology being but one good example).

Call me old-fashioned, is it too much to ask, can we just develop globally the best farming practices within our ecological means, and eat less meat accordingly?

Go to the original post, Artificial meat could slice emissions, say scientists