From Sustainable Farming

25 Dec

Foraged & Wild Foods

You don’t need to live in the deep woods to find foraged foods. From herbs to berries to mushrooms, you can find an abundance of food if you know how to look. Why forage? To take part in an industrial agricultural system means to be dependent on a system of food cultivation over which one…

05 Sep

Sustainable Urban Agriculture: Vineyards in the Heart of Paris

Usually the second week in October, the Montmartre Harvest Festival invites residents and tourists to sample true Parisian culture and dedication to the city’s agricultural roots — celebrating the remaining vineyards in the heart of Paris. Festivalgoers may enjoy a parade, music, folklore, tours of vineyards, auctions, and wine tasting.

Featured 28 Jan

Sustainable Farming in Bali | Ben Ripple of Big Tree Farms

On the forefront of developing sustainable, community enhancing food systems in Bali, Indonesia Expats Ben and Blair Ripple left their organic farming jobs in Washington and moved to Bali, Indonesia, in the late 90s. Since then, they’ve been become somewhat famous in their efforts to bring artisinal Indonesian products to a larger market and to establish and…

02 Jan

Interview With Mark Shepard of New Forest Farm

Working with and within nature using perennial food crops and restoration agriculture. Mark Shepard has created something of an environmental oasis at his Wisconsin homestead, New Forest Farm. Shepard, a farmer and author, is a longtime proponent of restoration agriculture, the practice of recreating healthy, naturally occurring, economically viable perennial farms. Packed with biodiversity, these…

Featured 01 Jan

Chain Reaction Urban Farm

Using borrowed suburban backyards, this urban farm CSA is bringing dormant gardens back to life and fresh organic food to the city.

01 Jan

Food Is Free Project

Fresh, healthy, nourishing food is a human necessity. However, in modern society, food often comes with high out-of-pocket and environmental costs, is increasingly depleted of nutrients and is produced miles from where it is enjoyed, offering consumers little to no connection to the farmer or the growing process. These troubling aspects of modern food production…

01 Sep

Alternative Farming Systems

While certified organic farming has been the focus of much attention in the move toward sustainable agriculture, other methodologies and philosophies are being used with great success, though considerably less fanfare. Permaculture Inspired by Bill Mollison’s observation of self-sustaining ecosystems in rainforests in Australia, permaculture provides a method of analyzing the environment and designing systems—such as farms, gardens and human habitations—to work with natural flows and processes. Permaculture is closely related to human scale living, homesteading, and the appropriate use of technology and natural resources—especially the finite resource of oil energy. Permaculture has as its foundation the following principles: Earth…

01 Sep

The Incredible Edible Todmorden

What would it take to create food security for an entire community? This was the question that Pam Warhurst and Mary Clear sought to answer when conceiving ways in which they could make their hometown of Todmorden in Yorkshire, a self sustaining township. Their goals were big—to transform a wasteful and disconnected food culture into…

01 Sep

Urban Rooftop Farms

In cities, farmers are looking to rooftops to provide fresh food for urban populations. One of the major environmental and aesthetic problems with urbanization is the lack of available open space and the distinctive absence of greenery in lieu of concrete and asphalt. One of the solutions that urban farmers have started to pursue is the use of rooftops as viable space to grow food. These rooftop farms are ideal for growing food because they have access to direct sun light for most of the day and they make use of previously underutilized spaces without competing for expensive land at…

01 Sep

Flying Disc Ranch Eco-dynamic Desert Oasis

Robert Lower has created a thriving farm in the desert using sustainable design and cultivation methods such as permaculture and eco-dynamics. His soaring date trees and fragrant citrus grove is evocative of an ancient Mesopotamian garden oasis. Situated in Coachella, California, is a lush desert plantation of date and citrus trees at Robert Lower’s Flying…

20 Jul

Stone’s Throw Talks About The Challenges Faced By Urban Farmers

Alex Liebman of Stone’s Throw Urban Farm talks about the precarious nature of farming on underulitized and vacant urban plots, earning a decent wage and what aspiring urban farmers should do to maximize their chances of success.

Featured 18 Jun

Humane Pasture Raised Heritage Breed Pork

With so many labels vying for your sustainable food dollar, it is becoming increasingly difficult to decide which is best. The labels should make it easier, but how many of us really know what the certified Organic or the various steps of the GAP animal welfare labels really entail? When it comes to pork, there…

11 Dec

Sustainable Food in New Orleans

Grow Dat On our farm we work collaboratively to produce healthy food for local residents and to inspire youth and adults to create personal, social and environmental change in their own communities. Grow Dat is a place where people from different backgrounds and disciplines come together in research and practice to support public health, local…

03 Sep

How to Grow Your Own Food in Cold Winter Climates

If you live in a cold winter climate, you may think eating local in the winter means a lot of jarred, canned, frozen and dehydrated food. While preserving food is part of a well stocked winter pantry, you can grow your own fresh food in the winter as well. Here are some of our favorite…

29 May

The GrowHaus Urban Farm Oasis

Bringing food back to Denver neighborhoods marked by the EPA as hazardous waste areas. In just two years, The GrowHaus, a 20,000-square-foot Denver greenhouse and education space, has become a veritable food oasis. Based in Elyria-Swansea, a neighborhood with Superfund designation and few healthy food options, The GrowHaus is providing fresh, local, affordable produce to…

Featured 30 Dec

Hyper Local Foodshed: Neighborhood Food Sharing In Altadena

Free. Fresh. Local. What’s not to love about neighborhood food sharing? Seven years ago, a bounty of blackberries and a few generous neighbors inspired Gail Murphy to become one of the driving forces in Altadena’s local food renaissance.

07 Nov

Growing Food in Paris: Jardin Luxembourg Orchards

Located in the heart of Paris, in the 6th arrondissement, is the Luxembourg Gardens. Built in 1612 to encompass the grounds of the palace built for the Regent of France, Marie de Medici, the gardens span 23 hectares (nearly 60 acres) and are an icon of Parisian life. The gardens and palace were inspired by the…

01 Jul

Seasonal Dairy Farms: Keeping It Natural

Some dairy farmers are turning away from forced year round production and making milk the natural way. Read about pasture based seasonal dairies.

01 Jul

Grim Seasonal Dairy

Some farmers are turning away from conventional methods to embrace a more humane and natural way to make milk. Milk is a seasonal product and some dairy farmers are choosing to let their cows produce according to nature. Seasonal dairies are pasture based farms in which cows forage and produce milk until the natural end of the grass season

07 Apr

Seasonal Cooking: How to Use Fresh Chickpeas

Fresh chickpeas with Brussels sprouts and pasta recipe Spring is the time to find all kinds of foods we normal eat dried in their fresh state. Fresh garbanzo beans, or chickpeas, are at the markets now, so don’t pass by these velvety green pods without giving them a try this season. Wondering how to use…

11 Mar

Your Farmer And Climate Change: Darren Bender-Beauregard

Farmer and homesteader, Darren Bender-Beauregard shares his thoughts with EthicalFoods.com on climate change and how last year’s drought impacted his permaculture based Brambleberry Farm in Paoli, Indiana.

05 Mar

How To Survive Climate Change

Regardless of the debate whether climate change is man made or not—the fact remains that climate change is happening now, just as predicted decades ago. Now is the time to start thinking about how we can adapt to living in a rapidly changing environment.

09 Jan

Eat Organic Tomatoes For Less

Is there any way to grow your own food without dedicating all your free time to tending a garden and spending as much as you would in a grocery store for organic veg and fruit? I sincerely believe so, and this ongoing series of articles is about me, a novice gardener with a sunny balcony.

12 Aug

Defining the Local Foodshed

Local food movements all over the world reconnect people with their local foodshed. But what makes a local foodshed, local?

05 Aug

Crowdfunding Urban Farm Projects

Urban farms turn to crowdfunding websites to bring their projects to life. Since the 1950s, the global population has flocked to urban centers around the world. According to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Report from 2007, about 50% of the world’s population lives in cities and many more are expected to migrate to urban…

05 Aug

Detroit: Creating Oases In A Food Desert

Home to Henry Ford’s assembly line, Detroit was once affectionately referred to as Motor City—the epicenter of American car production. With the recent collapse in the American automobile industry and overall economic recession that has ravaged the United States over the past four years, over a fifth of Detroit households do not even own a…

04 Aug

Guerrilla Grafters

Urban landscape grows fruitful—literally—thanks to Guerrilla Grafters In San Francisco, it happens to be illegal to have fruit trees along sidewalks. Fallen fruit is considered a public health hazard, liable to get squashed, trampled and slipped on as well as attracting rats and other vermin. Which means that Guerrilla Grafters aren’t just posing as rogue…

Featured 04 Aug

SPIN Method Offers Path To Profit For Urban Farming

The Small Plot Intensive Method of urban farming gives novice farmers a path to creating a small profitable business growing fresh food.

22 Jul

New Zealand’s Food Bill: trade food, go to jail

New Zealand’s laws to ban citizens from trading home grown food has chilling effects on hyper-local foodsheds and urban farming. In response to a growing demand for urban agriculture, and an ever lengthening list of threats to food security, city governments all over the world have been faced with the challenge to augment city planning…

22 Jul

Changing Laws As Cities Make Way for Urban Agriculture

With the growing demand for the return of agriculture to urban spaces, cities are removing legal barriers to urban farming.

22 Jul

Philly Food Forests And Occupy Vacant Lots

Vacant lots in Philadelphia are getting a makeover. They are being turned into self sustaining urban edible food forests.

Featured 20 Jul

How To Create A Hyper-Local Foodshed

Can you and your neighbors produce a complete diet for the community from your own home gardens? Own Dell believes so, and gives his tips for defining, organizing and creating your own hyper-local foodshed. Situated on some of the most fertile land, many suburbs have a legacy of once being extensive orchards or acres of…

20 Jul

Converting Lawns To Productive Urban Home Gardens

As people wake up to the fragility of a global agricultural system dependent on oil, they are turning their focus closer to home—and finding abundance in their own backyards. We explore three examples of urban backyard food gardens and the surprising amount of food that can be grown with very little space.

18 Jul

The Beacon Food Forest

The next time you run low on fruits and veggies, instead of driving to the grocery store, how about taking the kids on a trip to the food forest to see what’s in season? Seattle is creating just such an edible landscape. Imagine yourself in a forest in which almost every plant, shrub, and tree…

12 Jul

Creating Food Security Through Edible Landscaping pt 1

Owen Dell discusses creating resilience and food security in communities through intelligent and organized communal food exchange.

01 Jul

Creating Food Security Through Edible Landscaping pt 2

We continue our conversation with Owen Dell about food security and hyper-local foodsheds. If you haven’t read the first part of this fascinating interview with Owen Dell, you can find it here. Owen lectures around the country and internationally on sustainable landscaping and related topics. He is the author of How to Start a Home-Based…

22 Jun

Urban Homesteading

People who live in urban and suburban environments are turning to homesteading to become more self-sufficient, depending less on a system that has grown out of touch with reality. People who live in cities and suburbs are becoming aware and empowered to find ways to unplug from cycles of dependency and consumerism. By changing their…

20 Jun

Santa Barbara Food Not Lawns

Community food exchange fosters a resilient hyper-local foodshed. Many home gardeners find that they grow more produce than they can eat. Residents in Santa Barbara have found an alternative to using this surplus as mere composting material—they’ve decided to pool their suburban harvests to create a free community food exchange. Santa Barbara Food Not Lawns…

01 Jun

ECO City Farms

Eco City Farms not only brings food back to the urban landscape of Maryland, but also works to educate a new generation about eating well and urban farming.

01 Jun

UK Urban Homesteaders Tim and Ros Payne

UK homesteader Tim Payne explains that his reasons for embarking on homesteading extended beyond his family’s desire to become more independent from a food and resource distribution system which relies on a dwindling natural resource.

06 May

Drink Up, It’s Milk Season

Like everything in nature, milk has its season. We’ve grown accustomed to fresh milk year round, but at a cost. There are welfare, health and environmental consequences of turning milk into an industrial product. Changing our perspectives is the most important part of the solution.