Below, an adaptation of part of A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, written with Jason W Moore, published in The Guardian. If you’ve read the book, do look out for the post-publication addendum of the story of Oklahoma-based Christian Alcoholics and Addicts in Recovery. CAAIR was set up by chicken executives so that survivors of the opioid epidemic might pray by day and work on the understaffed night-shift at slaughterhouses. Do read the full story, as researched by the Center for Investigative Reporting. And, meantime, here’s the excerpt as published in the Long Reads series at the Guardian.
Terrorism for trolls: A note from Austin
Seven Cheap Things in Three Minutes Forty Five Seconds
Get a copy of A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, which I wrote with Jason W Moore, at your local independent bookstore in the US and Canada. If you must, here’s the Amazon link
We’re committed to making sure these ideas spread far and wide. The book’s introduction, in which we lay out our argument at some length, is available for free here. Continue reading “Seven Cheap Things in Three Minutes Forty Five Seconds”
Practice Reparation
I was asked to contribute to Letters to a Young Farmer, a collection patterned on Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. For inspiration, I re-read America’s poet laureate of the soil, Wendell Berry. His 1973 Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front is very good. Its last line: Continue reading “Practice Reparation”
Developing the Syllabus for an Agroecology Course
Bob St Peter, activist and farmer in northern Maine, is working on developing a syllabus for an agroecology course. Miguel Altieri sends these two sources to help. What else can Bob look at to develop his own curriculum? Please share your ideas in the comments and if you want to join the school, more details are below, and you can contact Bob at Agroecologymaine@gmail.com
Continue reading “Developing the Syllabus for an Agroecology Course”
Ask Not What Refugees Can Do For Us…
Co-written with Eric Tang, and published by Reuters on World Refugee Day, 2016.
Today is World Refugee Day, the most contentious one in recent memory. Refugee resettlement once enjoyed bipartisan support in the United States, but in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris and Orlando there are few issues more polarizing in this election year. At the center of the storm are Syrian refugees fleeing persecution, many of them making the deadly passage across the Mediterranean. Fear-mongering conservatives demand that all Syrians be kept out of the United States. Liberals call for granting entry to a select few, albeit under strict guidelines.
Alimentary, My Dear Austin
Published in the Austin-American Statesman, based on the Food For All: Inclusive Food Planning in North Austin report.
Message to FLOTUS: Let’s *All* Move
My comrade here at the LBJ School Erin Lentz wrote this with me, to welcome Michelle Obama to Austin. Republished here from the Austin American-Statesman.
TEDMED: The Barefoot Technologists
Last year, I gave a TEDMED talk about some of the people we’ve been following at the Soils, Food and Healthy Communities Project in Northern Malawi. Here’s the talk, and accompanying post, courtesy of TEDMED. See more of the footage at the GenerationFoodProject.org
The Secret Ingredient!
If it seems like I’ve been awfully quiet on this website, I’ve more than made up for it by being moderately loud with Tom Philpott and Rebecca McInroy at our new podcast. The full press release is below. At some point, I’ll figure out how to make the audio available right here but meantime, do have a listen. We’re particularly pleased to have had one of the last interviews with Sidney Mintz before his death, and to have covered everything from prison food to salmon. Coming soon: breastmilk, soylent, quinoa and, always, capitalism, colonialism and death. It’s a riot.