Comment

Comment by katja.kuivanen on September 29, 2012 at 6:56pm

Hi, I have an Honours degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and am currently doing a two year MSc in Organic Agriculture/Agroecology in the Netherlands....would love to hear how other people are synthesizing the two disciplines!

Comment by Elaine Forde on August 3, 2012 at 5:40pm

Job vacancy at GRAIN

http://www.grain.org/pages/vacancies

an NGO supporting peasants' struggles for food sovereignety

Comment by Viorel Anastasoaie on May 7, 2011 at 11:18am

Hello, I'm Viorel Anastasoaie, finishing a Ph.D. in social anthropology in London at University College. I did my fieldwork among tobacco-growers in western Cuba in 2008-2009, being interested in questions of skill learning, work practices and social distinction among farmers. Overall, I'm interested in how small-scale farming has been transformed by the various shifts in agrarian policies of the Cuban Revolutionary state. I'm happy to join the group of 'agrarian anthropologists'.

Comment by Nicole Bachleitner on May 19, 2010 at 10:45pm

Hi, I'm an Austrian Anthropology student who, after 3 years of focusing on conflict studies, has recently decided to switch towards agricultural anthropology. Since my daughter was born 11 yrs ago I'm doing some organic small-scale farming, not for subsistance - just for fun, and to teach my daughter that vegetables and fruits don't grow in the supermarket. My main interest lies in GM crops and their potential chances and risks for farmers and consumers. Additionally, I'd like to focus on permaculture but haven't found the time yet to gather more information on that topic. Maybe membership to this group will give me the motivation needed to delve into permaculture as well.

Comment by SusanLayne Nielsen on January 31, 2010 at 1:46am

Hi, all. I do agree with Batchimeg S. that the subject as given is very broad. It's hard, if you live a farm life, not to hold to your heart the matters of food security, sustainability, development, and so on. Perhaps I should specify a "small farm life," because industrial mega farms don't really seem to have much view of sustainability -- they operate on the basis of today's market, and tomorrow be damned.

I suspect food security, at one level or another, is at the basis of almost every modern person's decision to keep a farm. We do it, living in the foothills of the Cascade mountains in Oregon, USA., though we could easily drive to town for our broccoli. What I mean by "at one level or another" is, food security entails more than just supply. It implies concern for a certain quality of food. If you are secure enough to know you will have food on the table, then you have the luxury of concern for quality.

Unfortunately, for the many who extract the barest essentials from farms around the world, there is little to tie sustainability to the need for immediate supply. For such people, if production destroys the land, well then, the obvious answer is to find more land.

This is a very abbreviated analysis, of course.But for most of us on small farms in North America today, there is little risk of hunger. For small producers worldwide, that isn't the case. The question, then, might be how to bring sustainable food security to populations that truly need it. What is it that keeps a farmer producing a crop that sucks life from the land (corn (maize) is an example that leaps to mind), and pouring chemical fertilizers into land that is rapidly becoming toxic and worthless? The 'green revolution' as it was known in the 1960's, the one that served up chemical NPK doses to the world in exchange for the once-sustainable farm practices of 2nd and 3rd world farmers has been disastrous. Yields may have been lower per cultivated acre under prior practices, but they did not destroy the land, and long-time indigenous crops had been more nutritionally balanced. With chemical amendments, yields of, for example, corn crops soared for a short time, population numbers responded by increasing rapidly, and then the depleted land collapsed under the load of over-production and drought. Nothing was sustainable about the green revolution. Malnutrition has been the inevitable result of post-WWII living through chemistry.

Sum-up: a small farm producing manures from small breed livestock (rabbits, poultry, sheep or goats at most), and producing mixed crops in rotation over several seasons, is able to maintain the health of the land. It is able to produce a surplus for family groups. Obviously, it does not produce enough to sustain an economy of export (I use the term to refer to market sales in general: export from the farm on the scale of industrial production). One wonders very seriously, how long our Western agricultural model will sustain itself. Given the depletion of sub-surface water tables, I think not much longer.

Sorry to be verbose. Smaller is sustainable. There.

Comment by Birkha B Pun on January 29, 2010 at 4:16pm

Actually it's the rare thing. i think, with the emerging of world with the development, the lacking of Agricultural priority and the indigenous systems of farmings, that the present least developed countries are facing chronic crisis, either food shortages or environment hazard.

Even developed nations lacked in being ration with this matter?
i heartliy give you the welcome note.
cheers.
lets talk more.

Comment by rick goulden on January 17, 2010 at 8:56pm

hi. i teach anthropology at a small college in british columbia, canada. i am interested in the topic of agricultural anthropology in part because of my own interest in environmentally responsible farming (organic of course), permaculture, and forest gardening, practices i hope to put into effect on our recently acquired rural property in the slocan valley. i also wish to incorporate my experience and the science of indigenous farmers in the courses i teach, especially environmental anthropology.

Comment by Selen Eloglu on January 8, 2010 at 9:06am

Hello
I am doing my Master's and focusing on agricultural anthropology and I will be glad if we can share ideas. My interests rest at sustainable production, organic farming, local farming systems, ancient farming traditions... actually quite a lot of things.

Comment by Josué Villegas on January 8, 2010 at 8:36am

Hi. I'm working for mexican government in this proyect about agricultural sistems in Yucatan. I'll be glad to share some experiences in this group.
Best, Jozch