Panic! at the egg aisle

“In short, the egg aisle is so stressful because it highlights the convoluted architecture - and obligation - of choice between lesser evils (and lesser expenses) in an industrialized and commodified food system. It’s where we’re forced to face the injustice and complexity of modern agriculture. It’s where we answer awful questions like, “How much are you willing to pay to protest the heinous suffering of your poultry brethren?” “Do you even care that these hens never saw the sun?” “Where are your values?” “Do you hate your pets?” For as much as the twenty-first century battle cry of “We should know where our food comes from!” seems to galvanize us, in these moments, it seems like we might prefer, at least for now, not to know.”

Read the full essay - and feel a little better - on the EcoGather blog.

Floods, Tumors, and the Cat.

“So what happens when we finally parse the grief? When we hold in each hand the separate spaces that make us human? When we stop fussing with the mathematics of grief and let ourselves love harder that which is falling apart right in front of us? When we mourn fully the world as we knew it and the mattering of Lucy the cat? When both matter, it seems, the world changes.”

The grief is abundant, y’all. Read the full essay on the EcoGather blog.  

Partner Spotlight: Plenitud PR

“What would happen, [the founders] wondered, if they applied the pillars of permaculture to more than just agriculture?”

The full post is linked here.

Partner Spotlight: Maati-Paani-Asha (Soil-Water-Hope)

“The Maati-Paani-Asha Center at Gopikabai Sitaram Gawande College (MPA) aims to address the challenges in and around Umarkhed, India by modeling and supporting a transition to agroecological farming practices that regenerate soil, water and hope, increase food access and provisioning, improve food marketing practices, coordinate community infrastructure improvements, and disseminate novel psychosocial supports.”

Read a little more about EcoGather’s partner in Umarkhed (and the course I developed with their program director on kitchen gardening).

Returning the Pie Plate.

“The more I thought about it, the more the disposable pie plate felt sad, more a sign of alienation, loneliness, and impermanence.”

I made my coworker a chocolate pudding pie and wrote a little essay about what it means to commit to people and place. Check it out on the EcoGather blog.

A farm grew in Brooklyn.

“Did. Used to. I figured out today that it’s gone now.”

You can read the full essay on the EcoGather blog. It’s a good one.

Introducing EcoGather’s latest offering: Wellbeing Economy.

“I never thought I would like economics. And I certainly never thought I’d design a whole course of the subject..”

Get the backstory on the class that made heterodox economics such a core part of my work and worldview. It’s on the EcoGather blog.

Unpacking the USDA farm typology.

Hint: it’s basically just bad data management combined with settler colonialism.

I worked on this project with a grad school colleague in partnership with Frontline Farming, which is a Denver-based “food justice and farmer advocacy organization that believes good food should be for all people and that farmers deserve living wages” and crafts “asset-based and data-driven solutions that are community derived.”

Some thoughts on joy.

“I don’t mean to be dramatic, but it changed my life.”

Joy has been at the heart of my work since January 31, 2020. I have Ross Gay and my roommate to thank for it. Read the full post on the EcoGather blog.