agriculture

Landscape architect Owen Dell has a vision: transforming suburban neighborhoods into shared "foodsheds" with food-bearing and native plants, and even chickens. Neighbors can start by finding edible plants already growing in their yards, maybe remove fences, plant what works best in each location. Best of all, share the resulting food abundance with one another and build the social network with shared food potlucks. Tour Owen's own edible landscape yard, including a rooftop container garden complete with visiting cat. Episode 123.

The Livestock Lost series examines the farming and business of meat, dairy and egg production. It explores the known and unknown dangers of meat production and what people can do to source alternatives to what many would refer to as a cultural staple of the North American diet. Part I looks at slaughterhouses and the culture of meat.

Around the world, we face the worst food crisis in a decade. Many factors effect the cost and availability of food. But regardless of the political, social, and economic influences, we need to rethink the way we grow our food. If people around the world are going to feed themselves, we need to stop thinking in the past. This episode of Crop To Cuisine addresses somewhat new methods of farming & gardening.

This second installment of the Cross-Canada Trike tour begins in the home of Deconstructing Dinner - Nelson, BC. Of greatest interest on this episode is the story of Darrick Hahn himself. Hahn grew up on a conventional dairy farm and like many young Canadians growing up on farms, Hahn left his rural community as a teenager and migrated into the city. Having most recently lived in Vancouver for the past two years, he came to recognize that the city life was far too removed from the earth and he is now heading back to the farm.

Amidst cob-wall plastering in the background, co-director Stacey Denton relays the story of the first years at White Oak Farm and Educational Center in Oregon: Acquiring the 62 acres of food and pasture and protecting it through conservation easements, creating their non-profit organization. See food baskets for their CSA (community supported agriculture) program, visit their abundant permaculture-based farm; attend a workshop in natural building; and delight with kids in an educational program "down on the farm." Episode 111.

Host Jon Steinman speaks with Rebecca Kneen of Crannóg Ales - Canada's only Certified Organic farmhouse microbrewery. Kneen published a manual on small-scale organic hop growing and she is extremely excited at the attention the manual has received since the global hops shortage hit home. We also learn more on the philosophies of biodynamic agriculture and the important presence of microorganisms in a post-carbon world.

Sharon Astyk is a writer, teacher and subsistence farmer, and the author of two forthcoming books on Peak Oil and Climate Change — Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front (Fall ‘08) and A Nation of Farmers (And Cooks) (Spring ‘09), the latter co-authored with Aaron Newton. Both books are forthcoming from New Society Publishers.

Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians believes water is the greatest ecological and human rights crisis of our time. Deconstructing Dinner recorded her speech in March 2008. We also hear from Farmer Percy Schmeiser and an exclusive interview recorded only moments after Monsanto paid him for the damages their genetically engineered canola inflicted upon his farm.

In this episode of Deconstructing Dinner, we explore the creation of a market for local grain using a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model. We also hear from a grade 4 student sharing some shocking information with his classmates on factory animal farms.

James Howard Kunstler reads from World Made By Hand, his new novel based on the post-oil future. Published by The Atlantic Monthly Press, World Made By Hand is set in upstate New York in the not distant future. It is a fictional account of the ideas based in Kunstler's nonfiction book, The Long Emergency. With transcript.