Designing Regenerative Food Systems

Marina O'Connell

Sujets

• Sciences et techniques
• Sustainable agriculture
• Organic farming

Informations

• Publié par: Hawthorn Press Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 0001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781912480753
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

A powerful and personal book about transforming the land for the better. Marina O’Connell weaves inspirational stories of redesign and transformation, showing how regenerative methods for agriculture and food have come to life. In five years, she created a productive, diverse, profitable and regenerative farm from depleted soil, and has said, over here is a path, now we can walk it .
Professor Jules Pretty, author of Regenerating Agriculture (1995), Agri-Culture (2003) and The East Country (2017)
It is hard to overestimate how profoundly important the urgent and ambitious reimagining of food and farming systems is, how we might do so in ways that are regenerative, restorative and transformative. How to create farms and gardens that build soil, community, and possibility? This book is your opportunity to learn from a master. What Marina O’Connell has created at the Apricot Centre is nothing short of miraculous. In these precious pages she shares everything you need to know in order to do the same. May this book spark a revolution of the agricultural and horticultural imagination .
Rob Hopkins, co-founder of the Transition Towns movement and author of From What Is to What If
Marina O’Connell is a practical possibilist… a weaver of integrated agro-ecological systems that regenerate the soil under our feet and the food on our plates. She convincingly makes the case – in this most timely of books – for how agricultural practices that grew up on the fringes of our dominant industrial food system can help shift contemporary food culture to an agro-ecological paradigm that benefits both people and planet. Highly recommended for farmers and students needing an evidence-based toolkit for developing regenerative food systems .
Jonathan M. Code, Lecturer in Sustainable Land Management, Royal Agricultural University
Few people have attempted to survey the different strands of sustainable agriculture, but Marina has done so in a really valuable way, showing the links and crossovers between the different techniques along with some good science and other references .
Martin Crawford, Director, Agroforestry Research Trust
Hope for the future of humanity and wild nature lies not with governments, corporates and international conferences but with grassroots movements – especially in food and farming. Marina O’Connell is a farmer and an educator. This excellent regenerative farming design toolkit of what’s already in train worldwide is just what’s needed for enabling the coming agro-ecological revolution .
Colin Tudge, Co-founder of the Oxford Real Farming Conference and the College for Real Farming and Food Culture
The strands Marina has succeeded in weaving together – including the psychological support for people connected to the farm, the creative local marketing, and the collaboration with local businesses – all are wonderful threads in what I see as the establishment of a model local food economy .
Helena Norberg-Hodge, Founder and Director, Local Futures
Nature works not just because it is diverse, but because it is made up of relationships between the many elements. So it is with regenerative agriculture. No single approach has all the answers, but by weaving them together, forming relationships, we create a whole systems approach that works for people and planet. Marina has done a great service for students, farmers and growers, and everyone with a passion to bring land and community to life. She has shown how we can connect disciplines and approaches, and bases this not just on theory, but on her extraordinary farm at Huxhams Cross. Highly recommended!
Andy Goldring, Permaculture Association
With this publication Marina O’Connell has done all food citizens a great service – of presenting the main sustainable farming approaches that have crystallised over the last century as a response to the industrial farming project, in a straightforward and accessible format without discrimination or ranking. The author – a seasoned farmer herself – provides an overview of each approach in turn: Biodynamic, Organic, Permaculture, Agroforestry, Agroecological and Regenerative Agriculture, in the context of the contemporary challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, food security and human health, so that farmers and growers, students, policy makers, researchers and food citizens in general can grasp not only the main concepts but also ways to mitigate the challenges going forward. The author concludes that we might ‘ferment’ transformational change through being discerning in our own food choices, through healing our own traumas which our landscapes only reflect, through enabling access to land and through appropriate training provision. This book should be seen as a primer for everyone entering the food and farming debate as well as those who want to broaden their perspectives .
Julia Wright (PhD), Associate Professor, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR), Coventry University, UK, and Council Member of the Biodynamic Association UK
Marina O’Connell has helped our family farm become more sustainable. Within the partnership, she has helped redesign a 10-acre field into Biodynamic Conversion with a rare and valuable combination of deep experiential and practical insight, drawing on this regenerative toolkit for horticulture, farming and community life with the land. We value her skill in weaving together different approaches to Agroecology, including Permaculture, Organic practices and Biodynamic methods, which are so well explained in this timely handbook .
Dr Miche Fabre Lewin and Dr Flora Gathorne-Hardy, Great Glemham Farms, Suffolk
Designing Regenerative Food Systems ©2022 Marina O’Connell. Marina O’Connell is hereby identified as the author of this work in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988. She asserts and gives notice of her moral right under this Act.
Hawthorn Press Published 2022 by Hawthorn Press, Hawthorn House 1 Lansdown Lane, Stroud, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom, GL5 1BJ Tel: [phone] Email: [e-mail] www.hawthornpress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means (electrical or mechanical, through reprography, digital transmission, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by Jason Conway Cover photography by Jimmy Edmonds Typesetting by Winslade Graphics Printed by Cambrian Printers Ltd, Wales
Carbon-balanced at source and printed on uncoated FSC© certified paper using sustainable printing procedures. The cover makes use of a sustainable, biodegradable and recyclable lamination.

Every effort has been made to trace the ownership of all copyrighted material. If any omission has been made, please bring this to the publisher’s attention so that proper acknowledgement may be given in future editions.
The views in this book are not necessarily those of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data applied for ISBN 978-1-912480-54-8 eISBN 978-1-912480-75-3

Glossary of terms
Many of the terms used in this book are interchangeable with other ones. I have defined my usage of these terms below. Not everyone will agree with my definitions, but for the sake of clarity, and until the terms settle into common usage, this is how they are used in this book.
Industrial farming is the form of farming generally thought of as ‘conventional farming’, in references to the fact that it is mainstream in the global north. However, it is a relatively new form of farming; only three generations of farmers have used these industrialised methods. Sociologists call this the ‘industrial production paradigm’
Sustainable food systems is a collective name for all of the food systems described in this book, sometimes called ‘biological’, ‘ecological’ or ‘alternative’ farming systems. Sometimes ‘agroecology’ or ‘regenerative’ is used as an umbrella term for all of them. I have not used these two terms in this way, since each is presented in this book as a food system in its own right. The sociologists call this the ‘ecologically integrated paradigm’.
Regenerative agriculture implies something more than sustainable agriculture – a system that repairs and rehabilitates the badly damaged soil and water systems.
Pesticide is used as a collective term for insecticides, fungicides and herbicides.
Farmers are people who produce food, whether on a large or a small scale. They’re sometimes described as ‘growers’. Many farmers are women, people of colour and/or indigenous people.
The agricultural revolution , which happened first in England, was the move from subsistence farming on common land, to enclosed, privatised food production that was carried out as a business for money. This started in the 14th century in England and is still happening today in many parts of the world.
The industrial farming revolution started in the global north in the early 20th century. It introduced nitrate fertilisers, pesticides, tractors, new varieties of crops, artificial insemination and battery farming. The focus was on yields.
The green revolution refers to the rolling out of industrial processes in farming across the global south from the 1960s onwards.
The sustainable farming revolution refers to the changes needed to transform the current food systems into practices that regenerate the soil, watersheds, food quality and economies, allow biodiversity to flourish and mitigate climate change.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction
Part 1 The challenges facing food production and how we can meet them
Chapter 1. The challenges facing food production
Chapter 2. How did we get here?
Part 2 Systems of sustainable and regenerative food production
Chapter 3. Biodynamic food production
Chapter 4. Organic food production
Chapter 5. Permaculture food production systems
Chapt