EARTHLIFE

In this interview we learn from Indra about the millions of farmers who have shown up to protest and those who remain (mostly white haired!) occupying the roads entering Delhi living in their trolley wagons pulled by tractors to protest the International Ag Business-friendly laws of the Modi government. This law removes critical protections and prices supports and puts the already marginalized and precarious farmers at tremendous dis-advantage with large international grain buyers. The proposed laws would normalize ‘contract growing’ and a race to the bottom.

Indra is a writer and a wonderful thinker, who helps us all remember the shared colonial history of the US and India. He recalls the Salt march, the East India Company, the longstanding Ghandian traditions of standing up, non violently, for human dignity and self determination. He tells about the kindness and the valor expressed by the protesting farmers, about the lineage of this behavior, as these farmers are many of them veterans of the army, about why such an outpouring of solidarity and respect is shown by the Indian peoples towards these farmers. Indra tells how his own family gave away farm land during the famous Land GIFT Movement of Vinoba Bhave and Vimala Thakar to be overseen by village counsels and distributed to the less fortunate so that none would be desperate. The same village counsel process that we refer to in the interview is used for the self-determined and self-organized water citizen-powered management movement as coordinated by Rajendra Singh and the Flow Partnership International for helping to heal watersheds and increase infiltration of the water table. Indeed this episodes helps us refer to what is truly meaningful, the will force, the truth, the historical reckoning, our own freedom, the structure and accountability of our democratic process. I refer listeners to learn about the very same struggle which is happening here in the USA https://disparitytoparity.org/.

Resources:

1.Devinder Sharma (https://devinder-sharma.blogspot.com)

2.P Sainath (https://ruralindiaonline.org/authors/p-sainath/)

3. I S Singh - @indrassingh and the hashtags are quite effective:

#farmersprotest #farmerprotest #istandwithfarmers. Also tracking the wonderful coordinated action of the Punjabi Diaspora and the Sikh diaspora who have been a source of tremendous solidarity, along with the truckers and the general strikers. It is a community in touch with the honor and dignity and worth of its farmers, who have mobilized to make sure that all are fed.

4. Thewire.in is a best place to get updates in English.

Further reading:

1. Can the government guarantee that #India won’t go the US #agri-business way due to these reforms? God forbid if the implementation fails, no one can safeguard our #farms, annadattas and food system from a Neo-Company Raj - https://thewire.in/agriculture/farm-bills-small-farmers-and-chasing-the-agri-dollar-dream

2. "India cannot have protectionism for corporations backed by tariffs and a free market only for Indian farmers," The Wire. #WTO - https://thewire.in/agriculture/the-pandoras-box-of-agri-reform-subsidies-and-tariffs

3. Did You Think the New Laws Were Only About the Farmers? - P Sainath - https://thewire.in/rights/farm-laws-legal-rights-constitution

4. India's Farm Protests: A Basic Guide to the Issues at Stake - Kabir Agarwal - https://thewire.in/agriculture/indias-farmers-protests-guide-issues-at-stake-reforms-laws-msp

5. India’s farms and villages are India. If the government does not course-correct, each roti will be mottled with the blood of farmers | #FarmersProtest #BharatBandh - https://www.newsclick.in/farmers-fight-bharat-india?

6. Don’t mess with farmers - https://www.dailypioneer.com/2020/columnists/don---t-mess-with-farmers.html?

Evan Strusinski is a legend among foragers and mycophiles. For years Evan sold wild mushrooms and foraged edibles to the top Chefs in NYC, now many of those restaurants are closed for COVID. Join for a meandering stroll into the ethics, naturalism, lifestyle and prognostications of cool myco-cat Evan.

A true expert, he finds, identifies, harvests, and transports over 300 species of wild and rare plants and fungi found in the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. He spends his springs, summers, and falls in the woods where his deep knowledge, intuition, and attentive senses guide him to alluring wild foods.

Show Notes:

• Evan's Instagram
• Susan Leopold
• United Plant Savers
• Rosemary Gladstar
• Peter Mccoy
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

More interviews with Evan Strusinski:

• Food and Wine
• The Boston Globe
• Garage Mag

Greenhorns works nationally and locally to create a welcoming and hospitable culture for new entrants in regenerative agriculture. We produce cultural and educational media, programming and publications including the New Farmer’s Almanac, as well as films, radio and the occasional art stunt. Our summer programs and projects address the practical and social concerns of those living close to the land. We emphasize agroecology, skill-building, networking and intersectional dialogue, and working to repair this landscape we share. Visit us at greenhorns.org to learn more!

This interview features Evan Strusinkski, as interviewed by Severine von Tscharner Fleming. Production is by Mary Ball, and editing is by Rachel Darke. Our intro and outro music is The Fly, by Cosmo Sheldrake. Thank you for listening!

GinaRae LaCerva is an acclaimed writer, geographer, and environmental anthropologist with an intense wanderlust. She loves to learn and teach us foraging traditions, we’re in conversation about restoration approaches, humility, and the interesting and complicated question of how to create multi generational conservation processes that are also equitable.

GinaRae’s first book, “Feasting Wild: In Search of the Last Untamed Food,” traces our complex and storied relationships to wild foods. In this wide-ranging book, she explores diverse foraging, hunting, and land use practices. Her culinary adventures untangle how forces such as colonialism, extraction, and extinction have left wild spaces in ruin. Receiving her undergraduate from Vassar College, she also holds a Master of Environmental Science from Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a Master of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge.

Show Notes:

• Feasting Wild: In Search of the Last Untamed Food
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
• The Peregrine by J. A. Baker
• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Greenhorns works nationally and locally to create a welcoming and hospitable culture for new entrants in regenerative agriculture. We produce cultural and educational media, programming and publications including the New Farmer’s Almanac, as well as films, radio and the occasional art stunt. Our summer programs and projects address the practical and social concerns of those living close to the land. We emphasize agroecology, skill-building, networking and intersectional dialogue, and working to repair this landscape we share. Visit us at greenhorns.org to learn more!

This interview features GinaRae LaCerva, as interviewed by Severine von Tscharner Fleming. Production is by Mary Ball, and editing is by Rachel Darke. Our intro and outro music is The Fly, by Cosmo Sheldrake. Thank you for listening!

More about Sexto Colectivo...

• Sexto Colectivo on Instagram
• Juan Escalona Meléndez, on History and Science in Contemporary Meixan Cuisine from Aesthetics for Birds
• El Sexto Colectivo Wants You to Eat With Your Mind

Other Chefs and Projects Mentioned in this Episode...

• Osvaldo Saldoval
• Arielle Johnson
• David Zilber
• Noma Ferments
• Rene Redzepi
• Pascal Baudar
• The Feral Trade Courier

Special thanks to Paul Molyneaux, who connected us and wrote about Juan for National Fisherman. He also wrote: Swimming in Circles and Doryman’s Reflections.

Greenhorns works nationally and locally to create a welcoming and hospitable culture for new entrants in regenerative agriculture. We produce cultural and educational media, programming and publications including the New Farmer’s Almanac, as well as films, radio and the occasional art stunt. Our summer programs and projects address the practical and social concerns of those living close to the land. We emphasize agroecology, skill-building, networking and intersectional dialogue, and working to repair this landscape we share. Visit us at greenhorns.org to learn more!

This interview features Juan Escalona Meléndez, as interviewed by Severine von Tscharner Fleming. Production is by Mary Ball, and editing is by Rachel Darke. Our intro and outro music is The Fly, by Cosmo Sheldrake. Thank you for listening!

• Merlin Sheldrake: Website
• Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
• Peter Mccoy
• Peter McCoy's Radical Mycology Masterclass
• Paul Stamets
• Ecovative Design

Greenhorns works nationally and locally to create a welcoming and hospitable culture for new entrants in regenerative agriculture. We produce cultural and educational media, programming and publications including the New Farmer’s Almanac, as well as films, radio and the occasional art stunt. Our summer programs and projects address the practical and social concerns of those living close to the land. We emphasize agroecology, skill-building, networking and intersectional dialogue, and working to repair this landscape we share. Visit us at greenhorns.org to learn more!

This interview features author and biologist Merlin Sheldrake, as interviewed by Severine von Tscharner Fleming. Production is by Mary Ball, and editing is by Rachel Darke. Our intro and outro music is The Fly, by Cosmo Sheldrake. Thank you for listening!