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Emilia Hazelip video: Synergistic Garden
Emilia Hazelip, Google Video
An educational video on no-till synergistic gardening that describes the step-by-step processes developed by Emilia Hazelip to create an ec...all » An educational video on no-till synergistic gardening that describes the step-by-step processes developed by Emilia Hazelip to create an ecological agriculture.

She became interested in Fukuoka's work in 1977 and this video shows the cultural and climatological adaptations she has developed in the course of years of research. A synergistic garden is an ecosystem that is consciously designed to allow all the dynamic life forms present in a wild soil to remain present while still growing crops (on whatever scale). It is that simple. But that's not the view commonly held in the sphere of science or in the politics of agribusiness which rule France.

Emilia exclaims passionately: "The living world is not understood by the technician, and since it is not understood, it is not studied for its diversity. People always want to apply mechanical laws to it..."
(31 May 2008)
As Wikipedia says, "Emilia Hazelip (1938 - February 1, 2003) was a Catalan organic gardener, former Merry Prankster [1], and pioneer of the concept of synergistic gardening. Her farming methods were inspired by Masanobu Fukuoka after reading his book; "The One-Straw Revolution" in 1977 after it was first translated into English."

Essay by Emilia Hazelip in English: The Synergistic Garden.
-BA

MoJo Forum: Is Organic and Local So 2008?
Paul Roberts, Lisa Gosselin, Jim Harkness, and Ryan Zinn debate, Mother Jones
"Spoiled" touched such a nerve among readers that we've brought Paul Roberts back to answer your questions this week—and added an ag trade wonk, an organic consumer lobbyist, and a professional foodie to the mix.
(13 April 2009)
Massive comments and other voices added to the debate caused by the original article, which you can read here KS.

The great wealthy nation land-grab
Maywa Montenegro, Grist
Globally, farmland —and just as critically, water on that land — is disappearing at an alarming rate. Approximately 50 million acres vanish each year to urbanization, population growth, and economic and industrial development. So what are countries doing in response? Looking to buy or lease fertile land in parts of the developing world, where property is cheap and governments are eager for foreign investment.

For example, Cambodia has entered land-for-oil talks with Kuwait and Qatar, and Laos has signed away 15 percent of its arable land. Yet both Cambodia and Laos have large food-insecure populations—and both receive aid from the World Food Program. What will become of the subsistance farmers who will be displaced? Should food-insecure nations really be bargaining away farmland at a time of increasingly volatile food markets and climate change that could affect agricultural productivity?

I’ve been thinking through these issues for two recent pieces in Seed magazine. The first piece explores the trend in broad brushstrokes, and the second is a case study of the Kenya’s Tana River Delta, where Qatar is vying for land. Look for this story to break into the mainstream media after Joachim Von Braun, director of the International Food Policy Research Institute delivers a press conference today in Washington DC.

Maywa Montenegro is an editor and writer at Seed magazine, focusing mainly on ecology, bidiversity, agriculture, and sustainable development.
(29 April 2009)