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A selection of our writings from 2009 to the present. If you'd like to keep up to date with our latest posts, please subscribe below.

Rebuilding the local village with Bei Yin and Jashan Singh (podcast)

Join Patrick as he asks timely questions of Bei Yin and Jashan Singh, two recent guests at our School of Applied Neopeasantry. Bei and Jashan’s stories offer clarity, warmth, honesty and generative responses to the discussion of how we might reclaim the local village.

You can listen to the audio-only version here.

 

And here is the audio with an image version:

Since our time together, we have begun discussions with Bei and Jashan and local farmers, land holders and community actors to see what can be achieved to enable young farmers from diverse backgrounds to grow food and sell it to local markets. We have been active in this space for a number of years matchmaking landless wanna-be neopeasants with people willing to share their land, and sharing our own story of farmless farming based not on private property ownership but rather on social relations. Our local food co-op feeds about 300 households and we could do with some more local growers who are willing to raise crops to directly supply them or to sell at the local Sunday market.

The majority of the world’s food is grown on small farms ranging between 2 and 70 acres. It is a blatant lie we need to use pesticides. It is a myth farmers need to get big. That’s merely the ideology of bankers, chemical companies, and the coalition of the willing found in the agribusiness and government sectors.

Neopeasants arise, take back control of how you grow and who you grow for!

Please feel free to comment or get in touch if Bei and Jashan’s story has inspired you and you would like to be kept in the loop about future farming possibilities. Additionally, if you have land to share and would like to offer younger farmers opportunities to start farming without going into debt please head to Land Share Central Victoria, contact us here, leave a comment, or start your own Land Share page in your region. The future of farming is debt and chemical free. We just need to link people up to begin discussions and collaborations.

What a time of the year to think big, farm small and cut out the banks and the middle men.

With love, Artist as Family

Hearing you slowly (nuance in an age of tyranny)

Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance – Albert Maysles

As an antidote to this era of click-bait media, ‘noble lies’ journalism, feedback refusal and aggregating censorship, we are beginning a series of long-form interviews, collating the stories of people who are the experts of their own lives. And we’re sharing these stories for an audience who like their media slow, nuanced and raw.

So, here are the first four voices in the series Hearing you slowly. Thank you Trace, Marita, James and Dianne for sharing your stories. We hope you enjoy these episodes as much as we have enjoyed producing them, assisted by Miles, whose camera craft, eye and collaboration brings a special quality to this series.

In the first of these stories, children’s book writer and illustrator, Trace, speaks of her Covid experience as someone rendered health-vulnerable in large part by being overprescribed antibiotics as a teenager. She offers many insights for a post-pandemic world.

Permaculturist and grandmother, Marita, describes her youth raised and educated in Germany, and why Covid segregation has triggered her both emotionally and politically.

Highly vaccinated traveller, father and solar energy consultant, James, despite being advised not to get the Covid injections for medical reasons was not able to get a medical exemption. His personal story shines a light on the the erosion of the patient-doctor relationship and of civil liberties more broadly.

And last but not least, retired elder Dianne tells the courageous story of nursing her Covid-ill parents while she was also suffering from the illness, and offers us the gifts and wisdom she gleaned over the past two years.

We heartily welcome your generative comments and encourage your respectful feedback. If you haven’t already subscribed to our blog, please do so to be alerted to forthcoming episodes. We require a minimum of $250 to produce each story, so if you wish to support our work and are in a position to do so, please click on the Support tab in the top right of this page. Much gratitude to everyone who has already contributed financially and otherwise.

Next up, we’ll be bringing you a conversation with permaculture co-originator and futurist, David Holmgren, speaking on this present moment from his unique lens, as part of our commitment to bringing you diverse stories from the heart, the gut and the mind.

Sending much love, nuance and solidarity into your day,
Artist as Family