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  • Article

Soil health and dairy farming in the UK

Although healthy soil means more nutritious dairy products, modern intensive farming methods pollute and degrade the environment. However, a regenerative agriculture movement is kicking back against mainstream industrial farming.

  • Podcast

Farmland

Fruit and vegetables link our hungry bodies to the world of plants. Yet many of us have little understanding of the farming industry and the impact that bringing crops to our plates has on the planet.

  • Article

Thomas Sankara and the stomachs that made themselves heard

Thomas Sankara’s vision to transform farming and health in Burkina Faso turned to dust with his assassination. Perry Blankson highlights the considerable achievements of Sankara’s brief span in power.

  • Article

How Californian dairy farmers stole a way of life

When European settlers drained a beautiful Californian lake to provide dairy grazing, the lives of nearby Native American peoples changed out of all recognition. But recent rainfall is strengthening hopes of a return to the old ways.

All stories (8)

Images

  • Indian agriculture and crops. Gouache drawing.
  • Indian agriculture: drawing water for crops. Gouache drawing.
  • Nepal; agriculture in the Khumbu, 1986. Growing potatoes at Phortse (altitude 4000 metres). At this altitude, in breathtaking but inhospitable terrain, potatoes are the principle crop of the Sherpas. Phortse is one of the highest permanent village settlements on the journey to Sagarmatha (Mount Everest).
  • Nepal; agriculture in the Khumbu, 1986. Pangboche (altitude 4200 metres), showing the tiny, walled terraced fields on which Sherpas cultivate their staple crops (potatoes, barley, wheat). Potatoes are rarely grown beyond 4000 metres but barley is grown at higher altitudes. Scattered juniper and birch trees share this terrain with sub-alpine grasses. Few people live permanently beyond this village amid the last scattered trees below the treeline.
  • Nepal; agriculture and subsistence in the Khumbu, 1986. Farmland on the lower slopes of the Himalayas (altitude 2900 metres). In the late 1980s, food grains contributed 76% of total crop production but production of milk, meat and fruit had not reached a point where nutritionally balanced food was available to most people. Staples (potatoes, barley, wheat) were occasionally augmented by green vegetables in the monsoon season (June-October), yak cheese and milk which was not consumed in large quantities, and fruit which was rare and expensive.
  • Agriculture: a coconut tree plantation in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), with workers in the foreground and an overseer (?) off to the left. Wood engraving.
  • A tea plantation in China: some men prepare the soil for planting while others rest. Coloured lithograph.
  • A tea plantation in China: workers sow the seed. Coloured lithograph.
  • A tea plantation in China: workers roll the caper tea into balls. Coloured lithograph.
  • Nine scenes showing tea cultivation and preparation on an Indian plantation. Engraving by T. Brown, c. 1850, after J. L. Williams.
All images (17)

Catalogue

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