@bencurthoys @argv_minus_one @danirabbit

May I be the joyless bastard and weigh in about synthetic meat? I hope not to crash the party (also, I am several hours late, lol)...  

The problem I see with synthetic meat is about the food system we want.

Synthetic meat is an industrial product, requiring global supply chains, large-scale (sterile) facilities and a stratified and complex (and stratified) social and economic structure.
A part from making the life cycle assessment quite complex (because e.g. the quantification of the environmental impact of a production system depends mainly from where you draw the system boundaries, so it is very easy to leave out processes and obtain a nicer picture than in reality), hyper-technological systems are not resilient (remember when during covid there was a global shortage of lab gloves because *all* of them are produced in Malaysia? there are many components in a lab that are not easy to source in a crisis).

On another note, it is also a question of organization. A food system based on small-scale, local and sustainable farms is in my eyes much preferable than megacorporations owning the food production chain. I am not sure that lab meat will be easy to grow in our basements like fungi or so...

Also, be aware that a lot of the lab meat bubble was because it seemed so attractive to investors. Technological, scalable solutions that seem even more sustainable than what we have actually. A very welcome investment opportunity and a good narrative for corporations that want to show that they will save the world (remember biofuels from algae?).

Don't get me wrong, I am not fundamentally against industry or technology, it's just that I think that it is a good idea to keep the influence of the corporate-industrial players out of the food system as much as possible.

It is correct that lab meat is probably way more ethical than the current system of industrial agriculture with factory farms. But we also easily tend to overestimate the contribution of industrial farming to feed the world, and overlook the millions of smallscale farmers that provide a way greater part of the foodstuff actually consumed by humanity. @viacampesina_en has more information about this.

#Agroecology #LabMeat #SyntheticMeat #AgroecologicalTransition #Diet #SustainableDiet #FoodSystem #WeFeedTheWorld

I received this invitation. (comments at the end)

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Dear Colleagues,

The first part of the 5th EUSO Stakeholders Forum will be an online event on 12th June, focussing on the topic "Soil health and EU competitiveness". During this event, case studies from the private sector will show how healthy soils can promote competitiveness in terms of the three pillars:
a) closing the innovation gap
b) decarbonisation and competitiveness
c) reducing excessive dependencies

The event includes presentations from the biotechnology sector, agribusiness, banking-financial sector, remediation industry, start-ups, carbon farming, development of clean products and retail industry.

More information as Agenda, Speakers and Registration can be found in the page:

https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/euso/5th-euso-stakeholders-forum

Kind Regards,
Panos PANAGOS, PhD.

Scientific/Research Officer
Project Leader of EU Soil Observatory (EUSO)

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My thoughts:
Ok, we need urgently more awareness about soils. We need more #OrganicAgriculture, #RegenerativeAgriculture, #AgroecologicalTransition, #CommunitySupportedAgriculture and much more. What we *definitely* don't need, is a meeting with NOT A SINGLE FARMER, but people from Syngenta, Bayer, NestlΓ© and a bunch of other industry representatives to allow them to show that they are trying soo hard to protect our environment while they do everything they can to sabotage meaningful policy changes. Venture capital funded Start-ups and old villains are definitely not the structural change the agrifood-system needs.

Maybe it will still be an informative event, who knows.

Thank you for listening.

#Agronomy #Agroecology #SoilHealth #SoilScience #Remediation #EUComission #Agriculture #Farming #Bioremediation #CarbonCapture #CorporateEurope #GreenDeal #Soil #Eurosoil ThisIsWhyWeNeedRealDegrowth

5th EUSO Stakeholders Forum - ESDAC - European Commission

Agroecology is a social movement originated by peasant farmers in the global south but nowadays spread over the whole world.

https://agroecologyfund.org/what-is-agroecology/

One of the main organizations is @ViaCampesina .

And agroecology is a field of research where scientists combine the most advanced interdisciplinary knowledge of agricultural ecosystems (I am a soil microbiologist and work with botanists, entomologists (insects), agronomists, food chemists, but also sociologists and economists) with the applied understanding of farmers and indigenous people to develop and promote sustainable farming techniques and a transformation of the food system.

This is because from a scientific point of view, the industrial food system has way too many disadvantages, destroying the planet, society and our health.

#AgroecologicalTransition #Agroecology #Agriculture #FoodSystems #SustainableAgriculture #RegenerativeAgriculture #RegAg #OrganicAgriculture #PeasantFarming #SmallholderFarmers #PeasantAgriculture #HealthyFood #SoilScience #Agroecosystems #ViaCampesina

@notsoloud

What is Agroecology? - Agroecology Fund

What is Agroecology? Agroecology is an integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social concepts and principles to the design and management of food and agricultural systems. Within a justice and rights framework, it seeks to minimize external inputs and optimize sustainable interactions between plants, animals, humans and the broader environment. Agroecology is not a […]

Agroecology Fund

@chrisvanswaay

Who could have seen that coming? /s

Seriously, folks.
Fight for glyphosate bans, but mainly because it is a prominent example of a pesticide. Most insecticides are way more toxic...
We need to support every farmer going pesticide free. Thats even more important than going 'organic' over night. So, talk in your grocery store to the person in charge of the orders. Don't buy only lawless vegs. Organize food coops, buying directly from producers, bypassing the suckering middlemen it's sometimes even cheaper to get sustainable quslity products. Vote for environmental policies, but be very sceptic of politicians.

#agroecology #agroecologicalTransition