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Letter From The Farm | Wandering In Quest Of Balance

We’re back on Chiara Garini’s farm at the foot of the Italian Alps, where the forest garden is in beautiful shape in its fifth mushroom season. Running the farm is a constant balancing act. It’s the satisfaction of producing food that keeps Chiara going. Don’t miss our policy explainer at the end of this letter, where we examine the policy constraints that prevent Chiara and other small-scale farmers from diversifying their activites. […]

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Letter From The Farm | Cresting the Peaks of Constant Change

We’re back at the foot of the Italian Alps, where Chiara Garini is growing like the shiitake mushrooms on her forest farm. Given our precarious, hyperconnected and crisis-stricken planet, Chiara is sticking with the realism of making and maintaining –food and employment, forest and qualify of life– over the idealism of saving the world. The farm is growing too, and the long-awaited renovation of an old building is helping the now-expanded team to diversify activities.  […]

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Letter From The Farm | The Slower Path To Paradigm Change

We’re back on Chiara Garini’s farm at the foot of the Italian Alps. After her ambitious plans to open an on-farm restaurant, Chiara reflects on the benefits of taking the slower path to paradigm change. Paradoxically this setback serves well her overall vision of agri-food systems as the farm continues to reap the benefits of diversification. Meanwhile in local politics, divisive narratives around farming have led to a disappointing development, leaving Chiara more convinced than ever that agroecology is the way forward.   […]

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Letter From The Farm | Thriving In The Ford

We’re back on Chiara’s mushroom farm at the foot of the Italian Alps, where forest farm life goes on regardless of the lockdown. She is determined to get her on-farm processing facility up and running for this season. During the Covid-19 crisis she’s been even more socially isolated than usual, giving her time to muse on the deeper meanings of the “ford”: the site of her farm, but also a metaphor for agroforesty and agroecology. […]

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Letter From The Farm | Welcome to Trento

New farmer Chiara Garini, fresh from learning about gastronomy and agroecology at the academic level, is trying to put some of her ideas into practice on a farm in Italy. Here she introduces her background, her studies, and the land she’s working on. Already, she has faced challenges and had to make decisions. […]