D2_Agraria_Journal_21_OPT
about food legacies—Gabby Loomis-Amrhein asks us to pay attention to where and who we are as we forage and the impacts our foraging might have on ecosystem health. Caressa Brown and Kenisha Robinson turn our attention toward their family histories, and their grandfathers’ and fathers’ relationships with growing food, and how those growing lessons are connected to their present and future, and that of their community. Cheryl Smith looks back toward the decline of her childhood home in Dayton, and the liberatory capacity of land reclamation and food production for Black Americans. Other writers featured in this edition ask us to pay attention to the relationship between soil, food, human health, and the health of ecosystems. Jim Linne walks us through rebuilding a farm, literally from the ground up, while Dan Kittredge directs our attention to the mystery of nutrient density—how can some spinach be packed with antioxidants, while other spinach may have only a small amount? Megan Bachman’s interview with Elaine Ingham puts a new spin on an old idea—you are what you eat—to make the connection between healthier soils and healthier humans. In her feature on Leslie Edmunds of Clem & Thyme Nutrition, Peggy Nestor explains that there is work being done, just down the road, for people hungry to learn about the healing power of real, whole food. Susan Jennings asks us to pay attention to the bigger picture, and how new understandings of our interconnectedness with each other and the planet can lead us to a healthful future. What do we need to thrive? At Agraria, the answers start in the soil. Sheryl Cunningham is president of the Agraria Board of Trustees and a communication professor and faculty sustainability coordinator at Wittenberg University. AGRARIA JOURNAL 2021 5 Over the years our organization has gone by different names, but the work has been essentially the same: to research, educate and promote community as both a cooperative attitude and place-based way of life. Founded in 1940 as Community Service, Inc., the intent was to serve small communities by disseminating ideas and strategies for their economic and cultural vitality. It was only later that the term “community service” came to mean a type of local volunteering. So in the early 2000s, the organization began using The Community Solution to highlight the ways that community — local, cooperative living — was the solution to many of our most pressing challenges, namely oil and resource depletion. In 2009, we rebranded as The Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions, honoring the work of our pioneering founder and reflecting our research and education prowess as a new kind of think tank. The 2017 purchase of our 128-acre farm brought another shift. We called it Agraria in a nod to both a low-energy community design crafted by Pat Murphy and Morgan’s vision of vibrant rural cultures and economies laid out in several of his books. The name Agraria speaks to the work to both reclaim and reimagine a more rooted way of life in deep relationship to the land and one another. It brings us back to our foundations as an organization, and as a civilization. And it brings us to another name change for our 80-plus year-old organization. The legacy that began with Community Service and continued with Community Solutions will now live on under the banner of the Agraria Center for Regenerative Practice. After all, the more things change, the more they stay the same. What’s in a Name?
Made with FlippingBook
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODI0NDUy