The defunct Ministry of Spatial Planning:

Which is to say, yes, land sharing (preferably commons based) is the ideal, and should be first choice when available, but there is also room for non-market based sparing as well. Without some sparing this planet would already be one big parking lot, at the “debate” would me moot.

Mentioned this almost a year ago, could be fun to dive into the land sparing debate: bsky.app/profile/adam... (previously bsky.app/profile/vive... )

While Bill Gates is in the news, this is a great read

@adamcalo.bsky.social and Maywa Montenegro talking about agroecology and the problems with productivist solutions to hunger on Sustainability Now!

With SNAP benefits in jeaopardy, the question of how best to feed hungry people is in the air. Out of many interventions, I'd put intesifiying commodity production very low on the priority list. Pod interview based on The Eduring Fantasy of Feeding the World piece for @journalspectre.bsky.social

It all comes back to land.

🥣 Brazil’s recipe to end hunger is shockingly simple – and it works. 👧🏽 Universal school meals 💸 Cash transfers + minimum wage 🌾 Buying from family farmers 🍲 Community kitchens 📜 The right to food in law 🌱 Support for agroecological farmers ipes-food.org/brazil-beats... #WorldFoodDay

Who wants to push the Landscapes podcast to 10k downloads? landscapes.libsyn.com

Abundance discourse

Useful repost if one believes glyphosate is the key to sustainable agriculture:

“A scandal that the EU is funnelling large sums of public money [via the #CAP] into farms accused & even convicted of labour abuses. “Social conditionality has proven toothless – failing to prevent abuse or trigger meaningful sanctions” says @deschuttero.bsky.social www.desmog.com/2025/09/29/r...

From the General Coordinator of La Via Campesina International: Can the food sovereignty movement really play a role in systemic transformation? Freedom, egalitarian societies, and planetary boundaries www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

@ezrakleinbot.bsky.social @dkthomp.bsky.social

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

Our summer fellow Meredith Song worked with Community Alliance with Family Farmers to analyze geospatial data of agricultural land transactions in California. She co-authored a @sfchronicle.com piece to explore what can be done to rein in corporate land ownership: www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...

@ netherlands 👀

To regain democratic control of the food system, we call for the establishment of a Land Observatory.

The energy transition forces new struggles over land. Latest from the Landscapes Podcast: Listen: plinkhq.com/i/1552882054... @greenprofgreen.bsky.social "existential politics" in action?

Advocates of agricultural intensification argue that industrial farming is a necessary evil that wards off global hunger. But when we recognize that yield increases are not the key to feeding the hungry, the argument falls apart. New, from @rajpatel.org

Here's my open access paper "Who is an American farmer? Who counts in American agriculture?"! I show that using $1,000 sales value as the threshold to be considered a farmer in the Census of Agriculture + increasing the # of operators per farm results in vast overestimates of "farms" & "farmers" 1/

Full transcript for the latest episode of Landscapes now available. Listen to Lindsay Shade and Karen Rignall describe how the legacies of land control challenge simplistic ideas of transitions.

Does anyone have a good English translation of Illich’s “Necesidades”

Visions for a green transition collide with the deep legacies of land control in central Appalachia. Listen on any podcast app: plinkhq.com/i/1552882054...

Teaser for the upcoming Landscapes Podcast episode. open.spotify.com/show/2wmTB5K...

Restaurants aren’t the protagonists of food system change.

The assumption here is that this ag produces food and spares land, but in a food regime intent on growing capital, these factory-inspired farms expand monocultures while not providing more food for hungry human consumption

...and thanks to @adamcalo.bsky.social , Maywa Montenegro, @alastairiles.bsky.social , @beniuliano.bsky.social , Richard Solomon, Rawa Abdelbaki, Rana Sukarieh, and @shaneburley.bsky.social for taking us through the second half of July. Links in thread 👇🏽 🧵

“As engaged scholars, we commit to working within and alongside the social movements of farmers, urban gardeners, workers, organizers, land defenders, and advocates who are transforming our food and political systems towards justice, community nourishment, and ecological health.”

🇧🇷Brazil is off the UN #hunger map! A historic achievement. THIS is how to beat hunger. "It took concerted political action—putting people, family farmers, and access to good local food at the centre – and by including those most affected" says our Elisabetta Recine ipes-food.org/brazil-beats...

There can be no sustainable food system without contesting land consolidation. This report from the Community Alliance with Family Farmers is the first of its kind to explicitly call for land reform in over four decades? Normalize land reform as a common sense policy platform.

Even if you disagree, this is worth reading. But I would posit that even if one sees through the "feeding the world" myth and understands the impacts of blind productivism, we can recognize the benefits of producing and distributing some food at economies of scale. spectrejournal.com/the-enduring...

Totally disagree with that strawman criticism. Scientists @adamcalo.bsky.social Maywa Montenegro, @alastairiles.bsky.social & @beniuliano.bsky.social thoughtfully explain the fallacy of land sparing argument from both ecological and social perspectives. #GoodRead #HighlyRecommend #Agroecology 🌎 🌱🧪

Thanks for writing! Resonates a lot with a book that’s coming out spring 26 focusing on everything besides commodities and capital that small farms can grow

Fabulous work by great food scholars - what would it look like to feed the world as if people, environment, and actual food for human consumption mattered?

Kudos to Ben Iuliano, Adam Calo, Maywa Montenegro de Wit and Adam Calo from the Agroecology Research-Action Collective for ending the Enduring Fantasy of “Feeding the World” in Spectre spectrejournal.com/the-enduring...

Why, oh why, won’t the idea of “land sparing” die? I pray that this piece of writing (among other efforts) will kill it quickly, alongside the false “feed the world” premise that sustains the idea that intensive chemical-industrial agriculture is any good 🙏🏽

Excellent essay by @adamcalo.bsky.social and colleagues shooting down the productivist 'feed the world' rationale for industrial agriculture, predicated on the land-sparing myth and false binary of nature/farmland. Packed with insight and trope-exploding truths!

Excellent critique of how “land sparing” and agricultural intensification are neither sustainable nor capable of feeding the world, but rather serve the interest of industrial agribusiness. And why agroecology remains an alternative.

Really proud of this piece pushing back against renewed enthusiasm for “land sparing” (i.e. industrial ag boosterism), written with some brilliant colleagues. Check it out!

What drives the enduring myth of “feeding the world?” @tabledebates.bsky.social

New Landscapes episode on how the green transition meets landed power coming soon! Also a bit of Abundance critique.

Chayanovians crying out in pain.

This is an interesting piece and I've seen other work by Calo and colleagues productively explore these topics. But they dont explicitly identify as degrowth (at least in that link).

A reminder of how soil is prepared for intensive strawberry production. 💀 An old snap from fieldwork in California circa 2015. ipm.ucanr.edu/agriculture/...

Adam Calo, Sylvia Kay, Sarah R Sippel, Coline Perrin, and Kirsteen Shields explore how geographically variegated property regimes in the Global North shape the scope of the commodification and assetization of farmland, and discuss radical alternatives to private property. tinyurl.com/2atadp9n

PhD position: Non-human animal representation #academicsky

If you are interested in land politics, check out @econgeo.bsky.social 's Institutional Landscapes webpage. They are graciously hosting this guest post: