Author: Daniela

  • Respecting Indigenous Knowledge

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    I’ve long been interested in the culture of villages, particularly as it pertains to my Croatian background.  Although our “peasants” have often been caricatured as close-minded and backward, they are the keepers of our heritage, its arts, crafts and traditions. Their farming practices, honed over centuries, have helped to preserve a wide range of native…

  • Coop Helps Improve Environment

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    Some of you may have already heard of Fertile Ground out of Oklahoma. I feel like I’ve come across that name before. In any case the company came up in my news feed when an Oklahoma City station aired a segment about them. It seems the company that had been contracted by three local cities…

  • Cultural Fusion

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    An iconic photo of a Maasai in traditional shuka, carrying a spear and talking on his cell phone perfectly personifies the fusion of European, American and African cultures.

  • Zimbabwe Adopts Plan to Protect Rights of Small Farmers

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    Jeffrey Gogo’s latest piece in The Herald outlines how the Plan for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA) “aims to ‘catalogue, protect and promote’ cultivated indigenous crops as well as wild plants and fruits” in Zimbababwe. The National Strategy and Action Plan for Plant Genetic Resources For Food and Agriculture is based on protection…

  • Picture of the Day

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    A member of an unspecified Brazilian indigenous tribe pictured  April 25, 2018 in Brasilia. (Photo by EPA/MAXPPP)

  • Photo of the Day

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    Today’s photo is from photographer Biljana Jurukovski’s Tribal Muse series. Jurukovski’s photographs hone in on the beauty of the women of the Surma tribe — more specifically the Suri.  If you are interested in this photographer and her work My Modern Met has a great interview with her.      

  • Documenting the most Striking and Inspiring Cooperatives in Five Continents

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    They say the best way to learn is to teach.  It couldn’t be more true.  Writing a blog post is the process of condensing a lot of information into an easily digestible form.  As a result, I’m learning right along with my readers.  Here’s something I didn’t know: Cooperatives are not a marginal phenomenon: More…

  • Are you interested in starting a coop?

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    From the large amount of material coming into my feed daily, it appears more and more grassroots organizations are springing up around the country dedicated to building a robust cooperative sector.  United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives is just such an organization. The USFWC was founded in 2004 when a core of worker co-op members…

  • Wholesum Fair Trade

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    Wholesum Farms  came up in my news feed again today.  I was thrilled to read they are expanding their fair trade offerings. A portion of the proceeds from these products, as well as others in their Fair Trade line will be funneled into Wholesum’s community development fund.  This is a great example of how an…

  • Support better conditions for farm workers with fair trade

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    Our current industrial farm culture not only degrades the environment, the soil and the water, but subjects workers to an array of hazards such as respiratory infections, sprains, bruises, severe head trauma, fractures, electrocution and repetitive motion injury. Paul Rice, Founder and CEO of Fair Trade USA emphasizes the need for Fair Trade Certification in the…