Middlemen have a bad reputation. When you hear the term, your mind probably conjures a cabal of greedy traders sitting between poor farmers and rich brands, siphoning from the value chain without actually adding value themselves. Movements to cut out the middleman have gained traction with talk of ‘direct trade’; and with terms like ‘farm-to-table’, which suggest virtue and a more empowered local economy.
It may come as a shock, but after working for many years on regenerative agriculture from the ground up, the most important conclusion we can offer is this: we need middlemen. …
Sitting in an office, you can try to calculate the costs of the climate crisis, the value of nature conservation, or the true price of a product. I did those kinds of things in the corporate world for a couple of years, producing glossy reports. Seven years ago, I left the corporate offices, and set out to understand what it takes to create real change for landscapes and people on the ground. The opportunities seemed endless and up for grabbing. I soon discovered that even planting a single tree is not as simple as it sounds. …
Human beings are not rational when it comes to decisions about life and death. We try to figure out whether lockdown regulations should be lifted or tightened based on mathematical models of how the virus might spread and how many people might die. But our minds struggle to make these decisions based on numbers alone. The debate on whether ‘the cure is worse than the disease’ in policy-decisions on the corona-virus, reminded me of research I came across a while back when I was reading a book called ‘Behave’ by Robert Sapolsky.
I have written two blogs on the COVID-19 situation in South Africa, and felt after the second blog that perhaps I was ‘done’. But as the weeks pass here under one of the most stringent lockdowns in the world, and hunger and poverty are hitting the communities faster than COVID-19, I think it’s important to share another story. The story of ordinary people. People who, until a few weeks ago, were just going about their daily lives. They worked as a bookkeeper, as an ngo fundraiser, as a graphic designer. In their spare time, they were surfing, hiking, cooking, taking…
Sitting at home, being locked down, watching the virus infections going up every day all over the world, is quite depressing. This blog is not written to make you feel worse. It’s written to make you feel a tiny bit better. By showing what people are doing to fight this big hairy beast, and making it easier for you to contribute.
The good news is: we can all do something, and I’ve actually been incredibly inspired over the past 10 days or so since I posted my previous blog. Many of you have written to me saying you would love…
Being from the Netherlands whilst living in South Africa reminds me every day of how incredibly privileged I am. The stark inequality here in Cape Town often makes friends who visit us from Europe feel uncomfortable. They ask us how we manage to live here, having to face these differences on a daily basis. We always tell them that we believe that it’s better to be aware than to be ignorant; if you step in the plane back to your home, people don’t just miraculously stop living in their shacks. The COVID-19 crisis makes the stark inequality in our society…
