Getting hot in here.Photo: Josh KelloggClimate change is the issue of our time. Its ill effects will fall heaviest on the people who have least contributed to it: billions in the global south. But no one will escape the impact of the warming climate, and one place it will manifest most obviously is on our plates. If we look at chile peppers, for example, it's easy to see how the negative effects of climate change have affected the food on our plates and the farmers behind that food. In their new book, Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail, …

As weather patterns change and fossil fuel supplies dwindle, communities have to start thinking about food resilience. How can farmers and gardeners grow and preserve food amid rapidly changing weather conditions, and without easy access to cheap industrial fertilizers? In her new book, The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times, longtime gardener and scientist Carol Deppe digs into just such questions. I recently talked to Deppe about how her form of resilient gardening compares to "traditional" gardening, the importance of not seeking perfection, and how all of this ties into food security. Q. What's the first step …

Gianaclis Caldwell makes aged cheese from the milk of her Nigerian Dwarf goats.  She lives in Oregon, on a 23-acre, off-the-grid farm. She has critically acclaimed cheeses, a whole lot to say about the business of making and selling your own cheese, and a new book called The Farmstead Creamery Advisor. And there's never been a better time to be making and selling great cheese, according to her. But how does one become a cheesemaker? How do you not drown in debt? How do you learn to love a goat? How do you wake up every morning at the crack …

Last week I went to California for the 2010 Eco Farm Conference -- a three-day organic farming extravaganza featuring big names (and big influences of the organic agriculture movement) such as Wes Jackson, Frances Moore Lappé, Deputy Security of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan, and a ton of folks who are part of an ever-growing and expanding movement for healthy food and a sustainable planet. But make no mistake about it -- this wasn't no utopian hippy fest (at least not all of it.) I came to Eco Farm looking for some inspiration, but also as a skeptic. As both an editor …

It's always sunny in this Philadelphia community garden.Photo courtesy Tony the Misfit via Flickr Do you dream of an organic garden, but don't have a yard? A flock of chicks, perhaps, but don't have a yard? Home-grown food, and lower grocery bills (but, alas, no yard!)? Dream no more, because you can have it, and without quitting your job, trading your bus pass for a pickup, or moving to the rural north. A new wave of farming is happening in a city near you. While true, Old MacDonald had a farm (ee-i-ee-i-o), his offspring have some urban fish to fry. …

Bee there, do that: organic beekeeper Ross Conrad. Beekeeping is rising in popularity--from urban rooftops to backyard hives, the world is abuzz with interest in homemade honey. And who better to comment on the nature of bees than the former president of the Vermont Beekeepers Association, Ross Conrad. He's led bee-related presentations and taught organic beekeeping workshops and classes throughout North America for many years, and Conrad's small beekeeping business supplies friends, neighbors, and local stores with honey and candles among other bee related products, not to mention provides bees for Vermont apple pollination in spring. I talked to Conrad …

With the economic downturn and increase in the desire for a relationship with our food, farming has become a popular lifestyle among young people opting out of the corporate world. And while these people are new to life on the land, others have made a life of it for generations. But either way, growing food is rife with politics and economic stresses. Look at the dairy farms in Vermont filing for bankruptcy, the family businesses going under in the midwest, and the monopoly of small farms by corporate agriculture! It sort of looks dismal out there. And while sure, it …

Gene Logsdon on his farm.Gene Logsdon is one of the clearest and most original voices of rural America. He's a farmer in Ohio not far from his boyhood home, and is a writer to boot; he's published more than two dozen books; some of which include Living at Nature's Pace: Farming and the American Dream and The Contrary Farmer. Wendell Berry calls Logsdon "the best agricultural writer we have," and his farm a slice of Eden. But most importantly, Logsdon loves farming. So now that more and more people are seeking out locally grown foods, I asked Gene a few …