Lobelia Commons Announces Call for Creation of The Earthbound Farmers Almanac

The 2021 Earthbound Farmers Almanac is seeking content from a diversity of sources united by a radical relationship with the land.

We want your anti-colonial screeds, anecdotes from the farm, musings of inter-species relations, skills passed down from grandparents, alternative perspectives on land stewardship, glimpses of other worlds and everything in between.

Suggestion: a city-wide decentralized nursery.

Let’s create a resource that increases access to food production. First step: make your own micro-nursery. pic.twitter.com/mZVFBsUVoQ

— Lobelia Commons (@lobeliacommons) October 1, 2020

The publication will be printed and distributed in both urban and rural spaces primarily in the gulf south (but feel free to get in touch about distributing the almanac elsewhere), in hopes of bridging a gap propagated by the political class.

Short (350-700 word) pieces on:

• Critical perspectives in urban agriculture (i.e. critiques of community gardens, urban annual gardens in relationship with changing climate, gardens and politics of space, historical lineage of urban agriculture, tree crops in the city, rain gardening & floodwater management, etc)
• Rural alternatives (alternative land use practices, challenges of scale, from farm to the city, etc)
• Colonization, white supremacy and land stewardship
• Climate change, shifting hardiness maps, plant genetics, challenging invasive/native dichotomy
• Step by step guides, instructive (300-500 word)
• Foraging, scaling up, soil building, husbandry, propagation strategies, seed saving, identification, mushroom cultivation, etc
• Recipes (cooking, preserving, distilling, medicine)
• Hacks, fixes
• Physical, mental and emotional health exercises
• Maps

This list is by no means exhaustive, if you have something you think might fit we’d love to hear from ya! While the production and distribution of the almanac will be entirely volunteer, we intend to hold ad space for like-minded projects. Feel free to reach out if you are part of or know of a group that may appreciate free ad space.

🥕🥕🥕 Get at us! 🥬🥬🥬 pic.twitter.com/1ww4OJl9QQ

— Lobelia Commons (@lobeliacommons) December 25, 2020

Deadline for submissions is January 31st, 2021 but get in touch sooner! We aim to have it published and out in the world for February 2021, so get in touch ([email protected]) if interested in submitting as soon as possible!

The 2021 Earthbound Farmers Almanac is a project of Lobelia Commons, a network for food autonomy in so-called New Orleans, Louisiana. For more information about the almanac or Lobelia Commons, get in touch at [email protected] or @lobeliacommons on twitter and Instagram.

photo via Olivier Mary on Unsplash