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| Group photo of ‘Agricultural Communications Workshop on Ecological Farming and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan’ |
Modern industrial agriculture has some deep-seated crises that are leading to issues like food safety, land contamination, environmental disasters, relationship breakdown in traditional rural communities, with individual farmers helpless in the face of market fluctuations, with their very livelihood under threat. Ecological farming and community supported agriculture (CSA) are important ways out of this plight, which can put us back on a safer course which nurtures both human and ecological well-being.
Ecological farming and CSA are now a part of the sustainable living movement that is resisting industrial agriculture, a countercurrent against globalisation, heading back to what is indigenous and local. Contending with the mainstream is always difficult. Powerful information dissemination is required to raise public awareness and gain widespread support. If ecological farming and CSA movements can collaborate with media organisations, this alternative mode will be delivered widely.
Earlier this year, PCD and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University invited ecological farming and CSA practitioners from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to gather with their media for a three-day ‘Agricultural Communications Workshop on Ecological Farming and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan’, to explore how information is presented on the relevant subject matter in the media and the potential for improvements. This newsletter features the post-meeting reflections about how agriculture can collaborate with the media to foster the advancement of agriculture.
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