‘India has always had coffee forests, not farms’
Check out our first Tree Season article from Sohel Sarkar on the importance of shade trees to India’s coffee farmers.
When we thought of Tree Season, we wanted to really think about how trees acted not only as plants that produce fruits, nuts or even spices but also their ecological role in farming.
Our first article of the season looks at the role shade trees play for successful coffee farming in India. Writer Sohel Sarkar dives into the environmental and commercial systems that affect India’s ‘coffee forests’. You can read more on the website.
Articles like this are freely accessible on our website as a result of support we receive through our monthly paid newsletter where we share an essay and a recipe as a thank you for your support.
We still have a few more pieces coming up for Tree season so keep an eye out on our socials for updates
In the meantime here are some other things we’ve been reading:
The recent Vittles’s article Stone and Seed on starvation experienced in Gaza as a result of colonial violence has been at the top of our minds recently. The effect of colonialism on food systems is one of the many reasons we started Sourced to begin with.
When we collaborated with Wellcome Stories for their Milk exhibition, this was a topic we wanted to make sure stood out in the series. To highlight this, we commissioned two pieces that delved into how dairy farms in New Zealand and the US negatively impacted local communities and ecologies: