We Must Begin with the Land
by Stephen E. Hunt

A polyculture of ideas, decolonising, reframing, and transforming how we think about the things we grow through a social-ecology lens.

We live at a time of intractable armed conflicts starved of resolution. We inhabit a planet where damaged ecosystems are hungry for restoration. We endure chronic inequalities of wealth and power which crave redistribution. During the past decade, such intertwined factors have precipitated a food crisis, in which increasingly millions experience malnutrition. As elsewhere, the UK is constrained by legacies of structural injustice and failing neoliberal policies. Yet We Must Begin with the Land is not another account of global doom. It explores an abundance of innovative and traditional alternatives for producing food, renewable energies, and organic materials through agroecology.

Using the anti-colonial lens of social ecology, Stephen E. Hunt considers mini real-world case studies for diversifying and democratising how we might grow, share, and eat. Gleaning such examples takes us from La Via Campesina, the world’s largest food-sovereignty network, to efforts to preserve Indigenous knowledges; from radical material sciences using hemp, seaweed, and fungi to the defiant trees and fruits of revolutionary Rojava; from proliferating Kleingärten to micro-projects at home, such as an inner-city growing community where refugees sprout hope and Japanese Shumei cultivation unexpectedly thriving in a Wiltshire hamlet.

Social ecology is a powerful set of conceptual principles for transforming our relationship to food. It offers a critique of existing supply chains that all-too-often shackle producers and consumers alike in dependency and poverty. But it also sparks different conversations about how we might delink from and reconnect into food chains that are more intricate and, ultimately, more resilient. It signals priorities not just to meet social needs and for ecological survival but also for human liberation and pleasure and flourishing sustainability.

Reviews:
We Must Begin with the Land is a rich and nourishing work written by someone passionate about good food - good for the people, for the planet, for society - and extremely well acquainted to ecological thought and theory. Looking at food and agricultural production through the lens of social ecology, it takes us on a tour from the UK to India, Rojava, Brazil, and back, to show how dominatory agriculture has always been tied to forms of violence not only against the land and the planet, but against the people, society, and all beings. This book highlights the ingenuity and generosity of Bookchin’s social ecology based around values of complementarity, diversity, solidarity, abundance and quality of life - values embraced by many actors and activists of good food production around the world. It shows how social ecology can help us think in practical terms about food and bring practical solutions to nourish and reenchant the many places that make our world. ~ Dr Clemence Scalbert Yucel, Senior Lecturer, University of Exeter
Drawing on rich insights from social ecology, this book offers a reconstructive and revolutionary vision for food, agriculture, and land use. Stephen Hunt takes us on a remarkable journey across ‘grounded utopias’ and real-world experiences of people who are inventing more just and sustainable food systems outside of capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy. This is a must-read for social movements struggling for emancipatory agroecologies, radical ecological democracy, and food justice. ~ Prof Michel Pimbert, Emeritus Professor of Agroecology and Food Politics, Coventry University
Stephen Hunt has written a fine book taking in a multitude of agricultural and ecological stories to inspire and signpost us past the impending multi-crises. This book has a sci-fi quality about it, feeling like a report from the future. It takes in the barely believable as if it were a film, but it actually happened — revolution in Rojava, inspired by Murray Bookchin, whose ideas of social ecology provide the main trunk of this book. The project of democratic confederalism provides an example of what Bookchin’s vision could look like in the real world, albeit under the immense pressure of war. Hunt draws out complementary and different themes like Indigenous agriculture and stewardship, the conviviality of a simple meal together, and the potential for a liberatory human-sized technology to prevent scarcity. This is without the bombastic claims of Fully Automated Luxury Communism, and like Bookchin, Hunt is a fierce critic of productivist Marxism. But he does not fall into the liberal trap of looking for the government or the market to save us. He draws upon different ideas of land ownership, property relations, permaculture, and contemporary experiments in collective food production to show some tentative steps forward. This means that /We Must Begin with the Land/ can stand alongside and complement the emerging 'degrowth communism' movement, which is providing a similarly rich critique of capitalism but often without the finer details of how we will get there. This book fills that gap. ~ Steve Stuffit, Trapese Collective
This remarkable book presents big-picture thinking that can truly help to envision innovative strategies and practical pathways to reverse the expanding corporate food system. In the process, Stephen E. Hunt brings the concepts and spirit of social ecology to everyone concerned about the underlying causes of dominatory agriculture. He writes this book with the finest research, accompanied by worldwide stories and grounded experiences, yet easy to understand and captivating. Facing the recent poly-crisis, this timely book stirs us to join the global movement for food and climate justice urgently. ~ Angus Lam, Board member, Sims Hill Shared Harvest (Bristol)