Spanning 72 pages of essays, photography, poetry, and field dispatches, Issue 13 of the Mad Agriculture Journal drifts toward the periphery, to those places and moments where new stories are born. We hear from a Uruguayan rancher learning to listen differently, a photographer mapping the Colorado River Delta from the sky, a powerful grain revival in Washington’s Skagit Valley, a Colorado farmer using rye to combat dust storms, and a Michigan orchardist finding rhythm in his fruit trees. There are sheep grazing firebreaks in California, families stewarding land together in Montana, and Indigenous leaders restoring bison on the plains of Oklahoma—plus more.
But the invitation that echoes throughout the issue comes from our Executive Director, Phil Taylor: “This Journal is prismatic, stories like colors flashing at the edge of the movement.” Regeneration, he writes, is a kaleidoscopic lens, revealing not just what is broken, but what is becoming. These stories ask: What can we see when we look through the blur? What truths live at the margins? What beauty reveals itself when we loosen our grip on certainty?
Issue 13 doesn’t seek answers. It turns the kaleidoscope.
Want to submit a story or photos to the Journal?
The Journal is a place to showcase the art of the new agrarian culture. Through writing, photography, poetry, and more, this is where the culture, the nuance, the observations and the science can come together and just be.
If you have a story, poem, or any other original creative work that you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you. Please write a short pitch describing your story idea or creative piece, and why it might be a good fit for The Journal.