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Organic Farming Gains Momentum with New OFRF Report and Growing Congressional Support
Washington, D.C. (September 19, 2011) The highly anticipated report released today by the Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) reveals extensive scientific support for the conclusion that organic farming practices are overwhelmingly beneficial for consumers, farmers, the economy, and the environment. Further, it highlights the urgent need for more research to address an expanding market.
“Our data will provide even more impetus for Congress to advance organic farming initiatives in the upcoming 2012 Farm Bill and beyond,” said Maureen Wilmot, OFRF Executive Director. “To date, only modest public resources have been directed toward funding and support of programs for organic farming. We would like to see that change immediately.”
The Organic Farming for Health and Prosperity report is being presented today at the National Press Club at 9 a.m. The report’s executive summary is available at http://ofrf.org/publications/OrganicFarmingforHealthandProsperity.pdf.
Wilmot, and other top industry authorities on organic farming, point to the Organic Trade Association’s 2011 Industry Survey, which shows significant annual industry growth every year since 1997. Today’s organic food and textile market accounts for $29 billion in sales.
In addition, by 2015, a conservative estimate projects the need for 42,000 organic farmers to meet increasing market demand. Today, the industry is serviced by a mere 14,500 certified organic farmers who struggle with extraordinary production, information, and economic barriers.
With help from lawmakers, Wilmot said she hopes to build momentum for policymaking and programs that will fund further research, ensure fair and appropriate risk management tools, provide coverage for product contamination, and create a robust organic transition assistance program for future organic farmers.
More at the linkWashington, D.C. (September 19, 2011) The highly anticipated report released today by... more-
- JanforGore
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- 8 months ago
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Changing our global approach to farming is the key to survival
EXTRACTS: "We have tried to have ever more efficient farming, with fewer people, more machines and a greater dependency on pesticides, fertilisers, GM crops and energy, using 10 kilocalories to produce 1 kilocalorie. But that is only possible if there is cheap oil. The system is basically bankrupt." - Hans Herren, Co-Chair of the IAASTD
Dr Herren was dismissive of the concept of "sustainable intensification", the alternative view of food security with food production at its heart, championed by the UK Government-commissioned Foresight report. He described it as "an excuse to sneak in GMOs and to continue with business as usual".
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CropWorld Global 2011: Changing our global approach to farming
Alistair Driver
Farmers Guardian, 1 September 2011
http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/arable/cropworld-global-2011-changing-our-global-approach-to-farming/41304.article
SOCIETY has gone 'properly wrong' in the way it produces and consumes food, according to Hans Herren.
Dr Herren, a renowned scientist and international development expert, is on a mission to promote what he insists is a better alternative to the current global 'industrial' food production system, which he describes as 'bankrupt'.
He is a leading advocate of agroecology, a holistic farming model based on organic principles, where food is produced by small family farms using green methods which nourish soils for future generations.
"We have tried to have more efficient farming, with fewer people, more machines and a greater dependency on pesticides, fertilisers, GM crops and energy, using 10 kilocalories to produce one kilocalorie. But that is only possible if there is cheap oil," said Dr Herren.
"The system basically is bankrupt, which is why we need to change it to a more modern, advanced system, which will create energy, rather than consume it, and is not dependent on fossil energy, but more on people and better science."
Dr Herren, originally from Switzerland, co-chaired the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology, (IAASTD), a three-year project involving more than 400 experts from across the world.
Its 2008 report called for a radical overhaul of the way the world produces food to 'better serve the poor and hungry'. It demanded a shift away from the 'focus on production alone' and a greater emphasis on methods which conserve natural resources, backed up by trade and subsidy reforms and investment in science, education and training.
Report findings
Dr Herren described it as 'the mother of all reports on agriculture on a global and human scale', but admitted being disappointed about how little its findings had been implemented globally.
Dr Herren, who spent 27 years in Africa researching pest management and sustainable production, continues to promote agroecology through the US-based Millennium Institute, of which he has been president since 2005.
He said the key to future food security was not to use more inputs to produce more food per hectare, but to rely on techniques backed by 'solid science and agronomy - such as crop rotation with legumes and green manure, a cover crop grown to add nutrients to the soil - 'to enable the land to regenerate'.
But he also claimed it had been shown in experiments and in the field these farming methods can 'double, treble or even quadruple' yields in Africa.
He added: "Agroecology will produce food which is affordable because more people will be working, so they can actually afford it.
"We need to support small-scale and family farms, where more people get employed. We have 1.5 billion people who have no job. We really have to see all this in an inter-linked system."
He refuted the suggestion that, while agroecology may have merits in developing countries, where prevailing yields were relatively low and labour was abundant, it was unrealistic and idealistic to imagine it taking over in developed nations.
Instead, he insisted productivity levels could be maintained in developed countries if agroecology displaced intensive farming.
“It has been shown in the US that organic agriculture actually produces equally good yields as traditional agriculture,” he said. “But when there is drought or a flood, organic produces more as it is more resilient. There is no question we can deliver.”
The catch is that increased crop rotation would require a change in the way food is consumed. “You can’t disassociate consumption from production. In a rotation where you have more legumes someone has to eat those beans.”
He added people in urban-centric nations such as the UK and US would return to the land if agriculture became a ‘better and more rewarding job’ through greater investment, better prices for food and a reappraisal of farmers’ importance. “We need to look up to the farmer and down to the professor,” he said.
Lacking support
Dr Herren blamed the lack of wider support for this model of food security partly on what he claimed was a misconception of what it represented.
“We need to dispel this idea that agroecology is a back-breaking, low-yielding process and that we want to go back to grandfather’s agriculture. Actually, agroecology has a lot of science in it and a lot of knowledge,” he said.EXTRACTS: "We have tried to have ever more efficient farming, with fewer people,... more-
- JanforGore
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- 9 months ago
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Gutting Of Organic Dairying Is The Next Step To GE Farms
Fonterra, the New Zealand based dairy giant is slashing its support for [already token support of] organic farming and moving further towards GE dairy farming [GE rye grass].
Meanwhile, Scion and Arborgen push ahead with their GE tree trials in Rotorua planting 336 GE pine trees.–Gary Cranston
Fonterra has taken its next step towards genetically engineered pastures, with its announced scaling back of organic production by half, according to the Soil Health Association of NZ.
Fonterra’s announcement yesterday of a 50% drop in support for organic dairy production, shows the dairy giant’s lack of support for good environmental practice or consumer health, and marks the next step to genetically engineered (GE) farmlands, according to the Soil Health Association of NZ.
“Fonterra has never really been committed to organic production, although aiming for 200 farms and a 140% increase in production from 2005. Just 200 farms was a very limited vision. Organic production across all New Zealand’s dairy herd should have been in any long term vision for clean green 100% Pure NZ,” said Soil Health – Organic NZ spokesperson Steffan Browning.
“Organic production has been identified as the main obstacle to introducing GE grasses and crops into New Zealand in a Ministry of Research Science and Technology (MoRST, now Science and Innovation) report written by Terri Dunahay, an international biotechnology policy specialist with the United States Department of Agriculture.”
“Government also stopped real support for the organic sector following a briefing to the Agriculture Minister by Dunahay in 2009, yet Dunahay was duplicitous in every presentation I observed her. The misrepresentation of GE internationally, was appalling when Dunahay presented to Dairy NZ and the Institute of Public Administration New Zealand,” said Mr Browning.
“Dunahay and other United States lobbyists, along with New Zealand based pro-GE scientists fail to mention the significant GE contamination of non-GE farms, the loss of markets, the massive increase in herbicide use, the new resistant weeds and disease problems, higher seed and production costs, loss of biodiversity, or the human and animal health problems associated with genetic engineering (GE).”
Yesterday’s shock presentation to organic farmers in Taranaki and the Manawatu that their organically certified milk wasn’t wanted by Fonterra, because of reduced international demand, also included comment that organics caused “conventional” dairy production to be questioned as to its quality.
Best practice organics has improved soil structure and climate resilience, 43% more earthworm counts, 28% higher soil carbon sequestration, improved animal welfare, 33% less energy use, and a massive 58% reduction of nitrate leaching, yet is not valued well by Fonterra, because Fonterra’s conventional farming’s dirty environmental footprint, might be questioned more.
“The KPMG Agribusiness Agenda 2011 released in June, highlighted the potential lost opportunity of high net worth customers globally by New Zealand if support for organic market and production research is allowed to languish.” (4,5)
Organic dairy exports from New Zealand grew 400% between 2005-2009. Organic product sales in the USA grew 7.7% compared with total food sales increase of less than 1% in 2010, yet the New Zealand government is allowed funding for Organics Aotearoa New Zealand (OANZ) to stop this June, and had already long stopped support for the Green Party initiated Organics Advisory Service that had assisted significant growth in organic certification.
“Fonterra missed retailing organic butter in New Zealand, and has failed to market its organic products well. Where was the Fonterra brands organic butter in New Zealand super market shelves? It wasn’t to be found. Blaming reduced markets when there has been continued growth in organic consumption internationally shows a lack of organic marketing commitment by Fonterra, not a lack of customers.”
“Fonterra and the government have spent millions of dollars on GE rye grass development, (6) while support has been stalled for the organic sector.”
“Most of Europe and Scandinavia and many other countries have targets for farm production conversion to organics, because the environmental and social benefits are well recognised, but in New Zealand there appears to be a blind adherence to short term economic benefit including GE, even when non-GE alternatives are proven.”
“When I asked on Friday, why the government had spent tens of millions on GE grasses, but had effectively stopped spending money on organics, Environment Minister Nick Smith told me, “We didn’t think there was any money in it,” “said Mr Browning.
“The planting of 336 GE pine trees by Scion and ArborGen at their Rotorua field trial site last week adds to the sadness of spirit New Zealand is suffering through short term financial aims by giant agribusiness, while it ignores the environmental and social health of Aotearoa New Zealand.”
More at the linkFonterra, the New Zealand based dairy giant is slashing its support for [already token... more-
- JanforGore
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- 9 months ago
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- 6 comments
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WHACKO-TV THE RISKY GARDENER
With the economy being as bad as it is, many people are planting gardens to harvest some food to eat. WHACKO-TV brings you a new show called The Risky Gardener. This first episode looks at the friends and foes of every garden and how to keep the bad guys away and let the good guys in. This natural-off-the-grid kind of philosophy can help you plant a better garden.With the economy being as bad as it is, many people are planting gardens to harvest... more-
- dwightdouglas
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- 10 months ago
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ALEC exposed: Protecting factory farms and sewerage sludge?
As suburbs engulfed the rural landscape in the boom following World War II, many family farmers found themselves with new neighbors who were annoyed by the sound of crowing roosters, the smell of animal manure, or the rumble of farming equipment. In defense of family farming, Massachusetts passed the first "Right to Farm" law in 1979, to protect these farmers against their new suburban neighbors filing illegitimate nuisance lawsuits against them when, in fact, the farms were there first. Since then, every state has passed some kind of protection for family farms, which are pillars of our communities and the backbone of a sensible system of sustainable agriculture.
However, in the past few decades, intensive corporatization of farming has threatened both the future of family farming and the ability of neighbors to regulate the development of industrial agricultural operations that have transmogrified many farms into factories. Small-scale farms that resembled Old MacDonald's farm (with an oink oink here and a moo moo there) have increasingly disappeared or been turned into enormous livestock confinements with literal lagoons of liquified manure and urine, super-concentrated smells that could make a skunk faint, or vast fields of monoculture crops grown with a myriad of chemicals and pesticides and sometimes even sewage sludge. For example, the decade before the first right to farm law was passed, it took one million family farms to raise nearly 60 million pigs but by 2001, less than ten percent (80,000 farms) were growing the same number of pigs.
Capitalizing on the sentiment of protecting traditional farming, giant agribusiness interests have convinced some states to revise their Right to Farm laws to stealthily protect the most egregious of industrial farming practices from legitimate nuisance suits. The Center for Media & Democracy has recently exposed and analyzed a cache of bills voted on by corporations and politicians behind closed doors and then introduced in state legislatures without any notice to the public of the role of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) bill factory in the production of the legislation and no disclosure of the fact that corporations pre-voted on the bills, let alone disclosures of the names of those companies. In 1996, ALEC suddenly took an interest in expanding right to farm laws. ALEC's corporate backers, unsurprisingly, hale from the factory farm side of the equation.
ALEC's Corporate Backers
ALEC's corporate members and funders have included a number of agriculture interests, including Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Cargill, and DuPont, as well as industry organizations like the National Pork Producers Council, the Illinois Corn Marketing Board, and the Illinois Soybean Association. Cargill is the nation's second largest beef processor, third largest turkey processor, and fourth largest pork processor. In three other areas, flour milling, soybean crushing, and production of animal feed, ADM joins Cargill as the biggest in the industry. Chemical giant DuPont is one of the world's largest makers of numerous pesticides, and in 1999, it purchased seed giant Pioneer Hi-Bred, the world's top seller of corn seeds, including genetically engineered seeds.
Unlike the corporations, the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) is actually led by farmers ... and lobbyists for multinational pork processors, like Don Butler, past president of NPPC and lobbyist for Smithfield Foods, the largest pork processor in the world. The farmers who lead NPPC tend to own farms similar to that of NPPC president Doug Wolf. Wolf's farm produces 24,000 hogs per year - and it also has a beef feedlot and 1,200 acres of corn, soy, and alfalfa.
Perhaps the most surprising "agribusiness" donor to ALEC is the most powerful of all: Koch Industries. It turns out that an early part of the Koch empire was the Matador Cattle Company, founded in 1952. To this day, Koch Agriculture Company retains Matador Cattle Company, which has about 15,000 cattle. However, in the 1990's, Koch Beef Company was the nation's 10th largest cattle feeder, with feedlots that held up to 165,000 cattle. Koch bought a new feedlot in 1996 and, among other things, decided to expand its capacity by adding 20,000 more cows. The neighbors did not think that was a good idea:
Some businesses and farm owners expressed concerns over the health of their employees, some of whom would be housed within 300 feet of Koch's cattle pens. Other neighbors cited concerns over the potential for groundwater pollution, the amount of dirt, insects, and odors added to the area contributing to health problems, a decrease in the quality of life for nearby residents, and the possible devaluation of land.
Koch overcame their objections with the ruling of a friendly regulator in Texas, winning the right to expand. With all these corporate interests in limiting regulation of factory farming, thank goodness their pals at ALEC approved a model version of a Right to Farm bill in 1996!
Why Corporations Care About Laws For Farmers
While nearly all farms in the United States are technically "family farms" (a tiny fraction are owned directly by corporations), multinational agribusiness corporations have a major stake in how these farms are operated. Often family farms take the form of Wolf L & G Farms LLC, the farm owned by the family of Doug Wolf (mentioned above). Particularly for chickens and hogs, individual farmers often contract with meatpackers like Cargill, Smithfield, or Tyson. In contract farming arrangements, the corporations provide the animals, medications, and feed to the farmers; the farmer is responsible for the animals' housing, manure, and the bodies of animals that die prematurely. When the animals are fully grown, they are picked up by the corporation, which slaughters, processes, and markets the animal and plays the farmer for the weight the animal gained in his or her care. The farmers have most of the debt and risk and the corporation has most of the power and profit.
More at the linkAs suburbs engulfed the rural landscape in the boom following World War II, many... more-
- JanforGore
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- 10 months ago
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Article: Getting used to Life without Food
Wall Street, BP, bio-ethanol and the death of millions-
- frankpatton
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- 10 months ago
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- 0 comments
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New program, "Biorhythms" coming to Current Earth Care
In an effort to maintain the original vision of Current and to also be a vocal advocate for environmental issues and information we need to know, I am going to be launching a program to be uploaded to the Current Earth Care Community within the next week. Biorhythms is a term usually associated with the physical, intellectual and emotional cycles of humans. I will attempt to extend this term to cover the cycles of Earth and human impacts on them from pollution to climate change (biodistress) and their affects on quality of life.
A healthy environment is crucial to a healthy economy and healthy humans. We are nothing without it and well, I simply believe that to know about the Earth is to learn to respect her and that hopefully leads to actions to preserve her.
I hope for the program to be bi-weekly and will be discussing pressing environmental issues as well as disseminating information we aren't seeing on the MSM and trying to connect the dots we need connected. And I won't pull any punches in placing accountability where it belongs. This will not be a politically partisan program, but make no mistake, politics will be challenged when it threatens this Earth regardless of party.
Our environment is under attack from all angles by interests that care not for the destruction they bring. Therefore, my programs will have a set schedule. A discussion of one pressing environmental issue followed by a commentary. Then a few mintues of news you need to know, any inspirational stories I come across and they are out here, any action items I can find and finally a question for thought and discussion that you can participate in by typing your response or posting a video. I also hope to select a few members of the Current Community who would be willing to give contributions, interviews, etc. and maybe a couple of surprises.
And to end, I don't want the program to be a downer. I want you to walk away with truth and with also realizing that as a species we have great potential and the capacity to live in harmony with Earth. But only in knowing the reality of what we are doing to our only home can we begin to heal her and ourselves.
More information will be coming and I hope you will check out Biorhythms.
Thanks,
JanIn an effort to maintain the original vision of Current and to also be a vocal... more-
- JanforGore
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- 11 months ago
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- 38 comments
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Thomas Jefferson and the food revolution
Our freedom was just as much about agriculture in Colonial America as it is now part of our current fight for food sovereignty. Thomas Jefferson exemplified this at Monticello.And it it now the spirit of the sustainable/local food movement today that exemplifies the spirit that birthed our nation. To plant our seeds, to save them, to cultivate them and to use them in a way that cherishes and supports healthy soil and provides healthy food for our citizens is what freedom is all about.
Our country is now on the cusp of a new Revolution, the sustainable food revolution and I think Jefferson, Adams, Washington and those who fought for freedom then would approve of it. Industrial agriculture deems to subject us to the slavery of monoculture seeds and thought. It deems to leave us subervient to the corporate agriculture kings who do not respect true freedom. So in that spirit we must fight as hard now as we did then to preserve our freedom to plant our seeds in this good Earth to preserve our environment, our soil and our future.
You can join us in celebrating that spirit every day:
http://current.com/groups/sustainable-agriculture/Our freedom was just as much about agriculture in Colonial America as it is now part... more-
- JanforGore
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- 11 months ago
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Could dirt help heal the climate?
Seems to me we are so busy looking backward, we forgot to look up to the sky and down to the soil in order to go forward. The answers are there... waiting.Seems to me we are so busy looking backward, we forgot to look up to the sky and down... more-
- JanforGore
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- 11 months ago
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- 10 comments
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Farmageddon World Premiere
Farmageddon tells the story of small, family farms that were providing safe, healthy foods to their communities and were forced to stop, sometimes through violent action, by agents of misguided government bureaucracies, and seeks to figure out why.Farmageddon tells the story of small, family farms that were providing safe, healthy... more-
- AwareGuide
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- 11 months ago
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Small, Local Farms Produce More Than Industrial Agriculture
We often assume the only way to feed the world's rapidly growing human population is with large-scale industrial agriculture. Many would argue that genetically altering food crops is also necessary to produce large enough quantities on smaller areas to feed the world's people.
But recent scientific research is challenging those assumptions. Our global approaches to agriculture are critical. To begin, close to one billion people are malnourished and many more are finding it difficult to feed their families as food prices increase. But is large-scale industrial farming the answer?
Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation editorial and communications specialist Ian Hanington.
Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.We often assume the only way to feed the world's rapidly growing human population... more-
- squarethecircle
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- 12 months ago
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Really REALLY organic raspberries (hey, I found all the bees!)
Anyway, I remember a few years ago, everyone was freaking out, like, “where have all the bees gone,” and it was this big national tragedy about the disappearing bees, and it was going to have all these unforeseen consequences and end up killing us all. They thought the bees were going extinct because of cell phone towers I think, or avian flu, or Justin Bieber? I don’t know.
But guess what haters? You were all wrong. Apparently I’ve singlehandedly figured out what happened to all the fricking bees.Anyway, I remember a few years ago, everyone was freaking out, like, “where have... more-
- hoosierdaddy
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- 12 months ago
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Exploding water melons becoming a problem in China
Chinese farmers have been left stunned after their watermelons began to explode one by one.
An investigation by state media found farms in the Jiangsu province in Eastern China were losing acres of fruit because of the problem.
The overuse of a chemical that helps fruit grow faster was blamed in one report by China Central Television. But agriculture experts were unable to explain why chemical-free melons were exploding. They cited the weather and abnormal size of the melon as factors.
Watch the video on BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13421374Chinese farmers have been left stunned after their watermelons began to explode one by... more-
- sbacker
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- 1 year ago
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- 25 comments
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Nourish: Food + Community | VIDEO: “Fair Trade”
World Fair Trade Day is May 14. How does food connect us to the global community? Author Anna Lappé and chef Bryant Terry discuss how choosing Fair Trade products helps farmers around the world. Learn more at http://www.nourishlife.org/blog/video-fair-trade/World Fair Trade Day is May 14. How does food connect us to the global community?... more-
- Brie_Mazurek
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- 1 year ago
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To be sustainable, U.S. agriculture needs transformational push
Improving the sustainability of U.S. agriculture requires broad, transformational shifts in market structure, policy incentives, and the type and availability of scientific knowledge, asserts a "Policy Forum" paper in the May 6, 2011 edition of the journal Science, co-authored by a horticultural scientist from North Carolina State Univ.
The paper, written by members of a National Research Council committee charged with assessing the landscape of American agriculture, states that U.S. agriculture is at a crossroads. Farms must provide abundant and affordable food, feed, fiber and fuel, yet their economic viability is threatened by numerous factors, including—but not limited to—dwindling resources, climate change, and market volatility.
"With the multiple constraints we face, we can't rely solely on incremental changes to existing farming systems to improve the sustainability and productivity of U.S. agriculture," says Dr. Julia Kornegay, a professor of horticultural science at NC State who chaired the NRC committee. "To increase agriculture resilience and productivity with less water, fertilizer, and pesticides, we need to look at agriculture as an agroecosystem at both the farm and landscape level, and maximize the use of natural resources like soil fertility and organic matter to provide better water-holding capacity, nutrients, and disease management."
The paper stems from a 2010 report conducted by the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, titled Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century. That report defines sustainable agriculture as a system that can satisfy human food, feed, and fiber needs, and contribute to biofuel needs; enhance environmental quality and the resource base; sustain the economic viability of agriculture; and enhance the quality of life for farmers, farm workers, and society as a whole.
The report takes a comprehensive look at the challenges faced by U.S. agriculture—including population growth, water and land scarcities, cost of energy and fertilizers, and other factors—and examines some existing, innovative, sustainable farming systems that, if scaled up, could help steer agriculture onto the path of sustainability.
"Our study looked at a number of farms across the U.S. that have successfully implemented a wide variety of sustainable farming practices. In fact, much of the innovation in sustainable agriculture systems is coming from farmers," Kornegay says. "Why aren't these systems and practices more widely adopted? What are the barriers to sustainable agriculture?"
Increased complexity in how farms are managed, and the availability of information about how a sustainable farming system works, are important considerations, she adds. Which is why change must come both from the top—farm policy—and from the bottom—individual farmers themselves.
"We're not saying that every farm needs to become an organic farm," she says. "Instead, we need to provide incentives to farmers in the next Farm Bill for the adoption of sustainable practices.Improving the sustainability of U.S. agriculture requires broad, transformational... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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Diversity is key to sustainable farming: So why is it so damn hard?
As Collin explored in his slideshow of permaculture principles, diversity has to be a central part of any approach to sustainability—especially one that models itself on natural ecosystems. From designing sustainable, integrated farms to utilizing a broad mix of energy sources, it just makes sense to not put all of our eggs in one basket. But in a culture that is more aligned with linear, industrial thinking, diversity also brings with it a level of complexity that many of us are not used to. So is there a way to embrace that complexity without blowing our minds?
Diversity and Resilience
We know for a fact that ecosystems rely on an astoundingly broad community of plants, animals, microorganisms and fungi to keep functioning. The more diverse the system, the better, because if one species gets hit by disease, famine or some other form of shock, there are other elements playing a similar role in the system that can pick up the slack. This is what is often referred to as resilience—the ability of a system to adapt and reorganize itself in the face of shocks.
Complex Networks of Relationships
But in reality it is not just the diversity of species, but also the diversity of useful relationships between those species, that builds resilience. You could have 10,000 different species of monkey in one rainforest, but if they all played the same—or very similar—roles within the ecosystem of that forest, the diversity would not contribute to resilience. It's not the individual points of diverse elements, but rather the network of complex interrelationships between those elements, that ultimately builds a web that is so hard to break.
I got to pondering this after an insightful conversation with a client about the importance of complexity in organizations and social structures. Because we live in a culture that is so invested in linear, reductionist and industrial thinking, it can be hard for any of us to wrap our heads around what it takes to live with, and even encourage, complexity.
When Is Complexity Too Complex?
To take a specific example, often when I've seen permaculture enthusiasts make plans for sustainable, working commercial farms using the permaculture model, they focus on the idea of developing as broad a range of crops and income streams as possible in an effort to build resilience. But, it seems to me (as a non-farmer, it must be said!) that unless we view this effort through the lens of complexity as well as diversity, we run the risk of spreading ourselves too thinly and coming away with nothing.
The fact is that a commercial farm will need to not just grow a broad range of crops, but to find a way to harvest, process, and eventually get those crops to market (a decidedly linear process). From an economic standpoint, unless you can establish a useful relationship between your crop and a potential market, your diversity of crops only leads to a harder system to manage without contributing to the resilience of your overall system. (There's a reason conventional farmers like crops that all ripen at the same time.)
Diversity & Complexity in Marketing
Many of the popular alternative methods of marketing are, of course, actually attempts at embracing complexity from economic standpoint. Community Supported Agriculture programs (CSAs) or other subscription models are a great way for farmers to make use of a diverse harvest without needing to market each crop separately. But there must always be a balance between building in enough diversity and complexity to promote resilience, and always keeping in mind the ability of the system—or more precisely the folks stewarding that system—to harvest and utilize the crops that are grown.
(Of course if you are developing perennial polycultures for food production alone, but not commercial food production, then this is less of a concern. You pick and eat whatever comes along.)
cont.As Collin explored in his slideshow of permaculture principles, diversity has to be a... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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- 9 comments
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Make your "Farmville" dreams come true - become a real online farmer
If you've played Farmville on Facebook you are in for a treat - because now you can play farming for real.
The National Trust (a charity established to preserve and protect ancient buildings and countryside landscapes) has set up MyFarm, a people-powered online farming project.
Yep that's right - farming from the comfort of your own sofa!
For £30 per year (about $60), members of the project can take part in the management of the 2500 acre Wimpole Farm, near the city of Cambridge.
Farm manager Richard Morris and his team of actual farm workers will take orders from the 10,000 strong online community farmers, making decisions via online discussion and monthly votes.
The farm is already a pay-for-entry tourist attraction, offering visitors the chance to see in person what modern farming is really like.
Participants in the My Farm project will get a voucher for free access if they decide to visit in person.
What they don't get - at least not this time round - is a share of any profits their management-by-proxy might create. The National Trust says the main reason for signing up is to understand how farming works.
"Because Wimpole is a real farm, the decisions that have to be made are real, and they have real consequences. But, as in life and in any other business, there is no one right answer in farming, and we need some fresh ideas. The first vote will be a big one: what should we grow on the farm?"
Difficult decisions will have to be made, on everything from handling money to animal welfare and what is slaughtered.
http://techland.time.com/2011/05/04/take-your-farmville-addiction-a-step-further-become-an-online-farmer/If you've played Farmville on Facebook you are in for a treat - because now you... more-
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Reversing roles, farmers sue Monsanto over GMO seeds
Genetically modified seed giant Monsanto is notorious for suing farmers [PDF] in defense of its patent claims. But now, a group of dozens of organic farmers and food activists have, with the help of the not-for-profit law center The Public Patent Foundation, sued Monsanto in a case that could forever alter the way genetically modified crops are grown in this country. But before you can understand why, it's worth reviewing an important, but underreported aspect of the fight over GMOs.
One of the many downsides to genetically engineered food is the fact that modified genes are patented by the companies that isolate them. This is not typically part of the story that gets much attention when you read about all those great (but nonexistent) magic seeds that will grow faster, better, cheaper, etc. and seem to forever remain "just around the corner."
As any music or movie lover knows from experience, patent and copyright law in this country is a mess. You only need to look at the music industry's successful campaign to sue random consumers over file-sharing to know that. Fun fact: no fiction copyright granted after 1929 -- whether a movie, television show, or book -- will ever be allowed to expire because that was the year of Mickey Mouse's "birth" and Disney has convinced Congress that Mickey should never fall into the public domain. That's one screwed up way to go about protecting the interests of authors. And forget about the folks over at the U.S. Patent Office -- it's clear that they have no idea what they're doing anymore.
In my recent Common Ground cover story on GMOs, I referred to the fact that the federal government "insists the food revolution will be genetically modified." Well, what biotech companies want more than anything is for the food revolution to be patented. Why is that? Because, unlike pharmaceuticals, patented genes will never go "generic" after some number of years. Monsanto and its biotech buddies can keep milking that transgenetic cow for decade after decade.
GMO crops have another interesting quality -- you can "use" a patented gene without even knowing it. When you download and share music and movies on peer-to-peer networks or plagiarize blog posts or books, let's face it -- you know what you're doing. But if you're a farmer, GMO seeds can literally blow in to your fields on the breeze or just the pollen from GMO crops can blow in (or buzz in via bees) and contaminate your organic or "conventional" fields. And if that happens, Monsanto or Syngenta or Bayer CropLife maintain the right to sue you as if you had illegally bought their seed and knowingly planted it.
In an appropriately Orwellian twist, the companies even call such accidental contamination by their products "patent infringement." And, in the face of a government more than willing to allow companies to "defend" their "intellectual property" in this way, organic farmers and others have now stepped up and said, in short, "Hell no!":
The case, Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association, et al. v. Monsanto, was filed in federal district court in Manhattan and assigned to Judge Naomi Buchwald. Plaintiffs in the suit represent a broad array of family farmers, small businesses and organizations from within the organic agriculture community who are increasingly threatened by genetically modified seed contamination despite using their best efforts to avoid it. The plaintiff organizations have over 270,000 members, including thousands of certified organic family farmers.
"This case asks whether Monsanto has the right to sue organic farmers for patent infringement if Monsanto's transgenic seed should land on their property," said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT's Executive Director and Lecturer of Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. "It seems quite perverse that an organic farmer contaminated by transgenic seed could be accused of patent infringement, but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement, so we had to act to protect the interests of our clients."
If the suit is successful, not only will it limit Monsanto's ability to sue farmers, the company will have far greater responsibility for how and where its biotech seeds are planted. The regulatory free ride will be over. While that won’t eliminate GMO crops, it will at least give organic farmers a hope of avoiding contamination.
What I find intriguing about this suit is that it comes on the heels of a set of rulings against biotech companies and in favor of organic farmers. As I have speculated before, courts have decided that the interests of organic and other non-GMO farmers are now significant enough to require protection. While the USDA and the White House seem happy to do Monsanto's bidding (as they did in recent decisions to allow Roundup Ready beets and alfalfa), the federal courts -- and even the Supreme Court -- do not seem so quick to dismiss the economic harm that might come to unfettered use of GMO seeds. This one, my friends, bears watching.
Tom is a writer and a media & technology consultant who thinks that wrecking the planet is a bad idea. He twitters and blogs here and at Beyond Green about food policy, alternative energy, climate science and politics as well as the multiple and various effects of living on a warming planet.
http://www.grist.org/sustainable-food/2011-03-31-reversing-roles-organic-farmers-sue-monsanto-over-gmo-seedsGenetically modified seed giant Monsanto is notorious for suing farmers [PDF] in... more-
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Bangladesh: The Coming Storm
The people of Bangladesh have much to teach us about how a crowded planet can best adapt to rising sea levels. For them, that future is now.
We may be seven billion specks on the surface of Earth, but when you're in Bangladesh, it sometimes feels as if half the human race were crammed into a space the size of Louisiana. Dhaka, its capital, is so crowded that every park and footpath has been colonized by the homeless. To stroll here in the mists of early morning is to navigate an obstacle course of makeshift beds and sleeping children. Later the city's steamy roads and alleyways clog with the chaos of some 15 million people, most of them stuck in traffic. Amid this clatter and hubbub moves a small army of Bengali beggars, vegetable sellers, popcorn vendors, rickshaw drivers, and trinket salesmen, all surging through the city like particles in a flash flood. The countryside beyond is a vast watery floodplain with intermittent stretches of land that are lush, green, flat as a parking lot—and wall-to-wall with human beings. In places you might expect to find solitude, there is none. There are no lonesome highways in Bangladesh.
We should not be surprised. Bangladesh is, after all, one of the most densely populated nations on Earth. It has more people than geographically massive Russia. It is a place where one person, in a nation of 164 million, is mathematically incapable of being truly alone. That takes some getting used to.
So imagine Bangladesh in the year 2050, when its population will likely have zoomed to 220 million, and a good chunk of its current landmass could be permanently underwater. That scenario is based on two converging projections: population growth that, despite a sharp decline in fertility, will continue to produce millions more Bangladeshis in the coming decades, and a possible multifoot rise in sea level by 2100 as a result of climate change. Such a scenario could mean that 10 to 30 million people along the southern coast would be displaced, forcing Bangladeshis to crowd even closer together or else flee the country as climate refugees—a group predicted to swell to some 250 million worldwide by the middle of the century, many from poor, low-lying countries.
"Globally, we're talking about the largest mass migration in human history," says Maj. Gen. Muniruzzaman, a charismatic retired army officer who presides over the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies in Dhaka. "By 2050 millions of displaced people will overwhelm not just our limited land and resources but our government, our institutions, and our borders." Muniruzzaman cites a recent war game run by the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., which forecast the geopolitical chaos that such a mass migration of Bangladeshis might cause in South Asia. In that exercise millions of refugees fled to neighboring India, leading to disease, religious conflict, chronic shortages of food and fresh water, and heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed adversaries India and Pakistan.
Such a catastrophe, even imaginary, fits right in with Bangladesh's crisis-driven story line, which, since the country's independence in 1971, has included war, famine, disease, killer cyclones, massive floods, military coups, political assassinations, and pitiable rates of poverty and deprivation—a list of woes that inspired some to label it an international basket case. Yet if despair is in order, plenty of people in Bangladesh didn't read the script. In fact, many here are pitching another ending altogether, one in which the hardships of their past give rise to a powerful hope.
For all its troubles, Bangladesh is a place where adapting to a changing climate actually seems possible, and where every low-tech adaptation imaginable is now being tried. Supported by governments of the industrialized countries—whose greenhouse emissions are largely responsible for the climate change that is causing seas to rise—and implemented by a long list of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), these innovations are gaining credence, thanks to the one commodity that Bangladesh has in profusion: human resilience. Before this century is over, the world, rather than pitying Bangladesh, may wind up learning from her example.
cont.The people of Bangladesh have much to teach us about how a crowded planet can best... more-
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Going Au Naturel: The Top 30 Organic Food Blogs
Going organic isn’t a fad. The choice to eat organic food is based on the principle of reducing chemical toxins from farms, from the soil and from our food. By eating sustainable foods, we are protecting the environment and the earth for future generations while promoting local and family farms and promoting biodiversity.
link: http://rntomsnonline.com/going-au-naturel-the-top-30-organic-food-blogsGoing organic isn’t a fad. The choice to eat organic food is based on the... more-
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