Food & agriculture – Oct 22

October 22, 2006

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Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage


Climate change forces farming innovation

Amy Loretnzen, Associated Press via Yahoo!News
DES MOINES, Iowa – Gary Larsen, a 63-year-old grandfather who raises corn and soybeans is among the growing number of farmers concerned with the potential effects of global warming. “We don’t know how the world could actually turn out, but doing absolutely nothing and sticking your head in the sand is not an option,” said Larsen, who lives near Elk Horn, Iowa.

He has adopted environmentally friendly farming methods and even recently bought a hybrid car.

Hybrids aren’t replacing one-ton pickups in mid-America, but many in the agriculture industry are reacting to the potential effects of global warming, developing new technology and farming methods to brace for the possibility of widespread drought and crop-pounding storms.
(21 Oct 2006)
Surprisingly good article from the AP news service. -BA


Farming in the Age of Expensive Oil

Jean Paul Courtens, Satya Center
…Since I don’t have a crystal ball, I honestly can’t tell you what agriculture will look like in fifty years. Whatever happens, it will be the result of the continued demand for land for development and the availability of oil.

As far as the latter is concerned, cheap oil is what allowed for the development of industrial-scale food production, processing and distribution. It is controlled by very few corporations that have used their influence in Washington to keep the prices of commodities at rock bottom by letting taxpayers infuse billions of dollars to allow for overproduction.

Cheap oil allowed farmers to buy low cost fertilizer, pesticides, and insecticides while the farm bill allowed them to produce below cost. The low cost of production of commodities in the United States is astounding, but this has come at a price.

You already know about the pollution of our environment by agriculture, from nitrites and atrazine in drinking water to the depletion of the ozone layer through the production of greenhouse gases.

But there are many other fatalities of industrial agriculture – one of them is the dwindling of farmers with a knowledge base of low-input farming.

Since 1990, Jean-Paul Courtens’ Roxbury Farm has been one of the pioneers of organic agriculture and Community Supported Agriculture in Columbia County, New York. In 1991, Roxbury became the first CSA farm to have a community in New York City. Roxbury continues to be a nationally recognized leader in organic, biodynamic, and CSA.
(12 Oct 2006)


Seeking life in the desert, on the desert’s terms

Yigal Deutscher, The New Farm
As the global climate becomes more harsh, Elaine Solowey is a botanical pioneer trying to develop ultra-low water crops before it’s too late.
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From the bus window I read the words: kaved et eema admah. Honor Mother Earth. The large black letters are graffiti scrawl on the wall of an ancient, crumbling stone home, standing solitary where the outskirts of Jerusalem meets the country’s Negev desert.

Everything seems to me a dreamscape in the oppressive heat.

…The ground is full of crevices, falling out in places and rising up again, randomly and unexpectedly, at extreme degrees. The desert wears the face of a glacier, resplendent beige replacing icy blue. At other times, the ground is flat, speckled, as if it were the hide of an enormous animal, with blotches of dull dusty green.

…My first stop is the orchard of Elaine Solowey. I arrive in sandals, ready to thrust them aside and sink my bare feet into the sandy earth. This foolishness is quickly apparent. “Where are your working boots and gloves?” is the immediate greeting received after hello.

…What I came to realize in my week with Elaine is that this woman is a scientist with a mission, not just a farmer. Her work is driven not by fluffy romantic notions but by a sense of practical urgency.

We talked about modern agriculture and her words were glazed with bitter animosity. Farming lacks needed respect, skills, and resources; it is an art that has been co-opted by a corrupt science. Rural communities are disintegrating; urban centers swell while advertising a false sense of security and abundance. The poor of the world are left with even poorer soil quality or no land at all. Top soils are being blown away. The desert is slowly spreading across the Earth.

“The well-being of the world depends on agricultural stability and health. No one seems to understand this,” she says.

Her main worry concerns biodiversity – or, rather, the lack of it — in industrialized farming. What initiated the original shift from collection to cultivation were the foods that were easy to harvest, easy to process.

“Today, we are dealing with the same small food possibilities, confined to a menu designed in the Stone Age. Crops are being lost all the time as the general consensus is to plant the same megacrops, all with genetic uniformity.” And the simpler we get, the more vulnerable we are. She refers to the epidemic that hit the corn fields of the United States in the 1970s. “Modern man is the most helpless creature on the planet.” And it all sounds quite depressing.
(28 Sept 2004)
Long fascinating article. If you’re interested in organic and other forms of agriculture, I’d recommend The New Farm from the Rodale Institute, in which this article appeared. -BA


Tags: Food