Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
A true occurrence is taking place in Foolish Farming Today that not even a genius like Mark Twain could reduce to a more absurd conclusion. Agribusiness has succeeded in developing corn varieties that eat tractor tires. Do not laugh. This is not a joke. Corn stalks are so tough nowadays that tractor tires running over them repeatedly during field operations are wearing out faster than anyone anticipated and costing farmers big money.
A few months ago I was working on an article about San Francisco’s pioneering efforts to become the world’s first zero-waste city by 2020.
Chronicling this journey toward a current nation-leading 78 percent waste diversion rate, a major focus of the story was on the city’s mandatory composting program that has played a huge role in keeping over a million tons of food scraps, plant trimmings, soiled paper, and other compostable materials from clogging up landfills and releasing methane.
It wasn’t until after the story was published that I was alerted to the most remarkable and possibly game-changing discovery about urban compost: its potential to offset 20 percent and perhaps as much as 40 percent of America’s carbon emissions.
The documentary takes a penetrating look at overpopulation, what fuels it and why the world has become complacent about the issue after making a good start in addressing it during the late 60s. The film dispels some key myths about overpopulation – chief among them the belief that it’s long been solved – even if it stops short of admitting the inevitability of a world population crash as the Earth’s resources deplete. And it conveys its message in an engaging, visually immersive style that finds just the right balance between hard facts and ordinary human involvement.
We don’t see it, smell it or hear it, but the tragedy unfolding underground is nonetheless real – and it spells big trouble. I’m talking about the depletion of groundwater, the stores of H2O contained in geologic formations called aquifers, which billions of people depend upon to supply their drinking water and grow their food.
There is something more mystifying about buzzards to me than the sight of them. They are almost as ubiquitous as robins, with a range from the southern tip of South America to far up in Canada. Even though they are awesome to behold, humans for the most part give them scant attention.
David Little of Little Organic Farm has had to adapt to water scarcity in Marin and Sonoma Counties, where most farmers and ranchers rely on their own reservoirs, wells, and springs, making them particularly vulnerable in years with light rainfall. Through a technique known as dry farming, Little’s potatoes and squash receive no irrigation, getting all of their water from the soil.
In response to a European Union directive to divert waste from landfills, local governments across the continent have had to come up with ways to meet the target goals or else face large fines. In France, the microscopic town of Pincé (population: 206) has come up with a particularly creative and logical solution: Backyard chickens for all.
-Demand for water outstrips supply
-Jordan’s Crippled Water Resources Protected by Security
-Drought dries up stretch of Platte River, slows barges on lower Mississippi
Fewer than 5% of all Americans drink raw milk. Yet, the question of whether Americans should be allowed to drink it at all is one of the hottest controversies between foodies and public health officials these days.
Letting food sit at room temperature and become colonized by airborne microorganisms runs counter to everything we’re taught about food safety. But without this guided decomposition that we call fermentation there would be no bread, cheese, tequila, or kimchee.
This, a doorway in West Africa’s Elmina Fort, is a Door of No Return. It is the last part of Africa you would touch if you were a slave being led from the dungeon to a waiting ship.
If the logic of the industrial system is based on profit, the logic of real food is founded on respect and balance. Real food isn’t opposed to profit, but it is opposed to profits that aren’t shared fairly with those who work the hardest to feed us. The Door of No Return represents what’s we’re up against: a global industrial food economy 500 years in the making that exploits both people and land.
To keep from becoming too depressed over the drought, I try to find lessons to learn from it, like trying not to be envious when rain falls on nearby farms but not ours. Two occurrences in my pastures suggest a teeny bit of optimism, but they run contrary to the way I usually think about pasture farming. That is to say, both occurrences involve plants whose names up to now have been hard for me to say out loud without prefixing them with cuss words.
