Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The first “seed” catalogs of the year are always the tree catalogs, and now is a good time to begin siting and planning for next year’s tree stock. We try to add trees to our home orchard every single year, sometimes just a couple, sometimes more.
The Santa Fe Farmers Market, considered one of the country’s most distinguished and successful markets, began in the late 1960’s with only a few farmers selling produce off the backs of their trucks. Today, over 170 vendors participate to meet the city’s demand for fresh, local produce.
Having just returned from a trip to Eastern Nebraska, I feel as if I participated in a movie set for “The Road” or its equivalent. It’s all about ethanol in this region of the country and it’s not a pretty sight. Because of our unbridled and unquenchable thirst for liquid fuels, this policy is creating a vast environmental ruin not so different from that of the tar sands areas of Canada. In recent years, this land which was a prairie a short one-hundred-and-fifty years ago has become a region that produces primarily only two industrial agricultural crops, corn and soybeans.
Food planning can play a lead role in ensuring that food provides what’s needed to stick to the ribs of city cohesion.
He and the people in his church are part of the new “food hub” wave, although he didn’t call it that. He just wants to encourage the people in his church to start asserting their food independence. But instead of going the usual route of venturing forth and trying to teach the people how to grow food, Mike decided to ask the parishioners themselves how to go about it.
– Phosphorus cycle: A broken biogeochemical cycle (article in “Nature”)
– Food for thought – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
– Walmart and the Good Food Movement
What would a People’s Takeover require of us? Below I share some reflections on a summer of research into the bigger picture. And a few further questions!
For century upon century domestic animals have been bred with specialized traits suited to particular tasks or to live and prosper in specific climates or regions. Arguably these domesticated breeds are of significance equal to their brethren who live in the wild and just like their wild counterparts, many of the breeds are in danger of extinction. Indeed some breeds have already been lost.
The Bou Craa mine in occupied Western Sahara is one of the world’s largest sources of phosphorus, a vital component of the fertilisers on which much of the world’s agriculture, and global food production and food security, depends. For some time there has been concern about our reliance on a finite supply of phosphorus, and the implications of this for agricultural productivity, food prices and nutrition, particularly in developing countries. The term “peak phosphorus” has joined the term “peak oil” in the lexicon of 21st century scarcity. An article in this week’s Nature journal (Elser and Bennett, 2011) addresses the phosphorus problem …
More and more of today’s unemployed college grads would like to become farmers. But if they can’t get their own land, could they wind up at the bottom of a new family feudalism?
Grazing animals is not as easy as I thought at first for about the same reason that annual cultivation is not easy. There are nasty weeds out there, and more coming, that grazing animals won’t eat and which can’t be controlled by mowing either.
One of the most common complaints about the industrial age is its constant and seemingly ever-growing use of sweeteners. Whether it was cheap sugar (and rum) in the early 1800s, saccharin in the early 1900s, or high-fructose corn syrup in the late 20th century, sweeteners have had a bad—but tasty—reputation…In a local context, however, sweeteners are extremely important. Many of the local fruits that contain Vitamin C, for instance, are difficult eating unless sweetened…Sugar is also very important in preserving food, where it creates a hostile environment for bacteria as well as a delicious treat.
