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Meet the veg doctor
Leo Hickman, Guardian
A new scheme aims to put first-time vegetable growers in touch with more experienced gardeners. Leo Hickman gets the expert view on his raised beds
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… Battell is my “veg doctor”. As “gardener in charge” at Trerice, an exquisite National Trust-maintained Tudor manor near Newquay with its own newly restored Elizabethan kitchen garden, Battell, 33, has signed up to take part in a national scheme officially launching this Easter weekend, that aims to buddy up veg-growing novices, such as myself, with local experts. It is the latest initiative of the Landshare scheme, a project originally launched by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on his River Cottage series for Channel 4 last year, but which now boasts the participation of the National Trust, the Royal Horticultural Society and Garden Organic. At least 32,000 people have signed up to take part in the scheme, which includes help with finding a local plot of land to grow veg should you not have the space at home, or if the waiting list at the local allotment is measured in years rather than weeks.
Garden Organic has identified that the top priority is “re-skilling” a public that has largely never been taught or has forgotten the fundamentals of growing vegetables. The “veg doctor” scheme aims to redress this imbalance by linking up newbies with those already well attuned to growing veg, ranging from gardening professionals through to allotment regulars – the kind of hardy perennials, wizened with experience, that have been pulling up bounty from the ground for years.
(9 April 2009)
Human Impacts on Ecosystems
Oregon State University, Patricia S. Muir
Regular EB contributor Michael Lardelli “stumbled across this goldmine of clearly written and very informative text on population and agriculture including the green revolution within the online information for the BI301 HUMAN IMPACTS ON ECOSYSTEMS course at Oregon State University. See the website:
http://oregonstate.edu/~muirp/
But particularly the pages on the Green Revolution starting at:
http://oregonstate.edu/~muirp/greenrev.htm (and then clicking on the arrows at the bottom of each page to move through).
(8 April 2009)
Household Dry Food Cooking
Craig Bergland, The Oil Drum
As a frequent reader and infrequent poster to this wonderful site, I find that the Campfire series is one that I’m comfortable posting to. The recent Household Dry Food Storage article by Jason Bradford has prompted me to participate, as I do have some hands-on experience in building and using cute little solar toys, and other semi-practical devices.
… Many of us will be using wood and biomass to cook on. Open fires work well and are quick but fuel wasteful. Three stone fires are better but not much. Do a search for Rocket stoves, hobo stoves, and wood-gas stoves. I like the rocket stove, fairly easy to build with minimal tools, and hobo stoves are quick, too, but the best it seems is the tin can wood-gas stove which merely ‘sips’ fuel instead of a hungry roaring fire. (I posted a little about them on Jason’s article’s comments, and the flame is most impressive)
… Solar cooking is the champion when available. Solar box ovens can be bought or made from scrap materials. They work well, however sometimes they have a hard time getting to 350 to bake bread. When that’s the case, simply bake a little bit longer. A chunk of iron placed in the oven will help even out cloudy times and moderate the temperature.
(8 April 2009)
Many nice photos at original.
Author refers to Jason Bradford’s article which is online at TOD: Household Dry Food Storage Guide.
Food Industry Pursues the Strategy of Big Tobacco
Kelly Brownell, Yale Environment 360
Kelly Brownell has long studied the relationship between rising levels of obesity in the U.S. and the way our food is grown, processed, packaged, and sold. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, he discusses the common marketing and lobbying tactics employed by the food and tobacco industries.
Increasingly, the question of what we eat and how it affects our health is a subject that is important not just to those concerned about nutrition but to environmentalists. Kelly D. Brownell, a psychologist who is director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, has been a leading researcher into America’s obesity epidemic and its links to the practices of the food industry. Author of the 2004 book, Food Fight, Brownell has recently become interested in the connections between obesity, the environment, and hunger, believing that sustainably growing and producing more nutritious foods can help solve each of these challenges.
Recently, Brownell and Kenneth E. Warner — a prominent tobacco researcher who is Dean of the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health — met at a conference and began discussing the similar legal, political, and business strategies traditionally employed by “Big Tobacco” and the tactics now being used by “Big Food.” Struck by the common playbook that both industries have used and concerned about the public health impacts of industry actions, Brownell and Warner decided to explore the topic more deeply. The result was a paper published earlier this year in the health policy journal, the Milbank Quarterly: “The Perils of Ignoring History: Big Tobacco Played Dirty and Millions Died. How Similar Is Big Food?”
As Brownell explained in an interview with Yale Environment 360 senior editor Fen Montaigne, many of the tactics currently being used by Big Food now mirror those used by U.S. tobacco giants as they successfully fought off regulation for decades, thereby contributing to the deaths of millions of Americans.
(8 April 2009)
Will New Food Safety Bills Really Outlaw Backyard Gardening and End Farmers’ Markets?
Ari LeVaux, AlterNet
There’s been a lot of hype about a few new food bills. And while most of it is conspiracy theory there are some reasons to be alarmed.
My inbox has been pummeled in recent weeks by a barrage of emails warning me of the evils of HR 875, a bill currently working its way through Congress. Sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn), the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009 was one of several bills introduced in the wake of the peanut butter-borne salmonella outbreak. Each of these bills ostensibly seeks to improve food safety with increased regulation.
Critics, paranoid and level-headed alike, point to the disproportionate burden that increased regulation places on small farmers, and many wonder if the banner of food safety is being used as a Trojan horse to create a more favorable business climate for corporate agriculture.
“If [HR 875] passes, say goodbye to organic produce, your Local Farmer’s market and very possibly, the GARDEN IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD!!!!!” announced one email.”
Another warned that HR 875 would result in “…criminalization of seed banking, prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers.”
And of course, no serious foodie conspiracy theory would be complete without Monsanto as the architect: “DeLauro’s husband Stanley Greenburg works for Monsanto!” claim nearly all of these emails.
Stanley Greenberg is indeed the CEO of a polling firm that did, indeed, contract with Monsanto. But it’s no more true to say he works for Monsanto than it is to say he works for Nelson Mandela – who was also a former client of his firm, according to factcheck.org, which did a detailed dissection of one of the viral emails.
These emails seem to have been propagated largely by well-intentioned foodies, after having originated from a cadre of conspiracy theorists and Ron Paul supporters with too much time on their hands.
“There is a perfectly legitimate conversation to be had about how we can have food safety regulation without jeopardizing small farms and local food systems,” says Patty Lovera, Assistant director of Food and Water Watch. “But it’s hard to have a rational conversation via forwarded emails. It’s not happening in a way that’s going to change the policy.”
Lovera says HR 875 won’t regulate seed-saving, backyard gardens, or farmers markets. It would, however, split the Food and Drug Administration into separate bodies, one for food and one for drugs. This is a move that Food and Water Watch would support. But unfortunately, she says, it’s likely to kill the bill, because splitting the FDA might be too daunting a task for lawmakers to take on right now.
Another bill that’s more likely to make it to a vote, Lovera says, is HR 759. While this bill, “the Food And Drug Administration Globalization Act,” has drawn relatively little attention, she thinks it would be more likely to cause big problems for small farmers.
(6 April 2009)
UPDATE (April 12) Complicated subject, probably outside EB’s focus. EB reader Linn Cohen-Cole is lobbying against the bill at Yupfarmer. For example:
Jam and Water Watch
Food and Water Watch said that HR 875 does not include “language” that would regulate, penalize, or shut down backyard gardens. How true. It carefully avoids just such “language.” Yet, it can regulate homes and gardens, nonetheless.
Look very carefully at this section of the bill, showing homes, and thus gardens, are easily included
The “Food Patriot Act” – HR 875
Food and Water Watch put out a misleading list of Myths and Facts about HR 875. Perhaps in wanting things to be okay, they didn’t read the bill closely enough. But thanks to their misinformation, many more people are now looking carefully into what the bills actually say and can potentially do, and that is good because people need to see for themselves.
