Food

Deconstructing Dinner: Permaculture at the Blue Raven Farm

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Deconstructing Dinner revisits with the topic of permaculture… a concept and philosophy that has grown significantly in popularity since we first aired a show on the topic back in 2006. In September 2008, Deconstructing Dinner’s Andrea Langlois visited The Blue Raven Permaculture Farm on Salt Spring Island British Columbia. Farmers and Instructors Brandon and Patti Bauer escort Andrea around the farm and describe the principles of permaculture as they apply on their particular parcel of land.

Good Farming Was More Advanced A Hundred Years Ago

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Working from the premise that we will eventually run out of plentiful supplies of manufactured fertilizers, I have been reading old farming books written before artificial fertilizers became easily available. I am amazed at the sophistication with which science approached the subject of soil fertility once it become evident in the mid-1800s that farmers were rapidly depleting the native richness of their soils and had to find ways to restore it using livestock manure and green manure crops.

The Sixth Extinction

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Today I talk about my “favorite” disaster, called The Sixth Extinction. Even in the age of politically correct environmentalism, most people could care less about the Earth’s plant & animal species unless their decline bears directly and immediately on their own welfare. Accordingly, I will talk about some clear-cut examples where the health of the natural world adversely affects our future survival.

A Nation of Farmers: Is Vermont Doing Its Share?

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New York state author, blogger, and homesteader Sharon Astyk discusses her new book, A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil. Astyk sees the energy shortages of peak oil hitting us and our food system now, and she argues that US food security depends on 100 million of us starting to farm in the near future. Four Vermonters also describe part of what they are doing to move Vermont toward much stronger local food systems.

it’s the end of the world as we know it (…and I feel fine) (1)

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it’s the end of the world as we know it (…and I feel fine) (1)

Probably few saw this meltdown coming. We have come to view human progress as a given, and an ever growing economy and living standard as an entitlement.

Understanding the Agricultural Landscape

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In this episode Crop To Cuisine explores several areas that are helping us understand and make decisions about the agricultural landscape. Adam Avery tells us about their team bike ride from Boulder to Durango, and how breweries are doing more than making great beer within their communities. Bill Meyer from the USDA Statistics Service explains the first organic agriculture census. Cindy Torres of the Boulder County Food & Agricultural Policy Council helps us understand the GMO v. Non GMO argument. And Michelle DaPra shares the USDA’s efforts to better understand local food systems.

Are GMO sugar beets in Boulder County part of the world according to Monsanto? (with updated comment)

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It’s quite a spectacle to behold. Here in Boulder County–Colorado home of the nation’s first carbon tax and the first city to offer property-based financing for solar installations and energy retrofits–we’re watching our County Commissioners wrestle with a proposal from six local farmers seeking official approval to grow Roundup-Ready GMO sugar beets on county-owned open space land.

Phosphorus Matters II: Keeping Phosphorus on Farms

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“Next to clean water, phosphorus will be one the inexorable limits to human occupancy on this planet” wrote Bill Mollison in Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual more than 20 years ago. It is that important that we design phosphorus recycling into our food systems. Phosphorus is an essential element for growing crops and no porridge, chocolate bar or cherry jam can be made without it.