Tag Archives: Agriculture

Small farms increasing

For the first time in many decades, small farms are increasing.

Christopher Wanjek wrote in LiveScience 10 February 2009, Small Farms Sprout in Economic Drought:

When the economy gets tough, it seems that the tough get farming. Tens of thousands of small farms were created since 2002, according to new data from the Census of Agriculture.

The farming forecast isn’t entirely sunny. But packed with a cornucopia of surprise findings — such as large increases in the number and percentage of Asian, Hispanic, Black and female farmers, and a coup staged by the frigid state of Wisconsin to become the second-leading vegetable producer, behind California — the census brings promising news to those interested in reducing obesity and improving the environment.

What’s the connection? More small farms brings greater diversity of crops, more fresh and local foods, less dependency on chemical fertilizers, less concentration of manure, and less emphasis on cheap corn to make unhealthy, industrially produced beef, pork and chicken.

We know this works elsewhere:
In Japan, were obesity is negligible and the population lives on average about five years longer than Americans do, most cities and their surroundings are filled with small farms. Farmers south of Tokyo, which has a climate similar to Washington, work year round, planting winter crops such as broccoli and hearty greens, which are then picked and delivered to local stores within a day or two. The system is called chisan, chishou, “produce local, consume local.”
Unfortunately, big farms also increased during the same period, and mid-sized farms decreased. Basically, mid-sized farms can’t compete in the pesticide game, and are being absorbed by huge corporate farms while being a grass-roots movement of small farms is coming up from the bottom.

Rather than massive Monsanto farms, I choose chisan, chishou.

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More profit and higher yields through organic farming in India

Increase your income and your yields with traditional farming methods? That’s what’s happening in India.

Nishika Patel blogged 11 May 2011 in The Guardian, Organic farming – India’s future perfect?

India’s struggling farmers are starting to profit from a budding interest in organic living. Not only are the incomes of organic farmers soaring – by 30% to 200%, according to organic experts – but their yields are rising as the pesticide-poisoned land is repaired through natural farming methods.
How did this happen?
Organic farming only took off in the country about seven years ago. Farmers are turning back to traditional farming methods for a number of reasons.

First, there’s a 10% to 20% premium

Continue reading →

Even winter farmers markets

We already know that the long trend in growth in farmers markets continued this year as more farmers markets opened, including even winter farmers markets, such as Indy Farmers Market in Indianapolis:

And it’s not just about food, it’s about the local food chain and economy, and “in that food chain you find relationships.”

Henderson said she wasn’t looking to start a business when she started Indy Winter Farmers’ Market. Her efforts, she joked, were more about making Indianapolis into a place she wanted to live.

But on that first day at 25th and Central, with people lined up outside the door, she realized her goals were similar to those of many others in the community. Her market and others like it, she explained, are about more than food.

“It’s not just about the market,” she said. “We should be proud to be Indiana, the Heartland, a farm state.”

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Farmers markets: twice as many as ten years ago

According to USDA’s Farmers Market Growth: 1994-2010, there are more than twice as many farmers markets in the U.S. as ten years ago, and the growth rate is 6% a year.

Further:

Farmers markets are an integral part of the urban/farm linkage and have continued to rise in popularity, mostly due to the growing consumer interest in obtaining fresh products directly from the farm. Farmers markets allow consumers to have access to locally grown, farm fresh produce, enables farmers the opportunity to develop a personal relationship with their customers, and cultivate consumer loyalty with the farmers who grows the produce. Direct marketing of farm products through farmers markets continues to be an important sales outlet for agricultural producers nationwide. As of mid-2010, there were 6,132 farmers markets operating throughout the U.S. This is a 16 percent increase from 2009.
USDA is updating their directory now.

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11 year old is onto Monsanto and how to fix the food system

The “dark side of the industrialized food system.” as related (accurately) by Birke Baehr at TEDxNextGeneration Asheville.
Conventional farmers use chemical fertilizers made from fossil fuels. Then they mess with the dirt to make the plants grow. They do this because they’ve stripped the soil from all nutrients from growing the same crop over and over again. Next more harmful chemicals are sprayed on fruits and vegetables. Like pesticides and herbicides to kill weeds and bugs. When it rains, these chemicals seep into the ground, or rise into our waterways, poisoning our water, too.
His personal goal:
A while back, I wanted to be an NFL footall player.
I decided I’d rather be an organic farmer instead.
[applause]
That way I can have a greater impact on the world.
He’s got a turn of phrase:
We can either pay the farmer, or we can pay the hospital.

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Two Mexican states ban GM corn

Many if not most pesticides are sprayed on crops genetically modified to resist them. Ban GM crops and reduce spraying. Two states in Mexico prove it can be done. Mexico, the country where corn was originally domesticated could lead the way back to healthy agriculture.

Aleira Lara reported in Health Impact News Daily reported 5 March 2011 that Two Mexican states ban GM corn:

The Mexican States of Tlaxcala and Michoacán each passed legislation banning the planting of genetically modified corn to protect natural plants from further contamination of transgenes. Together, both states produce about a third of all of Mexico’s corn. Below this story is a detailed timeline of genetic contamination and legislation in Mexico.
The timeline is a long saga including intimidation of scientists attempting to research the problem. The Mexican federal government caved in to big agro, but two Mexican states are fighting back anyway.

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Via Campesina: locavores worldwide

Claimed to be “the largest social movement in the world, with more than 400 million members,” it’s Via Campesina:
Enterremos el sistema alimentario industrial!
La agricultura campesina puede alimentar al mundo!

Bury the corporate food system!
Peasant agriculture can feed the world!
Peasant agriculture as in local agriculture. It’s a global movement of locavores!

They’re planning an International day of Peasant’s Struggles on 17 April 2011: Continue reading →

Genetic engineering based on obsolete science and regulatory capture –peer-reviewed research

Here is peer-reviewed evidence that we are the guinea pigs for worldwide experimentation on the food supply using fatally-flawed science. Experimentation that isn’t needed because we already know how to do it right.

We already knew Monsanto is blocking independent GMO research in the U.S. (L.A. Times op-ed) and there are numerous examples of Monsanto gaming regulatory systems. Now Ken Rosenboro of The Organic and Non-GMO Report tells us there’s peer-reviewed research that says:

…the technology is based on obsolete science, that biotechnology companies such as Monsanto have too much influence on government regulators and “public” universities, and that university scientists are ignoring the health and environmental risks of GM crops.
The research is published as two papers by Don Lotter in the International Journal of the Sociology of Agriculture and Food:

Part 1: The Development of a Flawed Enterprise

Part 2: Academic Capitalism and the Loss of Scientific Integrity

In a 7 August 2009 article in FoodFirst, The Genetic Engineering of Food and the Failure of Science, Don Lotter explains what’s in those two papers: Continue reading →

Monsanto shouldn’t get away with it anymore –Vandana Shiva

Quantum physicist and environmental activist Vandana Shiva foresees The Future of Food, in three parts.
  • Part 1:
    There are only two applications that have been commercialized in these twenty years of genetic engineering. One is to make seeds more resilient to herbicides, which means you get to spread more Roundup, you get to spread more Glysophate, and you get to spread more poison. Not a very desirable trait in farming systems. Especially since what Monsanto will call weeds are ultimately sources of food.
    It gets even better from there.
    These are illusions that are being marketed in order for people to hand over the power to decide what we eat to a handful of corporations.
    Vandana Shiva is the keynote speaker at the Georgia Organics conference in Savannah, 11-12 March 2011. There’s still time to sign up!

    Here’s Part 1: Continue reading →

Animal miscarriages from new fungus or virus in Roundup-read crops?

Jill Richardson publishes a letter from Col. (Ret.) Don M. Huber, Emeritus Professor, Purdue University, who is APS Coordinator, USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System (NPDRS). It begins:
Dear Secretary Vilsack:
A team of senior plant and animal scientists have recently brought to my attention the discovery of an electron microscopic pathogen that appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings. Based on a review of the data, it is widespread, very serious, and is in much higher concentrations in Roundup Ready (RR) soybeans and corn-suggesting a link with the RR gene or more likely the presence of Roundup. This organism appears NEW to science!
What’s an “electron microsope pathogen”? Continue reading →