Farm Talk

When you buy organic products, there is this expectancy attached—this feeling that the product is supposed to be safe, effective, and good for you. The fact that it costs more and is harder to find (for many people, anyway) makes the idea even further ingrained into our psyches. After all, when you pay more, you get more, right?

But the number of exposes run on the dairy industry, from California to New York, simply keep increasing and increasing, and we’re slowly realizing that truly organic milk simply isn’t being made on many of the farms claiming to produce it. In fact, nearly half of the nation’s milk is made on big factory farms. And of these, the biggest organic producers corral their bovine beauties in little dirt pens where they don’t get to eat grass and can barely turn around. Many don’t even come into contact with grass at all, which is unnatural for a cow. Read more

“Inert ingredients.”

Okay, if that were listed on our bananas, our strawberries, or our green beans, chances are we wouldn’t buy them. Remember that Progresso Soup commercial where the clerk keeps scanning the can and it reads different vegetables with each different scan? This would be like that, only with a bright red light flashing, sirens flaring, Hazmat men storming the scene with big metal tweezers to handle the can—all the while, the register reading, “ERROR.”

That’s exactly what’s listed on our pesticides, though—“inert ingredients”—the very same things that are used on lots of the fruits and vegetables we by, the very same things that we buy to tame our lawns and get rid of six-legged critters from our cabinets. Read more

Will Farms Grow Food or Carbon Capture Trees?Farms and environmental concerns- seems like two groups that would be likely to lobby alongside each other, right? Afterall, you need clean water and healthy soil to grow the food that people actually want to buy, and if you’ve read any of Michael Pollan’s books (you should) then you know that the future of our food depends on our ability to take care of the ground that we grow it in. In the larger sense, it’s important for farmers and the land to both be healthy, working in a sort of mutually beneficial relationship. What doesn’t work is for farming to destroy the land through excess fertilizer or other kinds of chemicals, at least not in the long term.

So what do farming groups and the farming lobbyists think of the newest climate change bill? Are they celebrating the ecological wisdom of our national legislative body? Not hardly. Read more

Organic Farming Is Fastest Growing, Still Only 1% of U.S. FarmlandI read a recent post in Triple Pundit that dropped one of the more head-nodding statistics I’ve heard in a long time about organic farming-

“Sustainable agriculture is the fastest-growing sector of the food industry. On the other hand, less than 1% of American cropland is farmed organically.”

Great that it is the fastest growing and wild that only 1% of the U.S. is organic- that means 99% of the U.S. farmland is covered in chemicals. Read more

Roof of the Eco Village Training Center at The Farm: photo by January Fieldz Read more

T. Boone PickensHave you heard of T. Boone Pickens? The man who made billions in oil in Texas? Friend and supporter of George W. Bush? The man who funded the infamous Swift Boat TV commercials that played their role in bringing down John Kerry’s bid for the presidency in 2004? The man who is heavily invested in nuclear gas and… wind power? If you haven’t heard of him yet, you may just hear of him a lot in the future- and you may have heard of some of his friends.

“He’s a legendary entrepreneur,” President Obama said. “One of the things that I think we have to unify the country around is having an intelligent energy policy.” Read more

Bright Ideas For Battling Climate ChangeClimate change is a pressing and overwhelming issue for the modern world to deal with. The upcoming Copenhagen summit is marred months before it happens in arguments and standoffs about how to preserve the earth without destroying the economy and the way we make our living. All the while, the population of the world grows larger and larger. One of the biggest reasons that climate change is such an issue is, quite simply, that there are a lot of people.

More people require more resources, and more resources requires more energy. That’s where we’re at. 6 Billion + and growing rapidly. Read more

Pears are now in season, or so my seckel pear tree informs me.  Every year at about this time it suddenly bursts forth with - you would think - more pears than one human being could eat before they go bad.  Every year I vow to preserve a portion of them somehow (pear butter, pear chutney, whatever) and every year I end up eating them out of hand.

Admittedly a big part of this problem is that my preferred pear ripening spot happens to be within arm's reach of my desk. You can just guess how THAT works out.
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Recently a forum thread I was participating in (not here) was deleted by the forum moderators. Not locked - deleted - and I trust you can see the severity of the difference. Outright deletion of threads is generally reserved for the "worst of the worst" offenders.  

The crime?  "PETA-like discussion."  

This is a forum with a  predominately rural demographic, a forum where several members have anti-vegetarian slurs and "jokes" permanently displayed in their forum signatures.  I have learned to tread carefully.  I habitually avoid passing judgment, and stick to simply stating facts.  I didn't say anything you wouldn't find inside the pages of Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" or Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma."
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Go bananas in September!

That's right! Almost slipped past you, didn't it? Not to forget! September is the month in which we all plant banana trees. September and banana trees are practically synonymous, and considering the banana's many subtle varieties, let us deliberate wisley on which banana(s) to plant this month.

I found a wonderful resource today, in the Maas Nursery newsletter. I have decided on the Ice Cream (Blue Java) tree because its leaves are an enchanted silvery green, with delicate blue fruit that tastes like fresh Mexican flan.

If you live on the east coast, midwest, north, northeast, or northwest part of the country, remember, all it takes is growing your banana tree in a grow bag/burlap sack so that you can alternate between indoor and outdoor growing on a seasonal rotation! Inside fall and winter and outside in the summer!! Read more