Practical Farmers of Iowa

Mostly I just love the name of this group:
https://practicalfarmers.org/
But I like their purpose, too:
We use farmer-led investigation and information sharing to help farmers practice an agriculture that benefits both the land and people.
And the fact that it's a farmer-to-farmer kind of organization. 

And I skimmed this from their values.
Curiosity, creativity, collaboration and community
I want every group I am a part of to embrace these. 

I learned from a Civil Eats story today that the Leopold Center has been defunded. It really makes no sense to me how a party that defines itself as conservative - you know which one - is so short-sighted. Because not supporting research in sustainable and resilient agriculture trades the best of our past and our hope for the future away in the service of present day greed. 
There's a whole lot of bad stuff going on beyond D.C.

Chavez on my mind, part II

Happy Cesar Chavez Day!

I have felt for some time that an opportunity exists for agriculture, agri-business and those of us on the left to work together, make common cause, and make new friends:  immigration reform.

In an article Saturday the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/us/california-farmers-short-of-labor-and-patience.html?_r=1
explored the impact of lack of such reforms on agriculture in California, with the number of workers declining, and the stable immigrant work force aging out of heavy labor in the fields - workers are just a decade behind the aging farmer population, pushing 50 while the farmers approach medicare age.

One of the happy upshots of this situation is that growers and agricultural advocacy and lobbying groups are getting fed up with the Republican impasse in Congress.  Generations of loyalty to the right on the part of Central Valley growers is being challenged by the aggregate behavior of Republicans.  There are, of course, exceptions - the Times article notes Congress members Valadao and Denham.  But the GOP could lose a key faction of supporters it it doesn't start moving on some sort of immigration reform.

Between the drought and the immigration impasse these are tough times for agriculture in California.  Beyond the present stresses, I wonder about the long term impact on our wallets, our environment and our civic life.

Valuable pictures

The Union of Concerned Scientists Plant the Plate infographic is pretty nifty.  You can download it here, though I have pasted it in below.
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/food_and_agriculture/plant-the-plate.pdf

It explains how we might grow enough fruit and vegetables in this country to meet the needs of people for good health.

I thought it was just Sonoma County where we had so little acreage in fruit and vegetables.   Not so - it's just that our mono-crop is grapes, not wheat or corn or soy or rice.  And, of course, the grapes are not eaten as fruit!

The story in pictures.  That last frame identifies where our Farm Bill advocacy needs to be.

Nitrates and scientific ignorance

I caught part of Forum on KQED on Wednesday morning, and now am listening to it again.

The evidence of overwhelming nitrate pollution of groundwater in the Central Valley and Salinas Valley is in.   This is a serious health problem in drinking water.   It's a particular problem for people in small rural communities where the cost of remedying the problem is prohibitive.  

What amazed me was the extent to which the host kept asking what the high nitrogen water is doing to our food supply.   Gosh.   I thought it was junior high science that nitrogen is a nutrient necessary to plant growth.  Another example of how a lack of basic scientific knowledge contributes to public fears.   What century is this anyway?  

In spite of this, and the lack of sophistication around agricultural issues, the shocking statistic cited by one of the guests was that 1 million Californians don't have safe drinking water.  

Also interesting to learn that use of synthetic fertilizers here has not been increasing for twenty years or so, that most of the Central Valley depends on ground water, not surface water, for drinking, and that the effects of nitrogen contamination are heightened by development for housing of former agricultural tracts.  

I just did some web crawling to see what kind of resources are out there on the nitrogen cycle.    Turns out there are lots.   What fascinated me the most was that each depiction of the nitrogen cycle features an animal to represent the contribution of animal waste to the cycle.  Most show a holstein.  One shows a bunny.   And this one http://www.esa.org/science_resources/issues/FileEnglish/issue1.pdf shows a bear!  Reminds me of a certain overworked sarcastic retort.

clips - earth democracy, non-interventionist farming, and agriturismo

Vindana Shiva interviewed in Cowbell Magazine - her radical vision of a green future, Earth Democracy...

'This inconsistency of the globalization project with democracy is something that needs to be addressed, that [globalization] is a project that can only be kept in place through lying about what’s really happening. And when people wake up, because people’s lives tell them this is not really true—when they say ,“Oh, we’re having growth” and people are running into unemployment—you can’t keep lying to people that we’re doing well. If India is told that we are shining, and half the people are starving, a starving person knows we are not shining.'

http://www.cowbellmagazine.com/home/2010/7/30/duty-now-for-the-future.html

Harry Eyres writes on Masanobu Fukuoka and his theory and practice of the non-interventionist farming that was his life’s work and philosophy,

and on agriturismo in Chianti...

http://www.ft.com/arts/columnists/harryeyres

Farm school

"Farm school", an article by Fred Bahnson in the Christian Century magazine, January 26,1010, p. 22-25, gives a picture of the Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization (ECHO) and its work 'sharing horticultural skills with the world' - the developing world, that is. ECHO works as a sort of agricultural extension service on behalf of third-world farmers, doing agricultural research on behalf of poor farmers, and sharing simple techniques that build on what they know and that they can put into practice.

http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=8158