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agriculture 
Fri Sep 02, 2011 at 21:03:09 PM PDT
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Genetic Modification: Proof that GM is Good for the Environment
Forbes, 9/2
by Tim Worstall, who writes for "business and technology."
This short piece "argues" that, since land sparing is better for biodiversity than land usage, that GM crops are better than organic farming.
Intensive farming of less land, leaving more land for wildlife, protects biodiversity better.
This is firstly something of a death knell for organic farming: we know that that is more land hungry than conventional farming.
Who is that "we," Tim? You got fleas?
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Mon Aug 29, 2011 at 18:05:50 PM PDT
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cross-posted at Bleeding Heartland
A year ago, the recall of half a billion eggs laid in Iowa made national news headlines. But if you thought that federal or Iowa government agencies would take meaningful steps to reduce the chance of another salmonella enteritidis outbreak in egg factories, guess again.
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Fri Feb 11, 2011 at 05:27:44 AM PST
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Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.
Shakti worked as a seasonal agricultural laborer in her village in Chitoor district, located in India's southern Andhra Pradesh state. Her day-to-day survival was often tenuous -she walked for long hours to surrounding fields looking for work. But today, she is a proud landowner.
 Some 15 million people living in India's rural areas lack land ownership. And millions more do not have secure rights to the land they currently occupy. This precarious existence means they have no food, income, and livelihood security. But Landesa, a Seattle-based non-profit formerly known as the Rural Development Institute, is combating hunger and poverty by working to secure land rights.
In rural areas around the world, land is the most fundamental asset. It is often difficult for landless farmers to earn enough income to feed their own children. But owning a plot of land for farming allows them to produce fruits and vegetables to nourish their families and helps them earn enough money to put their children through school or pay for medical costs.
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Wed Jan 12, 2011 at 08:51:07 AM PST
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Today the Worldwatch Institute launches its flagship publication, State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet in New York City. The report spotlights successful agricultural innovations and unearths major successes in preventing food waste, building resilience to climate change, and strengthening farming in cities. The press launch-the first of several release events being held in New York and DC this month-will feature remarks from Nourishing the Planet co-Directors Brian Halweil and Danielle Nierenberg; contributing authors Stephanie Hanson of the One Acre Fund and the Small Planet Institute's Anna Lappé; as well as Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin.
It's nearly a half-century since the Green Revolution and yet a large share of the human family is still chronically hungry. Since the mid 1980s when agricultural funding was at its height, the share of global development aid has fallen from over 16 percent to just 4 percent today. Drawing from the world's leading agricultural experts and from hundreds of innovations that are already working on the ground, State of the World 2011 will help serve as a road map for the funding and development communities.
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Wed Oct 13, 2010 at 10:19:21 AM PDT
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In this week's episode, Nourishing the Planet research intern, Elena Davert, introduces a counter-intuitive method of cleaning water. In 2004 Peter Njodzeka founded the Life and Water Development Group Cameroon (LWDGC) with a rather simple goal. " I wanted to see the people in my area have clean water," he said. "And we kept expanding. That's how it started." Now, LWDGC, with support from Engineers without Borders (EWB) and Thirst Relief International, is teaching households how to use dirt and bacteria to clean their water, greatly improving the quality of drinking water and all but eliminating diseases caused by contaminated water.
Here is the link: http://bit.ly/ahFrGJ
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Mon Oct 11, 2010 at 14:48:33 PM PDT
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Moringa: The Giving Tree
Referred to as a "supermarket on a trunk," moringa is potentially one of the planet's most valuable plants. Serving not only as a reliable source of diverse foods, moringa also provides lamp oil, wood, paper, liquid fuel, skin treatments, and the means to help purify water. But despite its multiple uses, and well-earned nickname, the tree is relatively unknown to most people in the United States.
Referred to as a "supermarket on a trunk," moringa is potentially one of the planet's most valuable plants.
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Fri Sep 03, 2010 at 08:04:04 AM PDT
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This is the first part in a two-part interview with Steve Osofsky, Director of Wildlife Health Policy for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). In this first part of the interview, Osofsky discusses how his field work informs his policy work, as well as how farmers can both help, and benefit from, wildlife conservation. Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.
 Name: Steve Osofsky
Location: Washington, DC
Affiliation: Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
Bio: Steve Osofsky is Director of Wildlife Health Policy for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Before coming to WCS, Dr. Osofsky had been with the World Wildlife Fund since 1998, serving as WWF's Director, Field Support for species programs in Asia and Africa. Dr. Osofsky is also is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Maryland, and has served on eight IUCN Species Survival Commission Specialist Groups. Previously, he was the first Wildlife Veterinary Officer for the Botswana Department of Wildlife and National Parks, and then a AAAS Science and Diplomacy Fellow serving as a Biodiversity Program Specialist at USAID. He developed and now manages the Animal & Human Health for the Environment And Development (AHEAD) Program for WCS, one of the foundational components of the WCS 'One World, One Health' initiative.
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Mon Jul 26, 2010 at 14:25:23 PM PDT
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Cross posted from Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.
This is the first blog in a series about Action Aid's work in Senegal.
They are found on nearly every street corner in Western Africa-freshly roasted groundnuts are sold in small plastic bags or by the handful as a quick, protein-rich snack. These small nuts-which are technically legumes-have had a big influence on Africa. "Groundnuts," says Moussa Faye, of Action Aid Senegal, "have made the wealth of this country." But he explained that they've also created "poverty because of a crisis in groundnut sector after it was liberalized" by the government. One of Action Aid's priorities in Senegal is to help groundnut farmers collectives find better ways to grow, process, and sell groundnuts and groundnut products.
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Tue Jul 20, 2010 at 12:29:29 PM PDT
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( - promoted by NourishingthePlanet)
This is the first post in a regular series about African indigenous crops that can improve food security and protect the environment.
Ever heard of the Bambara Bean? How about Nyimo or Vignea Subterranea or the African Groundnut? No matter what you call it, this little bean, which is indigenous to tropical Africa, is highly overlooked by scientists, development agencies, and humanitarian programs, even though it packs a lot of nutrition. The bean may have originated in Mali, but it's also popular in Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon. It is now widely distributed and grown in Asia, parts of Northern Australia, and South and Central America and is often found for sale on street corners in Johannesburg.
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Wed May 19, 2010 at 12:22:25 PM PDT
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(What a concept, farmers helping other farmers: when cooperation seems to work in the place of competition) I’ve been to Cuba twice now, once in 2007 and just very recently (where I met and roomed with the amazing Jill Richardson!). Both times, I’ve been in Cuba to research their agricultural models, especially their urban agricultural models, as I’m writing a book on the global movement of urban agriculture. As you know, Jill and I participated in a conference and research tour from May 5 to 15, 2010, and Jill is doing a mind-blowing job of chronicling our day-to-day adventures on the farms and our other wanderings. In other words, I’ll try to contribute in a way that complements Jill’s posts. Here are my thoughts on the agricultural structure that has been devised in Cuba to produce as much as 90% of the fresh food that that 11.2 million Cuban citizens consume. This stands in stark contrast to the North American food landscape where we rely on a remarkably fragile, ridiculously complex global food swap just to meet our basic food needs. Where I live in Edmonton, Alberta, we produce less 10% of the food locally that we consume, despite being an “agricultural power” on the Canadian prairies. (Hint, the American food system isn’t the only food system that is broken!) OK, back to Cuba…
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Sat Apr 10, 2010 at 11:53:06 AM PDT
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California has held 2 State Senate hearings on the light brown apple moth. I've posted videos of both hearings below.
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Sun Mar 07, 2010 at 06:52:33 AM PST
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Many companies are now buying up land in African countries such as Ethiopia to engage in large-scale agriculture, the bulk of whose output is then shipped out of these countries to the Middle East and Europe. The purchased land is often communal in nature, used for grazing or to help preserve the agricultural productivity of surrounding lands. But the local governments consider it to be unowned, and if it is still arable it can be sold off. Not surprisingly, this also impacts water availability to the local communities.
The issues are discussed in this article from the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi...
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Tue Jan 12, 2010 at 12:25:58 PM PST
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Check out this article by John Nichols in The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/doc/2...
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Iowa's leading farm organization, and urban organization, has been recognized as Most Valuable Grassroots Advocacy Group. Iowa CCI is a member of the National Family Farm Coalition. It has done a great job of bringing inner city urban folks together with farmers. I've heard farmers say things like, the next time you're fighting a drug pusher in your neighborhood, (an issue they discussed,) I'll come and help!
Iowa CCI has also taken this into Chicago's National People's Action (NPA), where large actions urban/rural actions in DC, (and recently in Chicago) have brought these two groups together to go after USDA (ie. Sec. Veneman) as well as urban and combo problem leaders (ie. Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich)
Also, historical family farm icon, Mark Ritchie, founder of IATP, won (for his newer role as Minnesota Secretary of State,) Most Valuable State Official.
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Thu Dec 31, 2009 at 05:38:02 AM PST
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I suppose this would be the place where I count up all the noteworthy events that occurred during the past year and list my resolutions for the new decade. But last night I watched a documentary about Howard Zinn, the radical historian, and it reminded me that what growing my own food here in the District of Columbia, about a mile from the White House, has done more than anything is opened my eyes to the grotesque beast our country's agriculture has become.
If you've been following my blog, The Slow Cook, you may have noticed that I no longer spend much time cataloguing the atrocities committed by industrial agriculture and its government partners. We could talk about the destruction of family farms and rural communities, the pollution, the nutritionally inferior products, the breeding grounds for new diseases. But there are other blogs that do this so much better.
It's not that I no longer pay attention. Oh, we are following the news alright. It's been so bad this year that my wife and I have actually contemplated other countries where we might live. Watching the heath care "debate," for instance, put us in an especially dark mood. How is it that we are the last civilized country to embrace a sensible health care system? Americans have been sold off to the insurance companies like so much cattle. Would any other country tolerate its citizens going bankrupt trying to pay medical bills?
And then there's the public debt. People thought Ross Perot was a nut when he talked about a "great sucking sound" as jobs left the country for foreign ports. He turned out to be a profit. Not only are the jobs gone, but the country is nearly bankrupt, in hock over its head to the Chinese. What wealth hasn't left the country has been sucked up by corporate fat cats. The American economy looks like a dessicated husk, the American Dream a cruel hoax. Yet we let it happen. I blame the death of labor unions.
As Howard Zinn would say, it's long past time when Americans took their country back. Congress doesn't need reform so much as to be completely replaced. But where is the outrage, you might ask. We sense a seething anger abroad in the country, looking for a target. Now comes the greatest threat of all, a climate crisis born of our polluting ways--a reckoning of accounts--that could turn life as we know it into a nightmare. Yet the politicians dither. Free enterprise has hit a brick wall.
My conclusion: It's hardly possible to grow vegetables anymore without becoming a raging insurgent. Is civil disobedience the next best option? Our goal is to live as much off the grid as possible, to prepare for a future of big unknowns. I wonder how many other Americans are thinking the worst is yet to come. More than anything, we are resolved not to become victims of our country's lack of moral leadership.
Happy New Year.
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