I don’t want to use heavy chemicals. How do you get rid of this stuff otherwise?
]]>At our house, at this point (it’s Nov. 21, 2008, in a cold snap), we have our field greens under heavy translucent agricultural cloth (Remay) and the rest in a hoop-greenhouse without heat. Some of the hardiest stuff is braving it unprotected and should hold up for a while: arugula, kale, radicchio.
The most wonderful part is the 45’ x 16’ pvc-pipe-hoop house with UV-stabilized plastic (from Ray’s Bags on Brevard Road). The shelter is now 10 years old. Inside, in the sunshine, there’s typically a 30-degree heat gain, so in January a despondent soul can fall asleep in a beach chair while catching some rays. The smell of warm earth and happy greens has the power to dispell almost any winter depression.
Everything freezes come darkness, but without wind, and with the slow transition to freezing afforded by the hoope-house’s plastic covering, all our greens pull through, all winter: these being kale, arugula, spinach, and the hardier lettuces.
What’s working at your house or farm?
]]>To produce large quantities of food cheaply, companies look for economies of scale, using chemicals to control weeds and pests instead of more labor-and space-intensive organic options and often packing animals into very crowded spaces.
The cost of this cheap food trickles down in many ways, including food safety issues (14 Americans die every day as a result of food-borne illness); increased use of antibiotics (more than half of all antibiotics used in North America are fed to livestock and 90 per cent are administered to make animals grow faster, not to treat infections); and water pollution (The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates agriculture is responsible for 70 per cent of the country’s water pollution).
“These things have to be important to you in order to get past the price you pay,” Sirois says. “We seem to have no problem paying $50 for Internet each month and $80, $90, $100 for a cellphone each month, so why do we want to pay the least possible for food?”
“We can’t seem to make the connection on a broad scale between food and health. Yes, we eat cheaply and poorly, but it adds to this incredible health expenditure on the other end,” Sirois says.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/food/Debunking+sustainable+food+myths/2086662/story.html
Congress has approved a $350 million dairy bailout—on top of more than $1 billion in regular price-support and direct-payment programs.
]]>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1595245,00.html
in part:
]]>Farmers’ markets often feature organic produce from nearby farms, but not everyone lives near a farmers’ market—and most products at the markets aren’t organic. “I’ve been to farmers’ markets, and there’s people hauling stuff from the truck that they got at a wholesaler,” says Joseph Mendelson III, legal director of the Center for Food Safety, a liberal Washington group that supports strong organic standards. Mendelson prefers the “gold standard” of locally grown organics, but he is rather frightening on the subject of nonorganic food, whatever its origin. When I asked him whether I should favor local products, he replied, “I don’t know what local means. Do they use local pesticides? Does that mean the food is better because they produce local cancers?”
All of which further tangles my original question: The organic apple or the conventionally grown local one?
It turns out to be a frustratingly layered choice, one that implicates many other questions: What’s the most efficient way to grow food for all? Should farms be big or small, family- or corporate-run? How do your choices affect the planet? What tastes better? And then there’s that little matter of cancer…
For starters, this video demonstrates extreme environmental consciousness and will undoubtedly launch these demonic gardeners into high paying careers. Watch this and you’ll see how to make your own hydroponic set up with little more than a drill and a soda-drinking-habit.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnGQ6xyjuXs[/youtube]
]]>Garden design meets art and sculpture meets sustainability in Sonoma California.
http://www.thelateshowgardens.org/
While not local, this is certainly a thought provoking garden show worth the time of a virtual visit for those interested.
Two good photo reviews can be found here:
http://deviantdeziner.blogspot.com/2009/09/late-show-gardens-review.html
And now, I see Time magazine talking about sustainability and industrial agriculture.
What the hell is going on? Are we making headway in the ‘average consumer’? Or is this just part of the co-option of the movement?
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1917458,00.html
Some Americans are heeding such warnings and working to transform the way the country eats — ranchers and farmers who are raising sustainable food in ways that don’t bankrupt the earth. Documentaries like the scathing Food Inc. and the work of investigative journalists like Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan are reprising Sinclair’s work, awakening a sleeping public to the uncomfortable realities of how we eat. Change is also coming from the very top. First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House garden has so far yielded more than 225 lb. of organic produce — and tons of powerful symbolism. But hers is still a losing battle. Despite increasing public awareness, sustainable agriculture, while the fastest-growing sector of the food industry, remains a tiny enterprise: according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), less than 1% of American cropland is farmed organically. Sustainable food is also pricier than conventional food and harder to find. And while large companies like General Mills have opened organic divisions, purists worry that the very definition of sustainability will be co-opted as a result.
a few of the great photo essays at the link:
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1913033,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519,00.html
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