By Lisa Kivirist •
April 16, 2008
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And you think you’re busy? Zoë Bradbury has three thousand strawberry transplants to plant, two acres of row crops to sow including a diversified mix of everything from carrots to beets to lettuce, thirteen and a half tons of lime to work into the soil for organic fertilizer and a team of draft horses galloping in any day now. And don’t forget the experimental celeriac patch. Add in the role of accountant, office manager and marketing chief and you cook up the range of farmer responsibilities resulting in their annual crazy spring schedule.
The farmers’ market season may not yet be in full swing so we don’t see — nor appreciate — the flurry of farm activity going on across the country as growers get ready to keep us freshly stocked all summer. But Bradbury, a fledgling Oregon farmer starting her growing venture this season, along with thousands of small-scale, family farmers across the country, have been putting in long work days for weeks.
By Jennie Love •
March 31, 2008
According to the Population Reference Bureau, nearly 80 percent of you probably live in an urban area. Some of you may be lucky enough to have a weekly farmers market in a nearby city park or square, but I wonder if you’ve ever thought there might be an actual farm near you. Over the past decade, a growing number of urban agriculture projects have taken root in major North American cities, making it possible for urbanites to get in on the sustainable food movement in at a whole new level. Typically not more than an acre or two, these city farms are redefining traditional cultivation practices and communities alike.
By Pem Charnley •
February 12, 2008
It comes as rather a shock to see New Zealanders in the news, arguing amongst themselves about the missing chapter of a report - questioning their very own green credentials. The chapter in question is unfortunately number 13.
(Not overly unfortunate that it was chapter 13, granted, but it allows me to clumsily shoehorn the word triskaidekaphobia into a piece of writing for the first - and hopefully - last time.)
Included in a statement by the country’s Green Party is the following:
“Chapter 13 states some inconvenient truths about the causes of environmental decline in New Zealand – causes such as dairy intensification, increased car use, and consumption. And it makes some inconvenient recommendations for action such as national environmental regulation and more public transport. Moreover it warns our economy is threatened by our poor environmental performance.”
The Green Party’s reaction has been thorough as the accompanying YouTube video shows.
But I’d like to just concentrate for now on dairy farming. It isn’t perhaps at the forefront of many people’s minds when we think of environmental decline. Conjure up the word “cattle” and more often, it is intensively reared beef rather than milk production that causes a reaction.
New research from the National Science Foundation suggests a warming Earth could mean a significant increase in voracious, plant-eating insects.
Scientists studying the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a period about 55 million years ago when global carbon dioxide levels spiked rapidly, found that plant fossils from that time show noticeably more insect damage than plants from before or after the PETM. They [...]
By Pem Charnley •
January 19, 2008
Over the past few years, the UK has enjoyed the dubious pleasure of having its terrestrial TV channels jammed with celebrity chefs.
Turn on the TV and you’ll see one of them drizzling olive oil over some preposterous dish hardly suitable for a family of four on a tight budget.
But recently, there’s been a refreshingly unsavoury turnaround.
By Kira Marchenese •
October 31, 2007
This post is by Leslie Valentine, Online Writer and Editor at Environmental Defense.
1
Rank of shrimp in popularity among all types of seafood Americans eat
4.4
Pounds of shrimp the average American consumed in 2006
10%
Share of shrimp sold in the U.S. that comes from the Southeast U.S. (Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean), where fisheries and farms are held to stricter standards
90%
Share of shrimp sold in the U.S. that comes largely from Southeast Asia
[...]
By Sarah Lozanova •
October 11, 2007
Editor’s note: We’re pleased to welcome Sarah Lozanova to the Green Options writing team. A native of Chicago, Sarah holds an MBA in Sustainable Management from the Presidio School of Management, and also writes for Worldchanging Chicago. Along with fellow Windy City resident Jason Phillip, she’ll be covering green issues in Chicago, as well as the broader Midwest.
The average bite of food on our dinner plates tonight has traveled
[...]
By Joshua S Hill •
September 27, 2007
A lot of the time I write on what needs to happen, on the lack of action being taken across the world, and how it is that, without said action, we’re all going to H-E-double-hockey-sticks in a hand basket. This time, I get to write about people who have already done something, and how maybe we can follow in their steps.
An Associated Press article tells of a farmer from Creston, Iowa,
[...]
By Max Lindberg •
September 15, 2007
"There’s no free lunch" is an old axiom that surfaces everytime I think something for nothing is coming my way. This time it’s ethanol, and you’re probably already aware that less corn is going to your table because more of it is going to fuel. So we’re paying for cleaner air everytime we buy products made from corn.
Articles are showing up more and more by writers complaining about rising food
[...]
By Noelle dEstries •
August 20, 2007
By Noelle dEstries •
August 13, 2007
I found this over at Unusual Business Ideas That Work (a must read for entrepreneurs)
IN 1961, William and Lucille Salatin moved their young family to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, purchasing the most worn-out, eroded, abused farm in the area near Staunton. Using nature as a pattern, they and their children began the healing and innovation that now supports three generations.
Disregarding conventional wisdom, the Salatins planted trees, built huge compost piles, dug ponds, moved cows daily with portable electric fencing, and invented portable sheltering systems to produce all their animals on perennial prairie polycultures.
Today the farm arguably represents America’s premier non-industrial food production oasis. Believing that the Creator’s design is still the best pattern for the biological world, the Salatin family invites like-minded folks to join in the farm’s mission: to develop emotionally, economically, environmentally enhancing agricultural enterprises and facilitate their duplication throughout the world.
The Salatins continue to refine their models to push environmentally-friendly farming practices toward new levels of expertise.
Small farms typically offer quiet pastoral scenes of rolling pastures, grazing animals, weathered barns, and a chicken coop or two.
Polyface Farm, a 550-acre spread in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, is different. The rolling pastures are there all right—but quiet they’re not. Each day, men move fences, roll portable henhouses, and redirect cattle from one area to another for grazing. Trees are cut down for lumber and pigs set loose to roll in wood chips and cow manure to create compost.
Check out the Polyface Farms website for more info.
I’ve got a whole mess o’ links for you today, most green, a few non thrown in for kicks. Enjoy!