By Zachary Shahan •
October 5, 2009
Turkey farmers growing greenhouse tomatoes have been using this technology since 2005. California is going to get it before the end of this year.
LA-based ClimateMinder now completely owns the Turkish company Kodalfa and it is eager to bring some of its technology to the US. This company’s “new” climate-monitoring and control system helps greenhouse farmers to monitor their crops and adjust the conditions of their greenhouses with wireless technology. This helps farmers and consumers in numerous and significant ways.
By Lester R. Brown
Today we are an oil-based civilization, one that is totally dependent on a resource whose production will soon be falling. Since 1981, the quantity of oil extracted has exceeded new discoveries by an ever-widening margin. In 2008, the world pumped 31 billion barrels of oil but discovered fewer than 9 billion barrels of new oil. World reserves of conventional oil are in a free fall, dropping every year.
As I note in my latest book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, discoveries of conventional oil total roughly 2 trillion barrels, of which 1 trillion have been extracted so far, with another trillion barrels to go. By themselves, however, these numbers miss a central point. As security analyst Michael Klare notes, the first trillion barrels was easy oil, “oil that’s found on shore or near to shore; oil close to the surface and concentrated in large reservoirs; oil produced in friendly, safe, and welcoming places.” The other half, Klare notes, is tough oil, “oil that’s buried far offshore or deep underground; oil scattered in small, hard-to-find reservoirs; oil that must be obtained from unfriendly, politically dangerous, or hazardous places.”
This prospect of peaking oil production has direct consequences for world food security, as modern agriculture depends heavily on the use of fossil fuels. Most tractors use gasoline or diesel fuel. Irrigation pumps use diesel fuel, natural gas, or coal-fired electricity. Fertilizer production is also energy-intensive. Natural gas is used to synthesize the basic ammonia building block in nitrogen fertilizers. The mining, manufacture, and international transport of phosphates and potash all depend on oil.
Renewable fuels company Sustainable Oils shared the results of a life-cycle analysis of jet fuel created from proprietary Camelina seeds. According to the study, renewable jet-fuel made from Camelina reduces carbon emissions by 84% percent compared to the petroleum-based counterpart.
A team at Michigan Tech University based their research on Camelina grown in Montana and then processed into bio-jet fuel using “UOP hydroprocessing technology”. Next generation biofuels are true hydrocarbons and in the molecular aspect are indistinguishable from fossil fuels, which makes Camelina oil a good candidate to quickly reduce carbon emissions produced by aviation.
By Megan McWilliams •
April 21, 2009
Is there anyone NOT sucked into the whirlwind of earth day hype? Is there anyone that isn’t thinking of how they can get their green on? Is anyone else feeling overwhelmed by it all?
Us Green Divas area all about easy does it! If we make earth day more of a lifestyle and simply start by making one green improvement from wherever we are on the big green super highway, sustainable living habits seem to sprout like hearty organic weeds and multiply. Before you know it, you’re talking local sustainable agriculture at your favorite new potluck dinner club!
I started with food. Yum.
The low-stress way of doing this, is to know you don’t have to do it ALL. Just pick one that resonates with you and start there. It should be fun and bring you some joy. This is NOT about adding stressful activities to your lifestyle, but adding some thoughtful and hopefully more meaningful activities to the things you already do anyway.
By Mary Casper •
February 11, 2009
Results of the 2007 Census released last week counted the 2,204,792 farms in the United States, a net increase of 75,810 farms since the last census in 2002. According to the results, farms started in the last five years have more diversified production, fewer acres, and younger operators who also work off-farm.
Organic, value-added, and specialty production in agriculture are also on the rise.
By Megan McWilliams •
November 7, 2008
Got another wonderful email from Willie Nelson today . . .
I really love and appreciate the work Willie Nelson is doing with Farm Aid and the letter he wrote to our new president elect, Barack Obama, which beautifully articulates the need to pay attention to family farmers. While there are so many urgent issues looming and competing for airspace for our new president, I can’t agree with Willie more that support of family and smaller local/regional farm systems is at the heart of the solution for many of the challenges that plague our country.
Family farms and regional farming systems help reduce the food production carbon footprint in so many ways, not the least of which is that it travels less of a distance if it is supporting a defined regional area.
If you visit your local farm stands and farmer’s markets and have ever belonged to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program, you have come to respect if not love your local farmers - and for good reason!
Thank you Willie for continuing to make noise (and great music) on this issue!
Read Willie’s letter . . .
How exactly does one make a vegetable farm less carnivorous than it already is? The practice of veganic - or “stock-free” - farming is beginning to take hold among some small-scale farmers in the United States and Canada. It has been a common method in Europe for years.
Veganic farmers practice organic farming by eschewing synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, but take it a step further by eliminating animal-derived farming products as well. Most organic farmers use bone meal, blood meal and animal waste fertilizer to make their plants productive, but veganic farmers and their customers see a number of problems with using animal biproducts around the plants.
I’m relatively new to this crazy Farm Bill thing. I was invited last Summer to an event at Paul Newman and local food activist chef Michel Nischan’s restaurant, the Dressing Room in Wesport CT, to listen to an amazing panel of speakers and participate in a dialog about the 2007 Farm Bill. This incredibly informative and passionate panel included, US Representative Rose DeLauro (D-New Haven, CT); Gus Schumacher, the undersecretary of Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services during the Clinton Administration; Daniel Imhoff, author of Food Fight: A Citizen’s Guide to the Farm Bill; and Annie Farrell an advocate for sustainable and organic farming and manager of Millstone Farm in CT.
I was stunned by what I learned last year - more importantly, I was stunned by what I didn’t know, and I consider myself a sustainable agriculture supporter! I’ve been trying to track the progress of this Bill in its fits and starts and controversial moments, but still find myself quite ignorant and ever-more surprised when I hear or read another piece of this hulking bulk of legislation.Today is my ‘recipe’ day, not that I’ve kept up with the schedule lately AT ALL, but after reading the NY Times article about the latest on the Farm Bill, I just had to write something about this. Sorry. Look for some lighter fare (perhaps easier to digest than the Farm Bill) Monday!
The ethanol industry seems to be on the warpath against bad press (maybe that’s just my impression), which it’s been continuously mired in over increasing food prices, changing land-use patterns, and the questionable environmental benefits of grain-based fuel. As I mentioned last week (Ethanol Industry Pays Off Subsidies, Boosts U.S. Economy), business is booming, and this has potentially emboldened or intensified the pro-ethanol lobby.
Bob Dinneen, head of the Renewable Fuels Association, had this to say at this year’s National Ethanol Conference (via Autopia):
He calls the food-vs-fuel debate a “fallacy” that assumes “farmers are incapable of supplying the growing needs for food, fiber and fuel.” Besides, he said, biorefiners only need the starch in feedstocks; the protein provided 14 million metric tons of livestock feed last year.
