farming

A Two-Way Street

scleaver — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Rising food prices—up 4% last year, the largest increase since 1990—are affected by oil, global markets, speculation, biofuels, and…climate change. And, thanks to how we currently handle agriculture, food price increases and climate change are likely to continue together, if unchecked.

Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography recently confirmed that global warming is affecting the hydrological cycle in the U.S. Between 1950 and 1999, as much as 60% of climate-related trends in river flow, winter air temperature, and snow were caused by us humans. As precipitation patterns and glacial melting changes, water availability will change, and that will affect agriculture—think the drought that’s already affected Australia and increased the price of wheat as a result.

As Shiney Varghese, senior policy analyst for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy wrote, “[e]xisting irrigation and drainage infrastructure have been designed for stable climate conditions. They are very likely inadequate to cope with extreme climatic variations in precipitation and reduced water supply reliability and availability, as well as floods.” (Read the article at Alternet.org.) Irrigation uses up a lot of water and “accounts for 40% of global food production” (the other 60% of farms use rain water).

It’s a two-way street—climate change is affecting food production and food production is affecting climate change. As Varghese points out, “the two sectors in the world that use the most water, chemical intensive agriculture and fossil fuel-based energy production, are also the biggest contributors to global warming, which in turn further increases water stress in many regions.”

The solutions?

1. Protect local watersheds and wetlands for local agriculture systems, instead of huge, exporting industrial farms would help reduce the water sector’s contribution to climate change and improve resilience of local farming systems for food security and environmental concerns.

2. Change agricultural policies that are too water and energy-intensive. Opt instead for water management policies that are both sustainable and effective.

Photo from US Fish and Wildlife Service where you can learn more about irrigation farming.

City Farmers Cash In

scleaver — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:31:06 -0400

Gardens are popping up where you’d least expect them—under elevated train tracks, in partially torn-down factories, on balconies, and behind rows of apartment buildings. And, these aren’t just home gardeners growing tomatoes for the occasional marinara sauce, they’re real enterprises and can make a pretty penny.

As The New York Times reported on May 7, the urban agriculture movement that’s sprung up in New York City with farmers who grow plants in small neighborhood plots and sell the harvest to neighbors, local restaurants, or at farmers markets is growing fast. The trend is old news in some cities. Prime example: Detroit, where gardens have taken over abandoned lots and partially destroyed factory buildings.

And, like I mentioned, there's money to be made in urban ag. The Added Value Community Farm was constructed on an abandoned three-acre basketball court started in 2003, and last year, the high school students who work the Brooklyn farm sold $25,000 worth of arugula, heirloom tomatoes, and Asian greens to local restaurants, community supported agriculture organizations, and farmers markets. In Detroit, gardens with the Garden Resource Program Collaborative have set up shop in Eastern Market. In Philadelphia, a non-profit grew $67,000 of lettuce, carrots, and radishes in densely packed plots. Finally, in Milwaukee, Growing Power operates a one-acre farm that includes greenhouses and pens of animals, they grossed more than $220,000 last year.

There is a definite need for fresh, affordable produce for low-income residents in urban areas, something that’s often easier said than done (Even with urban ag, Detroit is still considered a food desert, with few local produce options for many residents).

Interested in starting an urban farm? It could be as easy as setting up shop on your back balcony or finding just the right plot of land. Here are resources to get you started:

1. Learn about the nitty-gritty of farming, from seeds to market: The Detroit Garden Resource Program Collaborative, Milwaukee or Chicago’s Growing Power, and Just Food in New York all offer training. For a more formal education, The Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of California, Santa Cruz offers a six-month course.

2. Remember, it’s more than a farm, it’s a business. Here’s how to write an Urban Farm Business Plan.

3. Keep up with the Urban Farm Project to see how other farmers are working the land.

4. Read gardening blogs like This Garden is Illegal and A Gardening Year for another type of education, and some camaraderie.

Urban gardens have a unique set of problems and solutions:

1. Soil contaminated with lead or other contaminants? Build raised compost beds to keep your plants out of the muck that can be urban soil.

2. Got too many wildlife friends? Marigolds deter squirrels, and avoid planting crops that rodents enjoy, like corn.

3. If you’re planting on a balcony, don’t mix sun and shade plants, make sure your balcony can handle the weight, and put tall plants in back, surrounded by shorter plants. To maximize water, try an Earth Box.

4. Connect with other gardeners at Garden Web.

Photo Credit: Denver Urban Gardens.

The Whole Hog

scleaver — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:04:19 -0400

The blog post about Pigs As Pesticides has gotten quite a response. So, in the spirit of Porky, Babe, Wilbur, here’s more news in the world of pigs.

Handel’s Hog Heaven

Pigs, it seems, are not below a dose of culture. Nguyen Chi Cong plays classical symphonies and sonatas on his pig farm every morning and afternoon, first for the workers, now for the 3,000 pigs. Cong has raised pigs outside of Ho Chi Min city in Vietnam for 22 years and is convinced that the music soothes the pigs, which means they eat more and gain weight faster. “I think I am the first farmer in Vietnam to apply this technique,” he told PigProgress.net an international pig farming organization. Considering that we’re using growth hormone to get cows to do the same thing—namely fatten up—perhaps pig farmers (and dairy farmers for that matter) should take note.

Pretend Pork

In the future we may not be eating pork, ham, pig, at all. New York Times recently reported that PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has put up $1 million for the person who can figure out how to make “commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012.” The scariest part of this challenge isn’t what might come out of those test tubes and Petri dishes but the fact that, according to New Harvest, a non-profit “dedicated to advancing meat substitutes,” said “because meat substitutes are produced under controlled conditions impossible to maintain in traditional animal farms, they can be safer, more nutritious, less polluting and more humane than conventional meat.”

Hold on—test tube pork chops are healthier than those that were raised on a farm? Maybe we’re addressing the wrong problem here. I know this is from PETA and an advocacy organization, but when someone can reasonably say that scientifically produced meat is healthier than farm raised because of pollution and farming practices, it seems like it might be a bit easier to change how we do our farming (let the pigs root in the mud instead of keeping them stuck in tight pens, use environmentally friendly waste management, etc) than running to science.

Image from the News section of PigProgress.net

Impending Corn Crisis

scleaver — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:00:00 -0400

Spring is here, and with it, planting season. It’s not news that the price of corn is higher than ever (thanks to ethanol, feeding tons of corn to cows in CAFOs, etcetera). As we head into the 2008 growing season, the Associated Press discussed how farmers planting decisions could affect our wallets. (Read the article, “Farmers’ Crop Choices May Affect Consumers” as printed in the Detroit News, HERE.)Last year was a good year; farmers planted fields and fields of corn, weather was good, and the harvest produced record amounts of corn. This year, farmers and industry experts alike don’t expect a repeat. The economic lesson in a nutshell: if farmers plant as much corn as they can, prices may stabilize (for reference, they’re currently at $5 a bushel, a record high). But, if farmers plant soybeans (a good thing—they’re rotating crops which helps the soil) or if we have a bad season, the price for corn could go even higher. Corn has a ripple effect on the economy. Three-quarters of the operating costs for poulty, beef, and pork companies is corn feed. The one constant: land. (And that bad weather or a bummer crop is bound to happen eventually, and then what?)So, the question going into the 2008 season: how high can corn prices go? And, are we getting too dependent on the little yellow kernel? (Grass fed beef anyone?)

Photo from It's a Green, Green World blog’s rant about corn.

Casting a Wary Eye on Your Chicken Dinner

scleaver — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Imagine chickens in an ideal farmyard, strutting around and picking at the ground, pulling out worms and bits of grass for lunch. Now, imagine chickens with pecs the size of softballs, too heavy to walk without falling forward, stumbling across a huge, overcrowded barn in a mad rush to the feed bin.

Nobody wants to think about it before they sit down to a chicken dinner, but chickens are being bred to have the chicken equivalent of double Ds more often than we think. Reported on February 12, on the Food Law Blog, British researchers are working on a new study that investigates broiler chickens that are bred to have huge breasts. These broilers, according to the study and Food Law Blog, “have been shown to exhibit difficulty walking, despite culling practices that were designed to remove severely lame birds from flocks.”

In fact, more than 27% of the birds had trouble walking, and 3.3% couldn’t walk at all—and this isn’t because they’re sick or because there are too many birds in the pen for them to really move, it’s because they’ve been bred to have breasts so big that they can’t carry their own weight. They have trouble standing up straight, much less move the way a chicken should.

How did this happen? The report points to “intense genetic selection” that has produced a bird that grow up to 100 grams each day, instead of the regular 25 grams. These big-breasted chickens, however, are, in some part, meeting consumer demand for larger chicken breasts.

What’s the solution? It’s simple: return chickens to the way they were meant to be raised (see scenario one above). The report recommends returning to a sustainable model of breeding chickens, which should include, not only shrinking the chicken’s breasts, but also changing our expectation in the meat section to a more reasonable, and mobile, chicken.

Cocoa Crisis Averted: Valentine's Day Saved

scleaver — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

There's an article about cocoa farming—something nearer and dearer to our hearts the closer it gets to February 14th -- in The Economist this week, In January, Cadbury Schweppes, the company that brought you the Cadbury crème egg and the Cadbury Dairy Milk bar, was feeling the heat. Prices for cocoa and other raw materials were high, anti-obesity campaigns weren’t making for good PR. Cocoa farmers in Ghana weren’t producing as much as the company needed, and the children these farming families weren’t seeing the benefit of growing cocoa for another generation.

So, on January 28, an understandably frantic Cadbury announced that it was starting a “Cadbury Cocoa Partnership.” Over the next decade the company will spend $87 million to invest in seeds, teach their cocoa farmers techniques on how to collaborate, and help them diversify their farmland with red peppers, mangoes, and coconuts that grow well with cocoa trees. To free up time for women and children, they’re building water wells on farms. And, in the future, there’s talk of funding schools and libraries.

This may sound altruistic—but the bottom line is never far from Cadbury’s mind. As The Economist reported, “without cocoa supplies from Ghana, Cadbury would be in big trouble.” Ghana provides “all the cocoa for Cadbury’s British operations and 70% of its world wide supply.” Of course, Cadbury isn’t the only company reaching out. America’s chocolate giant, Mars, is also pledging to help develop chocolate farming in West Africa and is partnering with development agencies to do so.

There is another way for companies to help farmers in developing countries. Fairtrade is an international movement that works to change international trade and provide above-market payments to farmers and protect them from drastic changes in the market. (Cadbury and Starbucks buy some of their commodities). In theory, Cadbury and Mars could just buy chocolate from them, but then they wouldn’t get so involved with the production—which is what they’re really worried about, and I agree, chocolate production must go on.

So, it’s good news that Cadbury, Mars, and Fairtrade are working to keep cocoa growers in business. In the meantime, need Valentine’s Day Chocolates? Try these links: the luxurious Godiva, Michigan’s local Morley Candy, or find it all at www.chocolate.com.

Raspberries in Winter

scleaver — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:00:56 -0500

Right now, there are fresh raspberries growing in Michigan, even as the wind chill drops the temp to negative 14 and the ground is covered in snow. On February 10, The Detroit Free Press and Kalamazoo Gazette reported on local farmer, Andrew Kieboom, whose changed raspberry growing for the better. Instead of ending his season in August, he switches it up and harvests his raspberries through mid-January. Each year for the last three years, Kieboom harvested as much as 1,500 pounds of raspberries from his 10,000 square feet of plants, and is the only person in Michigan growing raspberries in winter, so far.To get his plants to bloom in winter, Kieboom “tricks the raspberries” he told the Free Press. He keeps them cold during the summer, simulating winter, so that when they’re put into a greenhouse in winter, they’re ready to bloom. More than extending the season, Kieboom is upending it. On grocery store shelves, a pint of fresh raspberries from Kieboom is $3.50 for a half-pint, $1 more than imported raspberries from Latin America. There’s a local market for people who want his raspberries, for their fresh taste or in the interest of keeping food local and if more farmers started growing raspberries in the off-season there’s no doubt that more people would pay extra to taste summer when it’s snowing. Raspberries are healthy business, in 2005, according to the U.S. Raspberry Industry California produced 72 million pounds of raspberries, Washington produced 68.9 million pounds, and everyone else produced 7.7 million pounds. If we could add some winter raspberry production to that, it would make the year that much sweeter. What to do with your winter raspberries? Razzle Dazzle Recipes has recipes for raspberry marshmallow cake, raspberry truffle cream pie, and more. Just Berry Recipes has 13 pages of raspberry recipes, from black raspberry flan to raspberry sweet tea.

Art by Stephanie Cleaver.

Apple Farmer Uses Pigs Instead of Pesticides

scleaver — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Jim Koan is doing something revolutionary on his Flushing, MI farm. Or, is he? Instead of using pesticides to rid his orchard of a pest, Koan is going old school and using pigs.

Koan’s 120-acre apple farm in has been plagued by the Plum Curculio Beetle that lays its eggs in apples and makes the fruit drop too early from trees. He could have used frequent sprays of pesticides for years to get rid of the beetles, or he could use pigs. (He tried chickens and guineas, but they weren’t hard enough workers and the guineas were taken away by hawks. He contemplated sheep, too, but in the end hard-working pigs, too big for any hawk or coyote to steal, were the best bet.) Now he has a group of pigs who shuffle through the orchards when the apples infected with beetles start to fall. They eat the apples and the eggs that would have spelled disaster for next year’s crop, and clear the ground and eat weeds in the process. The pigs make short work of an apple orchard, eating every last contaminated apple. And, bonus: once the pigs have solved the beetle problem, Koan plans to sell them as organic pork.

The Detroit Free Press reported on Koan’s farm on January 28, 2008. I like this story for a few reasons. First, I like the image of pigs rooting around apple trees in Michigan, especially when juxtaposed with the image of tractors driving through the same field spraying pesticides on low-hanging Golden Delicious fruit. And, I like the idea of using pigs when it comes to my own health and the nutrition in my food.

To give you an idea of where pesticides fit into life today: in a 2005 report, the Centers for Disease Control found that toxins used in pesticides (neurotoxic pyrethroids) were found in people’s blood and the Environmental Working Group discovered that developing fetuses are born with an average 200 toxic chemicals inside them (taken from The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved by Sandor Katz). Some of theses toxins ended up in bloodstreams, not because anyone was chugging chemical waste, but because they were eating apples, pears, lettuce, and other fruits and vegetables that had been coated with pesticides as part of the ‘growing process.’

So, revolutionary or not, pigs are a refreshing idea.

A Delicate Balance

jchatraw — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Working on a farm while growing up in rural South Carolina, rain was always the topic of the day. One farmer friend of mine was so superstitious about the rain that he believed my brother could actually bring it to a field. (Now my brother is no rainmaker, proven time and again during his deployments to the Middle East desert while serving in the military; however, he does have this weird thing with watches where they go haywire after making contact with his skin.) And though rain was a mainstay topic of conversation among southern farmers, many easily irrigated from the plentiful water tables underground. Things aren't so simple out here in the Northwest, reminding me of our planet's delicate balance.

In the neighboring state of Oregon, there is a serious battle being waged between the state's lawmakers, tribal representatives, farmers, the governor's office and conservationists over how to provide more water for farmland in the state's eastern region. A plan to draw down the Columbia River was quickly tabled as the groups couldn't decide on what route to take. Drawing down the river would impact the region's native salmon, which could cripple other parts of the economy, not to mention toying with vital natural resources.

Progress is being made and a good solution seems to be emerging. However, I can't help but be reminded that, despite our progress as a civilization, there are some decisions we must weigh carefully. One misstep could endanger a species of fish native to a river or even damage one group of people's way of life for generations. Handling life's delicate balance is something I take seriously and I hope decision makers are just as pensive before sacrificing the long-term picture for the short term.