In response to the Editorial on page 37 of the October 10-16, 2011 large print weekly of the NYTimes, titled "Where to Find the Innovators?"(They are always changing the name!) I wrote this response - but was too late to send it.
What do you mean 'Where are the innovators?' There are plenty of innovators but they are being systematically squashed!
There are innovative eco-farmers who are producing super nutritious, tasty and highly productive farm products, using innovative, sophisticated, ecologically friendly, sustainable techniques, but they have been ignored or belittled by conventional agricultural experts.
There are small eco-farmers and their customers who are producing wonderfully nutritious and innovative value added products, but they are crushed by burdensome, irrational, often arbitrarily applied regulations which have little to do with real food safety, but are true job killers. Read famed, truly innovative eco-farmer Joel Salatin's book, Everything I Want To Do is Illegal, to see what innovation killers those regulations can be. (Summary article)
There are unconventional health professionals who are not only curing cancer, but also guiding their patients into how to prevent it and a host of other chronic diseases in the first place, yet they are regularly disparaged as quacks and frauds by establishment medicine and often threatened with loss of their license to practice.
The public has been led to believe that the latest drug is truly innovative, when in fact the really innovative, effective, and relatively low cost non-drug approaches being used by knowledgeable nutritionists face all kinds of regulatory barriers, while the practitioners are attacked by the dietetic police for not having the "proper credentials," or not following proper protocols.
Wall Street's insistence on short term profits is behind much of this - so hurrah for 'Occupy Wall Street'! An end to the collusion between big corporations and government!
Your everlovin' reformed and retired dietitian,
Kris
Showing posts with label organic agriculture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label organic agriculture. Show all posts
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
Phosphorus fertilizer buildup - a solution
A headline on the business page in yesterday's Blade:
Algae food found in 30% of Ohio farmland - Phosphorus linked to outbreaks on lake
"Ohio's six state agency directors learned Wednesday that nearly a third of all Buckeye State farmland is believed to contain too much phosphorus, one of many possible reasons for large annual algae outbreaks in western Lake Erie since 1995."
This is another reason to switch to intelligent organic/ecological farming techniques. Phosphorus from commercial chemical fertilizers is rather quickly bound up into in insoluble form that is unavailable to the plants - hence its accumulation in the soil. To release that bound-up phosphorus requires the biological action of soil microorganisms, especially fungi. Chemical farming tends to kill off the soil life, making the soil more vulnerable to erosion and requiring yet more chemical fertilizers, but sophisticated ecological farming methods encourage and support the soil life, making the bound up phosphorus and other minerals, as well as nitrogen from the air, available for plant utilization.
It's time we face the reality of what our commercial farming methods are doing to the environment. Ecological farming that is well done can be just as productive as conventional methods, while producing higher quality, more profitable crops.
Algae food found in 30% of Ohio farmland - Phosphorus linked to outbreaks on lake
"Ohio's six state agency directors learned Wednesday that nearly a third of all Buckeye State farmland is believed to contain too much phosphorus, one of many possible reasons for large annual algae outbreaks in western Lake Erie since 1995."
This is another reason to switch to intelligent organic/ecological farming techniques. Phosphorus from commercial chemical fertilizers is rather quickly bound up into in insoluble form that is unavailable to the plants - hence its accumulation in the soil. To release that bound-up phosphorus requires the biological action of soil microorganisms, especially fungi. Chemical farming tends to kill off the soil life, making the soil more vulnerable to erosion and requiring yet more chemical fertilizers, but sophisticated ecological farming methods encourage and support the soil life, making the bound up phosphorus and other minerals, as well as nitrogen from the air, available for plant utilization.
It's time we face the reality of what our commercial farming methods are doing to the environment. Ecological farming that is well done can be just as productive as conventional methods, while producing higher quality, more profitable crops.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Arts as Business
Monday night I went to an event called The Magic of Tanzania, a glorious celebration of the artwork of a group of women artists from Tanzania, all eager to sell some of their wares. It was an outstanding evening, highlighted by an incredible style show of creations by fashion designer, Fatma Amor. See http://www.artistsoftanzania.org/ for details of this exchange program.
This article from the New York Times reports the problems artists and crafts people in Vietnam are having as the market for their craft work has plummeted thanks to the worldwide recession:
FOREIGN DESK September 29, 2009
Rural Ventures in Vietnam Suffer in the Global Crisis By SETH MYDANS
"Looking out across his green rice fields, Nguyen Van Truong can take pride in hedging his bets when he joined the global marketplace more than a decade ago and began to make money. When Vietnam began a tentative engagement with the world economy in the mid-1990s, Mr. Truong was one of the first people to see profit in his local craft, embroidery, and he joined with other villagers in marketing it for export and domestic sales."
The point is that arts and crafts can be good business in prosperous times, but they are the subject of highly discretionary spending, so you can't always count on such sources of income.
Another thought - from Organic Consumers Association:
World Food Day - Organic Is the Answer to Food Security
"Organic agriculture puts the needs of rural people and the sustainable use of natural resources at the centre of the farming system. Locally adapted technologies create employment opportunities and income. Low external inputs minimize risk of indebtedness and intoxication of the environment. It increases harvests through practices that favor the optimization of biological processes and local resources over expensive, toxic and climate damaging agro-chemicals...in response to a frequently asked question: Yes, the world can be fed by the worldwide adoption of Organic agriculture. The slightly lower yields of Organic agriculture in favorable, temperate zones are compensated with approximately 10-20% higher yields in difficult environments such as arid areas."
-International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements World Food Day, October 12, 2009 LEARN MORE
What is the connection here? If you have an arts and crafts business you need a back up plan. In Vietnam, those who retained land on which to grow their food survived, because they were self-sufficient and could feed themselves. When I was visiting in Dodoma, Tanzania, a few years ago, I was struck by how often people raised some of their own food - a vegetable garden, banana & papaya trees, and a few animals - goats, chickens. Those folks knew they couldn't rely on their meager salaries or small businesses for all their needs. The article from OCA emphasizes how essential these small farming operations are to relieving poverty and hunger around the world. Items of beauty add richness and depth to our lives, and can be a source of wealth for producers, but we dare not forget that the foundation of prosperous communities are the gifts of the earth that feed and clothe and house us. When people are pushed off their land by big corporations and the purported "efficiencies" of commercial agriculture and the "Green Revolution," poverty and hunger invariably increase for many, while untold riches accrue to some. Justice is not served.
For more on this on this theme I recommend this book, "Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice" found here: http://www.foodfirst.org/.
Footnote: Agricultural yields with sophisticated eco-farming methods can be just as productive as conventional agriculture, while protecting the environment, supplying more nutritious foods, and avoiding the need for pesticides. Check with these agricultural consultants, and especially http://www.highbrixgardens.com/.
This article from the New York Times reports the problems artists and crafts people in Vietnam are having as the market for their craft work has plummeted thanks to the worldwide recession:
FOREIGN DESK September 29, 2009
Rural Ventures in Vietnam Suffer in the Global Crisis By SETH MYDANS
"Looking out across his green rice fields, Nguyen Van Truong can take pride in hedging his bets when he joined the global marketplace more than a decade ago and began to make money. When Vietnam began a tentative engagement with the world economy in the mid-1990s, Mr. Truong was one of the first people to see profit in his local craft, embroidery, and he joined with other villagers in marketing it for export and domestic sales."
The point is that arts and crafts can be good business in prosperous times, but they are the subject of highly discretionary spending, so you can't always count on such sources of income.
Another thought - from Organic Consumers Association:
World Food Day - Organic Is the Answer to Food Security
"Organic agriculture puts the needs of rural people and the sustainable use of natural resources at the centre of the farming system. Locally adapted technologies create employment opportunities and income. Low external inputs minimize risk of indebtedness and intoxication of the environment. It increases harvests through practices that favor the optimization of biological processes and local resources over expensive, toxic and climate damaging agro-chemicals...in response to a frequently asked question: Yes, the world can be fed by the worldwide adoption of Organic agriculture. The slightly lower yields of Organic agriculture in favorable, temperate zones are compensated with approximately 10-20% higher yields in difficult environments such as arid areas."
-International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements World Food Day, October 12, 2009 LEARN MORE
What is the connection here? If you have an arts and crafts business you need a back up plan. In Vietnam, those who retained land on which to grow their food survived, because they were self-sufficient and could feed themselves. When I was visiting in Dodoma, Tanzania, a few years ago, I was struck by how often people raised some of their own food - a vegetable garden, banana & papaya trees, and a few animals - goats, chickens. Those folks knew they couldn't rely on their meager salaries or small businesses for all their needs. The article from OCA emphasizes how essential these small farming operations are to relieving poverty and hunger around the world. Items of beauty add richness and depth to our lives, and can be a source of wealth for producers, but we dare not forget that the foundation of prosperous communities are the gifts of the earth that feed and clothe and house us. When people are pushed off their land by big corporations and the purported "efficiencies" of commercial agriculture and the "Green Revolution," poverty and hunger invariably increase for many, while untold riches accrue to some. Justice is not served.
For more on this on this theme I recommend this book, "Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice" found here: http://www.foodfirst.org/.
Footnote: Agricultural yields with sophisticated eco-farming methods can be just as productive as conventional agriculture, while protecting the environment, supplying more nutritious foods, and avoiding the need for pesticides. Check with these agricultural consultants, and especially http://www.highbrixgardens.com/.
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