Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

HansMassage_203 — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:00:27 GMT

An interesting patern has been happening in the greater Seattle area. During the 50's agra business descoverd they could use health and safty regulations to drive the small producer out of business. But over time the population pressure alowed the realestate developers to drive the agra business out. Now the demand for natural food has driven legislation to incourage preservation of farm land and make it easier for small producers. Family farms with just a few cows can get certified to sell raw milk. There is a movment to get USDA certified mobile slaughtering facilities so small producers can sell meat without hauling it 300 miles to a certified slaughter house. Even our small peninsula had a succesfull farmers market last year with a longer season and more variety pland for next year.

So with the requirment to have 5 achers of land to retire out hear in the rurals we may as well be social security suplemental farmers. Keeps us healthy.

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

LindaLou_203 — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:14:02 GMT

I highly recommend reading 'Sea Energy Agriculture' by Maynard Murray, MD. It explains how all of the earth's elements are in sea water, and when properly diluted, is the perfect fertilizer for all crops. The plants are healthy so the bugs don't eat them (pesticides kill the messengers), have a very long shelf life, and contain all the vitamins, minerals and trace elements they were designed to. When animal feed was grown using sea solid fertilizer, animals were always larger and resistant to disease. Rats fed sea solid fertilized food could be injected with carcino-sarcoma cells and not only survive twice as long as the control group, but a large percentage was sacrificed with no tumor to be found. This being said, one way to ensure a source of super healthy food is to grow your own wheatgrass seaponically - it absorbs about 94 elements besides being rich in vitamins and doesn't require much room or time. It is truly a survival food! It can be dehydrated, ground to a flour, and placed in capsules instead of juicing.

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

charli_horse — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:06:17 GMT

So many people are unaware of the plan to further monopolize the world's food. Have any of you heard of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS)? It will require every person who owns any "livestock" animal, whether or not that animal is used for human consumption, to register their "premise" in a privately-held database, microchip each and every animal, and repost every single movement on and off your "premise". If you take your animal to the vet, County Fair, breed show, auction, or simply move it from one pasture to another, you MUST report the movement to the USDA or face a fine of up to $10,000 or MORE depending on your State. Does this sound like a good idea to you? To make things worse, agribusiness does not have to follow the same rules as family farms. They can assign a LOT number to a herd of animals; whereas, a family farmers needs a separate number for each and EVERY one. Sound absurd? For more info, please go to NAISinfoCentral.net and NoNAIS.org Thanks!

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

Apoztel — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:04:53 GMT

Organic and sustainable are both very good things, but we also need to look at the nutritional content of the food. A guy went around to farmers' markets and food stands in the USA and tested their tomatoes for nutritional content. He found that the iron content ranged from 1 ppm to 16,000 ppm. If the soil doesn't have any nutrition in it then neither will the fruits or vegetables that it produces.

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

curious7 — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:41:17 GMT

I wish I could explain just what this means to us a people. Presently we are treading water. Many well meaning farmers do not rotate their crops, nor allow their land to rest every seventh year. In turn the soil is robbed of the life giving nutrients, we absorb through our food. Then along comes "THE EVIL EMPIRE" Monsanto and tell us science has a better way. Not to mention developement of what was farmland, and the manipulative means in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, used to aquire said lands, in the first place. I care not what the USDA, or the FDA, says about GM foods. It has and will continue to harms us as people, and the wildlife as well. Making us sterile, and in some studies it has been found to harm the chromosones which assign gender.

On the other hand it makes someone rich. GM foods supports the need that some have to control the population growth, and fuel the need for BIG PHARMA, as far as the un-informed are concerned. But take heart, this is AMERICA. As you know America can do no wrong.

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

mo54 — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:09:42 GMT

renak if you think Americans are too lazy to do anything for themselves you have bought into the media. Or you have only been to a city. In the country we work our butts off doing things for ourselves. I can raise crops, any animal you name, put up a barn and lay water pipes. AS well as can the fruits and vegetables, make cheese from fresh milk, make our clothes, and put up fence. My husband can do most of those things and a few more.

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

ldyfrmr — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:14:29 GMT

I invite people to attent Bruce Tainio's seminar in February and learn on easy it is to have healthy soil to grow plants in. We had 110 acres grown under his plan and did it all without pesticides and had bumper crops with excellent taste and shelf life. Dr. Arden Anderson will be one of his guest speakers this year also. He is an horticulturist and a Dr of Medicine. Bruce works with farmers around the world.

I also do soil tests and and instruct people how to amend their own soil and grow super crops. Balance the soil and you have no insect or disease problems. Add the beneficial soil organisms and you can negate any harmful chemicals. I have remarkable results using Bruce's products for the past seventeen years.

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

ExJohnson — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 15:10:03 GMT

One word of caution, using human manure for your vegetable garden must be done in a safe and systematic way for it to be viable and healthy. Most people have active pathogens in their stool. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it you are building a project and you want a self-composting toilet to help with the garden, I only suggest what other experts do: for the first year, use human manure only on your flowers (a good flower variety brings bees and pest control to your garden, both good). Pathogens are actually quite picky about their environment, much like yeast. A good organic environment doesn't work to well for them, but starting from scatch, it just might take awhile. For those who know this website, think of the gut as a prime example. Yeast actually wouldn't do to well in a healthy gut with healthy food. They need antibiotics to kill off competition, lots of sugar to proliferate, limited fiber so that the food passes slowly, and a pH balance that suits them. The Stad. Amer. Diet provides all these for them, so just take that as advice for your compost. Give it a year to decompose, to 'cook' if you will. Make it as nbatural as possible, feed your compost 'good' things, and down the road, human manure is GREAT for a garden.

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

Amicus Curiae1 — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:36:17 GMT

A rule of thumb for smarter farming is the Law of Return, if you take from the soil either as crop or stock, you Must return to the soil what you took, animal manure should be returned to the soil not stockpiled to leach into waterways, farm plant residue should be grazed, not burnt,. Feeding livestock on grain and chicken ***, with melamine, chemicals, added salt, and processing waste is a crime against the animals, and we are paying for the crime, and our willful ignorance with our health, Cows have 4!! stomach areas to handle tough lignins, they are NOT grain eaters by choice, they do not eat just grass either, a healthy cow will select a range of plants, many we call weeds, for their innate mineral and health giving properties.Pigs that are grain fed, used as a selling price hike, are actually more likely to produce sallow, sour meat. they also need a wide variety of foods, including meat and minerals, they are! omnivorous and will hunt live prey if they can.

no plant or animal waste should be allowed off farm, it should be mulched composted and returned. the only excuse to burn off are serious fungal infections. and RUST can be beaten by changing the crops grown for a few years, and grazing, to change the soil biota back to healthy. i have been a permie for 16 years, it works.

i now assess soil biota, and film live soils, my soil is alive, farm soils are dead, with even the bacteria at minimal levels, breaks my heart, to see what some people bring in for me to test, so much chem contaminants that even fungi cannot grow in it, and they and the bacteria nematodes and others are what give the minerals to the plants, via cation exchange. NPK farming +gmo+chem kills soils. and by association, US!

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

Amicus Curiae1 — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:12:29 GMT

hi heather marsh, as a fellow aussie i can advise that the waste from non chem, ie dry composting toilets, can be held in black plastic bins and allowed to reach 50C for a week or longer, as today was 38C , not a problem,

then add some straw or mulched garden waste and let it sit for a couple of weeks, when it cools down, add worms! between the heat, the organic matter adding good bacerial breakdown, and the worms cycling it, it is safe. if in any doubt, do not allow it to be top dressed, always apply to the soil when starting.

for your clay soils you need to add GYPSUM, the straw will not break it up, it will just form tougher possibly anaerobic matter that will not help your plants at all! the gypsum will loosen the bonding in the clay particles, allowing it to become more porous. DO NOT buy ALROC it used to be a safe mineral rock blend, however now the are adding flyash with a cadmium warning of between 2 to 15%

to stoic..specialisation in todays terms usually means big agro, that means lower standards for food and higher unemployment and LOWER standards of living. small scael specialist permaculture will out produce any chemical farmer and give higher yields and better product be it animal or plant.

this year past, chem fertilizer went up from 400avg to 1,100+ per ton, pesticides also sykrocketed. yet markets controlling grains are keeping the price per ton at same to lower than previous harvest paid. fuel also nearly doubled, you tell me how? with that startup cost, and huge seed costs for copyrighted seeds, equipment costs,drought etc, any standard farmer can survive? and our aussie farmers are NOT subsidised in any way, whereas eu and usa and japan china, all subsidise to near 50% of the cost

alternatively, pure rockdusts, animal manures and organic fertilizer( N-Fix, i use), using nonpatented seed, immediately reduces input Please read.. .www.foodproductiondaily.com/.../Wheat-yields-will-be-slashed-as-phosphate-runs-out-warns-scientist

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

Heather Marsh — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:53:18 GMT

there are now waste disposal and grey water recycling systems that use earthworms and beetles to process the waste and water into water and compost that is safe to use on gardens (and saves on the costs of nutrients.

eg:www.therenewableenergycentre.co.uk/waste-water-recycling-and-sewage-treatment

As for my home- my husband is now enthusiastically using the 'water' from my worm farm on our plants.

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

Julieanne — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:35:25 GMT

I don't have the figures, but it seems to me there was less starvation in Africa when there were more small farms growing crops organically. Then we showed them how to be more 'efficient' by using chemical fertilisers, hybrid seeds and other Western practices. This has been a disaster wherever it has happened.

One of the reasons small organic farms in less developed countries can produce higher yields is the diversity of crops they grow together. It may not look as neat and tidy as our methods - crops all growing higgledy piggedly - but it is far more productive.

Many of the original ideas for Permaculture were taken from Third World countries - read Bill Mollison's book 'Permaculture 1'. It is full of practical ideas we could all follow in our own backyards.

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

renak — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 03:41:29 GMT

Composting, growing our own fruits & vegetables, raising our own livestock....just unacceptable to most people I know. They would rather take the chance of letting Big Agro poison them. I'm not being sarcastic, that's what I truly believe.

I've produced a large portion of my food for most of my life. My experience is that people don't want any part of growing, raising & processing their own food. However, they are always more than happy to receive the end result. Americans are lazy. Most Americans would let their families starve before the did the back breaking labor associated with raising food.

It will be hard to run out Big Agro. They serve a need, the need of the lazy, cheap American people.

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

Leo — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:16:06 GMT

Not surprising that Big Agro spends a lot on Big Chemo and, that only developed economies can foot that bill.
Note that Big Agro pays lobbyists, gets subsidies from Big Government, creates Big Farm, exploits the working forces (mostly illegal workers) and, destroys everything in the process. The end product barely resembles Just Food.

re: Organic and Sustainable Farmers Can Feed the World

Trinity Wellness — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 17:48:18 GMT

The economics of agriculture in the United States have resulted in the loss of over 90% of the family farms in the US. Twenty-five percent of the population used to live on farms. Now it is under 2 million people!

With so much of the arable land in the hands of Agribusiness, and so much of that land depleted by industrial chemical farming, the only short term alternative would be something akin to the World War II era "victory garden".

An organic greenhouse vegetable garden in every backyard for year round production of chemical free plant based nutrition!