Nov 21, 2016
Links
Agricultural Revolution in a Shipping Container – High Tech Turn Key Solution for Food Insecurity and Safety – Recipes of My Home
The Cover Crops | My Garden in the Grove
http://www.worldorganicnews.com/51339/the-cover-crops-my-garden-in-the-grove/
New living wall launched could lead to 20% carbon reduction | Keep the pace of sustainability
Why does Ireland only have 1,787 organic farmers? – Independent.ie
Carbon farming for climate health | Looking Forward | santamariatimes.com
This is the World Organic News Podcast for the week ending 21st of November 2016.
Jon Moore reporting!
We start this week with a remedial solution. The blog Recipes of My Home brings a video blog entitled: Agricultural Revolution in a Shipping Container – High Tech TurnKey Solution for Food Insecurity and Safety
In times of food stress this urban farm in a shipping container is life saver. I see it being used to green food deserts, shorten supply lines and so on everywhere else. Ideal for places like Christmas Island where a fresh lettuce can cost upwards of $9. Lettuce, as a rule, doesn’t can very well so fresh is best. I see these modules as getting fresh food to people quickly whilst organic systems are created around them. They can act as a first response to poor diet, famine conditions and so on. I don’t see them as a permanent solution unless the inputs and hence outputs are organic. Otherwise we will still be using oil based resources. But as I said, these modules are a great stop gap measure.
The blog, Keep the pace of sustainability, brings us a post: New living wall launched could lead to 20% carbon reduction. This system grows trailing plants off scaffolding whilst a building is being built, renovated or whenever scaffolding is used. The makers claim is reduces noise pollution from the sight and saves up to 20% carbon emmissions. Not sure of that but it is the sort of lateral thinking we need to find every scrap of carbon sequestration we can.
My Garden in the Grove brings a more traditional way of saving soil carbon with the post: The Cover Crops. This is garden sized application of cover crops. For those who don’t know, a cover crop is one planted when the soil is not in productive use. Typically this is winter in temperate regions. Soil needs plants or it deteriorates over crops. This particular post points to an experiment using four different types of cover crop: Crimson Clover, Hairy Vetch, Austrian Winter Peas, and Buckwheat. As they say in the blog: A fun experiment!
A piece from the Santa Maria Times: Carbon farming for climate health. Reminds us we have, to a lesser extent been here before. This piece refers back to the US dust bowl of the depression era in the 1930s. As farmers were able to turn the Dust Bowl into fertile soils, we too can return to healthier soil.
Quote:
We are facing a global crisis today brought on by our own actions. Climate change threatens us more than the Dust Bowl. Yet, just as people took action back then to reverse the damage, we can do the same now.
End Quote
I’ve commented on this before but here we go again. By the application of oil based fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides in conjunction with ploughing we have, since 1945, slowly at first but with increasing rapidity, destroyed soil carbon, soil life and soil structure. Once we toss in deforestation the problem is obvious. Is it reversible? Yes, yes it is.
Permaculture, Natural Farming, common or garden back breaking organic double dug beds are better than drowning everything in fertiliser, herbicides and pesticides and you get food too.
When we think of Green and Clean countries which ones come to mind? Iceland? Maybe, New Zealand, probably, Ireland? Definitely. Plenty of water, soils from poor to wonderful so why are only 1.5% of irish farms organic? The EU average is 6-7%.
The answer seems to be that most farmers believe they are so close to organic anyway, the cost of registration seems prohibitive.
To quote Grace Maher, of the Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association
Quote:
Farmers, she said, are very slow to convert to organic as many feel they are farming very close to organically, but don’t bother with the additional process and paperwork that is involved to get certified, and that directly affects the numbers of farmers converting to organic production.
But, for most farmers, she says turning organic would involve very little change except for a reduction in fertiliser usage.
End Quote
It could be that the hurdles set up, in particular, the costs need to be looked at. And this is a worldwide problem. I know someone who makes biscuits using organic ingredients as a part time hobby slash business and when he looked into obtaining organic certification the costs were enormous. $1000 to read his application, travel costs for someone to look at his kitchen and then annual fees. This seems like an area where removing private certifying bodies and institute a government certification system with low or nil subsided costs as these costs will be more than made back increased taxation revenue. Or we could use some of the subsidies paid to the fossil fuel industry and use them to promote organic certification. Things don’t have to be done they have been. We can force change upon a monolithic bureaucracy. Write to your elected representatives, not email, not sign an online petition, actually put pen to paper. Once all us in the organic movement do this, then we will see things change more quickly than we imagine.
And that brings us to the end of this week’s podcast.
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Any suggestions, feedback or criticisms of the podcast or blog are most welcome. email me at podcast@worldorganicnews.com.
Thank you for listening and I'll be back in a week.
Agricultural Revolution in a Shipping Container – High Tech Turn Key Solution for Food Insecurity and Safety – Recipes of My Home
The Cover Crops | My Garden in the Grove
http://www.worldorganicnews.com/51339/the-cover-crops-my-garden-in-the-grove/
New living wall launched could lead to 20% carbon reduction | Keep the pace of sustainability
Why does Ireland only have 1,787 organic farmers? – Independent.ie
Carbon farming for climate health | Looking Forward | santamariatimes.com