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How to farm and feed ourselves in a changing climate
Don't be fleeced by expensive "emerging technologies." There is common-sense solution.By Mark "Coach" Smallwood, Executive Director, Rodale Institute
KUTZTOWN, PA -- The New York Times recently published an article, “A Warming Planet Struggles to Feed Itself,” detailing a very real threat: the detrimental effects of climate change on agriculture. Extreme weather events, rising temperatures, water shortages and floods, are challenging conditions for our food crops. The article offered “emerging technologies” as a potential solution. In other words, genetically modified crops that rely on toxic chemicals and create more problems than they solve. The most viable solution was not mentioned: organic agriculture. Organic agriculture is about providing plants with a support system so they can thrive. Instead of dousing plants with chemicals designed to kill, an organic farmer feeds the soil, which keeps nutrients and water in reserve for the plants to access as needed. This strong, fertile soil also sequesters carbon at a higher rate than chemically treated soil, potentially mitigating the very climate change that is causing these adverse conditions. An organic farmer knows that balance is key to preventing significant damage from pests. Instead of petroleum-based pesticides, the farmer will encourage beneficial birds and insects to keep things in check. Rodale Institute’s Farming Systems Trial, America’s longest running side-by-side comparisons of organic and chemical agriculture, has shown that organic yields are comparable to conventional. In fact, in drought years, our organic crops saw yield increases of about 30% over conventional. Agribusinesses reported their genetically modified drought tolerant varieties saw increases of only 6.7% to 15%. In organic systems, soil is strengthened, not depleted, and it uses less energy. This method of farming is safe, reliable, and actually sustainable. Organic farming is our best solution for feeding the world. Instead of investing in more expensive, problem-generating technologies, let’s invest in training farmers in organic methodologies, cultural practices and products that will support their families and their local communities, the world over.
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Double Organic Food Growth
Dear Friends,
We can easily and cheaply double organic food production by using the ormus elements which can be concentrated from sea water using simple, open-source methods.
With Kindest Regards,
Barry Carter
bcarter@igc.org
We are all lucky living on
We are all lucky living on earth provided all the resources for us to survive and hopefully we can do something to preserve this for the next generation. Organic farming is a great idea.
Great information here.
Borrowing Energy
We have created a culture of misaligned energy. We have traded natural energies for chemical and petroleum energy. We now have a small percentage of people who are involved in food production, which leaves a large percentage of people who are consumers but not producers. Years ago, we had more people involved in food production and had no need for chemical fertilizers/sprays. We had labor involved to obtain our nutrient and pest management, it was called weed pulling and manure spreading. Those folks may have had a little more appreciation for the food they ate. Now we have a large population that demands large quantities of foods with consistent quality, kinda the way we make cars, pencils or any other mass produced product. To obtain the food our culture demands requires big machines and lots of chemicals and petroleum. This disconnect with our foods leads to disruption of our natural world. We have created a culture with an abundance of frankensteined foods, record unemployment and a scared environment. Now can you see we have a misalignment of energies? Maybe if we quite trying to feed the world and focus on feeding our communities and involving our communities in production maybe we could slow the pace of frankensteined foods, record unemployment and a scared environment!
Burning up of the planet
Great article. I was able to visit Gaviotas a 40 year old sustainable community in Colombia founded by Paolo Lugari. They have planted 8 million tropical pines in the plains of Colombia. The understory vegetation has grown up in its midst and has desalinated the earth, restored over 260 species and created a pure aquifer were there was none.
His message is that we must restore the vegetative skin of our planet in order to stabilize climate change. His numbers show that if each human planted 1000 trees per year in three or four years our atmosphere would be restored and out planet would return to a less hostile climate.
These tress can be planted anywhere not necessarily on our land. In addition we are holding a series of workshops in Santa FE this summer that teach and show five ways that we can reduce our carbon footprint.
Gaviotas
I read this book, Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World, by Alan Weisman a few years ago. Truly a unique and inspiring story. If it can be done in a "war-ravaged" country like Colombia, why not here, anywhere, everywhere?!
This book is a must read for anyone interested in sustainability, and for any process/enterprise/system claiming to be "sustainable". Sustainability must entail the three P's: people, profit, & planet. Our political leaders need to consider this in drafting the next farm bill. Instead of subsidizing unsustainable practices in our efforts to feed the world, we need to get back to feeding the soil and soul of our local communities; rural communities that are dwindling in population and resources due to our system of mass-production/mass-consumption that leads to mass-migration (urbanization).
How to farm and feed ourselves in a chnaging climate
Our rural smallholders knew this art and possessed adaptability to the seasons before the not-so-Green Revolution came and destroyed the agriculture and livelihoods of hundred and millions of peasants in Pakistan (and India)where it was first introduced. The next generations forgot the lessons of their ancestors when they were forced as sharecroppers to adopt chemicals, hybrid seeds and monoculture.
Now our problem is having to relearn the old ways. The message is getting across but its painfully slow. -- Also expensive because the inputs that once came free from nature, now have to be
bought.
Worst of all, so much indigenous/natural seed variety has vanished from disuse and millions of acres planted to commercial seed. Maybe global warming was a built-in second purpose -- teaching misguided humanity a lesson.
-- Najma Sadeque
Positivity
When it comes to nature, all things are possible. The natural order will return. There is no permanence of extinction. God does not let things get so out of hand that goodness won't prevail in the end.
RE: How to farm and feed ourselves in a changing culture
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
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