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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Rodale Institute web update newsletter
  • Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 17:38:03 -0600


(even a dead fish can go with the flow ...)

http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/home
Welcome to the Rodale Institute web update newsletter.

Dear Paul: No one can be blamed for falling back to what they know when they
are confronted with danger, uncertainty and unsettling changes. What’s ironic
about the disconcerting shifts in food costs and availability is how
differently people respond, and how they “see” the same set of facts so
differently. Two examples:

Organic food price increases: As all food prices increase, some shoppers are
reacting by buying lower-cost food—either food grown non-organically locally
or farther away on a large scale—or food of lower nutritional quality. Others
are storming local greenhouse shelves for transplants and online ordering
sites of seed companies as they expand the amount of food they want to grow
for themselves and their families.

Bacteria in milk: Some ask how we can find ways to optimize health for cows
and humans in a robust and complex ecosystem where milk, carefully handled at
the farm level, is life-giving and healthful in its natural (unheated and
unpasteurized) state. Others respond to deaths from pasteurized milk or
reports of disease-causing bacteria in unpasteurized (raw) milk with the same
answer: pasteurize more and more carefully.

In this week’s feature story, California dairy farmer Mark McAfee argues for
a deeper look at the relationship of people, cows and bacteria to see where
the raw milk dialogue might lead to better understandings of what is really
good for us. His approach is a provocative reminder of the need to re-frame
what appear as “food safety” problems by asking what arrangements really
create health, vitality and well-being. Read more...

News items we present this week show this is a good time to ask some
fundamental questions about how farming well—in terms of ecological
integrity, nutritional quality and economic viability for farmers—will be
defined in the months ahead, considering:

The world’s CO2 levels are at the highest levels in 650,000 years. Read
more...

Higher prices are causing lower demand for organic food, with impact on
organic retailers.

Genetically manipulated crops have increased pesticide use without fighting
hunger or benefiting small-scale subsistence farmers who grow crops to live.

Yet, change is happening. Being the change they want to see, front-yard
gardeners are converting lawns into ultra-local food production.

Calling for the change we all want to see, Rodale Institute CEO Tim LaSalle
continues to press the case for conversion of farmland to regenerative
organic farming to become a primary global strategy for combating global
warming. You can see and pass on LaSalle’s video interview from this week’s
OnPoint webcast.

Eat well, and think creatively.
Greg Bowman and the Rodale Institute editorial team






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