Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

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

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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