Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Big Ag hurts the small farm, but which grows the most food?
http://www.nationofchange.org/big-ag-hurts-small-farm-which-grows-more-food-1381242642

The Land Grab

A phenomenon you may not have heard of has accelerated since 2008. A huge spike in food prices, along with high demand for bio-fuels (petroleum based fuel) made farming big business instead of a collection of long-standing traditions among cultures around the world. This caused an explosion in land-grabs in countries as diverse as Southeast Asia, India, Europe, and our own USA.  Governments supported these land grabs by giving corporations the infrastructure and legal support, including farm subsidies, they needed to buy land from small farmers.

Rich investors were able to land-grab by setting up ‘foundations’ like AGree – a think tank funded with money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and other institutions with an interest in promoting Big Ag and Big Chemical.

Ironically, the tenets which comprise this think tank’s origins are based in 'environmental concerns' though GMO have arguably trashed our soil and water supplies.

“AGree is launching at a pivotal moment for food and agriculture policy. Over the next four decades there will be an additional 2.6 billion people on Earth to feed—a 38 percent population increase from today—in addition to the 925 million people who currently suffer under-nutrition or hunger. Simultaneously, the world faces a limited amount of easily accessible arable land, increasing pressures on freshwater quality and availability and accelerating environmental degradation.”

Big Money Goes to Big Ag, Not the Small Farm

Join NationofChange today by making a generous tax-deductible contribution and take a stand against the status quo.

Even Thomas Jefferson believed in educating and supporting the small farmer, but the education and financial programs to ensure good food could be grown right in our own backyards has been severely compromised by corporate interests.

“It [agriculture] is the first in utility, and ought to be the first in respect…It is a science of the very first order. It counts among it handmaids of the most respectable sciences, such as Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, Mechanics, Mathematics generally, Natural History, Botany…The charitable schools, instead of storing their pupils with a lore which the present state of society does not call for, converted into schools of agriculture, might restore them to that branch qualified to enrich and honor themselves, and to increase the productions of the nation instead of consuming them.”

Thomas Jefferson, November 14, 1803

Many of the universities that support agriculture now are just shills for Big Ag, acting as nothing more than a breeding ground for corporate benefactors which will fund departments in Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, DuPont, Bayer, Kraft, PepsiCo, Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Unilever, Nestle (who has their own interest in privatizing water) and Coca-Cola – all who utilize GMO foods in their products.  You can be sure that these companies are not only deeply embedded in our government institutions but also in our Universities.

Furthermore, Syngenta recently invested more than $500 million in African agriculture, but it was primarily to promote their herbicide and pesticide-dependant crops, and biotechnology focus. Dupont and Monsanto have made similar investments in agriculture, but they are often on mono-cropping and always to grow ‘more food’ with GMO seed that require extremely high levels of chemical pesticides in order to grow food for the world supply.

How Does a Small Farm Compete with Big Ag?

The financial crises around the world endured by the masses since the late 1990s gave Big Ag an unprecedented opportunity to land-grab and inch out the small family farm. From Tanzania to Minnesota, Mexico to California, the dream of a small holding of land for many farmers is being swallowed by the Super Farm.   Huge farms might have looked good on paper, but they have failed in practice. Super farms not only harm indigenous farming practices, ancient techniques of food cultivation and sound methods of growing ample food without harming the environment and depleting the soil, they are an utter catastrophe for the bottom line of many countries.

Many say the Super Farm was a necessity which came with a population explosion such as the world has never seen, but the true fact is that small farms can feed more than massive Big-Ag owned farms, though this fact seems counter-intuitive.

Some of the same problems small farmers experience in the US are similar to those which must be overcome around the world. Many; however are finding inventive ways to compete with Big Chemical and Big Ag.

Now, small farms are winning despite the land-grand and monopolization of financial resources by corporations. Take a small 35-acre farm that started as a ‘big garden’ in Indiana as an example. They produce food year-round utilizing hydroponics.  Utilizing a bucket and compost system they also are able to get tomatoes to market an entire seven weeks before those grown primarily outdoors. This particular farm grows to sell primarily to the restaurant market. They are able to grow with high yield 12 months of the year since they are indoors. Weather and insect pests are a non-issue. They aren’t required to spend thousands on pesticides and GMO seed, nor even have high acreage in order to grow edible, healthy food.

Another town in England, led by Pam Warhurst has decided to plant gardens instead of huge farms, putting vegetables in front of their fire house, and schools, and even planting in a town cemetery. There are no huge high-acreage mono-crop farms growing food for their people, but many small co-operatives which involve even the town high-school, in order to keep their city food sovereign.

Though surprising, the technologies invented for big farms are obsolete on a small farm, and many techniques, including crop-rotation, organic farming methods, and other age-old styles of farming are utilized instead. Many of these farmers pass on sustainability practices to newer generations, that are lost with a Big Farm mentality. The intellectual trust of growing food sustainably is held in the small farm.

Moreover, the myth that Big Farms can ‘yield’ more is only true when utilizing one method of measuring productivity, and this usually is relegated to mono-crop measurements – such as how many bushels of GMO soybeans are grown per acre. When a small farm has a mix of crops, and animals, it has to be measured differently, also taking into account its ability to sustain the land while still producing food for many generations to come.

As many experts point out, “Smaller farmers tend to have crop mixtures. Between the rows of one crop there will be another crop, or several other crops, so that ecological niche space -- that potential -- is producing something of use to the farmer rather than requiring an investment of more labor, money or herbicides.”

Quality Over Quantity

With age-old farming practices, as well as hydroponic and other ‘new’ organic farming methods, the world needn’t rely on the corporate agenda to grow food for their families, and by extension, their cities and towns. While Big Ag has been known to alienate the labor force from the growth of food and bankrupt many farmers, small farms (and even gardens) produce ample food while connecting communities and stewarding proper use of the planet’s resources. Big Ag might be able to grow millions of pounds of pesticide-laced food every year, but it isn’t really a sustainable method of supporting a worldly food supply, and it certainly offers negligible benefits to our own personal health. Big Ag might fill our bellies, but the small farm will fill our souls.

- See more at: http://www.nationofchange.org/big-ag-hurts-small-farm-which-grows-more-food-1381242642#sthash.M3OHiQMg.dpuf

The Land Grab

A phenomenon you may not have heard of has accelerated since 2008. A huge spike in food prices, along with high demand for bio-fuels (petroleum based fuel) made farming big business instead of a collection of long-standing traditions among cultures around the world. This caused an explosion in land-grabs in countries as diverse as Southeast Asia, India, Europe, and our own USA.  Governments supported these land grabs by giving corporations the infrastructure and legal support, including farm subsidies, they needed to buy land from small farmers.

Rich investors were able to land-grab by setting up ‘foundations’ like AGree – a think tank funded with money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and other institutions with an interest in promoting Big Ag and Big Chemical.

Ironically, the tenets which comprise this think tank’s origins are based in 'environmental concerns' though GMO have arguably trashed our soil and water supplies.

“AGree is launching at a pivotal moment for food and agriculture policy. Over the next four decades there will be an additional 2.6 billion people on Earth to feed—a 38 percent population increase from today—in addition to the 925 million people who currently suffer under-nutrition or hunger. Simultaneously, the world faces a limited amount of easily accessible arable land, increasing pressures on freshwater quality and availability and accelerating environmental degradation.”

Big Money Goes to Big Ag, Not the Small Farm

Join NationofChange today by making a generous tax-deductible contribution and take a stand against the status quo.

Even Thomas Jefferson believed in educating and supporting the small farmer, but the education and financial programs to ensure good food could be grown right in our own backyards has been severely compromised by corporate interests.

“It [agriculture] is the first in utility, and ought to be the first in respect…It is a science of the very first order. It counts among it handmaids of the most respectable sciences, such as Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, Mechanics, Mathematics generally, Natural History, Botany…The charitable schools, instead of storing their pupils with a lore which the present state of society does not call for, converted into schools of agriculture, might restore them to that branch qualified to enrich and honor themselves, and to increase the productions of the nation instead of consuming them.”

Thomas Jefferson, November 14, 1803

Many of the universities that support agriculture now are just shills for Big Ag, acting as nothing more than a breeding ground for corporate benefactors which will fund departments in Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, DuPont, Bayer, Kraft, PepsiCo, Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Unilever, Nestle (who has their own interest in privatizing water) and Coca-Cola – all who utilize GMO foods in their products.  You can be sure that these companies are not only deeply embedded in our government institutions but also in our Universities.

Furthermore, Syngenta recently invested more than $500 million in African agriculture, but it was primarily to promote their herbicide and pesticide-dependant crops, and biotechnology focus. Dupont and Monsanto have made similar investments in agriculture, but they are often on mono-cropping and always to grow ‘more food’ with GMO seed that require extremely high levels of chemical pesticides in order to grow food for the world supply.

How Does a Small Farm Compete with Big Ag?

The financial crises around the world endured by the masses since the late 1990s gave Big Ag an unprecedented opportunity to land-grab and inch out the small family farm. From Tanzania to Minnesota, Mexico to California, the dream of a small holding of land for many farmers is being swallowed by the Super Farm.   Huge farms might have looked good on paper, but they have failed in practice. Super farms not only harm indigenous farming practices, ancient techniques of food cultivation and sound methods of growing ample food without harming the environment and depleting the soil, they are an utter catastrophe for the bottom line of many countries.

Many say the Super Farm was a necessity which came with a population explosion such as the world has never seen, but the true fact is that small farms can feed more than massive Big-Ag owned farms, though this fact seems counter-intuitive.

Some of the same problems small farmers experience in the US are similar to those which must be overcome around the world. Many; however are finding inventive ways to compete with Big Chemical and Big Ag.

Now, small farms are winning despite the land-grand and monopolization of financial resources by corporations. Take a small 35-acre farm that started as a ‘big garden’ in Indiana as an example. They produce food year-round utilizing hydroponics.  Utilizing a bucket and compost system they also are able to get tomatoes to market an entire seven weeks before those grown primarily outdoors. This particular farm grows to sell primarily to the restaurant market. They are able to grow with high yield 12 months of the year since they are indoors. Weather and insect pests are a non-issue. They aren’t required to spend thousands on pesticides and GMO seed, nor even have high acreage in order to grow edible, healthy food.

Another town in England, led by Pam Warhurst has decided to plant gardens instead of huge farms, putting vegetables in front of their fire house, and schools, and even planting in a town cemetery. There are no huge high-acreage mono-crop farms growing food for their people, but many small co-operatives which involve even the town high-school, in order to keep their city food sovereign.

Though surprising, the technologies invented for big farms are obsolete on a small farm, and many techniques, including crop-rotation, organic farming methods, and other age-old styles of farming are utilized instead. Many of these farmers pass on sustainability practices to newer generations, that are lost with a Big Farm mentality. The intellectual trust of growing food sustainably is held in the small farm.

Moreover, the myth that Big Farms can ‘yield’ more is only true when utilizing one method of measuring productivity, and this usually is relegated to mono-crop measurements – such as how many bushels of GMO soybeans are grown per acre. When a small farm has a mix of crops, and animals, it has to be measured differently, also taking into account its ability to sustain the land while still producing food for many generations to come.

As many experts point out, “Smaller farmers tend to have crop mixtures. Between the rows of one crop there will be another crop, or several other crops, so that ecological niche space -- that potential -- is producing something of use to the farmer rather than requiring an investment of more labor, money or herbicides.”

Quality Over Quantity

With age-old farming practices, as well as hydroponic and other ‘new’ organic farming methods, the world needn’t rely on the corporate agenda to grow food for their families, and by extension, their cities and towns. While Big Ag has been known to alienate the labor force from the growth of food and bankrupt many farmers, small farms (and even gardens) produce ample food while connecting communities and stewarding proper use of the planet’s resources. Big Ag might be able to grow millions of pounds of pesticide-laced food every year, but it isn’t really a sustainable method of supporting a worldly food supply, and it certainly offers negligible benefits to our own personal health. Big Ag might fill our bellies, but the small farm will fill our souls.

- See more at: http://www.nationofchange.org/big-ag-hurts-small-farm-which-grows-more-food-1381242642#sthash.M3OHiQMg.dpuf

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

lerated since 2008. A hug

The Land Grab

A phenomenon you may not have heard of has accelerated since 2008. A huge spike in food prices, along with high demand for bio-fuels (petroleum based fuel) made farming big business instead of a collection of long-standing traditions among cultures around the world. This caused an explosion in land-grabs in countries as diverse as Southeast Asia, India, Europe, and our own USA.  Governments supported these land grabs by giving corporations the infrastructure and legal support, including farm subsidies, they needed to buy land from small farmers.

Rich investors were able to land-grab by setting up ‘foundations’ like AGree – a think tank funded with money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and other institutions with an interest in promoting Big Ag and Big Chemical.

Ironically, the tenets which comprise this think tank’s origins are based in 'environmental concerns' though GMO have arguably trashed our soil and water supplies.

“AGree is launching at a pivotal moment for food and agriculture policy. Over the next four decades there will be an additional 2.6 billion people on Earth to feed—a 38 percent population increase from today—in addition to the 925 million people who currently suffer under-nutrition or hunger. Simultaneously, the world faces a limited amount of easily accessible arable land, increasing pressures on freshwater quality and availability and accelerating environmental degradation.”

Big Money Goes to Big Ag, Not the Small Farm

Join NationofChange today by making a generous tax-deductible contribution and take a stand against the status quo.

Even Thomas Jefferson believed in educating and supporting the small farmer, but the education and financial programs to ensure good food could be grown right in our own backyards has been severely compromised by corporate interests.

“It [agriculture] is the first in utility, and ought to be the first in respect…It is a science of the very first order. It counts among it handmaids of the most respectable sciences, such as Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, Mechanics, Mathematics generally, Natural History, Botany…The charitable schools, instead of storing their pupils with a lore which the present state of society does not call for, converted into schools of agriculture, might restore them to that branch qualified to enrich and honor themselves, and to increase the productions of the nation instead of consuming them.”

Thomas Jefferson, November 14, 1803

Many of the universities that support agriculture now are just shills for Big Ag, acting as nothing more than a breeding ground for corporate benefactors which will fund departments in Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, DuPont, Bayer, Kraft, PepsiCo, Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Unilever, Nestle (who has their own interest in privatizing water) and Coca-Cola – all who utilize GMO foods in their products.  You can be sure that these companies are not only deeply embedded in our government institutions but also in our Universities.

Furthermore, Syngenta recently invested more than $500 million in African agriculture, but it was primarily to promote their herbicide and pesticide-dependant crops, and biotechnology focus. Dupont and Monsanto have made similar investments in agriculture, but they are often on mono-cropping and always to grow ‘more food’ with GMO seed that require extremely high levels of chemical pesticides in order to grow food for the world supply.

How Does a Small Farm Compete with Big Ag?

The financial crises around the world endured by the masses since the late 1990s gave Big Ag an unprecedented opportunity to land-grab and inch out the small family farm. From Tanzania to Minnesota, Mexico to California, the dream of a small holding of land for many farmers is being swallowed by the Super Farm.   Huge farms might have looked good on paper, but they have failed in practice. Super farms not only harm indigenous farming practices, ancient techniques of food cultivation and sound methods of growing ample food without harming the environment and depleting the soil, they are an utter catastrophe for the bottom line of many countries.

Many say the Super Farm was a necessity which came with a population explosion such as the world has never seen, but the true fact is that small farms can feed more than massive Big-Ag owned farms, though this fact seems counter-intuitive.

Some of the same problems small farmers experience in the US are similar to those which must be overcome around the world. Many; however are finding inventive ways to compete with Big Chemical and Big Ag.

Now, small farms are winning despite the land-grand and monopolization of financial resources by corporations. Take a small 35-acre farm that started as a ‘big garden’ in Indiana as an example. They produce food year-round utilizing hydroponics.  Utilizing a bucket and compost system they also are able to get tomatoes to market an entire seven weeks before those grown primarily outdoors. This particular farm grows to sell primarily to the restaurant market. They are able to grow with high yield 12 months of the year since they are indoors. Weather and insect pests are a non-issue. They aren’t required to spend thousands on pesticides and GMO seed, nor even have high acreage in order to grow edible, healthy food.

Another town in England, led by Pam Warhurst has decided to plant gardens instead of huge farms, putting vegetables in front of their fire house, and schools, and even planting in a town cemetery. There are no huge high-acreage mono-crop farms growing food for their people, but many small co-operatives which involve even the town high-school, in order to keep their city food sovereign.

Though surprising, the technologies invented for big farms are obsolete on a small farm, and many techniques, including crop-rotation, organic farming methods, and other age-old styles of farming are utilized instead. Many of these farmers pass on sustainability practices to newer generations, that are lost with a Big Farm mentality. The intellectual trust of growing food sustainably is held in the small farm.

Moreover, the myth that Big Farms can ‘yield’ more is only true when utilizing one method of measuring productivity, and this usually is relegated to mono-crop measurements – such as how many bushels of GMO soybeans are grown per acre. When a small farm has a mix of crops, and animals, it has to be measured differently, also taking into account its ability to sustain the land while still producing food for many generations to come.

As many experts point out, “Smaller farmers tend to have crop mixtures. Between the rows of one crop there will be another crop, or several other crops, so that ecological niche space -- that potential -- is producing something of use to the farmer rather than requiring an investment of more labor, money or herbicides.”

Quality Over Quantity

With age-old farming practices, as well as hydroponic and other ‘new’ organic farming methods, the world needn’t rely on the corporate agenda to grow food for their families, and by extension, their cities and towns. While Big Ag has been known to alienate the labor force from the growth of food and bankrupt many farmers, small farms (and even gardens) produce ample food while connecting communities and stewarding proper use of the planet’s resources. Big Ag might be able to grow millions of pounds of pesticide-laced food every year, but it isn’t really a sustainable method of supporting a worldly food supply, and it certainly offers negligible benefits to our own personal health. Big Ag might fill our bellies, but the small farm will fill our souls.

- See more at: http://www.nationofchange.org/big-ag-hurts-small-farm-which-grows-more-food-1381242642#sthash.M3OHiQMg.dpuf

The Land Grab

A phenomenon you may not have heard of has accelerated since 2008. A huge spike in food prices, along with high demand for bio-fuels (petroleum based fuel) made farming big business instead of a collection of long-standing traditions among cultures around the world. This caused an explosion in land-grabs in countries as diverse as Southeast Asia, India, Europe, and our own USA.  Governments supported these land grabs by giving corporations the infrastructure and legal support, including farm subsidies, they needed to buy land from small farmers.

Rich investors were able to land-grab by setting up ‘foundations’ like AGree – a think tank funded with money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and other institutions with an interest in promoting Big Ag and Big Chemical.

Ironically, the tenets which comprise this think tank’s origins are based in 'environmental concerns' though GMO have arguably trashed our soil and water supplies.

“AGree is launching at a pivotal moment for food and agriculture policy. Over the next four decades there will be an additional 2.6 billion people on Earth to feed—a 38 percent population increase from today—in addition to the 925 million people who currently suffer under-nutrition or hunger. Simultaneously, the world faces a limited amount of easily accessible arable land, increasing pressures on freshwater quality and availability and accelerating environmental degradation.”

Big Money Goes to Big Ag, Not the Small Farm

Join NationofChange today by making a generous tax-deductible contribution and take a stand against the status quo.

Even Thomas Jefferson believed in educating and supporting the small farmer, but the education and financial programs to ensure good food could be grown right in our own backyards has been severely compromised by corporate interests.

“It [agriculture] is the first in utility, and ought to be the first in respect…It is a science of the very first order. It counts among it handmaids of the most respectable sciences, such as Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, Mechanics, Mathematics generally, Natural History, Botany…The charitable schools, instead of storing their pupils with a lore which the present state of society does not call for, converted into schools of agriculture, might restore them to that branch qualified to enrich and honor themselves, and to increase the productions of the nation instead of consuming them.”

Thomas Jefferson, November 14, 1803

Many of the universities that support agriculture now are just shills for Big Ag, acting as nothing more than a breeding ground for corporate benefactors which will fund departments in Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, DuPont, Bayer, Kraft, PepsiCo, Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Unilever, Nestle (who has their own interest in privatizing water) and Coca-Cola – all who utilize GMO foods in their products.  You can be sure that these companies are not only deeply embedded in our government institutions but also in our Universities.

Furthermore, Syngenta recently invested more than $500 million in African agriculture, but it was primarily to promote their herbicide and pesticide-dependant crops, and biotechnology focus. Dupont and Monsanto have made similar investments in agriculture, but they are often on mono-cropping and always to grow ‘more food’ with GMO seed that require extremely high levels of chemical pesticides in order to grow food for the world supply.

How Does a Small Farm Compete with Big Ag?

The financial crises around the world endured by the masses since the late 1990s gave Big Ag an unprecedented opportunity to land-grab and inch out the small family farm. From Tanzania to Minnesota, Mexico to California, the dream of a small holding of land for many farmers is being swallowed by the Super Farm.   Huge farms might have looked good on paper, but they have failed in practice. Super farms not only harm indigenous farming practices, ancient techniques of food cultivation and sound methods of growing ample food without harming the environment and depleting the soil, they are an utter catastrophe for the bottom line of many countries.

Many say the Super Farm was a necessity which came with a population explosion such as the world has never seen, but the true fact is that small farms can feed more than massive Big-Ag owned farms, though this fact seems counter-intuitive.

Some of the same problems small farmers experience in the US are similar to those which must be overcome around the world. Many; however are finding inventive ways to compete with Big Chemical and Big Ag.

Now, small farms are winning despite the land-grand and monopolization of financial resources by corporations. Take a small 35-acre farm that started as a ‘big garden’ in Indiana as an example. They produce food year-round utilizing hydroponics.  Utilizing a bucket and compost system they also are able to get tomatoes to market an entire seven weeks before those grown primarily outdoors. This particular farm grows to sell primarily to the restaurant market. They are able to grow with high yield 12 months of the year since they are indoors. Weather and insect pests are a non-issue. They aren’t required to spend thousands on pesticides and GMO seed, nor even have high acreage in order to grow edible, healthy food.

Another town in England, led by Pam Warhurst has decided to plant gardens instead of huge farms, putting vegetables in front of their fire house, and schools, and even planting in a town cemetery. There are no huge high-acreage mono-crop farms growing food for their people, but many small co-operatives which involve even the town high-school, in order to keep their city food sovereign.

Though surprising, the technologies invented for big farms are obsolete on a small farm, and many techniques, including crop-rotation, organic farming methods, and other age-old styles of farming are utilized instead. Many of these farmers pass on sustainability practices to newer generations, that are lost with a Big Farm mentality. The intellectual trust of growing food sustainably is held in the small farm.

Moreover, the myth that Big Farms can ‘yield’ more is only true when utilizing one method of measuring productivity, and this usually is relegated to mono-crop measurements – such as how many bushels of GMO soybeans are grown per acre. When a small farm has a mix of crops, and animals, it has to be measured differently, also taking into account its ability to sustain the land while still producing food for many generations to come.

As many experts point out, “Smaller farmers tend to have crop mixtures. Between the rows of one crop there will be another crop, or several other crops, so that ecological niche space -- that potential -- is producing something of use to the farmer rather than requiring an investment of more labor, money or herbicides.”

Quality Over Quantity

With age-old farming practices, as well as hydroponic and other ‘new’ organic farming methods, the world needn’t rely on the corporate agenda to grow food for their families, and by extension, their cities and towns. While Big Ag has been known to alienate the labor force from the growth of food and bankrupt many farmers, small farms (and even gardens) produce ample food while connecting communities and stewarding proper use of the planet’s resources. Big Ag might be able to grow millions of pounds of pesticide-laced food every year, but it isn’t really a sustainable method of supporting a worldly food supply, and it certainly offers negligible benefits to our own personal health. Big Ag might fill our bellies, but the small farm will fill our souls.

- See more at: http://www.nationofchange.org/big-ag-hurts-small-farm-which-grows-more-food-1381242642#sthash.M3OHiQMg.dpuf