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A hymn to farming….
….sort of. We’ve played music from the Peterson Brothers before. They’re young men of a Minnesota farm family telling their story via rap, funk, etc. Unintentionally, they often (as in this video) catalog pretty much all the sins of modern commercial farming. The argument is always that this rape of the land is necessary to feed the world…although almost half the food grown in the world is wasted. So watch it and weep….and rock. Thanks to Bob Cain for the link. 3 Brothers Wrote A Song That Left America In HYSTERICS. What It Says About Farmers? I’m CRYING!!
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And that’s the way it is…..
….although no one is the Ag community talks about it. Health expert Dr. Joseph Mercola blows the whistle in the practice of dumping sewage sludge on pastures and crop lands. Several farms have down this in our area despite the serious concerns that have been raised about the practice. In our experience, the pastures look good the first year…but deteriorate rapidly. Wonder if the sludge kills the microbes in the soil? At least I’ve never noticed anyone doing a repeat treatment. Here’s the Mercola link: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/11/01/biosolids-fertilizer.aspx?e_cid=20151101Z1_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20151101Z1&et_cid=DM89600&et_rid=1193536402
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Look up chutzpah….
….and you’ll find the Monsanto logo. The evil genius of this gigantic corporation is demonstrated anew with its campaign to co-opt the National Honeybee Day. Bees, like butterflies, have rapidly been disappearing from the planet…a critical threat to growers around the world. As reported by Dr. Joseph Mercola, Monsanto moved in (as it has into the White House) to claim it wanted nothing more than to save the bees. Turns out Monsanto has as much clout with the British ag department, DEFRA, as it has with our own USDA. It’s clear that they have corrupted the entire regulatory process with the enthusiastic cooperation of universities and government bureaucrats. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/09/02/save-bees-against-monsanto.aspx
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Is the USDA sustainable….
….one of my favorite websites is the work of Paul and Gabe Brown…..holistic ranchers just outside Bismarck, North Dakota. Recently they linked to an article in a Yale publication that does the best job I’ve seen so far of explaining the way Big Ag and Big Government are chasing their tails….trying to get ahead of Nature. The problem is the darn weeds have unlimited research capability….not even Monsanto’s labs can keep up with them. Incredibly, it’s a New York Times editorial board member who lectures our “smart guys”. The article actually gives me some cause for hope! http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_folly_of_big_agriculture_why_nature_always_wins/2514/#.T4Rf8AnUGyo.mailto Incidentally, you can check out Brown’s Ranch at http://www.brownsranch.us/
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ADHD….an epidemic or a fiction?
The popular wisdom is that we’re facing an ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) epidemic. Some experts trace it to diet…others to genetically modified foods…or to herbicides. And then there are those who say it’s not a disease at all….unless you count bureaucrats grabbing onto federal dollars if they can find ADHD in the classroom. How else to account for the wild swings from state to state, with the highest incidence of the “disease” where the bucks are going. We just don’t know but certainly we had “rowdy” kids when I went to school….standing in the corner or a trip to the principals office seemed to chill them out. Dr. Joseph…
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Bulletin: Media gets one right….
….along the lines of “monkeys and typewriters” but the Associated Press stumbled onto the truth about ethanol the other day. The big thing is that, thanks to Google and Bing, there’s a good chance that this will become the new narrative. http://wtop.com/index.php?nid=1035&sid=3497726
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Bee apocalypse now….
….we’ve only been vaguely aware of the apparently devastating destruction of America’s bee population. But reading about it this morning I was reminded again of how little we know….of how little the so-called “experts” know….about the physical world around us. All I know, is we’re a part of something huge and grand and beautiful and we should be very careful tinkering with “parts”. That seems to be the problem with the slaughter of the bees. The government certifies some poison as safe without considering the dynamics of combining that product with seven other things that are also sprayed in the same area. The result seems to be that we’re flirting…
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Some myth busting…
….from Chris Kresser, a popular Paleo blogger. Chris takes on the recent spate of articles and studies purporting to show (once again) how bad cows are for the environment. It’s a subject we’ve gone over so many times, I’m frankly tired of defending us. In brief, if you look at the “evidence”, it’s been “cooked”. I remember reading a big 50 years ago, required reading in J-school when they used to teach critical thinking. As I recall, the title was: “How to Lie with Statistics”. There’s also: “Figures Lie and Liars Figure”. But if you want to wade through the arguments again, Chris has just started a series on his…
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The struggle beneath our feet….
….bit by bit, the word is getting out. And when the New York Times “gets it”, maybe there’s hope. The struggle is to save the microbe, the little critters that make soil alive and productive. They are threatened, of course, by modern chemistry which supposedly increases crop yields. Fertilizers, herbicides and all those products kill the microbes and the nutrient value not only of the soil but our food. The only answer is to pour ever more chemicals on the land. Ian Mitchell-Innes (see “Yes, it’s true” below) calls it an addiction with farmers enriching the big drug companies to support the habit. Here’s the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opinion/sunday/the-hidden-world-of-soil-under-our-feet.html?ref=science&_r=1& Note that the Times…
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Yes, it’s true….
….Greg and Jan Judy’s Green Pastures farm certainly lives up to its name. More than 50 would-be grazers attended Greg’s three-day program near Moberly, Missouri last week to study the power of mob grazing. It’s been a cold, wet spring but the proof was there as you drove down the road. Greg’s green pastures alongside neighbors who were still feeding hay! The featured speaker was Ian Mitchell-Innes who practices a version of what might be called “Mob Grazing for Dummies”. Ian’s approach is throw you in the shallow water so you don’t have to drown. He has become something of a missionary in the battle to save the microbe. There’s…