Chain of Ponds

For those that missed seeing Peter Andrews last weekend on the Sunday Program - this is the video footage. It really is great and provides ever more insights to his ideas. The process of landscape dehydration/rehydration is a little clearer in this interview I felt.

Carbon Grazing

I have had this e-book for a while now awaiting the day that it would be 'officially' published online - and that time has come. This is an exceptional book by Alan Lauder covering carbon in the grazing landscape, but the fundamentals apply to any landscape - and besides, functional and resilient landscapes are always more profitable. Alan accumulated his knowledge during his years running a very successful sheep farm out at Cunnamulla, and subsequently taking on other run down arid landscapes and building them up. A real practitioner, viewing the wonders of nature from a farmers perspective - a book that even the scientists are thrilled with and keen to encourage. But best of all, it is absolutely free!

And while carbon farming brings a multitude of benefits with it, including reliable profits, the incentives only get better as markets begin opening up for carbon, energy and even environmental stewardships. Though how those markets unfold is still up in the air with both major political parties providing little detail of their respective policies for agriculture, particularly in relation to their climate change policies.

Heritage Genetics

The wonders of nature and its biodiversity. In one Italian backyard old genetics for tomatoes and beans etc are still being grown with some amazing properties - for example, tomatoes that can be stored for months. Then there are other amazing landraces being discovered - apples with a lemony flavour, black celery and more, but the dawning tragedy is the loss of the elderly guardians along with their amazing crops.

Agriculture Included in Global Mop-Up

Colorado US is including agriculture in their CO2 mop up strategies. Along with a host of strategies such as limiting vehicle emissions and personal carbon footprints, the action plan calls for new farming practices to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide seeping into the air, including less frequent tilling and using vegetative cover to trap the gas in the soil. The plan also prescribes better storage of livestock manure to reduce methane emissions. All rather progressive.

Engineering Fixes

Einstein's idea that solutions cannot be found using the same thinking that caused the problem in the first place is completely ignored here. This article claims that man-induced climate change can be offset using engineering fixes - like injecting chemicals into the upper atmosphere to cool the poles, or blocking sunlight by making clouds more reflective or stationing mirrors in space. This summary says it all: '...in 200 years the earth will be "an artifact," a product of human design.' Makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck!

US Farm Bill

This Bill has major repercussions on all world agriculture, but the repercussions at home in the US are also enormous. This is a great overview of the ins and outs of what the Bill does, and certainly doesn't do. It appears that wealthy farmers skim the cream off the handouts, and a remaining 60% of farmers miss out. Farmers are bailed out of all disasters which provides little incentive for improving farming resilience...if anything it can only encourage more of the same and the political antics in the background are beyond belief.

Fertilising the Ocean

Oh my, this is science gone mad! Putting urea into oceans to boost phytoplankton to gain carbon credits... and unbelievably they are already dumping urea into oceans as trials! Blinded by the authority of their own specialty science and driven by the potential financial reward of carbon credits, they seem to forget how little anyone knows about whole systems. Its all much like Alan Yeoman's public claims that pulling down all the trees in the Amazon to produce sugar cane is the solution to our global energy needs (the fact that trees play a major role in weather cycles, let alone other ecoservices, does not appear to be on his radar of reasoning).

Twin-N

And speaking of nitrogen fertilisers, Twin-N continues to expand into the marketplace with new products about to be launched for more intensive situations. I will keep you posted. Unfortunately prices have recently risen to $25/hectare (based on 5-ha and 10-ha packs), but it still remains exceptional value. Protocols have also been developed to help rule out likely environmental contaminants that can negatively affect the performance of the product.

GM Crops

Immune reactions are already occurring in mice fed transgenic corn. The results indicate that special care will be needed with transgenic corn to reduce exposure to workers and the public if this protein is used commercially in corn or other food crops, to avoid unwanted immune responses in people and decreased effectiveness of oral vaccines that use the protein. Note that this insight does not seem to dampen the momentum of the research though. Mmmm, its good to know that the mechanisms for manipulating genetics are so widely understood!

Meanwhile, back in Australia Goodman Fielder is calling for the moratorium on the growing of genetically modified crops to remain which is backed up by a recent survey indicating that only 30pc of Australians were comfortable with GM plants for food, while only 19pc reported some level of comfort with GM animals for food. It will be truly interesting to see what happens in the end - does selective financially swayed science win the day - or consumers/markets?

The new book: Genetic Roulette - The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods is rather timely. It presents new evidence sufficient to call for a ban of GMOs in the food supply. The author, Jeffery Smith, worked with over 30 scientists for the past 2 years to document the known health risks of GMOs. This book presents 65 health risks, which constitute a checklist for GM food safety. Jeffery also gives a video summary of his last book 'Seeds of Deception' which is compelling watching, to say the least!

Drought Tolerance

To me it seems illogical to study drought tolerance in plants - surely the landscape is the first point of call, for example, rehydrate it, and build up its carbon reservoirs (and who knows, there may be other 'hidden' benefits like less disease and pest pressure and natural fertility...). Anyway, given that scientists think the plant is the logical starting point, it is interesting that they already concede that there are over 100,000 genes in a wheat plant and in response to a stress such as a disease or infection, only one or two genes may be activated, however, in response to drought, over 1000 are activated. It's identifying these genes that takes time. I bet, and an awful lot of money! And as you may be guessing, they are nowhere near having a GM drought tolerant plant on the market - contrary to promotions that seem to suggest it is just around the corner. Drought Tolerant Plants 13/11/2007,14:23 182.83 Kb

MSRA Follow Up

Interestingly MSRA (resistant bacteria) is showing up within the US pig industry and its associated veterinarians, and some are seeing it as a result of over use of antibiotics. It would certainly seem to be an obvious thing to investigate - free range pork for me!

Hugh Lovel Walk About

Hugh Lovel (biodynamic guru, rainmaker and agricultural consultant) will be traveling down from far north Queensland to Young NSW and back over the next few weeks - and on the way through would be happy to visit anyone - time and logistics permitting. He can be contacted on 07 4095 5767 or emailed at . He has started up his own consultancy - AgPhysics - in Tolga Qld which will involve a lot more traveling than in the recent past, both nationally and internationally.

Organic Roadshow

Just a reminder that on November 30, the BFA Armidale Organic Roadshow will discuss the conversion process for producers, soil health, manufacturing food products, wholesale, retail and more. There will be an R&D forum to end the day. I intend to be there too and would love to see you there.

Sofenica - Part 17

Interestingly climate change reared its head in a big way a few months after our first investigation into green energy deals, and the push towards 'green' energy at all levels both nationally and globally became very apparent. There was even a TV documentary on how energy companies/government in Germany were subsiding green energy suppliers (people with their own solar panels) by paying them MORE for their energy inputs to the grid than they drew, and as a result whole towns were converting and becoming mini energy farms. What a fabulous idea...

In Australia, a doctor in southern NSW also started a mini revolution using a similar principle - getting indivdual households to supply the grid with solar energy. They obviously did not have the financial disincentive that we encountered with our local energy supplier in northern NSW!!

But the growing public awareness obviously had an effect locally, and we have since discovered that Country Energy will now pay parity - green and regular electricity can now be bought and sold at the same price.

And while the conversion to green energy can be seen as a altruistic sacrifice by evangelical greenies - to me there was a strong economic incentive to back the decision, and it appears that I am not the only one. Becoming a mini 'green' energy farm is a rather attractive idea.

Health

Vaccines

When Wall Street brokers see investments in vaccine companies as a sure thing, while vaccine problems continue to mount, you are left to ponder whether 'One day enough voters will figure out that vaccinating 300 million Americans and 33 million Canadians (and goodness knows how many Australians!) with multiple vaccines from cradle to the grave has more to do with keeping drug companies in the money than keeping people healthy.'

Codex

Oh. the convoluted arguments about how to make a health claim. Some talk of only using clinical trials, some want preference given to human trials over animal or in vitro trials, others are concerned about whether it should only apply to an ingredient or the finished product, then there are others concerned that evidence of historical use needs to be considered. Whichever way it ends, it will certainly have some large implications for both food manufacturers and consumers worldwide.

Then there is an industry lobby group pushing Codex to increase food additive levels. Given the controversy surrounding food additives, this seems to be a bold move in the wrong direction by the very industry likely to profit the most from it.

Ripening Apples

It appears that ripe fruit have more active antioxidants than part ripened fruit. Interestingly the chemical pathway used to form these antioxidants is the same as that used during the decomposition process of chlorophyll - when leaves turn from green to yellow to brown.

Geomantica

For the mystically or spiritually minded the lasted newsletter from Geomantica (put together by Alanna Moore, the author of Stone Age Farming) is now online - I am musing my way through now, so cannot provide much of an overview, but it is always guaranteed to have articles that raise your curiosity and uplift you and a list of events coming up around Australia and sometimes other countries.

And following on a similar vein of thought - there is an amazing story unfolding in Russia right now based on a series of books referred to as either the Anastasia series or the Ringing Cedar Series. Only 7 of the 8 existing books have been translated into English, and I admit, I am addicted to them. The world views are marvellous, but the story of mankind from the beginning through to our current world is just remarkable and so so different to conventional history. I cant recommend this more highly. You can download sample chapters for free.

Miscellaneous

For those that have taken an interest in the global money market and the weird fiat system that creates debt you may be interested in the following. An e-book called How to Profit from the Coming Great Depression is one of the most insightful and breathtaking overviews on this system and pulls in some fantastic history, including Australia's. For example, during World War I Australia self-funded the war without debt by having control of its own money supply, unfortunately it handed that control over and we have lived with debt ever since. According to the author, both the unsustainability of this system, as well as the predictable cycles of crowd sentiments, the world is heading into a depression far deeper than experienced in the 1930s, but he does put forward strategies to get through it in tact.

And to lend support to some of the background material in this book, Iran is moving to unlink its oil from the US dollar. This has been attempted by countries before with dire consequences to the renegade country involved - for example, Iraq was one of the last ones to try. If Iran is successful the free fall of the US dollar is pretty much guaranteed. As an aside, this event is not being reported in Australian papers despite protests to Murdoch and various newsletter editors.

Events

For all November events

For all December events

* BFA Organic Roadshow - Armidale NSW 30th November 2007.

Postscript

"Man talks of a battle with Nature, forgetting that if he won the battle, he would find himself on the losing side."
-- E.F. (Fritz) Schumacher

"Living lightly on the earth should not be a burdensome problem we "have to" solve. It can be a joyous act of creating that we love doing -- alone and with others."

--Bruce Elkin