Rehydrating the Landscape

The story of a fur trapper in Canada during the 1930s provides a crystal clear means of seeing our own Murray-Darling river and the likely solutions that urgently need investigating. This fur-trapper re-established beaver dams which eventually brought beavers back from extinction - which is a story in itself, but it is also a story about rehydrating a whole landscape using the same principles as Natural Sequence Farming and other inspiring Australians (see below). Isn't it all so obvious? Part 2 of the story continues with more details.

Creating Permanent Flows

Its not rocket science, you want all the water that falls on your land to stay on your land, not flushed immediately down to the sea...the story of what the Marshall's have re created from a run down dairy at Reidsdale is inspiring. With the use of the yeomans plough, livestock, fire and mulch unwanted 'weeds' have been controlled, and water infiltrated, though their use of non-native plants is unconventional, but obviously effective.

Landscape Ecostructures

Nature does nothing uselessly, noted Socrates. Why then are some societies continually at war with Nature, slashing, burning, spraying, degrading and destroying environmental systems? Understanding the reasons why involves a journey into landscape ecology and post-industrial society. Along the way you will discover a wealth of new words and concepts. Remarkably, the English language is deficient in words and phrases that describe the dynamics, energetics and evolving structures of habitats and ecosystems. They are not part of the English cultural paradigm. That says lots. And so Haikai Tane, begins his review of ecostructures, particularly as it relates to water in the landscape.

Humified Compost Via Microbes

Turning soil around is just a small matter of well applied microbes, according to Rhonda Daly of YLAD Living Soils. Last year, on-farm trials of YLAD's humified compost applications returned results that have prompted even the most chemical intensive operators to consider alternatives. ''We saw the base saturation of calcium on a farm in lease country lifted by 12% (from 38% to 50%) in the space of a year, and a dairy farmer in Wagga who put 120 kg of urea in one paddock, and compost and gypsum in the other produced higher, greener pasture in the composted paddock, with no nitrogen use whatsoever."

Clay in Compost

Hugh Lovel laments the omission of clays in a majority of compost processing today, despite its successful inclusion by well known and time honoured compost entities. He concedes that most growers simply think of compost as a means of recycling nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (NPK) and they tend to measure compost quality in terms of its NPK analysis. Interestingly untouched living fertile soils often show up on soluble soil analyses as being deficient in soluble N, P or K even though total soil analysis using strong acids shows these elements present in what are thought to be unavailable forms. And so a new paradigm for what constitutes living soils is posited.

Plocher Science

The Roland Plocher Integral Technik(TM) system uses the "causal field" that surrounds all things in nature. We spend our time making physical molecular or microbial products to make things "happen". Roland and others have discovered that all we need to do is "copy" the field itself that is carried by all things and leave the physical material behind. So the Plocher system acts as a photocopier or to use a more modern analogy, his device is natures CD Burner!

Diet for A Dead Planet

The book came out through an investigation into how meat ends up on our plates - it starts with the enslavement of workers, literally; the vast pollution of factory farms harming water and hence life; and small farm indebtedness - all seemingly isolated problems, but in fact coming out of the one system. Corporations have taken over our food supply which is actually killing us. The history shows how technology and money pushed the system more and more towards monocultures, chemicals, concentration of suppliers and retailers, larger acreages, over use of water, subsidisation of commodities etc.

Grassfed As Good as Feedlot

Cattleman Lee McNicholl this year is receiving prices for his quality grassfed finished cattle that are "line-ball" with what could be achieved out of feedlot programs. Moreover, these premium beef prices are being achieved at much lower production cost. 

And in the meantime, a major shift appears to be taking place across the global beef industry as consumers everywhere rein in their spending patterns in the wake of the current global financial crisis and grassfed beef demands increase.

Linking Pesticides to Health Problems

Investigations into the double-headed fish embryos in a Queensland hatchery have lead two researchers to find a growing body of international scientific and circumstantial evidence suggesting that fungicides, pesticides and weed killers used on the nation's farms and forests can cause a range of human health problems. They also note that "The same company that makes atrazine (as a herbicide) spun out a new company that makes an anti-breast cancer medication that blocks its action."

Organic Encompasses Single Issue Labels

A recent Soil Association report on the state of UK's organic market exposed a perception problem of what the organic label means, with many consumers seeing it as simply a guarantee of no pesticides. Many consumers have started to focus on single issue labels: free-range, local, pesticide-free, fair trade, seasonal and natural foods - but are unaware the 'organic' label actually encompasses all of these. 

Organic Market Slipping

In the UK organic farmers are starting to abandon their certification status - which is blamed on a slowing down in organic sales, but interestingly at the moment there are just as many entering - many believing that it will be the future with declining fossil fuels and aversion to chemicals.

The Takeover of Natural Products

Gosh, the takeovers are more extensive than I ever imagined. Small businesses are being bought out by big multinationals who are going out of their way to hide their link to the small, socially responsible brands. In many cases too, many high quality ingredients are being substituted for cheap transportable or long-term storage inputs commonly used by the multinationals.

USDA Front Lawn Going Organic

The Rodale Institute has donated organic compost for the front lawn of the USDA - USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack has taken a personal interest in developing an organic People's Garden, though there was some reported resistance from within the USDA to give organics such a high profile. 

Poppies to Pomegranates

A scheme that aims to replace poppy plantations with pomegranate orchards in war-ravaged Afghanistan is winning support with up-market UK retailer Waitrose throwing its weight behind the project. Afghan tribes were also getting behind the project, with more than 6500 tribal elders attending ‘a burning' last year that saw something like €1bn worth of opium go up in smoke.

Lack of Antibiotics Bad for Animals?

How perverse! Legislation that aims to stop the non therapeutic use of antibiotics in animals would impair the health of livestock and poultry as well as undermine the safety of the US food supply, claims the president of the largest US farm group. "In order to raise healthy animals, we need tools to keep them healthy - including medicines that have been approved safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)." What about providing healthy pastures and water as nature intended? The suggestion here is we can't have health without props...which is similar to saying headaches are caused by a lack of aspirin. Do they really believe their argument, or is it just power and money speaking?

Over-reactions to E.coli Contamination

After wild pigs were linked to the deadly E. coli outbreak in California spinach nearly three years ago, Central Coast growers started shooting and poisoning wildlife. Yet the actual source was never found, and the evidence is still missing despite extensive testing of wild animals. In the meantime, farmers are living in fear of shut down. For example, one grower reported he had lost $17,500 worth of a crop because there were deer tracks in a field. A harvest was stopped when frogs and tadpoles were found in a creek.

Farming Family Dynamics

Research being conducted in North Qld could help Australia better understand the complex dynamics of farming families. As noted so far: ''Farmers operate under a unique family business structure that is not seen in any other organisational structure. Very often farming family members operate in dual roles at home, or in the business. This means they are also forced to deal with stress in a unique way - for example, it is very difficult for problems at work to stay at work, or home problems to stay at home.'' Another interesting observation is the difference in concerns between conventional farmers who are worried about input prices, and organic farmers who are more concerned with getting organic techniques adopted by others.

Does No-Till Sequester Carbon?

No-till is recognised globally as a means of storing soil carbon, but the agricultural practice may not be applicable under all environmental conditions. Soil texture, moisture, temperature, and terrain parameters affected the amount of carbon stored on the soil surface. "We must not make carbon sequestration synonymous with no-till." Interestingly, clay soils sequestered the least - which may explain the poor sequestration rates in many Australian studies. Unfortunately this report does not differentiate between chemical no-till and non-chemical no-till practices - which could be interesting. It also opens the question about how valid soil carbon trading is overseas where the main criteria to getting credits is simply to adopt no-till.

Soil Carbon Myths and Mysteries

This Qld DPI Report supposedly gives the full story on soil carbon sequestration - but the whole thing is premised on the fact that soil carbon is sequestered by biomass decomposition alone and completely misses the more important liquid carbon route - from the atmosphere straight to the rootzone via a green living plant. What a huge omission! It also suggests that stable carbon takes centuries to form, but misses the direct link that mycorrhizae make from labile to stable carbon. There is more to carbon sequestration than the institutions appear to be aware of.

Carbon Sense Coalition

A group has formed in response to the hysteria around global warming called The Carbon Sense Coalition that argues that 'warm watered and well fed is better' amongst other things. There are some great facts and figures offered in their arguments, many I can sympathize with.

Personally I don't buy into the CO2 deal, but I do accept the ‘data' that things are changing dramatically in the environment. If anything, my call to arms is to get all our biological cycles up and running again - detox our land, air and water and start working WITH nature to reinstate our natural biofeedback systems with or without new technology, including healthy humans who can think clearly again! Then we will start to see less climatic extremes and unproductive moonscapes forming everywhere, and I suspect a natural sustainable decrease in our populations will be a natural by-product.

Climate Model Inaccuracies

Australian researchers tested the accuracy of climate models used by the United Nations' peak scientific body, the IPCC, comparing them with actual climate observations. When the poorly performing models were removed, the predicted rise in temperature extremes was between 2 and 3 degrees by the end of the century rather than 3 and 5 degrees as the modeling had predicted. I say beware of relying solely on models - admittedly, real life is indicating that things are getting out of whack - but couldn't that be the result of pollution, poisoning, desertification and other mad-made destructions to our global environment?

Outbeating Evolutionary Resistance

Some researchers have rethought the logic of insecticides, putting evolutionary theory at the centre, instead of a simple desire to destroy the enemy. The result is a modest proposal to deal with the problem of resistance. Working with malaria, they reasoned it is only the older females that need to be targeted, which a fungus could well do the job perfectly. The idea is that young females get to breed and pass on their weak genes before they are targeted and killed - alleviating the pressure of wiping out vulnerable genes in the population.

The GM Island

Hawaii is GM crop central, and while it is the biggest industry on the island, not everyone is happy. All up there is a total disregard for the environment - its all about fast tracking business with secret sites and vast amounts of chemical spraying and no regard for contamination of other crops. Only 3.5% of the more than 40,000 permit applications submitted were refused. A Bill currently moving through the Hawaii Legislator, known as the "pre-emption bill," would prohibit the state and county from banning or otherwise regulating activities related to genetically-modified plant organisms (GMOs)!

GM Admissions

Monsanto's technical development leader admits that GM canola does have problems because better agronomic varieties need developing, and relying on Roundup too much has caused mistakes in the US, as well as resistance. Could cracks be appearing finally in the corporate facade?

GM and Non-Linear Physics

Last week I pointed out that biological theories on DNA being central to gene expression are outmoded, and queried how that might relate to GM technology that assumes the model is correct. On a different front, Dr Maarten Stapper suggests that linear models and ways of thinking are outmoded by the reality of non-linear physics - again where does that leave GM technology?

Difficulties in Avoiding Cloned Products

In the US, semen from cloned bulls is being sold and dairy and meat products derived from the progeny will be utterly undistinguishable from ordinary dairy and meat. The issue rekindles questions that hung over the regulation of GM produce in the 1990s: Whether it is the process or the final product that should be regulated; and how consumers can possibly avoid a biotech diet if they chose to. There is no traceability or labeling in place.

Dirty Manure Power

The novelty of power plants that burn chicken droppings, mandated by North Carolina's new renewable-energy law, has given way to irony: They might be dirtier than the coal plants that environmentalists loathe.

Agriculture vs Mining Fight Continues

A legal battle between angry farmers and the mining giant BHP-Billiton in the black-soil country of the Liverpool Plains, in north-west NSW, is threatening to derail plans to develop one of the biggest new coal mining ventures in NSW and could change future mine exploration in Australia. I got to hear about this court case a couple of weekends ago when down at the Liverpool Plains - and it was a truly inspiring story. BHP has a swag of lawyers set up against the one lawyer representing the farmers, but what turned the tide was evidence that BHP have already been drilling against their own code of conduct. The intimidation used against those that held the evidence was interesting too! 

Geomantica

The latest Geomantica newsletter has been published online and includes a list of courses being offered around Australia and Ireland throughout the year.

Biological Farming and Healthy Soils Workshops

Some great speakers lined up for these workshops: Dr Maarten Stapper (BioLogic Ag-Food), Bart Davidson (Bionutrient Solutions) and David Hardwick (Ausmin) covering soil organisms, soil carbon, remediation of soil degradation, nutrient storage, fertiliser strategies, salt, water infiltration and case studies. Laidley 28th April, Oakey 29th April, Goondiwindi 30th April.

Native Grass Day

Come see a wide range of native grasses and forbs on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 's property at Willow Tree, 20th April. The day will cover pasture succession from wire grass and bare earth to the desirables.

Health

Emotional Packaging of Food

Nestle is building an in-house global design network based around a Japanese design philosophy, called Kansei, which has been successfully used in the car industry to tap into consumer emotions. They recently used the methodology in the re-designed Black Magic chocolate box, for which the shape, colour, font and texture were all led with key consumer emotions.

Links with Food, Heavy Metals and Behaviour

The contamination of food with certain metals needs to be urgently addressed in light of growing evidence linking trace elements to negative human behaviour. While this report highlights excessive heavy metals and deficient minerals its doesn't really link both problems back to the soil...

Fructose Encourages Obesity

The way fructose is metabolised in the brain may increase food intake and lead to obesity, according to a new review from the US. Unsurprisingly, a leading HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) researcher states the findings are "highly speculative and probably incorrect".

Folic Acid Increasing Colorectal Cancer?

Since fortified folic acid breads were introduced into Chile, colorectal cancer risk increased by 162% in people aged 45 to 64 and by 190% in people aged 65 to 79. While it is suggested that it is only high levels that can cause this - the question is how do you regulate your 'dose' when its in your daily bread and other flour products?

Lead Coverup

From 2001 to 2004, Washington, D.C., experienced what may have been the worst lead contamination of city water on record. Yet in 2004, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report found that water contamination "might have contributed a small increase in blood lead levels, yet the results of thousands of blood tests that measured lead contamination in children were missing from that report.

Damn It - The Bird Flu WILL Cause a Pandemic!

They are trying so hard to make it happen through prediction...and perhaps through contaminated vaccines....This is the headline: First the good news: bird flu is becoming less deadly. Now the bad: scientists fear that this is the very thing that could make the virus more able to cause a pandemic that would kill hundreds of millions of people. Bizarre!!

Weather and Health Links

A physician and meteorologist duo from Canada have designed an early-warning system that takes forecasting to a new level by using scientific data to track how weather changes affect our health. For example, when a storm front is on its way and the barometric pressure rises, it often triggers a migraine. By alerting the vulnerable in advance (say by email 24 hours in advance) they are more likely to prepare themselves and not end up in hospital emergency rooms.

Cartoons

More on the global crisis:

When do we as a population say ENOUGH! It has finally been demonstrated publicly that the government has no control let alone say over what banks do (and never has, it's all been about agreements and power) - with all our major banks ignoring the recent interest rate drop - and then this... The Bank of Queensland cut its half-year dividend by a quarter, despite a near 30% rise in net profit. What the hell?!

Or how about this: The British pay more for their everyday groceries than do residents of any other country in Europe. The Americans pay more for their groceries than the British. And the Australians? They pay more than does anyone else. While not stated, I think we all suspect (or know) that our famers are paid less too - so where is all the money in the middle going? The ACCC thinks its all legitimate... are any corporate structures really there for the benefit of individuals on the ground? Or there just for themselves - those faceless paper entities?

Miscellaneous

In his new book, Can Poetry Save the Earth?, Stanford professor John Felstiner presents poetry from dozens of English and American writers who have spoken passionately to - and for - the natural world.  He was then challenged to pick a poem that could save the world, if everyone were to read it. He picked three - check out the second one by an 8-year old.

Events

The calendar is playing up, so most of the links below are directed back to other websites where possible or to a contact email address.

For all April events

For all May events

* Native Grass Day - Willow Tree NSW This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

* Biological Farming and Healthy Soils Workshop - Laidley Qld 28th April 2009.

* Biological Farming and Healthy Soils Workshop - Oakey Qld 29th April 2009.

* Biological Farming and Healthy Soils Workshop - Goondiwindi Qld 30th April 2009.

Postscript

New Speed Limit Device