A couple articles on urban farming and sustainable food systems plus a paper on Cooperatives and CSAs

Date:   2/15/2010 11:59:25 PM ( 14 y ago)

"All over the country, local folks are finding ways to tie together goals of community-building, education, economic development, health, and self-reliance through models of sustainable agriculture."
http://www.wiretapmag.org/blogs/environment/43602/

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Update May 1, 2015 - Sorry it now appears that the above link is no longer connected to the article that had first appeared with it. Maybe I can add another one.

In the meanwhile I am posting this comment regarding:
"What does Earth Day have to do with the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans?"

Thank you for this post!

I'm devoted to conserving my water usage in responce to the draught. I'm also devoted to composting for a houselhold of nine. Building compost to enrich the soil will increase the hydration of the soil. Also adding woodchips[1] will increase the capacity of moisture-retention in the soil. Diverting urine to the compost pile rather than flusing it down a toliet (with several gallons of water each time) can probably save about 100 gallons of water a day in some households. There are a number of other water conservation practices that people can do including collecting their rain water to water the gardens rather than use city water.

These practices readily make obvious sense in light of the draught. However, eating less meat isn't as obvious. What makes sense is to amking new choices including choosing grass-fed meat and elimminating all the grain-fed varities. The reasoning for this muti-fold and includes the proper feeding of ruminants, human nutriton as well as agricultural sustainability. When talking about agriculture it needs to be understood that we are talking about whole systems.

Agriculture needs fertility and the prime source of support that feeds this fertility is animal manure (that then gets composted). There is a balance that each ranch/farm needs to have regarding the number of animals that their land can feed. That balance is either in jeopardy or completely lost when the ruminating animals are not feeding on their natural diet of pasture but put on a grain diet. That deserves to be an included consideration when one advocates a blanket reduction of meat consumption.

http://www.chefinresidency.com/2015/04/what-does-earth-day-have-to-do-with.html#comment-form

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Cooperatives and CSAs in Theory and Practice
http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/7hw4j19q

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Notes:

[1]
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/08/09/biodynamic-farming.aspx

Dr. Mercola in this article says: "... Woodchips work because of the volume of carbon you are dumping into the soil. Even though a truckload may be bigger than your car and weigh thousands of pounds, it is likely you will need many truckloads to convert your soil. I am converting about ¼ of an acre at my home and am using about 20-30 truckloads."

 

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