 
|
|||
Vermont organic growers on food and farming and building natural webs of biological communities. Growing and eating organic is better for the farmer, better for the animals, better for the environment, better for your health. 
William Tolbert, a Liberian citizen educated in the US, was inspired by the organic movement here and moved back to his home country in 2010 to implement organic farming techniques. He exemplifies the “Triple Bottom Line” – Environment, Economy, and Ethics – it his farming practice. Now Tolbert is building a program to provide training, support, and microloans, and connections to quality buyers for subsistence farmers so they can grow more and better produce and generate higher incomes and profits. 
How do we really know what to eat? Perhaps it’s environmental. Sure enough! If nothing but markets decide now – and they seem to be careening out of control – and history doesn’t count, everybody can be like everybody else and have any kind of food. Then maybe it isn’t so much a matter of knowing what to eat as it is regaining a sense of who we are. Perhaps the first step is to reconnect our food to place, good places – not industrial wastelands. 
The ocean contains 97% of the planet’s water and covers 71% of the Earth’s surface. Stand on the shore and its expanse and distant horizon imply an endless source of resources. Now we recognize that the oceans are not boundless and the numbers of fish are not endless. It wasn’t until the late 20th Century that we understood the world production (harvest) of fish is on a downward trend and we will be out of fish by the middle of this century unless we take some drastic steps. 
We in the independent small farm sector probably need to keep an eye on new threats to organic farming. It seems there is no end of manipulation by industry to control markets and government continues to be driven by special interests. 
Wes Jackson, from The Land Institute, talks about moving agriculture from an extractive industry to a sustainable industry.
I don’t think there is anything easy about finding the right urban agro-ecology, but I do know it needs to happen. That it is, in fact, already taking place. 
(Copyright by and reproduced with permission from Frank Morton, Wild Garden Seed.) Lost in the Misato Rose (Watermelon Radish) forest In 1983, my third spring as a market gardener, I was looking over a flat of lettuce grown from my first saved seed. The year before, I had allowed my peas, beans, 
US industrial agriculture has turned the Central Valley of California from a natural paradise of biodiversity into a desert waste land. It’s sad for everyone. The Valley was one of Americas most beautiful places; today it has become a demonstration of the worst agricultural practice in the US over time and a standing model of bad public food policy. 
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” Dickens was talking about London and Paris in his novel published more than 150 years ago, but he might have been describing 21st century farming. We’ve recently taken a clear look at two farms serving Puget Sound, Nash’s Organic Produce and Jubilee Biodynamic Farm, and now it’s time to ask, What’s next? |
 The Taste of the Valley Dinner & AuctionLet's give Snoqualmie Valley Preservation Alliance the support they need on July 26!
Click here for more information or to buy tickets. Sustainably harvested wild fish,
|
||
