Want to double world food production? Return the land to small farmers! The data show that the concentration of farmland in fewer and fewer hands is directly related to the increasing number of people going hungry every day. The United Nations declared 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming. As part of the celebrations, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) released its annual 'State of Food and Agriculture', which this year is dedicated to family farming. Family farmers, FAO say, manage 70-80% of the world's farmland and produce 80% of the world's food. But on the ground - whether in Kenya, Brazil, China or Spain - rural people are being marginalised and threatened, displaced, beaten and even killed by a variety of powerful actors who want their land. A recent comprehensive survey by GRAIN, examining data from around the world, finds that while small farmers feed the world, they are doing so with just 24% of the world's farmland - or 17% if you leave out China and India. Just what is a 'family farm' Small farmers are ever more squeezed in
Hungry for land: small farmers feed the world with less than a quarter of all farmland It is commonly heard today that small farmers produce most of the world's food. But how many of us realise that they are doing this with less than a quarter of the world's farmland, and that even this meagre share is shrinking fast? If small farmers continue to lose the very basis of their existence, the world will lose its capacity to feed itself. GRAIN took an in depth look at the data to see what is going on and the message is crystal clear. We need to urgently put land back in the hands of small farmers and make the struggle for agrarian reform central to the fight for better food systems. Download the PDF version of this report here Download the printer friendly dataset in PDF format here. Download the fully-referenced dataset as a spreadsheet here. Alcides Raméon Ramírez, a member of one of 200 peasant families fighting to defend their land in Curuguaty, Paraguay. Rural people don't simply make a living off the land, after all. How do we make sense of all this? 1. 2. 3. 4.
GRAIN — Home Are We Heading Toward Peak Fertilizer? You've heard of peak oil—the idea that the globe's easy-to-get-to petroleum reserves are largely cashed, and most of what's left is the hard stuff, buried in deep-sea deposits or tar sands. But what about peak phosphorus and potassium? These elements form two-thirds of the holy agricultural triumvirate of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (also known as NPK, from their respective markers in the periodic table). These nutrients, which are essential for plants to grow, are extracted from soil every time we harvest crops, and have to be replaced if farmland is to remain productive. For most of agricultural history, successful farming has been about figuring out how to recycle these elements (although no one had identified them until the 19th century). The N in NPK, nitrogen, can literally be synthesized from thin air, through a process developed in the early 20th century by the German chemist Fritz Haber. Why listen to this guy? The Western Sahara is an occupied territory.
Small Planet Institute Fed Up: The High Costs of Cheap Food In Fed Up, Dale Slongwhite collects the nearly inconceivable and chilling oral histories of African American farmworkers whose lives, and those of their families, were forever altered by one of the most disturbing pesticide exposure incidents in United States’ history. For decades, the farms around Lake Apopka, Florida’s third largest lake, were sprayed with chemicals ranging from the now-banned DDT to toxaphene. Among the most productive farmlands in America, the fields were repeatedly covered with organochlorine pesticides, also known as persistent organic pollutants. The once-clear waters of the lake turned pea green from decades of pesticide-related run-off. Eventually, state and federal dollars were allocated to buy out and close farms to attempt land restoration, water clean up, and wildlife protection.
12 Vegan Garden Tips “Last night, as I was sleepingI dreamt – marvelous error! –that a spring was breakingout in my heart.” - Selection from Antonio Machad’s poem “Last Night As I Was Sleeping.” While I enjoy the quiet reflective time that winter brings, I can’t help but dream of spring. The beginning of one of my favorite vegetables: Cabbage Tip: Cabbage likes “sweet” soil (more alkaline than acidic). After a couple of weeks the cabbage head begins to mature. “Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man’s head.” ~ Ambrose Bierce Tip: The head is ready to harvest when firm to the touch. An eggplant blossom complete with small spikes to protect it until maturity. Tip: Eggplants like it hot, hot, hot, so don’t plan on planting your starts outside until the threat of frost has passed and the soil is warm. Bright waves of cornhusk. Tip: Be sure to have compost or another form of vegan organic fertilizer ready to use when you plant your corn. Broad leaves hiding a cucumber flower.
Miracle grow: Indian farmers smash crop yield records without GMOs What if the agricultural revolution has already happened and we didn’t realize it? Essentially, that’s the idea in this report from the Guardian about a group of poverty-stricken Indian rice and potato farmers who harvested confirmed world-record yields of rice and potatoes. Best of all: They did it completely sans-GMOs or even chemicals of any kind. [Sumant] Kumar, a shy young farmer in Nalanda district of India’s poorest state Bihar, had — using only farmyard manure and without any herbicides — grown an astonishing 22.4 tonnes of rice on one hectare [~2.5 acres] of land. Another Bihar farmer broke India’s wheat-growing record the same year. SRI for rice involves starting with fewer, more widely spaced plants; using less water; actively aerating the soil; and applying lots of organic fertilizer. The breadth of the results in Bihar have gotten international attention. High praise aside, the technique is not without its detractors. Does SRI need more research?
Turning toxic vegetable refuse into nutritious animal feed A new technology, known as transport engineering, aims to remove unwanted substances from edible portions of plants. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) A Danish research team has developed a method that can prevent unwanted toxins in oilseed rape from reaching the edible parts of the plant. This means that the rapeseed cake – the refuse remaining after the oil has been expressed from the rapeseed – may in the future be used in feed for pigs and poultry on a completely different scale. “We have developed a new technology that we call transport engineering,” says Professor Barbara Halkier, Head of Center of Excellence for Dynamic Molecular Interactions (DynaMo) at Copenhagen University’s Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences. Rapeseed plants fill their seed with toxic defence compounds The researcher explains that all plants produce toxins to defend themselves against disease attacks and herbivores. There’s a great potential in our findings. Barbara Halkier And indeed there was.
Food for Maine's Future | Food for Maine's Future seeks to build a just, secure, sustainable and democratic food system to the benefit of all Maine farmers, fisheries, communities, and the environment. Farmers Markets Could Generate Tens of Thousands of New Jobs with Modest Federal Support, New Report Finds They’re Growing Nationally, but Federal Policies Favoring Industrial Agriculture Hold Them Back WASHINGTON (August 4, 2011) – Over the last several decades, thousands of farmers markets have been popping up in cities and towns across the country, benefiting local farmers, consumers and economies, but they could be doing a lot better, according to a report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). What’s holding farmers markets back? Federal policies that favor industrial agriculture at their expense. “On the whole, farmers markets have seen exceptional growth, providing local communities with fresh food direct from the farm,” said Jeffrey O’Hara, the author of the report and an economist with UCS’s Food and Environment Program. “But our federal food policies are working against them. UCS released the report just a few days before the 12th annual U.S. All that growth happened with relatively little help. Keeping revenues local also can mean more job opportunities.
American Meat—An Inside Look at Sustainable Farming in America Dr. MercolaWaking Times “Thanksgiving is a time when many of us come together and share food and conversation with our family and friends. It’s a time when we celebrate our loved ones, and reflect on that which we are thankful for. If you put good old-fashioned organically-raised, pasture-fed and finished meat in a nutrition analyzer, you’d find it’s one of the most nutritious foods you can eat. However, many are still in the dark about the vast differences between Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and organically-raised, grass-fed meats, in terms of nutrient content and contamination with veterinary drugs, antibiotics, genetically modified organisms, and disease-causing pathogens. Differences in the animals’ diets and living conditions create vastly different end products. These differences have monumental ramifications for our environment, for the health and well-being of the animals being raised, and for your own health. American Meat The Invention of CAFOs
10 Vegetables & Herbs You Can Eat Once and Regrow Forever 10 Vegetables & Herbs You Can Eat Once & Regrow Forever There are some ingredients I cook with so often I can never buy too many of them, and most of them are produce. Onions, garlic and fresh herbs are staples in a lot of dishes, and they may be inexpensive, but when you use them on a daily basis it can add up. Some foods are easy to regrow at home from leftover scraps, and some of them can even be grown right on your kitchen counter. Here are 10 vegetables and herbs you can buy once and regrow forever. #1. When garlic starts to sprout, the little green shoots are too bitter to cook with. Image via Unknown Learn more on Simple Daily Recipes. #2. The ends of carrots you usually chop off and throw away will grow carrot greens if you put them in a dish with a little water. Image via Fidgety Fingers Read more details on how to use and grow them on Fidgety Fingers. #3. Put a few basil clippings with 4-inch stems in a glass of water and place it in a spot with direct sunlight. #4. #5. #6. #7. #8.
EU agricultural product quality policy - Agriculture and rural development Quality is an issue for every farmer and buyer, whether dealing with commodities produced to basic standards or with the high-end quality products in which Europe excels. EU farmers must build on high quality reputation to sustain competitiveness and profitability. EU law lays down stringent requirements guaranteeing the standards of all European products. In addition, EU quality schemes identify products and foodstuffs farmed and produced to exacting specifications. Specific EU quality schemes - guaranteeing quality Organic farming Outermost regions: Products specific to Azores, Canary Islands, French Guyana, Guadeloupe, La Réunion, Madeira, and Martinique EU schemes operate in the market alongside an increasing number of public and private certification schemes. In addition, the European marketing standards encourage EU farmers to produce products of given quality, in conformity with the consumers' expectations. Getting the most of EU agricultural product quality policy More reading