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ISSN 1179-5298 (print) ISSN 2253-5780 (online) Earth Matters is a New Zealand-based Journal for the Renewal of AgriCulture through science, art and spirituality. It is a notfor-profit publication and proceeds will be used to help fund The Land Trust, registered charity CC37781 Earth Matters PO Box 24-231 Royal Oak Auckland 1345
contents
Editor: Elisabeth Alington
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Editorial.
Assistant Editor: Mary Vander Ploeg
3.
Seedlines.
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Love Life. Rudolf Steiner.
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Compassion collapse disorder? Horst Kornberger.
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A hopeful economics. John Ikerd.
Administrator: Paula Kibblewhite Layout: Karl Grant Earth Matters is published three times a year; April, August and December. Subscriptions of $NZ 35.00 local / $NZ 45.00 overseas may be purchased on-line at www.earthmatters.co.nz or by direct credit to Earth Matters Kiwibank account 38 9010 0519122 00 or by sending a cheque to the above address. Please make sure you supply postal details and notification of payment to info@earthmatters.co.nz.
10. Smart farming - cultivating a sense of humus. Phyllis Tichinin. 12. Trapped farmers can biodynamic out. Elisabeth Alington 14. Of Star … In the Garden of the Hesperides. The Constellation Virgo. 19. … and Flower. Trees for Public Health. 20. Zoo. Eyes and ears are for walking. Andreas Suchantke. 21. Clean, green 100% not. Dr Arden Anderson. 22. Via Campesina determined to defend family farming in Europe.
All material published in these pages is Copyright Earth Matters 2010. For permission to use material from this publication, in any form, please contact the editor info@earthmatters. co.nz
23. Cheap Food – Eating the Lie. Vandana Shiva.
Opinions and statements expressed in this journal are the responsibility of the contributing authors. The Journal accepts no responsibility for results arising from advice offered in good faith through its pages. Readers who wish to contribute articles or express views are invited to submit content for consideration to the postal address above or via Word document to: info@earthmatters.co.nz
28. Ethical Banks call for re-visioning.
24. What is DOW doing in our backyard? 25. Rural Women Winners. 26. Make the Earth Glad Little One.
29. More than Honey. DVD review 30. The Art of Food. Easy pumpkin soup. 31. Sense Meditation. Arthur Zajonc.
FRONT COVER DRONE BEE ON FLORENCE FENNEL. CREDIT: Earth Matters
AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
evokes can often be likened to black magic. In order to move beyond our one-sided, intellectual paradigm Horst Kornberger introduces a new angle to the bee dilemma, expanding our usual view of things with the help of image-forms or metaphor.
PHOTO:D Baker.
editorial LIS ALINGTON
Well, New Zealand, this month Chinese news websites have described our 100% Pure slogan as a ‘festering sore’. I was stunned to read in their analysis of Fonterra’s latest food safety disaster, that even Chinese editors see NZ as ‘hostage to a blinkered devotion to laissez-faire market ideology’. Exactly. When will we rise up and demand of Federated Farmers, Fonterra and the Government that we want our agricultural sector to be genuinely green; that we want to be renowned for food of the highest quality; that we expect our agricultural systems to foster and uphold the integrity of soils, plants, animals and people – of Life actually. Were this so, we would farm to a genuinely gold standard and have something to be truly proud of, instead of the present pathetic half-truth. We would be the first to do away with sow crates and battery hens and artificial insemination of queen bees. In trying to look more broadly at the bee crisis we are introducing some of Rudolf Steiner’s thoughts. In the 1920s he warned beekeepers that if they carried on with their existing trend of mechanising everything they would find themselves in trouble in about 80 years’ time. What has happened since then seems to have unfolded as he predicted. Steiner knew how to read the book of nature; he understood the processes of life which cannot be explained by focusing solely on substance. Incidentally, he did us the great service of mapping out methods by which we can learn to read as well. What beekeepers face today is the result of what their predecessors have thought and done. It’s urgent that we learn a better way of thinking. Compared with the subtlety of living processes, our technological mentality and the actions it
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Do read to the end of John Ikerd’s thoughtful article on sustainable economics. He brings some important ideas, not least that the industrial paradigm coupled with market ideology simply cannot meet the social and ecological standards of sustainability. In the past 20 years, USA corporate payrolls have increased four-fold while their taxes have halved. At the same time worker’s taxes have doubled. Are things trending similarly in NZ? Social inequality is a reflection of how we manage common resources like soil and water. Phyllis Tichinin reminds us of the unsustainable mindset which has our agricultural sector – and our society – asking for trouble. As usual Earth Matters 11 offers a fresh look at Life. Explore the stars with the aid of traditional metaphor; read how heartbreak becomes heart disease when forests are razed and trees die off; try to see the world from a bee’s point of view; note how a medical agronomist joins the dots between farms addicted to nitrogen, poor foodquality and sick children; remind yourself that eating cheap food is a lie; inquire what Dow, the chemical giant, is up to in our backyard; find out what ethical banking has in common with pumpkin soup and runny honey – they’re all in this issue! Finally, physicist Arthur Zajonc invites you to learn a meditative method for uniting the whole world within the wholeness of your heartmind. Please introduce your friends and colleagues to Earth Matters and help seed its ideas far and wide. When you gift them a subscription we’ll be happy to send you a free dvd of One Man One Cow One Planet. My life these past months has been exceedingly full so I’m behind schedule with this issue. I hope you’ll find it worth the wait. With best wishes,
If you are a FB user please like and share us. We’re at: https://www.facebook.com/ earthmattersjournal?ref=hl
AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt – marvelous error! – That I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures.
Antonio Machado (1875-1939) Quoted as the opening lines of the film Queen of the Sun
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THE WHOLE ENVIRONMENT OF THE EARTH HAS A VERY GREAT INFLUENCE UPON THE LIFE OF THE BEES. CREDIT: httpsphotos-g.ak.fbcdn.net
love life RUDOLF STEINER
That the life of the hive is extraordinarily wisely organised no one who has ever observed it can deny. Of course we cannot say that bees have the same kind of intelligence as ourselves, for we have the instrument of the brain whereas bees have nothing of the kind; thus the universal wisdom cannot be drawn into their bodies in the same way. But influences coming from the whole surrounding universe do, none the less, work with immense power in the beehive. Indeed one can only understand the life of the bees when one takes into account that the whole environment of the earth has a very great influence upon the life of the colony. And this life rests upon the fact that the bees, much more so than ants and wasps, work so completely together, arranging their whole activity that everything is in harmony. In the life of the bee everything that in other creatures expresses itself as sexual life is suppressed; it is very much driven into the background. For in the case of the bees, reproduction is limited to a few exceptional females – the Queen bees – while in the others the sexual life is more or less suppressed. Yet it is love that is present in the life of sex, and love belongs to the realm of the soul; further, through the fact that certain organs of the body are worked upon by forces of the soul, these organs become able to reveal and express love. Because all this is driven into the
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background in the nature of the bees, and is reserved for the Queen bee alone, what would otherwise comprise the sexual life of the colony is transformed into those activities which the bees develop among themselves. The bees surrender themselves entirely, not to an individual ‘love-life’ but to a life-of-love. The whole hive is permeated with love. The individual bees renounce love in manifold ways and thus develop love throughout the hive as a whole. And this life of love is filled with wisdom. The unconscious wisdom of the reproductive process unfolds in the external activity of the bees. What we experience when love arises in our hearts is found, as it were in the beehive as substance. The whole hive is, in reality, permeated with love. Moreover, bees feed upon just those parts of the plants which are also wholly pervaded by love. The bees suck out their food – which they then turn into honey – exclusively from those parts of the plants that are centred in love; they bring, so to speak, the love-life of the flowers into the hive. And the honey – this life of sprouting, budding love which is in the flowers is there too in the honey. In a wonderful way the bees see to it that we form the right connection between the (airy) soul and the (watery) organs of our bodies. When we add honey to our food, we prepare the soul that it may work rightly within our body (ie) that we breathe properly. Bee-keeping is therefore something that greatly helps to advance our civilisation for it makes people strong. Extract modified by the editor from LECTURE I, IN Rudolf Steiner, Nine Lectures on Bees, Dornach, February 3, 1923 AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
BEES HAVE AN INNATE SENSE OF FORM. BEE SWARM LEFT, HUMAN HEART, RIGHT.
compassion collapse disorder? HORST KORNBERGER
In the past six years, more than 10 million beehives have been wiped out from a mystery-disease known as colony collapse disorder (CCD). Kornberger offers an unusual approach to CCD, suggesting it is the direct outcome of how we think and consequently behave.
Compassion is the basis of all morality.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
Education is not confined to schools. We learn throughout life and most intensely in early childhood. All children are geniuses of learning, as their quick acquisition of language testifies (a theme brilliantly explored by Hungarian logosopher Georg Kuhlewind).1 Their genius is best expressed in their mobility of imagination: children easily turn a block of wood into a house or car or cat or cow. They are not yet paradigm-locked and still have what adults lack - the ability to think in flexible pictures. Studies in divergent thinking have AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
shown that they can easily imagine two hundred uses for a paper clip, while adults struggle with ten. This imaginative ‘wildlife’ of childhood is the playground for the very capacities we need in later life: here imagination secures our choices by allowing us to find five solutions to a problem rather than one. Without imagination there is no creativity and without creativity no change. We remain locked in the box in which we are bred. This applies particularly to mindsets, which need a collective surplus of imagination in order to effectively shift. To develop compassionate ecology the imagination is essential: mature imagination links accurately where childhood fancy relates arbitrarily. This becomes the capacity that Goethe systematically developed into a cognitive tool; the ability to co-imagine with nature rather than conceptualise about her. Naturally, the ability most needed if we are to change our paradigm is most fiercely persecuted. The imagination is marginalised in education, minimised in culture, and constantly attacked in the years before school. Yet it is in these years that much learning occurs: ecology is taught by nature, community by the family, love by the parents and imagination by play. This foundational learning is endangered as technology increasingly substitutes for nature. Today media entertainment replaces family life and computer games substitute for creative play. In consequence the imagination suffers severely: in screen mode children consume the pictures they ought to produce. Just like bees who forget the art of combbuilding when foundations are forced upon them, children forego the production of inner pictures when they are superimposed from outside. This will limit their choices in the future, impede their ways to think differently and stymie the vision they have for themselves and the world. Above all, paucity of imagination will impact on empathy which depends on the ability to vividly picture and thus feel the plight of the world. Undermining this ability, media exposure indirectly assaults compassion itself.
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Today this indirect assault is rapidly becoming a direct attack. Compassion is about real relationships and these have their roots in a child’s bond with the mother or other committed caregiver. The child lives within the mother’s emotional field, partakes in her moods, sentiments, thoughts and in everything she experiences. This first relationship is the matrix for all others. In other words children partake in their mother as we ought to partake in the world. The feeling of oneness with the mother later turns into the feeling of being related to the world: that is to say, the capacity of compassion. In the last two decades technology has begun to interfere with the mother-child relationship. Mothers are increasingly replaced by screens, electronic pets and robotic babysitters. These electronic substitutes are intelligent without warmth, clever without compassion, brilliant without concern. They compute without understanding, move without feeling, speak without meaning. They are present without being there: by faking relationship they prevent it from developing.
is at stake, humanity is in danger and the earth at risk. Genetic manipulation will take this further. The production of perfect bodies and super-bees is almost a given. Like train tracks merging in the distance, the parallels between bees and humanity meet on the nearby horizon of genetic engineering. At this point metaphors disappear. What happens to bees and what happens to human beings will be the same. Media invasion and mothering robots affect capacities. Genetic engineering goes even further. It affects the very instrument on which these capacities depend, namely, the human body, the structure of the brain, the shape and functions of organs. We will live with generic bodies and with brains made by the same mindset that drives bees to extinction. The ‘engineering’ in genetics clearly points to the model of the machine.2 Mechanical thinking incarnates itself in the body and the paradigm becomes flesh and bone, with human beings instrumental in agendas that endanger the world.
The link to bees is obvious. Exchanging authentic for imported queens is, to the hive, what supplanting mothers with machines is to a human being. The former is an attack on what is most essential to bees; the latter an assault on what is most essentially human — our ability to relate, care and empathise with family, friends, fellow human beings, the nature we live in and the world we inhabit.
[Just as beehives are filled wth frames to which bees must conform so do we also] have mind-frames and these limit our culture when reinforced through education thus constraining the possibility of change. By means of technology the current paradigm [or mindframe] extends its influence to the formative years of early childhood. Usurping the imagination, and obstructing the development of compassion, it attacks the very capacities that could bring about transformation. Even the possibility of altering the human body is within reach.
What causes colony collapse will in time cause the breakdown of civilisation and much else. When compassion
This is the direction in which we are heading. Unless we change it. And to change it we need imagination.
The link to bees is obvious.
ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION OF QUEEN BEE. CREDIT: Public Domain SOURCES:
1 Georg Kuhlewind, The Logos-structure of the World, Lindisfarne Books, 1992 2 Craig Holdrege, Genetics and the Manipulation of Life; The Forgotten Factor of Context, Lindisfarne Press, Hudson, New York, 1996
Article used with permission from Global Hive – Bee Crisis and Compassionate Ecology by Horst Kornberger, Integral Arts Press 2012
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AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
a hopeful economics JOHN IKERD
Part two of John Ikerd’s article focuses on four principles of sustainable farming that offer ‘a hopeful economics’ for the long term. Part One was published in Earth Matters 10, April 2013 under the title Reshaping our rural sector – does urban society have a role?
The first principle of sustainable farm economics is the pursuit of enlightened self-interest, which recognises the individual, interpersonal, and spiritual dimensions of self. This principle is reflected in nearly all of the most popular postindustrial approaches to farm management, including holistic resource management, biodynamic farming, permaculture, and organic farming. The three-part goal of holistic management—forms of production, quality of life, and future landscapes—is just a different way of stating the economic, social, and ecological dimensions of sustainability. Biodynamic farming is about feeding the spirit as well as the body. Permaculture is about building a permanent, sustainable agriculture to support a permanent human society. The purpose of true organic farming is to support a permanent society, as much a philosophy of life as a means for making a living. In all these approaches to farm management, economic objectives are balanced with social and ecological objectives. The overall goal is to achieve a higher quality of life through harmony and balance among things economic, ecological, and social, rather than through maximisation or minimisation of anything.
GROWING A FARM WHOLE
ENLIGHTENED SELF-INTEREST! CREDIT: httpgreenbankfarm.biz
AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
The second principle of sustainable farm economics is to take a holistic approach to farm management. Rather than taking the farm apart piece by piece, the farm is considered as an indivisible, interdependent whole. In a sustainable farming operation, the relationships among the various components of the farm are as important as the components themselves. Traditional enterprise analysis tends to ignore, or at least to distort, the contribution of positive relationships to whole-farm economics. When individual crops in rotations are evaluated separately, and when livestock enterprises are evaluated separately from crops, the potential for positive interrelationships among various crop and livestock enterprises is ignored. For example, crop and livestock enterprises can be integrated to manage pests, maintain soil health and fertility, efficiently utilise available labour, and diversify production and market risks.
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STRENGTH THROUGH DIVERSITY
Holistic management requires that the potential impact of changes in one or more enterprises be evaluated in terms of their impact on the economics of the whole-farm system. The various postindustrial approaches to farm management each advocate somewhat different methods of whole-farm management, but they all achieve the same basic end; they consider the farm as a whole rather than as a collection of enterprises. The fundamental question is how best to synthesise a whole farm or how best to put together an effectively integrated whole-farm system, rather than how to choose the best collection of individual enterprises. With holistic management, productivity is achieved through synergy, through building wholes that are greater than the sum of their parts. Another principle of sustainable farm economics is strength through diversity. Biological and economic diversity are essential in building ecological systems that are durable as well as productive. Production, marketing, and financial risks can all be managed through diversity. In managing biological diversity, some important considerations include selecting a combination of crops and livestock enterprises— spatially, sequentially, and temporally—in order to break pest cycles or manage pest populations, maintain soil health and fertility, and efficiently utilise available resources. By relying on diversity rather than off-farm inputs to maintain productivity, farmers also reduce their out-of-pocket variable costs. However, diverse systems typically require more labour and management, which often are committed and thus fixed in nature.. But even if farmers increase their fixed costs, they may reduce their variable costs as they substitute
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labour and management for off-farm inputs. Thus, farmers can significantly reduce their financial risks by relying less on off-farm, purchased inputs and more on on-farm, owned resources, even if their total costs remain essentially unchanged. On such farms, most short-term losses due to adverse weather or markets can be absorbed by accepting a smaller return for labour and management. High-input, high-variable-cost farms are more vulnerable to the risks of economic failure than are low-input, high-fixed-cost farms. In managing economic diversity, the most important consid erations are to select combinations of enterprises that will tend to have offsetting patterns of market prices, so that profits from some enterprises will tend to offset losses from others. Even commodities with unrelated or uncorrelated price patterns add economic diversity. For example, a farm with four equal-sized enterprises with unrelated price patterns of equal variability will have only half as much income variability as a farm of the same size that specialises in only one of the four enterprises. However, diversity is not the same thing as variety. If different enterprises have the same basic production and market patterns, such as corn and soybeans, variety will do relatively little to reduce economic risks. Sustainable farm economics requires effectively integrated, economically diverse farming systems. The final principle of sustainable farm economics is individuality; specifically, giving customers full economic value. Farm profitability simply cannot be sustained by selling undifferentiated farm commodities such as corn, hogs, cattle, or wheat in global markets dominated by large agribusiness corporations. Profits can be sustained only by providing customers with food and fibre products that AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
meet the social and ecological standards of sustainability. Sustainable farming will require a different kind of marketing — one that gives their individual customers more value.
INDIVIDUALITY NOT STANDARDISATION CREDIT: Public Domain
are fundamentally different from the products they find in the supermarkets. This is perhaps the most difficult of sustainable farm economics, because it is the biggest stretch from traditional farm management. However, corporatisation of agriculture has resulted in an agricultural sector in which individual farmers will not be able to compete, even if they are competitive in terms of price and quality. The corporations have sufficient power in the marketplace to deny market access to farmers who are not willing to sign comprehensive production contracts and settle for the role of landlord or contract laborer. Competing in commodity markets is no longer a matter of efficiency but rather of market power. Food corporations must mass-produce and mass-market food products in order to achieve the economies of scale nec essary to be competitive in today’s global food system. As a consequence, most agricultural products in the supermarket today were selected far more for their adaptability to machine harvesting, efficient processing, transportability, and shelf life than for taste, tenderness, or nutrition. In addition, massproduced foods must be targeted to the most common consumer tastes. The economic savings derived from mass production come from standardisation, not from variety. But we don’t all have the same-tastes and preferences, and thus we value different food items differently. Sustainable farmers must give more consumers more of the things they value most rather than try to compete on cost or convenience. Farmers who sell directly to customers in local markets have an opportunity to select crop varieties or livestock breeds for superiority in taste, tenderness, healthfulness, and nutrition rather than handling, transportation, and shelf life. They can sell products harvested at their peak quality and delivered fresh to local customers. Such advantages simply cannot be duplicated by industrial production systems, thus giving local farmers a sustainable market advantage. Equally importantly, sustainable fanners can market their products based on their commitment to social responsibility and ecological integrity. Many consumers really do care where their food comes from, how farmers treat the land and the animals that provide the food products, and whether or not farmers are committed to making the world a better place. Study after study has shown that many people will pay a premium for food produced in ways they consider more sustainable. Industrial organisations may make claims of sustainability, but the industrial paradigm simply cannot AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
Perhaps the greatest challenge of economic sustainability for farmers is also its greatest potential reward. In order to sustain the profitability of farming, farmers must develop meaningful relationships with their customers. In order to sustain such relationships, farmers and their customers must know and trust each other. They must be committed to working together for their mutual good. Such relationships need not be limited to local residents, but farmers must view their customers as real people rather than as impersonal markets. A person can have a personal relationship with another person halfway around the world, but an agribusiness corporation can’t have a personal relationship with anyone. A corporation is not a person. Personal relationships cannot be mass produced, so they can’t be industrialised. But perhaps more importantly, the
KNOW YOUR FARMER CREDIT: httpemergingterrain.org
relationship between farmers and their customers can be one of the most important aspects of finding a more desirable quality of life through farming. And by sharing their commitment to stewardship of the natural environment, farmers and their customers can help each other to lead more purposeful and meaningful lives. This kind of farm economics is different from the economics I taught to farmers in the 1970s and 1980s, but this kind of economics makes a lot more sense. It may require more work and certainly a lot more thinking, but it is a better way to farm and to live. There is no guarantee that this kind of farm economics will work for any given farmer or even for farmers in general. But the economics of sustainability provides a lot more hope for the future of farming than does the economics of industrialisation. Hope is not the expectation that something will succeed or even that the odds of success are in your favour. Hope simply means that something better is possible. I know sustainable farming is possible and I know it would be better, even if the odds are against it. In the possibility of sustainability, there is hope. The farm economics of sustainability is a hopeful economics. John Ikerd is professor emiritus of agricultural economics at the University of Missouri. http://www.johnikerd.com Article extract from a lecture entitled Economics of Sustainable Farming, published in Ikerd’s book Crisis and Opportunity, Sustainability in American Agriculture. University of Nebraska, 2008.
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99.7% OF ALL OUR FOOD COMES DIRECTLY FROM THE SOIL. CREDIT: Public Domain
smart farming cultivating a sense of humus PHYLLIS TICHININ
To dam or not to dam … that is the question. The Hawkes Bay Regional Council assures us that if the Makaroro dam is built, Ruataniwha Plains farmers will shift to ‘best farming practices’ and the environment and the economy will benefit. What are these better practices which they say the top 20% of farmers have adopted? Things get squirrely fast when you ask farming experts to define ‘best farming practice’. For dairying you hear things like, ‘Fence off the streams, be sustainable.’ For sheep and beef they tend to say, ‘Try to avoid worm drench-resistance’ or ‘keep your grass covers higher.’ For cropping it’s along the lines of, ‘reduce tillage and control spray drift.’ So is this the best we’re capable of? It’s pretty limp-wristed. Are these ‘best practices’ actually delivering the rich soils, clean water and tasty, safe food that agriculture is meant to be about? No, they aren’t. Status quo agriculture doesn’t know how to farm to regenerate our environment and be the basis of a healthy, caring civilisation. How have we lost the plot with growing our food?
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The regional council assumes that with dam water available Central Hawkes Bay farmers will become model farmers and their productivity will increase enough to enable them to afford the new water charges. Given the farming intensification and increased mortgages that would be needed, the result will be more of what is happening on farms now…. overuse of chemicals, soil collapse, water pollution, mortgage bondage and crap produce. In one breath we’re saying NZ farmers are the best in the world and in the next everyone acknowledges that the majority of farmers can lift their game substantially. Why haven’t they done that already, given we’ve been on this sustainability/smart farming jag for well over a decade? It’s because the fertiliser cooperatives’ hearts just aren’t in it, or rather their wallets are very much in it staying the way it is. So they continue to push high-margin fertilisers like urea and super phosphate which we know to be polluting, unbalanced and damaging to beneficial soil microbes. Using these petroleum-dependent fertilisers also results in food that has no flavour, is low in minerals, carries heavy metals and is contaminated with pesticides. But it makes for great fertiliser sales figures and good retirement packages … it just happens to occur at the expense of our farm productivity, our environment and our health. So a handful of executives benefit financially while we collectively go down the gurgler. And everybody’s OK with this? It is better biological farming practice, not water in itself that will transform our region and our economy. We need the gold standard of regenerative farming – growing humus – to reduce water needs, to use less petrochemical fertilisers and pesticides and to produce food that truly nourishes and heals. Good farming practice is not simply planting up stream banks, switching drenches, using nitrogen inhibitors to kill soil microbes and no-till programs. AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
The solution is fairly simple. First, the major fertiliser company executives need to be reminded that they run cooperatives, charged with safeguarding farmer shareholders’ interests, the most important of which is productive soils based on the growth of humus on their farms. They need to stop pushing the use of neat urea and phosphate since that burns up soil carbon/humus while creating nitrate leachate and poisoning animals. Second, ag salesmen, consultants and academics need to be sent in for ‘regrooving.’ Their limited, chemical view of agricultural soil management needs to be brought into the 21st century. The cutting edge of agriculture innovation lies in the synergies of calcium and trace elements helping diverse microbiology drive soil humus growth and nutrient dense food production. Until the cadre of agricultural scientists understand that they’re advocating outdated linear science and a chemical farming paradigm that is killing us, they’re simply a handbrake on progress. Get with the program or get off the bus. Third, to really shift gear quickly, the best thing might be to increase the price of lime by at least ten times from $20 to $200 a tonne. Why do that when the calcium in our cheap lime keeps soil microbes healthy and makes needed trace elements available? Because then lime costs enough for there to be an adequate margin tacked on. How can you encourage salesmen to sell such a crucial fertility product if there’s no margin in it for their salaries? Market forces rule, eh?
Until agricultural scientists understand that their chemical farming paradigm is killing us, they’re simply a handbrake on progress. What we need to get our heads around is that we can farm very productively on a fraction of the inputs and gadgets that fuel the pay and dividend packets of our agricultural mafia. Yes, a mafia – an income protection racket that keeps farmers on the treadmill of increasing fertiliser, pesticide, antibiotic, worm drench, calfmeal and bull hormone use. Create a problem by ignoring Mother Nature and then you can sell a costly product to band-aid the problem, and then another to compensate for the problem that creates, and then…. It doesn’t have to be this way as farmers employing biological soil principles in Hawkes Bay are finding to their delight and relief. It is possible for dairies to use 50% less urea, grow more grass and make 25% more profit. It is possible to grow more fruit and vegetables of better flavour and better shelf life but with fewer pesticides while improving soil condition. But it requires a paradigm shift from our current simple, chemical input, view of farming. The entire industry needs to realise that agriculture is based on the marvellous complexity of soil microbes. This wonderfully generous population governs all aspects of our ecosystem – the carbon cycle, water quality, plant growth, the digestion of everything and the very existence of life. It’s a powerful community worth befriending and honouring, as best we can. AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
So what’s the difference between average Central Hawkes Bay farming and real best practice smart microbe farming? What needs to shift? Of course there’s more science driven technique behind it than this, but here’s the basics. Farmers need to: • Apply humated lime and trace elements to get minerals better balanced and available to their plants. Drive the farm with calcium. • Love their soil microbes. Make microbe care and feeding their top priority in farming because microbes run the show. • Reduce fertiliser use. Over fertilising harms soil microbes, burns up humus and makes the pest problems worse. • Join ‘Pestanon’ and kick the pesticide addiction. Best practice means learning how soil actually works, changing to microbe friendly farm inputs, focusing on growing healthy roots and embracing direct responsibility to create mineral dense food that nourishes and heals instead of maiming. Humus – dark, rich, stable soil carbon – enhances nutrient availability, keeps soils soft and absorbent and stores surprising amounts of water. For every 1% increase in soil humus, an extra 17 litres of water can be stored in each square metre of farm land. This is 168,000 additional litres of water per hectare or approximately one and a half acre inches of water. CHB dairies were able to increase their soil carbon content on average 0.75% after only 14 months on a biological program. Some of those farms increased their soil carbon by as much as 3 – 4% in that time. Within a decade CHB dairy farms could be holding more than an acre foot of additional water in their soils. It is estimated that every litre of milk requires 5 L of water to produce it. Given how precious water is we have to do better and humus creation is the way. The best and the cheapest form of water storage for agriculture is in the soil itself, through humus. We have the understanding, and opportunity to intelligently protect and actually regenerate the soil without exploitation, while improving human health. The pressure for change must come from us as consumers. We dictate farm practices by how we spend our dollars on food. NZ farming does respond to pressure from foreign markets. They will also respond to pressure from NZers. Cancer is indisputably associated with pesticide use. The more humus in the soil the fewer pest problems a farmer has, the less pesticide used. The way we do agriculture determines the quality of our environment and the quality of our food as well as our rate of illness. It’s all connected…the nourishment and health of our soil microbes, the nutrient value of our food and in turn our wellness, atmospheric CO2 levels, water use, petrochemical use, prescription use, and our mental health. All of these major planetary issues revolve around the wellbeing of soil microbes and humus formation. We ignore them at our peril.
Based in Hawkes Bay, Phyllis Tichinin is a farm consultant and manager of True Health Ltd. She can be contacted on 027 465 1906
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CREDIT: httpwww.clipartillustration.com
trapped farmers can biodynamic out ELISABETH ALINGTON
Most farmers do what they do because they love producing food to feed the world. They feel they are doing the right thing for people and the planet. But increasingly, they find themselves trapped in a vice-like grip; a ‘Catch-22’ that dominates agrarian cultures all over the world. Maria Rodale1, author of Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, says that although we’ve been told there’s a global food shortage the reality is the world has too much food. This means, the more farmers produce, the more likely there’s a product glut – especially if they’re growing commodity crops like corn and soybeans and yes, milk – and when the price falls, as it invariably does, they’re in trouble. Rodale points out that the only people making money out of this sequence of events are the chemical companies. They’re the ones promoting the message that we need to grow more food to feed the world. Yet international research clearly shows that world famine is not the result of agricultural causes – famine is a political tool. So how did we end up being such ‘efficient’ producers of not enough food? After World War II, as munitions companies ran short of markets for bombs they started to build tractors. As the pace of modern agriculture accelerated, fuelled by massive inputs
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from industry, farmers were pressured to trade-in their draft horses for tractors. Ever since then a complex web of agrochemical corporations has been progressively claiming the rural input sector; seizing control of farmers’ livelihoods both vertically (eg) chemical – seed – fertiliser – phamaceutical (livestock consumption of antibiotics in the USA is eight times higher than human use) and horizontally, by way of mergers, takeovers, joint ventures and so forth. Today, the top ten trans-national corporations, including Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, BASF and Dow, control 85% of the global agrichemical market; more than 50% of the global seed market; and over 55% of the animal pharmaceutical market. Collectively they earn something like $US80 billion annually … most of it from farmers. Farmers are captured every time they spend. Even new ideas have a price as the hierarchical system of modern agricultural research also makes them recipients rather than co-participants. In bygone days, farmers would trade information and exchange ideas over the back fence or in the pub. Now, many rely on company reps or fee-charging technical advisors. In addition, many young farmers are educated at tertiary institutes subsidised by various TNCs. This shifting of the knowledge base has been a key mechanism for aiding ‘surplus extraction’ from farm accounts into TNC coffers. 2 As farms become ‘addicted’ to a vast array of inputs, farmers become enslaved to a system from which it is increasingly hard to break free. Then when retailers and consumers, also seduced by the same corporate advertising, demand food of a certain size, appearance and availability, they too increase the systemic pressure on growers to ‘buy-in’ to the need for more amendments. With each successive consolidation within the ranks of the TNCs, the noose around our farmers’ necks gets tighter. And urban people are part of this if, every time we shop, our purchases exacerbate the situation. AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
Given the sophisticated level of control and ownership – now brazenly in our faces since TNCs began suing farmers for patent rights – it’s not surprising that biodynamic-organic farming methods gain little traction. Corporate profitability, relying on ownership of agricultural knowledge, practice and performance has to deny the validity of anything that could foster farmers’ independence if it is to keep its shareholders happy. Yet because biodynamic farmers rely upon their own knowledge, observation, experience and intuition – increasingly backed by independent, peer-reviewed science – and because they can make their own fertility amendments, they retain a means of slipping the corporate collar.
food containing properly structured proteins and complex carbohydrates.
Instead of chemical fertilisers, biodynamic farmers can rely on solar chemistry, rockdusts and microbial activity; instead of pharmaceuticals they can employ nature’s pharmacopoeia; instead of someone else’s costly recommendation they self educate then seek their own and one another’s wise counsel. With their management decisions based on how to enhance life processes, they’re less inclined to follow some company-rep’s recipe calling for costly inputs solely on the basis of soil chemistry.
Biodynamic methods have proven themselves over and again with economic stability and farm resilience high on the list of outcomes. Such resilience was particularly evident to many Australian biodynamic farmers in the last year when extreme floods followed hard on the heels of severe drought; their farms ‘bounced back’ more rapidly than conventionally managed properties.
Modern biodynamic-organic farmers can’t afford to indulge the dreamscapes of corporate sentiment; they have to be hyper-vigilant about what’s happening around them. They may interpret things a bit differently from their neighbours but at the end of the day they have to survive in the same market. Yet their farms are definitely responding to the biodynamic method and it’s measurable. As a result of process- rather than substance-oriented management, biodynamic farms have significantly higher soil enzyme activity. We all know enzymes are needed for digestion and in soils they play a similar role for plants. Enzymes split soil nutrients off from parent materials and make them plant-available. Stabilised in the soil matrix, enzymes form complexes with humus and clay, increasing the rate at which plant residues decompose before releasing plant available nutrients. They are essential for plant nourishment and for their end product, that is,
Enzymes are indicators of Microbial functions.
Long-term studies in Switzerland3 have shown that although nutrient input in the biodynamic and organic systems might be as much as 50% lower than in the conventional systems, the crop yields were only 20% lower on average. Coupled with the reduced energy consumption that it took to achieve those yields, it is clear the biodynamic system was producing more efficiently than the others. This productive edge can be attributed amongst other factors to improved enzyme activity.
Throughout all this, there runs a thread of responsibility that only consumers can weave. We must weigh up what it’s worth to us to have farmers free to choose to grow our food sustainably. What’s it worth to have soils sequestering carbon; waterways planted up and properly maintained; quality of life for livestock; diverse landscapes; as well as biocide-free food on our table? The power to bring about these far-reaching changes lies within our wallets. In time we can establish land trusts and co-operative farming ventures with which to support our farmers and growers. For now we can make a point of buying certified organic-biodynamic food. And if we can’t get enough then perhaps we have to speak up for the soil at our Regional Councils? Proposals to have food labels distinguish what has been ‘sustainably grown’ seem superfluous. We already have the organic and biodynamic certification labels – Biogro, Demeter etc – that tick the big S. What we need is more product to stick them on so they’ll dominate the supply chain – plus plenty of demand. This way, each time we shop we oppose the corporate agenda. We free farmers to cooperate with the dynamic biosphere, answerable not to the drumbeat of financiers but to the heartbeat of Life.
SOURCES
D2 – Biodynamic M – Mineral
O2 – Organic N – Nil treatment/Control
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1. httpwww.thekathleenshow.com Maria Rodale is author of five books, including her most recent Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe 2011, Rodale Books. 2. Tony Weis. The Global Food Economy; the battle for the future of farming. 2007, Fernwood Publishing. 3. Paul Mäder, Andreas Fliessbach, (FiBL) David Dubois, Lucie Gunst (FAL) Organic Farming enhances soil fertility and biodiversity. Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) 2000.
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of star… IN THE GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES THE CONSTELLATION VIRGO
According to Greek mythology, Hercules paid Atlas a visit in order to find out how to get to the garden of the Hesperides where he was to obtain a branch from the sacred tree of the Golden Apples. Having tricked Atlas into retrieving the branch for him, and himself escaping with it, Hercules thus succeeded in the eleventh of his twelve labours. The Hesperides are the daughters of Atlas – those forces which carry the heavens – and of Hesperis, the all-knowing Night. We could also say that the sacred Garden is the Cosmos itself, in the middle of which stands the Tree of Life (ie) life’s unceasing source. All ancient star wisdom described Virgo as representing the Womb of cosmic and earthly existence. Reclining on one side – which makes her the second largest constellation in the heavens – and containing a rich cluster of galaxies including our nearest major galaxy, the ancient portrayal seems very apt. Hercules’ penetration to this region of the cosmos and his attainment of a branch of the Tree of the Golden Apples represents a spiritual conquest of the Virgin. In other words, he has encountered the divine foundation of all creation and birth.
What meaning do the palm frond and wheat hold? The palm branch is an ancient symbol of rejoicing, triumph and glorification. In ancient Egypt a palm branch was used to mark the passage of years – notches were carved onto a branch stripped of leaves. The palm hieroglyphic later became a symbol for words such as ‘year’, ‘time’ or ‘season’ while the wheat clearly links the constellation to the season of agricultural harvest with its accompanying mood of expectation. During our time and since the classical era, the Sun’s passage through the constellations of Virgo and Pisces mark the equinodal points where the celestial equator intersects with the ecliptic. For us, in the Southern hemisphere, this means Virgo plays hostess to the spring equinox.
Being human, Hercules was unable to enter the sacred garden himself which is why Atlas had to do it for him. In order to have got this far, however, Hercules has had to undergo an intense period of inner development and spiritual catharsis. Later, having had a taste of the cosmic wellspring of Life, there will remain for him one last riddle to overcome – Death itself. The myth continues with Hercules’ traverse of Libra – the altar between life and death – followed by his descent into Hades, through the constellation of Scorpion which completes his twelfth and final labour. The only female figure in the zodiac, Virgo is depicted as a woman holding a stalk of wheat in her left hand, marked by the bright star Spica, (Latin, ear of grain) and a palm frond in her right. In Latin virgo means self-contained or wholeunto-oneself. Indeed, this constellation has been associated with many feminine myths; for the Babylonians she was Ishtar; to the Egyptians she was Isis; the Greeks saw her as Persephone, daughter of Demeter while the Romans revered her as Ceres. In India Virgo was Kauni, mother of the great god Krishna. Essentially, the Virgo myth is less about a woman who is ‘a virgin’ than about what it means to be wholly Woman.
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TO FIND VIRGO IN THE NIGHT SKY, LOOK NORTH ON A MID-WINTER’S EVENING AND FIND THE BRIGHT STAR SPICA MARKING THE WHEAT HELD IN HER LEFT HAND. HER FEET ARE NEXT TO LIBRA. CREDIT: Public Domain
SOURCES:
Sucher, W.O. Isis Sophia an outline of a new star wisdom. Floris Books 1974 http://www.heavens-above.com http://www.gods-and-monsters.com http://www.constellation-guide.com
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…and flower TREES FOR PUBLIC HEALTH
Several recent studies have identified that our health is more related to nature than we think. Although it seems logical that a relationship exists between the natural environment and improved health outcomes, the fact hasn’t been easy to prove. For practical reasons, most investigations up to now have been observational, cross-sectional studies. But in the present case, a nature experiment, capable of providing stronger evidence of causality, was used to test whether a major change in the immediate natural environment had any effect on the local population. It was found that the loss of 100 million trees to the emerald ash borer – an invasive pest throughout the USA — has indeed
influenced mortality outcomes related to cardiovascular and lower-respiratory diseases. Two fixed-effects regression models were used to estimate the relationship between emerald ash borer presence and county-level mortality from 1990 to 2007 in 15 U.S. states, while controlling for a wide range of demographic covariates. Data were collected from 1990 to 2007, and the analyses were conducted in 2011 and 2012. The results showed an increase in mortality related to cardiovascular and lower-respiratory-tract illness in counties infested with the emerald ash borer. The magnitude of this effect was greater as infestation progressed and in counties with above-average median household income. Across the 15 states in the study area, the borer was associated with an additional 6113 deaths related to illness of the lower respiratory system, and 15,080 cardiovascular-related deaths. The study concludes that loss of trees to the emerald ash borer increased mortality related to cardiovascular and lower-respiratory-tract illness. This finding adds to the growing evidence that the natural environment provides major public health benefits.
IMAGE: Mark Hirsch.
SCOURCE:
Donovan, Geoffrey H et al. The Relationship Between Trees and Human Health. American Journal of Preventive Medicine Vol 44, Iss 2 pp 139-145, February 2013
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zoo EYES AND EARS ARE FOR WALKING
ANDREAS SUCHANTKE
Do insects possess a genuine threefold structure [head, thorax, abdomen] as we know in mammals and human beings? In insects we find limb promordia on the head, recognisable as such by the fact that they are arranged in pairs and move by means of joints as feelers and as ‘chewing limbs’. The feelers are particularly interesting. In many cases they will be found to have kept their original limbnature. This is especially clear in ants which use them to exchange tactile vibrations, and even to milk aphids (ie) by stimulating them to excrete a sugar-rich substance. In insect bodies, limbs become sense organs. That is, they combine the related functions of perception and movement in one structure. Crickets hear with the tympanic organs located on their long hindlegs; moths, as recent studies have shown, hear with their wings; houseflies taste with the soles of their feet etc.
POLARITY OF EYE STRUCTURE IN THE COMPOUND EYE (SCHEMATIC) OF INSECTS, RAYING OUT FROM THE HEAD (LEFT}; AND THE ‘HOLLOW,’ BALL-SHAPED EYE, EMBEDDED IN THE HEAD OF A MARINE WORM. (RIGHT). (AFTER KAESTNER.)
Completely different from the vertebrates (and many groups of invertebrates) is also the remarkable, highly differentiated structure of the eyes. They do not take the form of spheres set into the head, as in vertebrates and humans. The eyes of a large dragonfly, which consist of large numbers of so-called ommatidia – up to 28,000 in each eye – surround the whole head, enabling all-round vision. This vision is accompanied by constant head movements and at any moment can propel the insect into instant flight when it sights prey, a rival or a female; perception and movement are one. Through the multifaceted subdivision of the field of vision as a result of the integrated rows of individual eyes, the tiniest movements can be registered. Added to this is an ability to magnify time. This is familiar to anyone who has tried to catch flies by hand. To have any hope of success one must approach the fly so slowly that it does not notice the movement, and then pounce suddenly; but even then one is usually much too slow. To describe such
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a reaction by saying that seeing stimulates movement is to formulate things too dualistically, Here seeing is movement. It can be so compulsive that an insect, once having set its course for a light source, will hold it unflinchingly and be literally ‘sucked’ into it. Bees are different in this respect in that they can fly from a newly found food source straight back to the hive, even though their outward flight took a different route. It would seem that insects do not live ‘in themselves’ but extend into their surroundings. This means that they are in reality much larger than the tiny physical speck of a creature that our eyes take in. The dragonfly is one with the realm of air and light in which it lives, the bee with its realm of scent and colour, the butterfly with the play of light and shade in the world of colour it inhabits. This is borne out by the peripheral quality of their sense organs, not just their wraparound eyes, but also their sensitised legs – their feelers. In every respect, insects are sensory-limb beings. This constitutes an interesting parallel to the relation of human sense perception to movement—to the microkinesic movements made in response to auditory sensations, and to the way the process of seeing involves active participation in what is seen. The distinction that becomes apparent is instructive. In listening to music or speech, human beings make sympathetic movements; in seeing, we unconsciously impute movement to the percept, where there actually is none. We experience (in the case of the optical illusion) a movement which the object itself does not carry out, but which an aspect of our own nature – our active will – engenders in it. We are in the object, and remain simultaneously in ourselves. Being one - in our will - with the object is precisely what enables us to be consciously aware of it in the other aspect of our self (ie) in our thinking and feeling. The insect, however, is pure perception, submerged in total identification with the percept. It is, to repeat, the purest of peripherally oriented creatures. Paradoxical as it may seem, its inside is its surroundings into which it completely dissolves and from which it receives a deep formative imprint.
BEE: A FEMALE FORAGER WITH A CARGO OF POLLEN ON HER REAR LEGS. SOURCE
Reprinted from Metamorphosis, Evolution in Action by Andreas Suchantke. Adonis Press 2009
Andreas Suchantke, Zoologist, brings a lifetime of holistic biological research to the question of the development and evolution of plants and animals. AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
CREDIT: Public Domain
clean, green 100% not DR ARDEN ANDERSON
life of a NZ dairy cow today is 2.5 lactations. It used to be 8-10. (In the USA its 1.4) We’re burning the cows out at the expense of their health and our health just to make money for the prescription-drug mafia.* Feeding cows maize silage is an excuse to use more GMOs, more Roundup, more veterinary drugs … therefore more illness in humans so more prescription drugs. All of which amounts to more dollars in the coffers of the corporates controlling the pharmaceuticals and agricultural inputs. If the international community gets wind of just how bad your agriculture is here you’ll lose your markets. Only through urban pressure on Parliament will you make the necessary changes in your environment."
"Your problem is you are importing American pollution and you have probably surpassed the USA in polluting your environment. It’s a significant issue the amount of Nitrogen you’re dumping into your environment. It’s a flat lie that it’s safe and that you need it. This is not about production. Nitrogen perpetuates the whole drug industry – agronomic health, vet health, human health, tourism. The heavy doses of nitrogen create significant inflammatory stress in the cows which leads to more saturated fats in the system. Growing high-nitrogen grass is not the same as high-protein grass. It’s high nitrogen but very low in energy. So you have to supplement with imported soy meal, distillers grains, palm kernel meal, maize silage all of which is garbage. The average AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
*The United States has only five percent of the world’s population, yet it consumes over 50 percent of all the world’s pharmaceutical drugs.
SOURCE:
Dr. Anderson quoted verbatim in notes taken by the editor from a public workshop, Auckland, Feb 2013.
Dr Arden Anderson is a straight-talker. As a doctor he will use whatever tools are available to help people get well. “I combine the best of all worlds. If you die because I didn’t give you an antibiotic then I can’t really help you with your diet”. As an agronomist he’s equally pragmatic about New Zealand’s agricultural practices.
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via campesina determined to defend family farming in europe IN 2012 ECVC ORGANISED A EUROPEAN-WIDE MARCH TO BRUSSELS ENTITLED "GOOD FOOD GOOD FARMING MARCH". CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS FROM EUROPEAN COUNTRIES JOINED THE MARCH BY BIKE, ON FOOT AND BY TRACTOR CALLING FOR FAIR PRICES FOR FARMERS AND CONSUMERS, A TRUE RESPECT OF THE ENVIRONMENT, AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY TO BRING ABOUT GOOD FOOD AND GOOD FARMING EVERYWHERE AND FOR EVERYONE. PHOTO, viacampesina.org
A European association of small-farmers that brings together 27 farming bodies from 17 countries across Europe, including outside the EU, held its annual General Assembly in the Canary Islands, Spain in April 2013. One of the Outermost Regions of the European Union, it is not only where Rafael Hernandez, president of Coag Canarias and outgoing member of the management team, grows his crops but also where Mario Cabrera Gonzales, President of the Government of the Island of Fuerteventura, has declared his intention to develop food sovereignty by promoting local production and autonomy. This is a goal shared by ECVC, (European Co-ordination Via Campesina) and represents a real challenge at a time when the CAP, currently under reform, has come under attack from agribusiness and defenders of major European farming who are opposed to any change. The CAP offers little hope to the organisations represented by ECVC despite their considerable contribution to the institutional debate, aimed at defending small and medium-scale farmers, the majority of whom are based in the EU. Poverty and unemployment is exacting a rising toll on citizens as a result of the European crisis, which starkly demonstrates the limits of the liberal dogma at work. We must stop destroying farming jobs and instead enable more rural businesses. Achieving access to quality food for all in Europe requires a large number of farms, sustainable production methods and a physical shift in food supply chains. Rather than long speeches and matters of protocol, a series of lively debates cemented the following strategic axes for the organisation’s activities over the year ahead: • Promoting Agroecology - which values farmers’ specialist knowledge and contains far more than agronomic
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techniques - by ensuring that the term is not taken over and robbed of its social aspects. • Strengthening the Food Sovereignty movement (composed of many different organisations) that works with small-farmers’ organisations to change food supply systems and release them from the stranglehold of the agro-industrial food model that is not only harmful to our health and the environment but threatens the livelihoods of farmers and the vitality of rural areas. This touches on a number of policy aspects, including ‘free’ trade agreements which undermine the viability of familybased producers. • Offering support to small- and medium-farmers on all levels, in particular by combating land grabs – which are also affecting Europe – and supporting rules and regulations that are accessible to small structures. Another step forward will be the year for Family Farming, which the UN has declared for 2014, when European Coordination Via Campesina will champion the values and demands of millions of small-farmers who are Family Farming. "We must show that it is we, the farmers, who feed our fellow citizens - and we have the right to receive fair prices and a decent income". Javier Sanchez, ECVC.
ECVC is the European arm of Via Campesina, an international movement which coordinates organisations of small and middle-scale producers, agricultural workers, rural women, and indigenous communities from Asia, Africa, America, and Europe. AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
cheap food – eating the lie. VANDANA SHIVA
Industrial food is ‘cheap’ not because it is efficient, in terms of resources and energy, but because it externalises all costs. Globalised, industrialised food is not cheap: it is too costly for the Earth, for the farmers, for our health. The Earth can no longer carry the burden of ground-water mining, pesticide pollution, disappearance of species and destabilisation of the climate. Farmers can no longer carry the burden of debt which is inevitable in industrial farming with its high costs of production. The suicides of 25,000 farmers in India in a short span of six years are a symptom of the deep crisis in the dominant model of farming and food production. This system is denying the right of food and health to both the one billion who are hungry and the one billion who suffer from obesity. It is incapable of producing safe,
culturally appropriate, tasty, quality food. And it is incapable of producing enough food for all because it is wasteful of land, water and energy. Industrial agriculture uses ten times more energy than it produces. It is thus ten times less efficient. Even the labour efficiency is a myth, since all the researchers, pesticide producers, genetic engineers, truck drivers and soldiers engaged in wars over oil are part of the industrial food production system. If all the people involved in nonsustainable food production were counted, including those engaged in production of destructive toxic inputs, the labour efficiency of industrial food would be lower than that of ecological food. The fact that industrial food is ‘cheap’ is not because it is efficient, either in terms of resource or energy efficiency. It is cheap because it externalises all costs – the wars, the diseases, the environmental destruction, the cultural decay, the social disintegration – and it is supported by $400 billion in subsidies – transport subsidies, environmental subsidies and the largest subsidy of all, that paid through people’s lives
CREDIT: httpgenerationfoodproject.org
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what is dow doing in our backyard?
theory of inheritance advanced the notion that hereditary characters were contained in an immutable ‘plasm’ transmitted unchanged from parent to offspring". I am sure there are many readers more qualified than me to make an assessment of what Dow may be considering at this site, however sounds to me like genetic engineering!
Life after Crafar - Dairy farms still being sold to offshore interests
Dow AgroSciences BV has received approval for the acquisition of the rights or interests in 25.7% of the shares of Barenbrug Holdings BV which owns or controls a freehold interest in approximately 227.8 hectares of land at Canterbury.
Southern Pastures Limited Partnership Swedish Public (99%) and New Zealand Public (1 %) received approval to purchase a freehold interest in approximately 3,205 hectares of land comprised in up to eight dairy farms located in the Waikato region.
According to the Overseas Investment Office, "The proposed overseas investment in New Zealand results from a much larger transaction that the Applicant is undertaking globally, involving assets in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, China, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Romania, Belgium, Poland and Denmark.
The Overseas Investment Office states: "The Applicant is acquiring the properties to run as commercial dairy farms. The Applicant intends to increase sustainable production and develop the farming operations through additional capital expenditure, sound farming practices and good management".
The objects of the Applicant are to discover, develop, produce and sell products and services for the agricultural industry, with an emphasis on chemically, biologically or genetically derived products for crop protection, non-crop pest control and plant protection and enzymes, polymers, food, feed, fibre and other products that are produced from micro-organisms, plants or animals". This transaction appears to be part of a much larger strategic alliance between Dow AgroSciences and Barenburg, In 2012 DowAgroSciences bought a minority stake in Barenburg. According to the legal firm Cleary Gottlieb who advised Dow on the anti-trust aspects relating to this acquisition: "Dow AgroSciences and The Royal Barenbrug Group will build a global strategic relationship for the development and commercialisation of advanced germplasm in forage seeds." "The Royal Barenbrug Group is a family-owned business, whose core activities are plant breeding, grass seed production and international marketing of seed for turf and forage grasses and legumes. With 25 branches in 16 countries on six continents, Barenbrug has been one of the leading grass seed businesses in the world for over 100 years. Dow AgroSciences is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company and had annual global sales of $US5.7 billion in 2011. Based in Indianapolis, Dow AgroSciences develops leading-edge crop protection and plant biotechnology solutions". So what is ‘advanced germplasm’? According to Wikipedia, "a germplasm is a collection of genetic resources for an organism. For plants, the germplasm may be stored as a seed collection or, for trees, in a nursery". Sounds a bit suspicious? According to www.encyclo.co.uk, it is "the genetic material, especially its specific molecular and chemical constitution that compromises the inherited qualities of an organism". That sounds more worrying? This source goes on to say germplasm is "often synonymous with ‘genetic material’ it is the name given to seed or other material from which plants are propagated. An early
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Rob O’Neil in the New Zealand Herald (10/3/13) reported further details relating to this transaction. “A new Swedish property fund quietly invested about $108 million in Australian and New Zealand rural land in 2012, according to its Annual Report, which also reveals the price it paid for eight dairy farms near Tokoroa sold by Forbes rich-lister Graeme Hart after being on the market for three years. Forsta AP-fonden (AP1), which manages $A35 billion ($NZ43b) in assets, revealed in its Annual Report that it had invested 311 million Swedish krona ($58m) in Australian agriculture through its First Australian Farmland Fund. It said that in 2012, AP1 invested in 15 rural properties in Australia and mostly dairy or cropping farms in New Zealand. "In December last year (2012), the New Zealand Overseas Investment Office (OIO) granted its consent for Southern Pastures Limited Partnership, registered in March and 99% owned by AP1, to acquire a freehold interest in eight Waikato dairy farms totalling 3,205 hectares. The vendor was Hart companies Carter Holt Harvey HBU and Rank Group Property Investments. The OlO’s approval notice kept the price paid for the farms confidential, but according to API’s report it invested 316 million krona ($59,5m) for the New Zealand properties. That indicates the farms were sold for under $19,000 per hectare, less than half the average price paid ($39,976 per hectare) for dairy farms in the Waikato last year (2012). The farms were part of a bundle of 29 farms converted from forestry and put on the market in 2009. Media reports indicate there was still room to improve production on some of the farms and to complete their conversion. The investments highlight a wave of new corporate activity in farm land as global institutions increase their allocation to alternative assets during periods of volatile market returns". SOURCE:
The above material courtesy of FCW 132, May 2013.
Campaign Aagainst Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) publishes a regular analysis of the decisions of the Overseas Investment Office in Foreign Control Watchdog. AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
rural women winners
DIANE COLEMAN GROWS EVERYTHING IN HER PLANT NURSERY FROM SEED, SPENDING UP TO TWO WEEKS A YEAR COLLECTING SEED FROM AROUND WAIKATO AND BAY OF PLENTY. PICTURE: Sheryl Brown http://www.fwplus.co.nz
A Rotorua nursery woman is the recipient of the top award given by Rural Women NZ.
sponsored by Fly Buys Ltd. Angela Payne runs Agri-lab CoProducts Ltd.
Diane Coleman has won the RWNZ Enterprising Rural Women Award 2013 announced in Christchurch on Thursday night.
Utilising animal parts that previously may have ended up in the offal-pit, the company specialises in placenta, glands, membranes and tendons with 90 per cent of the product exported. This is shipped all over the world as raw products for the pharmaceutical and dietary supplements markets.
Based at Ngongotaha, near Rotorua Diane also won the Love of the Land category, sponsored by Agrisea Limited of Paeroa. Treeline Native Nursery, which Diane started 17 years ago, grows and supplies NZ native trees, shrubs and grasses for re-vegetation and ornamental purposes. She grows 300,000 plants a year that are sold to councils, farmers, landscapers, developers and the home gardener. RWNZ national president Liz Evans says Diane was chosen as the Supreme Winner out of a strong field of contenders, saying she displayed "skill, calm confidence in the progress of her business and a clear awareness of her market." "When demand for products slowed with the 2010 economic downturn, Diane adapted to conditions, made some innovative decisions and was able to maintain production levels. Added to this, the business is rural-based, employs several rural women and gives back to the community with fund-raising support." The awards, now in their fifth year, offer an opportunity for rural businesswomen to shine. The aim is to showcase and celebrate rural enterprise, and this year the judges had 20 strong entries to choose from. Other winners on the night were Jan Harper, of Bluespur Butchery in Lawrence, who won the Telecom-sponsored Help! I Need Somebody category.
Kylie Stewart of Rangitikei Farmstay was announced as the winner of the Stay, Play, Rural Award, sponsored by Access Homehealth Ltd. Her 1500acre farm has been in the family since 1901 and Kylie has breathed new life into many of the old buildings to create attractive accommodation for up to 19 guests at a time who come from all over the world. The judging panel also decided this year to give a special Rural Women NZ Encouragement Award. This went to Lee Lamb, a young farming woman who lives in Waikaia, Southland. As her children grew, she was unable to find New Zealand farm-themed books to read to them and decided to write and illustrate her own. A self-taught writer and painter, Lee was also determined to have her books printed in New Zealand. She now has four titles - On the Farm Shearing; On the Farm Autumn Muster; On the Farm Milking Time; and On the Farm Harvest. In congratulating all the winners, Liz says, "running a successful business anywhere in today’s competitive economy is not easy. It takes time, commitment, money and a passion to succeed. And, of course, you have to have the initial idea to get started.
As one of New Zealand’s first female butchers, Jan, who’s been in the industry since 1977, says it was a ‘dream come true’ when she opened her own business, Bluespur Butchery, in 2009. As well as selling meat to the public, a big part of the business is processing for farmers and hunters.
"And, in the rural context, the start-up and ability to keep going can produce even more challenges. The logistics of running a business away from a centralised urban area can throw up hurdles such as access to prompt transport and communication – not to mention extra costs of freight and postage. All our winners have jumped those hurdles."
A very successful exporter of animal by-products from Waipukurau took away the Making it in Rural category,
SOURCE:
AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
Reprinted here courtesy of 2013 Sun Media Ltd sunlive.co.nz
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make the earth glad little one
Each year, Avondale Community Gardeners convene a series of practical workshops for their wider community. In July, a Biodynamic Compost Workshop at the nearby Samoan preschool led many mothers to discover their innate skill for making good compost.
LIS ALINGTON DEMONSTRATES PACKING CHAMOMILE PREP TO BE DUG IN FOR THE WINTER. CREDIT: R Middleton
Organised by Rob and Erin Middleton, a March workshop in Coromandel inspired a group of gardeners to make the Biodynamic Compost Preparations. Rachel Pomeroy of Hawkes Bay made a two week biodynamic consultancy visit to an organic farming project in northern India in February.
LEARNING ABOUT BIODYNAMIC COMPOST PREPARATIONS.
A YOUNG BOY CARRIES ARMFULS OF DRIED BANANA LEAVES FOR A COMPOST HEAP IN INDIA.
CREDIT:. Imi Tovia
CREDIT: R Pomeroy
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AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
"COMFREY IS THE FERTILISER THAT COMES FREE!" 9-YEAR OLD SCHOOLGIRL, MEADOWBANK PRIMARY. CREDIT: lifetransplanet.com
EMILY HARRIS STARTED URBAN PANTRY, A PROJECT TO GROW FOOD IN THE CITY OF AUCKLAND. CREDIT: http://glfm.co.nz
Guerrilla gardeners see an opportunity to improve a spot in their local environment, such as a neglected public flower bed or a rubbish-strewn vacant lot, and rather than faffing around finding out who owns the land and seeking their permission, they just get on and beautify it. In this way, guerrilla gardening can be done with the intention of making life easier for whoever has control over the land in question. Emily Harris of Auckland’s Urban Pantry sees guerrilla beautification as a tool to help us create the city we want to live in. If we see somewhere that’s ugly and obviously unloved, rather than just complain about it, why not adopt it and show it the love it deserves?
A FATHER AT EAST TAMAKI SCHOOL HELPS OUT IN THE KITCHEN.
CREDIT: Earth Matters
What do you think? Would you adopt and beautify a local spot, without waiting for permission? www.urbanpantry.co.nz In April, Garden to Table Trust ran a day-tour for people interested in seeing their innovative programme in action. Participants were taken to five inspirational school kitchens and gardens in the Auckland region, where they could talk with students and teachers, and see children growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing their own organic food. It’s arguably the most essential of any school curricula, and produces exemplary results, yet our government won’t fund it. Garden to Table Trust raises the $135 per child per year that is needed in order to offer the programme to participating schools. www.gardentotable.org.nz AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
YOUNG SOMALIAN COOK, OWAIRAKA PRIMARY SCHOOL
9 YEAR OLD CURRY-COOK, DAWSON PRIMARY SCHOOL.
CREDIT: Earth Matters
CREDIT: Earth Matters
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ethical banks call for revisioning
must provide full transparency on their business models and use of client funds using common standards to be set by independent experts such as the Global Reporting Initiative."
Ethical banks around the world are calling for a fundamental transformation of the financial system in order to create greater stability and make people its focus. The 22 members of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV) used their fifth annual meeting in Berlin in March to launch their Berlin Declaration 2013 on "Transforming the financial system for stability and a focus on people".
Finally, the diversity of economies, cultures and community needs a diverse network of banks. Governments and regulators must include a diversity of banks as an important goal in the process of reframing regulations for the financial sector.
Secondly, banks played a crucial role in the transition towards a more sustainable economy. Therefore social and ecological criteria had to play a critical role in the creation and use of financial products. The declaration calls on all banks "to use indicators to report social and ecological impact which should also be used within the regulatory framework."
Looking beyond the impact of the financial crisis of recent years, the GABV banks demanded that regulation of financial markets should focus primarily on a positive vision for the global banking system beyond fixing the consequences of the financial crisis. Speaking at the opening press conference to launch the declaration, Peter Blom, Chair of the GABV and CEO of Triodos Bank, said that the last thirty years had been characterised by a development in which banks were mere profit-oriented businesses. Everyone had accepted that: banks, governments and customers. Making as much money as possible was ‘business as usual’. But "that banks are not traditional enterprises which must aim to achieve maximum profits for their shareholders but perform a broad social function – such a change in outlook will require time. Once that role has been understood, the necessary change in culture will also develop." The declaration highlights three key aspects of value-based banking: transparency, sustainability and diversity.
Such a series of steps towards value-oriented banking has already been taken by the sustainable banks – and not just in one country, but globally: "Change is taking place, at least among the GABV banks," said Thomas Jorberg, CEO of GLS Bank. He concluded that, "Alongside system and structural change, we also need a cultural revolution." The Global Alliance for Banking on Values (GABV) is a membership organisation, made up of the world’s leading sustainable banks, from Asia, Africa, Australia, Latin America to North America and Europe. Members include microfinance banks in emerging markets, credit unions, community banks and sustainable banks financing social, environmental and cultural enterprise.
Peter Blom, Chair of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values and CEO of Triodos Bank, was guest speaker at the 2012 annual conference of The Anthroposophical Society in NZ held in Auckland. Source NNA 2013
"Only with transparency can trust be restored and people be aligned with the financial system and how it can serve them," the declaration says. And it continues: "All banks
The Earth is a beehive; we all enter by the same door but live in different cells. Bantu Proverb
MUD HOMES IN TURKEY.
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CREDIT: Public Domain
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DVD GERMANY 2012 www.morethanhoneyfilm.com
Oscar-nominated director, Markus Imhoof grew up in the Swiss Alps where his family has kept bees for generations, aided only by low-tech human intervention. Even there, however, where flowers, fruit, honey and bees exist in harmonious synchrony, diseases and parasites have been causing devastation to the hives. In More than Honey Imhoof sets out to explore what’s been happening to the world’s bees. Throughout the world these past 15 years, numerous colonies of bees have been decimated yet the cause of the disaster remains unknown. Depending on location, 50% to 90% of all local bees have disappeared. And the epidemic is still spreading from beehive to beehive all over the planet. Everywhere, the same scenario is playing out; billions of bees leave their hives, never to return. No bodies are found in the immediate surroundings, and no visible predators can be located. In the US, the latest estimates suggest that a total of 1.5 million (out of 2.4 million total beehives) have disappeared across 27 states. In Germany, according to the national beekeepers association, one fourth of all colonies have been destroyed, with losses reaching up to 80% on some farms. The same phenomenon has been observed in Switzerland, France, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Poland and England, where this syndrome has been nicknamed "the Mary Celeste Phenomenon", after a ship whose crew vanished in 1872. Scientists have found a name for the phenomenon that matches its scale, ‘colony collapse disorder,’and they have good reason to be worried: 80% of plant species require bees to be pollinated. Without bees, there is no pollination, and fruits and vegetables could disappear from the face of the Earth. Apis mellifera (the honey bee), which appeared on Earth 60 million years before we did, is as indispensable to our economy as it is to our survival. Should we blame pesticides or even the remedies being used? Is it because of varroa mites or viruses or travelling stress? Does the artificial insemination of queen bees have something to answer for? What about the huge increase in electromagnetic wave technology – does this disturb the magnetite nanoparticles found in the bees’ abdomen? So far, it looks like a combination of all these agents has been responsible for the weakening of the bees’ immune defenses. AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
More than Honey features extraordinary microphotography of bees in flight and in their hives. With enormous perseverance, every afternoon for more than a week Imhoof’s team perched in a 10-metre high scaffolding tower that they erected across from the drone congregation area. By scenting weather balloons with queen bee pheromones, the team lured drones from 30 metres in the air down to 10 metres in order to capture their behavior with a camera that shoots 300 frames per second. Then it was a matter of patience, skill and luck: waiting for queens to appear and hoping to get the right shot. It’s worth taking a look at the movie’s trailer to see the high calibre screen-shots, including an impressive sequence of a queen bee mating in mid-flight - something most beekeepers never see. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=89rtOi1FcoQ#at=12 More sobering however, are the chilling depictions of hives infected by mites and disease. With beekeepers worldwide continuing to lose bees by the hiveful, More Than Honey addresses the crisis from a global perspective. It takes us to China where agricultural workers must hand-pollinate crops because of a lack of bees, to the vast Californian almond orchards that depend on bees being trucked in from across the USA at pollination season, to more hopeful news from Australia, the only continent whose bees have not been infested with varroa mite. Whether it encourages more people to plant bee forage, garden without pesticides or buy organic; or bolsters calls for adopting a similar precautionary ban on neonicotinoid pesticides like Europe has just implemented, this film should continue to fuel the public outcry at the state of our honeybees and the debate as to what must be done about it. Fifty years ago, Einstein insisted on the symbiotic relationship binding bees to mankind: "If bees were to disappear from the globe," he predicted, "mankind would have only four years left to live."
SOURCES:
http://www.npr.org/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com www.morethanhoneyfilm.com
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PHOTO: Public Domain
the art of food EASY PUMPKIN SOUP
The best pumpkin soups are often the simplest … and they’re so easy!
Add bacon or ginger, cumin or curry according to your preference. Try with finely chopped rosemary.
• Saute a couple of onions in olive oil and one tsp salt until tender and translucent.
It will taste even better a day later when the ingredients have melded intimately and the flavour has deepened.
• Stir in pumpkin puree – from a skinned, deseeded, precooked pumpkin or butternut that’s been put through the blender or food processer in readiness for soup-making. • Thin by adding milk to preferred consistency. • Add salt to taste. • Lastly, add a couple of handfuls of chopped parsley, stir and serve.
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PHOTO: httpwww.hsconline-blog.com
sense meditation
with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on the object and don’t learn. Your poetry arises by itself when you and the object have become one, when you have plunged deep enough into the object to see something like a hidden light glimmering there. However well phrased your poetry may be, if your feeling isn’t natural — if you and the object are separate — then your poetry isn’t true poetry, but merely your subjective counterfeit."3
ARTHUR ZAJONC
The deepest words of the wise man teach us the same as the whistle of the wind when it blows or the sound of the water when it is flowing1 —
antonio machado
In approaching nature as an object of contemplation, we can follow Basho’s advice to his poetry students. We must set aside all preoccupation with the self and turn our full attention to the pine or bamboo, entering into it completely. Then to our open mind it may show its ‘glimmering light’ and thereby become word, that is, poetry.
REFERENCES:
Writing about the relation between solitude and love, Thomas Merton echoed the sentiments of Antonio Machado, saying, "No words that were ever spoken can equal the sound of the wind in the pine trees.2 Taking seriously the poets and contemplatives of our time, we can be confident in adopting nature as a subject for our meditation. She is as resourceful in her ability to teach as the sages who have taught us through the millennia. We can listen with benefit to the whistle of the wind in the pines and the sound of water flowing. Nature’s purity helps to harmonise our emotions. By giving our attention to nature, we participate deeply in her ways and develop subtle faculties that can open up otherwise invisible aspects of the world and ourselves." The seventeenth-century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho gave the following advice to his disciples: "Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in doing so, you must let go of your subjective preoccupation AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
1. Antonio Machado, in The Enlightened Heart, ed. Stephen Mitchell (NewYork: Harper & Row, 1989), trans. Robert Bly, p. 129. 2. Thomas Merton, Love and Living (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1979), p. 15. 3. Cited in Stephen Mitchell, The Enlightened Heart, Harper & Row, 1989), p. 155; and A Zen Wave: Basho’s Haiku and Zen, by Robert Aitken, (NewYork: Weatherhill, 1978).
Arthur Zajonc is professor of physics at Amherst College, Massachusetts. Since 1997 he has served as scientific coordinator for the Mind and Life dialogue with H.H. the Dalai Lama whose meetings have been published as The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama (Oxford 2004) and The Dalai Lama at MIT (Harvard UP, 2006). Prof Zajonc currently directs the Center for Contemplative Mind, an organisation of 1500 academics who support the inclusion of contemplative practice in higher education. Extract from his book, Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry; When Knowing Becomes Love, Lindisfarne Books, 2009.
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Eating is an agri-cultural act…. your health, economic and cultural wealth start with seeds sown in the field, the ‘ager’ 3 issues a year. Subscribe on-line at www.earthmatters.co.nz for $NZ 35.00 [$45.00 o’seas] or by direct credit Kiwibank account 38 9010 0519122 00 or by cheque to P O Box 24-231, Royal Oak, Auckland 1345. Download a free 15 page sample
Available on request. Send an email to: info@earthmatters.co.nz “I am not an experienced gardener but since I started using your biodynamic preparations on my garden, the plants seem to ‘come alive’! The garden seems more radiant.” YW
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Holy cow – small farmers are feeding half the world’s population! From Soil to SOLE (Sustainable, Organic, Local, Ethical) to Society – the quietest revolution is growing. Learn how gardeners and farmers can rejuvenate their soils, grow the best-ever food and gain independence from the agri-corporates.
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AUGUST 2013 ISSUE 11
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