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Hello: The 2008 election is history, big history. Everything else is yet to come, including how the Obama administration’s choices will impact efforts that continue to build in more sustainability into agriculture. These persist in the midst of—and perhaps because of— continuing economy-wide uncertainties that are rippling through farms big, small and urban.
This update brings firsthand reports from four young writers, each engaged in their part of the ag-and-food spectrum.
Renee Ciulla, in her Sustainable in Scandanavia series, says she’s enjoying figuring out the challenges that come in working with her team of fellow students and a Norwegian farmer in creating a proposal to assist him in successful conversion of his grain operation’s conversion to organic.
Research intern Alison Grantham recounts her immersion into the organic farming community at the NOFA summer conference in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she heard from farmers about pickles, pit fruits and wholistic farm design before returning to a flurry of harvest tasks at the Rodale Institute.
Writing about her co-workers on a local farm, editorial assistant Genenevieve Slocum describes the difficult and somewhat unknowable lives of migrant farmworkers. Food, family, hard work and incredible resiliency under hardship characterized the men and women picking so ably around her for the season.
Still learning from a classroom experience years ago, Katie Olender describes the surprising ability of a man with a gentle manner and live earthworms to transform a chaotic classroom into a nearly reverent learning environment.
Thinking globally, there’s good news on a strong vote from the United Nations Environmental Program for organic farming as the most viable way to feed Africa and a report on how it’s being done in South Africa to increase food security and income for subsistence farmers. Not so good is a new study showing that babies born to pregnant women in Ecuador exposed to pesticides have additional complications (neurological problems and high blood pressure) besides those attributed to malnutrition. Further, modeling based on a review of 200 studies shows that pesticide toxicity to the human brain has not been adequately evaluated, which could mean that chemicals currently used in the EU could be harmful.
Back home in the USA, a Yale nutritionist has proposed a consumer-oriented food nutrition rating system based on nutrient density (the higher the number, the more nutritious the food), and a Boston company is successfully turning a part of the 25 million pounds of food wasted annually in United States into high-end natural horticultural fertilizers.
Read on, and stay engaged with us and your community as chances to build up local organic farming come your way.
Greg Bowman and the
Rodale Institute editorial team
PS: Watch for a special report next week on Ripe for Revolution: The Organic Solution, a celebration of organics in New York City that will jointly benefit the Rodale Institute and The Organic Center.
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