By Jim Ewing
In case you missed it, there's a new organization (started in April) called Mississippi Women for Agriculture. Its a "professional association for women interested in giving voice to agriculture."
It's based on Annie's Project, an educational program "dedicated to strengthening the roles of women in the modern farm enterprise."
The story of Annie's Project is an interesting one, and perhaps helpful to women in Mississippi, too. It's based on the life of a farm woman in Illinois.
According to the organization, Annie grew up in a small town and had a goal to marry a farmer. She spent a lifetime learning how to be an involved business partner, and faced the challenges of three generations living under one roof, low profitability, changing farm enterprises and raising a family. Her daughter, Ruth Hambleton, founded Annie's Project out of needs she observed in farm women she knew.
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Showing posts with label Agriculture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Agriculture. Show all posts
Monday, 3 October 2011
Monday, 26 September 2011
Organic Farming Can Be More Profitable in the Long-Term than Conventional Agriculture
By Jeremy Hance
Organic farming is more profitable and economically secure than conventional farming even over the long-term, according to a new study in Agronomy Journal. Using experimental farm plots, researchers with the University of Minnesota found that organic beat conventional even if organic price premiums (i.e. customers willing to pay more for organic) were to drop as much as 50 percent.
"Doing an economic study like this, it's important to get as complete a picture of the yield variability as we can," explains Timothy Delbridge, lead author of the study and a doctoral student studying agricultural economics at the University of Minnesota. "So, the length of this trial is a big asset. We're pretty confident that the full extent of the yield variability came through in the results."
Conducted over 18 years, the study found that a conventional farm, rotating corn, soy, oat, and alfalfa over 4 years brought in $273, while an organic farm netted $538. Even if the organic premium dropped by half, it would still be more profitable given that the cost of production was lower for organic, since organic farmers would spend nothing on chemicals.
"What we're looking at here are results between an established organic and an established conventional system. This research doesn't take into consideration the issue of the transition itself: how difficult or costly that may be," cautions Delbridge.
View the Original article
Organic farming is more profitable and economically secure than conventional farming even over the long-term, according to a new study in Agronomy Journal. Using experimental farm plots, researchers with the University of Minnesota found that organic beat conventional even if organic price premiums (i.e. customers willing to pay more for organic) were to drop as much as 50 percent.
"Doing an economic study like this, it's important to get as complete a picture of the yield variability as we can," explains Timothy Delbridge, lead author of the study and a doctoral student studying agricultural economics at the University of Minnesota. "So, the length of this trial is a big asset. We're pretty confident that the full extent of the yield variability came through in the results."
Conducted over 18 years, the study found that a conventional farm, rotating corn, soy, oat, and alfalfa over 4 years brought in $273, while an organic farm netted $538. Even if the organic premium dropped by half, it would still be more profitable given that the cost of production was lower for organic, since organic farmers would spend nothing on chemicals.
"What we're looking at here are results between an established organic and an established conventional system. This research doesn't take into consideration the issue of the transition itself: how difficult or costly that may be," cautions Delbridge.
View the Original article
Saturday, 30 July 2011
Agriculture Leaders Convene to Strenthen the Organic Seed Systems in the Southeast
By Kristina Hubbard
Agricultural leaders from the Southeast recently convened to lay the groundwork for strengthening the region's organic seed systems.
Organic Seed Alliance's advisory services director Dan Hobbs, along with board members Tony Kleese and Ira Wallace, hosted an exploratory meeting in April 2011 with university personnel, extension agents, NGOs, and farmers. Five states were represented in this meeting. Hobbs shared OSA's past success in supporting the development of regional seed systems that provide for the diverse needs of organic farmers. A brainstorming session followed, where the group identified and discussed the following objectives for this project:
- Building infrastructure to facilitate commercial-scale organic seed production - Developing new and improved vegetable varieties - Encouraging better coordination among growers and buyers
Special interest was expressed in breeding for vegetables and cover crops adapted to agricultural conditions of the Southeast, cooperative seed development, and educational opportunities.
View the Original article
Agricultural leaders from the Southeast recently convened to lay the groundwork for strengthening the region's organic seed systems.
Organic Seed Alliance's advisory services director Dan Hobbs, along with board members Tony Kleese and Ira Wallace, hosted an exploratory meeting in April 2011 with university personnel, extension agents, NGOs, and farmers. Five states were represented in this meeting. Hobbs shared OSA's past success in supporting the development of regional seed systems that provide for the diverse needs of organic farmers. A brainstorming session followed, where the group identified and discussed the following objectives for this project:
- Building infrastructure to facilitate commercial-scale organic seed production - Developing new and improved vegetable varieties - Encouraging better coordination among growers and buyers
Special interest was expressed in breeding for vegetables and cover crops adapted to agricultural conditions of the Southeast, cooperative seed development, and educational opportunities.
View the Original article
Monday, 11 April 2011
What Would the World Look Like If We Relied on Industrial Agriculture to Feed Everyone?
By Ari LeVaux
The world's population will probably hit 9 billion by 2050. That's about the only thing agreed upon by partisans in a long-waged debate over how best to feed all those bellies.
On March 8, Dr. Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, released a report arguing that the use of small-scale, diverse farming methods, which he calls "agroecology," can double agricultural production in poverty-stricken areas, increase the economic prospects of the inhabitants, and improve their local environment.
This argument refutes a common dismissal of sustainable agriculture: that it could never feed the world. That's the contention of those who believe in agriculture methods that involve the intensive use of energy, water, machinery, and chemicals to grow cash crop monocultures. I recently discussed these competing paradigms with De Schutter, in the context of what it might look like if industrial agriculture were, in fact, to feed the world.
"I'm surprised at the simplistic diagnosis that appears to be dominant in public discourse," De Schutter said. "The official mantra is we need a 70 percent increase in agricultural production to feed the world. But this completely oversimplifies the debate. It only pays attention at the supply side of the equation, when we must also work on demand -- for instance the overconsumption of meat in industrialized countries. By 2050, if the current curves continue, 50 percent of global cereal production will go either to feeding cattle or to the irresponsible push towards biofuels production and consumption through fiscal stimuli and subsidies."
View the Original article
The world's population will probably hit 9 billion by 2050. That's about the only thing agreed upon by partisans in a long-waged debate over how best to feed all those bellies.
On March 8, Dr. Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, released a report arguing that the use of small-scale, diverse farming methods, which he calls "agroecology," can double agricultural production in poverty-stricken areas, increase the economic prospects of the inhabitants, and improve their local environment.
This argument refutes a common dismissal of sustainable agriculture: that it could never feed the world. That's the contention of those who believe in agriculture methods that involve the intensive use of energy, water, machinery, and chemicals to grow cash crop monocultures. I recently discussed these competing paradigms with De Schutter, in the context of what it might look like if industrial agriculture were, in fact, to feed the world.
"I'm surprised at the simplistic diagnosis that appears to be dominant in public discourse," De Schutter said. "The official mantra is we need a 70 percent increase in agricultural production to feed the world. But this completely oversimplifies the debate. It only pays attention at the supply side of the equation, when we must also work on demand -- for instance the overconsumption of meat in industrialized countries. By 2050, if the current curves continue, 50 percent of global cereal production will go either to feeding cattle or to the irresponsible push towards biofuels production and consumption through fiscal stimuli and subsidies."
View the Original article
Tuesday, 25 January 2011
World Agriculture Threatened by Water Gluttony: Report
NEW YORK (AFP) - World agriculture employs more than one billion people but is in trouble because it's the biggest consumer of ever scarcer water and a huge producer of greenhouse gas emissions, a new report said Wednesday.
Worldwatch Institute, a research group on climate, energy, agriculture and the green economy, said there had to be a revolution in investment in food and water to reverse a "frightening" long-term depletion of stocks.
"Agriculture as we know it today is in trouble," said the institute's "State of the World 2011" report.
The industry accounts for one trillion dollars of the global economy but also 70 percent of water withdrawals and 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, much of that from developing countries.
The institute said small farmers who dominate the industry would be the key to maintaining food supplies for the world's estimated one billion hungry people.
Studies have shown that increasing food production is not making a dent in reducing hunger in the world.
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Tuesday, 28 December 2010
Oil and Water Don't Mix with California Agriculture
From the "Petroleum Highway" -- a rutted, dusty stretch of California State Route 33 -- you can see the jostling armies of two giant industries. To the east, relentless rows of almonds and pistachios march to the horizon. To the west, an armada of oil wells sweeps to the foothills of the Temblor Range.
Fred Starrh, who farms along this industrial front, has seen firsthand what can happen when agriculture collides with oil. On an overcast February day, he drives his mother-of-pearl Lincoln Town Car down a dirt road through his orchards. Starrh Farms has 6,000 acres of pistachios, cotton, almonds and alfalfa. Starrh proudly points out almond trees planted 155 to the acre with the aid of lasers and GPS. At the edge of his land, he pulls up beside 20-foot-high earthen berms, the ramparts of large "percolation" ponds that belong to a neighbor, Aera Energy.
From the mid-1970s to the early 2000s, Aera dumped more than 2.4 billion barrels (or just over 100 billion gallons) of wastewater -- known in the industry as "produced water" -- from its North Belridge oilfield into those unlined ponds, Starrh says. The impact became apparent beginning in 1999, when Starrh dug several wells to augment the irrigation water he gets from the California Aqueduct. He mixed the groundwater with aqueduct water, applied it to a cotton field beside the berms -- and the plants wilted. Eventually, the well water killed almond trees, Starrh says; he points out a few that look like gray skeletons.
View the Original article
Fred Starrh, who farms along this industrial front, has seen firsthand what can happen when agriculture collides with oil. On an overcast February day, he drives his mother-of-pearl Lincoln Town Car down a dirt road through his orchards. Starrh Farms has 6,000 acres of pistachios, cotton, almonds and alfalfa. Starrh proudly points out almond trees planted 155 to the acre with the aid of lasers and GPS. At the edge of his land, he pulls up beside 20-foot-high earthen berms, the ramparts of large "percolation" ponds that belong to a neighbor, Aera Energy.
From the mid-1970s to the early 2000s, Aera dumped more than 2.4 billion barrels (or just over 100 billion gallons) of wastewater -- known in the industry as "produced water" -- from its North Belridge oilfield into those unlined ponds, Starrh says. The impact became apparent beginning in 1999, when Starrh dug several wells to augment the irrigation water he gets from the California Aqueduct. He mixed the groundwater with aqueduct water, applied it to a cotton field beside the berms -- and the plants wilted. Eventually, the well water killed almond trees, Starrh says; he points out a few that look like gray skeletons.
View the Original article
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Genetic Engineering: A Worldwide Experiment on People, Agriculture and Nature
Greenpeace
Straight to the Source
For related articles and more information, please visit OCA's Resource Center on Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology or our Millions Against Monsanto Campaign page.
Genetic engineering is a threat to food security, especially in a changing climate. The introduction of genetically manipulated organisms by choice or by accident grossly undermines sustainable agriculture and in so doing, severely limits the choice of food we can eat.
Once GE plants are released into the environment, they are out of control. If anything goes wrong - they are impossible to recall.
GE contamination threatens biodiversity respected as the global heritage of humankind, and one of our world's fundamental keys to survival.
Straight to the Source
For related articles and more information, please visit OCA's Resource Center on Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology or our Millions Against Monsanto Campaign page.
Genetic engineering is a threat to food security, especially in a changing climate. The introduction of genetically manipulated organisms by choice or by accident grossly undermines sustainable agriculture and in so doing, severely limits the choice of food we can eat.
Once GE plants are released into the environment, they are out of control. If anything goes wrong - they are impossible to recall.
GE contamination threatens biodiversity respected as the global heritage of humankind, and one of our world's fundamental keys to survival.
View the Original article
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