Monsanto Bullying Obama

From the Grist
I’m no expert on the mafia, but I have seen the first two Godfather movies and Goodfellas, oh, a few times. One thing I’ve learned: “protection” is a major mob racket. It works like this: a thug drops by your shop monthly and makes small talk. You hand him some cash, and your shop runs smoothly. You refuse to pay, and ... things go wrong.
I’ve been thinking about protection rackets ever since an agrichemical industry group chided Michelle Obama for not using “crop protection” products on her White House garden. The group famously wrote a letter (intercepted by Jill of La Vida Locavore) urging the First Lady to do so back in March.
I just found out that Croplife.org, the industry’s Web site, also launched a “letter writing campaign” among members. “The garden is a great idea and the photo op of the First Lady and local elementary schoolchildren digging up the ground was precious,” the campaign informs Croplife readers. But ... “did you realize that it will be an organic garden?”
An organic garden—one that fails to utilize the agrichem industry’s products? That simply won’t do:
What message does that send the general public about the agriculture industry that the majority of you are so proud to serve? What message does that send to the non-farming public about an important and integral part of growing safe and abundant crops to feed and clothe the world—crop protection products?
So Croplife urges members to drop a line to Ms. Obama:
I hope that you will take a moment to consider how important that message is to your livelihood, your passion for agriculture, and your growers’ future—and send your own letter, sharing the benefits of modern, conventional agriculture. Help allay any fears by providing a specific example of how what you do on a daily basis, including custom application and/or the sale of crop protection products and fertilizers, has saved a crop and/or improved yields to benefit more Americans.
So far, the First Lady seems to be holding out on using “crop protection.” Does that mean that some really scary insects are going to come eat her spinach?

FYI Only - I'm unable to verify this letter came from anywhere except La Vida Locavore - MACA doesn't have it on their site, which I would think they would, and none of their affiliate sites do as well. While The Grist has been highly accurate, I'm not certain about this one. But - will keep searching to verify...

The entire letter - as found on La Vida Locavore:

March 26, 2009

Mrs. Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mrs. Obama,

We are writing regarding the garden recently added to the White House grounds to ensure a fresh supply of fruits and vegetables to your family, guests, and staff. Congratulations on recognizing the importance of agriculture in America! The U.S. has the safest and most abundant food supply in the world thanks to the 3 million people who farm or ranch in the United States.

The CropLife Ambassador Network, a program of the Mid America CropLife Association, consists of over 160 ambassadors who work and many of whom grew up in agriculture. Their mission is to provide scientifically based, accurate information to the public regarding the safety and value of American agricultural food production. Many people, especially children, don't realize the extent to which their daily lives depend on America's agricultural industry. For instance, children are unaware the jeans they put on in the morning, the three meals eaten daily, the baseball with which they play, and even the biofuels that power the school bus are available because of America's farmers and ranchers.

Agriculture is the largest industry in America generating 20 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. Individuals, family partnerships or family corporations operate almost 99 percent of U.S. farms. Over 22 million people are employed in farm-related jobs, including production agriculture, farm inputs, processing, and marketing and sales. Through research and changes in production practices, today's food producers are providing Americans with the widest variety of foods ever.

Starting in the early 1900s, technology advances have allowed farmers to continually produce more food on less land while using less human labor. Over time, Americans were able to leave the time-consuming demands of farming to pursue new interests and develop new abilities. Today, an average farmer produces enough food to feed 144 Americans who are living longer lives than many of their ancestors. Technology in agriculture has allowed for the development of much of what we know and use in our lives today. If Americans were still required to farm to support their family's basic food and fiber needs, would the U.S. have been leaders in the advancement of science, communication, education, medicine, transportation, and the arts?

We live in a very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs with the needs of children and aging parents. The time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family's year-round food needs.

Much of the food considered not wholesome or tasty is the result of how it is stored or prepared rather than how it is grown. Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical. Local and conventional farming is not mutually exclusive. However, a Midwest mother whose child loves strawberries, a good source of vitamin C, appreciates the ability to offer California strawberries in March a few months before the official Mid-west season.

Farmers and ranchers are the first environmentalists, maintaining and improving the soil and natural resources to pass onto future generations. Technology allows for farmers to meet the increasing demand for food and fiber in a sustainable manner.
Farmers use reduced tillage practices on more than 72 million acres to prevent erosion.
Farmers maintain over 1.3 million acres of grass waterways, allowing water to flow naturally from crops without eroding soil.
Contour farming keeps soil from washing away. About 26 million acres in the U.S. are managed this way.
Agricultural land provides habitat for 75 percent of the nation's wildlife.
Precision farming boosts crop yields and reduces waste by using satellite maps and computers to match seed, fertilizer, and crop protection applications to local soil conditions.
Sophisticated Global Positioning Systems can be specifically designed for spraying pesticides. A weed detector equipped with infrared light identifies specific plants by the different rates of light they reflect and then sends a signal to a pump to spray a preset amount of herbicide onto the weed.
Biogenetics allows a particular trait to be implanted directly into the seed to protect the seed against certain pests.
Farmers are utilizing four-wheel drive tractors with up to 300 horsepower requiring fewer passes across fields-saving energy and time.
Huge combines are speeding the time it takes to harvest crops.
With modern methods, 1 acre of land in the U.S. can produce 42,000 pounds (lbs.) of strawberries, 110,000 heads of lettuce, 25,400 lbs. of potatoes, 8,900 lbs. of sweet corn, or 640 lbs. of cotton lint.
As you go about planning and planting the White House garden, we respectfully encourage you to recognize the role conventional agriculture plays in the U.S. in feeding the ever-increasing population, contributing to the U.S. economy, and providing a safe and economical food supply. America's farmers understand crop protection technologies are supported by sound scientific research and innovation.

The CropLife Ambassador Network offers educational programs for elementary school educators at http://ambassador.maca.org covering the science behind crop protection products and their contribution to sustainable agriculture. You may find our programs America's Abundance, Farmers Stewards of the Land, and War of the Weeds of particular interest. We thank you for recognizing the importance and value of America's current agricultural technologies in feeding our country and contributing to the U.S economy.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions.

Sincerely,
Bonnie McCarvel, Executive Director
Janet Braun, Program Coordinator
Mid America CropLife Association
11327 Gravois Rd., #201
St. Louis, MO 63126

Jam Making

I make a lot of jam. I tend to know when it will set, when it won't, the different recipes you can fudge, the ones you can't. And rarely have problems with it not setting.

Of course, until I started making to sell.

I made 4 batches yesterday - 2 rhubarb and 2 rhubarb/blueberry mix (aka blubarb). I decided I'd make them all on the same day and really watch how I made them - being precise in my repetition to see if they'd all jell the same or not. The results I got were NOT expected.

There were jars in each *batch* that didn't set. What?! How can you have the exact same jars that were prepared at the exact same time in the same manner not set with the same batch of jam? It blows my mind. So, I have some jam, and some syrup. I'll probably try again with the syrup, just to see if I can get it to set, but WOW, who'd have guess THAT?

It's not me. It's not the pectin. It's not the weather. So what is it?

Composting Made Easy

Can you believe people have written entire books on making compost? I actually find that very hard to believe, but put enough fill in anything and it can look real.

So, you don't want to compost because - it's dirty, smelly, time consuming, space consuming? Did I miss anything?

Done right, it's none of the above. And there are several ways to make compost, so you can find a way that suits you completely.

Apartment-posting

If you're like my sister and live in an apartment in an area that doesn't recycle anything, your garbage bags start getting big and numerous. You could cut down on the amount of stuff you throw out a couple of ways.

Worms - I'm not big into worm farms. People tire of them, and rather than give them away or destroy them, they get released into 'the wild'. The only problem with this is they eat too much too quickly and are rapidly destroying our forest floors. But, you can make a small bin out of a rubbermade container and feed the little guys all of your vegetable materials and newspaper. Use what's left for your houseplants or give to a neighbor. Either way works.

5 gallon bucket - put an ad on Craig's List or find a local community garden to offer your vegetable material to them for composting. They'll take it with a glad heart! A couple times a week, or once a week - whichever works best for you, and you're finished with it!

Home Composting

If you're lucky enough to live where you can compost outside, GREAT! You're options are far more plentiful. You can do either listed above as well as a few other ways.

Hot Composting
This is where you make a little effort once every week or two. You mix grass clippings, weeds, leaves, veggie scraps from the kitchen all together and literally let it cook. Given the right moisture content, which is about that of a rung out sponge, it'll get up to 140 degrees with little effort. You turn it at least every two weeks to give it oxygen - just stir it up - and it'll get hot all over again. This can be ready in as little as a month, but I usually just keep adding to the pile and let it cook all summer. It depends on how quickly you need the compost.

Cold Composting
This is where you add all of the same stuff as in Hot Composting, but don't bother turning it. It'll take longer for this to be ready, a full year, but is far easier to maintain. Build it and forget it. Take the top of the pile to start the new pile the next spring and use all of the bottom material in your flower beds, vegetable garden, container plants, etc.

Trench Composting
Yes, it's as easy as it sounds. Dig a trench - you decide the length - about 10"-12" deep. Fill the trench with your composting material, and cover it with the soil as you go. You can also do this as holes, if you don't have room for a trench. You do this right in your flower beds - plant right on top of the trench! - your vegetable gardens (put the trench or holes in the paths), or right in your lawn (the holes)

Blender Composting
If you have very little room in your yard for a pile, combine the Trench method with this method and the space saved will be phenomenal. Put your vegetable scraps in the blender, add just enough water to cover, and blend it until it's a slurry mush. Pour into the whole, cover and it's gone.

Tips

Hot compost does best when it's in 1 cubic yard piles. 3'x3'x3'. This is why I keep adding to the pile. As it breaks down, it gets smaller. So, I keep adding to it to maintain the proper size. By fall, you've been able to add all of your material from the summer and it will now become a cold compost pile, working more slowly, but just as well. Keep adding to it all winter and use the top few inches to start your pile in the spring.

Cold compost has no size limits. It can be as big or small as you wish. But, it does take a full year for it to fully break down everything, including seeds. So you must be patient with it.

Do NOT add anything with protein in it - milk, cheese, or meat. This will attract wildlife you'd rather not have and will smell horribly.

The smaller the pieces of material to be composted, the faster it will compost. If you place an entire head of lettuce in a compost pile, you'll still be able to recognize it as that head of lettuce up to a month later. But if you chop it or put it in the blender, you won't recognize it within a week. That is ideal!

Compost should look like dirt, but not feel like dirt. It'll be a rich brown with nothing that looks like grass, leaves, vegetable scraps and whatever else you put in. It'll be slightly damp, but won't cake or clump, and won't have that musty smell dirt so often has. It'll smell slightly sweet, but not like yeast.

Add it to anything you want to have grow well. Considering it's what nature has used from the beginning of time, it can't be bad!

Best of all - it's FREE. And doesn't go in the landfill! It's hard to beat that combination.

Links to More Information
From the EPA
From Cornell
From Farm Aid
Composting 101

Contrary Mary And Her Garden

Mary Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockleshells
And pretty maids all in a row.

Ignoring the true significance of the nursery rhyme, Contrary Mary had the right idea – gardens! Our current ideas of a beautiful yard and property are so far beyond the natural, it’s freakish. Grass isn’t supposed to be short. It’s meant to grow long and lanky, only to be eaten short by the native grazers. Oh wait, we killed them all when the railroads when through. Oops!

Now, I understand not wanting a goat, sheep, cow or horse around just to get your lawn short naturally. I certain don’t want one! But what can we do to lessen our impact on this monoculture we’ve adhered to for so many generations? We own an acre, have mowed about a third of it for most of my life, but have decreased that amount by at least 1/3 over the last 4 years, and I strive to reduce it by a total of 50%. Everyone who comes over exclaims the property is like an oasis, with the flower gardens scattered about. It is gorgeous!

So you too can start by reducing the amount you mow. It is estimated that the US consumes 2.2 billion gallons of fuel just to care for their lawns. How you reduce is up to you, but the best way is by adding flower and vegetable gardens. These can be separate or integrated beds, since both the flowers and the vegetables benefit from the “companion planting”. They also add incredible depth and interest to the gardens when integrated.

Time
I have found that the amount of time spent mowing or tending flowerbeds is equal, but not constantly similar. Mowing is the entire growing season while the majority of the time spent on the gardens is in the spring. The summer is almost carefree. If you plant perennials, with an occasional annual for constant color, you’ll spend even less time in the gardens than if you only plant annuals every year. This way, you spend time admiring, rather than slaving away. I like that trade!

Emissions
The average riding lawn mower spews the same emissions as 34 cars for the same amount of time being run. That’s just wrong. And while the EPA is mandating all small engines have a catalytic converter starting in 2010, it will take a decade or more for all current small engines to be replaced. Since Americans are estimated to spend over 3 billion hours running small engines to care for their lawns and property, that’s a very long time to reduce emissions by the 35% that is estimated by the adding of the converters. If you reduce your lawn space by 30%, you will have affected the same goal the EPA is striving for with no expense to you. Considering we are spewing 44 billion pounds of carbon dioxide into the air per year, reduce that by a third is significant! Imagine being able to see the real blue of the sky from this one simple act!

Air Purification
Just as different houseplants filter different impurities from your indoor air, a variety of plants outside will help filter different impurities from that air. Nature never supports monocultures. To do so sets the stage for infestations, over-population and disease manifestations (think swine flu, which only manifests when swine are concentrated in large numbers in a small setting). With nature having hundreds of different plants and thousands of different microbes per acre, it can purify air and sequester carbon at far higher rates than our lawns. And by having this diversity, the wildlife supported is also diverse, helping eliminate the need for pest control. By adding many native varieties of perennials, along with a select number of noninvasive non-native varieties, you help offset the emissions by those who choose not to reduce their lawn.

Insects
There are very few “bad” bugs. What become bad are their affects when allowed to overpopulate. This happens when there is too little diversity in the plant life, which leads to little diversity in animal life, which controls insect life. There will always be occasions when an infestation of whatever insect occurs, but these times are moderated and become less frequent when an array of plant life is allowed to flourish. Birds and bats will flourish in the new variety, reducing all of the bugs – and you get to enjoy their activities throughout the year!

Included in the insect section are the pollinators. These little guys supply at least 1/3 of our food, but are constantly being slaughtered by pesticides and diseases created by our monoculture (planting only corn, only grass, only wheat, etc.). Honeybees have seen devastating losses over the last 3 years, for as of yet unpublished reasons. Pesticide use never decreases, giving the native pollinators no chance to contribute support.

By adding flowering plants, both native and non-native, perennials and annuals, you give the native pollinators a chance to recover and thrive, reducing the risk of an entire collapse of 1/3 of our food chain.

Oil Dependence
Farmers don’t measure their fuel consumption in miles per gallon. They measure in gallons per hour. So does your lawn mower – an average of .73 gallons per hour to be exact. Be reducing your use by 1/3, you will save the US about 730 million gallons of fuel per year, which mostly comes from outside the US borders.

Another Option
If you just can’t live without every square inch of lawn you have now, please consider raising the mower deck up to 3” or longer. This will save in a number of ways:
When the growth of the grass slows, you mow far less frequently
The longer grass needs far less water, allowing you to eliminate irrigation
The longer grass needs far less fertilizer – which comes from foreign natural gas
The longer grass supports a more diverse set of insects, which protects you from infestations.
It diminishes the chances for fungal infections, needing fewer chemicals to maintain that gorgeous green carpet you so desire.

Sources
University of Vermont Extension
Organic Gardening Magazine
EPA.gov