Veganic farms in Rajasthan, India and Formosa (Taiwan)’s Hualien County share their wisdom! We thank Gajendra Singh and Chen Chun-Hung for sharing some of th…
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A video introduction to the Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Instruction program sponsored by the Organic Farm School of Western North Carolina.
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This is a excellent and really effectively accomplished educational film making use of Star Wars to show how corporations have taken over most farms in the US and have turned them into e…
Uncommon Earth Minerals CEO Paul Hait talks about the Excelerite application base and discusses its diverse use.
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Alan Druce of Green Grove Farm, a pioneer of organic farming, starting farming organically in 1962. For close on 40 years, the Australian National University…
For related articles and much more info, please go to OCA’s Genetic Engineering page, Millions Against Monsanto page and our Hawaii News web page.
Maui residents in late October protested Monsanto’s heavy pesticide use. (Photo: Babes Against Biotech/ Facebook)
Residents of Maui County in Hawaii, regularly referred to as ‘GMO Ground Zero,’ claimed a victory Tuesday evening when a measure to ban the planting of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) passed with 50.two %.
Agribusiness giants Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences, which for decades have run huge developing and testing operations on the island, spent practically $ 8 million dollars to defeat the ban, making it the most high-priced campaign in Hawaii’s history, according to Honolulu Civil Beat.
Identified as the Maui County Genetically Modified Organism Moratorium Initiative, the measure will ban all GMO growth, testing or cultivation in the county until an environmental and public well being study is conducted and finds the proposed cultivation practices to be protected and harmless.
“I believe that this is a really robust message to the complete agrochemical sector in the state of Hawaii that we are no longer going to sit idly by and watch them expand their operations with out the kinds of regulations that make certain the overall health and safety of people across Hawaii,” Ashley Lukens, who directs the Hawaii chapter of the Center for Meals Safety, told Civil Beat.
Hawaiians have grow to be increasingly concerned more than GMO crop production and how its connected heavy pesticide use impacts the overall health of both individuals and atmosphere. More than 80 diverse chemical compounds are sprayed on GMO fields, which ban proponents warn, creates billions of untested chemical combinations which then spread into “our neighborhoods, oceans, reefs, groundwater, drinking water, meals supply and bodies.”   
Final year, the Hawaiian Division of Health tested the surface water around the island and pesticides were identified in one hundred % of the samples. According to official election outcomes, the moratorium passed with just more than 1,000 votes. In comparison to the millions raised in industry dollars by ban opposition group Citizens Against the Maui County Farming Ban (CAMCFB), supporters of the initiative raised just under $ 65,000.   
For associated articles and far more info, please pay a visit to OCA’s Environment and Climate Resource Center page and our Organic Transitions page.
Jose Jimenez drives the windrow turner, utilized to rotate rows of compost.
Photo: Leah Millis / The San Francisco Chronicle
A compost experiment that began seven years ago on a Marin County ranch has uncovered a disarmingly basic and benign way to eliminate carbon dioxide from the air, holding the potential to turn the vast rangeland of California and the world into a weapon against climate change.
The notion grew out of a unique Bay Region alignment of a biotech fortune, a planet-class investigation institution and progressive-minded Marin ranchers. It has captured the consideration of the White Property, the Brown administration, the city of San Francisco, officials in Brazil and China, and even Residence Republicans, who might not think in climate alter but like the concept that “carbon farming” could mean income for ranchers.
Experiments on grazing lands in Marin County and the Sierra foothills of Yuba County by UC Berkeley bio-geochemist Whendee Silver showed that a a single-time dusting of compost substantially boosted the soil’s carbon storage. The effect has persisted over six years, and Silver believes the carbon will stay stored for at least several decades.
The experiments had been instigated by John Wick and his wife, Peggy, heiress to the Amgen biotech fortune, on a 540-acre ranch they bought in Nicasio. What began as a search for an artist’s studio turned into a seven-year, $ 8 million journey through rangeland ecology that has produced results John Wick calls “the most thrilling thing I can consider of on the planet right now.”
Spreading scraps
The study showed that if compost from green waste – every little thing from household meals scraps to dairy manure – had been applied over just five % of the state’s grazing lands, the soil could capture a year’s worth of greenhouse gas emissions from California’s farm and forestry industries.
The effect is cumulative, which means the soil keeps absorbing carbon dioxide even following just 1 application of compost, the researchers identified. In theory, Silver calculates, if compost created from the state’s green waste have been applied to a quarter of the state’s rangeland, the soil could absorb three-quarters of California’s total annual greenhouse gas emissions.
“For a lot of people, this sounds a small amazing,” Silver said. “There is nothing at all magic about it.”
Soil is a key supply of carbon, “and we’ve been bleeding it into the atmosphere for many, several years through plowing, overgrazing and poor agricultural practices,” Silver said. “So something we can do to get some of that carbon back into the soil is going to be useful.”