by Margaree Little To stand in the heart of an oil palm plantation in Colombia is to begin to understand the meaning of an industry-proclaimed “environmentalism” that doesn’t take social justice or true sustainability into account. At least that’s how I felt when I visited the Chocó region in the summer of 2007 and traveled
By Eric Sideman, Ph.D. Does summertime bode many afternoon hours in the hammock thinking about what’s good in the garden to go with that hamburger hot off the grill – or hours of worrying what could go wrong in that garden, which looks so good this early in the season? Balancing fun with fret is
Photo of Miniature Grain Dryer Designed by Jack Lazor, Butterworks Farm This small scale grain dryer is a scaled down version of a larger flat bottomed aeration grain bin. The vessel consists of corrugated, galvanized rings from a six-foot diameter hopper bottom farm grain bin. Instead of placing these rings on a cement foundation, as
Spring Growth Conference 2009 Matt Williams, whose core farm principle is to help build the food community of Maine, discussed his experiences with growing organic grains for a decade and processing his and others’ organic grains for five years at his Aurora Mills & Farms in Linneus, in Aroostook County. Some 40,000 to 60,000 acres
A small sampling of Eli Rogosa’s display of heritage wheats at MOFGA’s Spring Growth Conference. English photo. Spring Growth Conference 2009 Eli Rogosa spoke at Spring Growth about her work with traditional farmers who grow landrace wheat. She explained the hidden crisis of modern “Green Revolution” wheat, the most widely grown crop on earth, which
Spring Growth Conference 2009 Rick Kersbergen of UMaine Cooperative Extension presented information on a SARE project for growing small winter grains in Maine and Vermont. Small grains might fit into a dairy crop rotation after a corn silage crop to offset corn prices. Kersbergen noted that to feed 10 pounds of barley per cow per
Spring Growth Conference 2009 Dorn Cox of Tuckaway Farm in Lee, N.H., one of the seven farms in the Great Bay Grain Cooperative, said that the co-op farms about 1,500 acres. Members buy portable equipment to share. They hope to grow up to 400 acres of sunflowers, wheat, oats, triticale and rye, mainly for forage
Greensprouting potatoes at Wood Prairie Farm. Photo courtesy of Wood Prairie Farm. Jim Gerritsen of Wood Prairie Farm in Bridgewater, Maine, and Andrea Berry of Hope Seeds in Glassville, New Brunswick, talked about seed and potato seed tuber production at the 2008 Farmer-to-Farmer Conference in Bar Harbor. Gerritsen and his family sell potatoes, other crops,
Cornell Soil Test Report. Bianca Moebius-Clune, a graduate student at Cornell University, introduced the Cornell Soil Health Test (CSHT) at the 2008 Farmer-to-Farmer Conference, and Dennis King of King Hill Farm in Penobscot, Maine, told how he evaluates soil health on the diversified farm that he and Jo Barrett own and run. The CSHT, the
Definitions Land trusts are non-profit organizations that protect land directly by buying it, accepting it as a donation or acquiring a partial interest called a conservation easement that allows the land trust to protect the conservation values of the land forever. Land trusts have taken up where government left off preserving land, largely in the
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