MOTHER EARTH NEWS April/May 2022

I was recently struck by how different this past winter was from the year before, and the year before, and so on, and it got me thinking about how when it comes to “making it” on the land, flexibility is the name of the game. And yet, we made plans for how to handle the newborn lambs and how to protect the garden next year, in light of what we experienced this year. We are definitely shaped by our immediate experiences, but we can’t cling too tightly to the plans we develop as a result of them. Recently, I was asked for a blueprint for developing a resilient group of sheep by some inexperienced folks who had never raised sheep. My advice was to read everything they could find about small…

Organic Encouragement I just want to express that I found the article “Unpacking ‘Organic’ ” (October/November 2021) quite insightful. The word “organic” can be ambiguous, and I found it helpful to hear different perspectives on what it means from people who are deeply immersed in gardening. I found that it has a richer, deeper meaning among the gardeners interviewed that goes beyond the generic label we as consumers hold in high esteem. I also took away that gardening is truly a learning process, and there’s no one-sizefits-all approach. “We should strive to grow gardeners, not just gardens,” according to the author. With those words of encouragement, I’ve been contemplating trying out container gardening on my roof in Brooklyn, New York City. I’ve never grown anything in my life! Jack Brooklyn, New York Shed Solutions Several…

Have you heard of the #FoodMovementMovement? This May, you can see it in action as sailing vessels, solar-powered boats, and more will be racing to deliver the largest amount of grains over the longest distance with the least possible use of fossil fuels. Popcorn, malted barley, and flour are all being considered as cargo for these voyages, moving between mills, malt houses, breweries, and bakeries with an absolute minimum of environmental impact. Hosted by the Hudson River Maritime Museum, Northeast Grainshed Alliance, The Center for Post Carbon Logistics, and Schooner Apollonia, the Northeast Grain Race brings attention to the low-to-no-carbon movement of food from farm to table in New England, New York, and New Jersey. Any vehicle or combination of vehicles can enter a single voyage in the month of May,…

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) reported in October 2021 that United States military bases have been contaminating farms across the country with PFAS—a group of compounds dubbed “forever chemicals,” because nothing in the natural environment (including the human body) can break them down. In a Bloomberg Law news report, Kay Fritz, a toxicologist with Michigan’s Department of Agriculture & Rural Development, said that PFAS are taken up by plants and animals exposed to contaminated water, and thereby pass them on to consumers. Often, farmers with PFAS-contaminated land and water opt to halt operations (though no laws require them to do so), but the EWG found at least 30 military bases that failed to notify nearby farmers of contamination. Evidence of the dangers posed by PFAS has been growing since the 1970s.…

Two groups are suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to demand the labeling of seeds coated with neonicotinoids—insecticides known to kill bees. Without federal regulation, farmers currently decide whether to use neonicotinoids, but, as the Center for Food Safety and Pesticide Action Network allege, many seeds escape labeling requirements. So, how’s a farmer to know what they’re using? Neonicotinoids have been a flashpoint in the fight between chemical companies and environmentalists for more than a decade. In 2018, under pressure from activists and amid growing evidence of harm to bees, the European Union banned all outdoor use of the three most common neonicotinoids. Meanwhile, their use in America has gone on unabated, despite a 2014 report from the EPA that noted, “[Neonicotinoid] seed treatments provide negligible overall benefits to soybean production…

Plants remember droughts, according to a discovery published in Food and Energy Security. That is, crops that experience drought early in their growing season adapt to better handle drought later on. This is the first time this effect has been shown outside of controlled lab settings. Researchers drew on data over a 20-year period, covering soybean and maize crops in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, a region expected to experience more extreme wet and dry seasons because of climate change. This discovery is important for understanding the impacts of climate change on crops, but it also presents an opportunity for creating new plant cultivars. If certain crops have the innate capacity to become more drought-resistant, researchers suspect that trait can be enhanced through breeding. But beyond breeding for resilience, these findings could also…