Missouri Farmers
Meeting the farmers & gardeners at the Expo was a really neat experience. In my experience, folks who are heavily immersed in growing plants tend to be connected to nature in their surroundings and are the most giving and sharing people. They care mostly about high quality returns while sticking to their budgets and utilizing the most efficient & practical ways to get their results.
I attended only 3 talks on the second day of the Expo. I learned quite a lot.
Biointensive Farming – John Jeavons
John Jeavons’s talk’s highlights were about curbing eminent rising costs of food and possible famine by farming your own food in small compact sections of land. This, by their model can be achieved by Biointensive Farming. A major benefit to gardening in compact spaces is the minimization of loss of soil. By signing up for his classes, one can also learn how to compost and create nutritious soil as well.
Urban Homesteading
I really enjoyed this talk about urban homesteading. They really stressed connecting your community through urban farming and sharing your harvest. Eric has an edible lawn and it attracts lots of attention. Here are the links to their websites & books:
Gardening resources
Petaluma Urban Homestead
Urban permaculture.com
Weed Cuisine
Urban goats justice league
Books by the Panel
The Urban Homestead (Eric Knutzen)
Urban Homesteading by (Rachel Kaplan)
Percy Schmeiser
Percy Schmeiser’s talk was so moving, I even teared up at the end. Please watch the movie below to see for yourself the evils of Monsanto.
Notes:
GMO’s were introduced in 1996.
4x more toxic chemicals are being used pre GMOs were introduced.
Monsanto has created a culture of fear amongst farmers.
Percy has been sued 5x by Monsanto.
He is a Canola farmer.
Percy’s case with Monsanto was the 1st case in the world where patent could control a living thing.
Percy Schmeiser’s farm got contaminated with Monsanto seeds through wind and nature. 50 years of R&D Percy had developed had been ruined by Monsanto but trial judge ruled against Percy. The ruling stated that when the Monsanto seed landed on Percy’s farm and contaminated it, Monsanto had won the right to all of his crops and the profits on the sale of those crops.
Who owns life?
Monsanto has created a system of farmers reporting on each other for a prize. Very much like the red scare.
GMO plants will effect organic plants in the same family because of pollination.
Terminator gene: makes harvested seeds sterile thus making the farmer purchase seeds every year.
Plus selling chemical to go with the GMO seed they made.
Monsanto used to be the largest chemical company in the world, now it’s the largest seed company in the world.
Cheater gene: plant can not produce seeds till plant is sprayed with chemicals. Then Terminator gene kicks in to make seeds sterile.
Pharma plants: grown in open and wild and can pollinate with other plants. What if a pregnant woman eats a plant with contraceptive genes?
Can not have all organic, conventional, and GMOs. They all become GMOs. No such thing as containment.
Canola used to be 90 cents/acre and now it is $60 per acre. And there is less variety.
Monsanto controls seed dealers to disallow which farmers to sell to.
Labeling: Vote Yes on Prop 37! So you can make an educated choice if you want to ingest a GMO product.
October 9, 2012
urbanhorticulture
urban-horticulture 