Margory Wildcraft has a lot of really cool videos on youtube. She is also a published author with some great books on growing your own food.
Go to youtube and search for Marjory Wildcraft to see her videos.
Click Here to watch the interview with the nomadic woman, or watch embedded version below.
Marjory Wildcraft’s website: www.growyourowngroceries.com
The era of large-scale monoculture, with all of its toxic pesticides and untested genetically modified organisms (GMOs), could finally be coming to an end. Researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) discovered recently that yield expansion rates for most major industrial food crops are plateauing or even declining in many areas of the world, a fact that further supports the case for a return to small-scale, diversified agriculture grown organically.
Published in a recent issue of the journal Nature Communications, these and other findings, including updated projections on future crop yields, help obliterate the myth that modern, industrial methods of food production (e.g., transgenic modification, pesticide use and single-crop cultivation) have led to dramatic advancements in agriculture, when it has actually accomplished quite the opposite.
According to the data, as much as 31 percent of the global supply of rice, wheat and corn has reached a yield plateau. This means that, no matter how much further crop scientists try to tinker with our food plants, the resulting yield will not be any higher than it was prior. Further, a considerable percentage of these same crops are actually producing higher yields at a decreasing rate, which suggests that the system is ultimately failing.
“The declines and plateaus in production have become prevalent despite increasing investment in agriculture, which could mean that maximum potential yields under the industrial model of agribusiness have already occurred,” writes Nafeez Ahmed for The Guardian. “Crop yields in ‘major cereal-producing regions have not increased for long periods of time following an earlier period of steady linear increase.'”
by Paul Hart
Kevin West was at Skylight Books recently showing off his thick new book on how to home can, pickle, and preserve all that great food you are growing in your garden. Kevin has a certificate as a master on the subject, as well as a knack for saving those apricots in mason jars, knowledge that came from watching his family in Eastern Tennessee as he was growing up. His book is not just some technical “how to”, it is a journey that begins with his childhood, watching the grandparents at work “putting up” food for leaner times. You can still get signed copies of this sumptuous book at Skylight Books in Hollywood, or order online at www.Skylight Books.com.
Now sit back and watch the video presentation as Kevin reads important passages from his new book and takes questions from a lively audience.
Or go directly to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8a_NsKIpkQ
In Costa Mesa, California, an old Airstream Trailer has been converted into a garden shop. Compared to the usual size of shops, this is really a small business! Set up in a shopping area called “The Camp”, on Bristol in Costa Mesa, the garden shop specializes in landscape and garden planning, as well as selling plants and garden accessories. The focus is to plant eco-friendly species that have lower water requirements. It’s fun to see the uses put to old Airstreams, I don’t think their original designers had any inkling of the many ideas that would bubble up to make something very special out of an old trailer.
Watch the short video on youtube, click here.
Or watch the embedded version below.
Another Airstream trailer was converted into a custom bicycle shop at a shopping center across the street from “The Camp”. This place is called “The Lab” and is billed as an “anti-mall”. It’s really just a cool, hip shopping center, with restaurants that lean toward vegetarian, and fashion and craft shops. Also seen on this property is a record store, selling old LPs out of another converted Airstream. The owners of these two centers must be scouring the countryside for the old trailers, and then they are doing a bang-up job of fixing them up as small retail shops. Watch the video of the custom bike shop, click here.
Or, watch the embedded version below. Thanks to Big Fun Video for the footage.
NaturalNews) During World Wars I and II, private citizens were encouraged to plant Victory gardens in an effort to support the war effort and take the strain off the food industry, providing more food for citizens living at home. Little gardens popped up all over the country and they were called Victory gardens because people envisioned a victorious end to strife, sadness and hardship. Victory gardens in the U.S. produced a staggering 40% of the food supply. The Victory garden campaign resulted in 5 million gardens tended by over 20 million Americans, providing over $1.2 billion in food by the end of WWII.
Victory gardens were planted on every available plot of land — whether postage-stamp sized or covering several acres. The gardening campaign took the country by storm, with people being empowered by raising their own fresh, organic (because there wasn’t anything else back then) fruits and vegetables; coupled with the hope of victory over adversity and better times to come.
…snip
Ron Finley…
Ron Finley plants vegetable gardens in South Central LA — in abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs. Why? For fun, for defiance, for beauty and to offer some alternative to fast food in a community where “the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys.”
Ron Finley grows a nourishing food culture in South Central L.A.’s food desert by planting the seeds and tools for healthy eating.
Elijah Muhammad, the now deceased leader of the Black Muslims in America, wrote a very interesting book for his followers back in the 1960s. His thoughts on the eating habits of most people and the junk we eat are appropriate to read about today.
The author was a student of the Bible and the Koran, and used the knowledge of those books to shape his philosophy on eating. First and foremost, he recommends eating only once a day. Then, after your body is used to that, try eating only once every other day.
Although the book was written for black folks, to get them out of the bad habits that they got from white civilization, not only the constant non-stop gluttonous eating but also what they eat. He admonishes his followers not to eat any pork, anything from the swine. His group is close to the Orthodox Jews in this aspect, avoid ham, bacon, pork. He also extolls fruit as great food, fruit of any kind. As for vegetables, most yes, but some no. He is against peas, large beans (small navy beans are ok), collard greens, corn, and soy to name a few. The book lays out the reasoning behind this. Many of the foods that are not to be eaten are foods that were given to slaves. His thoughts are that the food that the plantation owners fed their slaves was the lowest quality, but years of being forced to eat those foods transformed into a cultural trend, still being fulfilled 200 years later. Go to a “soul food” or black owned restaurant and see what’s on the menu. Catfish, fried chicken, many things that Mr. Muhammad objects to as being very unhealthy, things that carry on a cultural trend that started with being forced to eat certain things that were cheap foods back in the slave holding days. The criticism of the white culture that was responsible for this is not without merit. All in all, a very interesting book, with good advice for anyone, white or black. And I am very happy to report that he approves of coffee. So do I, in fact I’m having a cup now as I write this! Without sugar, as he suggests.
Back Cover Text
Table of Contents
posted by Paulie
by Paulie Hart
The situation in 1968 was becoming very dire, indeed. Mega corporations were scooping up agricultural land all over the country and putting small farmers out of business. This was taking place 50 years ago, and the consequences of these monopoly farming cartels are now becoming evident. Let’s take a look at the valiant citizens who led the fight on behalf of the small farmers, and study the words they wrote and spoke back then, and understand how their warnings and predictions have rung true 5 decades later.
First and foremost, was Senator Gaylord Nelson. He was undoubtedly one of the greatest men to ever occupy the United States Senate. Born in Clear Lake, Wisconsin in 1916, he actually graduated from San Jose State College in California. Later, he became a lawyer, receiving his J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School. He served in the U.S. Army in World War 2, slogging through the horrible campaign in Okinawa. His rise in politics began in the Wisconsin State Senate, then Governor for two terms, and finally United States Senator. He was a champion of small business and the small farmer and was very concerned about the damage being done to the environment, especially by the corporate farming cartels. He was the principal founder of Earth Day, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his environmental work.
In May of 1968, Senator Nelson, as chairman of the subcommittee on Monopoly of the Select Committee on Small Business, opened hearings in courtroom No. 2, Federal Building in Omaha, Nebraska. Here follows some excerpts of Senator Nelson. His comments were right on the mark: ringing an alarm bell of the approaching disaster. (Note: bold and italic are added by YardEats.com to highlight important parts.)
“Today the Monopoly Subcommittee of the Senate Select Committee on Small Business opens this investigation on the effects of corporation farming on small business and on the economic and social structure of rural America.
“At the outset, the subcommittee wishes to make it clear that incorporation of family farms by their owner-operators is not at issue in these hearings.
“Instead, the subcommittee is vitally interested in learning more about the implications of the rapid movement of large conglomerate corporations and other nonfarm absentee interests into agriculture.
“We want to determine what the effect of corporation farming will be on small business in rural communities, what the consequences will be on the sociological and moral environment of rural America; what the implications will be on existing independent family farms and how we can expect our country’s natural resources to be used by giant farm operators.
” There is mounting evidence…that more and more corporations are turning to agriculture as a means to diversify their corporate activities. Some have had no previous connection with agriculture while others are vertically integrating their operations to move a few steps closer to a final merger of the production, processing, and marketing of food.
“…I suspect that if corporation farming becomes the wave of the future, it not only spells the doom of small rural business and family farms, but it raises other grave questions – questions whose answers hold as much importance for the citizens of our cities as for those in the countryside.
“If corporation farming means fewer family farms and rural businesses, then our already overcrowded cities will be the target for even more out-migration from the countryside. This further pileup of people in the cities will only compound the problems that have led to riots and civil disorder.
“If corporation farming means placing the control of food production in the hands of a few giant food growing, processing, and marketing chains, then consumers, whether they shop in a city supermarket or a country store, will be faced with food prices established by cartels and not be competition.
“The American family farm has proven itself year after year to be the most efficient and effective producer of food in the world….This advantage that American consumers enjoy today is bound to be eliminated if a few vertically integrated firms gain control of the country’s food production and dictate food prices.
“If corporation farming means continued abuse of our tax laws by operators who farm at a loss to gain tax writeoffs, then responsible citizens everywhere will be forced to carry more than their fair share of the tax burden.
“In 1965, there were 119 millionaires who were involved in some phase of farming. Of these 119, 104 reported a net loss on their farm operations for tax purposes.
“This is unfair to the ordinary taxpayer and to the family farmer who has to live on what he earns and cannot enjoy the luxury of investing his already scarce capital in outside business ventures.
“If corporation farming means the future unplanned use of our land and water, then we can anticipate ill conceived industrial development with the attendant blight of landscape, and the creation of massive irrigation projects which imperil or totally deplete existing water tables and destroy the quality of the table by infusions of brackish water. This is already occurring now in many parts of the country.
“Since a large part of the future growth of America must be where the land is, we will soon see innumerable burgeoning new cities and revitalized old towns. Control of the land will critically affect the direction and quality of that growth and hence the quality of American life.
“The land and its resources determine the potential of any nation. Its management and control are of vital concern to everyone.”
Coming soon, Part 2, The Five Points that show how mega corporations are destroying small farms and leading to food monopoly in America. The stunning testimony of Mr. Tony DeChant, President of the National Farmers Union, Denver, Colorado.
Posted by Paulie
