Tuesday 5 November 2013

Crowd funding for farming


Nicholas Carter is a documentary filmmaker working with Morgan Schmidt-Feng and Filmsight Productions. In the past 20 years, Morgan has made numerous documentaries, the most recent of which won the 2011 regional Emmy for Best Documentary.


There latest feature film is called Gleason Ranch: Risking Everything and it tells the story of two sisters in Bodega, California struggling to keep their 150 year-old, 5th-generation family ranch alive after the sudden death of their parents. They have been documenting this story for over 4 years and are now working on securing funding for post-production via the crowd funding Indiegogo platform: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gleason-ranch-risking-everything/


They’ve already received outreach support from organizations like the Women, Food, and Agriculture Network and the Farmer Veteran Coalition, as well as numerous small local businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area. Just recently, author Michael Pollan said, “This doc goes beyond the romance of farming… [it’s] a hard look at the struggles.” 

They just launched on Sunday, so they have 32 days left to reach their $35,000 goal. Gradually they are gaining support.

If you'd like to support this venture or find out more about it please click here.



Monday 1 July 2013

Training Alpacas at Hum Sweet Hum


Cindy Myers at www.humsweethum.com blogs about her alpaca farm located in Oregon.  What was new to me was how she clicker trains her alpacas.  Why anyone would want to train alpacas is beyond me but it makes for fascinating reading.

Cindy started her own alpaca farm a little over 3 years ago although she has been breeding alpacas for over 7 years (she boarded until she bought her own farm).  This is Cindy's first attempt at farming so lots of adventures to blog about.

Cindy has a book coming out soon.


Saturday 31 March 2012

Do you have a good farm blog to recommend?



If you're a fan of a particular farm blog (not you own) and it's not listed on the current blog roll, please don't hesitate to contact me at infoATianwalthew.com

All I need is the following:
a) The name of the blog
b) the url and link
c) a sentence or two or three as to why you think it merits being listed among the best farm blogs in the world.

I haven't had any new recommendations in a while. Does this mean I've gathered all the best farm blogs already?

Surely not.

Please, send me your recommendations.

If you'd like to recommend yourself and see your own blog listed, try and persuade one of the bloggers already listed to recommend you.


Thursday 29 March 2012

Wild Dog Problems

From: Allan Evans

Sheep & wool producer

Corryong Victoria

Australia


We need to do a better job of wild dogs

Dear Editor,

I ask our community and government to consider this:

Sheep killed on our property: 86

Wild dogs: 19 shot, 7 trapped

Where: Less than 6km from Corryong

Time: 5½ months

Our neighbour lost 14 sheep in this time – he has the luxury of being able to bring his flock in close to his house. I don’t. Another few kilometres from our farm, 12 dogs were seen harassing a calf, only one of these dogs has been shot.

As producers we are not sitting on our hands. I have just electrified a further 2.5km of fence but the actions of individual producers are not enough. We desperately need a co-ordinated, proactive approach with strong frontline support from the Department of Primary Industries and the Department of Sustainability.

Wild dogs are a nightmare. For me the continuous onslaught has been worse than any drought. The inevitability of it wears you down. More than once I’ve thought of giving up farming altogether.

Our control approach must be practical, it’s got to work, and it is here department policy makers are making some serious mistakes.

Their worst so far has been the invention of the 3km buffer zone around our Crown lands and parks which means that trapping in this restricted area is the only sanctioned emergency response to dog attacks. To lay baits inside or outside the buffer zone, the DPI must apply to DSE, which manages Crown land, for a permit which can take weeks.

I cannot for the life of me understand what purpose this buffer zone serves apart from protecting wild dogs. What about our native wild life? Wild dogs have wiped out the mob of red-necked wallabies on our property. Where’s their buffer zone?

Wild dog control is a shared responsibility but none of us have any hope while we’re working at cross purposes.

DSE is hampering DPI’s dog control efforts by failing to control its blackberries which provide dogs with protection and food (by encouraging rabbits and deer).

In turn, DPI is thwarting its doggers’ efforts by implementing this ridiculous buffer zone and by tying up their valuable time with administration tasks rather than allowing them to get out and do what they do best. More administrative support for doggers would translate into better dog control.

Dogs can travel large distances very quickly. Doggers should be able to trap and poison on all roads and tracks for at least 15km into the bush without the need for permits.

This is our shared responsibility NOW. We have to act NOW. Ineffective actions that give lip service to wild dog control are not helping anyone. Not me, not other producers, not our irreplaceable native wild life. In the bush, dogs are the top of the food chain and as their numbers grow, everything else vanishes.

Yours sincerely,

Allan Evans


Friday 23 March 2012

Walnut problems

Hi, We have a small farm 5 acres of olive trees near Pescara, Italy.

I have three walnut trees and about 15% of the walnuts when picked are black and inedible. Sometimes I have seen a small worm type maggot in some healthy ones. Is there any spray I could use to eradicate the problem?

Regards,

Kevin@olivegrovefarm.eu

__________________

Kevin,

There's a spray for everything. Why don't you just let nature take her 15% and leave it at that.

You could of course try speaking with a native of Pescara but I'm happy to post your question.

Onwards,

Ian




Monday 17 October 2011

Essex Farms

Stuart Farr recently visited in north-east NY State, with a UK dairy farmer friend of his. It is a fascinating farm best described by the farming wife, Kristin Kimball, in her book "The Dirty Life" (prior to getting her hand dirty, Kristin was a professional writer in NYC).

On Stuart's visit, Kristin was away. Mark, her husband, was very gracious and they spent a lot of time with him as he explained what they were doing and are planning to do with the farm.

You can Google other items, but this gives you a sense: http://www.newenglandvfc.org/pdf_proceedings/2009/EssexGHPM.pdf

Thursday 29 September 2011

Announcement

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO USE THIS BLOG TO COMMUNICATE WITH OUR READERS, PLEASE WRITE TO INFO AT IANWALTHEW.COM

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SELF-RECOMMEND YOUR OWN BLOG OR THAT OF SOMEONE ELSE, PLEASE READ THE PREVIOUS POST.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Please note that I am currently unable to receive any emails at debbie@southyeofarmwest.co.uk – I am trying to sort the problem, but in the meantime could you please use farm@southyeofarmwest.co.uk to reach me or to resend anything that you may have had no response to in the last few days. If it’s urgent, do feel free to ring - number below.

Many thanks and I’m very sorry about this – I’m hoping my ISP will sort it out soon.

Debbie

Debbie Kingsley

South Yeo Farm West

Northlew, Okehampton, Devon EX20 3PS

T: 01837 810569

http://www.debbiekingsley.co.uk

http://www.southyeofarmwest.co.uk

Courses: for information about our next Introduction to Smallholding, Intermediate Smallholding, Cattle for Beginners, Build Your Own Website, and Living with Livestock training days click here: http://www.smallholdertraining.co.uk

Follow us on twitter @southyeofarm

Saturday 9 July 2011

How to Recommend Your Own Blog

PLEASE: IF YOU WISH TO RECOMMEND YOUR OWN BLOG THERE ARE SOME SIMPLE REQUESTS ON MY PART FOR YOU TO FULFILL BEFORE I WILL EVEN LOOK AT YOUR BLOG:

1. Please send me the name of your blog AND its URL.

2. Provide a brief description of your own farm and blog, such as when you started it and why, and what sort of farming you're involved in and what do you post about.

3. Provide a list of the main livestock, crops and/or fibres you are farming. (N.B. This is NOT a donkey or horse blog.)

4. Provide your location, by nearest town, state/region and country.

5. Provide the size of your farm in acres and/or hectares.

6. Now for the really important bit: along with recommending your own blog (which is no shoe-in that I will like it or add it to the blogroll here) please provide YOUR recommendations for between one and five of your favourite farm blogs which you would like to recommend yourself AND which are not already listed.

If you don't recommend at least one other farm blog, other than your own, giving me their exact names, URLs, the location of the farm and a few sentences on why you are recommending them, then I won't feature your self-recommended farm blog, however good your own one might be.

(There are special prize points for those who recommend blogs that are not in their own country, not because I don't want more of them, but because I am also trying to connect farmers in different countries, not just finding the best farm blogs in the world.)

Apologies for being so prescriptive but good bloggers recommending even better ones is very much the ethos of this blog. Furthermore, by following the above guidelines, I can feature as many new blogs as possible in the very limited time I have available to me to keep this blog going.

Many thanks,

Ian


Food borne Diseases


With European food consumers reeling from a current total number of 46 deaths, and many more ill, hundreds seriously, from a single source of food, it's perhaps worth noting that in the U.S.A. alone, the CDC "estimates that each year roughly 1 in 6 Americans (or 48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die of foodborne diseases."

However what has been especially troubling from the recent European outbreak is that so many deaths have come from what appears to be a single source: most likely infected bean sprout seeds imported from Eygpt and used on an organic farm in Northern Germany.

To put that single-event-European-death toll in perspective, of the "10 Worst Food Contamination Outbreaks in the U.S.A. alone, the highest death toll from a single event was generally one to two people. (With the exception of the Jalisco Cheese, Listeria outbreak of 1985 which claimed 48 lives.)

That said, the risks of even falling seriously ill from food poisoning fade into insignificance when compared with deaths from road or gun accidents, even homicide.

Many organic farmers speak a great deal about food security, but frankly it seems to me that the main benefits of locally produced, organic food are taste, the reduction of the environmental footprint of agriculture and last but not least, animal welfare.

Monday 27 June 2011

Where have I been?



First off, my apologies for not having posted since... September 2010. And equally my apologies for not having responded to the emails readers have sent me.

The reason is, I've been finishing a novel, and now that summer has started I won't be posting again until... winter.

Yes, winter 2011, because the long days and the summer are just too beautiful to be in front of a computer.

However, in the meantime, I'd like to mention a few farm blogs that have caught my eye, which you will find below:





Dean Lundeen is a farmer in Illinois, USA, involved in a world hunger project.


The Farming First coalition has launched a six-part online infographic called “The Story of Agriculture and the Green Economy”, which uses data from leading research organisations to tell the story of agriculture’s potential contribution to building a global green economy.

There is growing consensus that a green economy is central to continued global prosperity, in other words, pursuing growth while helping to create sustainable livelihoods, reduce poverty and safeguard the environment.

In 2009, G8 leaders made bold pledges to increase food security aid to $22bn by 2012. At this year’s meeting, the G8 should promote policy coherence on food security and price volatility issues in order to support the poorest without disrupting the market or discouraging farmers from receiving adequate prices. Funding should be coordinated, transparent and farmer-centred.

Each section of the infographic contains statistics and explanations around topics relevant to the green economy, demonstrating, for instance, the central role of farmers as stewards of our natural resources, actors involved in building a more sustainable supply chain, how investment in women farmers may bring greater rewards and existing solutions to making the sector more sustainable while increasing yields, such as conservation agriculture and drip irrigation.

All of the images have been designed so that they can be Tweeted and embedded on external websites and blogs so that others can share the data and participate in the discussions on the green economy.



Chiara Dowell, concerned about GMOs





Dan Grifen is
trying to earn some publicity for the Nature Conservancy’s mission to plant 1 billion trees.


http://homegrowngoodness.blogspot.com/

Bill Drake recommends the above blog, and he also recommends his page on his own website about Farmers Markets : http://www.cultivatorshandbook.com/cultivators/Farmers_Market.html

http://faithartfarming.blogspot.com

Debbie Young is an artist and a new farmer In Ellensbury, WA, USA. She's integrating the topics of faith, art and farming on her site


PLEASE: IF YOU WISH TO RECOMMEND YOUR OWN BLOG THERE ARE SOME SIMPLE REQUESTS ON MY PART.

1. Send me the name of your blog and it's URL.

2. Provide a brief explanation about your blog, such as when you started it and why, and what sort of things you post about.

3. Please provide a complete list of what you are farming. (N.B. This is NOT a donkey or horse blog.)

4. Provide your exact location and how many acres/hectares you have.

5. Now for the really important bit: alongside recommending your own blog (which is no gaurentee that I will like it) please provide YOUR recommendations for the 5 BEST FARM BLOGS WHICH ARE NOT ALREADY LISTED on Farm Blogs from Around the World. Special points for those who recommend blogs that are not in the USA, not because I don't want more, but because I am trying to connect farmers in different countries.

Thursday 30 September 2010

FAO and Climate Change Blog




Read the latest post from the FAO and Climate Change Blog on Millennium Development Goals and climate change.


GMO Corporations - corporate lobbying - corporations within actual corridors of power.



Grabbed this from Twitter

EFSA President a director of ILSI. ILSI's backed by world's largest food, tobacco & #GMO firms, incl. #Monsanto. She's gotta go!!!

EFSA President a director of ILSI. World Health Organization harshly criticized ILSI for its lobbying & restricted its WHO access. #gmo

EFSA is "the EU risk assessment body for food and feed safety. It provides independent scientific advice to risk managers".

ILSI is a "nonprofit, worldwide organization whose mission is to improve public health and well-being by engaging academic, government and industry scientists in a neutral forum to advance scientific understanding in the areas related to nutrition, food safety, risk assessment, and the environment. ILSI receives its funding from its industry members [my emphasis], governments, and foundations."

This is how the world works - GMO corporations - corporate lobbying - corporations within actual corridors of power.



Heifer International in India (Heifer’s mission is to work with communities to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth)



I'm a big fan of the work of
Heifer International and I follow them on Twitter at @Heifer

"Heifer’s mission is to work with communities to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth.

By giving families a hand-up, not just a hand-out, we empower them to turn lives of hunger and poverty into self-reliance and hope.

With gifts of livestock and training, we help families improve their nutrition and generate income in sustainable ways. We refer to the animals as “living loans” because in exchange for their livestock and training, families agree to give one of its animal’s offspring to another family in need. It’s called Passing on the Gift – a cornerstone of our mission that creates an ever-expanding network of hope and peace."

Recently they've being doing some excellent work in India.

In April 2010, Heifer International staff and a team from non-profit service organization, BLT Helps, traveled to Rajasthan, India to witness Heifer’s work in action.

Documented by renowned photographer Brigitte Lacombe, the photographs and videos in this collection provide a glimpse into the lives of the people who are working diligently to change the course of the future for their communities.

If you are a webmaster or a blogger (with more time than me!) there are some great assets from this trip, including Lacombe's photos, videos featuring women from Rajasthan, interviews, articles, banners and more.

All of this can be found at: http://www.heiferoutreach.com and any blogger or webmaster is free to use these assets

If you are able to post any of the aforementioned content, you’ll be helping to turn the spotlight on the importance of self-sustaining agriculture, in both India and around the globe, to lift communities out of poverty.

If it's not too much trouble, please send Mike Wierzenski a link to where the content is placed on your site. You can reach him at mwierzenski AT bltomato.com

For more information, you can visit the following links:

Gilroy Farms, NSW, Australia (5000 acres; dryland broadacre cropping)

Ben Boughton helps run his family's dryland broadacre farm in northern New South Wales, Australia.

My wife being Australian (in fact she's off to extend our European summer by taking our two boys for three weeks to see family and friends in Australia late October) it's always a pleasure to feature Aussie farmers.

Especially from NSW, because she's a Wagga girl - a big farming town in NSW. (Called Wagga Wagga, it's so good they named it twice, but beyond the joke it means 'place of many crows' in the local aboroginal language.)

But back to Ben. He's been updating a page for each crop with photos as it grows.

Here's the link to Ben's Gilory Farms about 50 km of Moree in Northern NSW.

They have 5,000 acres of dryland cropping, including Faba beans, barley, wheat and chickpeas.

It's a simple blog, but gives one a good impression of dryland farming and the vagaries of the Australian weather.

Wednesday 29 September 2010

Seed Living - home grown worldwide

If GMO isn't your thing, you're going to love this.

I don't normally post about specifically commercially blogs, but I'm making an exception because this is a pay what you can website.

Anna-Monique West's family’s new website is called
SeedLiving and it's billed as

"Your source for buying, selling and swapping seeds and live plants".

We're talking open pollinated seeds and live plants.

It is entirely a pay what you can website.

Users may also post news & tips for free as well as events.

The site is international although they are based in Calgary.

Their goal is to provide an online community for those dedicated to biodiversity to learn from each other and possibly gain another source of revenue.



Fr. Peter's Environmental Notes

I have such a back log of correspondence concerning Farm Blogs from Around the World, I am embarrassed at how rude I've been to the many people who have written to me, bringing my attention to wonderful new farming blogs.

In my defense I have been writing a rather large novel over the last nine months, which is now with my literary agent and should be about to go out to publishers. (For more information please visit www.ianwalthew.com)

OK, following on from my last post I've been pleased to be introduced to a terrifically well-written, well researched blog called Fr. Peter's Environmental Notes



Based in the U.K it's

"a resource for moral & environmental thoughts from a Christian viewpoint"

Father Pete's hope is that this blog "!will be of use to anyone who is concerned about the present situation of Climate Chaos and wants to do whatever they can in order to help to ease the problem."

You don't have to be a Christian to enjoy this blog - it's well written, well-researched and thoroughly deserving of a visit.

"ALL OF CREATION GOD GIVES HUMANKIND TO USE. IF THIS PRIVILEGE IS MISUSED, GOD'S JUSTICE PERMITS CREATION TO PUNISH HUMANITY". Hildegarde von Bingen (1098-1179)

Father Pete also has another blog of simple money saving D.I.Y ideas that cover projects from cooking to gardening, and which he adds to a regular basis.

Fr. Peter's DIY Environmental Ideas


"TO INVENT, YOU NEED A GOOD IMAGINATION AND A PILE OF JUNK," so said Thomas Edison. I am sure that God did not intend us to sit at a desk for eight hours a day, to eat refined food and ready meals and never stretch our creative potential. God is a creator, we are made in His image, therefore we are also creators. The important thing when using our creative ability, in garden, kitchen or workshop is not to expect success every time but only once in a blue moon!




Thursday 22 July 2010

Agchat.org and the general subject of how GMO special interests use SM to advance their goals

These are my conclusions on the penetration of the social media space in agriculture by GMO special interests.


I tried to pursue this on Twitter, was asked by board members of Agchat.org that it could be better pursued off line by email, which I agreed to, and then once that happened, the shutters came down. I was given good answers but told I couldn't post them on my blog.

Well, it doesn't work like that on Farm Blogs From Around the World.

If someone wants to take a public discussion out of the public eye, and then when it's out of the public eye, think that I am not going to make that correspondence public, then they don't understand the meaning of the word TRANSPARENT and they don't understand THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

The best way I can do this is to publish my correspondence from and to people at www.agchat.org after they asked me to move to email. Which I agreed to, but not in the expectation that that would be a short cut to suppressing my views and voice in a public forum.

Could I take this opportunity to remind everyone that this blog has been around a lot longer than www.agchat.org and secondly, it was this blog that initially recommended www.agchat.org to its readers. Whether I still do, you'll need to read to the end....


NB. For first time visitors to this blog, may I also say this:

  • I am not, nor never have been, a journalist
  • I do not make money from this blog
  • I am not an Amazon affiliate even for the book that is advertised on this blog
  • To the best of my knowledge I am not aware of this blog helping sell the book advertised on this blog
  • I think my book has sold less than 10 copies in the USA and this sure won't help it sell any more
  • I do have a 5 hectare small-holding in rural France
  • I do consider myself just as much a member of the #agchat community on Twitter as anyone else, even if I may not have time or inclination to participate as much as I would like to
  • No organization of any type, no company of any type asked me to look more closely at www.agchat.org
  • I have no hidden agenda
  • I am not a troll
  • I am not on a witch hunt
  • It was entirely at the request of FARMER members of the #agchat space (by members, I mean anyone who follows that # on Twitter)
  • I have no dollars in this discussion; it has EATEN time over the past ten days to NO benefit to me financially, emotionally or practically.
  • I am not planning on writing a book on farming or social media or GMO or special interests.
  • My next book has yet to be given to my agent, let alone find a publisher.
  • It's a novel to do with loss and has NOTHING in any way, shape or form to do with farming and I very much doubt it would appeal to many of the people I am in email contact with regarding this blog, past, present and future; ditto all the Tweeps who I have been engaged with in the last 10 days.
  • Do not buy my books, past, present or future. They are rubbish despite what the critics say.
  • World, be engaged, be alert, but above all, get an effing sense of humour some of you Tweeps.


That all said, here's the correspondence. Draw your own conclusions.


Email from Mike Haley, VP of www.agchat.org to me, Ian Walthew who runs this blog, after he suggested we move the discussion to email.

July 20, 2010


Ian,


I think I understand your concerns, but honestly am still a little confused. Your original questions where pointed 1) directly at who funded the foundation, then it 2) evolved into GMO companies planting people into social media outlets, then 3) evolved into the current accusations that gmo companies pay farmers to tweet their views for them.

Now, I can guarantee that the first concern about the foundation has been very transparent about its mission and goals. To date we are running on a budget of less than $9,000 from 10 sponsors, some farmers, most of this money has gone towards legal paperwork to get classified as a non profit and for the upcoming conference. We are working on the sponsorship page, but when we first collected money from sponsors we forgot to get their approval to list them on our website (something that we have corrected for future sponsors) so it is not listed yet but will be shortly.

The other two concerns are an unfortunate reality of life, I see it used against us every day when it comes to animal rights activists and spam accounts that they use. I truely hope that no companies are using agchat to further their agenda, but if they are its up to readers to come to their own conclusions. Your tweets, most likely unintentional, give the feeling that you are accusing the entire idea of aghcat of being some type of monsanto conspiracy, that I dont approve of as their are several very well intended farmers that participate during, and throughout the week. I challenge you to look at the people that contacted you about agchat, there is one particular organization called XXX [REDACTED BY IAN WALTHEW] that pays people to blog about gmo's and is not very transparent about it so it works both ways.

As far as my tweets, I have never been paid by ANYONE to tweet or received any discount on seed to do so. I tweet about my farm, and my views on agriculture, I have every right to do so. I am not sure how it is in France, but in the US most farmers have embraced GMO's as a tool they can use to be better farmers. This fact may be the reason why you dont see many farmers speaking out against the seed companies that sell GMO crops, we dont feel that threatened by them. That said I dont use 100% GMO's, I just use them when i find it worthwhile for me to do so. That said me and my father have been running the numbers for next year and may go 100% GMO free. We will see if its time effective and cost effective on our farm.

I completely support other types of farming and encourage diversity so the consumer can have choice in the products he buys. Part of this choice is why I may switch to GMO free as the premium may allow more profits for my farm over GMO plants. I have several Organic neighbors that I have high respect for and work with very well and plant buffer strips between our farms and other methods to ensure that we are not encroaching on their rights to farm in another method. The local farming community is very diverse and has a very good relationship with each other.

Feel free to ask more questions of me and the foundation, very willing to answer them

Mike
@farmerhaley

Email from me to Mike in reply:
July 21, 2010

Hi Mike,
Thanks very much for taking the time to write to me about this in such comprehensive detail.
I am the first to admit that I'm not a professional advocate, and that I am new to Twitter, so my approach has no doubt been unclear and clumsier than it would be if I was a professional lobbyist or expert on social media. Equally, Twitter is a tough environment to get people to read carefully what you are saying.
As a result, it was, I promise you, completely unintentional in giving ANY feeling that I am accusing 'the entire idea of aghcat of being some type of Monsanto conspiracy'. Absolutely not. I am an agchat fan.
GMO is a hot topic in the EU - until now completely banned despite a limited number of test hectares. Equally, you can't import GMO derived food into Europe. That said, there has been a recent decision to allow individual member states more leeway in developing their own GMO policies. But the public mood, both within the farming community (with the exception of the SOME large cereal farmers - and large in Europe doesn't mean the same as large in the USA) and in the consumer community is generally totally against GMO. And no one seems to want it in their food.
Let me tell you my position on GMO.
By 2050 we are going to have feed an extra 3 billion people, and with climate conditions (yes, I am firm believer in global warming, including the contribution of the beef industry - methane - and deforestation in the Amazon and Central America, mostly illegal to accommodate new beef farmers) that's going to be tough without GMO.
However, I believe the USA has moved too fast on GMO when there simply isn't anything approaching the consensus within the global scientific community on the pros and cons of GMO for bio-diversity at a 'green level'.
In short, I just don't believe we know enough yet to roll this out, in terms of implications for consumer health and the ecology.
At a economic-political level, there is a very real danger of Big Ag seed companies getting a de facto total grip on the global seed market, which would not be in the interests of any farmer re. prices. (We already have a case of a GM seed having problems and guess who are the only people who can come up with the sprays to treat them? BigAg.)
At a consumer level, and for you personally, I think you're thinking in the right direction going non-GMO at least, if not organic. As GMO is banned in food here within the EU, the organic label is much more than being just GMO-free. I think farmers are fighting a mass grass roots consumer movement in the developped world, if they think producing GMO crops, or feeding GMO feed to stock, is the way forward, and as someone said on agchat with me, even McDonalds understand this.
As to penetration of the social media space, I've said repeatedly this applies to any 'issue' and by any special interest group including, yes, anti-GMO to vegans.
Regarding, BigAg funding of the agchat space, the answers I got were a little opaque in terms of the 'not currently', 'not at this time' nature.
Someone argued that 'why shouldn't agchat take sponsorship from special interests?'
Well, being a farmer led community doesn't mean taking, in my humble opinion, BigAg money. I'd look to other non-profit foundations for money, and I think its a mistake to let people who are NOT farmers in a farmer led community, take such an active role in organising and steering community debate, especially when they directly or indirectly take money from BigAg as employees or consultants.
Finally, and you should be aware of this, there are members of the agchat community who are SCARED to speak out on this issue, and a number of them are encouraging me to take this issue forward, because they feel they can't.
They are worried about being voted off various farming organization bodies etc., other people's perception of them in the agchat space, or even scarier tactics.
That doesn't speak well for the community does it, if members of the community are scared to speak their true views and concerns?
They like me doing it because I am:
a) a nobody;
b) not a farmer (I have a 5 hectare small holding; a cow I buy each year, take to abattoir, butchers and share with three other families; two pigs, chickens, rabbits and I barter pasture for hay and potatoes. Nearly everything we eat comes from our land, or from the 'commune' - county would you say in USA? No, too big, we're about 7 sq hectares of mountain country between 800 m and 1600 m and most is forest;
c) I'm not a journalist;
d) I'm not anti-GM per se;
e) I'm an author, but I am not writing or promoting a book about farming or social media or any other product or cause;
f) I can't be pressured by anyone. Nobody owns me, and I don't owe anyone a dime to anyone, not even a mortgage.
Ironically the majority of the people conversing with me/insulting me/questioning my motives, are NOT the tweeps I suspect of having a BigAg agenda and being paid so to do.
The defensiveness of the community is in no doubt in large part to the nature of my approach, as @FairFoodFight and other agchat folk you would know have said privately to me BUT the defensiveness does not make consumer observers of this discussion on Twitter less convinced by my beliefs, but MORE so, and they're telling me this.
As to you Mike, I believe you. Straight up.
Personally I'd rather be deceived by someone than accuse someone of being a liar.
And I've never thought of you as one.
But I did decide - and yes, I did break that decision with Jeff not least of all because he is PRESIDENT of @agchat - not to get in to calling tweeps out individually. Why not?
Because I don't believe anyone has the right to police the Internet one way or another.
I've repeatedly said it should be the community that explores this together not one individual.
But the community has been more in a state of a personal protection of their own reputations and NOT in discussing the issue of special interest penetration of the social media space.
It's not my job to do this, but I am member of the community myself, even though people have continually implied I am attacking a community that belongs to 'them' with no self-awareness that I consider myself a member of the same community I am forcefully challenging.
Mike, why don't we agree this?
I'll post your email on my blog and my reply and tweet the link.
You RT it and encourage everyone who is in the agchat space to RT the link to the blog post with your letter and mine.
You agree to forward our emails to as many of the most important agchat space players that you can think of and have email addresses for this. (Please bcc me or if you're not happy sharing their email addresses with me, just tell me who you have sent the email to, and when).
And although I can't insist nor would insist on this, why don't you try and encourage the Agchat Foundation board folk but also any key grassroots agchat space players to debate this issue and about what your policy is on transparency. You know, grass root movements, farmer-led movements (state Farm Bureaus for example) have a reputation of quite quickly losing touch with their founding grass root principles.
I personally would be inclined to shoot for something like the following:
a) that you welcome GMO seed players (and other non-farming special interests) to take part in the agchat space, but do it in a way where they do it the name of their company spokesperson or employees;
b) that you hope all people in the aghcat space will make clear their own affiliation to/support for any special interest group - from PETA to BigAg seed - on their Twitter profile and that there is the expectation that any community participant does not receive money from GMO players or any special interest groups, unless they are either a declared special interest lobbyist or employee;
c) that you take a strategic decision NOT to take money from any GMO players or any other special interest group.
d) that you encourage people to look out for tweeps who may not be all that they seem. This is after all, the Internet. Imagine if you were giving advice to your daughter about using an Internet dating service/dating space.
e) think carefully about the wisdom of letting special interest employed Tweeps be so active in steering/organising the online discussions.
Now the above is just my humble opinion as a member of the agchat community, but if the community can't listen and disseminate the views of its members, which it clearly can't as witnessed by the incoming I have received and from remarks by FARMER members of the community too scared to raise their heads on this issue EVEN THOUGH they agree with me, then you can't be in denial that there isn't something wrong about this grass roots farmer led community and that it doesn't need further thought, reflection, debate and ACTION.
Looking forward to hearing from you. Sorry to cause you any personal crap - it was NOT my intention, on that you have my word. As with everything I've said in this email.
Kind regards,
Ian
@Ian Walthew (Twitter)
www.farmblogs.blogspot.com (I started this a while back, way before I had even heard of social media or Twitter; I don't make a dime out of it; I do it when I have time and I have a backlog of blogs to recommend and post about - probably will be in September after I've finished my next novel and school holidays are over)



Email to Jeff Fowle, President of www.agchat.org, after he too suggested we move the discussion to email and off Twitter.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010


Dear Jeff,
The email address you DM me didn't work, so I am trying again.
Below you will find the email from Mike Haley to me, my reply and my proposal.
Jeff, I asked MPK if she was one of the prime movers behind Agchat and she dodged the question in a totally disingenuous way by saying that she was one of 13 founders.
You must know I believe that this does not square, in any shape, way or form with this:
None of the other 13 were nominated but her and I put it to you and Mike that this was her initiative and she was the prime mover in getting it off the ground and she was probably instrumental in identifying the mix of board directors, including yourself?
As President, I would very much like a straight answer to that question.
I'd also like to post you and Mike's version of events and your position and mine and be done with it, because I haven't got the time.
I hope that Sollmana posts my reply, but we shall have to wait and see. If she doesn't, you may wish to write to her and ask
a) why not?
b) does she have a copy of the comment she has not yet posted that she could send to you?
With kind regards,
Ian


Email FROM Jeff Fowle, President of www.agchat.org, to me in reply.
Thursday, July 22, 2010


Ian,

1. MPK created #agchat, the hashtag & Tuesday discussion as well as #foodchat. She was nominated for the Mashable Award for starting these two discussions in 2009. The Foundation had not even been created. That occurred in April, 2010.
2. The AgChat Foundation is ENTIRELY SEPARATE. While directors of the Foundation do serve as moderators, MPK still oversees #agchat / #foodchat.
3. The Foundation was created through discussions between myself, Mike, Ray, & Darin through our meeting during #agchat discussions. A group, including the four of us and nine others (the Board of Directors) hammered out the details and the Foundation was born.
4. The Foundation has operated on voluntary time and effort since it was formed. We have received some donations from individuals and a couple of businesses, which will be posted on the website soon.
5. I cannot stress enough that #agchat/#foodchat and @agchat/@foodchat are MPK’s creations. The Foundation (agchat.org & @AgChatFound) is a creation of a group of farmers, ranchers,a dairyman, a cowboy & a horseman.

6. I see no need to post any of these private emails. It has been a private discussion between us. If you or anyone else has further questions they may be sent to me personally or through info@agchat.org, I see all requests.

Jeff Fowle



Email FROM Mike, Vice-President of www.agchat.org, to me in reply to my proposal to publish our correspondence on this blog, and then move on.
Thursday, July 22, 2010

Thanks Ian,


I value, your thoughts. I agree with Jeffs response to you earlier as well.

I will look for your comment on Amanda's blog and answer your questions there and we can use that as a place to have this discussion, I am also hoping that Barth from Fair Food Fight may post his thoughts as well as I feel that may be a more neutral environment to discuss.

Feel free to continue asking questions, but I will share the feedback that I have received from several people in the community. Most of us use the #agchat tag to keep in touch and learn from othersabout what is happening on their farms throughout the week. Several people feel its been hard to keep in touch with others as you have put the #agchat tag in almost all of your tweets and monopolized the stream. Do with as you wish but it will continue to aggregate people.

Our state fair is starting and I have will have very little computer time over the next week so I am uncomfortable with you posting my email on your blog as I will not be able to respond to questions appropriately as they are asked.

Please feel free to share my email and your response privately with those that have contacted you, but I do ask that you remove the following two sentences as I am uncomfortable sharing one point before we get the website updated and should not have accused a particular organization without proof in the second part:

"To date we are running on a budget of less than $9,000 from 10 sponsors, some farmers, most of this money has gone towards legal paperwork to get classified as a non profit and for the upcoming conference"

"I challenge you to look at the people that contacted you about agchat, there is one particular organization called XXX {REDACTED BY IAN WALTHEW} that pays people to blog about gmo's and is not very transparent about it so it works both ways."

Here is my revised email:

Ian,

I think I understand your concerns, but honestly am still a little confused. Your original questions where pointed 1) directly at who funded the foundation, then it 2) evolved into GMO companies planting people into social media outlets, then 3) evolved into the current accusations that gmo companies pay farmers to tweet their views for them.

Now, I can guarantee that the first concern about the foundation has been very transparent about its mission and goals. We are working on the sponsorship page, but when we first collected money from sponsors we forgot to get their approval to list them on our website (something that we have corrected for future sponsors) so it is not listed yet but will be shortly.

The other two concerns are an unfortunate reality of life, I see it used against us every day when it comes to animal rights activists and spam accounts that they use. I truely hope that no companies are using agchat to further their agenda, but if they are its up to readers to come to their own conclusions. Your tweets, most likely unintentional, give the feeling that you are accusing the entire idea of aghcat of being some type of monsanto conspiracy, that I dont approve of as their are several very well intended farmers that participate during, and throughout the week.

As far as my tweets, I have never been paid by ANYONE to tweet or received any discount on seed to do so. I tweet about my farm, and my views on agriculture, I have every right to do so. I am not sure how it is in France, but in the US most farmers have embraced GMO's as a tool they can use to be better farmers. This fact may be the reason why you dont see many farmers speaking out against the seed companies that sell GMO crops, we dont feel that threatened by them. That said I dont use 100% GMO's, I just use them when i find it worthwhile for me to do so. That said me and my father have been running the numbers for next year and may go 100% GMO free. We will see if its time effective and cost effective on our farm.

I completely support other types of farming and encourage diversity so the consumer can have choice in the products he buys. Part of this choice is why I may switch to GMO free as the premium may allow more profits for my farm over GMO plants. I have several Organic neighbors that I have high respect for and work with very well and plant buffer strips between our farms and other methods to ensure that we are not encroaching on their rights to farm in another method. The local farming community is very diverse and has a very good relationship with each other.

Feel free to ask more questions of me and the foundation, very willing to answer them

Mike

@farmerhaley


Email from me to Mike Haley, Vice-President of www.agchat.org, in response to the above email.
Thursday, July 22, 2010

Mike,
I'm really uncomfortable with this.
You and Jeff wanted me to email you and in so doing move the conversation out of a public space into a private one.In good faith I did so, because I was cluttering up Twitter.
I get your email, and make a very, very reasonable proposal that I post both our emails on a widely respected farmer content blog which I do run for no money and no return as a hobby and as a public service and have done way before you guys came on the scene, and then we all move on.
Then Jeff writes me, but says NO, I can't publish it on my blog.
Now you agree with him PLUS wanting to shift the debate to a very pro-agchat.org blogger who's been pretty unpleasant about me and my motives PLUS telling me the below and absurdly asking me not to reveal what you say about "there is one particular organization called XXX {REDACTED BY IAN WALTHEW] that pays people to blog about gmo's and is not very transparent about it so it works both ways."
Sorry, but I ain't playing.
I 'll consider not mentioning the name of
XXX {REDACTED BY IAN WALTHEW]
(only because I don't want to cause you any grief) but need I say more....? For crying out loud, what the heck
is
Janice's main BUSINESS goal, despite whatever personal passion she may have for farming.
I am going to publish both your and Jeff's emails, and my replies, and the one below and this one. On my blog. Then I am moving on, off Twitter on this subject, and off asking you more questions. I will make my own post, and that will be that. If you want to link my correspondence or yours to any other blog or use it on any other blog (something I doubt very much you will do) then please feel free to do so.
That I am afraid is what the Internet and freedom of speech is all about. And the emails were sent to me, and that's that.
I am over being given the run-around by people like Michele Payn-Knoper, I don't have the time for this, I recommended your org. on my blog in very good faith; in very good faith I have said repeatedly I think the agchat space is great; I've nothing against GM interests being involved, but the run-around I've got from MPK and others, it's enough.
I'm posting. And then I will no longer be in your life or you in mine and I will feel I have fulfilled what I set out to do which is to give this subject a damn good airing when key members of your own community are too intimidated to speak out. I am not intimidated.
If you want to comment further, please post comments on my blog post, whenever you like and I will publish them, whatever they say.
Can't be more reasonable than that.
I actually have great respect for the farmers on the board and advisory board of Agchat.org, you included.
However, I happen to strongly believe agchat.org is the brainchild (as in the idea being seeded by) of GM interests, even when I don't include YOU nor the majority of its board and nor the vast majority of your community, yourself included, and people like Amy as GM interests or being in the pocket thereof.
However, collectively you are being manipulated and making a grave mistake letting non-farmers onto the board of a farmer led organisation.
I also think it's a great shame when transparent loving people as you claim to be, should be so determined to suppress my questions and the issues I have raised and get them out of the public eye. It renders agchat.org no good, and I'd advise you to have a serious rethink about what you're doing, who you plan to take money from and who you let moderate your discussions, who you let play such critical roles on your board and advisory board, and get back to basics pretty damn fast.
Which are, as I understand it:
Transparent, diverse (including pro-GM people but saying so in language we all understand) and farmer led.
And if there's a pro-GM group out there paying people to blog about GM, why the hell would you believe there wouldn't be special interests paying people to Tweet?
Which has been my point all along.
I think you and the three other top men all need a strong cup of coffee.
That's one man's opinion, do with it what you like. I could be wrong, I could be right, who knows?
What I do know that I am damn straight about believing in the power and possibilities of social media for farmers and I'm even surer Agchat.org is going to play, is playing, a critical and central role at least in the USA, but its universal Mike as you know. Look at my blog!
If you want to be farmer led and transparent then walk the talk.
Suppressing me, my questions, getting them off Twitter and into what you somehow imagine is a private domain (my email box that people like you have written to, knowing full well my interest in this topic and that I run a blog), then I'm afraid that's a mistake.
Anyway, I'll post, I'll have done what I think is right, you can do what you think is right, and we'll be out of each other's hair.
I will still continue no doubt to follow the #agchat space, but from a discreet distance. And I will continue to watch out for paid special interest Tweeps working against all you wish to be - transparent.
Good luck with it. I think for ANY farmer to do anything other than bloody well survive is an incredible act of public service and I wish all farmer board members the very best will in the world.
KR
Ian


Email FROM Mike Haley, Vice-President of www.agchat.org, in response to the above email.
Thursday, July 22, 2010

Ian,

With all do respect you have the right to do as you please, I felt you would respect my privacy the same as you have respected the privacy of the people that have emailed you. Feel free to post them on your blog as you wish though.

I have answered your questions best I can, its up to you to draw your own conclusions from there, as many others have that followed the conversation over the past months.

Mike


_____________________________________________

That then concludes the correspondence on this matter as far as I am concerned.

I think it has been a useful discussion on Twitter (search me under IanWalthew for the entire time line since last week and judge for yourself) and a useful exchange of views in these emails.

For those who want a bit more detail I'll post some edited highlights of the Twitter discussion to avoid you having to go through the entire time line but of course, for a full-view and to get both sides of the discussion fully seen, and who said what and why and when, you'd need to read the time line from Tuesday of last week.

I'm relieved that this is nearly over, I have to say.

Not normal Farm Blog fare I know - where I VERY RARELY express a privately held view, but I was the one in this case who recommended agchat.org (and I still do), I just think one has to have one's eyes fully open when considering who is participating not so much with Agchat.org as members but particularly on Twitter chats concerning #agchat #food @agchat or indeed ANY social media space where powerful and very well funded special interests are OBVIOUSLY at play.

(And I'm afraid to spare some well-intentioned farmers some grief, I did elect to redact just ONE example of such an organization).


FINALLY, YOU WILL FIND BELOW THE COMMENT I POSTED, BUT HAS NOT YET BEEN PUBLISHED AS FAR AS I KNOW AT TIME OF WRITING, ON THE OTHER BLOG REFERRED TO IN THE ABOVE CORRESPONDENCE, AND WHICH I CAN TRUTHFULLY SAY TO REGULAR FANS OF 'FARM BLOGS FROM AROUND THE WORLD', I CANNOT RECOMMEND BECAUSE THE BLOGGER CONCERNED IS NOT A FARMER AND NOT VERY NICE TO ME:

http://sollmana.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/the-foundation-the-sponsors-and-the-important-stuff/#comment-22


HERE'S THE COMMENT I LEFT HERE ON THE ABOVE POST ABOUT THE TWITTER DISCUSSION ABOUT AG.CHAT ETC. (AWAITING MODERATION SINCE TUESDAY I THINK)

I saw a tweet that led me here, and when here, I saw one of your tweets saying why did many farmers need a spokesperson to speak up about concerns re. Agchat.

If I may I’d like to try and answer.

The reason why ‘many others’ don’t want to get into the questions I am asking is because, quite frankly, they are concerned, some have used the word ‘scared’, about the consequences for them regarding their involvement – as farmers and individuals, NOT as employees of companies or members of anti-BigAg Seed groups – in farming organizations, local, state and national groups and indeed within their ‘real’ community and circle of off-line friends.

Now, you can take it or leave it, but I got interested in Agchat.org back in April via my blog – about farmers ONLY – http://www.farmblogs.blogspot.com

I even personally recommended it.

Then I started to follow it a bit on Twitter and as my own concerns about SOME aspects of various peoples involvement within that community space grew, I received a number of emails from people – ALL FARMERS, ALL PARTICIPANTS WITHIN THAT COMMUNITY, telling me of their concerns. Concerns that I shared.

So I studied it a bit more.

Then I decided that as I hadn’t got anything to lose personally in terms of raising certain issues, and because these farmers were not prepared to, and openly said so, one saying ‘because I know the tactics of these people’ (meaning BigAg seed special interests), I decided to stick my neck above the parapet.

I may not have done it in the best possible way – SM and Twitter is a very small part of my life and I’m a relative newbie – but the vitriol and insults and accusations made against some author stuck out here in the middle of rural France made me realise exactly why US farmers involved in Agchat would want to keep their heads down.

But that vitriol has only been matched by the number of DMs/emails I have received FROM FARMERS involved in the agchat community, basically saying they agree with me but can’t get involved.

Now, that doesn’t speak very well of the community does it?

What I have said to FarmerHaley is this: listen Mike, I asked you to email me, you did, I’ve replied, why don’t I make a blog posting about this for my prime readership (people who come to http://www.farmblogs.blogspt.com – a lot of farmers when I only have about 90 followers on Twitter and half of them are new because of this agchat debate) and then I’ll have made an intelligent balanced post on my blog, I can put the link to my post on Twitter and I’ll be done with the damn thing. Mike can obviously do the same, or post my email on the Agchat website in the interests of reciprocal transparency. Mike is a busy farmer, and I’m waiting on that.

What I’m finding alarming about all this is the amount of personal invective directed at someone who questions. I thought this was meant to be a community of diverse views and participants etc? Well I can tell you, and if you follow me on Twitter or look at my timeline you’ll see, I am getting very opaque answers to very direct questions, and repeated accusations that I am this, that or the other, when I have repeatedly explained my position.

The entire experience has done nothing but strengthen my and the suspicions of others about SOME aspects of SOME peoples involvement in Agchat and the entirely less than transparent connection between them and BigAd seed special interests.

As I wrote to Mike, if Monsanto etc want to give AgChat a load of money I wouldn’t take it, but I wouldn’t take it from anti-GM people or PETA either. I don’t think it serves the interests of a ‘farmer-led’ organisation (which actually, I’m not convinced it is on a day to day practical level) to take money from special interests. Surely that is a totally reasonable position that anyone could respect at least, even if they don’t agree with it?

But if BigAg seed want to tweet under their name, declaring their interests, that’s fine by me and lots of other people in the agchat space.

But not via tweeps whose connection to them we don’t know about, nor by ‘volunteer’ employees and lobbyists and social media consultants who have BigAg as CLIENTS and who are claiming to be putting all this time into Agchat as if it wasn’t a part of the day to day job and part of how they earned money from those clients!!

I mean come on, let’s get real here.

Is it just me that’s finding all this a little odd?

No, so that’s one thing.

But I do think an overall sense of protectiveness by real farmers who have nothing to do with BigAg seed money, is causing them are to go bananas about what I am saying because they think I am anti Agchat, anti BigAg seed (not entirely true, my position is more nuanced as I’ve explained to Mike in my email) or whatever.

Their passion is getting in the way of reason.

And all I’m trying to do is to introduce a little bit of reason to leaven the passion with. Not kill the baby.

I hope that’s all clear, but you’ve got my email address if I can answer any more questions.

KR
Ian

http://www.farmblogs.blogspot.com
http://www.ianwalthew.com
@IanWalthew on Twitter