Ran with the devil, Walked with angels

If you think life on your farm is tough, then check out Ran with the devil, Walked with angels from Texas, USA.

Bob was recommended to me by Hidden Haven Homestead.

Bob took time to write to me, and I think I'll let his words do the talking.

Ian, I wrote a whole letter in responce to your putting me (walkedwithangels.blogspot.com) on your blog roll but it got lost because I copied the email address and it uses AT instead of @. You can use any pictures you find on my blog with my full permission. As far as a description of the blog I'm not sure what to put. I'm a little upset at losing everything I wrote before because with this brain injury it can be a struggle and I can't remember what I said.

The blog is a journal that records the miracle of my life after being declared dead at the scene of the accident that put me in a coma. I'm still listed as a fatality by Oklahoma's highway patrol.

The second miracle is the restoration of my marriage after a seventeen year separation brought on by a previous traumatic brain injury. You can read that story on the "Love Story" link on my blog. Brain injury tore us apart and brain injury brought us back together.

So we are building a life on the family farm I inherited from my grandmother with only my disability pension, which puts us well below the poverty level. Add to that the issues of my traumatic brain injury and the fact that I am a city boy with no farming experience at all and it is quite an adventure.

http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/
http://www.ianwalthew.com/


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Please occassionaly send me some photos

Anyone listed on Farm Blogs From Around the World is more than welcome to send me some photos from time to time.

This helps drive traffic to your blog (traffic at Farm Blogs From Around the World is growing quite quickly as word spreads).

But most importantly it helps give a sense of the changing seasons and their activities from various farms, homesteads, ranches and smallholdings around the world.

If you do send photos, please send a maximum of 5 (just for time reasons my end). Once a month would be great, more I don't think I can cope with.

If you are listed on Farm Blogs From Around the World, please do make a posting about it, as many of you have, and certainly, if you can find a moment, please also add a link to Farm Blogs From Around the World.

Many thanks.

In the meantime, here are some photos from The Skoog Farm Journal.

Lori writes (6th August, 2008):

Here are the horses in a shot taken this morning.
I have included one of our beautiful summer nights and a sampling of flowers from our many gardens.

She also writes that she is in contact with FOOD, FUN & FARM LIFE IN EAST AFRICA ! and that they are communicating, which is what it's all about isn't it? Great.

The Skoog Farm Journal.

http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/
http://www.ianwalthew.com/


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Hidden Haven Homestead Recommends

These are some of Hidden Haven Homestead's favourite blogs which she reads every day.


http://hillbilly2be.blogspot.com/ Ron has taught me so much about gardening, building chicken house out of pallets, raising pigs, etc. He makes farming seem possible and fun.

http://walkedwithangels.blogspot.com/ Bob had a accident with very servere head injury. He has come a long way and is trying to farm the land his grandmother left him.

http://amazinggrazefarm.blogspot.com/ Marci shares her ups and downs of farming and how her faith keeps her strong even in the rough days.

http://barefootgypsyblog.blogspot.com/ Juli is a single mom that is teaching her son how to garden, raise animals, build chicken coops, work with his hands and still take time to enjoy life and count your blessings.

http://tracysfarm.blogspot.com/ Tracy is a grandmother that has decided to homestead on her own. She does all the farming, repairs, building, etc. She is amazing.

http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/
http://www.ianwalthew.com/


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Auvergne
Auvergnate
Auvergnat
Auvergnats
France
Rural France
Blogs about France

Hidden Haven Homestead

Apologies to Peggy for not posting sooner about her blog, which was recommended to me by Lynda Hayes, at Food, Fun & Farm Life In East Africa

Hidden Haven Homestead is the blog of Peggy and her husband's "very small farm".

They raise registered Nubians along with chickens, geese, ducks, rabbits and dwarf goats. All have names. They do raised bed gardening and Peggy also makes and sells goat milk soaps, candles and lotions.

And here's one of their goats!

"Washday"

"Babie Goats"

"Diva"

I'm not quite sure how I feel about dressing up goats, but each to their own!

http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/
http://www.ianwalthew.com/


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Nature's Harmony Farm Recommends

Nature's Harmony Farm http://www.naturesharmonyfarm.com/ was recommended to me by by 'Life on a Southern Farm' (http://www.georgiafarmwoman.blogspot.com/).





Located in Elberton, Georgia, Nature's Harmony Farm is a family owned, pasture-based, local-market sustainable farm. "We believe in orchestrating an environment harmonious with nature, where animals are treated with love and respect and are free to naturally express their characteristics," writes Tim Young to me in an email.





They produce:

• Grass-fed Murray Grey Beef

• Free Foraging Berkshire and Ossabaw Pork

• Pastured Poulet Rouge Chickens


• Pastured Free Range Eggs


• Heritage Turkeys


• Pastured Lamb

Nature’s Harmony Farm – It’s only natural to want food this good!

Their farm blog recommendation - http://diaryofafarmer.blogspot.com/

Many thanks to Tim at Nature's Harmony Farm - please drop us a photo now and again if you can.

http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/

http://www.ianwalthew.com/

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Spreading the word about Farm Blogs From Around the World

Thanks to Lynda in Africa for posting about Farm Blogs from Around the World, which you can read here.
http://foodfunfarm.blogspot.com/2008/08/farm-blogs-from-around-world.html

If your blog has already been recommended and listed on Farm Blogs, please don't hesitate to send me your own recommendations, if you haven't done so already, along with any info about your blog and a photo or two that I can post about you.

Thanks,
Ian


www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
www.ianwalthew.com

Farm Blogs
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Raising Country Kids Recommends

Raising Country Kids (http://www.raisingcountrykids.com/)%20recommends ) recommends the following blogs:

Bush Babe (Australia)
http://bushbabe.blogspot.com/


Frazzled Farm Wife (U.S.A.)
http://frazzledfarmwife.blogspot.com/



Just Another Day On The Prairie (Canada)
http://prairierunner.wordpress.com/




Melissa Hart the Knolltop Farm Wife (U.S.A.)
http://knolltopfarmwife.blogspot.com/



Mud Ranch's Real Dirt (U.S.A.)
http://mudranch.wordpress.com/



Plowing, Sowing and an Occassional Harvest (U.S.A.)
http://plowingandsowing.blogspot.com/



I'll be adding them to the blog roll and contacting them for their recommendations, as per usual.

Thanks to Erin at Raising Country Kids.




http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/
http://www.ianwalthew.com/



Farm Blogs

Raising Country Kids

Raising Country Kids (http://www.raisingcountrykids.com/) has the strap-line: "This is real life on the farm with four kids".

Four kids?! I have three and I am exhausted and I don't run a farm. (My farming neighbours have five thus far!)

The blog is written by Erin and she and her husband farm and ranch with his parents on about 6,000 acres in central Montana.

They raise winter wheat, malt barley, alfalfa hay, and cattle. The operation also includes horses, dogs, chickens, and of course the four kids, ages 2 to 10.

They are are located in a very rural area of the country; the nearest shopping mall is a three hour drive. (Lucky them.)

Erin's blog chronicles their daily lives and gives her an outlet for her hobbies of writing and photography.

http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/

http://www.ianwalthew.com/

Farm Blogs

The On-line Economist Debate on Rising Food Prices

Hi Ian,

The Economist is hosting an online debate until August 8th. It’s an Oxford-style debate on whether or not rising food prices can have an upside for humanity. Participating in this debate there will be some relevant organizations and experts on the subject. They have already posted their statements online:

· Papa Seck Abdoulaye, Director-general, Africa Rice Center
· Neil Parish, chairman, European Parliament's Agriculture Committee
· Paul Roberts, author, The End of Food
· Valerie Guarnieri, Director of Programme Design and Support, United Nations, World Food Programme (WFP)

Pro and Con experts, Homi Kharas, Senior Fellow at the Wolfensohn Centre for Development at the Brookings Institution and Joachim von Braun, Director General, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) will also participate in the debate.

Since food prices are related to discussion on green issues, genetically modified foods and gas prices we thought you would want to know about the debate and participate. We consider this is a subject relevant enough to get opinion leaders like you and your colleagues involved, sharing ideas, thoughts and suggestions about this global problem.
It would be great to get you involved and have your response to our proposition if this subject interests you.

The proposition is: "There is an upside for humanity in the rise of food prices." Although we can never overlook the grave situation posed by rising food prices, we hope to dissect the issue and view it from fresh perspectives to see if it can have a positive impact. For example, do rising food prices benefit farmers? Can they lead to development of safe, genetically modified foods which in turn can help developing nations with marginal farmlands become self-sustainable? And are the shorter-term pains of creating biofuels worth the longer-term gains of reduced transportation costs?

Moderator John Parker feels that “there is always some sort of upside. The question for the audience is how big, and whether it is big enough to be meaningful.” What do you think? We’d love it if you could help us spread the word about the debate or participating on it.

If you’d rather not be contacted again about this debate, please let me know.

Thanks a lot

Paula Santos


Sparkpr for The Economist

Life on a Southern Farm Recommends

Life on a Southern Farm (http://www.georgiafarmwoman.blogspot.com/) recommends Nature's Harmony Farm http://www.naturesharmonyfarm.com/



"A young couple who are farming and doing a great job at it", according to the Georgia Farm Woman.



Nature's Harmony Farm is "located in Elberton, Georgia, and is a family owned, pasture-based, local-market sustainable farm. We believe in orchestrating an environment harmonious with nature, where animals are treated with love and respect and are free to naturally express their characteristics."











http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/
http://www.ianwalthew.com/



Farm Blogs

Life on a Southern Farm

Life on a Southern Farm (linked in the blog roll as Georgia Farm Woman - perhaps I need to change that - http://www.georgiafarmwoman.blogspot.com/ ) was recommended to me by a farm blogger in Africa.

I've just had an email from them with a few words describing their set up.

My husband and I live on a 100 acre farm.

When we bought it 14 years ago, it was just a piece of land with brush and trees growing on it. We built our own house, barn, and shop. We fenced, cleared it, put the old pond back, built a water wheel (where one once stood over 100 years ago), planted pastures, gardens, bought a few cows, goats and chickens. I can't leave out Jack the donkey.
We have a working saw mill also.

We live debt free and enjoy living in rural Georgia, USA.

Here's a snap of the saw mill before it was restored; indeed the restoration work done on this farm from farm house to saw mill is worth a visit alone. Inspirational.

www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com

www.ianwalthew.com

Farm Blogs

Doha and the Price of Failure - can there be progress outside of Doha?

Price of failure.
In the context of high global agricultural prices, a potential Doha agreement would have had little near-term effect. Banning export subsidies and other domestic price supports would have done little, since the amounts governments currently spend on trade-distorting subsidies are well below the proposed WTO limits -- even after the expiration of a proposed five-year phase-in period.However, over the medium-term the agreement that was almost within reach would have transformed the nature of agricultural trade and policy:
- Preventing backsliding.
The broad reform of domestic farm policies in developed countries that began in the mid-1980s, and gathered steam in the 1990s, switched the focus from supporting commodity prices towards paying farmers direct income subsidies. Controversy still exists as to whether these payments are trade-neutral, but they are certainly superior to the purchase of surplus products by governments, and their subsidised disposal on world markets. These changes enabled countries to agree to key WTO principles on the nature and extent of subsidies; the Doha Round was supposed to tighten the screw and prevent backsliding.
- Softening hard times.
Trade agreements are most beneficial when economic conditions are weak. They reduce the inherent uncertainty of trade by constraining the ability of governments to use trade restrictions to shelter domestic producers in hard times. When the economy is buoyant they are less visible: exporters, who usually drive trade policy, are less concerned about protectionism. The WTO Agreement on Agriculture is at its most relevant when world food prices are declining -- as they eventually must.
- Reduced uncertainty.
As every farmer knows, periods of low prices inevitably follow boom periods. There is little evidence to show that this current boom is different. Demand from China and other emerging markets could cool if their frenetic growth rates slow, and supply is likely to respond to higher prices. What governments will do when prices start to slide, in particular if costs are still high, is uncertain. However, it would be remarkable if some governments did not revert to supporting domestic prices.
Progress outside Doha?
Frustration with the unwieldiness of a negotiating forum of 153 countries, each with a veto, is likely to simmer for some months. Therefore, other options for pushing trade liberalisation outside of Doha may need to be explored:
- Regional moves?
One such alternative is to negotiate limits on domestic support and export subsidies in the context of new or existing regional agreements -- although the problem of giving a 'free ride' to other exporters makes this unattractive,
- Seeking 'critical mass'.
More promising is the negotiation of 'plurilateral agreements' among those with most at stake. (Such trade pacts are often called 'critical mass' agreements.) However, in order to conform to WTO rules, the benefits would have to apply equally to other countries so as to avoid discrimination.

What is clear is that the Doha deadlock does not remove urgency of reforming global agricultural trade. However, whereas a comprehensive agreement was once thought necessary to secure complex trade-offs, future progress may have to proceed in smaller steps.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/04/business/4oxan-AGRO.php



www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com

Farm Blogs

Afghan airport to help switch from drugs to fruit

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan: The Afghan and U.S. governments have broken ground on an agricultural centre and airport in the volatile southern province of Helmand, aimed at helping farmers grow food crops instead of opium poppies.Helmand is one of the most fertile provinces in Afghanistan, but much of its agriculture is devoted to poppy farming and the province produced about half the world's opium last year.Fighting between Taliban insurgents and mainly British and U.S. troops in Helmand makes it hard to transport perishable produce to market, while traffickers collect opium directly from the farms or farmers can safely store the drug for some 20 years.

FRUIT AND NUTS, NOT DRUGS
The ground-breaking ceremony was held at the provincial capital's existing airfield, a dirt air strip with a small, dilapidated terminal building built in the 1960s.The entire project will cost $45 million and will be mostly funded by the U.S. development agency, USAID. The Afghan government is expected to contribute around $5 million.Some $18 million will be allocated to paving the 2,200-metre (yard) runway, expanding and rehabilitating the terminal and constructing the agricultural centre.The remainder will be spent on agricultural development in the province, ensuring markets for the farmers and providing technical assistance.Helmand used to produce some of the region's best dried fruits, pomegranates and nuts. But insecurity has led farmers to switch to opium, a crop that also funds the Taliban insurgency, adding to insecurity and further boosting drug production.The airport aims to open up markets for farmers to transport "high value" products such as pomegranates and raisins to international markets, a USAID official told Reuters.The airport and agricultural development in the province is part of a larger counter-narcotics strategy to get farmers to switch from growing opium.
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/08/04/asia/OUKWD-UK-AFGHAN-HELMAND.php


www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com

Farm Blogs

The next step for international trade

Reading a farm blog from Eastern Africa has focussed my mind once more on the importance of the breakdown of the Doha round, which I have been following on this blog.

Here's an editorial from the NYT:

The next step for international trade
The battle lines of the new world order were exposed at the World Trade Organization last week. The breakdown of the Doha round of trade negotiations over a clash between the United States and China and India about farm protections underscored how these new economic giants are changing the balance of power.
The collapse of the seven-year effort to further reduce trade barriers is regrettable, not least because it aimed to increase the access of the poorest countries to rich-country markets. But it lays the groundwork to develop a better way to discuss global trade.
Perhaps it was inevitable that the Doha round, as the talks are known, would fail. With a narrow agenda centered on giving market access to poor countries, little incentive was offered to the leading trading nations to compromise. The talks were left behind by the real world, as many developing countries unilaterally reduced trade barriers below their legal commitments and farm subsidies in rich countries fell automatically as food prices rose.
While the failure does not mean disaster for world trade, there is a risk that it could undermine faith in the rule-based multilateral trading system. Already, the enormous subsidies that are allowed in the U.S. farm bill this year suggest that Washington is backsliding from its goal of freer farm trade. As the Doha round of talks limped along for seven years, the United States and other countries rushed to sign preferential trade agreements on the sly, potentially snagging world trade in a spaghetti bowl of competing deals.
It will not be simple to recapture the momentum lost in the Doha talks. At the very least, substantive discussion about trade will need to wait until the next American administration. But the world's powers might make use of the hiatus to reflect on how best to build on the system of policy coordination that guides world trade.
A strong WTO will be needed to arbiter trade disputes as the world economy slows and protectionist urges simmer. But the WTO needs a broader agenda to get stakeholders interested in more open trading.
The Doha talks did not do much for anybody, not even for the least-developed countries. Granting them concessions like duty-free access on 97 percent of their products sounded great - except most of the tariffs levied on poor country exports are aimed at that 3 percent.
Much future negotiating must occur between developing countries, who account for the bulk of existing trade barriers. These days, industrialists in India mostly want protection against imports from China, not the United States. Perhaps the biggest loser from India's and China's resistance to lower farm tariffs was the agricultural powerhouse Brazil. The North-South frame of the Doha negotiations ignored these cleavages.
The agenda could also be broadened in other ways to incorporate the interests of the big new players. Bringing services - including those involving the movement of people - more fully under the roof of the WTO would provide an enormous incentive for India, a large services exporter. Issues like rules covering the inspection of cargo at ports are likely to become more important as countries deal with national security concerns.
The notion of the grand negotiating trade round involving all WTO members might have to be replaced by more manageable formats. The opening of trade in services, for instance, might be hammered out by smaller groups of exporters. Other countries could accede to the deal if they wanted. This approach might help the WTO address the challenge of global warming, to bring everything from carbon trading to potential trade retaliation for emissions of greenhouse gases under its rules.
The WTO is perhaps the only institution of policy coordination capable of imposing discipline on its members. One of its challenges will be to devise rules to cope with the dynamics of globalization and global warming and to manage the rise of a set of new world powers.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/03/opinion/edtrade.php




www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com

Farm Blogs

Food, Fun & Farm Life In East Africa Recommeds

Lynda Hayes, at Food, Fun & Farm Life In East Africa http://www.foodfunfarm.blogspot.com/

recommends the following blogs, which I have now added to the blogroll and will shortly be contacting for their own recommendations.

I am hoping that Lynda can keep me informed too about other Farm Blogs from Africa, as she is the first for now.


Hidden Haven Homestead (Daily journal about raising dairy goats & other animals, US)
http://hiddenhavenhomestead.blogspot.com/

Organic Growing Pains (Organic growing on an allotment in Ireland)
http://organicgrowingpains.blogspot.com/

Life On A Southern Farm (Life on a 100 acre farm in the South, US)
http://georgiafarmwoman.blogspot.com/




www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com

Farm Blogs

New Blog: Food, Fun & Farm Life In East Africa

So much for my holiday, a change of plans; going next week.

Which is good because I can post about Food, Fun & Farm Life In East Africa ( http://www.foodfunfarm.blogspot.com/ )

I was put onto this fascinating African farm blog by an email I received from the lady who runs it, Lynda Hayes from the foothills of Kilimanjaro, East Africa.

There she lives on a remote 3500 acre farm in Tanzania. She and her husband Ivan grow wheat (for the local market), seed beans (for export to Holland) & safflower (for oil, exported to the USA).

Several of her blog posts regularly include info on the crops they are growing and challenges they may be facing with drought/crop disease etc.

Lynda also writes about their busy planting and harvesting seasons, and the Zero Tillage method of farming (they are amongst the first farmers in the country to introduce this method) and the equipment they use for this.

Lynda's blog is updated daily and is all about farm life, gardening, pets and what life is generally like in Tanzania.

She also includes many local East and South African recipes, and all Lynda's blog posts contain photographs taken by her.

Lynda is originally from Zimbabwe & "after an 11 year career in the hospitality industry (running lodges & camps) in both South Africa and Tanzania... breathing, living & sleeping food .... I got married, started a family & moved to a remote 3500 acre farm in the foothills of Kilimanjaro, with my husband, daughter, loyal staff & an assortment of rescued pets. This blog is about my day-to-day life on the farm ... what I cook, my recipes, pets, gardening & Tanzanian life in general. So welcome - or "Karibu" as we say here ... come & sit at my kitchen table for a while, and I'll make you a nice cuppa tea and we can talk about ... food, fun and farm life !"




www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com

Farm Blogs

Holidays

IW:

On holiday until 8th August, 2008. Have a good one.

Here's a pic of me on the front page of the French magazine L'Express, an article within pretending to be know something Auvergnats.

For a tour of my local market today visit:

http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/

Farm Blogs

Rural Gentrification

One of my favourite rural blogs is Professor Lisa Pruitt's Legal Ruralism - A Little Legal Realism about the Rural. (http://legalruralism.blogspot.com/)

She is also into a subject close to my heart (which you will know if you have read my book A Place in My Country), and that is rural gentrification and the impact on farms, farming and rural communities made by incomers.

Lisa, who is a Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis dropped me a note about a recent posting of her's about this and you can find it at http://legalruralism.blogspot.com/2008/07/rurality-then-and-now-here-and-there.html

Those buses tell their own - surprising - story.

She is currently attending a a rural sociology conference, which she writes "is fueling more opportunity to blog about the topic", so keep your eye on her blog if this subject interests you.

http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/

Farm Blogs

WTO talks collapse over farm trade

GENEVA: After seven years of on-again, off-again negotiations, world trade talks collapsed in rancor on Tuesday, ending hopes of a deal to free up global markets, cut farm subsidies and shore up the international trading system. Discussions here reached an impasse after nine straight days of high-level talks when the United States, India and China failed to compromise over measures to protect farmers in poor countries. Despite exhaustive efforts, Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization, failed to bridge differences between a group of newly-confident developing nations and established Western economic powers. In the end too few of the real power-brokers proved committed enough to make compromises necessary to deliver a deal. "It is a massive blow to confidence in the global economy," said Peter Power, spokesman for the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union based in Brussels. "The confidence shot in the arm that we needed badly will not now happen."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/29/business/wto.php





www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com

Farm Blogs

Cattle 'en pension' in the Auvernge Mountains

IW: Apart from milking his own 'troupeau' and making cheese every day
(see previous but one posting or their web site http://hautes.chaumes.free.fr/site.php/accueil/),
Laurent also has over a hundred Charolais beef cattle summering with him in the mountains. Farmers in the valley pay him a per head price for the grazing and supervision.

He rides out every day to check on them, death by lightning during violent summer thunder storms being the biggest problem.

http://www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com/

Farm Blogs

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT IAN WALTHEW 2008

Book review: The End of Food

The End of Food
By Paul Roberts 390 pages.
$26. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Paul Roberts's prophetic and well-received 2004 book, "The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World," anticipated the current energy crisis. Now he's moved on to what we put in our mouths. Roberts's new book, "The End of Food," which takes into account a vertiginous pile of recent developments - including the so-called tortilla riots of 2007, during which thousands took to the Mexico City streets to protest the rapidly rising cost of maize - may prove no less prescient.
A contributor to Harper's and other magazines, Roberts sketches a dire present and ponders a bleak future. We have reached the end of the "golden age" of food, he writes. No longer do the things we eat "grow only more plentiful, more secure, more nutritious and simply better with each passing year." Instead, E. coli outbreaks "have almost become an annual autumn ritual," and a new day is arriving when "cost and convenience are dominant, the social meal is obsolete" and the act of eating has "devolved into an exercise in irritation, confusion and guilt."
Roberts's worst-case scenario isn't tomatoes devoid of taste. It's a "perfect storm of sequential or even simultaneous food-related calamities." Climate change and spiraling population growth have him wondering not just "whether we'll be able to feed 9.5 billion people by 2070, but how long we can continue to meet the demands of the 6.5 billion alive today." Roberts delivers a litany of terrors small and large: "Arable land is growing scarcer. Inputs like pesticides and synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are increasingly expensive. Soil degradation and erosion from hyperintensive farming are costing millions of acres of farmland a year. Water supplies are being rapidly depleted in parts of the world, even as the rising price of petroleum - the lifeblood of industrial agriculture - is calling into question the entire agribusiness model."
Agribusiness and the industrial food it engenders have, of course, already attracted serious critics like Eric Schlosser's ("Fast Food Nation") and Michael Pollan ("Omnivore's Dilemma").
But they didn't finish the job. What eaters (and readers) still need, Roberts argues, "is a way to consider such critical questions and concerns in a larger, more global context." "The End of Food" wants to be what marketing wonks call a category killer, a book that trumps all other takes on the subject.
He gets about halfway there. Roberts is an expert at marshaling facts and collating figures, but a workmanlike writer. He travels to, among other food crisis flashpoints, Kenya and China. No matter the locale, Roberts measures inputs and outputs. And he draws conclusions from the differences. Our modern "food system can only truly be understood as an economic system," he argues, "one that, like all economic systems, has winners and losers, suffers periodic and occasionally profound instability and is plagued by the same inherent and irreducible gap between what we demand and what is actually supplied."
Late in the narrative, he reveals himself to be not a wild-eyed locavore, intent upon growing his own food and transforming the world economy in the process, but a moderate. In an epilogue, he suggests that we eat less meat and more farmed fish; support regional, instead of merely local, food systems; and work within the system to gain support for sustainable farming methods, while engaging the scientific community in open and honest debate about the possibilities of genetically modified crops.
After hundreds of pages of alarm-sounding and rabble-rousing, moderation seems like a curious position for a man who declares that our food production and distribution system is "so focused on cost reduction and rising volume that it makes a billion of us fat, lets another billion go hungry, and all but invites food-borne pathogens to become global epidemics." (- Reviewed by John T. Edge
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/31/arts/bookthu.php


www.aplaceintheauvernge.blogspot.com

Farm Blogs

Evening milking in the mountains of Auvernge

IW: Some pictures (and text) from the GAEC des Hautes Chaumes, my cheese making friends and neighbours here in the Auvergne. I was up there for the night yesterday with my family and took some snaps.





The summer 'jasserie' where Laurent and his family live during the summer 'estive' at 1200m.

La fourme est un fromage de vache au lait cru, dont la pâte fondante est finement persillée. Sa croûte est épaisse et longuement travaillée par le temps. De forme cylindrique, la fourme mesure 22 cm de hauteur et 13 cm de diamètre.
Nos fourmes sont d’une étonnante richesse aromatique de part nos pratiques agricoles et fromagères. Par ailleurs, selon les saisons, les pâturages, et les aléas d’une fabrication fermière, nous disposons au sein de notre production, de fourmes plus ou moins bleues, fondante, acides, piquantes.
http://hautes.chaumes.free.fr/site.php/accueil/

La traite en estive
Sur ces pâturages d’altitude, et en alternance chaque années, nous faisons les foins. Nous avons fait ce choix pour deux raisons : d’une part, les terrains de Valcivières ne sont pas mécanisables car trop accidentés ; d’autre part, la diversité et la richesse floristique des parcelles des Hautes Chaumes concourent à la qualité du lait pendant l’hiver.
http://hautes.chaumes.free.fr/site.php/notre-ferme/l-organisation-du-gaec

Mobile milking trailer used during the summer.

Mobile cheese making trailer used during the summer.

Les Hautes de Chaumes (63)
Ce plateau, appelé les Hautes de Chaumes, est en partie classé « Site Natura 2000 ».

GAEC DES HAUTES CHAUMES
Le troupeau

Notre troupeau est composé de 30 vaches laitières de race abondance (race rustique des Alpes) et de 20 génisses de zéro à trois ans, pour assurer le renouvellement. Ce cheptel nous permet la production de 120 000 litres de lait par an, transformés en totalité en fourmes ; soit environ 10 tonnes de fromages.
Nos bêtes sont majoritairement nourries à l’herbe. En fonction du niveau de production (plus de 15 litres de lait par jour et par vache), chaque vache sera susceptible de recevoir un complément de céréales et de colza pour assurer un bon équilibre alimentaire (glucides/protéines).
http://hautes.chaumes.free.fr/site.php/notre-ferme/l-organisation-du-gaec

www.aplaceintheauvernge.blogspot.com

Farm Blogs

Afghanistan's opium

IW: I've posted before on the fate of farmers in Afghanistan.

This letter below pretty much reflects my views.

[Full disclosure: I was appointed by Norine MacDonald - a Canadian QC - of the Senlis Council to do the initial hiring of key staff for the organisation that later changed its name to the Senlis Council.]


LETTER TO IHT
Afghanistan's opium
Thomas Schweich's article "Is Afghanistan a narco-state?" (July 24) vividly illustrates the total mismanagement of current U.S. counter-narcotics strategy in Afghanistan.Thankfully, Schweich's favored policy of chemical eradication of opium crops has thus far failed to get off the ground. The herbicides used in such operations are not, as Schweich claims, harmless to humans and the environment. Moreover, chemical eradication will only exacerbate the anger that is already rising among rural farmers against U.S., NATO and Afghan government forces, pushing local Afghans further into the arms of the Taliban.Schweich's claim that Afghan farmers are "wealthy" and have the option of growing numerous alternative crops is a dangerous conclusion. In three years of work on the ground in southern Afghanistan, I have never met a "wealthy" farmer. For the majority of Afghan farmers and sharecroppers, poppy cultivation is no less than a desperate survival strategy.Afghan farmers should be allowed to grow their poppy for the production of essential medicines, such as morphine. This would provide a financial incentive to sever ties with the insurgency, while addressing the global shortage of pain-relieving medicines.
The Poppy for Medicine scheme, developed by the Senlis Council, has worldwide support. According to a nationwide poll, 66 percent of the American public would support poppy-for-medicine projects. In Europe, Poppy for Medicine won the backing of the European Parliament by an overwhelming majority in October 2007.We can use market forces to successfully combat Afghanistan's illegal drug trade and undercut the financing of the Taliban insurgency.
Norine MacDonald, Kabul president and lead field researcher, Senlis Council
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/28/opinion/edlet.php




www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com

Farm Blogs

Atmosphere tense as WTO talks stall

GENEVA: Progress towards a global trade deal ground to a halt on Monday as the United States clashed with China and India over access to their rapidly growing markets and key European Union states demanded better terms."The situation is very tense. Things are finely balanced and the outcome is by no means certain," World Trade Organisation spokesman Keith Rockwell told reporters, as key WTO ministers resumed talks shortly after midnight.Negotiators battled over a "special safeguard mechanism" intended to help poor countries protect their farmers against import surges, with agricultural exporters like Costa Rica, Paraguay and Uruguay pitted against other developing countries.
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/07/28/america/OUKWD-UK-TRADE-WTO.php



www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com

Farm Blogs

WTO talks progress, but new farm issues surface

IW: I've been posting a lot of news stories about the so-called Doha round of trade negotiations, currently balanced on a knife edge in Geneva at the WTO.

The reason, quite simply, is that the results of these negotiations could have an enormous impact on farmers everywhere, both opportunities and threats.

Here's the latest news.


GENEVA: Disputes over farm policies of emerging Asian countries and European rules on banana imports emerged Sunday as obstacles to a possible global trade deal after a full week of talks.In Geneva, a decades-old dispute over European banana imports was edging toward resolution Sunday. But China and India were both fighting accusations that they were blocking a consensus.China was trying to keep foreign rice, sugar and cotton out of its market by assigning them special status, said one diplomat familiar with the discussions. India was seeking protection for its subsistence farmers.The United States was in talks about its system of tariffs on cotton, and Brazil made clear that it was dissatisfied with restrictions on its ability to export ethanol to Europe.Peter Mandelson, the European Union trade commissioner, said that while the trade round was "not resolved," an agreement was in sight. "The big figures and core issues are largely sorted," he said, "but there are a number of stumbling blocks and potholes dotted around the core issues, any of which would detonate at any moment."http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/27/business/WTO.php


www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com

Farm Blogs

Produce photos from an iPhone

Lori at Skoog Farm in New York State, U.S.A, sent me 2 great iPhotos (as she described them) of some onions pulled from their garden this weekend.

By iPhotos, am I to suppose they were taken by an iPhone?

If so, this is a nice illustration of how things are different for farmers in New York State and where I live, in the Auvergne, France.

Firstly, I had never seen an iPhone until I went up to Paris a few weeks ago and a friend had one. (Admittedly she is both American and the technology editor of a newspaper, so one might expect her to have one! Although she nearly lost it when someone tried to pickpocket her, having seen her use it on the Paris metro en route to a Bruce Springstein concert.)

The idea of anyone here being able to afford one, certainly a farmer in this region, is difficult to wrap one's head around.

But more importantly, even if they could, they wouldn't buy one, because, quite simply, what would be the point?

Most people have a mobile phone, we send textos as they are called here, we use them occassionally when there is a signal up in the mountains, but they are a simple, functional item.

What I like about living here is people's complete lack of interest in materialism and consumption. Condie Rice was recently in Australia, and, talking to a group of young students, informed them that her favourite hobby was 'shopping'.

Here, for now at least in our secret valley, the idea of going shopping being a planned leisure activity has not taken hold. It will, no doubt, but not yet. You go not shopping, but to a specific shop or market to buy something you need. It's not a hobby!

Anyway, what's all this got to do with farming? Not much, and we can now say that an iPhone takes great pictures of onions. And what fine onions.

(This year our vegetable crop isn't the best. Too much rain in the spring, and now hot, parching days and then quite cold at night. Not ideal.)

www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com

Farm Blogs

Coca farmers in Colombia

It may seem strange to post on coca cultivation, the end product being cocaine, 90% of which is consumer in the United States. But coca farming is farming like any other in its basic biological and sociological respects, whatever your views on cocaine.

It's interesting to compare this article below with another I recently posted from the NYT Magazine about opium farming in the Afghanistan.

Like it not, the producers of the raw commodity behind cocaine and opium are farmers, farmers who are extremely poor and who need alternatives.

In my view eradication programmes only work if complemented by agricultral investment into alternative crops. In Geneva, at the WTO, they are trying to bash out an end to farm subsidies in the USA and Europe, or at least a reduction, and in the import tariffs on agricultural goods from countries like Colombia.

We in Europe and the USA bear much of the responsibility for the problems these farmers face because we consumer their product that we try to destroy, and we prevent them from easily competing in our markets on a level playing field of tariffs and subsidies.

If anyone can find a blog by a coca producer in Colombia, hats off to them! But some real on the ground insight into what is going in, through the views of voiceless farmers in these regions, is what we all need to understand and resolve the problem.

Personally, I am not entirely unconvinced that complete legalisation of both heroin and cocaine would not be the more sensible way to go. But that's another story of complex social, economic, security and development issues.




No end in sight for Colombia fighting
The United Nations reported in June that coca cultivation in Colombia surged 27 percent in 2007 to about 99,000 hectares, or around 245,000 acres, the first significant increase in four years.

Nariño had the largest increase of any Colombian department, or administrative district, up 30 percent to 20,300 hectares.

The expansion has allowed Colombia to remain the world's largest coca producer and the supplier of 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States.

It has also made the drug-fueled conflict a resilient virus in large pockets of the country, with double-digit increases in coca cultivation in at least three other departments, Putumayo, Meta and Antioquia. In Nariño, almost every week, government officials, Roman Catholic leaders or aid workers report actions by the rebels or paramilitary groups.

In the last week of June, four schoolteachers in remote areas of the province were killed by a FARC column called Mariscal Sucre, one of three units of the FARC that are active in the area.

The rebels claimed that the schoolteachers, all of them recently posted to remote schoolhouses by Roman Catholic officials, were army informants.

Just weeks before, in April, the FARC knocked out power for 300,000 residents along the Pacific coast with an attack on an electrical station. Colombian soldiers also found eight fuel-processing depots - holding 77,000 barrels of oil - used by the guerrillas for fuel and to process coca into cocaine in makeshift labs.

Nationwide, the FARC still collects $200 million to $300 million a year by taxing coca farmers and coordinating cocaine smuggling networks, according to Bruce Bagley, a specialist on the Andean drug war who teaches at the University of Miami.

That is down from $500 million earlier this decade, Bagley said, but it is still enough to finance the FARC after recent desertions and killings that have thinned its ranks to about 9,000 from 17,000.http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/27/america/colombia.php