Underpaid Genius

via Lowe Counsel

Within the agriculture world, synthetic pesticide use is an unfortunate, all too regular practice. But it’s getting a run for its money from the most unlikely of contenders: Ducks. Japanese farmers are revisiting an ancient method of rice and grain growing that does away with harmful chemicals and uses living, breathing ducks to increase production.

The birds are farm raised and free-roaming where they literally ‘police’ the fields, avoiding crops and instead feasting on harmful insects and weeds, which would otherwise destroy thousands of acres of paddy-fields. Not only do their feeding habits protect the crops, but their movements help as well….. bowel movements, that is. Their droppings act as natural fertilizer for the crops.

The times are very hard in Greece, unemployment is rising, so how to make a living? Go back to the land.

Rachel Donadio via NYTimes.com

Unemployment in Greece is now 18 percent, rising to 35 percent for young people between the ages of 15 and 29 — up from 12 percent and 24 percent, respectively, in late 2010. But the agricultural sector has been one of the few to show gains since the crisis hit, adding 32,000 jobs between 2008 and 2010 — most of them taken by Greeks, not migrant workers from abroad, according to a study released this fall by the Pan-Hellenic Confederation of Agricultural Associations.

“The biggest increase is in middle-aged people between 45 and 65 years old,” said Yannis Tsiforos, the director of the confederation. “This shows us that they had a different sort of employment in the past.”

In Greece, as elsewhere in the Mediterranean, most families have traditionally invested heavily in real estate and land, which are seen as far more stable than financial investments, and it is common for even low-income Greeks to have inherited family property. Increasingly, as the hard times bite deeper, many Greeks are deciding or being forced to fall back on that last line of defense.

Enrollment in agricultural schools is also on the rise. Panos Kanellis, the president of the American Farm School in Salonika, which was founded in 1904 and offers kindergarten through high school as well as continuing education in sustainable agriculture, said applications tripled in the past two years and enrollment in classes like cheesemaking and winemaking has been rising.

Mr. Kanellis says that young people frequently come to him and say: “I have two acres from my grandfather in such-and-such a place. Can I do something with it?”

A growing number of Greeks are asking themselves that question, and some are deciding they can. “I think a lot of people will do this,” Ms. Tricha said. “In big cities, there’s no future for them. For young people, the only choice is for them to go to the countryside or to go abroad.”

This is happening in the US too. Expect much more of a move back to the land in 2012.

Farmscape helps homeowners and organizations build small gardens, and can work these gardens if desired. Cuts the long trial-and-error process in small scale gardening. (via food+tech+connect)

(Source: stoweboyd)

A return to draft animals makes sense on many levels, but most importantly, it’s cheap:

Mr. Roosenberg’s plowing workshops fill with a new demographic: farmers from Wisconsin, Minnesota and even Alaska who hope to use animal power in their fields. Last year, about 320 signed up.

“It’s suddenly not just historic replication, it’s reinvention,” he said. “A new generation wants to do this again, now.”

Oxen are also cheap, at least compared to a tractor, and can work for 10 to 14 years. Since the dairy industry relies on keeping cows pregnant so they lactate, millions of baby bulls are born each year. A pair of calves start at $150 and range up to $1,500, depending on their breed and how much training they have.

Some dairies even give their young males away. Mr. Ciotola got Lucas and Larson, now 2 ½, as wobbly-kneed babies from a nearby raw-milk dairy, bartering for them with his own labor. “I just had to buy or make the yokes and cart,” he said.

Amber Waves grows winter wheat on Long Island in Amagansett.

The oldest farm in America (circa 1632) goes out of business, killed by the industrial food system.