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A split in the ranks….
….the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) is a major voice in the field and, through the efforts of its executive director Brian Snyder, increasingly a voice in Washington on national farm policy. We haven’t been entirely enthusiastic about the way our representative has represented those of us in the field but, since starting this blog, we’ve mostly stayed away from politics. However, it has seemed to us that Brian has been too willing to compromise on some important issues, such as the animal identification system, and we’ve wondered if he has succumbed to what we used to call “Potomac fever”. That is, whether he has been carried away with the excitement over…
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Continuing on a theme….
….then there’s this, apropo of the post immediately preceding: Thanks to our friend, Juliet Cleave in Cornwall who posted this on her Facebook page.
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There will always be an England….
so long as there is someone to worry about “class”….not good-taste-class but where-do-I-fit-in-class. I’m not sure I have this right but apparently the BBC is doing some major overhaul of class structure….deciding just who is upper and who is not. It prompted a very British rumination by one journalist (and clearly journalists are not “upper”): http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/Impossibility-putting-farmers-classification/story-18662621-detail/story.html#axzz2Q3U2zE61 Actually, having spent quite a bit of time in England, my experience has been that most people don’t have any time for this any longer….except perhaps for the newly-rich. But it also reminds me of something I read awhile back: that up until World War II in the United States, family farm income was…
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Dare we hope….
….we saw sometime back that fast-food giant McDonald’s was having trouble maintaining its spectacular growth. Apparently all the fast food chains are “flat” or even down a little except for their breakfasts. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the economy…and not common sense….got people eating more healthfully? http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/05/08/the-new-normal-for-fast-food-price-cuts-and-stagnant-sales/?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsFifth
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Yes, it’s true – 2…..
…we hope you’re following the discussion following the post we did on the Greg Judy farm and mob grazing. Pasture expert Jim Gerrish has chimed in…and I suspect the debate is not over yet. Scroll down to “Yes, it’s true….”
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Help for the grazier on “overload”….
….that’s the mission of a new website we just learned of thanks to Dr. Sue Beal. It’s called “On Pasture” and is intended to be a digest of all the material that’s out there on pasture management. It’s something we try to do on an informal, anecdotal basis on this blog but we certainly welcome the effort to do this on a professional, “sustained” basis. Here’s the link: http://onpasture.com/
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The struggle beneath our feet….
….bit by bit, the word is getting out. And when the New York Times “gets it”, maybe there’s hope. The struggle is to save the microbe, the little critters that make soil alive and productive. They are threatened, of course, by modern chemistry which supposedly increases crop yields. Fertilizers, herbicides and all those products kill the microbes and the nutrient value not only of the soil but our food. The only answer is to pour ever more chemicals on the land. Ian Mitchell-Innes (see “Yes, it’s true” below) calls it an addiction with farmers enriching the big drug companies to support the habit. Here’s the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opinion/sunday/the-hidden-world-of-soil-under-our-feet.html?ref=science&_r=1& Note that the Times…
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Yes, it’s true….
….Greg and Jan Judy’s Green Pastures farm certainly lives up to its name. More than 50 would-be grazers attended Greg’s three-day program near Moberly, Missouri last week to study the power of mob grazing. It’s been a cold, wet spring but the proof was there as you drove down the road. Greg’s green pastures alongside neighbors who were still feeding hay! The featured speaker was Ian Mitchell-Innes who practices a version of what might be called “Mob Grazing for Dummies”. Ian’s approach is throw you in the shallow water so you don’t have to drown. He has become something of a missionary in the battle to save the microbe. There’s…
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Grass fed workshops….
….our friend Ridge Shinn will be holding a grass fed cattle workshop this Saturday, May 11th, at Hardwick, Massachusetts. The day-long session will includes a wide range of topics including selecting, breeding and managing cattle for the grass fed beef market. Here’s the registration form: http://www.nofamass.org/events/raising-100-grass-fed-beef#.UYi-oLVwrSh Sorry we can’t attend but we’ll be in Missouri for Greg Judy’s mob grazing workship with Ian Mitchell-Innes.
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A warning about Distillers Grain….
….Distillers Grain, or “DG”, has become a popular feed supplement. The ethanol boom has left a lot of DG as a by-product, it’s relatively cheap, and the drought has forced cattlemen to look for something to help with their parched fields. But we’re also aware that some grass fed breeders, even some of the Big Names, have been using distillers grain all along, to fatten their animals. That’s not only a “no-no” in grass fed protocols but it’s an unhealthy practice. Unhealthy for cows and humans alike. Here’s just one report on the subject: http://tinyurl.com/btyhc6j Fifteen years ago, when I was raising Angus conventionally, I tried Distillers Grain at the suggestion of…