Cyanobacteria and carbon sequestration

Read at : Green living tips

http://www.greenlivingtips.com/blogs/448/Cyanobacteria-and-carbon-sequestration.html

By Green Living Tips | Published  11/9/2009

Cyanobacteria are more commonly known as blue-green algae. Usually when we hear blue-green algae being mentioned, it isn’t in a positive way.  Due to nutrient rich runoffs from agriculture and households winding up in waterways, in some places blue-green algae will grow into a massive bloom, blocking out sunlight and causing oxygen imbalances in a body of water. As a result, other species may be forced to move on or die. Some blue-green algae also produces toxins that can kill animals and humans if ingested. While some forms of algae are now being researched for their biofuel potential, there is a land form of cyanobacteria that is also stirring up a great deal of interest.  According to Australian researchers, land based cyanobacteria utilize carbon dioxide and converts it into carbon biomass while replacing oxygen back into the atmosphere. The cyanobacteria thrive in harsh environments – from sub-zero temperatures right though to 70 degrees Celsius (158 degrees Fahrenheit) – and beyond.

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Michael Bloch
Green Living Tips.com
Green Living Tips is an online resource powered by renewable energy offering a wide variety of earth friendly tips, green guides, advice and environment related news to help consumers and business reduce costs, consumption and environmental impact .

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) – “food with the farmer’s face on it”

Read at : Green living tips

http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/332/1/CSA-farms.html

Michael Bloch
Green Living Tips.com

A while back, I wrote about natural food cooperatives, where people band together to source organic produce grown locally by small farms and companies.

It’s a form of community supported agriculture (CSA) that usually requires a little work on the cooperative members’ part; but there are other variations with a more direct connection with a farmer.

How Community Supported Agriculture works.

In the direct model, a farmer will offer shares of the farm’s crop or produce to the public. The cost of the share, membership or subscription will vary widely. In return, the shareholder, member or subscriber will receive produce on a regular basis from the farm. Some farmers will offer choices based on customer preferences, others will take more of a pot luck approach.

Some CSA farms go beyond fruit and vegetables; offering eggs, dairy, meat and poultry. Sometimes farmers will join forces to form a group in order to provide a very wide range of food options that CSA shareholders can select from.

A brief history of modern Community Supported Agriculture

According to EarthRise Farm; a CSA and educational farm in Minnesota, while the CSA concept is relatively new in the West, it can be traced to Japan in the mid 1960s.

Food cooperatives had been in existence in Japan since the late 1800’s, but in 1965, a group of Japanese women who wanted to source fresh produce for their families more directly approached a local farmer with the idea. The farmer agreed and a contract was drawn. In Japan, CSA is known as “teikei”, which translates to  “food with the farmer’s face on it”.

A lecture outline from The Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems states the Ten Founding Principles of the Teikei System in Japan are:

1. Mutual Assistance
2. Intended Production
3. Accepting the Produce
4. Mutual Concession in the Price Setting Decision
5. Deepening Friendships
6. Self-distribution
7. Democratic Management
8. Learning Among Each Group
9. Maintaining the Appropriate Group Scale
10. Principle of Steady Development

The first documented CSA farm in the U.S. commenced in 1985 in western Massachusetts. Within four years, there thirty-seven CSA operations in the U.S. And Canada. By 1994, the number of CSA’s in the US was around four hundred. Data collected in 2007 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicates that 12,549 farms in the United States reported marketing products through a community supported agriculture arrangement.

Benefits of Community Supported Agriculture.

For the consumer, participation in CSA means ultra-fresh produce at very reasonable prices. Often farms offering a CSA program will also be very environmentally aware, meaning the produce may be organic, or grown/raised with a minimum of chemicals involved.

One of the great dangers in the modern world of food is that we tend not to know or care about the types of resources and practices that go into creating it. Food production is becoming an increasingly heavy burden on the environment, often focusing on quantity rather than quality. CSA’s provide consumers with a greater connection with their food and this familiarity tends to create more interest in how their food is grown and the work involved.

CSA farms also often encourage visits from families, which can be a great educational experience not only for adults, but for children too.

For farmers, the CSA model allows them to receive income before planting and harvesting commences. It can help with financial and crop planning for the year ahead. Instead of being held hostage by large corporations, the farmer can also have more control over operations and spread the risk by having many individual customers or small buyer groups.

How is the food distributed

Depending on the arrangement, the food may need to be picked up from the farm, but some farmers will transport it to a dropoff point in a nearby town or city.

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Michael Bloch
Green Living Tips.com
Green Living Tips is an online resource powered by renewable energy offering a wide variety of earth friendly tips, green guides, advice and environment related news to help consumers and business reduce costs, consumption and environmental impact .

Community food gardens

Read at : Google Alert – gardening

http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/352/1/Community-food-gardens.html

By Green Living Tips

What is a community food garden?

In previous articles I’ve covered “alternative” natural food sourcing and production arrangements such as CSA’s (Community Supported Agriculture) and natural food cooperatives.

Another concept gaining popularity is community food gardens.A community food garden is a piece of land, usually rented from local government, collectively worked by a group of people who share the harvest. It differs a little from the UK allotment concept in that allotments are usually rented out to individuals.

Community food gardens offer individuals a way of growing a portion of their own food in a collaborative environment, benefiting from the experience of other members. Community food gardens can provide greater food security along with a reduction in the food mile impact of participants’ diets. Quite a few of these groups also observe environmentally friendly methods of food production – anything from using heritage or heirloom seeds or natural fertilizers, to full blown organic gardening.

Community gardens can also help build more closely knit neighborhoods. According to Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network, research in 2005 by Dr Bruce Judd and Dr Rob Samuels of the AHURI UNSW-UWS Research Centre found that community food gardening, as part of a community development strategy, was effective in reducing the incidence of crime on housing estates.

Finding community food gardens

The following are some online resources in various regions:

USA and Canada

In the USA, community food gardens are commonly known as food banks. There’s a good listing of organisations at Community Garden.

Australia

Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network is a one stop shop for information about where to find community food gardens and also provides a stack of information on how to go about setting one up.

UK

I had a great deal of trouble finding a single resource listing organisations, so your best bet would be to run a search like this on Google:

community food garden region

.. where “region” is the name of your town or suburb.

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Michael Bloch
Green Living Tips.com
Green Living Tips is an online resource powered by renewable energy offering a wide variety of earth friendly tips, green guides, advice and environment related news to help consumers and business reduce costs, consumption and environmental impact .

Drought resistance explained

Read at : Google Alert – drought

http://www.labspaces.net/100532/Drought_resistance_explained

Much as adrenaline coursing through our veins drives our body’s reactions to stress, the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) is behind plants’ responses to stressful situations such as drought, but how it does so has been a mystery for years. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Grenoble, France, and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) in Valencia, Spain discovered that the key lies in the structure of a protein called PYR1 and how it interacts with the hormone. Their study, published online today in Nature, could open up new approaches to increasing crops’ resistance to water shortage.

Under normal conditions, proteins called PP2Cs inhibit the ABA pathway, but when a plant is subjected to drought, the concentration of ABA in its cells increases. This removes the brake from the pathway, allowing the signal for drought response to be carried through the plant’s cells. This turns specific genes on or off, triggering mechanisms for increasing water uptake and storage, and decreasing water loss. But ABA does not interact directly with PP2Cs, so how does it cause them to be inhibited? Recent studies had indicated that the members of a family of 14 proteins might each act as middle-men, but how those proteins detected ABA and inhibited PP2Cs remained a mystery – until now.

Over 20 million people need food aid in east Africa: U.N

Read at : Google Alert – drought

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE5A92TV20091110

By Silvia Aloisi

ROME (Reuters) – Drought and war in eastern Africa have left more than 20 million people in desperate need of emergency food aid, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

“The situation is very worrying due to expected crop and pasture failures from poor rains in several areas, the increase in conflicts, trade disruptions and continuing high food prices,” the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

In its latest report on food and crop prospects (www.fao.org), FAO said delayed rains and dry spells often followed by floods had hurt crops and pastures in Kenya, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda.

HEAD OF UN AGENCY APPLAUDS CHINA-AFRICA FORUM’S COMMITMENT ON FOOD SECURITY

Read at : UNNEWS

New York, Nov  9 2009  5:05PM

The head of the United Nations food agency today welcomed the declaration by the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation underlining the critical role that investment in food security, agriculture and infrastructure plays in feeding people on the continent.

World Food Programme (<”http://www.wfp.org/”>WFP) Executive Director Josette Sheeran noted that for decades the agency has helped people in China and Africa access the food they need to live healthy, productive lives.

“We have helped farmers feed their families, while supporting them as they improve their land, dig wells, and build roads and clinics and schools,” Ms. Sheeran said in her statement, applauding the pledges for further support made at the Forum, which wrapped up today in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Powerful Pumpkins, Super Squash

Our action “Seeds for Food” <www.seedsforfood.org> is running as a train, thanks to heaps of envelopes and postpacks full of pumpkin seeds sent every day by people who have eaten these pumpkins, collected the seeds of these fruits, washed and dried them.  All these seeds are fully disinfected and prepared for shipment to different development projects all over the world.

It has been shown that people living continuously in food insecurity really love to grow pumpkins in their kitchen garden.  Some schools in developing countries have introduced them in their school garden and pupils are taking full care of these impressive plants.  The pumpkins produced locally play a very important role in the daily diet, thus contributing to public health because of the content of carotenoids, vitamins and antioxidants.

As the small-scale farmers at the development projects cannot afford to purchase expensive commercial pumpkin seeds, our free seeds are most welcome.  Growing pumpkins is a valuable factor for food security : healthy fresh fruits can be eaten over a longer period and the big pumpkin leaves and stems can be used as fodder for the livestock or for composting.

Today, I felt happy to discover an interesting publication at the “Science Daily”-website, indicating that orange pumpkins seem to be more interesting than the yellow or white ones.

Wouldn’t it be nice if hungry people could grow these magnificent pumpkins themselves ? If only we could offer them all the pumpkin seeds, thrown in the garbage bins during the haloween period. Why not launching an international “PUMPKIN DAY” ? Maybe some day one of those famous singers can transform this idea into an action !

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091104111733.htm

ScienceDaily (Nov. 10, 2009) — Carotenoids, the family of yellow to red pigments responsible for the striking orange hues of pumpkins and the familiar red color of vine-ripe tomatoes, play an important role in human health by acting as sources of provitamin A or as protective antioxidants.  Pumpkins and squash, available in a wide range of white, yellow, and orange colors, are excellent sources of dietary carotenoids, particularly lutein, alpha-carotene, and beta-carotene. The colors of these nutritional vegetables are determined by their genetic makeup — the concentration and type of carotenoids they contain — which are influenced by both genetic and environmental factors.

The good news: this wide range of carotenoids in pumpkins and squash provides fertile ground for genetic improvement. When breeders have reliable information about carotenoid types and concentrations, they can work to improve the vegetables’ nutritional value and create new varieties of antioxidant-packed offerings for consumers.

A global priority to increase investment in developing country agriculture

Read at : UNNews

New York, Nov 10 2009 10:05AM

Despite good global cereal harvests this year, millions of people in dozens of poor countries are in desperate need of emergency humanitarian aid due to stubbornly high food prices, the United Nations agricultural agency warned in a report released today. Critical food insecurity is affecting 31 countries and the situation is particularly acute in East Africa, where prolonged drought and mounting conflict have left an estimated 20 million people in need of food aid, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (<”http://www.fao.org/”>FAO).

The latest Crop Prospects and Food Situation <”http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/ak340e/ak340e00.htm”>report, published ahead of next week’s World Summit on Food Security in Rome, noted that although international food prices have fallen significantly since their peak a few years ago, wheat and maize prices rose in October and rice export prices are still high above pre-crisis levels.

“For the world’s poorest people who spend up to 80 per cent of their household budgets on food, the food price crisis is not over yet,” <”http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/37127/icode/”>said FAO Assistant Director-General Hafez Ghanem. “It is now a global priority to increase investment in developing country agriculture in order to fight poverty and hunger.”   

Do you already have an ADENIUM Gift Book?

 

In 1999 I published a unique book together with Marleen Van Lancker (Merelbeke, Belgium) well known for her flower arrangements: it’s called ADENIUM.

It turned out to be an impressive gift book with dozens of colour charts of superb flower creations, made by Marleen and ordered according to the 4 seasons. As a botanist I gave a description of the family of plants with every arrangement in 4 languages: Dutch, French, English and German.

Photo Kurt Dekeyzer

The family of plants was selected according to one of the species of plants found in the flower arrangement.  With some of the families of plants I put in a drawing, featuring a certain species of this family. This way the book turned out to be also a valuable guideline to the botanic knowledge of people having an interest in flower arrangements.

Here are a couple of drawings featuring a specific species of the family of plants concerned.

As there are still a small number of copies of ADENIUM available, Marleen and I decided to offer the book at a bargain price. A considerable part of the money collected this way will be used for supporting some of our development projects of “Seeds for Food” (see www.seedsforfood.org.

Do not hesitate and get to know this unique offer, a wonderful gift for people of all ages. For you it’s a splendid gift, for us a means to lay out new family gardens and school gardens. We count on you all!

Copies can be ordered at the exceptional price of 40 EUR (original price 65 EUR) by bank transfer on account nr:

290-0199697-92
IBAN     BE 12 29OO199697 92
BIC       GEBABEBB
van
Marleen VAN LANCKER
Van Goethemstraat 45
9820 MERELBEKE
+32(0)92307721

After receipt of your remittance the book will be sent to you by registered mail.

If you buy one or more books, you automatically support our developing projects. I rely on the support of many people until stocks are totally depleted.

Growing Food

Interesting book on food production :

A Guide to Food Production

Publisher	Springer Netherlands
DOI	10.1007/978-1-4020-4975-0
Copyright	2006
ISBN	978-1-4020-4827-2 (Print) 978-1-4020-4975-0 (Online)
Subject Collection	Biomedical and Life Sciences
Subject	Life Sciences, Food Science, Nutrition, Plant Ecology, Plant Anatomy/Development and Agriculture
SpringerLink Date	Wednesday, October 11, 2006