"Sprouting Everywhere"

Earlier this year we learned that rising levels of atmospheric CO2 (along with higher temperatures and longer growing seasons) are accelerating the growth of trees, specifically in Maryland and the Eastern United States. So I suppose it should come as no surprise that poison ivy is experiencing a boom around here as well. The Washington Post reports:

"...According to a report in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives last year, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has grown by 22 percent since 1960, which may not be so good for humans but is great for poison ivy and other vines. Mohan has been tracking poison ivy since 1998. In a study in the Duke Forest in Durham, N.C., she simulated the carbon dioxide content in the air 50 years ago, today and using projections for the year 2050. "Tree seedlings grew 8 to 12 percent more, with more C02," said Mohan. "Poison ivy grew 149 percent more. Poison ivy is getting bigger, faster and nastier..." "

Read more here. And here are some tips for fighting an ivy rash.

FDA Finally Expresses Concern About BPA

The Washington Post reports:

Growing scientific evidence has linked the chemical to a host of problems, including cancer, sexual dysfunction and heart disease. Federal officials said they are particularly concerned about BPA's effect on the development of fetuses, infants and young children.

"We have some concern, which leads us to recommend reasonable steps the public can take to reduce exposure to BPA," said Joshua Sharfstein, FDA's deputy commissioner, in a conference call to reporters Friday.

The Obama administration has pledged $30 million dollars to a two-year study of the chemical.

Local Food Hub

This is exactly the kind of grassroots motion we need in the local food movement: Proper distribution of local produce on a larger supply-meets-demand-in-a-timely-and-efficient-and affordable-fashion scale. The Washington Post reports:

"The Local Food Hub's director, Kate Collier, hadn't intended to get into the wholesale produce business. She and her husband, Eric Gertner, own a gourmet food store, Feast, in Charlottesville. Feast sells jams, chutneys, meats, cheeses and produce; the produce has the lowest profit margins.

In April 2008, Collier made a presentation to a panel convened by local food advocates that outlined how a new distribution system could support small farmers and improve access to their products. "I told them, 'This is where I see the holes are,' " she said. "Everybody jumped on the idea. They said if there was one phone number to call, they'd do it."

Last fall, Collier began to put a plan into action. She raised $305,000 from local foundations and individuals and established a nonprofit group. She leased a 3,100-square-foot warehouse. She bought a refrigerated truck for deliveries and purchased $3 million in liability insurance, a requirement to sell to large institutions. She also hired a staff of five to market the new organization, manage the warehouse and educate the community about the benefits of local food..."

"...The Obama administration has plans to help. The Department of Agriculture is required to put at least 5 percent of its business and industry budget into developing local production. "That's the floor," Vilsack said. "What we're looking at is how can we more effectively use [those funds] to create a whole new way of thinking about the rural economy. Be assured it's one of our priorities."

Collier projects that the Hub could turn a profit with revenue of $1.5 million annually. If all goes well, that could happen in six to eight years. In the meantime, small farmers are taking advantage of the opportunity to find broad and steady markets for their products.

"It's nice to know you don't need to have 200 acres," Down Branch Farm's Proutt said. "You can still make it work.""

Bad News...

"Man-made climate change is already lifting temperatures, increasing rainfall, and raising sea levels around the United States -- and its effects are on track to get much worse in the coming century, according to a report released this afternoon by federal scientists."

...from a new report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, summarized here in The Washington Post.

Farmers Market Locator

Following in the footsteps of their fabulous Gardening Calendar, The Washington Post put up a great interactive pinpointing local farmers markets. You can even browse by day. How great is that?!

Tulipmania

Adrian Higgins, for The Washington Post, wrote a great article about tulips and the craze that gripped Holland in the 17th century - a topic near and dear to my heart since Michael Pollan dedicated a quarter of The Botany of Desire to it. Higgins, however, initially approaches the mania not so much from a co-evolutionary standpoint, but rather in regards to the "lust for illusory wealth" and the parallels to our current economic crisis. I love what she wrote here:

Those who had borrowed to invest in shares found themselves ruined. Here's another interesting parallel between tulipmania and our current economic mess: The most coveted bulbs had bicolored petals whose patterns danced like flames or feathers. Scientists later discovered that this was due to a virus transmitted by aphids. Talk about toxic assets.

She also reports on her favorite varieties found in the bulb fields of Brent and Becky Heath, down in Gloucester, VA. Some of her faves include: Brown Sugar, World Peace, Gavota, Banja Luca, Silverstream, Juan, Cynthia, and Lady Jane.

If you are interested in learning a little more about Tulipmania, here are a few other resources:

Bulb Bubble Trouble by Daniel Gross for Slate

When the Tulip Bubble Burst, a BusinessWeek review of Mike Dash's Tulipomania

gotta start somewhere...

An excellent feature written by Liza Mundy, Can One Household Save the Planet? that appeared in Sunday's Washington Post Magazine examined the significance of small household changes, like energy-efficient light bulbs, in our nation's quest towards sustainability. Mundy not only pulled together some high-impact statistics, shared about the limitations her lifestyle (working mother of two) has had on her ability to green her habits, and identified the core issues contributing to climate change - she did so with a great candor and she covered a lot of ground. One of my favorite lines:

"The fact that the bulb will last for years and years is not necessarily and asset when you've bought one you regret... And you can't just toss it in the trash..."

Also, I love her description about checkout infrastructure:

"Since I am the main grocery shopper, I could and did switch to reusable shopping bags, once I got over my fear of disrupting the express lane with a bag that didn't fit the infrastructure."

I had forgotten about the bewilderment on the faces of cashiers when I offer up reusable bags or attempt to pack them myself, hoping to intercept the use of additional plastic bags they put around dish soap, something cold or something made of paper or on a hanger. Have you ever experienced it? It's pretty funny. It's near impossible to get a reusable bag on the radar of a cashier. Considering the flood of reusable bags available at all the major retail chains you'd think they'd be expecting this, no?

Anywho... I could go on and on pointing out passages but should probably just urge you to read the article. So the last passage I'll point out, which will likely be the topic of a future post, touches on a new-to-me aspect of a topic particularly close to my heart: eating local. Mundy writes:

"Many environmental groups, for example, recommend eating locally grown, seasonal foods to cut down on the emissions associated with food transportation. The thing is, as Michael Specter pointed out in the New Yorker last year, fruits and vegetables grown in friendly climates without the need for lots of chemical fertilizers are sometimes greener than food grown locally; nor is it necessarily true that "local" produce trucked 100 miles from Pennsylvania in an old gas-guzzling pickup is greener than produce shipped from afar by rail or container ship."

(thnx LM and David)

Baby Steps to Food System Reform

I encourage you to take a few minutes to read this excellent op-ed by Jane Black that appeared in Sunday's Post regarding stagnant food policy conversations in Washington. Black, a food writer, points out that food advocates and lobbyists lack a single message and strategy and this puts them (us) at a disadvantage in the policy room. The reasons for this, of course, lie in the complexity of food issues. Black writes:

"...After all, there's no one policy for improving food in America. To bring real change, policymakers need to look at the system more holistically -- because everything, as foodies see it, is connected. Federal subsidies of grain and corn make it cheap to produce meat. Industrial meat production, which takes advantage of cheap feed, is responsible for about one-fifth of the world's greenhouse gases. Eating too much meat and too many processed foods made with corn products such as high fructose corn syrup has contributed to the sharp spike in obesity over the past 30 years..."

This passage ties food policy to energy, health care, industry, and so forth beyond agriculture but this kind of broad agenda thinking isn't getting us very far. We've got to narrow it down, take one issue and address it from start to finish. Black offers some suggestions, stemming from the successes or failures in movements like Slow Foods, Alice Waters' inaugural meals, and the "give a swordfish a break" campaign, my favorite being:

"...Advocate for radical change this year when Congress renews the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act, which includes $21 billion annually for programs including school breakfast and lunch. Currently, cash-strapped schools are forced to rely on government surplus and sales of soda and other junk foods, a combination that results in millions of French fry-centric meals. Stricter school nutrition standards and increased funding for fruits and vegetables could change that. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack indicated in his confirmation hearing this month that he sees better nutrition as a tool for defeating childhood hunger..."

changing way of life...

Great article in The Washington Post today about the ramifications of a dwindling oyster and crab population in the Chesapeake Bay for the folks whose lives have been built around them for generations.

starving squirrels

Now it all makes sense. The gourd torn to pieces on the front porch. My sister's peppers stolen from the plant on her back porch. The picked apart pumpkin on our jogging trail. An empty bird feeder within hours of a refill. There is a major acorn shortage in Maryland and Northern Virginia, people. Major. And our furry little friends sure are feeling it.

The Sunday Washington Post reported on the absent acorn phenomenon yesterday but the cause for zero-production remains a mystery. Some say it is just a slow production year or a strange anomaly. Others suggest weather patterns and heavy rain could play a role. I can't stop thinking about that movie The Happening in which the trees wage biochemical warfare in areas with high concentrations of humans and development. Ugh.

I have to say, on morning dog walks under Oak trees taller than nearby homes there were more than a few moments when I thought to myself, "Tread carefully, self. A direct acorn hit on the head can be startling and doggie droppings are hard to spot in a blanket of acorns... Wait a minute... the ground seems so even and soft... Not bumpy as it would if it were covered in acorns... Guess the squirrels are quick to gather 'em this year. "

Not quite, huh? Poor little things. Guess I'll be picking up some peanuts on my way home tonight.

Thin line between commercial and agricultural

An article in The Post today has really got my wheels turning. In Baltimore County, Md., dairy farmer Bobby Prigel, like so many other small farmers, is struggling to keep his farm in operation. Instead of shipping his milk out of state he'd like to build an organic creamery and sell his products locally - but neighbors and preservationists aren't happy about it. They don't want the rural landscape spoiled and argue that making butter, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream isn't farming, it's manufacturing. Perhaps, but I say it's innovative, not to mention a positive step towards farmers taking back a big portion of the profits that "processors" are making.

The concerns of the preservationists - from water use and paving to the possibility of the small production facility turning into a factory - are understandable but I'm sort of leaning towards the big picture. The Pollan-esque picture. A place where Sparks, Md., farmer David Smith wouldn't be locked in a two-year battle with neighbors over his proposal to open up a retail shop in order to sell his pasture-raised meat. A place where pasture-raised meat is the norm... and where happy cows get to watch their milk turn into delicious ice cream... sigh...

Keep building the market and processing facility, Prigel.

Okay... that's enough from me. The article is a must-read: The Churning Point.

Hunters often overlooked

Those of you who have had a conversation with me regarding my decisions to remove meat from my diet know that my reasoning is 50% environmental, 25% because of my love for animals and an inability to support an industry that mistreats them and treats them with God-knows-what that can't be good for them or us, and 25% due to the Pollan-esque feeling of being so disconnected from the hunting, killing, butchering and so forth process that I find myself to be... well... undeserving. For those of you that I haven't spoken to about this, basically, I can connect to growing vegetables but not to butchering an animal. Those who can connect - i.e. the hunters that earn their meat, are highly respected in my eyes and I feel like they are entitled to their meat more than the majority.

In this article in The Washington Post on Monday, Steve Sanetti, the president and chief executive of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, wrote about the 15-20 million often-overlooked population that have lived an eco-friendly, sustainable lifestyle long before "organic" and "renewable" became all the buzz. It is an educational read and I'm glad to see the topic written about. I even have to admit that I love Sanetti's closing line: "For us, the amusing irony is that American society, which has looked down its nose at hunters more sternly with each passing generation, is discovering that camouflage has been a primary shade of green all along."

(thnx Lisa)