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Welcome to this month’s edition of the Ecovillage Musings, hot from the press of the Ecovillage Research Group Inc. Thanks go to our ongoing contributors, and we welcome some new contributors to “Ecovillage musings” which I hope you will enjoy and appreciate. It’s another bumper is-sue filled with articles we hope you will find interesting!

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Ecovillage Musings March/April 2010

FEATURES Links to other stories: Managing Small Hive Beetle From Dirt Farming to Green Farming Beneficial Insects, building a wildlife home Save the Planet: Eat More Beef! Book Review: The Vegetarian Myth Leirre Keith Upcoming events and Interesting Articles

“Managing Small Hive Beetle” Max Lindegger

The small hive beetle (SHB) was detected in Australia in October 2002. It is not known how it entered the country, but it may have been present for over a year before being identified. It has been found in bee hives over a large area in New South Wales and movement of infested hives has spread it to Queensland. (1) While initially it was considered possible to eradicate the pest the focus has changed to management. We still hope that some magic cure will eventually be found. Information from Beekeepers around the Sunshine Coast Indicates that coastal Beekeepers are possibly worst affected. With a number of Beekeepers telling me an increasing number of ' slime-outs" ( loss of a hive) increasing. A recent survey has shown that small Beekeepers had suffered quite extreme losses on average losing nearly 50% of hives. This is a serious situation and has made it more difficult for all of us to keep bees. I have read the literature and spoken to professional Beekeepers and many hobbyists. There is no simple answer and not one solution. As one apiarist told me " Ten years ago you could leave a hive for months and everything would be Ok, now you have to keep on your toes all the time". Numerous traps are being advertised and in the US some chemicals are also available " Checkmite" as well as " GardStar" are advertised in the " Dadant" catalogue). In Australia ( as far as I'm aware) no chemicals have been ap-proved for in hive treatment of the pest A beekeeper sent me some concoction ( most likely containing some chemi-cal) which was suggested as being very successful if used as an attractant in the AJ Beetle trap ( an Australian invention). I decided to do a comparison of a number of treatments to help me make a decision how I may best man-age the beetles. I have total of 12 hives. These are arranged in 3 rows each with 4 hives. The Northern row is in the open ( pretty well full sun) and the middle and southern rows are in a semi shaded environment and surrounded by chick-ens (which I hoped would interrupt the life cycle of the beetles) In each row I put a mix of the magic compound and Diatomaceous earth into a AJ trap ( 2) in hives 1 and 4. Hive 2 in each row received only the compound in a AJ trap. Hive 3 in each row was set-up with only Diatomaceous earth in a AJ trap The experiment was set-up on the 17th Jan 2010 . The first count of the number of beetles killed in each trap was made on the 24. Jan. The second count was made on the 3rd Feb. I was away overseas from the 11th Feb to the 10th March and we experienced a lot of wet weather which made it impossible to check the traps until the 19th March. Knowing that I would be absent for an extended period I placed two AJ traps into each hive on the 3rd Feb and the count on the 19th March is for the two traps.

“A beekeeper sent me some con-coction ( most likely containing some chemical) which was sug-gested as being very successful if used as an attractant in the AJ Beetle trap ( an Australian inven-tion). I decided to do a compari-son of a number of treatments to help me make a decision how I may best manage the beetles.”

Above: Small Hive Beetle can be devastating to hives

Hive infested with SHB

Assembling AJ Traps

Small Hive Beetle Management: Max Lindegger

Having hives in the poultry yard seems to have a positive effect. Full exposure to the sun did not seem to reduce beetle numbers

Hive with traps set for SHB

It is worth to note that at each inspections some beetles where observed but at no time did I feel like there where an unusually large number of bee-tles present and the hives looked healthy and active. Result Beetle Numbers Hive 24.1.10 3.2.10 19.3.10 H+D L1 25 30 161 North H 2 10 75 145 D 3 0 55 159 H+D 4 30 95 423 TOTAL 65 285 888 H+D L1 80 45 130 Middle H 2 60 60 96 D 3 50 90 124 H+D 4 60 135 224 TOTAL 250 330 574 H+D L1 30 85 193 South H 2 30 20 26 D 3 40 105 262 H+D 4 80 80 277 TOTAL 200 270 758 Comments: The indication is that the traps with a mix of the magic compound and the Diatomaceous earth performed best ( highest numbers trapped in 9 out of 10 cases) The lowest number of beetles killed was in traps using the Magic com-pound only in 5 out of 9 cases and in traps with Diatomaceous earth and the mix twice each . The Magic Compound on it's own performed poorly for the last sampling and I assume that the " active ingredient" lost it's power after a few weeks. Indeed the liquid had dried up in all traps. Conclusions: I doubt that the Magic Compound will be available again. It seems mostly effective if the traps can be checked very regularly. The diatomaceous earth is available (3), cheap, safe and seems to work very well. I will need to empty and maintain my AJ traps probably at least monthly ( I keep two sets which make switching traps a quick job) - more often in hives which produce a large amount of propolis and glue -up the traps) Having hives in the poultry yard seems to have a positive effect. Full expo-sure to the sun did not seem to reduce beetle numbers Please note: This a field experiment done with minimal equipment. The outcome should be seen as an indication only.

A Cambodian Experience: Life at the edge” Max Lindegger

This has been my fourth visit to Cambodia. Nharn, who had attended a course here at Crystal Waters for 6 weeks with us, arranged the trip for Christopher Mare (a designer and teacher from the US), Manivone Rasphone (an Independent Advisor to the EC and long term associate of Ockenden), Hem Vanarath (from Village Earth and a student from a course Christopher and I had been teaching at in Thailand some years back) and myself. I carried my camera and 300 m of drip irrigation and as little else as possible! Ratanakiri - the town we where aiming for is about ten and a half hours north-east of Phnom Penh by road - some pretty dusty kilometres as well. The villages we visited are minority groups which until only recently - and this is the crucial point - where slash and burn farmers. What has been happening is that a lot of the land has been purchased by local and international firms. There is valuable timber to be logged and sold to nearby Viet-nam under the promise that the land will be planted to rubber (the current favour-ite) or Cashew nuts (out of favour as prices are down). We all know that prices will swing and investors will move with the them. Meanwhile the environment and the people who live there will and are, suffering. There is never a simple solution and little government support. Nharn and his co-workers are supporting the villagers in the transition from slash and burn food har-vesting to a more settled farming life. This is still the frontier. Mobile phones have arrived but there is no electricity. Water is harvested from small springs, the forest used for hunting, provides meat, some vegetables and herbs - and is the toilet of preference at this point. All this worked well while villages moved every few years and the environment was allowed to recover and the ecology of place restored and the spirits return (the vil-lagers are animist). As one villager told us "there is nowhere else to go now". The villagers will have no choice but to start growing food where they live and keep animals close to houses. The form of the houses is changing, they will need to take care of the water source and it is a matter of months before the first latrine will ar-rive. Forests and the products of the forest will need to be used with the greatest of care. The villages still practice bartering as a major way of exchange but the first motor-bikes have arrived in one village. When will TV turn up, electricity - and why not? This is a culture going through a massive shift. Here is a story of life at the edge in pictures.

All this worked well while villages moved every few years and the en-vironment was allowed to recover and the ecology of place restored, and the spirits return (the villagers are animist). As one villager told us "there is nowhere else to go now".

Idyllic village life. Traditional materials like bamboo and fronds for roofs are slowly replaced with longer lasting materials.

The end of slash and burn? In the foreground an orchard is be-ing established (and fenced to keep cattle out). Organic mate-rial is still being burned. The les-sons and reasons for mulching will require an ongoing educational process.

Fish Pond:about 300 catfish were harvested from this small pond. The feed of choice are ter-mite eggs.

Left: The last weaver in the village; “the young are not interested” and below: Opportunities for ponds, foods forests, agro forestry

Life on the Edge in Cambodia Max Lindegger

Left: One pump for the whole village of approximately 300 people (and growing)

Right: The next generation; what will the future hold? Below: Gourds for carrying water

Above: Experimental farm where traditional and introduced food crops are planted and left, the start of a large area of mulch gardens using drip irrigation. The advantage of drip irrigation is that a lot more food can be grown with a lot less water. So far all like the concept. In another area of Cambodia, 30 home gardens are being established using the same concept after the first two trials were considered to be highly successful.

Above: Plenty of helpers and at right: Ecovillage!

Phillip Adams, on his regular ABC Radio program, Late Night Live, recently spoke with two experts on the topic of carbon sequestration, reforesting the land and the future of our soils—extensively damaged through modern agri-culture. Here is an edited transcript of the discussion. Kindly reproduced with permission from Organic Gardener Nov/Dec 2009 Phillip Adams: Tonight we’re going to look at how important soils and trees are in sequestering carbon: that is, removing the older or historic emissions from the atmosphere, something that only sequestration can achieve. To do this, I’m joined by Christine Jones, an internationally renowned groundcover and soil ecologist who is also the founder of the Australian Soil Carbon Ac-creditation Scheme. On the blower from Melbourne is Andrew Grant, who is currently the CEO of CO2 Group Ltd., the Australian market leader in the es-tablishment and management of forest carbon sinks. Christine, how much of Australia’s agricultural land has been stuffed since European settlement? Christine: 99.9% Phillip: As little as that? Christine: Yes, I’ve just been on a bit of a road tour down through NSW, Vic, across to SA and back, so I’ve seen a significant proportion of Australia in the last couple of weeks, and I didn’t see any land that wasn’t degraded in that time. So it was a bit sad. Phillip: Isn’t the problem, in fact accelerating because of topsoil erosion and the impact of declining yields and forced farming? Christine: We certainly have lost massive amounts of topsoil. Geologists would say that most areas of Australia have lost between 50cms and a metre of topsoil, which is a lot by anybody’s standards, and unfortunately, we still are losing soil. Some more fragile areas are losing it more quickly than others, but I’d say just about everywhere I’ve been where we’ve been out in a pad-dock and had a look, there’s evidence of topsoil being lost right now. Phillip: Are we still losing about seven tonnes for every tonne of wheat we produce? Christine: We’re losing more: it’s around 15 tonnes of topsoil. Phillip: You’re kidding! Christine: No, that’s the average. There are places that are losing about 200 tonnes of topsoil for every tonne of wheat produced, now, this year. Phillip: I’m so depressed I don’t think I can go on with the program. Christine: Oh, but there is a good side to the story.

“from Dirt Farming to Green Farming….”

Philip Adams “Late Night Live”

“Geologists would say that most areas of Australia have lost between 50cms and a metre of topsoil, which is a lot by anybody’s standards, and unfortunately, we still are losing soil. Some more fragile areas are losing it more quickly than others.”

Topsoil: (Courtesy www.thecompostshop.co.uk/images/topsoil2.jpg )

Phillip: We’re going to get to that in just a second, but I also want you to tell (the listeners) what’s happened over the last 50 years in terms of the or-ganic carbon content of our agricultural earth. Christine: Well, that’s a sad story too, Phillip. That has been declining. Most of our losses in carbon came originally from losses in topsoil, and now that we’re down to farming in subsoil, we’re doing a pretty good job of re-moving any organic material that’s in that as well. And of course, because that’s associated with life—life in the soil is carbon in the soil—our soils are losing their life and they no longer have the structure, and that means they don’t have the function, so they’re not functioning as we would expect soils to function. Phillip: I like one of your lines—that our catchments are really drainments. That’s one of the impacts, isn’t it? Christine: Yes, that has a lot to do with management: management of live-stock and the way that we undertake our cropping. Most of these things can be fixed by fixing that space between our ears. It’s our association with the land, how we relate to the land, whether we understand it, nurture it, care for it, how we manage it. That’s where the solution is. Human creativity can overcome all of these issues. Phillip: You’ve got a philosophy, which is called YGE, Yearlong Green Farm-ing. Reveal all! Christine: Yearlong Green Farming… that term relates to the fact that the only way to get carbon dioxide to be fixed as carbon and to be transferred into the soil—if we want to build soil carbon—you need to have green leaves to do that. Carbon needs a gas circulating in the atmosphere, but car-bon can also be humus in the soil or it can be wood in a tree… but to turn that gas into something solid you need a plant with green leaves to do that. So Yearlong Green Farming just relates to finding .. There’s a whole variety of ways that that could be done, to having green leaves present for as much of the year as possible. Obviously that’s going to be related to rainfall, but you need to have plants that can respond to rain at any time that it does not fall. And one of the things that we’re seeing in the southern part of Australia (Vic, SA and South WA) is that rainfall patterns are changing quite signifi-cantly, and there’s more of that rain falling in summertime, so that people need to have plants there in summer that can respond to that rain. Phillip: Christine, we had six or seven years of intractable drought at our place, and the only thing green that was left was cactus. You’re telling me that there are plants that we can grow during drought even? Christine: Yes, there are, and it relates to the perennially of those plants. So if you’re looking at now, when you say ‘seven years of drought,’ when peo-ple talk about drought they mean reduced rainfall.. You still do get some rainfall—you just have to find ways of making effective use of every drop that falls… 100 Years Ahead:

from Dirt Farming to Green Farming….”

Philip Adams “Late Night Live”

“Yes, that has a lot to do with management: management of livestock and the way that we undertake our cropping. Most of these things can be fixed by fixing that space between our ears.”

A healthy crop of wheat

“Mallee eucalypt, a very impor-tant group of eucalypts, and widespread, and what we’ve done is looked at which species of Mallee are most vigorous in their growth and respond to a variable rainfall.” Phillip: Well, I’ve given up personal hygiene, what more can a bloke do?

Andrew, let’s move from perennial groundcover and talk about trees, be-cause your company, CO2 Australia is into establishing and managing for-est carbon sinks. And yet, I remember President Reagan telling us that trees were the problem…. Andrew: Important in the carbon cycle is understanding the role that trees play in removing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and when you look at the causes of climate change, one of the biggest contributors has been deforestation at a global level, and Australia has been sadly one of the leaders. So whilst our gaze focuses on the Amazon and the destruc-tion of Amazonian rainforest, and the depletion of temperate forest around the world, since settlement we’ve cleared over 20 million to 22 million hectares of land in our continent. And not surprisingly, one of the solutions, therefore, is reforestation, so as a business we’ve pioneered commercial reforestation for the sole purpose of carbon sequestration. Phillip: You’re a fan of the Mallee eucalypt. Andrew: Again, one of our biggest inland forests in Australia was the Mallee forest, widespread over 16 million hectares before conversion to agricultural use. Phillip: Are we talking a particularly tough tree? Andrew: There's 180 species of Mallee eucalypt, a very important group of eucalypts, and widespread, and what we’ve done is looked at which species of Mallee are most vigorous in their growth and respond to a vari-able rainfall. So, for example, in our plantings in NSW we had one year when we were establishing, the annual rainfall had dropped from 480mm to 180 mm so, lower than Alice Springs had in a year—and even with such low rainfall we still got excellent establishment and growth. We’re developing what I would describe as industrial scale plantings to partner with (major) companies in terms of managing their carbon emissions… Phillip: What have I got to do to have you knocking on my door getting me to sign a contract at our place? Andrew: You’d need to be in it for the long haul. Carbon trading is a funny kind of instrument, because there’s a whole range of particular points of proof and legal documents that landholders have got to be com-fortable with. It’s not a short term activity, and one of the most critical tests you’ve got to meet when you create one carbon credit through for-estation, is that you have to demonstrate that that one tonne of carbon remains removed from the atmosphere for 100years. Phillip: I’d be willing to sign that, but I won’t be around for most of that century. Andrew: No, so in terms of scheme compliance you’ve got to demon-strate legal title to the carbon in the trees, and so landholders that we partner with are having to undertake agreements that go beyond 100 years, that once the trees are in the ground they’re not removed.

from Dirt Farming to Green Farming….”

Philip Adams “Late Night Live”

Mallee Forest

Dust storm envelopes the coun-tryside (courtesy: http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/441840

Trees on Farms: Phillip: Andrew, what are some of the positive environmental benefits of integrating trees and farming systems? Andrew: They’re substantial, and the history of our business came about from many years of state and federal government research into dry land salinity, the curse that it is, and it’s particularly pronounced in WA in the wheat belt region, but its also an issue in Vic and NSW. And after tens of millions of dollars of research, surprise, surprise, the solution was that we should plant the trees, at least in part, back into the landscape from which they were removed...If you don’t have trees or perennial crops in the ground, what little rain you do get migrates across the landscape, leaches those salts from the soil and concentrates them in the lower lying areas. Planting trees also improves the microclimate for crops. Often when a farmer is at harvest, a hot, dry wind can desiccate the crop and you can lose a very important proportion of your yield. It also provides shelter for livestock.. I’m an ecologist by training, and it’s surprising that in 2009 we’re still coming to terms with the fact that Australian soils don’t behave like northern hemisphere soils. Australian ecology is, strangely enough, a very young science, and we had to disprove through the ‘70’s that a lot of those learnings didn’t apply particularly well. We’ve got very ancient soils with unique soil/plant relationships. So even the Mallee, for example, can grow in very low fertility soils be-cause it has this unique relationship with a (type of) fungus call my-corrhizal fungi—and that’s a symbiotic relationship, so the fungus that’s growing on the roots makes what little nutrient that’s availale in the soils available to the plants. But European crops can’t access those nutrients. So learning to farm and maintain our catchments in a way that’s harmonised with our natu-ral systems is, I still think, our biggest challenge. Twin Challenge: Phillip: Andrew, back to forests. Under the kind of emissions trading scheme that the Federal Government seems to at least pretend to want to introduce, can your forest carbon sinks generate significant carbon credits? Andrew: Yes, my observation is that we’re fantastic at increasing our emissions profile, we’re great at debating the problem, but we’re pretty lousy about implementing large-scale solutions—and we don’t have the luxury of time. So some independent work done by Treasury, and also Prof. Garnaut in his review, made the observation that reforestation in Australia can contribute potentially up to 10percent of what the market would need and.. Phillip: 10%? While delivering other advantages?

“from Dirt Farming to Green Farming….”

Philip Adams “Late Night Live”

Inter planting broad acre crops with belts of trees

“And after tens of millions of dollars of research, surprise, sur-prise, the solution was that we should plant the trees, at least in part, back into the landscape from which they were re-moved.”

Andrew: Yes, and there’s been some fantastic work done out of the US on what’s called the climate wedge study, which looked at all known techno-logical solutions in terms of meeting the international targets, and it’s best summarised as we need all known solutions, plus some. So we need bio-char, soil carbon, reforestation, renewable energy, energy efficiency and so forth.. We have the twin challenge of reducing our emissions profile as we go forward, and dealing with the consequences of historic emissions—scientists estimate that CO2 has a lifecycle in the atmosphere of roughly 100 years.

So even if we were to go to totally renewable energy as of tomorrow and reduce our industrial emissions, we still, as an international community, have to deal with legacy emissions. So things like soil carbon and refores-tation really have an additional attribute in that regard..

Sequestering carbon in the soil:

Phillip: Christine, back to you. How does the Australian Soil Carbon Ac-creditation System work?

Christine: The system was set up to demonstrate that farmers could se-quester carbon in their soil. The point is, though, that we can’t sequester carbon in soil if we continue with the practices that we’ve used to lose it. So, in other words, the way we’ve conducted agriculture up until now has resulted in massive losses in soil carbon and if we continue in those same techniques we will continue to lose carbon. You can’t put it back the same way that you lost it. So we have to have regenerative agriculture, we have to have innovative approaches to management, and that’s where things like Yearlong Green come in. Most of Australia is not Yearlong Green, but it was Yearlong Green. We know that 200 years ago it was, and we know that we can farm in ways that will reinstate that.

Phillip: I’d love to think that’s true. You’ve put forward a proposal to the government, Christine, for a green agriculture demonstration scheme.

Christine: The Green Agriculture Stewardship Scheme would be to estab-lish 100 sites around Australia, where we would demonstrate that it is pos-sible to sequester carbon, and to increase the moisture-holding capacity of the soil, and to increase the biodiversity, the microbial diversity in that soil.. To grow food and to make the land more productive.

And that would be 100 different locations in different regions, all of those in the temperate part of Australia, in the agricultural zone, and just using different techniques, farmers sort of being creative in the way that they went about it. But they would be paid to do that: they would receive a stewardship payment for doing that, provided they met all of those crite-ria.

Download the full program from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2009/2655330

Kindly reproduced with permission:Organic Gardener Nov/Dec 2009

“from Dirt Farming to Green Farming….”

Philip Adams “Late Night Live”

“You can’t put it back the same way that you lost it. So we have to have regenerative agriculture, we have to have innovative ap-proaches to management, and that’s where things like Yearlong Green come in. “

Above: Interviewer, Phillip Adams

We have all been told of the benefit to a garden that supports an ecology of “beneficial insects” keeping the balance between the pests. Planting particular flowers and herbs known as insectary plants has been proven to improve the natural balance and reduce pest outbreaks. This innovative reader has gone one step further in providing a high rise home made principally of recycled and “waste” materials to attract “the good guys” to the garden with good success!

A structure of some sort to provide habitat for beneficial insects should be in every organic or self sufficient garden. This unit built by the author a couple of years ago is made almost entirely from waste—timber off cuts, poly pipe, bamboo and even an egg carton (to over-winter lady beetles). Other beneficial insects now living in the unit include hoverflies, resin bees, wasps and lacewings. The latter use the narrow bamboo. No native blue banded bees have turned up, despite providing clay holes. About two thirds of the inserts have been used!

If one doesn’t get too close, Alan reports that its nice to relax with a cuppa or a beer and observe the comings and goings as the vari-ous insects fill up the holes with their next generation.

Article reproduced with permission from Organic Gardener Nov/Dec 2009 To assist gardeners enhance the population of beneficial insects, Green Harvest (www.greenharvest.com.au) sell a “Good Bug Mix” which contains seed for a colourful re-seeding collection of annual and perennial flowers providing blooms much of the year and to supply an important nectar, pollen and habitat for wild and intro-duced beneficials, such as predatory mites & wasps, ladybirds, lace-wings, hoverflies, tachnid flies and predatory beetles. This mix should be planted in areas which can go “a little wild”. More de-tails from GreenHarvest .

Beneficial Insects Building a Wildlife Home

Alan Stewart

“its nice to relax with a cuppa or a beer and observe the comings and goings as the various insects fill up the holes with their next generation.”

Save the Planet: Eat more Beef! By Lisa Abend “And of all the animals that

humans eat, none are held more responsible for climate change than the ones that moo. Cows not only consume more energy-intensive feed than other livestock; they also produce more methane—a powerful greenhouse gas - than other animals do.”

Cattle on this Hardwick, Mass., farm grow not on feedlots but in pas-tures, where their grazing helps keep carbon dioxide in the ground. On a farm in coastal Maine, a barn is going up. Right now it's little more than a concrete slab and some wooden beams, but when it's fin-ished, the barn will provide winter shelter for up to six cows and a few head of sheep. None of this would be remarkable if it weren't for the fact that the people building the barn are two of the most highly regarded organic-vegetable farmers in the country: Eliot Coleman wrote the bible of organic farming, The New Organic Grower, and Barbara Damrosch is the Washington Post's gardening columnist. At a time when a growing number of environmental activists are calling for an end to eating meat, this veggie-centric power couple is beginning to raise it. "Why?" asks Coleman, tromping through the mud on his way toward a greenhouse bursting with December turnips. "Because I care about the fate of the planet." Ever since the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization released a 2006 report that attributed 18% of the world's man-made green-house-gas emissions to livestock - more, the report noted, than what's produced by transportation—livestock has taken an increasingly hard rap. At first, it was just vegetarian groups that used the U.N.'s findings as evidence for the superiority of an all-plant diet. But since then, a broader range of environmentalists has taken up the cause. At a recent European Parliament hearing titled "Global Warming and Food Policy: Less Meat=Less Heat," Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergov-ernmental Panel on Climate Change, argued that reducing meat con-sumption is a "simple, effective and short-term delivery measure in which everybody could contribute" to emissions reductions. And of all the animals that humans eat, none are held more responsi-ble for climate change than the ones that moo. Cows not only con-sume more energy-intensive feed than other livestock; they also pro-duce more methane—a powerful greenhouse gas - than other animals do. "If your primary concern is to curb emissions, you shouldn't be eat-ing beef," says Nathan Pelletier, an ecological economist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, N.S., noting that cows produce 13 to 30 lb. of carbon dioxide per pound of meat. So how can Coleman and Damrosch believe that adding livestock to their farm will help the planet? Cattleman Ridge Shinn has the answer. On a wintry Saturday at his farm in Hardwick, Mass., he is out in his pastures encouraging a herd of plump Devon cows to move to a grassy new paddock. Over the course of a year, his 100 cattle will ro-tate across 175 acres four or five times. "Conventional cattle raising is like mining," he says. "It's unsustainable, because you're just taking without putting anything back. But when you rotate cattle on grass, you change the equation. You put back more than you take." (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.) It works like this: grass is a perennial. Rotate cattle and other ruminants across pastures full of it, and the animals' grazing will cut the blades - which spurs new growth - while their trampling helps work manure and other decaying organic matter into the soil, turning it into rich humus. The plant's roots also help maintain soil health by retaining water and microbes. And healthy soil keeps carbon dioxide underground and out of the atmos-

Lowline Angus Cattle above and below

“Save the Planet—Eat more

Beef!” By Lisa Abend

“Much of the carbon footprint of beef comes from growing grain to feed the animals, which requires fossil-fuel-based fertilizers, pesti-cides, transportation.”

phere. Compare that with the estimated 99% of U.S. beef cattle that live out their last months on feedlots, where they are stuffed with corn and soybeans. In the past few decades, the growth of these concen-trated animal-feeding operations has resulted in millions of acres of grassland being abandoned or converted - along with vast swaths of forest - into profitable cropland for livestock feed. "Much of the carbon footprint of beef comes from growing grain to feed the animals, which requires fossil-fuel-based fertilizers, pesticides, transportation," says Mi-chael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma. "Grass-fed beef has a much lighter carbon footprint." Indeed, although grass-fed cattle may produce more methane than conventional ones (high-fiber plants are harder to digest than cereals, as anyone who has felt the gastric effects of eating broccoli or cabbage can attest), their net emissions are lower because they help the soil sequester carbon.

From Vermont, where veal and dairy farmer Abe Collins is developing software designed to help farmers foster carbon-rich topsoil quickly, to Denmark, where Thomas Harttung's Aarstiderne farm grazes 150 head of cattle, a vanguard of small farmers are trying to get the word out about how much more eco-friendly they are than factory farming. "If you suspend a cow in the air with buckets of grain, then it's a bad guy," Harttung explains. "But if you put it where it belongs - on grass - that cow becomes not just carbon-neutral but carbon-negative." Collins goes even further. "With proper management, pastoralists, ranchers and farmers could achieve a 2% increase in soil-carbon levels on existing agricultural, grazing and desert lands over the next two decades," he estimates. Some researchers hypothesize that just a 1% increase (over, admittedly, vast acreages) could be enough to capture the total equivalent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions. This math works out in part because farmers like Shinn don't use fertiliz-ers or pesticides to maintain their pastures and need no energy to pro-duce what their animals eat other than what they get free from the sun. Furthermore, pasturing frequently uses land that would otherwise be unproductive. "I'd like to see someone try to raise soybeans here," he says, gesturing toward the rocky, sloping fields around him. By many standards, pastured beef is healthier. That's certainly the case for the animals involved; grass feeding obviates the antibiotics that feedlots are forced to administer in order to prevent the acidosis that occurs when cows are fed grain. But it also appears to be true for people who eat cows. Compared with conventional beef, grass-fed is lower in satu-rated fat and higher in omega-3s, the heart-healthy fatty acids found in salmon. But not everyone is sold on its superiority. In addition to citing grass-fed meat's higher price tag - Shinn's ground beef ends up retailing for about $7 a pound, more than twice the price of conventional beef - feedlot producers say that only through their economies of scale can the indus-try produce enough meat to satisfy demand, especially for a growing

Max and Trudi’s cows: “If you put a cow where it belongs, on grass, that cow becomes not just carbon neutral but carbon nega-tive.”

“Eat More Beef!”

Lisa Abend

population. These critics note that because grass is less caloric than grain, it takes two to three years to get a pastured cow to slaughter weight, whereas a feedlot animal requires only 14 months. "Not only does it take fewer animals on a feedlot to produce the same amount of meat," says Tamara Thies, chief environmental counsel for the Na-tional Cattlemen's Beef Association (which contests the U.N.'s 18% fig-ure), "but because they grow so quickly, they have less chance to pro-duce greenhouse gases." To Allan Savory, the economies-of-scale mentality ignores the role that grass-fed herbivores can play in fighting climate change. A former wildlife conservationist in Zimbabwe, Savory once blamed overgrazing for desertification. "I was prepared to shoot every bloody rancher in the country," he recalls. But through rotational grazing of large herds of ruminants, he found he could reverse land degradation, turning dead soil into thriving grassland. Like him, Coleman now scoffs at the environmentalist vogue for vilify-ing meat eating. "The idea that giving up meat is the solution for the world's ills is ridiculous," he says at his Maine farm. "A vegetarian eat-ing tofu made in a factory from soybeans grown in Brazil is responsi-ble for a lot more CO[2] than I am." A lifetime raising vegetables year-round has taught him to value the elegance of natural systems. Once he and Damrosch have brought in their livestock, they'll "be able to use the manure to feed the plants, and the plant waste to feed the ani-mals," he says. "And even though we can't eat the grass, we'll be turn-ing it into something we can." *Grass feeding required Cattle on this Hardwick, Mass., farm grow not on feedlots but in pastures, where their grazing helps keep carbon di-oxide in the ground.”

By LISA ABEND Reproduced Monday, Jan. 25, 2010 Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1953692,00.html

Book Review by Max Lindegger: The vegetarian myth - Lierre Keith. Flashpoint press

Lierre in her introduction says" This was not an easy book to write". I can tell you - this is not an easy book to read! And I'm a meat eater! In her book she details point by point and with an abundance of reference material why being a vegetarian makes little if any sense on moral, political or nutritional level. She makes the point that most of the vegans and vegetarians accept as little responsibility for their food needs as people buying bur-gers and other fast foods. As a vegan for 20 years she says" I wanted to believe that my life - my physical existence - was possible without killing, without death. It's not. No life is." She makes the point that a diet de-pendent on others growing grain or vegetables resulted in the loss of forests, native grasslands, soil erosion and species loss.

“The idea that giving up meat is the solution for the world's ills is ridiculous," he says at his Maine farm. "A vegetarian eating tofu made in a factory from soybeans grown in Brazil is responsible for a lot more CO[2] than I am”

Above: Soybean Crop Cour-tesy: keetsa.com/.../uploads/2007/07/soybean.jpg

Tofu Courtesy www.xonikz.com/The_Man/Blog/2009/07/27/tofurigan

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Mollison would agree with her view that " life is ultimately a coop-erative process, unitary in it's goal: more life". Permaculture indeed is mentioned positively as (at least in theory) the Permaculturist aims to create circles where the waste from one product becomes the food for the next. The book is possibly at it's best in the " nutri-tional" chapter. Aspects related to Cholesterol and soy are revealing and worrying. Worth the read for any vegetarian. Everyone who eats should read this book. Everyone who eats vege-tarian should memorize it. … This is the single most important book I've ever read on diet, agriculture, and ecology. And as a farmer and ex-vegan, that's saying a lot." -Aric McBay, author of What We Leave Behind and Peak Oil Survival

Peter Bain (of Permaculture Activist fame ) says: " Whether you are a vegan, vegetarian, or never gave up meat at all, you will benefit from this author's painful mistakes and her laser-like focus on the path to a sane diet and all that entails".

I see this book very much a companion to Sally Fallon Morell's book " Nourishing Traditions ". Both books call for us to learn to listen to our bodies more. Which diet suits us and how we can lo-calise our food needs. 42,000 people met in December in Copen-hagen to talk about Global Climate and what we can and should do...and here we have the tools in our hands ...to grow a garden, keep some chickens and support the farmers who grow meat sustainably. We should have no regrets. Max O Lindegger Interesting Articles and Links:

Investing in Urban Farming in South Africa: http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/in-south-africa-investing-in-urban-farming/

The City That Ended Hunger: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/food-for-everyone/the-city-that-ended-hunger

Permaculture Workshop Turkey: With Max O Lindegger & Guests:

June 12—19 2010 The Permaculture Research Institute of Turkey, Marmariç, and CanSU Organic Dairy Farm, Bayındır, İzmir, Turkey. Workshop Fee: sliding scale system: € 250 or € 350 Accommodation: Bayındır Guest House -double rooms, € 12 per person, breakfast included. Staying in a tent in Marmariç Eco-settlement: € 5, breakfast included. Please send your application no later than May 21, 2010 to surdurulebilir@gmail.com