Clipmarks | Farming Clips

Brazil: Deforestation rises sharply as farmers push into Amazon

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:51:54 GMT

clipped by: JICWyllie

Concerns over the destruction of the Brazilian rainforest resurfaced at the weekend after it emerged that deforestation jumped by 64% over the last 12 months, according to official government data.

Brazil's National Institute for Space Research this week said that around 3,145 square miles - an area half the size of Wales - were razed between August 2007 and August 2008.

With commodity prices hitting recent highs and loggers and soy farmers pushing ever further into the Amazon jungle, satellite images captured by a real-time monitoring system, known in Brazil as Deter, showed that deforestation was once again on the rise after three years on the wane.

Brazil's push to expand its economy and develop the Amazon region is posing increasing threats to Brazil's natural resources. They accuse the government of retreating from its promises to defend the Amazon rainforest, which has been decimated since the 1970s by a mixture of logging, cattle ranching and soy farming.

Tags: environment, forests, i-deforestation, i-increase

US Can Block Mad Cow Testing

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:43:16 GMT

clipped by: Imnclady

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Court: US can block mad cow testing

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration can prohibit meat packers from testing their animals for mad cow disease, a federal appeals court said Friday.

The dispute pits the Agriculture Department, which tests about 1 percent of cows for the potentially deadly disease, against a Kansas meat packer that wants to test all its animals.

Larger meat packers opposed such testing. If Creekstone Farms Premium Beef began advertising that its cows have all been tested, other companies fear they too will have to conduct the expensive tests.

The Bush administration says the low level of testing reflects the rareness of the disease. Mad cow disease has been linked to more than 150 human deaths worldwide, mostly in Great Britain. Only three cases have been reported in the U.S., all involving cows, not humans.

the Agriculture Department can only regulate disease "treatment.

no cure for mad cow disease

test is performed on dead animals,

ruled, the test is not a treatment.

Tags: disease, animals, court, us, death, farming

Worries Mount as Farmers Push for Big Harvest

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 23:22:13 GMT

clipped by: katsteevns
clipper's remarks: Too much rain.

Clip Source: www.coanews.org

Worries Mount as Farmers Push for Big Harvest

By DAVID STREITFELD and KEITH BRADSHER

Corn on the Kron farm that should be knee-high is only several inches above the ground.

Peter Newcomb for The New York Times

GRIFFIN, Ind. — In a year when global harvests need to be excellent to ease the threat of pervasive food shortages, evidence is mounting that they will be average at best. Some farmers are starting to fear disaster.

American corn and soybean farmers are suffering from too much rain, while Australian wheat farmers have been plagued by drought.

“The planting has gotten off to a poor start,” said Bill Nelson, a Wachovia grains analyst. “The anxiety level is increasing.”

Randy Kron, whose family has been farming in the southwestern corner of Indiana for 135 years, should have corn more than a foot tall by now. But all spring it has seemed as if there were a faucet in the sky. The rain is regular, remorseless.

Amazons' lost towns

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:24:48 GMT

clipped by: PKiller

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

'Lost towns' discovered in Amazon

A remote area of the Amazon river basin was once home to densely populated towns, Science journal reports.

The Upper Xingu, in west Brazil, was once thought to be virgin forest, but in fact shows traces of extensive human activity.

Researchers found evidence of a grid-like pattern of settlements connected by road networks and arranged around large central plazas.

There are signs of farming, wetland management, and possibly fish farms.

The ancient urban communities date back to before the first Europeans set foot in the Upper Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon in the 15th Century.

"They have quite remarkable planning and self-organisation, more so than many classical examples of what people would call urbanism," he said. Although the remains are almost invisible, they can be identified by members of the Kuikuro tribe, who are thought to be direct descendents of the people who built the towns.

" 'Lost towns' discovered in Amazon"

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:08:20 GMT

clipped by: cakebelly
clipper's remarks: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7586860.stm

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

'Lost towns' discovered in Amazon

A remote area of the Amazon river basin was once home to densely populated towns, Science journal reports.

The Upper Xingu, in west Brazil, was once thought to be virgin forest, but in fact shows traces of extensive human activity.

Researchers found evidence of a grid-like pattern of settlements connected by road networks and arranged around large central plazas.

There are signs of farming, wetland management, and possibly fish farms.

The settlements are now almost completely overgrown by rainforest.

The ancient urban communities date back to before the first Europeans set foot in the Upper Xingu region of the Brazilian Amazon in the 15th Century.

'Lost towns' discovered in Amazon

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:54:50 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A remote area of the Amazon river basin was once home to densely populated towns, Science journal reports.

Researchers found evidence of a grid-like pattern of settlements connected by road networks and arranged around large central plaza

There are signs of farming, wetland management, and possibly fish farms.

Like medieval European and ancient Greek towns, those forming the Amazonian urban landscape were surrounded by large walls. These were composed of earthworks, the remains of which have survived.

Each community had an identical road, always pointing north-east to south-west, which are connected to a central plaza

Evidence was found of dams and artificial ponds

The people who once lived in the settlements are thought to have been wiped out by European colonists and the diseases they brought with them.

Gold Farming has become a $500 million global virtual outsourcing business

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:51:17 GMT

clipped by: digitalfever

Clip Source: www.money.co.uk

Virtual gold-farming has become a $500,000 industry employing over 400,000 workers, according to new research by self confessed gamer Professor Richard Heeks.

The online 'industry' was found to have particularly flourished in developing countries where workers can earn an average £77 ($150) a month. China is known to be a big player in the sector with Heeks’s report suggesting that 80% of the gold-farming work forced are based here.

Tags: virtualgaming, money, outsourcing

The revival of small-scale farming

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:24:55 GMT

clipped by: tidbit2

Clip Source: www.resurgence.org

Full Circle

Daniel Bellow on the revival of small-scale farming and community supported agriculture.
Read more...

Wolfe Islander shares wind experiences; Visiting mayor offers account of 86-turbine farming developm

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:52:18 GMT

clipped by: CohoctonWindWatch

Clip Source: www.windaction.org

Jim Vanden Hoek, the mayor of the Township of Frontenac Islands, may not have realized how his words would be taken when referring to the centre of wind turbines development on Wolfe Island as "ground zero" at the public wind energy meeting at the Picton Arena Wednesday night. "I'm seeing a lot of shaking of heads, just bear with me," he said as he presented to a crowd of over 200 people who, judging by their comments and questions, appeared largely against wind farm development in Price Edward. He pointed to a green map of Wolfe Island dotted with red.

Tags: wolfe island, industrial wind, wind turbines, environment

Urban Gardening-The Future and The Past

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:32:11 GMT

clipped by: klippety
clipper's remarks: It may seem new and unusual now, but it will be absolutely essential, again. Grow your own and have the best food there is to be had.

Clip Source: features.csmonitor.com

A green thumbs-up to urban farming

At City Farmers Nursery, Bill Tall tends to visitors, animals, plants – and his mission to get city dwellers to grow their own food.

SAN DIEGO - At the end of an industrial stretch of Euclid Avenue occupied by an equipment rental yard, a liquor mart, and an auto repair shop, City Farmers Nursery is a verdant surprise. But even if this were an affluent area, City Farmers would be a striking departure from the typical corporate garden center.

Small plants that will someday bear Early Girl tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, and chili peppers sit in trays near the parking lot. Not far from burbling tanks of baby koi and albino channel carp, a yellow-and-black mutt named Abby sleeps beneath a table full of petunias and marigolds.

Inside the store, a bowl on the counter holds eggs, free for the taking. A high-backed chest is filled with jars of seeds and baskets of Yellow Finn, Purple Peruvian, and Bintje potato tubers waiting to be planted.

Your Sushi May Be A Fishy Story

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:42:56 GMT

clipped by: klippety
clipper's remarks: Switch and Bait. You're on the hook. White Tuna is actually Telapia. Pulling the Fins over the customers eyes.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Fish Tale Has DNA Hook: Students Find Bad Labels

Many New York sushi restaurants and seafood markets are playing a game of bait and switch, say two high school students turned high-tech sleuths.

In a tale of teenagers, sushi and science, Kate Stoeckle and Louisa Strauss, who graduated this year from the Trinity School in Manhattan, took on a freelance science project in which they checked 60 samples of seafood using a simplified genetic fingerprinting technique to see whether the fish New Yorkers buy is what they think they are getting.

They found that one-fourth of the fish samples with identifiable DNA were mislabeled. A piece of sushi sold as the luxury treat white tuna turned out to be Mozambique tilapia, a much cheaper fish that is often raised by farming. Roe supposedly from flying fish was actually from smelt. Seven of nine samples that were called red snapper were mislabeled, and they turned out to be anything from Atlantic cod to Acadian redfish, an endangered species.

Snugglepot and Cuddlepie

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:54:04 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: bibliodyssey.blogspot.com

Snugglepot and Cuddlepie - The Gumnut Babies
(cover detail)

They Found Mr Lizard at the Photographer's

At The Artist's Studio

Mrs Kookaburra's Dinner Party

Sea Dragons in Their Stable

Snugglepot Fights The Red Gumnut

Little Obelia (detail)

The Banksia Men Make a Wicked Plot

The Cabstand

The Cricket Match

The Gum Blossom Ballet

The Lecture

They Began the Homeward Journey

Little Obelia

May Gibbs (1877-1969) emigrated to Australia from England with her parents when she was four years old. Part of her childhood was spent at a farming homestead in Western Australia where Gibbs' love of the unique species in the Australian bush developed. The nuts, leaves and flowers she discovered as a child provided a lifetime of inspiration for her iconic and imaginative illustration work.

Northcott: Home of May Gibbs [biography].
Like Father Like Daughter: May & Herbert Gibbs Collection (has horizontal scroll galleries of early painting work among other material)
Amazon link to book.

What Fish Are You Really Eating?

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:43:15 GMT

clipped by: Allison Van Dusen
clipper's remarks: Detective work by two sushi-loving high school students has shown that New York sushi restaurants and seafood markets are mislabeling their products - often selling cheaper species as more expensive varieties.
The duo used a simplified genetic fingerprinting technique to look at the fish DNA and uncover the truth.
The study was small, involving just 60 samples, but it's likely that these few restaurants and grocery stores aren't the only ones in on the game.
Considering how many people are turning to fish these days for its health benefits, and the fact that those can vary from species to species, this should raise concern.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Fish Tale Has DNA Hook: Students Find Bad Labels

Many New York sushi restaurants and seafood markets are playing a game of bait and switch, say two high school students turned high-tech sleuths.

Do you know what you eat?-)

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:51:14 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: next time when going out, take a scientist with you...

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Fish Tale Has DNA Hook: Students Find Bad Labels

Many New York sushi restaurants and seafood markets are playing a game of bait and switch, say two high school students turned high-tech sleuths.

What may be most impressive about the experiment is the ease with which the students accomplished it.

The project began, appropriately, over dinner about a year ago.

where more people can participate.”

Tags: food, genetics

Vertical Farm Plans Keeps Growing

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:10:22 GMT

clipped by: mrobert
clipper's remarks: Building vertical farms in big cities could help solve food, climate and health problems. Great idea.

Clip Source: www.bigthink.com

Vertical farming! What are you, crazy? No, not really. Amid mounting worries over food supply, Columbia University Health Scientist Dickson Despommier and his high-rise farming concepts are gaining serious traction. Is this the beginning of a new era of sustainability? We sure hope so. (You can access a vertical farm rendering here.)

Tags: vertical farms, big think, economics, urban planning