Tag Archives: Monsanto

Episode 340. We (Still) Need a Regeneration Revolution (Episode226)

This is the World Organic News for the week ending 5th of  June 2023.

Jon Moore reporting!

Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!

Soil

Today we’re going to discuss regeneration in particular regeneration of the soil and ecosystems. Over the last 50 to 75 years, basically since the second world war we’ve gone through a period of destruction. In effect a faustian bargain in which we gave up 1% of our topsoil every year in return for production returns.

Industrial Agriculture

We did this by using chemicals: chemical fertilizers, chemical pesticides and herbicides and fungicides and it worked. There were lots of famines and people starving in the 1970s. A lot of the techniques developed with chemical inputs saved many people, kept them alive. But the cost! That bill is coming due and we need to pay for it now. If we wait, the cost will be so much higher. Continue reading →

Episode 270. Seed Sovereignty

This is The ChangeUnderground for the 19th of September 2021.

I’m your host, Jon Moore

Decarbonise the Air, Recarbonise the Soil!

A big shout out and thank you to Kaelem for the coffees he tossed my way on the “buy Me a Coffee” link on the website. Much appreciated as were your kind words on episode 266

Now to today’s matters. Who owns the world’s seeds? Who indeed. Way back in 1980, which is an odd thing to say having lived through that year but I digress, bat in 1980 the US patents office approved a patent for a biological entity, a bacterium. This one ate oil spills or some such thing. This opened the floodgates and before you knew it the Monsantos of the world had piled in.
Continue reading →

Episode 226. We Need a Regeneration Revolution

This is the World Organic News for the week ending 11th of  August 2020.

Jon Moore reporting!

Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!

Soil

Today we’re going to discuss regeneration in particular regeneration of the soil and ecosystems. Over the last 50 to 75 years, basically since the second world war we’ve gone through a period of destruction. In effect a faustian bargain in which we gave up 1% of our topsoil every year in return for production returns.

Industrial Agriculture

We did this by using chemicals: chemical fertilizers, chemical pesticides and herbicides and fungicides and it worked. There were lots of famines and people starving in the 1970s. A lot of the techniques developed with chemical inputs saved many people, kept them alive. But the cost! That bill is coming due and we need to pay for it now. If we wait, the cost will be so much higher. Continue reading →

Episode 208. No-Dig for Victory.

This is the World Organic News for the week ending 6th of  April 2020.

Jon Moore reporting!

Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!

Folks we are in a battle, more than that we are in a war. Opportunity often comes disguised as adversity. 

The long decades of struggle against pollution, against Monsanto, against fossil  fuels and the mindless idea of continual consumption could be coming to an end. I do NOT see the suffering of this time, the infected and the deceased as a positive. I sit in empathy with Mrs World Organic News as she weeps during news reports covering death tolls and abandoned nursing homes and the incompetence of some responses. I am livid at the mindless bullshit spreading across social media. Let me put that clearly. Continue reading →

Episode 199. First Principles Continued: Seeds

This is the World Organic News for the week ending 20th of January 2020.

Jon Moore reporting!

Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!

This week we continue our journey down the first principles rabbit whole with a look at seeds.

Seeds are a many splendored thing! From the dust like powder of Tiff seeds all the way up to monster broad bean seeds, they all have one thing in common: They are life in suspended animation.

Our task as gardeners is to release that life into its most favoured conditions.

Thankfully, most seeds have similar needs and this makes our tasks somewhat simple. 

Before we get to actually sowing, and that’s different module, let’s look at our options. Continue reading →