This the WORLD ORGANIC NEWS for the 30th of December 2019.
Jon Moore reporting.
Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil.
We begin the episode with a couple of quotes from Facebook posts.
Yearly Archives: 2019
Episode 195. What is regenerative gardening really?
This the WORLD ORGANIC NEWS for the 16th of December 2019.
Jon Moore reporting.
Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil.
Benefits of Regen Gardening
Regenerative gardening is a process whereby the gardener focuses on the soil health above all else. From this starting point all else flows. We can either grow veggies or flowers or create a space for pollinators or a playground for children but the underlying principle is that we focus on the soil.
Some of the benefits that arise from this form of gardening are: better water quality, much better soil quality and, if enough people are into this, improved air quality and all of these are wonderful but the real kicker is we also improve our current climate situation.The key to improving the climate is removing CO2 from the air. Happily the key to improving soil involves sequestering carbon in that top six inches under our feet. Continue reading →
Episode 194. From Dry Chemistry To Living Biology
This is the World Organic News for the week ending 18th of November 2019.
Jon Moore reporting!
Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!
A step in thinking is required to move from Chemistry to Biology. Chemistry is a reductionist science, by and large. A big thing is interrogated and the smaller things making it up are discovered. Molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, quarks and things and if it ever finds a way to be tested experimentally, tiny little strings that are the basis of string theory.
Biology proceeds in a similar way from kingdom to phylum to class, order, family, genus and species. However, when biology is observed in an ecosystem, we find emergent properties. That is, things that only occur when species interact. Continue reading →
Episode 193. Fires, Snow and Sheep Husbandry
This is the World Organic News for the week ending 11th of November 2019.
Jon Moore reporting!
Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!
Bushfires
Well it’s come to that time of the year again. Each year it arrives earlier. I’m talking about the fire season in Australia. The season starts with fires in Queensland and New South Wales, usually, and heads south and west as the summer rolls on. Astute listens will realise that we are still in Spring. Summer looks horrendous. I’ve included a couple of links. One shows the extent of the fires from satellite images. These are terrifying images. Over 100,000 hectares have burnt but the other article portends doom. While weather conditions have eased as I produce this episode on Sunday the 10th of November, Tuesday the 12th is being described as catastrophic. An actual bushfire level of threat here in Australia. Dry winds, high temperatures and low humidity. Continue reading →
Episode 192. Notes From The Field
This is the World Organic News for the week ending 4th of November 2019.
Jon Moore reporting!
Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!
We have hit the turning point of the growing year in Highclere, Tasmania. The first of November is, allegedly, the date when frosts are over. We will see. I had to scrape ice of the windscreen last week. Note a killing frost but a frost nonetheless.
Fruit
The pears have lost their petals and the fruits are taking shape. The raspberries are about to flower and the apples from early through to late varieties are in the process of blooming. In orchards I’ve managed previously, the buzzing of honey bees has been almost overwhelming. I have spotted no such activity this year. To be fair, we are still a month away from our one year anniversary on the property so this level of bee activity may well be normal. That the pears are developing would suggest I may be worrying about something I shouldn’t. Continue reading →
Episode 191. Are You the 100th Monkey?
This is the World Organic News for the week ending 28th of October 2019.
Jon Moore reporting!
Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!
This week the focus is building big things from small. Let me explain.
Following on from the hundred monkeys idea discussed in Episode 189, I’ve come to realise the need for as many people as possible to know how to grow some food. My thinking goes like this:
If it took 100 monkeys to shift the monkey paradigm from eating raw spuds to eating salty raw spuds that had been washed in sea water, then the more people I can influence into growing some food, the point will come when our cultural paradigm will shift from consumption to production. Continue reading →
Episode 190. Climate Change & the USDA
This is the World Organic News for the week ending the 21st of October 2019.
Jon Moore reporting!
Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!
This week we’re focusing on the front line with a piece from Politico in the US entitled: ‘I’m standing right here in the middle of climate change’: How USDA is failing farmers.
Quote:
ROCK PORT, Missouri — Rick Oswald is standing on the doorstep of the white farmhouse he grew up in, but almost nothing is as it should be.
To his right, four steel grain bins, usually shiny and straight, lie mangled and ripped open, spilling now-rotting corn into piles like sand dunes. The once manicured lawn has been overtaken by waist-tall cattails, their seeds carried in by flood waters that consumed this house, this farm and everything around it last spring.
End Quote Continue reading →
Episode 189. Small Farms and Why They Matter!
This is the World Organic News for the week ending the 14th of October 2019.
Jon Moore reporting!
Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!
Following on from last month’s Online Conference I ran in conjunction with my co-hoist from Permaculture Plus, Rich Bowden, I have been struggling to find my mojo. The answers to our climate questions are available. They’ve been there for at least thirty years and yet we have people arguing against the very notion of Climate Change.
It can be depressing. Continue reading →
Episode 188. Grasslands and Attacks on Agroecology
This is the World Organic News for the week ending the 30th of September 2019.
Jon Moore reporting!
Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!
Grasslands are a somewhat ignored sector of the environment. This is not surprising, especially in the English speaking world. Not until European colonisation did English speakers come into contact with large areas of grassland so the previous understanding of grazing country underpins our understanding of these niches. Continue reading →
Episode 187. Ploughing, Chemicals and Monoculture
This is the World Organic News for the week ending the 23rd of September 2019.
Jon Moore reporting!
Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil!
A couple of Sundays ago I heard a podcast from the ABC here in Australia entitled: Land use, climate change and the role of soil.
Quote:
Rear Vision looks at how we come to farm the way we do and how that fits into the climate change story.
This is not a program about organic farming but it is a program about soil.
End Quote Continue reading →