Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Burning Food or Burning Fuel?
I was just reading and interesting article at organicconsumers.org (Corn to Ethanol) pertaining to the negative economic and social value of producing ethanol from corn. The article discusses the negative impact of the energy needed to produce just one gallon of ethanol and all the negative nuances that trickle down, one of the main things that resonated with me was the amount of fossil fuel needed to produce ethanol from corn is more than the end product of ethanol that will be created, so to clarify we/us (The U.S.) are burning more and more fossil fuel to produce much less ethanol. I was reading about this issue months ago when the chatter became amped up about alternative fuel sources and ethanol from corn was being played up in the media. I was skeptical that the source may have been some oil company consultant with an axe to grind over alternative fuels. But now I am starting to believe that ethanol from corn may not be the best way to go about the alternative fuel route, also I have read articles about ethanol being derived from switch grass and other weeds something in which we have plenty of in the US and may be worth looking into.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Mississippi Farmers Dealing with Increased Crop Production
Mississippi Farmers Dealing with Increased Crop Production
As a result of high gas prices and the need for alternative fuels many Mississippi farmers found themselves trying to get ahead of the alternative fuel market with an increase in corn production to produce ethanol, at the present that doesn't seem to be the best idea. Due to the increase in corn production figures from the previous year have tripled while the adoption of ethnanol as a fuel source has not yet caught on as it was anticipated. This has left many Mississippi farmers with an excess corn crop that many are finding difficult to; store, move, and sell, and this is not isolated to the State of Mississippi as stated in this article from the Mississippi Paper the Clarion-Ledger:
From what the article states the moving and storing of such an excess of crops causes damage to highway infrastructure and also stagnates the production of alternative crops that could have been cultivated instead.Farmers and grain elevators have been struggling to keep up with an unusually high crop production this harvest season, facing increased trucking traffic and long waits to store corn and soybeans.
The large acreage has had the Mississippi Department of Transportation worried about the potential for strain on state highways and bridges as a huge volume of grain moves through the region's marketing system.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has predicted the country will produce its largest corn crop ever. The state's corn acreage almost tripled to 980,000 acres from 2006 to 2007.
Friday, September 14, 2007
The corn and ethanol issue by Malc Baxter
The corn and ethanol issue by Malc Baxter
The US government, have for some time now being giving a subsidy to corn and ethanol production. The reasoning behind helping in the production of corn and ethanol is that it can be used as a alternative to fossil fuels. In turn it is hoped that because ethanol burn more cleanly than petrol that it will help the environment and reduce US dependence on oil from other countries. With most ethanol that is produced in the U.S being made from corn, although other grains and biomass can be used, there as been a economic stimulation to U.S. agriculture, therefore creating a new market for corn and maize. Estimates have also shown that as many as 10 million acres of land are required to grow corn or maize to produce ethanol.
By increasing production in the ethanol industry it may be a means of increasing farmers income as well as reducing farm subsidy payments and also as said before, lessen the dependence on imported fuels. Furthermore, there is more energy efficiency achieved through use of corn and ethanol and it also achieves a net gain in a better form of energy since converting corn to ethanol means using abundant domestic supplies of coal and natural gas.
Some possible negative aspects with using corn and ethanol:
There are certain issues with using corn and ethanol since it requires the use of fuel and energy to grow the corn in the first place and it has been found that one acre of U.S. corn will produce approximately 328 gallons of ethanol. However, the planting, growing and harvesting of that amount of corn will need 140 gallons of fossil fuels, and that in itself amounts to $347 per acre which equates to $1.05 per gallon of ethanol even before the corn leaves the farm.
This may be further compounded by the crushing and fermentation of corn at processing plants, all of which consumes energy. It seems that the end cost of producing ethanol and using corn works out to be more expensive than that of petrol.
Never the less there are lots of individuals who argue that corn and ethanol gives 30% more energy than it takes to make it, so therefore it is very energy efficient. Also there are studies that show the net energy values are rising for corn and ethanol, this is probably because technology is improving in the production of corn and ethanol.
About the Author
www.ecoholistic.com for articles, information and tips about ethanol.
For more about corn and ethanol
Article comes courtesy of: Go Articles
Fresh Farm-Raised Foods
The US government, have for some time now being giving a subsidy to corn and ethanol production. The reasoning behind helping in the production of corn and ethanol is that it can be used as a alternative to fossil fuels. In turn it is hoped that because ethanol burn more cleanly than petrol that it will help the environment and reduce US dependence on oil from other countries. With most ethanol that is produced in the U.S being made from corn, although other grains and biomass can be used, there as been a economic stimulation to U.S. agriculture, therefore creating a new market for corn and maize. Estimates have also shown that as many as 10 million acres of land are required to grow corn or maize to produce ethanol.
By increasing production in the ethanol industry it may be a means of increasing farmers income as well as reducing farm subsidy payments and also as said before, lessen the dependence on imported fuels. Furthermore, there is more energy efficiency achieved through use of corn and ethanol and it also achieves a net gain in a better form of energy since converting corn to ethanol means using abundant domestic supplies of coal and natural gas.
Some possible negative aspects with using corn and ethanol:
There are certain issues with using corn and ethanol since it requires the use of fuel and energy to grow the corn in the first place and it has been found that one acre of U.S. corn will produce approximately 328 gallons of ethanol. However, the planting, growing and harvesting of that amount of corn will need 140 gallons of fossil fuels, and that in itself amounts to $347 per acre which equates to $1.05 per gallon of ethanol even before the corn leaves the farm.
This may be further compounded by the crushing and fermentation of corn at processing plants, all of which consumes energy. It seems that the end cost of producing ethanol and using corn works out to be more expensive than that of petrol.
Never the less there are lots of individuals who argue that corn and ethanol gives 30% more energy than it takes to make it, so therefore it is very energy efficient. Also there are studies that show the net energy values are rising for corn and ethanol, this is probably because technology is improving in the production of corn and ethanol.
About the Author
www.ecoholistic.com for articles, information and tips about ethanol.
For more about corn and ethanol
Article comes courtesy of: Go Articles
Fresh Farm-Raised Foods
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
LOCALLY GROWN
LOCALLY GROWN
by ANNIE SPIEGELMAN
LOCALLY GROWN What's up with supermarkets in Iowa selling apples from . . . (huh) China? By Annie Spiegelman the dirt DIVA When I first moved to Northern California, after a sordid and jaded past in the New York film industry, I didn't quite understand why herds of cows and sheep congregated aimlessly alongside the freeways. Being a prototypical type-A Manhattanite, I questioned why they weren't being busy. I initially questioned if they were actually real or had simply been placed there as rural "set dressing", as we so craftily do in the movie business. I could imagine some irate film director screaming through his bullhorn: "Could a Production Assistant PLEASE move that bull's rear end away from the camera? HURRY PEOPLE! We're losing the light! CUT! What's wrong with that bull? Get me another one. I want one that knows just what the hell he's doing." Nowadays, I'm a recovering Hollywood First Assistant Director, with a sliver of my soul still astonishingly intact. I am grateful to be living in Marin County, a community internationally famous for it's hot tubs, of course, but also it's abundant ranches and farms which produce a cornucopia of fresh, local, sustainable and organic foods. In fact, Great Britain's Prince Charles recently visited and traded organic farming secrets with my pals at Grown-in-Marin. (They didn't invite me to join them, but that's okay. I'm pretty sure I was busy washing my hair that day . . .) The Prince stressed the urgency of promoting and protecting small-scale family farms and sustainable agriculture. Chucky was soo right on. This is what Princess Di must have seen in him.
A recent report by The US Department of Agriculture asserts that we have lost more than 34,000 farmers in the last two years. That's an average of 330 per week. Just sixty years ago there were 6.8 million farmers across this great country of ours, and now the number of farms stands at a lowly 2 million. An alarming statistic from Anna and Frances Lappe's book Hope's Edge, states, " The typical supermarket contains no fewer than 30,000 items. About half of those items are produced by 10 multinational food and beverage companies. And roughly 140 people-117 men and 21 women-form the board of directors of those 10 companies." In other words, rather than these food items coming from salt-of-the-earth farmers growing diverse local varieties, these products have been universally homogenized and chosen for maximum profit by a few powerful executives. When you purchase a food item in your supermarket, there's a good chance it traveled many miles to get there. This requires more packaging, refrigeration and fuel, and generates large amounts of pollution and waste. (Researchers estimate that local sourced produce entailed 4-17 times less petroleum consumption and 5-7 times less carbon dioxide emissions than ingredients trucking through the conventional food chain.) In Britain, food transportation is now amongst the biggest and fastest growing sources of British greenhouse gas emissions- a pattern emerging in much the rest of the world. While here in the U.S., the shipping, processing, packaging, advertising and retailing of the food has left American farmers more and more squeezed out of the equation. In 1910, the farming community would receive 40 cents on the dollar of its crops sold, while in 1997, it has shrunk to 7 cents. The typical wheat farmer now gets just 6 cents of the dollar you spend on a loaf of bread.
I truly believe the American farmer has a critical role in saving us all from what I see as a pandemic of electronically obsessed, overweight children being shamelessly targeted by predatory corporations unscrupulously selling their overly processed and nutritionally void junk & fast-foods. Ravenous corporate greed is FEEDING on our children. Have you walked down the breakfast cereal aisle of your local supermarket lately?
If you ask most kids today where their food originates from, you'd probably get the name of some fast food chain or mega-supermarket or possibly . . . Spongebob's Krusty Krab shack. The connection of food coming from the land is a way of life that is sadly and rapidly disappearing. No less than Mahatma Gandhi once said, " To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves."
I say let's teach our children how to grow, prepare and be thankful for the foods so generously
provided by Mother Earth. Let's initiate them to the wonderful tastes, vibrant colors and healthy benefits of fresh and locally grown fruits and vegetables. Let's show them how to prepare delicious "non-packaged-meals" using whole grains, native herbs and spices, and dairy and meat products from animals that haven't been pumped full of dangerous hormones and antibiotics. If we, as enlightened mothers fail in this moral mission, I hate to be the one to tell you, but we'll all be going to "Mother Hell." And I'm pretty certain there isn't a Starbucks there. Or is there?
What's a solution? I have two words for you: FARMER'S MARKETS!
Helge Hellberg , Executive director of Marin Organic declares, " Farmer's markets provide more than just the freshest local and organic foods. You get the opportunity to engage directly with the farmer who grew your food, and you are part of creating community. Our little farmers market in Point Reyes Station, for example, is an amazingly beautiful and fun place to spend your Saturday morning and feel the interconnectedness between soil, organic produce, farmers, local residents and visitors. There are lots of smiles on the faces." When you shop at farmer's markets the money you spend on local produce stays within the community. (Here 80 cents of each dollar goes to the farmer. When you buy the same item at a supermarket, only 9 cents on each dollar goes to the farmer.) There are fewer transportation costs and fewer middlemen. Of course, some long-distance food makes practical sense such as seasonal crops or for those living in some remote locations. Unfortunately, much of the world's food chain is entirely illogical! For example, a recent survey in England found that the nation imports large amounts of milk, pork, and lamb and yet exports comparable amounts of the same foods, thus shuttling hundreds of millions of tons of the same food in opposite directions. In the movie business, I admit, we waste a good chunk of the film budget on fancy coffee runs for the director, but we'd be SO fired by the producer if we were caught paying for unnecessary travel and shipping! But I digress . . .
In the recent book, "A Song For America," written by Farm Aid, the extraordinarily talented and committed organization that puts a spotlight on family farmers, the creators list its "Ten Ways to Ensure Healthy Food Campaign":
1. Know Your Food 2. Be an Active Food Shopper 3. Ensure That Your Food Dollars Support Family Farmers 4. Get to Know a Family Farmer 5. Teach Children How to Grow Food 6. Bring Food and Farm Issues to You Community 7. Strengthen Local Support for Farmers 8. Get Involved in Grassroots Efforts 9. Demand Democracy in Our Food System 10. Become a food activist
And finally, anyone who eats "food" must read the social and ecological manifesto Eat Here, by the prestigious WorldWatch Institute's Senior Researcher, Brian Halweil. Hailwell optimistically concludes, "Changes are unfolding in millions of different communities in a million different ways . . . Farmers will plant a greater diversity of crops. Less will be shipped as bulk commodity and more will be packaged and canned and prepared to be sold nearby. Small food businesses will emerge to do this work. And shoppers, seeking pleasure and reassurance, will eat deliberately and inquire about the origins of their food. It is the fact that communities around the world all possess the capacity to regain this control-to declare food democracy-that makes the simple idea of eating local so powerful. These communities have a choice. And they are choosing instead to eat here."
See you at the Farmer's Market!
For more information and to find a Farmer's Market in your area go to: www.FarmAid.org and www.worldwatch.org
visit annie at dirtdiva.com
About the Author
DIRTDIVA.COM The Web site also offers access to information about Annie Spiegelman, her witty, wise, sometimes irreverent, always instructive views on coast-to-coast gardening (and life), and her upcoming third book, tentatively titled "The dirt DIVA's Almanac," due out next year. Visitors can also find reviews and purchasing information for Spiegelman's two previously published books.
Article comes courtesy of: Go Articles
by ANNIE SPIEGELMAN
LOCALLY GROWN What's up with supermarkets in Iowa selling apples from . . . (huh) China? By Annie Spiegelman the dirt DIVA When I first moved to Northern California, after a sordid and jaded past in the New York film industry, I didn't quite understand why herds of cows and sheep congregated aimlessly alongside the freeways. Being a prototypical type-A Manhattanite, I questioned why they weren't being busy. I initially questioned if they were actually real or had simply been placed there as rural "set dressing", as we so craftily do in the movie business. I could imagine some irate film director screaming through his bullhorn: "Could a Production Assistant PLEASE move that bull's rear end away from the camera? HURRY PEOPLE! We're losing the light! CUT! What's wrong with that bull? Get me another one. I want one that knows just what the hell he's doing." Nowadays, I'm a recovering Hollywood First Assistant Director, with a sliver of my soul still astonishingly intact. I am grateful to be living in Marin County, a community internationally famous for it's hot tubs, of course, but also it's abundant ranches and farms which produce a cornucopia of fresh, local, sustainable and organic foods. In fact, Great Britain's Prince Charles recently visited and traded organic farming secrets with my pals at Grown-in-Marin. (They didn't invite me to join them, but that's okay. I'm pretty sure I was busy washing my hair that day . . .) The Prince stressed the urgency of promoting and protecting small-scale family farms and sustainable agriculture. Chucky was soo right on. This is what Princess Di must have seen in him.
A recent report by The US Department of Agriculture asserts that we have lost more than 34,000 farmers in the last two years. That's an average of 330 per week. Just sixty years ago there were 6.8 million farmers across this great country of ours, and now the number of farms stands at a lowly 2 million. An alarming statistic from Anna and Frances Lappe's book Hope's Edge, states, " The typical supermarket contains no fewer than 30,000 items. About half of those items are produced by 10 multinational food and beverage companies. And roughly 140 people-117 men and 21 women-form the board of directors of those 10 companies." In other words, rather than these food items coming from salt-of-the-earth farmers growing diverse local varieties, these products have been universally homogenized and chosen for maximum profit by a few powerful executives. When you purchase a food item in your supermarket, there's a good chance it traveled many miles to get there. This requires more packaging, refrigeration and fuel, and generates large amounts of pollution and waste. (Researchers estimate that local sourced produce entailed 4-17 times less petroleum consumption and 5-7 times less carbon dioxide emissions than ingredients trucking through the conventional food chain.) In Britain, food transportation is now amongst the biggest and fastest growing sources of British greenhouse gas emissions- a pattern emerging in much the rest of the world. While here in the U.S., the shipping, processing, packaging, advertising and retailing of the food has left American farmers more and more squeezed out of the equation. In 1910, the farming community would receive 40 cents on the dollar of its crops sold, while in 1997, it has shrunk to 7 cents. The typical wheat farmer now gets just 6 cents of the dollar you spend on a loaf of bread.
I truly believe the American farmer has a critical role in saving us all from what I see as a pandemic of electronically obsessed, overweight children being shamelessly targeted by predatory corporations unscrupulously selling their overly processed and nutritionally void junk & fast-foods. Ravenous corporate greed is FEEDING on our children. Have you walked down the breakfast cereal aisle of your local supermarket lately?
If you ask most kids today where their food originates from, you'd probably get the name of some fast food chain or mega-supermarket or possibly . . . Spongebob's Krusty Krab shack. The connection of food coming from the land is a way of life that is sadly and rapidly disappearing. No less than Mahatma Gandhi once said, " To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves."
I say let's teach our children how to grow, prepare and be thankful for the foods so generously
provided by Mother Earth. Let's initiate them to the wonderful tastes, vibrant colors and healthy benefits of fresh and locally grown fruits and vegetables. Let's show them how to prepare delicious "non-packaged-meals" using whole grains, native herbs and spices, and dairy and meat products from animals that haven't been pumped full of dangerous hormones and antibiotics. If we, as enlightened mothers fail in this moral mission, I hate to be the one to tell you, but we'll all be going to "Mother Hell." And I'm pretty certain there isn't a Starbucks there. Or is there?
What's a solution? I have two words for you: FARMER'S MARKETS!
Helge Hellberg , Executive director of Marin Organic declares, " Farmer's markets provide more than just the freshest local and organic foods. You get the opportunity to engage directly with the farmer who grew your food, and you are part of creating community. Our little farmers market in Point Reyes Station, for example, is an amazingly beautiful and fun place to spend your Saturday morning and feel the interconnectedness between soil, organic produce, farmers, local residents and visitors. There are lots of smiles on the faces." When you shop at farmer's markets the money you spend on local produce stays within the community. (Here 80 cents of each dollar goes to the farmer. When you buy the same item at a supermarket, only 9 cents on each dollar goes to the farmer.) There are fewer transportation costs and fewer middlemen. Of course, some long-distance food makes practical sense such as seasonal crops or for those living in some remote locations. Unfortunately, much of the world's food chain is entirely illogical! For example, a recent survey in England found that the nation imports large amounts of milk, pork, and lamb and yet exports comparable amounts of the same foods, thus shuttling hundreds of millions of tons of the same food in opposite directions. In the movie business, I admit, we waste a good chunk of the film budget on fancy coffee runs for the director, but we'd be SO fired by the producer if we were caught paying for unnecessary travel and shipping! But I digress . . .
In the recent book, "A Song For America," written by Farm Aid, the extraordinarily talented and committed organization that puts a spotlight on family farmers, the creators list its "Ten Ways to Ensure Healthy Food Campaign":
1. Know Your Food 2. Be an Active Food Shopper 3. Ensure That Your Food Dollars Support Family Farmers 4. Get to Know a Family Farmer 5. Teach Children How to Grow Food 6. Bring Food and Farm Issues to You Community 7. Strengthen Local Support for Farmers 8. Get Involved in Grassroots Efforts 9. Demand Democracy in Our Food System 10. Become a food activist
And finally, anyone who eats "food" must read the social and ecological manifesto Eat Here, by the prestigious WorldWatch Institute's Senior Researcher, Brian Halweil. Hailwell optimistically concludes, "Changes are unfolding in millions of different communities in a million different ways . . . Farmers will plant a greater diversity of crops. Less will be shipped as bulk commodity and more will be packaged and canned and prepared to be sold nearby. Small food businesses will emerge to do this work. And shoppers, seeking pleasure and reassurance, will eat deliberately and inquire about the origins of their food. It is the fact that communities around the world all possess the capacity to regain this control-to declare food democracy-that makes the simple idea of eating local so powerful. These communities have a choice. And they are choosing instead to eat here."
See you at the Farmer's Market!
For more information and to find a Farmer's Market in your area go to: www.FarmAid.org and www.worldwatch.org
visit annie at dirtdiva.com
About the Author
DIRTDIVA.COM The Web site also offers access to information about Annie Spiegelman, her witty, wise, sometimes irreverent, always instructive views on coast-to-coast gardening (and life), and her upcoming third book, tentatively titled "The dirt DIVA's Almanac," due out next year. Visitors can also find reviews and purchasing information for Spiegelman's two previously published books.
Article comes courtesy of: Go Articles
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