A single food seed can be as tiny as a grain of sand. Yet many say the fate of the entire organic industry rests upon our efforts to protect the integrity of these small, but vital agricultural inputs.
Zimbabwe will suffer a one million tonne maize deficit due to drought, after nearly half of the national crop now coming up for harvest has failed, state media said Friday.
You can't get high on hemp, but you can create clothing, housing, food, fuel, natural plastics and other locally useful and globally marketable consumer products out of it. And oh yeah, did we mention jobs, and lots of them. Hemp is already a multi $ billion a year industry and growing.
Pests come in all shapes and sizes. Large pests may include dogs, cats, birds, porcupines, monkeys, baboons, and even children and their sports equipment! Smaller pests include insects such as caterpillars and beetles.
Cuba's successful models of sustainable development — in areas of food, housing and health — are now being widely replicated throughout Latin America.
Smallholder farmers will soon be better able to weigh up the cost and benefits of adopting new practices that support some of the most overlooked contributors to global food security.
This is a multi-award winning documentary film about practical “closed loop” thinking. But what does that mean? In a closed loop system there is no such thing as waste.
Greenpeace announced in Brussels recently that annual industry figures to be released early next week are expected to confirm the commercial failure of genetically modified (GM) food in Europe.
The hallmark of a truly sustainable system is its ability to regenerate itself. When it comes to farming, the key to sustainable agriculture is healthy soil, since this is the foundation for present and future growth.
What attracted me to Waterkloof wines, as a horse lover, was that they use horses in their vineyards. I reckoned it was to lower their carbon footprint, but Christiaan Loots, the farm manager, assured me that it was economically motivated.
Tonight, an important film is being shown at The Hub in Woodstock. "How to save the world - One Man, One Cow, One Planet".
Over 100 civil society organizations from Africa and around the world sent a letter earlier this week to African negotiators attending the UN global climate talks in Durban, calling for them to reject efforts to place agricultural soils within a carbon market.
‘Farming for the Future’ is a holistic approach based on working with nature instead of against it, which seeks to combine the best of conventional farming with the best of organic farming. Woolworths recently audited 15 of their largest fruit and vegetable growers, who supply some 37% fresh produce on a total area of about 45 000 hectares.
Leeks, lettuce, lemon juice, lamb, loaves of bread and lovingly made mozzarella. The Dargle Valley is home to many small producers of good food. Most homesteads have a vegetable garden to supply their kitchens and often share the surplus with neighbours.
Dargle Local Living is an initiative aimed at building a better future for our community, starting by listing as much of the food as possible, which is locally produced in a small, sustainable way.
Where to find the yummiest feta cheese (just along the D17), have your haircut (behind the trading store), stock up on essential oils (on the hill of D666), drop off your bottles for recycling (Dargle Primary School) or buy a cake made with love for a friend's birthday tea.
Having already covered the planning, preparing and planting of your vegetable garden, this month we look at the vital importance of mulching. If you have never mulched before, now is the time! Read below for five reasons you should start mulching.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the European Marketing Research Centre (EMRC) will jointly host the AgriBusiness Forum 2011 entitled 'Engaging the Private Sector for Africa's Agri-Food Growth' from 16th to 19th October 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
In the southern hemisphere, the first of September is officially the beginning of spring. This is the time to be planting the vegetables that will feed you throughout summer and the early stages of autumn.
Ancient Heirloom seed gardens provide the same nutritious and delicious foods that humanity has relied and prospered with for untold thousands of generations. Heirloom plants provide productive seeds that you can share with others or keep for the following year. The plants give you intensive flavor, intensive nutrition, and spectacular color in your cooking.
Prolonged drought, aseasonal cold spells and extreme temperature highs in occasional years all negatively impact farmers by reducing agricultural production through a loss of livestock or crops. What then, are the possible impacts of global climate change; which predicts temperature increases of between ~ 2 to 4oC and more variable rainfall by the end of the 21st century?
Composting is the ideal winter activity. While the garden is resting, you can be busy preparing fresh nutrients, a concoction of vitality to add to the garden during the growing season. I like to add compost in two different ways: firstly, with new gardens I dig in a lot of compost before planting. As we saw in the last article, this improves the consistency of both clay and sandy soil types. Secondly, I add compost around the plants by placing it on the top of the garden throughout the growing season. This acts as an insulating mulch and the nutrients seep into the soil and feed the plants.
The one thing more heart-warming than food being planted for a crèche in Kayamandi, is seeing the teenagers from Kayamandi High School pitching in with absolute joy. On 19 July they contributed their 67 minutes for Mandela by planting spinach, onions, lettuce, beetroot and spices next to the Siyavuya crèche, a project by the Vuya Endaweni Community Conservation Partnership.
The one thing more heart-warming than food being planted for a crèche in Kayamandi, is seeing the teenagers from Kayamandi High School pitching in with absolute joy. On 19 July they contributed their 67 minutes for Mandela by planting spinach, onions, lettuce, beetroot and spices next to the Siyavuya crèche, a project by the Vuya Endaweni Community Conservation Partnership.
My bookcase groans with the weight of green literature. Permaculture for idiots, double digging for novices, you get the picture. You see I am passionate about gardens, food and the planet. My garden should, in theory, be prolific with delicious organic food.
Despite my cerebral imbibing of all knowledge organic, I have never been able to translate that knowledge into a food producing garden. Apart from some herbs and sometimes lettuce I have never found much favour with food gardens.
Last month we started this series with an article on how to plan and design your vegetable garden. This month we move on to the most important ingredient in a successful garden, the soil. We will look at the various soil types and how to enrich it. Composting is an important part of enriching the soil, so come back next month where we will cover how to make your own compost and how to use a chicken tractor.
Pressures on our natural capital, such as alien plant species, water pollution and overuse of resources, have caused a chain reaction of negative effects threatening our agricultural sector. Whether it is visible like sedimentation in our dams, or less visible such as fewer effective pollinators, the impact is enormous.
The European Parliament today voted to strengthen a draft EU law giving member states a new right to ban genetically modified (GM) crops from being grown in their territories.
Greenpeace welcomes this positive outcome, but warns that national bans are no substitute for thorough safety testing at EU level.
Greenpeace EU agriculture policy adviser Stefanie Hundsdorfer said: 'The European Parliament today added real punch to draft laws to protect our farms and food. But let's not forget that GM contamination doesn't respect borders. National bans are no substitute for thorough safety testing at a European level, something the EU is failing to do so far.
Conferences are known to be uptight, impersonal, tense and boring. Not the biodynamic conference. Biodynamic farmers have none of these qualities. The conference, hosted by BDAASA (Biodynamic Agriculture Association of South Africa) on 16-18 of June was held at a wet and muddy Bloublommetjieskloof in Wellington ' one of the first biodynamic farms in SA.
Winter milk is creamier than summer milk resulting in a richer, smoother cheese, giving the cheese its "winter" character. One of the things we love about our farm is that we can allow our goats to just be natural. We don't force them by feeding them a too high protein diets which, result in disease, because we want to push up their production. Winter simply means less milk and less cheese and that's fine by us. Also, less productive goats. That's why Nefertiti (see picture) who is an older goat, still has a valid place on our farm. In a factory setup she would have been slaughtered a couple of years ago. Here we value her for her contribution and her great personality.
'Organic farming has been there for many years, sitting on the fringe, but not receiving much attention,' said Thabo Ramashala, Director of Plant Production for the Department Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries at a national organic policy workshop in Cape Town. 'Government wants to find a way for the organic sector to grow and find its place.'
