From Big Apple subways to Wisconsin cattle to medicinal forests
Tag Archives: Podcast
Deep Roots Radio interviews with ranchers, farmers, policymakers, teachers and scientists, film makers and chefs, authors and home-makers. They all help connect the dots between what we eat and how it’s grown.
The Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota (SFA-MN) has provided new and experienced farmers with resources for decades. Over time, both consumer demand and the business challenges faced by farmers have grown and changed. SFA-MN has refined its efforts as the demand for local foods sustainably produced in the Upper Midwest continues to grow. This includes grass-fed livestock production, consumer education, and improving soil health.
An issue of focus is the new farmer as new business person. How can fledgling farmers succeed when confronted with myriad agricultural demands as well as with a steep business-management learning curve? What happens when the farm’s performance doesn’t meet the farmer’s expectations? What if the business plan fails? And what does the farm family do if it becomes exhausted before the end of the season?
Plan-vs-reality is one of the areas explored by SFA-MN, and preliminary findings can be found on the organization’s website, www.sfa-mn.org. This study is informing SFA-MN in a curriculum that will help others working with new farmers and established farmers striving to shift to more sustainable methods.
In this Deep Roots Radio interview, SFA-MN Executive Director John Mesko introduces us to this initiative, as well as to many of the other farmer-to-farmer and farmer-to-consumer networking opportunities scheduled over the next several months.
I hope you enjoy the interview. And please visit the SFA-MN website to learn about resources and upcoming events.
Sylvia
Dr. Gail Hansen - on industrial ag and antibiotic-resistant bacteria
/
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed
Dr. Gail Hansen, a senior officer for Pew’s campaign on human health and industrial farming
The numbers are shocking: according to Save Antibiotics, a health initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts, 23 thousand Americans die every year because they don’t have the medicines they need to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Add to this an additional two million who are sickened.
Why is this happening? How did we get here?
According to Dr. Gail Hansen, a senior officer for Pew’s campaign on human health and industrial farming, industrial livestock production plays a big role. The animals crowded into feedlots by the tens of thousands are fed sub-therapeutic levels of antibiotics in their feed rations. This practice helps create antibiotic-resistant bacteria – superbugs. And that’s a health threat of crisis proportions.
This situation can be reversed, says Dr. Hansen, and the greatest influencers are consumers – you and me. How?
Listen to this live Deep Roots Radio interview with Dr. Hansen, expert in infectious diseases and the antibiotic resistant superbugs that threaten public health in the US and worldwide.
U of Guelph research links GMO crops to dramatic decline of monarch butterfly
/
RSS Feed
Share
Link
Embed
Dr. Tyler Flockhart, University of Guelph researcher
Earlier this month, the University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) released a research report that ties the dramatic decline of the monarch butterfly to the pervasive use of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) crops across the United States.
Monarch butterfly – a pollinator
In this Deep Roots Radio interview, researcher and co-author Dr. Tyler Flockhart describes how his team identified the industrial agricultural practice of planting and spraying GMO cropland as a dominant contributor to the 90% decline in the monarch butterfly population in the eastern United States.
I hope you find his remarks as interesting as I did. Let me know what you think.
Sylvia
For a copy of the report: http://ow.ly/xVA2c
