Industrial Agriculture Versus Biological Agriculture: An Ethical Debate Industrial agriculture and biological agriculture differ on one very fundamental point: ethics. A free-range pig. Sometimes it behooves us all to step back and look at the foundations of our own paradigm in order to give us a greater conviction in its defense. The philosophical underpinnings of our views are often easier to defend than specific details. For example, I have debated agri-industrial darling Dennis Avery, author of Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic, three times in public forums, and he is no dummy. A retired USDA big-wheel economist, a Ph.D. and spokesman for everything genetically engineered. irradiated or confinement reared, he is articulate and likable. (more…)
Tractor Time Podcast Episode 6: Joel Salatin, the Most Famous Farmer in the World We know how busy farmers are this time of year, so we feel especially lucky to have our guest on this show. He really needs no introduction, but we’ll give it a shot anyway. Joel Salatin is known around most agricultural circles as the most famous farmer in the world and is the purveyor and owner of Polyface Farms in Swoope, Virginia. He calls himself a Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer, which is a mouthful, both in words and in meaning. More practically, he’s a successful author and speaker, has written dozens of pieces for Acres USA magazine through the years, has spoken at our Eco-Ag conferences, and through all that, we’ve learned that he is not afraid to be funny, educational, or to step into controversy when he needs to. But his belief in honoring the land and the animals is something we respect the most, and why we are glad to call him a friend. He spoke to us about the challenges in the eco-agriculture movement growing around the world, and answers some questions about how ecology, agriculture and the food supply can work together. He also talked about how to create a truly “sustainable” farm. “Unless you are generating two salaries from two different generations, you do not have a sustainable farm,” Salatin told us. Hosted by Ryan Slabaugh. For those wanting to learn more, you can order books and DVDs by Joel Salatin from the Acres U.S.A. bookstore. You can download and listen to previous episodes of Tractor Time here, or on iTunes.
Tractor Time Podcast 5: Jerry Brunetti on ‘Soil as a SuperOrganism’ Jerry Brunetti. On this week’s podcast, we thought it’d be good to turn back the clock to a talk from 2009 at our Eco-Ag conference. Jerry Brunetti, rest in peace, was a fearless advocate for soil management and gave a presentation then called “Soil as a SuperOrganism.” In other words, a super computer built to process everything efficiently and create answers for us that are accurate. “There is life in rock. There is life that comes out of everything,” he says in this talk. We like that so much, we want to share it with you today. We wish Jerry could still be here today to speak to us in person. We’ll settle for the best that we’ve got — his talk, “Soil as a SuperOrganism.” Find our entire free podcast series available here, and in the iTunes store. Also, you can purchase Jerry Brunetti’s official presentation at the 2009 Eco-Ag conference here, or purchase his book from Acres USA.
Tractor Time Podcast 4: Susan Sink and the American Farmland Trust Susan Sink, vice president of development and external relations at American Farmland Trust. In our Tractor Time podcast this week, we were lucky enough to have Susan Sink, vice president of development and external relations with American Farmland Trust, stop by our office in Austin, Texas, to chat about the future of farming, and what is currently happening in Washington D.C. that all farmers should know about. Susan and the team are based in Washington D.C., and work with policymakers as well to craft major legislation like The Farm Bill, which affects almost every farmer in the country. They travel around and talk with farmers, both conventional and organic, and see how different environments — both political and geographic — affect the agriculture industry across the country. Susan is also a farmer who has diversified her cattle farm in hopes of finding a way to keep her farm going in a very challenging environment for cattle farmers. She speaks to her own experience, and provides words of wisdom and hope that every farmer out there can hear and appreciate. Hosted by Ryan Slabaugh. You can learn more about the American Farmland Trust at www.farmland.org. You can find all of our podcasts on our Tractor Time Podcast page at www.ecofarmingdaily.com, or in the Apple store.
Tractor Time Podcast Episode 3: Charles Walters and ‘A Return to Intellectualism’ Charles Walters in his Acres U.S.A. office. As Charles Walters, founder of Acres U.S.A., said in his talk that will follow, if he had asked his father in 1945: “Are you an organic farmer, he would have said “What’s that?” In less than a century, we’ve come far enough to forget how we have farmed for centuries. And how new the introduction of industrial pesticides and herbicides is for farming, and how little we truly know about the massive effect it’s had on our health, on our environment and on our food supply. Anyway, in the talk that will follow, Charles Walters spoke to this point with the help of Lee Fryer, and a few farmers in the audience. He will tell you that even today, the effort to, as he put it, “to liberate the organic farmers,” goes on. With truth on our side. That the challenge now is to return the burden of proof to the conventional agriculture systems, to those who want to coat our foods with poison, to prove that it is as safe as organic farming, and not the other way around. Introduction by Ryan Slabaugh. Listen to and download the first three episodes here.