Farmers Play The Most Important & Critical Role In The Future Of This Planet – Part 3
As Carson wrote: "Chemical war is never won and all life is caught in its violent crossfire." Nor have matters improved on land. Neonicotinoids, insec…
Topic: Farming
Farmers Play The Most Important & Critical Role In The Future Of This Planet – Part 2
The book “Silent Spring” was not just an ecological alarm call, Rachel Carson exposes experts to public scrutiny and makes it clear that at best t…
Farmers Play The Most Important & Critical Role In The Future Of This Planet – Part 1
"Whose voice do we hear – that of science or of the sustaining industry?" The question remains as pertinent today as it did in 1962 when Rachel Cars…
The Spice of Life: the fundamental role of diversity on the farm and on the plate
The world is witnessing major shifts in dietary patterns and – in parallel – the threat to agricultural biodiversity. The implications for human h…
Why Organic Gardening?
Organic gardening works with natural systems, using composts, crop rotation, rock dusts, seaweeds and microbes to improve soils, promote healthy plant…
The Magic Of Cover Cropping
Farmers have to make hard choices between protecting soil from erosion and controlling weeds. For example, large-scale farming relies heavily on tilla…
The Benefits Of Alternative Farming Methods
Small-scale farmers produce food for 70% of the global population. Yet, they are some of the world's poorest and most food insecure people. Permacultu…
Integrating Trees Into Pasture & Crops
A successful demonstration of sustainable farm practices is being conducted in Gippsland by Clinton Teppler, a trained forester. Clinton has applied h…
A Weed is a Plant Whose Virtues Have Not Yet Been Discovered ~ Waldo Emerson
One of these plants that drive many to distraction is the common blackberry. Whilst it stabilises overgrazed and eroded ground magnificently and provi…
The Refractometer Is The First And Foremost Testing Tool For Nutrient Quality – Dr. Arden Andersen
Brix is used in the food industry for measuring the approximate amount of sugars in fruit juices, wine, soft drinks and in the sugar manufacturing ind…
Early Food Cultivation in Australia May Be Your Future
Bruce Pascoe’s book Dark Emu, which took out Book of the Year in 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, is a thesis that challenges the generally acc…
Livestock Are A Tool That The Land Manager Uses To Either Increase Or Decrease The Ecological Health Of Their Landscape
Why is there so much controversy when it comes to grazing systems? What’s the fuss about? Emotions seem to run high when graziers experience good or…
Understand Natural Cycles And Work With Animals To Cut your Work and Speed Up The Process Of Regeneration
Animals Are Essential for Land Regeneration. Ultimately, the symbiotic relationship formed by the many animals on the farm does more than protect each…
Grow Your Own Garlic – Why?
To ensure quality why not grow your own garlic? People on the coalface, from growers through to greengrocers, suggest that the market is "flooded" wit…
Silica – the Most Abundant Element in Sand and Soil
After oxygen, silica is the most abundant element in sand and soil, and is found mostly as silicon dioxide.
Extreme Weather Reports Taking Huge Too On Global Food Production
An increase in the prevalence of extreme weather events due to global warming will seriously effect global food production worldwide, climate and agri…
For Your Backyard Hens: Growing Your Own Chicken Food
Do you know that if you are using cover crops in your garden, you can actually save work and money – just by choosing seed that is chicken friendly?
One Whiff Of These 10 Scents Can Relieve Stress Almost Instantly
Ever wonder why some scents make you feel relaxed or energized? It’s no coincidence and we have our olfactory system to thank for its intimate relat…
The Story Behind an Early Adopter of Cover Cropping; Gabe Brown – Part 5
Gabe Brown is very aware of the connection between feeding the world and maintaining and building a healthy soil food web. Gabe says even if you're no…
The Story Behind an Early Adopter of Cover Cropping; Gabe Brown – Part 4
Gabe Brown focused first on the soil to build and regain his precious topsoil. Here are his Five Tenets of Soil Regeneration. Using the following five…
The Story Behind an Early Adopter of Cover Cropping; Gabe Brown – Part 3
And another thing about worms is Vermicast and that once Gabe had the density of earthworms that he described, he is now literally producing tons, man…
The Story Behind an Early Adopter of Cover Cropping; Gabe Brown – Part 2
So then 1998 came along, and Gabe lost 80 percent of his crop to hail, making it four devastating years of crop failure in a row. But Gabe tells peopl…
The Story Behind an Early Adopter of Cover Cropping; Gabe Brown – Part 1
Taking his farm from failure due extreme climate adversity to a world leading example of soil health and profitability. After 3 crop failures in a row…
Brush packs – an easy way for getting diversity back on the farm
Monoculture can be a farmer’s enemy as monoculture can set your farm backwards. Setting up test sites like 10 m x 10 m or 30 m x 30 m in big paddock…
Diversity is Becoming the New Power Word in Progressive Farming
Farmers who are using diversity in many different ways and for different reasons are winning and are becoming more profitable. Let’s look at one exa…
Livestock are a tool that the land manager uses to either increase or decrease the ecological health of their landscape
Why is there so much controversy when it comes to grazing systems? What’s the fuss about? Emotions seem to run high when graziers experience good or…
Livestock are a tool that the land manager uses to either increase or decrease the ecological health of their landscape
Why is there so much controversy when it comes to grazing systems? What’s the fuss about? Emotions seem to run high when graziers experience good or…
Is It Safe To Keep Using Glyphosate?
Since the introduction of GE seeds in 1996, the amount of glyphosate used on crops in the United States has increased from 12 million litres to 113 mi…
Are You Still Taking Statins? Did You Know Statins have Side Effects?
Many of our friends watched the TV report on cholesterol on ‘Catalyst’ lately and have now stopped taking medication to lower their cholesterol. W…
Plant ‘Telepathy’ Breakthrough – Part 3
We can't hear it, but scientists are finding that in the apparently silent world of plants, a whole lot of communication is going on. The roots of mos…
Plants Can Feel! Plants Remember Everything! – Part 2
When Soloukhin started telling others of their findings he was told of another experiment which was testing whether plants had long term memory. Alrea…
Plants Can Feel! Plants Remember Everything! – Part 1
In 1972 Vladimir Soloukhin published his book “Grass” after becoming fascinated by the magic and mystery of plants partly as a result of scientifi…
Vegetables Stay Alive After Harvest!
Scientists say they have now found out the produce you buy in the shops is still alive and all those blueberries and zucchinis are still responding to…
Tree Hugging Now Scientifically Validated – Part 3
Die hard conservatives love to disparage liberals as tree huggers, but it has been recently scientifically validated that hugging trees is actually go…
Tree Hugging Now Scientifically Validated – Part 2
Die hard conservatives love to disparage liberals as tree huggers, but it has been recently scientifically validated that hugging trees is actually go…
Tree Hugging Now Scientifically Validated – Part 1
Tree Hugging Now Scientifically Validated Die hard conservatives love to disparage liberals as tree huggers, but it has been recently scientifically v…
Plant ‘Telepathy’ Breakthrough – Part 2
Because the presence and specific identity of neighbours influence germination timing and success, the existence of an adaptive mechanism that allows …
Plant ‘Telepathy’ Breakthrough – Part 1
We can't hear it, but scientists are finding that in the apparently silent world of plants, a whole lot of communication is going on. At the Universit…
Australian farmer dies from toxic weed killer which is banned in 32 countries but been declared safe to use in Australia. Why?
THE heartbroken family of a farmer who died after being sprayed by a highly toxic weed killer has described the man as a "gentle giant" who adored spe…
Heat on Govt to Change Pesticide Laws
In 2011 an article “Heat on govt to change pesticide laws” was published in a farming journal. There was strong reaction from those using and sell…
Are We All In Too Much Rush To Appreciate Life In General?
A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 mi…
Plant a Victory Garden!
During World War II the US government turned to the people to grow their own fruit and vegetables. These were called “Victory Gardens” Nearly 20 m…
It’s hard to fly like an eagle when you are surrounded by turkeys
When I saw this quote I thought of all of you who are front runners in taking the steps to create healthy soils without the use of synthetic chemicals…
All Creatures are Interdependent
All creatures are interdependent “I’ve come on a special mission on behalf of my constituency, which are the 10-to-the-18th-power — a million tr…
All human life depends on plants. Without them we wouldn’t be here. All plants are under threat
There’s a plan therefore, called The Millennium Seed Bank Project, to save seeds by collecting seeds from 24,000 species of plants by 2010, represen…
I’m not talking about losing (agricultural) diversity in the same way that you lose your car keys. I’m talking a bout losing it in the same way that we lost the dinosaurs: actually losing it, never to be seen again.
I’m not talking about losing (agricultural) diversity in the same way that you lose your car keys. I’m talking a bout losing it in the same way th…
Organic Food is Too Expensive or Cheap?
You often hear folks say that organic food is too expensive. What do you think? As far as we are concerned the answer is a resounding “No!!” In fa…
Do you believe that to feed the world we need bigger farms with bigger machinery and with more inputs in order to produce higher yields?
Just the existence of the Russian Permaculture Gardening Movement is proof that the answer is a resounding “No!!” Statistics show that over 70% of…
Why is it Impossible to Know Nature?
Scientists think they can understand nature. That is the stand they take. Because they are convinced that they can understand nature, they are committ…
Toward a “do-nothing” farming as proposed by Masanobu Fukuoka in his book: “The One-Straw Revolution”
The usual way to go about developing a method is to ask “How about trying this?” or “How about trying that?” bringing in a variety of techniqu…
