GMO Crop Production Does Not Reduce Pesticides
A study released in March, by the Canadian World Wildlife Fund,reports that, contrary to industry claims, GMO seeds using herbicideresistant technologies do not reduce herbicide usage. The study points outthat in some cases herbicide usage increases.
The WWF report outlines six key reasons underlying why geneticengineering does not decrease pesticide reliance:1. Herbicide-resistant GE crops often increase the use of the herbicide forwhich the crop is resistant and, because uncommon weeds emerged with theplanting of the GE crops, do not necessarily reduce the use of otherherbicides.2.Transfer of inserted foreign genes from GE crops to related plantsincreases weediness, requiring additional sprays to control them. This isespecially an issue where weeds are closely related to the engineered crop,such as canola.3. Bt crops do not necessarily result in reduced spraying of insecticidesto control target pests. More acres of conventional corn are being treatedwith insecticides than before GE corn introduction.4. GE crops will increase resistance of pests to both pesticides and the GEcrop itself. This was predicted during the regulatory review of GEtechnologies.5. GE food crops have negative impacts on beneficial insects such aslacewings and ladybugs, which would otherwise help farmers to controlpests.6. GE crops reinforce poor crop rotation practices which are the key tosustainable pest management.
SOURCES: Report Says GMO Crop Production Does Not Reduce Pesticide Use,WORLD FOOD REGULATION REVIEW, April 2000; Genetic Engineering Does NotYield Pesticide Reduction, CANADIAN WORLD WILDLIFE FUND, March 7, 2000 |
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| ON FARM CHEESE MAKING Most of Whole Farm Cooperative's cheese is made at Stickney HillDairy. We've recently started carrying their premium goat cheese. I wrotethe following article on their farm for The Land last summer when they werejust starting up.
Stickney Hill not your typical Central Minnesota dairy farm.
Brad Donnay is a trained cheese maker and runs a dairy farm withhis brother Kevin. If you get a picture in your mind of these young menworking with large black and white animals hang on to it. But now add apiece to the picture. Dairy goats.Now they're making dairy cow and dairy goat cheese.
"My Dad wanted to retire. I was working at Bongard's but I wantedto take over the farm," Brad, an agricultural graduate of the University ofWisconsin (UW) at River Falls, said. "The problem was my brother wanted tofarm too."
Neither brother had the capital or the credit to expand the dairycow herd to 200 cows. But when milking goats were suggested by a friendthey thought the idea stupid.
"I pictured some farm yard goat that ate tin cans," Brad remembers. But the friend persisted.
"I found out dairy goats were pretty mellow animals and had somegood breeding behind them," he now says. "The does have really nice udderson them."
Now it's hard to get Brad Donnay to stay silent when it comes tothe merits of dairy goats.
The Donnay brothers bought a herd of does and a couple of maleslate last summer from southwestern Minnesota. There is a fluid goat milkmarket in that part of the state. There is none in central Minnesota.Making goat cheese, which retails at $10 to $14 per pound made good sense.Particularly since Kevin Donnay graduated from UW River Falls cheesemaking courses this spring. Kevin made the first trial batches of goat andcow cheese this spring. Comments from test eaters were positive, Bradsays.
"Chevre is your typical goat cheese," Brad says.
The brothers intend to make a wide variety of cheeses based on thetypical and, probably, not so typical.
"We will make a chevre and basil, garlic and herb chevre, goatfeda, tomato-basil goat feda, garlic and herb goat feda , goat cheddar,goat gouda, goat monterey jack," Brad said.
Chevre is something like a mild cheddar, he explains.
The dairy cow cheese they intend to make will be cheddar curds,gouda, cheddar and feda.
Finding the equipment for a small cheese making operation wasn'teasy. Some of it came from as far away as Ohio. The cheese vat is aconverted dairy cow bulk tank. And even though it cost less to set up thecheese plant and renovate a dairy cow barn for dairy goats the projectwasn't cheap. Brad figures they've put about $75,000 into starting thebusiness.
On the other hand he's optimistic about the financial prospects ofthe business.
"The numbers look very good," he says of financial projectionsthey've made for the business.
Projected sales are what make for good financial numbers. StickneyHill Dairy is counting on retail sales through a local grocer and marketingassistance from a third partner in the cheese plant, Dave Lenzmeier.v"Sales are 90% of the business," Brad says. "Anybody can makecheese on the kitchen stove but can they sell it?"
Sales are an important aspect of farm businesses that farmers oftendon't give enough attention to. But efficient and economical productionare also important. Brad figures that dairy goats have a number ofbenefits that dairy cows don't have.
*Goats produce small quantities of high value milk requiring lessstorage costs.
*Goats require less feed and labor than dairy cows.
*Dairy goat housing is smaller and less expensive than dairy cowhousing.
"Even though you only get 8 pounds of milk per day from a goat Ithink you net profit from 50 goats will be the same as from 50 cows," Bradsays. "And the labor from the goats would be a lot less."
The Donnays and Lenzmeier are optimistic enough about goats tobelieve that Stickney Dairy will be buying goat milk from other farmers ina few years. If that comes to pass the new business will be going forwardinto the past. The first dairy manufacturing on Stickney Hill was in 1879.That year Truman Stickney made 500 pounds of dairy cow butter. The Donnayfamily purchased one side of Stickney Hill in 1918. Now, three generationslater, dairy manufacturing is once again taking place on Stickney Hill.
Brad says that he and his brother are too busy to sell cheese tocustomers who visit the farm. We do carry many of their products at WholeFarm Co-op. |
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WOMEN FARMERS A few years back some friends of mine, Mary Doerr, Mary EllenFrame, Diane Milan and others started a project in southeastern Minnesota.The idea of the project, called "Getting Down to Earth: Images of WomenFarmers", was to photograph women farmers at work. The founders felt thatwomen's work in agriculture, like in so many endeavors, is pretty invisiblebut simultaneously essential. Mindy Ward wrote about the photos the womentook, now a photography exhibit, in the June 2nd Land.
I had an opportunity to visit with Keri Salber, a WFC farmer, lastsummer and to write about her work. Jan King took some great photographs.We published the photos and article in The Lake Country Journal. Here's aword image of a Whole Farm Co-op woman farmer:
Keri Salber's life on her farm near Clarissa is like strong coffee.It's more than an ordinary person can take. But Keri can't do without it.
The morning I visited she had, as usual, been up since 5 a.m. At10 a.m. she was in conference in the farm yard with her husband, Mike,about which tractor to use to grind feed and which fences to walk.
She took time to sit on the tail gate of a not very new bluepick-up truck and explain her work.
She grinds feed for the cows, pigs, calves and chickens twice aweek. The geese care for themselves and don't need feed. There are fourfeed mixes. For instance, fresh cows get a different ration than the drycows. Non-farmers need to know that fresh cows are those who just calvedand are lactating heavily. Dry cows? They aren't lactating at all.
"I like to use the coarse screen for the chickens but the pigs needthe fine screen," she explains.
The grinder mixer is a large machine driven by the tractor'swhirling power take off (PTO). After connecting the PTO to the grindermixer, starting the tractor and the putting the PTO in gear Keri puts inthe minerals and vitamins and mixes in the oats and corn she and Mike grew.The machine's noise makes speech difficult.
The wide variety of feeds Keri must know the recipes for areindicative of how unusual the Salber farm is. While most farms haveincreased size and specialization - a technologically intensive formulapromoted by university experts and lending institutions - the Salbers havechosen diversity and small scale. Management and biology rather thancapital and technology make their farm work.
Keri, who doesn't have much time in her schedule forphilosophizing, likes the diversity for practical reasons.
"I got into laying hens because I wanted to have eggs when I neededthem," she says. Besides she likes the fresh bright orange yolks of hereggs.
"My kids never drink store milk," she says. "We get it fresh fromthe bulk tank."
The four children - ages 4 through 15 - don't eat store beef, porkor chicken either.
"We butchered a couple of the geese for Easter," she says.
Keri's impatient with my wandering interview style so she takescharge and tells me how a normal day goes:
5:00 a.m. Up to milk cows with Mike.
6:15 a.m. Boys come and do morning barn chores.
7:25 a.m. Check on the children.
7:30 a.m. School bus comes
7:30 a.m. Let cows out, clean barn.
9:00 a.m. Breakfast, pay bills or do a spot of house work
10:00 a.m. grind feed, walk fence, pick rock, disc field, put up hay, butcher chickens, collect eggs, or other chores that alternate daily and seasonally
4:00 p.m. Back to the barn to start milking.
Uh, Keri? You forgot lunch.
"Lunch is somewhere between 12 and four in the afternoon," shesays. "We grab a sandwich."
Keri and her sons do the afternoon milking.
"You'd be surprised at the good conversations we have in the barn,"she says. "We might hear something interesting on the radio and starttalking about that and just go from there."
When the milking and chores are done, some time around 8 p.m., Keriwill likely go in the house and make supper.
"It's their big meal. I try and do meat, potatoes and avegetable," she says.
But if it's one of those endless beautiful days in June wheneverything is growing and expanding she might not find her way to thekitchen until 10 pm.
Keri and Mike know they are burning their candles on both ends.So, like a few of their friends, they've begun experimenting with somethingcalled seasonal dairying. With seasonal dairying all the cows are bred atabout the same time. Then they have their calves at the same time. Thatmeans they freshen at the same time. It also means that they become dry atabout the same time. Most seasonal dairy farmers time it so the cowsfreshen in the spring when there's lots of grass. Then they dry up inmid-winter when there is no grass. Farmers and cows both get a rest.Sometimes it works. But sometimes cows sexual needs don't coincide withhuman plans. Then there is milking throughout winter's hard days.
Would Keri Salber give up her farm life for a 9 to 5 job in townand her week ends off.
"I wouldn't want to do anything else," she says. "I take a breakwhen I want to and I'm my own boss. I'm here for my kids. Nobody elseraised them for me."
Besides, she hates going to town to go shopping. |
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SUMMER LAMB RECIPE. Tim asked that we share a "favorite" summer lamb recipe. We hada chance to try a new recipe over the Memorial Day weekend.
The following Pita Kebab recipe is ideal for a lighter meal butrequires marinating the meat for 8 hrs so you need to plan ahead.
Lamb: 1# of boneless 1 1/2" chunks per two servings cut fromshoulder roast, steak, leg, or larger stew pieces.
Marinade: (for 1# lamb meat- increase for more)
2 1/2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon grated or 1/2 t dried nutmeg
1 teaspoon dried marjoram (you can get fresh from the co-op)
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Combine marinade ingredients in bowl large enough to hold marinadeand lamb. Mix lamb chunks with marinade to coat well. Cover bowl andrefrigerate 8-12 hrs.
Vegetables: (for 1# lamb meat- increase for more)
2 medium onions quartered and separated
2 green bell peppers- cored, and cut into 1 1/2" squares
8 bay leaves- soften, if dried, by micro waving in a small amount of water
8 cherry or halved Roma tomatoes (optional)
Thread lamb, onion, green pepper, bay leaves, and tomatoesalternately on skewers. I packed single skewers fairly tight so thepieces wouldn't spin. Alternately you could use 2 skewers per kebabassembly. Broil the kebab over hot charcoal(hotter than gas) grilluntil lamb pieces feel resilient when pressed with tongs. Turn kebabsfrequently while broiling and baste with additional oil and/or extramarinade. Don't worry about the vegetable pieces charring on theiredges. The charring is sugars caramelizing and will taste fine.
Pita Bread- (2 pieces per 1# lamb meat) - prewarmed in microwavebetween paper towels. Split open Pita along 1/2 of perimeter and using asa glove close it around the broiled kebab, to withdraw skewers. Enjoyyour Pita Kebab.
I hear the co-op is running an excess of lamb shanks. TheAtlantic Monthly published a truly excellent article and shank recipe byCorby Krummer entitled "Shoulders and Shanks" (April 95) that we haveprepared several times. They're great on those cold inclement days whenyou need something that'll "stick to your ribs". Unfortunately thisarticle pre-dates their online archives so drop us a message(haycreek@wcta.net) if you'd like us to scan and send you a copy.
Somehow a bit of extra time snuck in between the conclusion ofrock picking(the old fashioned way) and planting our "gone wild" fieldand the final burst of preparations for hay chopping. But the sheep flockis doing fine. Lambs and ewes are grazing on clover/grass pasture thatnearly covers the small lambs and reachs midway up the body of the tallerewes.
Mark and Darla Fickes, Hay Creek Farm, Sebeka, MN |
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FARMERS MARKETS, OTHER MARKETS This summer Whole Farm Cooperative is participating in threefarmers markets. One of our congregationally supported agriculturechurches, St. Boniface, has kicked off a brand new market in its parkinglot just across from Emily's Lebanese Deli on University Avenue innortheast Minneapolis. So far its been a busy Saturday morning market withlots of vendors and customers. Somehow or other our intrepid truck driver,Donna Koester, intends to cover the Powderhorn Market at 31st and Chicagoin south Minneapolis also. If you read the last Harry Potter book you knowhow Hermione did this. On Saturday afternoons Donna will be totallyexhausted and found at the new Calhoun Square farmer's market just off Lakeand Hennepin.
In June Greg Reynolds, who runs Riverbend Farm with Mary Reynoldsnear Delano, connected us with Aveda Restaurant, one of his good customers.Now, thanks to Greg, some of our products are at Aveda in southMinneapolis. Greg, by the way, grows the excellent popcorn WFC sells.Christine Gomez has been opening the doors at Twin Cities Food Co-ops.Some of our meat products are now at The Wedge and Mississippi Market.
You can find a wide range of our products, from meat to fair tradecoffee to eggs to Mom's dairy products to eggs to Camphill cookies atSpeedy Market up on Como in St. Paul and Hampden Park Co-op now carrieseggs. El Norteno, at 40th and East Lake, continues to carry our eggs.Thanks to David Dix and Jan O'Donnel we're in discussion with Omar andfriends at Mecca Meats, on 26th and Bloomington, about supplying halallbeef to some members of the Twin Cities Moslem community. And, thanks toDale Hennen, Denise Leary and Steve Palmer, we're start delivering food tothe parishioners of Our Lady of Peace in South Minneapolis in July. |
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Hey, SHUGAH! Have you ever been in the Rio Grande Valley near McAllen orBrownsville, Texas in mid-winter. If so, you've seen the great plumes ofblack smoke billowing thousands of feet into the sky. Those are the sugarcane farmers torching their fields. Those polluting plumes are a commonsight all over he sugar producing world because burning cane before harvestmakes it easier to harvest and proces.
Even most organic producers burn their cane. The Brazilianfarmers who Whole Farm Co-op (via Cafe Mam and Royal Blue Organics) getstheir sugar from, however, don't burn their cane fields. They are troubledby the environmental implications of those huge smoke plumes so thery'rewilling to work a little harder to do it right. They cut their green caneand send it, unburned, to their farmer owned cooperative sugar mill. Thesugar is never refined and, in its raw state, is a nutritious sweetner. |
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