Swine flu fears touch Canada-destined Mexican farm workers

27Apr09

Quebec’s agriculture sector is waiting to hear whether thousands of Mexican migrant workers needed for the impending growing season will be allowed to enter Canada in light of the swine flu outbreak.

Filed under: Agriculture, Economics, International   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: Agriculture, Canada, disease, latino, Mexican, mexico, pandemic, quebec, swine flu, workers

Black Gold Bankruptcy: 4 Things to Beware Of

27Apr09

Wrecking good soil is like wrecking the foundations of your house. It’s costly and it’s dangerous (not to mention the possibility of having the roof collapse on your head). The destruction of healthy, nutritious soil costs US agriculture $20 billion a year [1]. Topsoil (the stuff you get when you jab your hand into the first 6 inches of dirt) is vanishing faster than you can say, “Duh” in a third of the world’s food growing land.[1]

Filed under: Agriculture, Composting, Environment, Food Sovereignty, Soil, Soil Management   |  1 Comment
Tags: Agriculture, chemical, Compost, conventional, crisis, environmental, erosion, organic, Soil Management, tillage, topsoil, waste

Swine Flu Kills 68 Lightning Fast

25Apr09

The Mexican Outbreak of Swine Flu has killed 68 people and sickened over 1000. Experts are saying it’s only a matter of time before a huge pandemic will break out – similar to the Spanish Flu virus of 1918 that killed 40-50 million people worldwide. Surprisingly no one talks about its links to factory farming or cramming animals in tight spaces so you can cook up something like this. This is another example of how dangerous our broken food system has become.

Filed under: Agriculture, Food Safety, Health and Wellness, Medicine   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: avian flu, CDC, centre for disease control, disease, dna, factory farming, Food, Food Safety, food system, genetic, health, hospital, influenza, Medicine, mexico, organization, outbreak, pandemic, SARS, spanish, swine flu, vaccine, WHO, world

Peas in the Garden, Bones in the Soil

22Apr09

Anne Raver poetically describes soil and growing peas in Maryland and Sunny discusses how soil is a unique story that can be quite ‘telling’.

Filed under: Gardening, Soil, Urban Agriculture, Vegetables and Fruit   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: fertility, Gardening, peas, planting, Soil, Soil Management

Cheap Food as Charity? Shaky Foundations?

20Apr09

Sunny gives a video summary of the first 2 panels (low income food access and locally sustainable food supply) at the Ontario’s Test Kitchen Conference.

Filed under: Conferences, Economics, Environment, Ethics, Food, Food Distribution, Food Retail, Food Safety, Food Security, Food Sovereignty, Health and Wellness, Non Profits/Not for Profits, Policy and Law, Soil Management, Toronto   |  2 Comments
Tags: Alison Blay-Palmer, alternative, ALUS, change, conference, Daily Bread Food Bank, distribution, environmental services, Food, GET, income, Janet Poppendieck, kitchen, land, Local Food Plus, Marin Organic, Ontario, reform, security, sink, Society, solutions, sovereignty, STOP, sustainable, Sweet Charity, system, use, video, Wayne Roberts, YuRanch

Hoop House Webinar: Extend Your Season

16Apr09

Hoop houses can help small-scale farmers grow more and extend their season, bringing a higher price for crops and developing loyal customers. Find out how hoop houses might benefit your crops in a FREE 60-minute webinar from ATTRA – National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service.

Filed under: Training, Webinars, Workshops   |  1 Comment
Tags: design, greenhouse, hoop house construction, Training, workshop

Popular kid’s bath products contain toxic chemicals: Study

05Apr09

Many popular children’s bath products on the market contain the cancer-causing chemicals formaldehyde or 1,4-dioxane, a study has found.

Filed under: CSR, Environment, Ethics, Health and Wellness, Lifestyle, Personal Care   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: baby, bath, children, Environment, healthy living, kid, organics, poison, safety, toxin