The greenhouse here at the PEAS Farm is turning into a two-inch high turf, but most of this week we have spent outside. We have been pruning the orchard, where there are about thirty fruit trees – apples, pears, plums and cherries.  Ethan and Josh, the farm managers talked to us a little about orcharding in general before we got into the unruly trees.

Fruit trees are almost always the products of grafts – the delicate surgical synthesis of a rootstock of one type of tree and a scion from another. The rootstock will give the fruit tree its drought tolerance and general tree shape. The scion will determine what the fruit will look and taste like. For example, our pear trees have quince rootstocks, so that they will stay a small and pickable.

But right now, it’s only just spring, and the trees have tight little expectant buds. This is the perfect time to prune. Specifically, this is what we are cutting away:

Dead wood – often this is diseased, so it’s important to take it out of the orchard

Suckers – these are rampant new growths taking energy from established parts of tree, they’re lighter in color and growing straight up

Some of us buy certified organic food as an alternative to agribusiness as usual, right? I mean, we know we're supporting a production system that restricts, among other things, chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. And, though not addressed by the National Organic Program, deep down some of us hope we're supporting smaller farmers – paying them and their workers a fair price – and using our food dollar to turn this global food model upside down.

But are we?

As organic food sales climb (they were worth $17 billion in 2006), it's not surprising that the handful of multinational firms controlling most of our food and fiber want in – and they're in…deep.

Some industrial organic brands are easy to spot, like "Campbell's Organic," "Hershey's Organic," and "Tropicana Organic." Others not, meaning conscious shoppers who think they are supporting a strictly organic food company – like Muir Glen or Seeds of Change – are in fact directing money back into the pockets of the largest food processors. Michigan State University professor Philip Howard has drawn these connections for us. Here are some highlights:

Though not usually an advocate for biotechnology, I have always been sort of obsessed with the sci-fi idea of humans with photosynthetic capabilities. The ability to create our own food, our own personal energy - directly from the sun - could solve many social and environmental issues.

Winemakers don't have to list all their ingredients, which seems fine if you think wine is just fermented grapes. The truth is, there are a lot of bizarre things added to wines: grape juice concentrate, acid for structure, and cedar chips to fake the barrel flavor.

These additives aren't necessarily bad for you. But fully labeling wines could provide transparency about who's making more traditional wine and who's using modern methods. Some primary additives like egg whites, fish protein, wheats and gelatin help remove tannins to make wine smoother. These ingredients are strained out of the final product, but minute allergens are still scary.

Right now, Bonny Doon – a winery out of California -- is the only winery listing all ingredients. It's no surprise coming from winemaker Randall Grahm has been revolutionary in adapting screw on wine caps (better for the environment) and who spearheaded some of the first crazy advertisements with his red wine, Le Cigare Volant, or “flying saucer.”

While the FDA requires food to be labeled, wine is regulated by the Treasury Department which doesn't require it. Why? Because alcohol is considered a money-maker, not a nutrient. Still, we ingest it, don't we? And even if those acids aren't bad for you, shouldn't we still get to know what we're sipping on?

Source: The Star Ledger

Small-scale farmers in the Amazon are losing their collective memory, according to a six-year study out of Indiana University Bloomington.

Climate change has derailed once-predictable weather patterns, leaving farmers with little sense of what will hit them next. One of the co-authors of the study says that strangely enough, 50% of these farmers didn't remember the 1997 and 1998 El Nino-induced drought, and if they did it was only when it had “unusual relevance” to their lives.

Part of this memory loss relates to the fact that even weather anomalies don't seem significant in the context of generally erratic weather. But another part is that small-scale farming in the Amazon has become a high-turnover business as young generations move to cities for work rather than carry on the family tradition. This city migration has disrupted collective farm memory where generations used to pass down knowledge about weather patterns.

Collective memory loss combined with lack of technologies to deal with climate change and the lack of data technology to even predict things like another El Nino, compounds farmers' vulnerability in this region.

Source: Science Daily

New Jersey farmers perceive a new threat to their livelihoods, only this time it's not weather or commodity price related.

Governor Jon S. Corzine is planning to eliminate the State Department of Agriculture as part of his "budget-balancing plan," a move that has New Jersey farmers on the defense.

Sure, farmers make up a tiny percentage of the state's workforce (just one half of one percent), but their products are worth almost $1 billion in sales each year. Even so, money isn't at the heart of their argument for keeping a Department of Agriculture. Farmers who bemoan Corzine's move argue that New Jersey farmers deserve appropriate representation in the State House for the same reason behind cutting it: because there are so few of them. And there's no disputing this point.

Perhaps this decision was to be expected given the huge decrease in New Jersey farmers over the years, with only 3,000 farmers currently working 17 percent of the state's land. (There were an additional 30,000 farmers working more than half the state's land in the late 19th century.) Of course, this trend is not unique to New Jersey. Across the nation, farmers are getting older and leaving the land not to young, aspiring farmers, but to existing farmers (and even corporations) seeking to get ever bigger.

Yet eliminating New Jersey's State Department of Agriculture threatens to fuel this disheartening trend further. How can we expect farmers to fight for a strong food and agriculture system if we're not willing to fight for them?

Source: The New York Times

Cross-posted from EnviroWonk

What's green, brown, and powerful? Compost, at least in Boston.

Beantown is planning an urban composting facility that will collect compostable materials, from kitchen scraps to lawn trimmings, bring it to an indoor facility, and use the methane and heat that decomposition produces to create electricity and high-quality fertilizer. Planners forecast that enough electricity to light 1500 homes will be produced by the plant when it goes online, as well as enough heat to run on-site year-round greenhouses and sell excess fertilizer.

So, in exchange for something seemingly worthless -- leaves, banana peels, and apple cores -- Boston gets locally produced food, electricity to help offset the cost of the facility, and a decreased greenhouse footprint, merely by taking advantage of the organic materials, heat and methane that was once wasted.

This is really one of those "so smart, the rest of us feel dumb for not thinking of it" sorts of schemes that we Envirowonks and Envirovores can only hope more cities begin to adopt. How much yard waste, veggie trimmings, spoiled leftovers, and past-expiration food do we all throw away? Perhaps more significantly, how much compostable waste do city parks, supermarkets, farms, packing facilities, restaurants, and the like produce?

It seems to us that there's a lot of energy-rich trash we're throwing away, and we can only applaud Boston for realizing its true value. And maybe, with a little push from the rest of us, we can convince our hometowns to see the wisdom in urban composting plants.