On this frozen Monday, neighbor Rebecca and I just watched a wonderful, extremely meaty 90-minute presentation by Paul Stamets on mushrooms and mycellium, the many ways fungi both fuel plant processes and bioremediate whatever needs to be cleaned or healed — including oil spills and radiation.
While I had known theoretically about mycelium, I had not ever absorbed such a wealth of information before on this ubiquitous, but little known miracle worker
While watching the video, we were interrupted by the doorbell. My ashwagandha root order had arrived from Mountain Rose herbs! My friend Julia tells me it is an “adaptogen,” very good for stress and whatever ails you. Rebecca had been thinking about ordering some for the Bloomingfoods Coop, where she works. So we took a break and brewed some up.
As a result of the video, we decided to try out an experiment: what if we inoculated one of our two Garden Towers with mushrooms, plant them the same otherwise, and check the difference between them in terms of growth rates, plant health, etc. over time. So that’s an experiment we will run come spring.
We brought the white rabbit into the greenhouse overnight, and both rabbits, and all the parsley and cilantro growing in pvc pipes there lived through last night’s subzero temps. It’s supposed to get even colder tonight, so we’re going to give up and put a little electric heater out there, too, besides double plastic walls and black painted jugs with hot water.
Life in the age of climate weirding . . . adjust adjust adjust.
The following report is a good sign. I bet Monsatan hates it.
UN Report Says Small-Scale Organic Farming Only Way to Feed the World
December 14, 2013
by Nick Meyer
technologywater via Trish
Image: eatdrinkbetter.com
Even as the United States government continues to push for the use of more chemically-intensive and corporate-dominated farming methods such as GMOs and monoculture-based crops, the United Nations is once against sounding the alarm about the urgent need to return to (and develop) a more sustainable, natural and organic system.
That was the key point of a new publication from the UN Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) titled“Trade and Environment Review 2013: Wake Up Before It’s Too Late,” which included contributions from more than 60 experts around the world.
The cover of the report looks like that of a blockbuster documentary or Hollywood movie, and the dramatic nature of the title cannot be understated: The time is now to switch back to our natural farming roots.
The New UN Farming Report “Wake Up Before It’s Too Late.”
The New UN Farming Report “Wake Up Before It’s Too Late.” Click here to read it.
The findings on the report seem to echo those of a December 2010 UN Report in many ways, one that essentially said organic and small-scale farming is the answer for “feeding the world,” not GMOs and monocultures.
According to the new UN report, major changes are needed in our food, agriculture and trade systems, with a shift toward local small-scale farmers and food systems recommended.
Diversity of farms, reducing the use of fertilizer and other changes are desperately needed according to the report, which was highlighted in this article from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
It also said that global trade rules should be reformed in order to work toward these ends, which is unfortunately the opposite of what mega-trade deals like the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the U.S.-EU Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) are seeking to accomplish.
The Institute noted that these pending deals are “primarily designed to strengthen the hold of multinational corporate and financial firms on the global economy…” rather than the reflect the urgent need for a shift in agriculture described in the new report.
Even global security may be at stake according to the report, as food prices (and food price speculating) continue to rise.
“This implies a rapid and significant shift from conventional, monoculture-based and high-external-input-dependent industrial production toward mosaics of sustainable, regenerative production systems that also considerably improve the productivity of small-scale farmers,” the report concludes.
You can read more about the report from the Institute by visiting their website here.
Source: althealthworks.com
Reblogged this on Awakestate.
Reblogged this on Spirit In Action and commented:
Thank you for posting this! Inch by inch-we are moving the entire human race toward a positive, loving, sustainable world. I loved the book Mycelium Running. Nature has the elegant solution thing down pat doesn’t She?:-)
I love it that we already have the tools such as permaculture and the mycelium Stamets promotes for healing oil spills, toxics and radiation. We have the answers we just have to do the work to apply them-we aren’t waiting for rescue or lost in limbo:-)
Everything under my gigantic eucalyptus trees is always in the shade and smothered with patches of bird excrement and eucalyptus oil. Yes I may trim them but my city does not allow them to be removed under what seems to be an ill conceived “heritage tree ordinance”. The ordinance has no regard for native vs non-native. The trees are not native to California. Is there even such a thing as “having a vegetable garden” under my eucalyptus trees? …… Or an editable mushroom garden?