Medical errors may be 3rd leading cause of death in U.S. - CNN.com
Medical errors may be 3rd leading cause of death in U.S. - CNN.com:
The human factor! Should we have faith in nature to take care of our bodies ... if we have the proper nutrition and healthy lifestyles. That means the opposite of what our society has become for some - a series of messages that industrial food will provide for us, and that we are destined to live more sedentary lives.
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Grassland To Gas Land: How Texas Ranches Could Help Offset Climate Change – Houston Public Media
A recent conference at Rice University titled "Avoiding Disasters - How to Reduce Impacts from the Next Big Storm" generated some press coverage on the climate impacts of grazing systems. The conference program link is here and there were plenty of Texas University folk in the presentation list.
Grassland To Gas Land: How Texas Ranches Could Help Offset Climate Change – Houston Public Media:
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NYT: Farm-to-Table Living Takes Root
This pdf was found on the Agritopia blog, an agrihood in Arizona. Published on the NYT website on March 12, 2014, it seems like such a long time ago! Why are there not more agri-hoods? The connection between the farmer and the developer has to be there first, and for a farmer, that is like trying to find someone in a dark room. Someone has to turn on the light first, and for the vast majority, that still hasn't happened. Those projects that have worked have been driven by a set of rare and select developers with courage and vision! Thank you to those developers.
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No Sales Tax
Tired of paying sales tax on pet supplies? Quick Quail provides you with a tax-free supply of quail feed.
According to the Texas Administrative Code, the Quick Quail monthly subscription means that you are buying food - the eggs - from working animals. Thus any feed that you get shipped to your house is tax-free, including the USPS shipping costs. For more information, you can click on the link below to view the relevant tax code.
Product Council Insight: Outlook for Master-Planned Communities - Urban Land Magazine
Product Council Insight: Outlook for Master-Planned Communities - Urban Land Magazine:
Click above for a 'state of the art' synopsis of what the development industry is looking at. How do you think that this bodes for the future communities and local food production? Can we redefine the role of "farms" so that they can become a more central player in the provision of services to the future community?
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12 Agrihoods Taking Farm-to-table Living Mainstream - Shareable
12 Agrihoods Taking Farm-to-table Living Mainstream - Shareable:
A pretty good article detailing 12 of the real estate developments incorporating farms. This is part of our analysis of the various communities involving farming activity, whether it be for simply some local food production, or with goals of improving the surrounding environment is some meaningful way.
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15,000 more housing units per year NEEDED
In a stunning admission of how bad the housing and affordability issues are becoming, the Real Estate Council of Austin (RECA) is calling for an increased supply of 15,000 units per year over the next 10 years to accomodate population growth. It also breaks down the affordability issues with their District Affordability Index. Click below to learn more.
RECA Affordability Dashboard:
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Tabletop Quail Cage
Check out our newest tabletop quail cage. This design is perfect for patio tables and similar.
This lightweight cage is 3' wide x 2' deep and 15" tall. It comes with a pan for the droppings that slides out for easy cleaning.
This cage can comfortably hold 9 quail hens with a feeder and watering system. Sign up for our blog and get notifications as we add more pictures with the updated features.
Building Sponge City: Redesigning LA For Long-Term Drought : NPR
Building Sponge City: Redesigning LA For Long-Term Drought : NPR:
I don't get to listen to alot of NPR now that I am trying to bike everywhere, but I did catch a bit of this series earlier today. I believe that this is part of a series and I will try to find the segment that I heard this morning, and add it to the blog.
Here it is
The inertia of the existing infrastructure! What happens when we need to reverse all of the investments in our core infrastructure from the past 60 years? What about all of the things that were built around that infrastructure that could assume that those investments would be there for ... forever? Trying to get water to soak into private yards will be a mammoth task, and unfortunately when it comes to systems thinking, it will result in very poor returns on investment until we get to about 80% control of surface water flows. This is a BIG problem.
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I am left wondering what this really meams.
The planet had its biggest temperature spike in modern history in February
I've found this article on News Google Reader
Tiered Quail Penning
We are excited to show you a picture of what a tiered system of quail penning looks like.
This system has outer dimensions of 40.5" wide and 24" deep. The height starts at 6" off the ground for the high quality wheels, and then adds 17" for each layer.
Sign up for our newsletter to get more info in the coming weeks. Cheers.
DIY Sustainable Living
DIY Sustainable Living:
I found this website to be very entertaining and useful. Sort of like TED talks for the DIY crowd. I hope to look more into all of these videos now that I have screen mirroring set up for my TV in the house.
I was particularly intrigued by the whole pig carcass cutting demo from France. That was very clean and so different from what you see in the slaughter houses. A very innovative technique with just a knife, no big cutting equipment. It will need further thinking to figure out the trade-offs, but definitely doable.
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Vermont's Innovative Regenerative Agriculture Certification Program
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/js-mcdougall/vermont-considers-groundb_b_9228184.html
I came across this link earlier today and been captivated by the potential for change that this action could create. While it is clearly a disruptive concept to conventional agriculture, maybe Vermont is the perfect place to make a start. Please note that this bill was tabled for the season. A link to the actual text of the bill is here.
I can say that there are already too many certification systems and compliance requirements for doing the right thing, and so my eyes role at the thought of another program ontop of those already in place (animal friendly-welfare, organic, grassfed, etc.), however there needs to be a place for something that has metrics directly associated with the bigger issue of climate change (i.e. tons carbon).
You can connect here for more details.
Excerpt | The Carbon Farming Solution
I have been having lots of fun reading this latest book from Eric Toensmeier on the Carbon Farming Solution. It was a surprise to me to see just how far we can go with perrenial agriculture. I also discovered that Eric believes in the carbon metric of tonnes/hectare/year, which becomes a useful way to compare the various carbon sequestration rates and impacts of strategies.
The book is exhaustive in all of the resources and combinations of land which can adopt perrenial crops. I wish it were more specific to what we can and cannot do here, as a prescription perhaps. That will have to fall to all of the permaculture designers here, whom I hope are inspired by this great tool.
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RELEASE: New Conservation Option for Organic Farms Unveiled | National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
RELEASE: New Conservation Option for Organic Farms Unveiled | National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition:
This is a helpful opportunity to make better use of field space surrounding the organic growing areas. The ability to enroll spaces set aside as windbreaks, filter strips, pollinator strips, and field borders planted to native grasses, shrubs and trees in this program will help offset some of the initial lost opportunities. Congrats to NRCS for setting up this program.
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Quail Tractor concept
We were happy to start early this morning on the quail Tractor.
The idea is to position the tractor or quail pen over the garden beds. The quail drop their 'hot' droppings into the beds where they 'burn' the weed seeds in the surface of the soil, and maybe slightly deeper.
Sign up for our newsletter as we use the tractor to knock back the creeping grass growth with quail.
What excites me most about this idea is that the quail are performing a valuable ecosystem service by controlling the grass growth. They will be doing more than just sitting in a pen and producing just eggs.
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The timing for this is about 4 weeks for the hot quail droppings to burn / nitrogen release. Then about 2 months for the soil to settle down before planting. That means we are just at the right time / window.of opportunity for the late August planting season.
Regeneration International | Promoting Regenerative & Sustainable Practices
Check out this website. I heard about this initiative last summer's Massachusetts's Organic Farmer's Conference where Ronnie Cummins was the keynote speaker. Regenerative versus Degenerative practices, and even politics!
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Here is my old mans speech from London, for... - Savory Grassland Management
(1) Here is my old mans speech from London, for... - Savory Grassland Management:
"How assured are we that agriculture is serving us well? We need about half a ton of food a year to maintain a healthy person. We are producing that, but every year agriculture is also producing more than 75 Billion tons of dead eroding soil (10 tons per human alive today). Perhaps the most important statistic in the world – so let’s get it clear, agriculture is producing 20 times as much dead soil as the half ton of food needed for each human every year, and it is estimated there will be about 3 Billion more people to feed from this ever-diminishing resource."
This is shocking!
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Smithsonian article on how farms became the new hot spot in suburbs.
It is fascinating to see how the main stream press can pick up on a story. This article in the Smithsonian discusses some of the larger community farms such as Serenbe, Prairie Crossing, etc. Fortunately, I was able to visit those communities this summer and found them inspiring, yet short of where I think this nascent industry is going. It is kind of like the amoeba splitting, and we are just getting started.
Here is the link to the Smithsonian article.