A Wisconsin farmer has figured out a way to turn cow manure into water that “tastes just like the kind you get at the grocery store.” John Vrieze and his son  have developed an innovative four-part filtration system that effectively converts the manure from his 1,200 cows to potable drinking water and highly enriched fertilizer. Vrieze’s son tells Wisconsin People & Ideas that although the technology is not new (it’s typically used in food processing and water treatment plants), “its use in a dairy farm is unprecedented.” The downside? The equipment requires an awful lot of fuel. With rising fuel costs the economy in shambles, Vrieze has been forced to revert to “conventional manure management” for the moment.

  Source: Wisconsin People & Ideas

Image by Svadilfari, licensed under Creative Commons.

More than a few daydreaming co-op shoppers have entertained the notion: When we get fed up with the rat race, we’ll move to a sweet patch of land in the country and start up a small organic farm. After all, people are paying good money for organics, and the market share for this segment is growing every year—what a great cottage industry for a newly minted back-to-the-lander.

Hold on just a minute there. Before anyone gets too far into their modern agrarian fantasy, they should seek out the May-June issue of In Good Tilth magazine (not available online) and read all about the nitty-gritty details of organic farming. In a series of articles grouped under the cover headline “Fresh Young Farmers,” the magazine profiles people who’ve actually put their hoes to the humus and arrives at an inescapable conclusion: It’s really, really hard work—but it’s also very rewarding for those who’ve got the right stuff.

In the leadoff article, “Want to Farm?” Katie Kulla, who runs a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm in Oregon with her husband Casey, writes that “going from the early dream to today’s farming reality has required more work, money, and time than we ever anticipated.” In the spirit of helping others follow their path with fewer obstacles, she offers advice that she wishes she and Casey had gotten before they started: “Pay off debt and start saving money,” “Get in the best physical shape of your life,” “Learn about the reality of farming,” “Know yourself (and your partner),” “Set goals and persevere,” and “Stay open.” Having doled out these hard truths, Kulla offers encouragement by noting that “our life is richer and fuller than I thought possible.” (Read more about that life on their farm blog.)

In “Cross-Roads Generation,” Erin Volheim writes about an influx of young farmers in the Applegate Valley area of southwest Oregon who “wanted something different for the future, beyond the McJob,” and started farms in the 1990s. These Generation Xers had to learn a lot on their own, but they persevered and now are positioned to provide help and advice for the next crew: Generation Y, or the Millennials. As one of them, “Mookie” Moss, says, “The longer you farm, the more you learn from this dialogue with the land.”

In “No Stone Unturned,” newbie farmer Zoe Bradbury writes that “anyone who has the passion for farming should have a fair shot at it.” She guides prospective farmers through some of the resources available to them, noting that she didn’t always take full advantage of them. Still, her story is instructive: “Considering that I was relatively well prepared to take the leap into independent farming, it was still a tough go,” she writes.

So go ahead and dream—but make sure you do your homework before you buy the farm.

Sources: In Good Tilth, Oakhill Organics

Image by jessicareeder, licensed under Creative Commons.

What’s the thirstiest industry in the United States? If you thought of agriculture, you’re spot on. But coming in second—guzzling 40 percent of U.S. freshwater withdrawals—is a surprisingly different undertaking: electricity.

Environmentally motivated researchers and policymakers are just beginning to grasp the importance of illuminating the complex relationship between water and energy, Sustainable Industries reports. The clock is ticking. By 2025, the United Nations forecasts half the world will meet with freshwater shortages. By 2050, upgrade that pinch to scarcity spanning three-quarters of the planet. And, oh, wouldn’t you know: All forms of energy production require water (and on the flip side, heating, treating, and distributing water requires energy too).

“Increased implementation of renewable power sources is key to securing future water supplies, but when it comes to water use, not all renewables are created equal,” writes Sara Stroud, SI’s Bay Area correspondent.

Wind and solar photovoltics are among the lesser offenders; they require only one gallon of water for each megawatt hour of electricity produced (excluding water used in manufacturing). (A megawatt is one million watts, and one megawatt hour could power 400-900 homes for that hour.) Compare that to corn-derived ethanol, which sucks anywhere from 5 to 2,000 liters of water for each liter of fuel. That higher number comes courtesy of agriculture undertaken in arid states, like California and Colorado.

“Federal incentives happened so quickly without evaluating consequences,” Dulce Fernandes of Network for New Energy Choices told SI. “If we are investing in alternatives, we have to get it right.”

Source: Sustainable Industries

When an author comes out with a book called The Vegetarian Myth (Flashpoint Press), as Lierre Keith has, you know she’s not treading lightly, and the book is every bit as hell-raising as its name suggests. Keith comes from an ex-vegan perspective in this takedown of vegetarianism and veganism, and she acknowledges right away that she’s in for some pushback:

It’s not just the amount of information that makes the discussion hard. Often the listener doesn’t want to hear it, and the resistance can be extreme. “Vegetarian” isn’t just what you eat or even what you believe. It’s who you are, and it’s a totalizing identity. In presenting a fuller picture of food politics, I’m not just questioning a philosophy or a set of dietary habits. I’m threatening a vegetarian’s sense of self. And most of you will react with defensiveness and anger. I got hate mail before I’d barely started this book. And no, thank you, I don’t need any more.

Keith goes on to make her case, which basically is this: 1) Vegetarianism will damage your body. It damaged mine. 2) Our bodies are made to eat meat. 3) Converting to a vegetarian or vegan diet isn’t healing the planet if all you’re doing is eating veggies, fruit, and annual grains grown by large and distant megafarms, as most food is—even the stuff at the “natural” food store.

She is ultimately a radical environmentalist, which isn’t surprising since the book is published by Flashpoint, the imprint run by radical green author Derrick Jensen, who is quoted on the jacket front saying, “This book saved my life.” Keith suggests that as important as food choices are, bigger steps are needed to stave off environmental collapse. Namely, refrain from having children; stop driving a car; and grow your own food.

Oh, and by the way:

“Agriculture has to stop. It’s about to run out anyway—of soil, of water, of ecosystems—but it would go easier on us all if we faced that collectively, and then developed cultural constraints that would stop us from ever doing it again.

“Where I live, the wetlands need to return to cover the land in a soft, slow blanket of water. … The rivers need to be undimmed. And the suburbs and roads need to be abandoned. I have no great solution for how to make that economically feasible: I sincerely doubt it’s possible. I only know it has to happen, no matter how much we resist.”

Source: Flashpoint Press

Some forward-thinking Wisconsin HMOs are encouraging their members to eat healthy with financial incentives. Four Madison-based HMOs have teamed up with the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition (MACSAC) to offer rebates to insurance policy holders who purchase shares in CSA farms,which supply members with fresh produce all summer long.

Like HMO-sponsored discounts on gym memberships, the Eat Healthy Rebate recognizes that it costs insurance companies less money when policy holders make healthful lifestyle choices. (The rebate applies only to produce shares, not meat or dairy). In the program’s first year, more than 970 people applied for the rebate, and nearly half of them had never joined a CSA farm before.

Now if Wisconsin’s farmers could just get affordable health insurance.

(Thanks, Madison Commons.)

Image by youngthousands, licensed under Creative Commons.