Making Sense of Things

Posts tagged with agriculture

• 19 November 2011 - Aquaponics – eFISHient food production in Palestine

  Aquaponics in the West Bank

  During our stay at Bustan Qaraaqa in Palestine, we have been lucky enough to volunteer one day a week with Phil and Lorena from Byspokes on aquaponic systems (their website is where the following information comes from). Aquaponics is a combination of aquaculture, which is growing fish in water, with hydroponics, which is growing plants in a liquid. Since they arrived in the West Bank in July 2010 they have been researching, developing and trialing the FIRST EVER aquaponic system constructed behind the Wall!

  They have been developing integrated aquaculture/irrigation systems and aquaponic systems to enhance food security in rural areas of Palestine, where as much as 44% of the population are chronically food insecure. In general, water and space for agriculture here are in short supply, and this is nowhere more apparent than in high density urban areas such as refugee camps. For the last 60 … Read the rest

• 13 March 2011 - Twelve unsustainable things that will soon come to a disastrous end on our planet

  For those of you who ‘liked’ Making Sense of Things on Facebook know that we sometimes share on Facebook articles of interest that contribute in discussing further the topics we’ve raised within our posts. Although we don’t have rules about it, we’ve traditionally used the Making Sense of Things Facebook page to share with you others’ thoughts, and kept the blog itself to share our own views.

  Today we challenge this modus operandi in order to share with those of you who are not on Facebook an article titled “Twelve unsustainable things that will soon come to a disastrous end on our planet” written by Mike Adams and published on Natural News. The content of the article is not original per se, but the author nevertheless does an excellent job in providing an easily accessible overview of different topics of concerns, which are likely to occur and that … Read the rest

• 24 December 2010 - US sought to retaliate against Europe for refusing to use genetically modified seeds (Wikileaks)

  “U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal the Bush administration drew up ways to retaliate against Europe for refusing to use genetically modified seeds. In 2007, then-U.S. ambassador to France Craig Stapleton was concerned about France’s decision to ban cultivation of genetically modified corn produced by biotech giant Monsanto.”

  “… unfortunately, the Obama administration has not been better than the Bush administration, possibly worse.”

  “Not only were the scientists at the US Food and Drug Administration aware that GMOs were different, they had warned repeatedly that they might create allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. But they were ignored, and their warnings were even denied, and the policy went forth allowing the deployment GMOs into the food supply with virtually no safety studies.”

  We leave it to you to make up your own mind…  Click here to read or watch the whole interview by Democracy Now. And you can … Read the rest

• 18 October 2010 - Story Time – The Story of Soil continued

  Hopefully you will remember a previous post on the Story of Soil which describes how agricultural practices have evolved to today’s dependency on fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.

  Today I have a few follow up topics about this partially thanks to your contributions.  The first is regarding the debate on whether organic can feed the world, the second is regarding oxygenating soil and the third is about learning from the past.

  Can organic feed the world?

  According to this article (and my own views), yes organic can feed the world but we need to change how we eat and farm.  Last week Australian television held a debate about organic food, raising questions like ‘how is organic certified/defined?’, ‘why is organic more expensive?’, ‘what are farmers supposed to do when plagued by a pest?’, etc.  These are all very valid questions with a lot of emotional responses but I’d like … Read the rest

• 26 September 2010 - Story Time – The Story of Soil

  Throughout my Permaculture journey I hear some incredible stories.  A few of them help me enormously.  By simplifying them I feel they are easier to share and can still have a massive impact on the way people think – or simply remind them of the basic connections they have lost in life.

  So, today’s story is the story of soil.

  Once upon a time (around 10 000 years ago actually) humans, likely to be living somewhere in the fertile belt, started ploughing their crops as an experiment.  Agriculture was born! They noticed that their crops now grew even faster and bigger than before and were probably quite excited and proud of themselves.  They would continue to plough the soil year after year but the crops would produce less and less until eventually they would have to move on to a new patch of land and start again. This produced … Read the rest