Organic Disaster (Late Season Trades)

My longest running trade partner, Veggie/Oil Man ( see This Is What You Call Having Your Work Cut Out For You), had a rough year. His farm is certified organic, and so he uses natural fertilizers like steer manure. Early this summer, he - along with a dozen other organic farm in Whatcom County - bought steer manure tainted with some kind of broad-leaf herbicide. The herbicide came from the hay fed to the cows, and the cows apparently passed it right through unchanged, because when he applied this fertilizers to his crops, all the broadleaf crops died.

This was a disaster, of course - not only did he lose the majority of his yearly production, but this stuff may be quite persistent in the soil and affect his crops for years to come. There's also the question of what will happen to his organic certification. Some people have wondered why it is that manure from non-organic cattle can be used on organic farms. Personally I think there's only so far back up the chain you can go - you have to draw the line somewhere. If all the manure had to come from only cows fed hay from certified organic land - well, there just wouldn't be enough.

There is some hope - he told me that late in the summer, they noticed that broadleaf weeds were coming back, so they tried a late season planting of quick growing greens like arugula. They had a greens crop by mid-september. Also, he had some fields that were not fertilized with the tainted poop.

One of those fields was his pumpkin patch. At the last farmer's market of the season last week, he was giving away pumpkins. Due to the cool, short summer, many of them didn't quite orange up the way they should. He can't sell greenish jack-o-lanterns to his regular outlets, and he has a few thousand not-quite-ripe pumpkins sitting in his fields. So I went and got some.

They are orange enough for me. Of course I brought some cheese with me - a half pound each of the Smokin' Goat and the Seedy Dill and Caraway. While I was there, I noticed that there were still many blossoms on the vines and asked if I could grab some. He said go ahead, so I filled up a little lunchbag. These are just as good as any other kind of squash blossom. There are a lot of things to do with squash blossoms, but my husband like them simply tucked into quesadillas.

A sharp eye is important when looking for trades. I saw that he had a grapevine along one side of a shed and asked if I could take some leaves, which still looked nice. "Heck," he said, "take some grapes." I said I'd have to bring him back some more cheese and he said that would be fine. So the next day I went back and picked a few pounds of lovely delicious concord grapes. I'll put them in the kids' lunches.

I still have a big cheese surplus. I made tons of cheese (okay, tens of pounds of cheese) in advance of the September Swap Meet, which then was a dismal flop. I know there are still trades to be had out there - apples, for example - but I can't advertise the cheese as a trade item. Cheese must be a word-of-mouth item, traded to friends only.

So hey - if you are one of my friends... or a friend of a friend.... and you have an apple tree or maybe some late season greens like kale or collards... parsnips... you know who to call!

Rather Terrifying News

A new report in the journal Science by an international panel of scientists warns that in the next 50 years, crop yields of various staple crops, including wheat, are expected to decline by 20 - 30 percent across the entire tropical and sub tropical zones of the planet - home to half of humanity. This is due to mean average growing season temperatures rising above 86 degrees Fahrenheit, a kind of upper limit for many crops. During the same time period, world population is expected to grow to somewhere over 9 billion. The group is "urging world leaders to dramatically alter their notions about sustainable agriculture to prevent a major starvation catastrophe by the end of this century among the more than 3 billion people who live relatively close to the equator."

I don't have the studies to show you, but I've read newspaper reports that a large percentage of California's central valley, historically one of the most productive agricultural areas on the planet, is no longer suitable for orchards. Fruit and nut trees are failing to bear because they no longer undergo the necessary chill in winter to make them go dormant. Some nut crops, if I remember right, are down more than 80%.

Having just planted a number of fruit trees which were specifically selected for my climate, I can't help but wonder if perhaps I should have planted some trees that were selected for a slightly different climate. Maybe I should be planting trees that are on the very northernmost edge of their range here - things like grapes, kiwis, peaches, and figs.

Below I have posted an excerpted version of the article ... to read the entire thing, go to http://www.sciencedaily.com

"I grow increasingly concerned that we have not yet understood what it will take to feed a growing population on a warming planet," said Federoff (science and technology advisor to Hilary Clinton), who also is a biology professor at Pennsylvania State University.

The challenge is becoming more difficult, the scientists said, because the world's population is likely to have increased more than 30 percent, to 9 billion people, by 2050.

Even without climate change, feeding all of these people will require doubling the grain production in the tropics, Battisti said, but a warmer climate will reduce yields because the temperature will be too high to achieve the most efficient photosynthesis. That factor, combined with less rainfall in major food-producing regions and increasing pressure from pests and pathogens, is likely to cut major food crop yields a minimum of 20 percent to 30 percent.

....

Battisti noted that the so-called green revolution in agriculture produced a 2 percent increase in yields per year for 20 years, primarily through development of new grain varieties and use of fertilizer and irrigation. But there is little, if any, new land available for farming, and such yield increases cannot be sustained without further innovation. In addition, there already are 1 billion people, mostly in the tropics, who do not have enough food for a healthy life.

"We're really asking for yield gains comparable to those at the peak of the green revolution, but sustained for an unprecedented length of time, 40 years, and at a time when climate change is acting against us," he said.

....

By combining direct observations with data from 23 global climate models that contributed to Nobel prize-winning research in 2007, Battisti and Naylor determined there is greater than a 90 percent probability that by 2100 the lowest growing-season temperatures in the tropics and subtropics will be higher than any temperatures recorded there to date.

They used the data as a filter to view historic instances of severe food insecurity, and concluded such instances are likely to become more commonplace. Those include severe episodes in France in 2003 and the Ukraine in 1972. In the case of the Ukraine, a near-record heat wave reduced wheat yields and contributed to disruptions in the global cereal market that lasted two years. "I think what startled me the most is that when we looked at our historic examples there were ways to address the problem within a given year. People could always turn somewhere else to find food," Naylor said. "But in the future there's not going to be any place to turn unless we rethink our food supplies."

Possible Problem

I don't want to jump to any conclusions, but Clove (the buckling we intended for our own personal table this year) has two small, suspicious looking lumps on his shoulders, in the place that would be called his withers if he were a horse. They are hard, non-mobile, and apparently tender.

The conclusion I don't want to jump to, for all you non-goaty folks, is CL. That's a systemic, recurrent infection caused by a soil bacterium. It's quite prevalent in goats, enough so that most reputable breeders test for it yearly, and enough so that I should have insisted on seeing test results on every goat I bought. What it does is cause abscesses, sometimes superficial ones in the lymph nodes and sometimes internal ones on the lungs, liver, and other viscera. While the abscess is encapsulated, it isn't contagious, but when it ruptures, it is extremely contagious. And you don't want it in your soil: it can live six months in the soil and infect any goats hanging around. 

How could he have got it? He's only ever left the farm once - to get his horns burned off - for about two hours. So it must have come from one of my goats. If that's what it is, of course. If my goats have got it, I'll have to cull. Ruthlessly. All of them. 

Oh god, I'm not sure I can handle that. 

So I'd better call the vet and see what to do. Here's the problem: She could aspirate the cyst and culture it for CL, but then it would be "ruptured" and Clove would need to be quarantined until fully healed (or until the results come back negative, I guess). He's only 8 weeks old, he isn't weaned yet. Or, of course, he could be culled. 

There are questions I need to ask the vet. Does CL have any potential impacts on human health? In other words, could we still eat him, assuming the cysts are superficial and can just be peeled off with the skin (oh God what a disgusting thought. Real appetizing, Aimee)? As far as the other goats - none of whom have any lumps or bumps or abnormalities I can find - will a blood test suffice? What about the other kids? I've heard that a CL blood test isn't reliable until 8 months of age. As long as they don't have any cysts, can I just wait and let them grow up without fear for any goats who have tested negative? Or do they need to be quarantined for the next six months?

Aaargh! Goats are supposed to be easy! 

Terrible Day

All my goats might die, and it's my fault. They got into the small barn, where we keep the feed, AGAIN, and this time they got into the chicken food. Chicken food is the worst thing a goat can possibly eat, as little as a half pound can kill a full grown goat, and between the six of them, they ate 10 pounds or more. They managed to knock the chicken food bin off the shelf and the top must have popped off when it hit the floor.

The barn has two latches on it, and the feed is kept in snap top bins up on a shelf, but it's clearly not good enough. Iris, my Nubian mama, can open the bottom latch, and recently the top latch got bent out of shape and she could open that, too. I asked Homero last weekend to put a new latch on, higher up where she can't reach, but he just banged on the old latch with a rock and said it was fixed. It did hold, and I watched Iris try to open it and fail, so I went along even though I really felt we needed a new and better placed latch.

That's why this is my fault. They are MY goats, not Homero's. If I felt the lock was not good enough, then I should have fixed it. They are my responsibility, and I didn't protect them, because I'm lazy and I didn't want to argue with my husband and I'm afraid of power tools.  

The vet is on his way right now, and we will do what can be done, which is to pump mineral oil and activated charcoal directly into their stomaches. Then we wait. 

I'll never forgive myself if I've killed all my goats.