Below is an essay that I am submitting to the Greater Appalachian Llama and Alpaca Association bi-monthly newsletter. You can find more information about GALA at http://www.galaonline.org/. Enjoy!
Powershift 2009
On February 27 a group of students from Green Mountain College departed from Poultney, Vermont at 6:00 AM to become part of one of the largest movements in United States history. Our destination was Washington, D.C., 8 hours later. The Convention Center held over 12,000 high school and college students from all 50 states. From Friday night to Sunday morning workshops and panels were lead to instruct students on the most recent information concerning climate change. These included topics like policy, environmental degradation, human oppression, and agriculture, to name a few. There is evidence that shows current large scale agricultural practices are producing environmental (soil, water, and air) pollution comparable to the transportation sector in the United States. The good news is that we, as farmers and consumers, have the power to change that!
I am in my fourth year of study at Green Mountain College. My focus is, “Sustainable Agriculture and Food Production.” In this course of study I have investigated the national organic standards, pasture management, permaculture (ecological systems), and biodynamic farming. One question I always strive to answer is: “What does sustainable farming mean to me?” Wikipedia characterizes sustainable as: “…the ability to maintain a certain process or state. It is now most frequently used in connection with biological and human systems. In an ecological context, sustainability can be defined as the ability for an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity, and productivity into the future.” So far I think that to me, sustainability in agriculture involves soil fertility and pasture management. David Orr, an Environmental Studies faculty member at Oberlin College in Ohio, has coined two definitions of sustainability: technological and ecological. To further investigate these descriptions, lets look at the example of transportation. Technological sustainability would look like a hybrid car while ecological sustainability would be something that used less energy, like walking. He advocates for a change in technology and more importantly, a change in behavior. To me, the ecological sustainability looks like small family farms and farmers markets. (It also looks like a great marketing strategy: “grass-fed fiber,” “climate friendly fiber products.” The possibilities are endless).
If the farmer models natural ecological systems s/he can create appropriate soil fertility and pasture management that will keep nutrients in the soil and our food/fiber system. ineffective fertility management will lead to the eutrophication (algal blooms) of local watersheds. A prime example of the implications of nutrient run-off is the “Dead Zone” in the Gulf of Mexico. This is a huge area of ocean where there is no longer any life due to too much nutrients in the water. Land management will also decrease our dependence on chemical applications (made mainly with fossil fuels in large agribusinesses), which inhibit local natural systems and negatively affect people living around these chemicals. With appropriate land management, one may also sequester carbon dioxide in their soils, completely changing the recent agribusiness trend, emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
As animal husbands, we have a duty to our animals to give them a clean and safe living environment. Working with our livestock is fun but can it can be challenging. I like this model of healthy livestock (see the “pyramid”) because it breaks down essential body health. This diagram shows that the soil ecosystem (different plant species, microorganisms, and structure) is the most important aspect of your livestock’s health. The soil makes up their food and living environment. The model shows that if you keep your animals healthy, you are using preventative medicine as apposed to the “band-aids,” which represent pharmaceuticals, and are considered a last resort. I would encourage everyone who owns llamas and/or alpacas to do some research on pasture management. Some good resources are listed at the end of this article.
So what happened as a result of Powershift 09? Activists at the conference lobbied state senators and representatives to take immediate action on climate change challenges through policy. The new Administer of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, addressed the conference attendees to let the youth of the United States know that they were going to focus on climate change and we were going to see pertinent policy as a result. The Secretary of Interior, Ken Salazar, told us about a new economy where we would all have “green jobs.” Van Jones, formerly of Green For All and Majora Carter of Green The Ghetto were also figures at the keynote address to open Powershift 09. They reiterated “Think Global, Act Local.” What am I going to do? I’m going to stay on this quest for sustainable farms after graduation and continue to keep the membership updated with ways to green our farms (the color that they were all along?).
I also want to encourage other members to write articles for the GALA newsletter. This is one of the best ways to pass along information and network aside from our annual conference. It’s also fun to get regional updates and share with the rest of the membership.
In the interest of our members, I have put together a survey which can be found on the first page of the February issue (featuring me on the cover!) or on the front page of the GALA website (www.galaonline.org). I will have a more updated conclusion to those surveys. The most recent update is as follows: for newsletters there is a resounding call for us to keep a physical newsletter. One idea was to change to a quarterly newsletter so there is more information in each magazine. For the conferences: keep them up to date with new ideas being introduced (like the South American perspective). For GALA education: the library, the conference, and the newsletters are the most important aspect of GALA because it is how we accomplish national llama and alpaca education.
Have an opinion? Please fill out a survey and send it to me or call me and talk to me about it!
Email: Erika.wml@gmail.com
Home address: 40 S Court St Woodsville, NH 03785
Phone: 603-667-3312
Resources:
Wells, Ann. “Sustainable Parasite Management for Goats.” Arizona: Springpond Holistic Animal Health, 2006 <>.
Nation, Allan. Quality Pasture. Mississippi: Green Park Press, 2004.
Murphy, Bill. Greener Pastures on Your Side of the Fence. Vermont: Arriba Publishing, 1998.
Ekarius, Carol. Small-Scale Livestock Farming: a Grass-Based Approach for Health, Sustainability, and Profit. Massachusetts: Storey Publishing, 1999.
Cornell University pasture management study: http://hawk.greenmtn.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.css.cornell.edu/forage/pasture/index.html
On February 27 a group of students from Green Mountain College departed from Poultney, Vermont at 6:00 AM to become part of one of the largest movements in United States history. Our destination was Washington, D.C., 8 hours later. The Convention Center held over 12,000 high school and college students from all 50 states. From Friday night to Sunday morning workshops and panels were lead to instruct students on the most recent information concerning climate change. These included topics like policy, environmental degradation, human oppression, and agriculture, to name a few. There is evidence that shows current large scale agricultural practices are producing environmental (soil, water, and air) pollution comparable to the transportation sector in the United States. The good news is that we, as farmers and consumers, have the power to change that!
I am in my fourth year of study at Green Mountain College. My focus is, “Sustainable Agriculture and Food Production.” In this course of study I have investigated the national organic standards, pasture management, permaculture (ecological systems), and biodynamic farming. One question I always strive to answer is: “What does sustainable farming mean to me?” Wikipedia characterizes sustainable as: “…the ability to maintain a certain process or state. It is now most frequently used in connection with biological and human systems. In an ecological context, sustainability can be defined as the ability for an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity, and productivity into the future.” So far I think that to me, sustainability in agriculture involves soil fertility and pasture management. David Orr, an Environmental Studies faculty member at Oberlin College in Ohio, has coined two definitions of sustainability: technological and ecological. To further investigate these descriptions, lets look at the example of transportation. Technological sustainability would look like a hybrid car while ecological sustainability would be something that used less energy, like walking. He advocates for a change in technology and more importantly, a change in behavior. To me, the ecological sustainability looks like small family farms and farmers markets. (It also looks like a great marketing strategy: “grass-fed fiber,” “climate friendly fiber products.” The possibilities are endless).
If the farmer models natural ecological systems s/he can create appropriate soil fertility and pasture management that will keep nutrients in the soil and our food/fiber system. ineffective fertility management will lead to the eutrophication (algal blooms) of local watersheds. A prime example of the implications of nutrient run-off is the “Dead Zone” in the Gulf of Mexico. This is a huge area of ocean where there is no longer any life due to too much nutrients in the water. Land management will also decrease our dependence on chemical applications (made mainly with fossil fuels in large agribusinesses), which inhibit local natural systems and negatively affect people living around these chemicals. With appropriate land management, one may also sequester carbon dioxide in their soils, completely changing the recent agribusiness trend, emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
As animal husbands, we have a duty to our animals to give them a clean and safe living environment. Working with our livestock is fun but can it can be challenging. I like this model of healthy livestock (see the “pyramid”) because it breaks down essential body health. This diagram shows that the soil ecosystem (different plant species, microorganisms, and structure) is the most important aspect of your livestock’s health. The soil makes up their food and living environment. The model shows that if you keep your animals healthy, you are using preventative medicine as apposed to the “band-aids,” which represent pharmaceuticals, and are considered a last resort. I would encourage everyone who owns llamas and/or alpacas to do some research on pasture management. Some good resources are listed at the end of this article.
So what happened as a result of Powershift 09? Activists at the conference lobbied state senators and representatives to take immediate action on climate change challenges through policy. The new Administer of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, addressed the conference attendees to let the youth of the United States know that they were going to focus on climate change and we were going to see pertinent policy as a result. The Secretary of Interior, Ken Salazar, told us about a new economy where we would all have “green jobs.” Van Jones, formerly of Green For All and Majora Carter of Green The Ghetto were also figures at the keynote address to open Powershift 09. They reiterated “Think Global, Act Local.” What am I going to do? I’m going to stay on this quest for sustainable farms after graduation and continue to keep the membership updated with ways to green our farms (the color that they were all along?).
I also want to encourage other members to write articles for the GALA newsletter. This is one of the best ways to pass along information and network aside from our annual conference. It’s also fun to get regional updates and share with the rest of the membership.
In the interest of our members, I have put together a survey which can be found on the first page of the February issue (featuring me on the cover!) or on the front page of the GALA website (www.galaonline.org). I will have a more updated conclusion to those surveys. The most recent update is as follows: for newsletters there is a resounding call for us to keep a physical newsletter. One idea was to change to a quarterly newsletter so there is more information in each magazine. For the conferences: keep them up to date with new ideas being introduced (like the South American perspective). For GALA education: the library, the conference, and the newsletters are the most important aspect of GALA because it is how we accomplish national llama and alpaca education.
Have an opinion? Please fill out a survey and send it to me or call me and talk to me about it!
Email: Erika.wml@gmail.com
Home address: 40 S Court St Woodsville, NH 03785
Phone: 603-667-3312
Resources:
Wells, Ann. “Sustainable Parasite Management for Goats.” Arizona: Springpond Holistic Animal Health, 2006 <>.
Nation, Allan. Quality Pasture. Mississippi: Green Park Press, 2004.
Murphy, Bill. Greener Pastures on Your Side of the Fence. Vermont: Arriba Publishing, 1998.
Ekarius, Carol. Small-Scale Livestock Farming: a Grass-Based Approach for Health, Sustainability, and Profit. Massachusetts: Storey Publishing, 1999.
Cornell University pasture management study: http://hawk.greenmtn.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.css.cornell.edu/forage/pasture/index.html
