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News

Food Industry Prioritizes Ag Sustainability

Peas
Pulse crops, like peas, play a part in farm sustainability in addition to being healthy foods.

Two bold reports released in Toronto show that environmental sustainability at the farm level is a growing priority for food companies and is becoming an important measure of food quality around the world.

“The food industry’s focus is shifting from practice-based to outcome-based sustainability measurements. Companies are looking at measuring key environmental-performance indicators like the amount of energy used, and focusing less on the process used to produce the food” says Gordon Bacon, CEO of Pulse Canada, an industry association, which compiled one of the reports, that represents growers, processors and traders of pulse crops in Canada. Pulse crops include peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas.

More than 30 interviews were conducted with leaders in the food industry to discover what they think about sustainability and what they’re planning to do about it. Leading food companies have made sustainability a top priority and view their farm-level agricultural supply chains as the biggest opportunity to improve the sustainability of their products.  

From hundreds of sustainability metrics, the food industry’s priorities can be narrowed to four measurements: greenhouse gases and energy use, soil quality as an indicator of stored carbon and water quality, water use, and biodiversity. 

The pulse industry is using the reports’ findings to identify data gaps and develop sustainability pilot projects with food industry partners, including life cycle analysis (LCA), carbon footprinting, water footprinting and on-farm calculators.

“Eighty to 95 percent of energy consumed in food production occurs at the farm level,” says Bacon. “Preliminary results from an LCA show that when pulse crops are added to annual cropping rotations, non-renewable energy use is reduced by 22 percent to 24 percent. Combined with the significant contribution pulses make to human nutrition and health, pulses have a big role to play in foods that deliver healthy people and a healthy planet.”

The first report, “Measure What Matters,” written by independent consultant Chris Anstey, looks at the ways social, economic and environmental sustainability are being measured by leading food companies around the globe.  It tells the story of who’s out there, what they are planning to measure and the major challenges that are being encountered.

“Measuring Sustainable Agriculture,” prepared by Pulse Canada, looks at the findings of “Measure What Matters” and pinpoints what these conclusions mean for the Canadian agriculture industry. It provides a snapshot of the food industry’s rapidly evolving focus on environmental issues and compares the food industry’s sustainability priorities with agricultural stewardship practices that have been adopted (and continue to grow) in Canada. 

Both documents are available for download and comment.

Categories
Urban Farming

Colossal Cabbages, Mega Learning

Bonnie Plants Cabbage Program

Courtesy Bonnie Plants

Third-grader Audrey Bloomquist, who grew a 17-pound cabbage, was the Montana winner in the Bonnie Plants Cabbage Program.

Spring growing season is near, and third graders from around the country are invited to participate in the 16th annual Bonnie Plant Cabbage Program for an opportunity to learn how to grow a colossal cabbage—even if they’ve never grown anything before.

Each spring, the folks at Bonnie Plants distribute nearly 1.5 million free Mega-Cabbage seedlings to third-grade students throughout the country with instructions on how to grow an impressive plant. After 10 to 12 weeks, once the plants have matured, the students weigh and measure their cabbages, and each of the participating schools selects a school winner based on size and overall appearance. The winning student from each school is entered into a state drawing to become champion cabbage grower, a title that earns them a $1,000 savings bond and bragging rights for a job well done.

The Mega-Cabbage, a hybrid cabbage variety, is the focus of the competition because of its hardiness and ability to grow to an enormous size—sometimes up to 40 pounds—in most regions. Kids learn how to care for their plant from a tiny seedling to a brassica behemoth and gain an appreciation for where their food comes from.

Kelly Blaz, a third-grade teacher at Rossiter Elementary in Helena, Mont., participated in the Bonnie Cabbage Plant Program with her students for the first time in 2010. Roughly 75 Rossiter students received the cabbage plants, and for many, this was their first gardening experience.

“(Bonnie) actually had two representatives come out to the school and deliver the plants,” Blaz says. They gave the students tips on growing the cabbage, but from there, the teachers had to maintain the gardening motivation.

A month after receiving their seedlings, the students at Rossiter Elementary transplanted their cabbage into larger pots. By the end of the school year, Blaz and two other teachers determined the school’s winner, Audrey Bloomquist, based on the size and condition of her cabbage.

“This is the first time I planted something by myself,” says Bloomquist. “I got it in a cup and transplanted it to a bigger pot.”

She ultimately planted it in the raised-bed garden her dad built in the backyard.

“I fed it fertilizer and watered it every three days,” she notes.

She and her dad also had to be on hail watch, as Helena was battered by several severe storms last summer. If hail threatened, they dashed out to cover the precious plant. 

Her efforts resulted in a 17-pound cabbage, measuring 42 inches in circumference, that became the Montana winner.

There are many rewards starting with a tiny plant. As a bit of a joke, Bloomquist’s mother presented Blaz with a jar of sauerkraut at the end of the very successful first season.

And Bloomquist’s gardening isn’t ending with the competition.

 “I’m going to help my mom (in the garden),” she says. “We might plant different vegetables.”

To enter the 2011 contest, teachers need to fill out the registration form on the Bonnie Plants website to receive plants for all of their students. The deadline to order for southern states is March 15, while northern gardeners have until April 15. There’s also information on the website concerning the basics of growing prodigious cabbage, whether you have a large backyard garden or need to raise it in a container on a balcony.

Categories
Animals Crops & Gardening Poultry

The Chicks are Here!

Watering chicks
Photo by Sue Weaver
Each new chick gets a sip of water from the fount.

Our chicks arrived on Friday, and now there are 10 red-and-yellow peeps in the living room. (Their brooder makes a good light for when me ‘n’ Uzzi creep in at night to use the computer.)

I wrote about our brooder last week but at the last minute, Mom and Dad decided to make a bigger one for this group of chicks. That’s because each chick needs about 6 square inches of space for its first 2 weeks of life. Because Buckeye chicks are bigger than Mom’s old breeds, the brooder we had wouldn’t be roomy enough for our new additions.

Dad made the new brooder on Wednesday, and Mom set it up on Thursday so it would be warm and comfy when the chicks arrived. Baby chicks need a safe, dry, draft-free home kept at a constant temperature of 95 degrees F for their first week of life, then 5 degrees F less heat per week until they’re 4 weeks old. A warm, well-ventilated brooder is their perfect home.

Box of chicks
Photo by Sue Weaver
Our new chicks came in a box delivered to the post office.

Mom put down old, short-napped dish towels for bedding so the chicks’ feet wouldn’t slip; she’ll replace the towels with dry wood shavings early this week. She also mixed sugar into their drinking water at 1/2 cup per gallon to give them a boost of energy and stored the covered jug on the counter so it would be room temperature (that’s what peeps prefer) when the chicks arrived.

A nice lady at the post office called as soon as the box of peeps arrived. Dad drove straight in to get it. While he was gone, Mom filled the chicks’ drinking fount and placed small rocks in the drinking area so none of the chicks would accidentally drown. Then she scattered chick mash (that’s 20 percent protein chick feed from the feed store) on the towels on the bottom of the brooder. 

Buckeye chick
Photo by Sue Weaver
Our Buckeye chicks have feathers at 2 days old.

Dad dipped each chick’s beak in the water font before he released it. That’s because chicks are really thirsty when they first arrive. They’re hungry too, so they soon started pecking at the chick starter spread on the floor of their brooder. (They don’t use a feeder ‘til they’re two days old.) 

It’s important to watch new chicks to make sure they’re okay and that the temperature in the brooder is just so. If they’re too hot or too cold, they peep real loud, and then you have to adjust the light. Cold chicks pile on top of one another right under the light to try to get warm. Hot chicks spread way out to the perimeter of the brooder to escape the heat. Happy, just-right chicks peep softly and race around their home or snooze. Snoozing chicks can be scary because sometimes they look dead! 

I’ll tell you more about baby chicks next week. They’re fun! In the meanwhile, if you’re thinking of getting baby chicks and want to learn more, pick up an issue of Chickens magazine, a copy of the Popular Farming: Chickens magabook, or read some of the great articles about chickens archived on HobbyFarms.com. Carol Ekarius’ article “Chickens on the Farm” is very informative; Mom’s “Try Chickens” is a good one, too. 

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Categories
Urban Farming

Angry Birds

Chicken
Photo by Audrey Pavia

Never mind iPhone apps, I have a real-life flock of angry birds on my urban farm.

Last week, I finally decided to join the 21st century and upgraded to an iPhone. It didn’t take long for my geek friends to convince me to download the very popular game Angry Birds.

I became immediately hooked on Angry Birds. The trailer sets up the game by showing how the birds got so angry. They had a nest of eggs that they loved dearly, only to have it raided by a bunch of green pigs. The result: very angry birds that you have to slingshot at the pigs in order to get points. Whack all the pigs on the screen, and you move up to the next—and of course tougher—level.

Once I got into playing Angry Birds, I couldn’t stop. I was deeply drawn to it, finding myself laughing to myself while I was running my finger back and forth across the screen. I then realized something scary: I was developing a strong bond with the birds. “What is the matter with me?” I wondered. “Why am I so obsessed with these birds?” I’m not a gamer and don’t play anything else. So why this profound attachment to this game?

Two days ago, while playing it with the volume turned up loud (I was home, so I could blast it), I realized why I loved these birds so much: They sound like my chickens. They squeal, they squawk and they chortle, just like my goofy bunch of birds does in the back.

Whoever designed Angry Birds must know chickens, because it’s not just the sounds that are chicken-esque. It’s the attitude, too. As I watch the drama that goes on in my flock, it’s not hard to imagine my roosters coming up with a way to seek revenge on green egg-stealing pigs.

While it seems like Angry Birds is a great thing for me because I can virtually interact with chicken-like cartoon birds while standing in line at the grocery store or waiting in the lobby at the doctor’s office, I have discovered a problem. Too much Angry Birds leads to a bad headache and sprained eye muscles. Ever since I discovered Angry Birds, I’ve been downing Advil like it’s candy. It finally occurred to me yesterday that all the pain I’m feeling in my head is because I have been staring at my iPhone screen and those angry birds for much too long.

The remedy for this is the same remedy for all gaming addictions: Stop playing and spend some time outdoors. In my case, I get to go outside and hang out with some real-life angry birds.

Categories
News

Thin Cows Equal Poor Beef Production

A healthy weighted cow is necessary for optimal calving production
For cows to calve efficiently, farmers need to make sure they maintain the proper weight.

Watching weight has a whole new meaning when it comes to efficient cattle production. According to beef specialist Ron Lemenager at the Purdue University Cooperative Extension, thin cows can be economically devastating as farmers head into spring calving season.

“Spring-calving cows need to be in moderate body condition at the time of calving because it has a pretty significant effect on how quickly these cows will return to estrus after calving and, subsequently, when or if they conceive,” Lemenager says. “If cows are thin at calving, producers can expect long postpartum intervals, which means they will calve later the following season.”

Instead of having a 12-month calving interval, farmers may face 13- to 14-month intervals and ultimately lose cattle-breeding productivity.

Thin cows also tend to have lower colostrum quality, which means calves aren’t don’t receive the passive immunity they need to guard against disease, cold stress and other stress factors.

“These thin cows are going to have lower milk production, resulting in lighter weaning weights of their offspring,” Lemenager says.

Ideally, cows should have a moderate body condition score of 5 to 6 out of 9 on the body condition scoring (BCS) system for beef cows. In order to evaluate whether cows are at a healthy BCS, Lemenager recommends producers look past the winter hair coat the animals are carrying right now.

Three places on the cow are good indicators of body condition: along the top line, in the rib section and along the loin edge.

“If you can see bone structure along the top line right under the hide, the cow is probably pretty thin,” he says. “If the cow shows the 12th and 13th rib, she’s borderline. If you can see more ribs—the 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th, the cow is too thin.”

The loin edge between the 13th rib and the hooks is least affected by muscle, fill and hair.

“If a producer can see bone structure at the edge of the loin, the cow is too thin,” Lemenager says.

At this time of year, spring-calving cows are well into the last trimester of pregnancy. Because of fetal nutrient requirements, correcting low BCS can be a challenge, but it’s not impossible if farmers can strategically supplement the animals with high-quality feed.

“Producers should be looking at cows monthly and using BCS as a wake-up call,” he says. “They are a good indicator of nutrition and reproduction. If cows look to be gaining or losing BCS, producers need to evaluate and adjust rations to optimize performance and minimize expenses.”

Categories
Urban Farming

Artichoke Season

Globe artichokes

Photo by Rick Gush

Artichokes, like these non-spiny, globe artichokes, are appearing in the markets of Italy.

Artichoke season has started and cases full of the flower buds are showing up in the markets.  Yummy! We don’t really have the space for a nice artichoke bed in our garden, but we’ve got a few scraggly plants. They produce a half dozen artichokes every year, but much later on in the season.

The artichokes that are available in the markets now are from Sicily, Sardinia and the southern Italian region of Puglia. In a month or so we’ll start seeing the northern crop in the markets. These small, local artichokes, called Violetta di Albenga, are extremely spiny and, in my opinion, have a bit more flavor than the bigger artichokes.

Spiny artichokes

Photo by Rick Gush

Spiny artichokes are eaten both raw and cooked.

There are two main types of artichokes here in Italy: spiny and not. The spiny artichokes are way less expensive and are generally preferred for the kind of cooking we do. Spiny artichoke preparation is fairly simple: The spiny tops of the flowers are cut off and the remaining core is then chopped into quarters. We eat artichokes both raw and cooked. The raw chunks (soaked in lemon juice) are thrown in salads and cooked artichokes make appearances in vegetable pies and soups. 

I used to eat a fair number of artichokes when I lived in the States, always by boiling the artichokes, then eating the flower heads one bract at a time dipped in mayonnaise. I’ve never seen anyone eat artichokes that way here in Italy. A big difference is that we eat the peeled stems in addition to the spines. In the markets, artichokes are always attached to a foot-long stem, and these stems are just as flavorful as the flowers.

The non-spiny artichoke varieties are often used for making stuffed artichokes. Some of these non-spiny, globe types can be pretty expensive. A few growers around Rome even specialize in producing big, purple globe artichokes that can cost as much as 8 euros (or $11 U.S.) each!  When the flower buds start forming, the growers wrap the top flowers in protective paper caps, but they select only the single biggest flower at the top of each plant. The rest of the artichokes are sold later for a much lower price. Demand is so high for these pampered artichokes that the only way to buy them is to put in an order months ahead of harvest time.

Artichokes originated in northern Africa and came north thousands of years ago. Both ancient Egyptians and Greeks ate a lot of artichokes, and they also complained about the high prices.  Italy is currently the world’s leading artichoke grower, producing perhaps 40 percent of the world crop. Spain and France are also big artichoke growers. We all export a few artichokes, but mostly the crop is consumed locally. Rome is particularly famous for having a lot of restaurants that feature fancy and expensive artichoke dishes in season. The new surprise in the artichoke industry is the recent appearance of Peru as the world’s largest artichoke exporter.

Read more of Rick’s Favorite Crops »

Categories
Crops & Gardening

Planning Raised Beds

Raised bed
Photo by Jessica Walliser
My son helped me plant onions in my mother’s raised beds last year.

I’m lucky enough to be headed east to the Philadelphia Flower Show later today. I’ll be spending the entire day tomorrow walking around, checking out acres of beautiful flowers and gardens with two of my very best friends. I can’t wait!

I grew up only an 1½ hours north of the Philadelphia Convention Center but never managed to make the trip. Then when I moved to Pittsburgh in my early 20s, it was never a good time to go to the flower show. And so finally, now is a good time. I’ll take plenty of pictures and fill you in on all the goodies I find. 

When I return (hopefully inspired!) it will be time to get started on building my new raised beds. This past fall, I bought cedar planks and all the corner joints and screws I need to make two new raised beds. The plan is to place one on each side of the backside of the garden fence. Each raised bed will be 2 feet deep and 6 feet long. I plan to fill the beds with plenty of composted leaves from our compost bins and well-rotted horse manure from the neighbor. Should be good stuff.

Right now, the asparagus in the garden isn’t doing so hot in its current location. I’m going to plant both of the new raised beds with new asparagus crowns, and with any luck, I’ll have a beautifully productive patch in a few short years.

I also have one more raised bed to build, but this one comes as a kit. It’s supposed to be very easy to put together, but that’s never a guarantee for me. Kind of like the Ikea furniture that you aren’t supposed to need power tools to construct, inevitably there is either a piece missing or the power drill needs to be charged in order to finish putting it together. I can’t quite decide where I’d like to put this particular raised bed, but I’m thinking I’d like to plant it with corn, so it will need to be somewhere in full sun. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Categories
Equipment

Framing Square: The Carpenter’s Computer

Framing square
Photo by Jim Ruen
You can use a framing square to calculate inches of rise per foot into degrees of slope.

I picked up a new framing square the other day, as my old one was getting increasingly hard to read due to corrosion. Of course, when you buy a framing square, you get a great deal more than you may ever use, for a framing square is truly a carpenter’s computer. Knowing how it can be used may help you decide what to look for in buying one yourself.

My use of a framing square, like my use of a computer, has always been relatively simple, checking board ends for a square cut and marking boards and beams for cuts. Just as I’ve never done complex calculations on my computer, I have never framed rafters for a roof. However, embedded in the side of my framing square is all the information needed to cut and bevel rafters and more. And that is just the beginning.

Framing squares differ in the number and type of information presented and can differ substantially in price, running only a few dollars to $50 or more, depending on whether they are made of aluminum, steel or even stainless steel. Mine was relatively inexpensive at $14.95 and made of double-weight aluminum, yet it offers me straight edges divided to 1/8 inch, 1/10 inch, 1/12 inch or 1/16 inch. Tables convert inches to tenths of a foot, as well as provide decimal conversions for common measurements from 1/32 inch to 15/16 inch and inches of rise per foot into degrees of slope.

Next week, we’ll take a look at some of the countless ways a framing square and these tables can be used in your home and shop, even if you don’t plan on building a house.

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