Unconventional Sources

It can be challenging for an outsider to try to understand the issues related to national agricultural policy. We all eat, and we all buy food, but very few of us understand what goes into the production of our food. Yet, food issues are near the core of both economic and environmental policy.

Let me suggest a place where you can begin to review what’s happening in the countercurrent to industrialized agriculture. A union of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition provides weekly updates on the most controversial corners of agricultural policy.

Currently, that involves a deadline to comments on changes to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program from the 2008 Farm Bill, and issues related to the Omnibus Appropriations Act, currently moving through the U.S. Senate. Go on and take a look.

Today, I’m going to refer you to the Oostvaardersplassen, over in the Netherlands. Why? I’ll admit to you that a large part of my reason for linking to the Oostvaardersplassen is that I just love the word Oostvaardersplassen.

Oostvaardersplassen. Go on and say it yourself. You can do it: Oostvaardersplassen. Oostvaardersplassen. Oostvaardersplassen.

Ok. Beyond that superficial level, I find the Oostvaardersplassen to be of particular interest because of the way that it brings together the realms of nature and civilization in a particularly Dutch way. The Oostvaardersplassen is called a “nature reserve”, but it’s not itself natural.

The Oostvaardersplassen is marshy land that’s been reclaimed from a lake, with domestic cattle and domestic horses reintroduced and allowed to run wild to eat back the vegetation. The idea is to have the area simulate what the riverside ares of the Netherlands may have been like before humans came in and interfered in the landscape.

Of course, it was tens of thousands of years ago that humans stared interfering in the European landscape, and the horses and cows that are in the Oostvaardersplassen are not really exactly like their wild ancestors, and the geography of the Oostvaardersplassen, and the plants that now grow there, are not natural in themselves.

A simulation of nature will always be a creation of civilization, though it has elements of wildlife, such as wild birds flying in to take advantage of the artificially-created environment. The area was originally drained of water with the intention that it would become an industrial zone. Now, the production is much less intensive, but it is a production nonetheless.

Nature is long lost to us, and when we act to try to recreate nature, we are making a civilized version of it, if only through the very act of us making it.

I

was

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about

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slow

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website.

On the one hand, I love that Bonterra wine is organic. The idea of agribusiness pesticides and herbicides does not mix well on my mental palette with a nice red wine.

On the other hand, I really don’t like the way that the Bonterra web site requires me to state my date of birth before entering. Since when should it matter if people under the age of 21 look for information about wine and vineyards? Parental paranoia alert!

I really appreciate the reasonable price of Bonterra’s 2006 merlot. 15 dollars at Trader Joe’s isn’t too much.

On the other hand, it bothers me that Bonterra Vineyards is trying a cross-promotional marketing campaign with the Professional Golf Association. I really don’t care the Bonterra is the “Official Wine of the PGA”. In fact, the whole idea of getting a golf bag with the Bonterra name on it is so shameless that it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Now on to the wine. It’s acceptable – better than many conventionally grown wines I’ve tasted. The label on the bottle of merlot I got calls the wine “soft yet complex”. That’s not my sense of it though. It’s not really soft, which is a good thing in my book. I hate a soft wine. On the other hand, the fruitiness of the 2006 Bonterra merlot is fairly simple and straightforward – not a lot of depth.

For the price, it’s a good wine. Just not great. Lose the golf marketing schtick, Bonterra, and I might be inclined to buy another bottle.

I admit that I don’t get the connection between the door and the garden, but the Door Garden does have some truly interesting garden tips. I struggle to overcome feelings of jealousy when I read the Middle Tennessee writer talking about spring coming in a few weeks, but I feel a lot better when I remember the way that gardens turn brown and prematurely finished in August down south.

President Obama seems to have had some pretty smooth sailing in his first week as President of the United States, but there are some strong counter-currents flowing underneath the ship of state, and those currents may surface and contribute to a political tsunami if the conditions are right. One of these counter-currents threatening the Obama Administration comes from Agriculture.

Barack Obama picked an establishment Secretary of Agriculture in Tom Vilsack. Vilsack represents the same old way of doing Agriculture that has failed America over the last generation, hardly the change that Obama promised.

For a quick read on this subject, take a look at the six reasons having Vilsack as Secretary of Agriculture is not a good idea.

What? Watch the garden? But it’s the middle of winter!

No, no. Don’t watch the garden. Watch The Garden – a film about a community garden in Southern California that’s threatened by double-dealing local government.

See Black Valley Films for more information.

In times past, when economic times have gotten rough, many people have had a little something to fall back on to cushion the blow: The garden. Gardens provided vegetables and fruits for a fresh, healthy dinner, and extra produce could be sold for a little extra money.

What have people got now? Lawns. Lawns provide… grass… which we don’t have sheep or horses or cows to feed on any more. Lawns also require mowing, so we have to buy lawn mowers and gasoline, spending money for something that gives us no more benefit.

In this economic recession, people would benefit a great deal from converting their lawns into gardens. They would benefit from a prominent example, but what do we see when we look at the White House in Washington D.C.? We see a great big lawn, productive land going to waste.

Eat the View is a movement coordinated by Kitchen Gardeners International, encouraging the White House to plant an organic vegetable garden for all to see. Go on, and take a look, and get inspired.