If you’ve got the mesquite, Desert Harvesters have the mill. And I’m talking a big, industrial-sized hammermill for making flour. It easily breaks up the tough mesquite pods to produce quality flour while saving a lot of time compared to hand grinding or blender methods.

You can bring your harvested mesquite pods and get them ground into flour for a small donation at the Ninth Annual Mesquite Milling and Fiesta at the Dunbar-Spring Community Garden on Sunday, November 20th. This fundraising event also features a mesquite bake sale with an array of baked goods.

From the Desert Harvesters website:

You can bring your harvested pods (up to 15 gallons) and get them ground them into flour for an additional donation. Again this year we will have three hammermills in operation to speed up the milling. The minimum milling fee is $5 for any amount under 3 gallons of whole pods (broken pods may be weighed instead). If you have 3+ gallons of whole pods to grind, you pay $2 per gallon. We want to encourage folks to bring at least 3 to 5 gallons of whole pods (5 gallons of whole pods will provide you with about 1 gallon of fine, edible flour in about 5 minutes of milling).

Desert Harvesters is a Tucson non-profit organization that promotes local food security and production by encouraging the planting of indigenous food-bearing shade trees, such as the Velvet mesquite, and educating the public on how to collect and process the harvest.

Event: Desert Harvesters Mesquite Milling and Bake Sale

Date: Sunday, November 20, 2011

Bake sale times: 9 am – noon
Milling times: 8 am – 2 pm
Where: Dunbar/Spring Organic Community Garden, Tucson, AZ

For more information contact hammermill@desertharvesters.org

Directions to Dunbar-Spring Community Garden:
The garden is located at the corner of 11th Avenue and University Blvd. The nearest major intersection is Speedway & Stone. From Speedway & Stone: Go south on Speedway 3 blocks, and turn right on University Blvd. Go 3 more blocks to 11th Ave. The garden is at the northwest corner of University and 11th.

"Carrots at the Market" photo by Kate Kaemerle

The student-led Garden in the Desert team at UA is launching a second community garden on campus. Students, faculty, staff and community members will be able to grow their own produce on campus.

Members of UA and local community members will be able to reserve one of the garden plots to grow vegetables, herbs and fruit. The new garden is approximately 1600 square feet and will provide about 40 garden plots. The community garden is near the Highland Garage on campus.

Last year, Garden in the Desert helped build the first community garden on campus, called One Tree Garden. An important function of Garden in the Desert is to educate people about gardening in the desert and local food production.

Link: UA Gardens Promote Community, Global Perspective

Sustainable Tucson meets the second Monday of each month at the Joel D. Valdez Main Library.

This month’s General Meeting will begin our Fall schedule of programs with a film titled, “Deconstructing Supper” and a  panel on the safety of our food supply. September’s meeting will be presented by the GMO Free Project of Tucson. This discussion on how genetically modified organisms are threatening our food systems and food supplies will help prepare us to participate in the Eat GMO Free Challenge during non-GMO month in October.
In addition to regular announcements, ST will present the Fall schedule of topics developed by the interest groups formed during our summer’s program on “Becoming a Desert Community.”

Sustainable Tucson General Meeting
Monday, September 12th,  5:45 – 8:00 pm
Joel D. Valdez Main Library 101 N. Stone
(free lower level parking – off Alameda St.)

 

But local, sustainable agriculture will. Here’s a piece from Anna Lappe on Grist.org taking on a NY Times editorial piece from a GMO drum-beater. They’ve had fifteen years to prove their point. Time’s up – ding, ding ding!

With all due respect, Nina Federoff’s New York Times op-ed reads like it was written two decades ago, when the jury was still out about the potential of the biotech industry to reduce hunger, increase nutritional quality in foods, and decrease agriculture’s reliance on toxic chemicals and other expensive inputs that most of the world’s farmers can’t afford.

With more than 15 years of commercialized GMOs behind us, we know not to believe these promises any longer.

Around the world, from the Government Office for Science in the U.K. to the National Research Council in the United States to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N., there is consensus: In order to address the roots of hunger today and build a food system that will feed humanity into the future, we must invest in “sustainable intensification”—not expensive GMO technology that threatens biodiversity, has never proven its superiority, even in yields, and locks us into dependence on fossil fuels, fossil water, and agrochemicals.

By definition, sustainable intensification means producing abundant food while reducing agriculture’s negative impacts on the environment. Water pollution from pesticide run-off and soil degradation from synthetic fertilizer use are just two examples of the costs of industrial agriculture. And, mind you, nearly all of the GMO crops planted today rely on synthetic fertilizer and pesticides.

Sustainable farming has many other co-benefits as well, including improving the natural environment by increasing soil carbon content, protecting watersheds and biodiversity, and decreasing the human health risks from exposures to toxic chemicals. In its policymaker’s guide to sustainable intensification, the FAO states clearly that the “present paradigm” in agriculture—of which Federoff’s beloved GMOs play a starring role—“cannot meet the challenges of the new millennium.”

So while we hear from GMO proponents about the wonders of these crops, the proof is in the fields. According to the FAO, sustainable practices have helped to “reduce crops’ water needs by 30 percent and the energy costs of production by up to 60 percent.” In one of the largest studies [PDF] of ecological farming, in 57 countries, researchers found an average yield increase of 80 percent. In East African countries, yields shot up 128 percent.

Click here to read the rest.

It’s all about the money, honey.

According to Food Safety News, Asian honey is flooding the U.S. grocery shelves.

A third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals.  A Food Safety News investigation has documented that millions of pounds of honey banned as unsafe in dozens of countries are being imported and sold here in record quantities.

Experts interviewed by Food Safety News say some of the largest and most long-established U.S. honey packers are knowingly buying mislabeled, transshipped or possibly altered honey so they can sell it cheaper than those companies who demand safety, quality and rigorously inspected honey.

“It’s no secret that the honey smuggling is being driven by money, the desire to save a couple of pennies a pound,” said Richard Adee, who is the Washington Legislative Chairman of the American Honey Producers Association.

We’ve all heard that meat consumption is hard on the environment as livestock creates more greenhouse gases than cars, but what about the cheese?

A recent report by the Environmental Working Group lists the three biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions for protein sources. Numero uno is lamb, followed by beef and third place goes to cheese. Cheese has more emissions than pork, chicken or fish and is much worse than other dairy products like yogurt or milk. What gives?

It takes a lot of moo-juice to make cheese – about 10 pounds of milk to make one pound of hard cheese. Milk comes from dairy cows and they emit a large amount of methane, a greenhouse gas. Then you have the grains from feeding the cows to produce the milk to make the cheese and that adds up to a large environmental impact. What’s a tree-hugging cheese-lover to do? If you’re not ready to go completely vegan, here are a few tips.

Buy local. Buy from your local producer, especially ones that use sustainable methods. Grass-fed cows have far less of a negative environmental impact. Sustainable dairy operations also use fewer chemicals, pollute less and treat their animals humanely.

Think soft. Most soft cheeses that are lower in fat are the best choices as they’re both healthier and make less of an environmental impact. Cottage cheese, ricotta and part-skim mozzarella are low-fat options. Brie and Camembert and feta have less fat than cheddar. Who knew?

Eat less, enjoy more. Let’s face it – cheese is yummy. Eat a bit less, make eco-friendly choices (local, organic, lower-fat) and enjoy more.

Wait – how about goat or sheep cheese? Sorry. They are roughly the same in terms of emissions as cows. Nice try though!

"Heirloom Tomatoes" by Kate Kaemerle

There’s a wide range of crazy stories out there for us green types, but jail time for someone growing a vegetable garden in their front yard? Really?

From Treehugger.com:

Michigan Woman Faces 93 Days in Jail for Planting Vegetable Garden

It just doesn’t get more ridiculous than this.

Julie Bass of Oak Park, Michigan — a mother of 6, law-abiding citizen, and gardener — is facing 93 days in jail after being charged with a misdemeanor.

Her crime? Planting a vegetable garden in the front yard.

Bass says that she planted the garden after her front yard was torn up for some sewer repairs. Rather than wasting the opportunity to start with a clean slate by planting a lawn, she decided to really put the area to use, and plant a vegetable garden.

Her garden consists of 5 raised beds, where she grows a mix of squashes, corn, tomatoes, flowers, and other veggies. Bass received a warning from the city telling her to remove the vegetable garden, because it doesn’t adhere to city ordinances (more on that later.) When she refused, she was ticketed and charged with a misdemeanor. Her trial, before a jury, is set to begin on July 26th. If she is found guilty, she can be sentenced to up to 93 days in jail.

About the City Ordinance

Supposedly, Bass is in noncompliance with a city ordinance that states that only “suitable” plant material is allowed on the lawn area of residences. When local media asked city planner Kevin Rulkowski what that meant, he said suitable means “common:” lawn, nice shrubs, and flowers. However, the city ordinance does not specifically state that those are the only allowed plant materials.

About Oak Park

This is not some gated community with HOA regulations. This is an ordinary, working class neighborhood in Oakland County, Michigan. Like nearly every other city in my home state right now, Oak Park is facing financial issues. Here at home, people are amazed that a cash-strapped city has the resources to investigate, charge, and prosecute a resident for something as innocuous as planting a vegetable garden.

What’s Being Done

This story is gaining traction all over the web. Gawker covered it this morning. There are Facebook pages devoted to supporting Mrs. Bass and her family during this ordeal. Will social media help change the city’s mind? That’s what many of us are hoping. Local television affiliates for ABC and Fox news have already covered the story, and media attention continues to grow.

How to Help

If you want to help support a gardener’s right to grow food for her family (even if it is — gasp — in the front yard!) there are several things you can do:

1. Email or call officials for the city of Oak Park. Mrs. Bass has listed contact information for the mayor, city manager, and other city officials in the sidebar of her blog.
2. “Like” the Oak Park Hates Veggies Facebook Page.
3. Spread the word via Facebook and Twitter. By gaining attention to this particular issue, with this particular homeowner, the hope is that other cities will reconsider before they harass another homeowner for something like this.

What do you think? Should a front yard vegetable garden be a crime?

Volunteers at the University of Arizona have begun harvesting mesquite beans from trees on campus. After being frozen, then dried, the beans will be milled into flour for use at the Arizona Student Unions. This year the goal is to harvest enough mesquite beans for flour to bake products on campus for several months rather than days.

This is part of UA’s sustainability mission to green the UA campus including a range of strategies from energy and water conservation to harvesting food on campus.

Click here for a photo slide show and more information.

From Treehugger.com, this disturbing article about the use of Agent Orange to clear rainforests in Brazil. The irony is that three decades after Agent Orange was last used in Vietnam, the US government began funding a $38 million decontamination operation there. And now in the Amazon, toxic Agent Orange has been rediscovered and is being sprayed over the rainforest. File this under when will we ever learn?

Vietnam Era Weapon Being Used to Clear the Amazon

by Stephen Messenger, Porto Alegre, Brazil //

Photo: Wikipedia Commons

Agent Orange is one of the most devastating weapons of modern warfare, a chemical which killed or injured an estimated 400,000 people during the Vietnam War — and now it’s being used against the Amazon rainforest. According to officials, ranchers in Brazil have begun spraying the highly toxic herbicide over patches of forest as a covert method to illegally clear foliage, more difficult to detect that chainsaws and tractors. In recent weeks, an aerial survey detected some 440 acres of rainforest that had been sprayed with the compound — poisoning thousands of trees and an untold number of animals, potentially for generations.

Officials from Brazil’s environmental agency IBAMA were first tipped to the illegal clearing by satellite images of the forest in Amazonia; a helicopter flyover in the region later revealed thousands of trees left ash-colored and defoliated by toxic chemicals. IBAMA says that Agent Orange was likely dispersed by aircraft by a yet unidentified rancher to clear the land for pasture because it is more difficult to detect than traditional operations that require chainsaws and tractors.

Photo: IBAMA

Last week, in another part of the Amazon, an investigation conducted by the agency uncovered approximately four tons of the highly toxic herbal pesticides hidden in the forest awaiting dispension. If released, the chemicals could have potentially decimated some 7,500 acres of rainforest, killing all the wildlife that resides there and contaminating groundwater. In this case, the individual responsible was identified and now faces fines nearing $1.3 million.

According to a report from Folha de São Paulo, the last time such chemicals were recorded in use by deforesters was in 1999, but officials say dispensing the devastating herbicide may become more common as officials crack down on the most flagrant types of environmental crime.

“They [deforesters] have changed their strategy because, in a short time, more areas of forest can be destroyed with herbicides. Thus, they don’t need to mobilize tree-cutting teams and can therefore bypass the supervision of IBAMA,” says Jerfferson Lobato of IBAMA.

While Agent Orange was originally designed to clear forest coverage in combat situations, its use became a subject of controversy due to its impact on humans and wildlife. During the Vietnam War, the United States military dispersed 12 million gallons of herbicide, impacting the health of some 3 million, mostly peasant, Vietnamese citizens, and causing birth defects in around 500 thousand children. Additionally, the chemical’s effect on the environment have been profound and lasting.

Last month, over three decades after Agent Orange was last used in Vietnam, the US began funding a $38 million decontamination operation there. Meanwhile, in the Brazilian Amazon, the highly toxic chemical was being discovered anew and sprayed over the rainforest.

Scientists have found that the wallaby, with a digestive system similar to a cow, produces much less methane per unit of digestible energy (fancy talk for ‘food’) than a cow. Cows produce more than 24% of world’s methane emissions. How can we make cows more like wallabies without genetically engineering them?

I couldn’t resist passing this along.

From Grist.com by Jess Zimmerman: