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If you have a soldier that you would like to be featured, please email us at: info@goodamericanpost.com.

Beltsville, MD –Throughout the 2006-2007 droughts, a West Virginia beef and crop farmer maintained yields and produced quality vegetables on his 1,900-acre operation. His secret: using no-till and other ecologically based soil management methods.

A small-grain and vegetable farmer in Oregon’s Willamette Valley used an intensive, carefully timed cover cropping program for 20 years. The result: little to no soil erosion from his farm into the Willamette River, and significant fuel savings from reducing tillage.

A Lancaster County, Penn., farmer used no-till, rotations and cover crops on his 215-acre farm to reverse the severe erosion on his sloping terrain. Today his farm is a nationally recognized showcase for successful farming using ecologically based soil-building techniques.

These are just a few of the thousands of American farmers and ranchers—large-and small-acreage—using ecologically based soil management methods to build soil quality while leaving a lighter footprint on the land.

And now—with the release of the third edition of Building Soils for Better Crops—there is a state-of-the-art, comprehensive, practical guide to help others build soil health on their farm or ranch.

The 294-page third edition of the landmark handbook Building Soils for Better Crops is now in full color, expanded and updated.  It contains case studies, including the examples above, background information from a what-is-soil crash course to the importance of organic matter, and step-by-step guidance on soil-improving techniques.

Written in easily accessible language, it’s a perfect addition to any farm library, university course syllabus, or ag training manual—a must-read for farmers, ranchers, educators and students alike.

Download Building Soils for Better Crops for free at www.sare.org/publications/soils.htm. To order print copies ($20.95 plus $5.95 s/h) visit www.sare.org/WebStore, call 301/374-9696 or send check or money order to SARE Outreach, PO Box 753, Waldorf, Maryland 20604-0753. (Please specify title and amount requested when ordering by mail.) Discounts are available on orders of 10 or more. Allow 3-4 weeks for delivery. Call 301/374-9696 for more information on bulk, rush or international shipments.

Published by the SARE Outreach office of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program. SARE’s mission is to advance—to the whole of American agriculture— innovations that improve profitability, stewardship and quality of life by investing in groundbreaking research and education. SARE is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA. SARE Outreach operates under cooperative agreements with the University of Maryland and the University of Vermont to develop and disseminate information about sustainable agriculture. For more information visit www.sare.org.

Baked Bread by Paul Alhadef Photography

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We have come across a very good site featuring various articles on what we like to call “real food”.  This is food that is (according to this site, as well as our standards):

• Organic
• Humanely raised (animals on pasture, not in factories)
• Grown locally when possible
• Whole and unrefined (real maple syrup instead of high-fructose corn syrup)
• Processed as little as possible (raw milk instead of pasteurized and homogenized)
• Nutrient-dense (enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and probiotics)
• Free of additives and preservatives
• Free of synthetic and chemical ingredients
• Not genetically modified
• Traditionally produced and prepared

CHECK OUR REAL FOOD MEDIA HERE!

In a disturbing article this morning, we can see why WE THE PEOPLE are not being efficiently represented in congress – elected officials sometimes get way too much as “public servants”.  In a story by POLITICO, several representative’s vehicle leases were looked at – some of them COSTING TAXPAYERS over $1,000 per month!

What happened?!?!?!  If I were to apply for a job, I would be required to find my own transportation – why on planet earth are these guys not required to do the same thing?

Cut THIS expense out of the budget, and put it towards EDUCATION – our kids deserve better economics and better leadership.

Story is HERE: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34391.html

- Tisha Casda

Although in title this sounds like something that would be beneficial, if one looks closer into the fine print (which is something we should always do and have started to be more effective at recently), this is something very dangerous to competition and the free-market.

Freedom of Speech Depends on Free-Markets, and having a governmental organization regulate the Internet is something that may be ineffective, unprofitable, and dangerous to our freedom of speech.

Please research this bill, and visit: http://netcompetition.org/index.php

Heavy use of weedkillers like the product “Roundup” (or glyphosate products)  appear to be having negative impacts on future crops of farms in our own country, as well as overseas.  To mitigate the super-weeds that have developed, even more toxic herbicides must be used, as well as labor-intensive practices (i.e. hand-pulling of weeds and the tilling of soil).

All of the additional inputs – whether chemical or operational – will add to the cost of food.

In addition to this, there are negative environmental impacts that can further harm the soil and food production – these do not yet have a cost associated with them, but could be detrimental to farmers.

Genetically modified crops are created so that the seeds/plants are resistance to weedkillers.  The weedkillers (i.e. Roundup and glyphosate) can then be sprayed without any worry about harming the crop.  Of course, the creation of superweeds is also possible, and the implications of this should be understood.

Andrew Wargo III from the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts said that this may be “the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen”(Neuman & Pollack, 2010).

Ken Smith with the University of Arkansas also added that there are environmental concerns that could come from frequent plowing (plowing more is necessarily because the farmers have to plow under the weeds in an attempt to mitigate them).

A farmer from Iowa relates that if one is paying a premium for the GMO weed-resistant crop plus the herbicide, that when one has to purchase additional inputs for those crops to mitigate the superweeds, that paying a premium does not make sense anymore.

The state of Georgia has been one of the states hardest hit by the Roundup-resistant weed called pigweed.

Read the whole story HERE.

References:

Neuman, W., & Pollack, A. (2010). New York Times. Retrieved on May 6, 2010 from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html?ref=business.

“For the economy as a whole, profits are a minor item, about 10 percent of what the American economy produces, for example.  But it is a major item as an incentive to efficiency in producing the other 90 percent.” (Sowell, 2007, pp. 173).

Sowell, T. (2007). Basic Economics. New York: Perseus Books Group.