In my junior year of college, I had a professor who claimed that the third World War would be fought over water. He backed that statement up with data showing past battles beginning with the misuse of this priceless commodity. When one, powerful entity owns and operates the only source of a very necessary element of life, they have an immense responsibility to distribute it fairly. Ideally, we wouldn’t have to depend on the often greedy natures of people in power to provide us with something as unavoidably necessary as water. However, we live in a world where everything has an owner and we, as individuals, don’t own much of what we have.

Despite rising tides, water is not an infinite resource. Around the world, scientists are trying to desalinate ocean water and purify sewage. These are not the experiments of a carefree class of graduate students. These are last-ditch efforts to ensure that we, as a society, can continue consuming at the rates we do. So far the results say no, we can’t.

Grey water isn’t a solution, but it is a way to delay the inevitable. Maybe it can even stall the terminal abuse of the Earth’s limited water sources long enough for those scientists to uncover some more optimistic data.

So what is it exactly?

The idea is a simple one. You use water to wash your hands, shower, shave, do the dishes, and run your laundry. When you’re done with it, it goes down the drain and into a system of pipes and chambers, eventually mixing with sewage from the toilet and garbage disposal. The trick is to catch it first. Before you stir in “black” water (aka feces and last week’s casserole) the water waste is relatively clean. While nobody is telling you to pour yourself a glass, they are asking you to consider redirecting the murky cocktail called “grey” water into the garden. Some cities are taking this water straight to large scale agricultural operations, but homeowners can take matters into their own hands by using their own grey water in gardening, lawn care, and landscaping.

There are a few things you’ll need to know before you start building your own backyard irrigation system, however. For instance, you can’t apply this water to any part of a plant that is growing above ground.. you apply it to the soil. And unless you want detergent glazed carrots in your salad, I suggest you skip the root crops.

Try not to let the list of cautionary advice discourage you. I urge you to consider, once more, the impact that one small development has on the state of the world… especially when it becomes a trend.

For more information on collecting your own grey water and making the most of every drop, I like this University of Massachusets Fact Sheet.

What’s more, say what you will about Putin… but I like a leader who works alongside the provincials. If were to speak out against the current administration on any subject, it would be that it has failed to embrace the agricultural community that is responsible for holding our culture together. I would really like to see someone from DC visit the Sedgwick County Extension Office and have a public discussion on marketing wheat products, and reducing grain imports.

Could we learn something from Russia?

Read Vladimir Putin’s Opening Address Here.

The story of Italy’s racism did not begin with field workers and a couple of young xenophobes in Rosarno. Matteo Fraschini Koffi, a freelance writer based in Kenya, recently published an article on allafrica.com about the racism in Italy, his former home. Published in December of 2009, less than a month before the riot, the article reads like a list of crimes committed against the peoples of Africa: A Ghanaian boy tortured. A man from Burkina Faso beaten to death by a local businessman and his son. A black actor assaulted on the street. A man beaten brutally in front of his daughter. While America is only now realizing that this crisis exists, it may already be a way of life for African-Italians.

Maybe.

Shortly after BBC, the Vatican, and NPR admonished southern Italians for their obvious hatred of immigrants, a silent protest blossomed from the streets of Rosarno. Banners hoisted by both Italian natives and African immigrants read “Abandoned by the state, criminalised by the mass media, 20 years living together is not racism!”

So, despite multiple riots, (some against the Camorra Mafia, for blatant exploitation of immigrants) and shouts from evacuated farm workers of “I want to go back to Africa. Italy is too bloody!” what are we to think? Is this a huge step backwards for humanity, or a skirmish blown out of proportion? And why, oh why do we only hear about this sort of racism when it’s too late to resolve the issue?

I can’t help drawing parallels to Southern California. After all of this time, the racism is still simmering. Even if we embrace the cuisine, the music and the cheap labor, we wrinkle our noses at the communal housing, the heavy accents… and, ironically, the lack of available jobs. Maybe Americans don’t have a right to criticize Italy… yet.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

I am now, officially, writing for verb[ICT], an online magazine you can access here. The people are great, and any opportunity to write is a good one in my opinion.

However, L’Avant Gardener and Haute House are still my babies, and therefore my priorities. Expect some really great stories in the near future.

A Happy New Year to all of my readers. May you find love, peace and warmth wherever you give them.

They proceed to claim that food production’s assault on the planet’s valuable ecosystems isn’t as terrible as you may think. What’s more, the act of blaming food production is a waste of energy as the true criminals aren’t farmers at all.. they’re businessmen.

Stated plainly, the myth under fire is this: Incresing pressure to feed the world’s hungry is destroying the dwindling resources needed to grow any food at all. And, stated plainly, the book’s response is: Indeed. But why?

Look at the facts. There are enough resources to sustain humanity until its population reaches 11 billion people. This is an interesting point, but it feels pretty backwards when you consider the staggering numbers of hungry on the planet. How can we boast such potential when we aren’t even getting food to the 6.8 billion we already have? And why don’t these malnourished masses have food, if so many of them are classified as farmers? There is a common thread, just in case you were wondering.

Dislocation.

The spiral downward looks something like this:

• Curious folk land on foreign soil. The native population is easily overpowered by technology and untreatable disease. The conquered land is bountiful.
• The aliens then grow a few select crops, which they sell to already developed nations for billions of pretty pennies.
• After accumulating a great wealth, the once-aliens now build townships, cities, and spend all day worrying about things like witches, liquor, and creationism in public schools.
• Having extra money to throw around, the newly settled and slightly obese citizens of a now glorious nation decide to build over their hard-earned agricultural property, and become food importers instead. To bar any major job losses by this abrupt change, they develop things like automobiles and collection agencies.
• Imported foods are graded by impossible cosmetic standards that no under-developed agricultural nation can realistically achieve.
• The ever growing obese civilization creates a line of expensive pesticides to assist in combating this problem, and attaches a price tag so impractical that foreign farmers must throw in the trowel and become starving poor instead. Also, they create a few organizations that fight global poverty by distributing pamphlets.
• The fatties send over some friends to buy up all of the choicest pieces of land from the suffering, starving and disease ridden poor. This pushes the destitute into areas of land that cannot sustain any form of agriculture for any length of time. Populations of indigent locals grow exponentially in these areas. The already nutrient poor land becomes desert where nothing can grow.
• Back on the arable soil, a few miles away from the slums, corn, soy and cane are grown in massive quantities, feeding the ever hungry wealthy all of the foods they need most. To ensure a steady production, chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used. The locals cannot afford protection from these toxins and must stay home sick from school or die of cancer… or both.
• More pamphlets are distributed to raise awareness of the rapid decline of some of the world’s most beautiful and unique societies.

So, maybe land isn’t being plowed over to feed the hungry. Maybe ecosystems are being felled by axe and pollutants to feed… us. You can blame farmer José for cutting into a rainforest, but why was he forced into wilderness in the first place? Or poor farmer Jomo? He may have turned his plot into a square of inhospitable sand, but what choice did he have? Can he afford hearts of romaine or whole wheat English muffins?

Truth be told, these banana plantations and corn cities are funded by people with money. We happily pay for the unfair acquisition of fertile lands from the poor and the deadly chemical additives that keep them sick and susceptible to disease. Our demands might not be such a problem if we were willing to pay twice as much for our food.. a mark-up necessary to properly equip impoverished field workers and provide food, land, and health insurance to José and Jomo. And why is that so unreasonable? These are benefits we give American workers, after all.

And a little note on all of those carcinogenic sprays we like to dust our foreign fields with. Are they legal in the states? Many of them are not. Are they absolutely necessary? Not according to David Pimentel, Jason Friedman, and David Kahn. In their work “Reducing Insecticide, Fungicide and Herbicide Use on Vegetables and Reducing Herbicide Use on Fruit Crops,” in Techniques for Reducing Pesticide Use (Pemintel) they offer evidence that  farmers could cut  pesticide use by as much as 35 to 50 percent with no effect on crop yields.

Around this time of year, you are supposed to be reflecting on the blessings you have received in one form or another. That being said, I hope you are prepared to ponder, if not answer, the following question:

Dear Readers,

Have you ever considered the true cost of your diet?

Sincerely,

L’Avant Gardener

Slow Food is now a relatively loose term, but can generally be defined as food that:

• Is grown with taste and quality in mind.
• Does not disrupt the natural environment.
• Is marketed locally.
• Is bought and sold at fair prices.
• Does not contain unnatural additives.

More officially, Slow Food is a governed body of foodies on a mission. To date, it has over 100,000 international members, and countless more followers. Then why haven’t you heard of it? Well, Carlo isn’t so popular in the United States yet. Surprising, I know.

Slow Food organizes oodles of markets, clubs, meetings, meals, classes, and has even developed its own university, The University of Gastronomic Sciences. It works with public schools to start community gardens and provide food and an agricultural education to children around the globe. It’s also responsible for networking thousands of otherwise estranged supporters and bringing them together in events such as Slow Food Nation, the colossal gathering in San Fransisco that fed and informed over 50,000 attendees.

Pros and Cons:

Pros: The founding ideas behind this movement are, to me, invincible. Food should be enjoyed, nurtured, savored, and properly paid for. That means putting back into the earth what you took out, and giving back to the producers what you’ve consumed. I love the idea of building school gardens and I’m passionate about any attempt to offer viable options to a society far too dependent upon fast, thoughtless, unhealthy and tasteless food.

Cons: Some say that Slow Food is a creepy, leftist cult of plotters attempting to undermine the foundation of capitalism. Also, any world in which I’m fined or publicly scorned for buying my end-of-a-long-week bacon cheeseburger and Coke is a world to which I simply do not want to belong.

(Thanks to Steph for the tip.)

The principles of the current organic movement vary by location, but I’ll outline them… roughly.

Organic foods are:

• Products grown without the aid of synthetic pesticides.
• Products subjected to minimal modification, and only by organic modifiers. (Ideally.)
• Products that are ecologically sustainable. (Again, ideally.)
• Products that release few to no toxins, making the processing and handling of these foods safe.
• Products that are processed with animal welfare as a focus.

And when I say “rough” outline, I mean it. The actual regulations as published by the GPO (Government Printing Office) and the NOP (National Organic Program) can be found here. (Warning: It’s over 500 pages of impossible reading. For crying out loud, it comes with its own glossary.)

In the United States, organic foods are certified by the NOP and inspected by third party organizations. Producers that make less than $5K annually are exempt, but are not allowed use the term “certified organic” in reference to their products and are subject to random audits and inspections.

Pros and Cons:

Pros: Organic food producers have lower waste output, reduced health risks, and more sustainable practices. Organic foods are generally believed to taste better than conventional foods. The practice of organic farming has a smaller negative impact on the ecosystem in which it is contained. While there is little published data on the subject of nutritional benefits, many firmly believe that organic foods are more nutritious.. having grown at a slower pace and having successfully maintained a balance of its unadulterated biological components.

Cons: Some scientists (Remember Norman Borlaug?) who support the advancement of GMOs (Genitically Modified Organisms) say that organic foods cause more harm than good. This argument centers around organic crops’ output, which is consistently smaller than conventional crops’. If you need more land to harvest the same quantity of output, organic food growth will eventually cause deforestation and the destruction of valuable ecosystems. However, in 2007, this argument was countered by a study* that showed organic food production could sustain the current human population without increasing agricultural land mass. (A goal that neither organic or conventional methods have achieved to date.) Not to rain on the parade, but organic products also cost more… 10 – 60% more, actually.

So. Should you or shouldn’t you? I, personally, am not fully satisfied with the data available to the public. If you looked inside my refrigerator right now you would find organic milk, romaine and zucchini. You would also find conventional butter and tomatoes. I like the pure flavor of organic milk, and really hate the price of organic butter. I’m clearly on the fence. However, I am in constant pursuit of the truth! If I decide to make the jump to organic, you’ll be the first to know.

*Perfecto et al., in Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems (2007), 22: 86–108 Cambridge University Press

L’Avant Gardener: How did you get started growing food?

Darrell Turner: It’s part of my family’s history, I guess. Both sides were farming before the start of the second World War. My grandparents grew grains, mostly. That was before everything was industrialized, so they kept horses for heavy labor. After the war, the industry wasn’t really the same. They replaced corn and oats with soybeans, and the farm sort of shrank to a subsistence operation, not really a big business. After that, they started working factory jobs. But there was always a garden.

And your parents? Did they farm too?

They didn’t farm, really, but they grew some food. I never remember buying things like juice, beans, or tomato sauce at the store because we always had some put by.

So you probably knew how to keep a garden by the time you started your own.

Yeah. If I didn’t remember something, I’d just read up on it. I know plenty of people who think I’m weird for knowing all about vegetable gardens and canning… especially because I’m a guy, I guess. (So farming now has all of the sexual stigma of quilting… great.) Then there are people at work who say “Why bother? I can buy that at the store.”

But I’d imagine you benefit from growing your own food, or you wouldn’t be gardening.

I do. The quality is better and it’s cheaper, but I don’t do it to save money. The reason I keep growing my own food is because I enjoy the work.

And maybe being outside everyday?

Yeah, I’m not happy when I can’t be outside. I have that problem at work sometimes. We don’t have a lot of windows, and being cooped up can really get to you. But it isn’t just that. I like being part of the process, knowing about it. I assumed that everybody knew where their food came from and what goes into it, but some people just don’t. I remember these neighbors I had when I was a kid… They moved from Chicago, and decided to start a garden. I remember them bringing an onion to my mom and asking which side went down into the ground. I was pretty little, but I was just watching this and thinking “Huh. Even I know that.” And now you find people who couldn’t tell you where green beans come from or how tomatoes grow. I mean, everyone should know how to feed themselves, but they just don’t. It’s pretty basic stuff, but nobody seems to want to learn.

But don’t you think that, sometimes, growing your own food is more stressful than satisfying?

Things happen, of course. You can have a flood or infestation.. but you just plant more than you need and save more than you want. It’s just another way of insuring yourself against accidents. I think that, overall,  it’s more relaxing than anything.

Could you estimate what percentage of your food comes from what you grow?

In summer, about 10%. In winter, it drops to about 5%, but I’m still using food I’ve pickled, dehydrated and frozen.

Do you compost?

Yeah. I compost coffee grounds, phone books, grass clippings, food trimmings, vegetables and other produce. I use paper towels at home, which I know a lot of people don’t like, but I compost those too. Cardboard… everything.

So that probably reduces your waste output by quite a bit.

I’d say over 10% goes back into composting.

Do you make an effort to be “green” then?

No, not really. Everybody raves about “going green” but I think what’s more important is being efficient. My grandparents lived through the depression, so efficiency was always a huge focus for them, even when they had money. And I’m an engineer, so efficiency is a goal I work toward every day. There’s a lot out there that’s touted as being environmentally friendly or “green”, but it costs so much to produce that I’m not really sure how efficient it could be.

…I mean, its not like I take my truck out to go knock over trees for fun, or anything…

Let me ask you this: How much garbage do you produce?

Oh, maybe half a garbage bag a week.

Darrell?

Yeah?

That means you’re “green”.

Oh.

What do you think the future of American agriculture will look like?

I see it getting bigger and more commercial with time. There a quite a few people starting to grow things at home, but the idea of a family farm just hasn’t survived. Younger generations don’t seem to want to make the sacrifice. It takes time and effort, and it’s not like it’ll make you a millionaire. If young people don’t think of gardening as a priority, that part of our culture won’t last much longer. I think they’re really missing out.

And what does the future hold for your garden?

Hopefully it’ll be an actual farm soon. I want to buy more land, then buy chickens, cows, goats..

Ooh, are you going to start making cheese?

Yeah, I don’t know about that. The guys at work would probably think I was crazy.

Hm. You’re probably right. “Sorry, fellas. I know it’s happy hour, but I’ve got some swollen goats that need milking…”

____________________________________________________________________________

Darrell’s Tricks of the Trade:

The Bachelor’s Greenhouse:

This miniature horticultural heaven is not technically sex or status specific, but the look of it is certain to make most of us who do not fit into the above category cringe.

Ugly though it may be, it is unquestionably brilliant. It can vary in size, which means you can stuff it in a closet, or else expand it to half the size of your living room. (Ahem. Single men only. Ahem.) The light and moisture are ideal for starter-plants or seedlings. Darrell grows some small fruit-bearing plants through the winter, but foodie purists may opt out of eating produce nourished with artificial light. Still, it’s always nice to have a healthy set of young crops to put in the dirt as soon as the seasons change.

To build a true Bachelor’s Greenhouse, you will need to gather the following:

A fluorescent light fixture
Plant bulbs
An emergency space blanket
A small aquarium heater
A bucket of water
A hanging device (creativity is key)

Depending on where and how you shop, everything on that list could run you as little as $20.

The idea is to place the light inside of a space blanket tent. As the plant grows, you want to be able to raise the light in increments. The humidity from the aquarium heater and bucket of water will act like a super-spa for your would-be Popsicle vegetables. But don’t limit yourself to food plants. This arrangement would also keep your high-maintenance flowers happy for the cold season. (I bet Darrell never knew he would be such an inspiration to orchidists.)

The Bachelor’s Greenhouse would be extremely valuable to those of us who prefer fresh herbs when we cook. I, personally, could save a fortune by growing rosemary year round. Like I mentioned before, you will sacrifice some of the plant’s nutrient content in the replacement of sunlight, but when it comes to pinches and sprigs, I really don’t mind.

More Darrell Wisdom: At the Haute House, under Quick Fixes, I’ve posted a Darrell-inspired recipe for pumpkin seeds. Enjoy.

See reliefweb.int for more.