Come join us for work and fun on Sunday April 18
We will be installing some new raised beds, building a pig shelter, mulching, and planting. Come and learn about our production methods, enjoy a day outdoors, help us kick off the season, and maybe meet some new friends. Food and evening revelry (with fire!) will be provided. Please let us know if you are coming, so we can plan for enough food.

Rain date 4/24.

Bring your own gloves & hat, a shovel, eye and ear protectors if you have them, and a water bottle.

We hope to see you then!

Kent & Donna

Kent Scything

One thing that bugs me about sustainability, specifically in its use to refer to environmental responsibility, is the definition that’s often thrown up at the beginning of talks as a definition of sustainability, from the UN: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This is not a definition of sustainability. It is a definition of sustainable development, as though development is inevitable. Maybe they were using a different definition of development than I do, but it seems to me that development and sustainability are incompatible. Development means MORE and what we need, at least in the developed world, is LESS. One concept implicit in that definition that I do like is that we should provide for ourselves without doing irreversible damage to the earth’s processes and living systems. Irreversible damage like sending the climate past a tipping point, or extinguishing genetic lines, or toxifying all the drinking water, or wiping out interdependent systems of cooperating plants, animals, and microbes. These outcomes will certainly compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, so that aspect of the definition is right on the mark.

However, I agree with Toby Hemenway that most affluent people who have been brought up in Western culture don’t understand the difference between their needs and their wants. Anything you like having can be construed somehow as a need. A definition of sustainability that encourages affluent people in developed countries (i.e. exactly the people we need to convert) to imagine that there will be development aimed at satisfying their needs, whatever those might be, and that this development will somehow be achieved without causing ecological harm, is inherently flawed, and makes people complacent, and will not produce the cultural shift we need.

As a guideline for environmental stewardship, the definition also suffers from being entirely human-centric. I would be happier with its aims if it stated that we should care about the ability of not only future generations of humans, but also both present and future generations of non-humans, to live and thrive on earth. Under such an expanded definition, impacts like human-induced climate destabilization or groundwater pollution should be avoided because they effect not only humans’ ability to provide for their future needs, but also wild animals, plants, microbes, etc.

A new term is sorely needed. It has to have broad appeal, because we need to convince absolutely everyone to line up behind it. Any term that conveys a sense of LACK/WEAKNESS rather than GAIN/POWER will not work, because it will be repulsive to the monkey-brain side of us that desires only to accumulate power chips and then flaunt them to achieve reproductive success. That basic drive is what spurs our current acquisitive, ambitious culture forward, doing its massive ecological harm (present company excluded of course). The goal is to slow the draw-down of nonrenewable resources, stabilize climate change and eliminate harm to living systems. We need a label for these values that hits you in the gut with the fact that it’s all about your personal choices affecting LIFE on earth, not something weak and vague that implies a top-down, policy-based solution. For energy use, we can talk about living within a solar budget. In agriculture, I like the use of the term ‘regenerative’ because it sounds so positive and moves beyond just not causing further damage, to actually envision improving things. It will be a challenge to come up with something that comprehensively applies to many aspects of human activity, like sustainability does.

Maybe an action word like the Guardian movement (we are guarding our earth), or even LIVE! (which, I just noticed, is EVIL backwards), or HEROIC (because we are leaping into action to avert an impending disaster). No these will never do. You creative types, help me out here!

Tamworth pigs December 2009

Date change! The weather is not cooperating for the 14th. Let’s try again on the 28th!

To all our Boston-based locarnivore friends, come satisfy your craving for local, organic and humanely raised meat. We are bringing our Tamworth pork(including smoked cuts) and other Grace Note Farm products to Cambridge next Sunday. Come meet the Grace Note Farm farmers and stock your freezer with some tasty treats!

Limited quantities are now available of bacon, ham, and smoked pork shoulder processed at the highly acclaimed Vermont Smoke and Cure (sister company to the Farmer’s Diner), and they are out of this world! They use an old-fashioned, regional recipe, utilizing maple wood and corn cobs for smoking, to create a flavor that is subtle and divine. Get yours now! They won’t last long.

When: Sunday March 14 28, 6:00 pm until ?
Where: Look for our truck in the harvest co-op parking lot, at 581 Mass Ave. (click for map)

Order ahead using the comments box below. Please come with your own cloth shopping bag. You can either pay on the day by cash or check, or paypal us ahead of time if you would like to pre-order (which we can arrange via email).

Hope to see you there. We appreciate your support!

A note about our animal husbandry practices

Grace Note Farm is not certified organic, but we abide by organic growing practices. We only buy organic inputs for our farm. We provide free-choice certified organic feed to our chickens and pigs. They have ample barn space for shelter and also free access to a large fenced pasture, allowing them to roam outdoors for exercise and entertainment, and to supplement their diets by munching on yummy bugs, plants, and other forage. This keeps the animals healthier (and happier) and also gives their meat a richer, more complex flavor.

The three attributes that are prohibited in organic feed, but that are standard practice for non-organic, are 1) use of petroleum-based pesticides and fertilizers on the grain, 2) genetically engineered grain and 3) antibiotics in the feed. The first two are not unrelated, as you probably know. The reason for the engineering in genetically-engineered crops is to introduce traits that either replicate pesticides (Bt corn, for example) or that make the plant tolerate herbicides (Roundup Ready crops). So the use of GM crops, among other problems, leads to more insecticide and herbicide in the environment. Although it won’t be on the label, grain that is not organic has a high probability of being GM. According to USDA stats (from 2007, so the figure could be higher now), 73% of corn, 91% of soy, 75% of canola, and virtually all sugarbeets grown in the US are from genetically modified seed.

Insecticides and herbicides sprayed on grain that is subsequently eaten by animals builds up as residues in their meat, especially in the fatty tissues. And it also builds up in the human who later consumes that meat. Pesticide exposure in humans is linked to lymphoma, asthma, alzheimers, infertility, neurological disorders, and fatal birth defects. Many pesticides are known endocrine disruptors, which is fancy science talk for messing up your hormones – which regulate things like brain function, insulin, reproduction, metabolism, building muscle mass, etc. This looks to me like a list of the top health problems in the US. Funny that their connection with pesticides is not widely discussed in the media.

Although avoiding direct consumption of pesticide-riddled food is desirable on its own, there’s also the larger picture to consider. As this wikipedia article reminds us, pesticides don’t just go on the target plant, they go all over the place, disbursing through the air and flowing along in ground and surface water, negatively impacting wildlife and people who live downstream or downwind, leading to a long chain of ecological impact. Farm workers exposed to synthetic chemicals have a much larger incidence of cancer, chronic diarrhea, and other diseases than the general population. Their life expectancy of 49 years(!) (compared to 75 for an average American) is largely due to pesticide exposure. Their children have a much higher risk of developing fatal birth defects. Rural communities near cropland where pesticides are applied also see increased incidence of these diseases (see this PANNA article).

The harmful effects of pesticides on wildlife (birds, plants, aquatic animals) are too numerous to list. One of the founding principles we base our practices on, is to raise food without negatively impacting wildlife. Wikipedia reports that “The USDA and USFWS estimate that about 20% of the endangered and threatened species in the US are jeopardized by use of pesticides”. Wow. Count me out. Pesticides seem to be particularly harmful to natural pest reducers, such as frogs, lacewings, lady bugs, etc. So the application of pesticides reduces the natural system’s ability to control pests, thus deepening the farmer’s dependence on the pesticide. What a beautiful system for the pesticide salesman. Natural pollinators, such as honeybees, are also harmed by pesticides.

On top of all of these issues, the age of energy descent is upon us. Synthetic pesticides and herbicides, being derived from petroleum, deepen the dependence of agriculture on petroleum-based inputs. We would rather reduce our reliance on petroleum, and reward those grain growers who are doing the same. (Realizing, of course, that there are many other petroleum dependencies built into our supply and distribution chain).

Turning to the issue of GM crops, when growers switch to Roundup-ready crops, which are engineered to withstand being sprayed with herbicide, they typically use more herbicide for weed control than they would without the GM trait. This leads to an arms race with the weeds. The weeds develop more tolerance, more herbicide must be applied, and the cycle repeats. It is estimated that US farmers apply 15 times more herbicide on GM cropland than on non GM. The herbicide-resistance is leading to the development of so-called super-weeds, which are now basically unstoppable. Read more about this on source watch . Besides their encouraging more herbicide use, GM crops are a prime suspect in the incredible increase in food allergies in recent years. They have also been shown to cause liver and kidney damage in lab animals. There are many other reasons to be wary of GM crops (genetic contamination to other open pollinating crops, for one), and we would rather our dollars go to grain farmers who choose not to raise them.

Then there is the issue of antibiotics. Organic animal feed does not contain antibiotics, but conventionally raised animals are given low daily doses of antibiotics in their feed. Not only to counteract the prevalence of disease that goes hand-in-hand with high-density factory farms, but also as a growth stimulant (meat animals put on weight faster when given the antibiotics). This practice contributes to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. We may face a future where infectious diseases are not controllable, largely because of our profligate use of antibiotics for livestock. CBS news even did a piece on this problem. A recent report finds that antibiotic-resitant traits are building up in soil microorganisms. MRSA is a growing cause for concern, especially its increasing presence in medical facilities.

I could probably come up with more reasons, but those are my top 6. Taken all together, the decision to buy organic food for our animals seems clear. There is a growing recognition that animal feed crops are a large source of ecological damage – both in terms of pollution and climate change – (see the FAO report Livestock’s Long Shadow), but organic feed does lessen some of that impact. When you buy meat, dairy, and eggs, I hope you will keep these points in mind and buy organic.

Further reading:
http://www.gmo-watch.com/
http://www.eatright.org/About/Content.aspx?id=6812&terms=organic
http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/pesticides/#fn9
http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0612sp1.htm