Posted by Dave on May 19, 2009
So what makes hemp just so wonderful on the one hand and feared on the other? The magic number for hemp is its percentage of cellulose, which is as high as 77%. This makes it the number one producer of biomass on earth. Wood from most trees registers around 60% cellulose and obviously takes much longer to mature. Hemp can grow from germination to maturity in 3 to 4 months and produces around 5 tons of dry fiber stalk and 10 tons of biomass per acre. The last smoking gun is that hemp can be grown over vast portions of the earth’s land surfaces. It can grow anywhere from China’s temperate forested mountains to Mexico’s arid deserts to Canada’s cool farmland. (It grows best in warm, humid areas with over 25 inches of rain but only requires a bare minimum of 10 inches and a temperate climate.) WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on May 18, 2009
Damn you Reefer Madness, William Randolph Hearst, Dupont and racist American government of the 1930’s! Over 70 years later and we in the U.S. are still suffering the ill effects of banning marijuana and all its associates during a period of economic rebound that encouraged greed, paranoia, racism and lax political oversight. (Sound familiar?)
Industrial hemp was going strong throughout the 1920’s. It found uses in everything from paint to cosmetics to food. It is even rumored that the first pair of Levi jeans were made from Hemp in the mid-1800’s. (The evidence was destroyed in the great San Francisco fire.) People have long derided prohibition as one of the stupider achievements of American history, blaming it for (among other things) giving rise to organized crime. Well, if prohibition was stupid you have to lump reefer madness into the same category of dumb. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on April 26, 2009
Homes never smell like vinegar baths anymore. When I was a wee one there was an informal holiday around my house that I guess could have been remembered as “Canning 
Day.” Much of this holiday’s kitchen rituals remained a mystery to me, but the days leading up to the “great pot” were like Easter and a safari combined. It was my job to roam the hills or the draws harvesting anything from wild plums to mustang grapes. Then, through a vinegar haze, these wild gems somehow became jam.
These efforts at gathering in the wild crops from the creek and bramble are only one branch of the redneck supported agricultural tree (which has now become endangered). The second, and more important, is gleaning. Some today might call this stealing, but come on.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on April 22, 2009
Earth day is in the air and granolas are coming out from under their winter stupor here in Salt Lake. This is the day to celebrate temporary amnesia for so many earth activists, so grim so much of the time. But not today. At the University of Utah earth lovers, granolas and tree huggers of all stripes were gleefully frolicking around the Student Union Plaza. Even the local banter with deadbeat Republican politicians was upbeat and wistful. A white, paper mache unicorn was proudly wheeled out representing the clean coal package some are trying to ramrod through our nations capitol.
By far my favorite comrades in green at this year’s festival where the newly formed Salt Lake Urban Guerilla Gardeners (SLUGG). How can you complain with stickin’ it to the man with “seed bombs.” It’s better than sticking cut flowers in gun barrels (first you are planting stuff instead of killing it, and secondly you don’t have to look into a gun barrel). I can’t wait for my walk around the neighborhood tomorrow and my small contribution to bombing SLC with future flowers in bloom. Give ‘em herb, guerillas. Give em herb.
Posted by Dave on March 8, 2009
Recently Michael Katz was a guest on The NPR show, Morning Edition, where he discussed his controversial ideas on rural America and Broadband access. Rightly so the question of what to do with Rural America is becoming a legitimate hot button issue again.
Over twenty years ago Frank and Deborah Popper began to call for their visionary “Buffalo Commons” in which the Great Plains would be returned to the prairie of the past and in part given back to Native Americans. Their dream seems to be gaining traction during this most recent economic crisis. Some are saying that we have been fighting against the plains long enough and instead we should be working with them.
Other voices, like Karl Stauber (past president of Northwest Area Foundation) and Joel Kotkin (New America Foundation), continue to speak out for saving the Great Plains and it’s rural ghetto’s through restoring its pioneer economy and spirit. But what exactly is Rural America? And how should we go about saving or restoring the dying Great Plains region as well as other rural ghettos in states as diverse as California, New Mexico, and Montana?
I disagree with the idea of turning rural towns and villages into ghost towns. I think many of these communities have been ignored too long, and we as a country should actively seek to strengthen them. Rural America contributes a strength and work ethic to our nation that we need, not to mention products that our cities can’t do without. But, I also have a passion for justice, and the ruthless betrayal and destruction of Native cultures across this continent is something that we should also seek to repair.
Is there a way to accomplish both? Can we see a sort of “Buffalo Commons” work in conjunction with a recovering Rural
economy? The USDA’s latest farm bill includes a new Grasslands Reserve Program, which offers incentives for ranchers and farmers to protect sensitive grasslands. This could be a humble beginning, but The Land Institute is a group that is working on a much more sustainable solution toward solving, as they like to put it, the problem of agriculture. I think their Natural Systems Agriculture could be the answer we desperately need. While trying to restore the polyculture health and stability of the plains before we tilled them they also seek to produce equivalent crop yields to modern monoculture farming. This discovery could be instrumental in allowing us as a nation to move forward in both bringing justice to Natives and an abused land while also bringing dignity back to our agricultural heartland.
There is a divide occurring in America between the Urban and the Rural. Maybe it has always been there, but recent blue state and red state maps are being used to widen this divide and drive it home in the hearts and minds of Americans. It would be unfortunate if we allowed these differences and growing hostilities to lead us toward unsustainable actions against our own “country” in one extreme or the other.