Tea Parties, Politics and Food

Daniel Hannan, a British Conservative member of the European Parliament has Tea Party envy. In an op-ed piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal last week he expressed deep anguish about how the parliamentary political systems prevalent in Europe, that are often fragmented at times by the number of minority parties, couldn’t possibly launch a Tea Party. He likes the one growing in our country that, if you get your news from other Newscorp companies, opposes all forms of government. Why the WSJ had to look so far abroad to find a loon that had something positive to say about what Newscorp has turned into a laughing stock by continuously misleading it’s customers is unclear unless it is that third party verification was all that was missing to convince someone that was still undecided about what the Tea Party really stood for. Actually, at this point, that is becoming less and less clear as the people claiming that banner have such widely varying views that the only common ground they universally seem to have is be unemployed opportunists and devoid of any knowledge whatsoever about any policy complexities on one hand and history on the other that explains what has been tried and what the results are likely to be based on government action or inaction.

What confuses me about the TEA Party isn’t their goals-a more sensible government or to create a wealthy country that isn’t falling behind the rest of the world in wages and employment. I have yet to hear them take on one issue, however, that change things in a meaningful way. As a suggestion of a particular policy to start with I would like to suggest that they take on the government’s intervention in the food supply. Halt all direct to farm subsidies for commodities for instance. Granted no one from the Midwestern states could be elected on a platform like that because the economy of that region is dependent on tax funded corporate welfare that has been driving people off of their family farms and politicians are dependent on large money donations from those corporate entities they created because regular folks couldn’t be counted to vote as often as needed to keep our ruling parties in power.

I haven’t heard one speech by a politician this campaign cycle that addresses the corruption that has turned our capital in Washington D. C. into a cesspool that permeates and trickles all the way down to the local level. Opening that discussion would invite a lot of finger pointing that would end up being pointed back at the person who started it so people are afraid to talk about anything that real. Unfortunately, we have seen all too often that the people that cry out loudest are often the worst offenders so there isn’t a lot of trust or much love of people who claim that they are going to reform things. The last President that tried that, Jimmy Carter, got his head handed to him on a platter. The President that followed claiming to champion such things, Ronald Reagan, was merely a puppet for people that said one thing while doing the exact opposite, not even bothering whether it was legal or not, drug running, exchanging arms and money to terrorist states for hostages, assassinating political opponents, implementing the largest tax increase in history up to that time, and just saying no to drugs while becoming the largest importer of hard drugs into this country to raise money for illegal covert operations. When all of this information became public the opposition party barely made any attempt at all to prosecute because these activities had such broad acceptance at the highest levels of government that instead of collecting evidence about the criminal activity they were busy destroying it to make sure they never got caught. Yet this is the party that will probably be voted back into office as the majority party this fall.

As we go into the next election cycle happy with the mythological baggage we have collected over the last few decades hardly anybody will bother themselves to become educated about even one problem that we have as a nation because our basic needs have all been satisfied. Even the poorest American has access to transportation, cheap food (not good food), and more entertainment available in more ways than ever. Even though the country is headed for decades of very hard times that will be made worse by a lack of leadership, planning, and management we can’t possibly be bothered much by that because our bodies and minds are full.

The enormous cost of our health care system, our financial commitments to the elderly that will most certainly be broken, & the debt we are leaving our children are things that won’t be forgotten as long as there are people around to curse the day we ever walked the earth.

Planning on Permaculture?

One of the things I like about Permaculture is that it is largely conceptual and adaptable to every biome. It can be difficult getting to know your biome and understand what kind of problems you might be willing and have the resources to tackle. There isn’t one book that I know of that would answer anyone’s question about how to design a one size fits all Permaculture scheme since biomes can vary in so many ways.

 I have taken an approach that marries the best of organic agriculture, ala Eliot Coleman , with Permaculture principles which look at permanent agriculture systems from an engineering viewpoint. Permaculture concepts are nothing new. Farmers and other people that lived closely with the land have been practicing what would seem like to them the obvious for thousands of years. Placing your home near water and light, planting trees to cool and warm the house and yard, arranging the garden space so that things that need the same level of care were concentrated in the same area a few basic permaculture principles that fit into this category. The books and the concepts mostly became necessary to discuss because we today are so far removed from having to live in the real world that we are no longer aware of it.

 I am asked for resources and I have posted links to many fine books on my blog/website to suggest some that I feel are original sources that other books are derived from. Other than that you should make use of all the sources of information at your disposal. In the United States I would contact the local extension office and Master Gardeners associated with the land grant university in the state for a list of trees and edible and useful plants that will do well in your area. Prior to planting you can refer to Permaculture resources to see if they can help with the implementation. One common feature is building swales either to trap water, guide water to a storage area, or drain it away depending on your need. You might want to consider planting without irrigation if you can design a system that can largely do without it.

 Extension offices often can point to other resources such as small farm educational programs and water and manure management information and sometimes even grants to help you pay for projects. The US Department of Agriculture works with conservation districts that promote the sustainable use of the land and conservation of clean water resources, a concern for any land owner. Conservation districts often have free or almost free plants and trees that are native to the area. The one in our area also has a manure spreader that can be borrowed for free.

 If your focus is on forestry then you will have to become an expert on managing forest resources and you should get to know everyone in your area that is doing the same thing you are so you can learn from their experience. Get to know the fruit and vegetable farmers. Find out which varieties do well and what kind of cultural practices are common to your area. Find out what works for sure and why before you start to experiment on your own. The same goes with livestock. Get to know someone who seems to be doing things well, perhaps by being one of their customers at first, before you decide to buy a bunch of stuff only to find that you don’t like doing it or you were unprepared to care for the project or see it through to the end. The best piece of advice I can give you is to be patient.


You might want to start living solely off of your own resources right away but that takes time and you and your land will have to transition to that goal. Pick a small number of project areas and start building them out. To get started add a few fruit trees, bushes and some livestock, even if it is just a few chickens that you raise for eggs, to create your first community. Learn to think about the things you plant and raise as communities, because they are and understanding how they can work together will help you more than anything. The richer and more diverse the community the less work you will have to do to protect and nurture it otherwise. Start planting and building the infrastructure for your food forest a bit at a time, maybe a thousand square feet, and care well for it the first few years until it seems like it can take care of itself. When that seems like it is working well for you then do more or try a bigger plot. You might be in transition for 20 years but do it in such a way that the next person to come along can see the value of it and will be able carry on with your project.

What Is In Your Food System?

With the news report that Vladimir Putin had banned further exports from Russia of cereal grains like wheat and barley it comes to my mind again today how fragile the food system is in the United States and how the industrialization of growing, processing, and delivering food creates a weak system not to mention one lacking in basic nutrition. Having reconnected with many people in the Los Angeles area recently I began to imagine what would happen to the tens of millions of people in that area, many of them trapped in valleys surrounded by mountains, with little water, and almost no usable land in which to grow food if any one of the known and expected natural or manmade catastrophes were to occur. Being completely dependent on a remote food supply isn’t a situation I would willingly put my family in.

Aside from the creeper disasters like drought that slowly erode an area’s ability to produce food, we have the super volcano in Yosemite ready to go off at any time, an eight foot bulge at a plate convergence running 100 miles up the coastline of Oregon, and wildly variable weather like that which caused late blight to reappear this week again in New York. We will have to wait to see if it creates the kind of destruction to whole fields of crops like it did last year. Too much rain might fall drowning fields or making it impossible to collect a usable crop. Many combinations of all of these and our dependence on the Interstate Highway System that won’t work if people are attempting to flee an area create a multitude of potential crises, some of which might make the atomic bombs I was drilled repeatedly to protect myself from in grade school by hiding under a piece of wood look like a welcome scenario.

Maybe it was this aspect of growing up in the United States that has lulled us into a state of euphoric bliss and denial that anything could ever go wrong. After all, we survived the atomic bomb, the Nazis and Soviet Union, the Korean and Cold War and at the same time were fed the same kind of propaganda that every dictator uses “we are the best country”-meaning that everyone else is second class, “people envy us for our freedom”-the rest of the world exists in oppressed slavery, and “God bless America”-yes we really are that much better than everybody else. With that kind of one-two punch why would anybody ever take off their party shoes?

I remember how unhappy my daughter was once when a family decision was made not to bring certain types of entertainment into the house. My wife and I could not understand what the fuss was about but our thinking is much more like the generation that lived through the dust bowl and Great Depression whereas my daughter is like most people today, needing to be entertained and not understanding the limits we put on spending for consumer goods. Her generation has forgotten the happiness of a long drink of cool clean water after a hard day’s work or what it is like to eat after not having had food for a while. For the most part we take cool clean air and protection from the weather for granted and most of us would be terribly unprepared if we had to live outside without these things.

I am sure that it seems implausible to many people that we should prepare for a disaster on the magnitude of the ones discussed here and reported widely elsewhere. It would make sense to think about our food systems, though, for other reasons. Many people believe that we shouldn’t be eating as much cereal grain as we do. No animal on the planet evolved to live on as much cereal or corn as we eat or feed cows and hogs to fatten them up. We feed them to animals to fatten them up the last few weeks of their life and we eat them because they are cheap to grow and lend themselves to mechanized industrialized processes, not because they have the nutrition we need and despite the fact that they are hard to digest and cause a multitude of health problems.

Cereals and corn make us feel good because they release energy quickly and we have associated that sugar rush and addiction with good health. Sometimes feeling good isn’t so good for you, like the skin rush you get when snorting brown heroin, one of the hazards I was exposed to during my time in the U. S. Army. I survived that and lived to tell the tale so I imagine anyone could decide to make any change they want, if they are strong enough, have the right kind of friends, and realize that in order to be a friend first you have to be strong and true to your real needs and self.

2010 Poultry Report

I mix most of my feed except for chick starter. These animals grow so fast that it doesn’t make sense to me to not give them the best start possible. I buy bulk whole grains from Concentrates NW and Azure Standard. I make my own modified mix for my adult birds that contains a combination of rolled and cracked grains, peas, supplements, and grit. I don’t use corn or soy. You can also buy an organic corn/soy free mix, Cascade Poultry Mix (chick, starter, and layer) from Azure Standard and the Urban Farm Store. It wouldn't hurt to consider adding a vitamin supplement to put in water like “Broiler Booster” or similar additives that contain probiotics, vitamins, and biotin which is recommended when raising fast growing birds like Cornish X Rocks.

Sprouted grains are a part of the daily ration. The chickens come running when they see that coming. Sprouted grains don’t change the amount of or quality of protein, but in trials done sprouting a portion of the ration birds showed a higher weight gain, in other words-better utilization, without feeding enzymes as an additive to the feed. Sprouting grains deactivates anti-nutrients like phytates that are present in the bran in all grains. It also activates enzymes and by turning a relatively inert grain into a vegetable it becomes more digestible as well. Phytates can also be neutralized by fermenting cereal grains. Phytates bind our ability to absorb metallic nutrients like calcium, magnesium, and phosphorous. Fermenting or sprouting grains neutralizes phytates found in bran but not soy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytic_acid

Here is a article about soy and anti-nutrients http://www.westonaprice.org/soy-alert/1854-why-babies-should-not-be-fed-soy.html. Soy is being oversold in this country because it is cheap to grow and extremely profitable but there are some very compelling reasons not to eat it in any form or feed it to your animals. If you are going to feed soy and you are starting out with raw untreated grain then find and use directions for preparing it for use. Soy should be roasted before feeding it to animals. In China and Japan, where soy comes from, it is a very, very, small part of the diet.

According to Harvey Ussery, barley and oats should not be more than 15% of the diet because of digestive problems caused by high levels of saponins. Other sources said that saponins were helpful. As I understand it, they aren’t harmful but may be a limiting factor and reduce the feed conversion efficiency. If you are making your own feed for pullets one way to give a nutritional balance of vitamins and hard to come by nutrients like methionone is to use a product like Fertrell Poultry Nutri-Balancer. This contains calcium, phosphorous, vitamins, salt, and probiotics, and methionone.

One of the essential amino acids, methionone is sulfur based.  It is often fed as an additive and is only found in meat, fish, eggs, and dairy products. Amino acids are considered essential if animals cannot manufacture it for their own use, it must be fed. Several amino acids like cysteine and taurine, and enzymes like ATP and SAMe are derived from methionone. A lack of methionone is another limiting factor in the growth and feed conversion of poultry, although some articles appeared recently that suggested growing meat birds more slowly in a free range setting without feeding additional methionone. For more information about amino acids  in different feed stocks a good book to have in your library, especially if you are vegetarian, is "Diet for a Small Planet".

If you are eating vegetarian eggs then they are probably feeding the chickens artificial methionone, although if you are eating truly free range eggs they are probably getting it from bugs and other things they are finding in the field which raises the question “Can I eat bugs and be vegetarian?” A recent survey of our flock was inconclusive on their feelings on this subject. Some people set up grub stations to feed their birds by attracting black soldier fly grubs. During the warm weather you can supplement the diets of ducks and provide hours of entertainment for them by leaving a light bulb just out of reach in their pen because they are excellent at snapping up flying insects.

Instead of salt I use SEA-90 http://www.seaagri.com/. We have also replaced salt in our house with SEA-90. For table use I bake it which turns it into chocolate brown chunks that are easier to grind with a small spice grinder. When making things like garlic salt I just whiz it for a few seconds in a small coffee mill to get super fine flakes. Most of the hand harvested salt we buy is collected by taking the mostly purified crystals that form by capillary action at the top of large windrows inside salt lagoons or ponds. SEA-90 is made by taking the entire windrow so it includes massive amounts of micro-nutrients, all of the minerals that were in the sea water, not just the salt. Since it only costs about forty cents a pound I have to laugh every time I go into Whole Foods and see the stuff they are selling there for ten to twenty times that.

From what I understand, except for some special situations, you are not going to hurt your birds if they don’t have completely balanced feed every day. An exception would be something like raising meat birds. You need to be on top of vitamins and supplements from day one to make sure that you don’t induce structural defects like splayed leg. My layer pullets get at least half of their feed from different portions of my yard inside a moving 625 sq ft poultry net enclosure that can be electrified if needed. We usually don’t electrify it and sometimes one of the birds will find itself on the other side of the fence, mostly because our birds are still young and smaller. After the first couple of times being herded back into the fence they tend to avoid that. Every time we move we need to watch them for a couple of days to make sure they are staying put. So far it has worked really well. You can see more about movable fencing at Premier1.

The meat bird that several people in our area are trying this year is the Freedom Ranger. This is a bird that was bred for pasture and is slower growing than the Cornish X Rock. Word is that this is a superior bird in every way. Cheaper to raise, healthier, better tasting, excellent forager, etc.