How and When to Water Your Plants?

Recent studies have confirmed that water on the leafs of plants can cause sun damage, as the water droplets focus the light rays, causing burns (see here). Thus, you should avoid spray watering your plants, especially here in the Arizona desert, which has intense sunshine due to the low humidity.

Hands down, flood irrigation is the best watering technique for the desert. Build an earth wall berm around the outside of your growing area, then just flood it with water. Be careful not to overflow the berm wall, as a little leak over the edge will quickly erode a huge hole in the wall.

For the most efficient use of water, irrigate in the evenings, to avoid excess evaporation.

You can do day-time flood irrigation during the heat of the summer to cool off the ground. I have kept tomatos going all summer long, in full Arizona sun, by heavy flooding and intentsive plant spacing. The intensive spacing creates a shaded zone under the plants, which along with the water, helps the plants survive the brutal heat.

Food Price Spike of 2008 set to Repeat

The main cause of the food price spike in 2008 was speculation. Secondarily it was supply shortage, but primarily, it was speculation, meaning that big money investors threw their money into commodities, driving up their price. Warning signs are blipping that we may see a repeat of those events soon, driven again by a worldwide flood of money, just waiting for an investment vehicle to flood into.

http://business.asiaone.com/Business/My%2BMoney/Opinion/Story/A1Story20100106-190014.html

Global food prices are rising again with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food price index hitting 168 points in November, the fourth consecutive month of increase and the highest since September 2008. While this is still about 21 per cent lower than the most recent peak in June 2008 when the index hit 213.5 points, FAO does note that the index has never exceeded 120 points prior to the price spike between 2007/2008.

Several reasons have been highlighted for the rising prices. However, FAO has possibly for the first time highlighted the 'growing appetite by speculators and index funds for a wider commodity portfolio investments on the back of enormous global excess liquidity', as exacerbating the situation.

This mirrors the view of World Bank president Robert Zoellick who said recently that with so much liquidity in global markets, 'you could see additional moves towards the agricultural commodities sector if there were perceptions of market shortages'.

Speculation in agricultural commodities may not have reached fever pitch yet but with food shortages expected in 2010, it could.

Jim Rogers, one of the world's most astute investors has been bullish on commodities in general for several years. On agricultural (or soft) commodities, he says: 'Food inventories worldwide are at the lowest in decades as the world continues to consume more than it produces. We even have a shortage of farmers now since agriculture has been such a terrible business for three decades. We should all hope prices go higher or there may soon be a time when there will be little or no food at any price.'

Another Food Price Riser: Cap and Trade Laws

Apparently, under the new cap and trade legislation, money will be available for people who plant trees (to be paid for by industries who need to pollute). The net result: farm land taken out of production to grow trees, so food supply falls, leading price rises. It is also understood by all that increased fuel and fertilizer costs are baked into the legislation as well, which will also serve to drive up food costs.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/29/forests-vs-food-study-worries-agriculture-chief/


Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has ordered his staff to revise a computerized forecasting model that showed that climate legislation supported by President Obama would make planting trees more lucrative than producing food.

The latest Agriculture Department economic-impact study of the climate bill, which passed the House this summer, found that the legislation would profit farmers in the long term. But those profits would come mostly from higher crop prices as a result of the legislation's incentives to plant more forests and thus reduce the amount of land devoted to food-producing agriculture.

The legislation would give free emissions credits, known as offsets, to farmers and landowners who plant forests and adopt low-carbon farm and ranching practices. Farmers and ranchers could sell the credits to help major emitters of greenhouse gases comply with the legislation. That revenue would help the farmers deal with an expected rise in fuel and fertilizer costs.

Allison Specht, an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, said other studies have largely confirmed the results of the EPA and Agriculture Department analysis. "That's one of the realities of cap-and-trade legislation. The biggest bang for your buck for carbon credits is planting trees," she said.

Food will Never Get this Cheap Again

Great article by AEP in the Telegraph analyzing the world food commodities market, which has been stuck in deflation, while other commodities are inflating. Increasing high food demand due to population growth in food-importing regions seems to guarantee high prices in the future.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6432538/Food-will-never-be-so-cheap-again.html

The world's grain stocks have dropped from four to 2.6 months cover since 2000, despite two bumper harvests in North America. China's inventories are at a 30-year low. Asian rice stocks are near danger level. Yet farm commodities have largely missed out on Bernanke's reflation rally in metals, oil, and everything else. Dylan Grice from Société Générale sees "bargain basement" prices.

Wheat has crashed 70pc from early 2008. Corn has halved. The "Ags" have mostly drifted sideways over the last six months. This divergence within the commodity family is untenable, given the bio-ethanol linkage to oil.

The world population is adding "another Britain" every year. This will continue until mid-century. By then we will have an extra 2.4bn mouths to feed.
China and Southeast Asia are switching to animal-protein diets as they grow wealthy, as the Koreans did before them. It takes roughly 3-5kgs of animal feed from grains to produce 1kg of meat.
A report by Standard Chartered, The End of Cheap Food, said North Africa and the Middle East have already hit the buffers. The region imports 71pc of its rice and 58pc of its corn. It lacks water to boost output. The population is growing fast. It will have to import, and cross fingers.
The UN says global farm yields must rise 77pc, which means redoubling Norman Borlaug's "green revolution". It will not be easy. China's trend growth in crops yields has slipped from 3.1pc a year in the early 1960s to 0.9pc over the last decade
"We've all heard the stark anecdotes: precious topsoil weakened by over-farming, dust clouds darkening the Asian skies, parched land becoming desert and rivers running dry," said Mr Grice.
Since 2000, China has lost nearly 1,400 square miles each year to desert. Urban sprawl is paving over fertile land in the East. Water supply from Himalayan glaciers is ebbing. The Yellow River has been reduced to "an agonising trickle". It no longer reaches the sea for 200 days a year.
Farmers are draining the aquifers. Environmentalist Ma Jun says in China's Water Crisis that they are drilling as deep as 1,000 metres into non-replenishable reserves. The grain region of the Hai River Basin relies on groundwater for 70pc of irrigation.
China's water troubles are not unique. North India lives off Himalayan snows as well. Nor can we take fertiliser supply for granted any longer since "peak phosphates" threatens.

One can be Malthusian about this. Grizzled commodity guru Jim Rogers certainly is. "The world is going to have a period when we cannot get food at any price, in some parts." He advises youth to opt for a farm degree rather than an MBA, if they want to make serious money.

Cuba Demonstrates Large Scale Low Tech Farming

Cuba was hit with massive oil shortages after the fall of the Soviet Union, and their mechanical agriculture industry suffered greatly for it. However, they made the transition after a couple years. Quite an amazing story, providing a blueprint for how low-tech organically-based farming can work on a mass scale.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8213617.stm

Twenty years ago, Cuban agriculture looked very different. Between 1960 and 1989, a national policy of intensive specialised agriculture radically transformed Cuban farming into high-input mono-culture in which tobacco, sugar, and other cash crops were grown on large state farms.

Cuba exchanged its abundant produce for cheap, imported subsidised oil from the old Eastern Bloc. In fact, oil was so cheap, Cuba pursued a highly industrialised fuel-thirsty form of agriculture - not so different from the kind of farming we see in much of the West today. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the oil supply rapidly dried up, and, almost overnight, Cuba faced a major food crisis. Already affected by a US trade embargo, Cuba by necessity had to go back to basics to survive - rediscovering low-input self-reliant farming.


With no petrol for tractors, oxen had to plough the land. With no oil-based fertilisers or pesticides, farmers had to turn to natural and organic replacements. Today, about 300,000 oxen work on farms across the country and there are now more than 200 biological control centres which produce a whole host of biological agents in fungi, bacteria and beneficial insects.

Havana has almost 200 urban allotments - known as organiponicos - providing four million tonnes of vegetables every year - helping the country to become 90% self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables. The organiponico uses raised beds filled with about 50% high-quality organic material (such as manure), 25% composted waste such as rice husks and coffee bean shells, and 25% soil.


As well as marigolds, basil and neem trees are planted around the containers to keep the aphids and beetles at bay. Sunflowers and corn are also planted around the beds to attract beneficial insects such as ladybirds and lace wings. Sticky paper or plastic funnel-shaped bottles are positioned throughout the beds to trap harmful pests that do get into the garden.

At the time of the oil shock, average calorie consumption in Cuba dropped by a third to dangerously low levels. Since then they have bounced back and Cubans eat just a little less than people in the UK. The biggest difference is that a Western diet includes about three times as much food energy from animal products like meat and dairy.

Community Gardens Victims of Theft

If you don't fence your yard, or put your garden where it is not visible to passers-by, this is pretty much inevitable. I think many upper middle class White gardeners, because of their upscale and moral neighbors, fail to appreciate the how common theivery is, in poor neighborhoods. People walking by will walk into your yard and literally just help themselves to your produce. It is aggravating, to say the least.

This article is from St. Louis, but it can happen anywhere a garden is put in a poor neighborhood. If you don't fence and hide your garden, you are inviting theivery. Sad, but just the reality of the American mentality. It's just a microcosm of our whole social contract: the do-gooders make the wealth, the ne'erdowells take the wealth, without any feeling of obligation whatsoever.

I agree with the biblical dictum, "He who doesn't work, doesn't eat."


http://www.newstribune.com/articles/2009/09/06/news_state/116state37veggies09.txt


Veggie Vandals: community gardens deal with theft

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Community gardens in St. Louis are becoming less open to the community following a surge of thieves helping themselves to the bounty of fruit and vegetables.

In some cases, the people who pay a fee for the land and volunteer their time to cultivate the plots are being forced to place their gardens under lock and key.

"We've had people come in periodically when the tomatoes were especially ripe and taking a few," said Terry Lueckenhoff, one of the gardeners at the Fox Park community garden. "But this year, people have come in and cleaned the garden out."

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the garden's 30 beds, filled with tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, are now locked behind a gate.

When Chickens are Outlawed, only Outlaws Will Have Chickens

Luckily, chickens are legal in Mesa, Arizona! Up to 10, even with roosters, as long as they aren't too loud. See here http://www.mesaaz.gov/animalcontrol/faq.aspx.


However, some city folk in Indiana are not so lucky, and are forced by the tyrranical government into the Chicken Underground!

http://www.indystar.com/article/20090818/NEWS/908180375/1001