Our son Alex Fletcher just published this item on the National Farmer’s Union Website. It is one of the best statements I have seen for some time on the issues around sustainability in Farming:
“There isn’t much talk about agriculture and the farm succession crisis this election. The political calculation seems to be that agriculture is a rural issue and rural issues don’t matter because they don’t swing votes. The assumption being that urban voters, who make up the majority, don’t understand or don’t care much about agriculture.
But Agriculture isn’t just another special interest group and it’s certainly not just a “rural issue”. It’s the heart of our food system and part of the backbone of our economy. Yet its under strain and suffering from neglect as is indicated by the decline of the young farmer demographic, which has dropped by 69% over the last 20 year census period”………See the complete article at: http://www.nfu.ca/blog/NewFarmersNewGovernment/670
Alex and his partner Virginie also have the following Blog: The local foodbox
I recently obtained 7 species of mushroom spawn, 100 dowel plugs per species, from a firm in Oregon. I am experimenting with setting these up in logs of broad-leafed maple, Garry oak, Bitter Cherry and Grand fir from the farm.
Maitake plugs ready to be pounded into the pre-drilled holes in Garry oak
Pounding plugs with mushroom mycelium into Oak branch logs.
I have the logs stored under the Douglas fir trees on a scaffold.
In the spring I purchased one cranberry plant from a local nursery and kept it in the greenhouse over the summer.
It sprouted runners which I embedded in soil in smaller pots around the mother plant. I ended up with 13 pots with multiple new plants per pot.
By the end of September, the mother plant had produced 3 berries and many extra plants.
I dug a small depression above my pond waterfalls, and lined it with old underlay and liner from the previous spillway of the pond.
I made the floor level by flooding it with water and then cutting down the high spots underneath.
The tractor bucket filled the depression with fertile soil and peat moss.
The finished bog planted for next year’s cranberry crop. (Theoretically!) An embedded 5cm drain pipe which will allow overflow to the pond will prevent the soil eroding from the structure.
FOLLOWUP FULL DISCLOSURE: over winter, the rabbits ate them all down so this effort was a failure!!
So I finally finished the reworking of the pond fountain. Its now a cataract with a small bog added as well for growing cranberries. ( see next post)
Water flowing.. and the banks are reseeded to grass and spring bulbs.View from the top down to the pond. 5 pools were installed with small pockets of soil embedded in segregated cusps along each of the 5 pools. Two input pipes are at the top. One for the recirculating pump and one for a buried 2 inch line that taps into a water run on the edge of the upper field.
I was never happy with the fountain I had constructed originally when I built the pond. It was more or less a temporary solution. So last week I decided to redo it.
Digging the path through where the old waterfall was to make what will be a series of 5 waterfalls at the north end of the pool.The underlying piping infrastructure. Included are a 2″ intake from the pond, a 2″ intake for winter intake from surface water flowing down the south side of the property, a line to three 3/4′ output pipes to spray water back into the pond, a 3”drain for winter water input from the field above the pond, an electrical line from the pump motor leading to an outdoor plugin above the pond, and a water input line to supply evaporative loss from the pond when the two upper storage tanks from winter rains run out. .
At the top end, connection to electrical and water drainage.
Looking from the top down to the pool
The pipes are all covered now and concrete dams are built. Today some final stone placement is left to do before the cascade through the 5 pools for the water entry to the pond is finished. The orange level is to try to keep the lips of each pool horizontal.
The spillway outlet for the pond originally ran out the south end of the pond and this work is on the North end. Now it remains to remove the rocks from the old spillway, install a 4 inch underground drain, and backfill the trench and lower pumping pond.
Original pump location in a small pond 3 meters below the pond.
View from the pond level back down tto the old intake hole. Here the old waterline is being removed for reinstallation up at the other end.
Removing rocks from the old pumping hole. Many of these were transferred to form the berm of the cranberry bog
Installing and backfilling the 4 inch drain pipe for the pond spillway for winter overflow. (The pond is located just behind the tractor.)
Most people have never heard of Drizzle Lake Ecological Reserve , but it turns out to be gaining worldwide attention from a paper published by Dr. Tom Reimchen and fellow scientists at the University of Victoria. This paper and another on the threat from potential logging in cutblocks near the lake have been profiled on the Ecoreserves website at:
This week we have had the 40th Anniversary celebrations here at Lester Pearson College . I had an interesting discussion with a graduate on subsidization of the oil industry in Canada. So I had to make a trip to Google to check out just what was being reported in the media. SUBSIDIES TO THE OIL INDUSTRY At the top of the search list was today’s publication of ” Canada Subsidizing Exploration For Oil Reserves That Can’t Be Used: Report” August 15, 2015 Huffington Post:
“Using subsidy definitions from the World Trade Organization, the think-tank calculated the total value of those breaks (in Canada)— not including additional subsidies offered by provinces — at $928 million a year. That means:
every Canadian subsidizes energy exploration by $26 a year.
Only Australia, where subsidies reach up to $153, is more generous among G20 countries on a per capita basis.
United Kingdom subsidies are up to about $18 per capita;
Russia spends about $17;
the United States spends $16. The report says the annual value of state subsidies for exploration is about twice the $37-billion cash energy companies put up themselves. “This suggests that their exploration activities are highly dependent on public support,” the report says.”
“These figures are found in the appendix of a major report released last year estimating global energy subsidies at almost $2 trillion. The report estimated that eliminating the subsidies would reduce global carbon emissions by 13 per cent. The stunning statistics specific to this country remain almost completely unreported in Canadian media. Contacted by The Tyee, researchers from the IMF helpfully provided a detailed breakdown of Canadian subsidies provided to petroleum, natural gas and coal consumption. The lion’s share of the $34 billion are uncollected taxes on the externalized costs of burning transportation fuels like gasoline and diesel — about $19.4 billion in 2011. These externalized costs include impacts like traffic accidents, carbon emissions, air pollution and road congestion. The report also referenced figures sourced from the OECD showing an additional $840 million in producer support to oil companies through a constellation of provincial and federal incentives to encourage fossil fuel extraction. This brought total petroleum subsidies in Canada in 2011 to $20.23 billion — more than 20 times the annual budget of Environment Canada. In comparison to other countries, Canada provides more subsidies to petroleum as a proportion of government revenue than any developed nation on Earth besides the United States and Luxembourg.”
“Energy subsidies are pervasive and impose substantial fiscal and economic costs in most regions. On a ―pre-tax basis, subsidies for petroleum products, electricity, natural gas, and coal reached $480 billion in 2011 (0.7 percent of global GDP or 2 percent of total government revenues). The cost of subsidies is especially acute in oil exporters, which account for about two-thirds of the total. On a ―post-tax‖ basis—which also factors in the negative externalities from energy consumption—subsidies are much higher at $1.9 trillion (2½ percent of global GDP or 8 percent of total government revenues). The advanced economies account for about 40 percent of the global posttax total, while oil exporters account for about one-third. Removing these subsidies could lead to a 13 percent decline in CO2 emissions and generate positive spillover effects by reducing global energy demand.”
IMPACTS OF OIL INDUSTRY SUBSIDIES SUPPRESS ALTERNATES
“This paper contends that fossil-fuel subsidies can act as a barrier to the development and deployment of renewable energy technologies. It identifies three impacts of fossil-fuel subsidies on renewable energy. First, subsidies reduce the costs of fossil-fuel-powered electricity generation and thereby impair the cost competitiveness of renewable energy. Second, subsidies create an incumbent advantage reinforcing the position of fossil fuels in the electricity system. Finally, the presence of fossil-fuel subsidies creates conditions under which investments in fossil-fuelbased technologies are favoured over renewable alternatives. Accordingly, fossil-fuel subsidy reform should be a priority for governments, to remove barriers to renewable energy and realize numerous other economic, social and environmental benefits.”
Forbes Tech: Government Subsidies: Silent Killer Of Renewable Energy ” between 1994 and 2009 the U.S. oil and gas industries received a cumulative $446.96 billion in subsidies, compared to just $5.93 billion given to renewables in those years. (The nuclear industry, by the way. received $185 billion in federal subsidies between 1947 and 1999.) Certainly, subsidies are a useful tool to help establish an emerging industry. But where there is no projected end to funding, subsidies stop being a catalyst, and start becoming a crutch. This is especially true when companies supported by subsidies become powerful enough to influence governments to perpetuate their support”
AND FURTHER: AN INSIDIOUS EFFECT OF OIL INDUSTRY SUBSIDIES
Further reading in other references provides an account of one of the more insidious implications for oil industry subsidies in poorer countries: From NBC NEWS (3/1/2012) quoting a Christian Sceince Monitor publication, The countries with the cheapest gasoline
“fuel subsidies tend to benefit the rich (who own motor vehicles) more than the poor. The IMF estimated that 65 percent of the fuel subsidies in Africa benefit the richest 40 percent of households (2010). Only 8 percent of the $410 billion in government fuel subsidies worldwide went to the poorest 20 percent of the population.”
SO WHERE SHOULD ENERGY SUBSIDIES BE RE-DIRECTED?
Of course you will find the argument proposed by many in the oil industry that it is necessary to subsidize the oil industry because governments gain so much from the income generated by oil royalties. But does that help to solve our climate crisis? If Alternate energy industries were subsidized as much as Fossil fuel industries, we would certainly be able to decrease the impact of Carbon emissions. Lets not just assume that the oil industry is the most important employer in Canada..
There were 23,700 people directly employed by the clean energy industry in 2013, compared to 22,340 jobs in the oilsands, the report found. Those green jobs include people employed in clean power production, energy efficiency, biofuels and manufacturing of green energy technologies.
Those job gains were the result of about $25 billion in new investment over the past five years, the report said. It singled out Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia as the three provinces leading the way in clean energy investment.”
“Our programs, authorized by the Agricultural Act of 2014, offer funding to complete energy audits, provide renewable energy development assistance, make energy efficiency improvements and install renewable energy systems. We have programs that help convert older heating sources to cleaner technologies, produce advanced biofuels, install solar panels, build biorefineries, and much more. USDA Rural Development is at the forefront of renewable energy financing, with options including grants, guaranteed loans and payments.”
“What’s going wrong with clean tech in Canada? A report we released today shows that Canada lacks a comprehensive strategy and clear policy framework, both federally and provincially, to support the growth of this sector — particularly when it comes to exports.”
This is one of the reasons I have put a lot of time and energy over this past year into being an Intervenor for the Friends of Ecological reserves in the National Energy Board Hearings on the Kinder Morgan/ Trans Mountain Pipeline Project.
Dragonfly nymphs in their last instar crawl up the stems of pond plants where the adult emerges . I see many exoskeletons still clinging to the stems:
Dragonfly nymph exoskeletonNewly emerged dragonfly with one wing not yet inflated.
INSTAR: An instar ( i/ˈɪnstɑr/, from the Latin “form”, “likeness”) is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, between each moult (ecdysis), until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to grow or assume a new form. ( Wikipedia)
“There isn’t much talk about agriculture and the farm succession crisis this election. The political calculation seems to be that agriculture is a rural issue and rural issues don’t matter because they don’t swing votes. The assumption being that urban voters, who make up the majority, don’t understand or don’t care much about agriculture.
