Family farms, biodiversity, and deep farm thoughts

I don't have time to tackle a lot of huge issues this morning, but I thought I would pass along some thought provoking stuff I have come across lately.

First, I was driving around somewhere on Monday night, which means that Living on Earth was on Vermont Public Radio. The particular show I was listening to had a fascinating interview with Michael Pollan, a New York Times writer and author of the Botany of Desire. Two basic points he made: (1) we can track a lot of our country's agricultural and health problems to a deliberate decision to encourage the over production of corn in the 1970s, and our deliberate over production since then, and (2) big factory farms don't work for farmers and aren't necessary to feed the world. If you have a chance, I would really encourage you to listen to the interview (or read the transcript, which is also up on the LOE link above). And also listen to the later story in the same show titled "Grazing in the Grass". Even though the latter story is about a cattle rancher, we are, at least in spirit, trying to do a lot of the same things on our farm.

The second item is a link about kale. Well, not so much about kale, as it is about the wonder of plants, biodiversity, and open source software. Just something to think about.