Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group
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March 2018
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March’s Full Worm Moon
As the temperature begins to warm and the ground begins to thaw, earthworm casts appear, heralding the return of the robins. For this reason, the March full moon is often known as the Full Worm Moon. Northern Native American tribes knew this moon as the Full Crow Moon when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter.
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Row 7 Seed Co. founders (from left) Matthew Goldfarb, Michael Mazourek and Dan Barber.
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Is "Seed to Table" the Next Big Food Trend?
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By bringing plant breeders and chefs together,
Row 7 Seed Co.
hopes to develop new varieties driven by flavor and nutrition that have a chance to make it in the wider marketplace. Such collaborations have occurred before – think of the work by Charleston chef Sean Brock and Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills to locate long-lost Southern seeds – but this venture takes that movement a step further.
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Photo by Infrogmation of New Orleans.
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Mr. Okra, New Orleans' Iconic Singing Produce Vendor, Dies at 74
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He didn’t play the trumpet or the piano, but for decades, Arthur “Mr. Okra” Robinson provided one of the distinctive sounds of a city famous for its music.
He was a roving produce vendor, traveling the city's streets in a heavily customized pickup truck and using a loudspeaker to sing the praises of his oranges and bananas, his avocados and, of course, his okra.
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No-Till Farmers’ Push for Healthy Soils Ignites a Movement in the Plains
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By Twilight Greenaway
No-till farming started as a way to keep costs down for conventional farmers in danger of losing their land. Now it has become a subculture and a way of life for outsider farmers all over rural America.
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fter walking onstage at the Hyatt in Wichita, Kansas to upbeat country music and stage lights reminiscent of a Garth Brooks concert, Jimmy Emmons declared himself a recovering tillage addict. Then he got down to business detailing the way he and his wife Ginger have re-built the soil on their 2,000-acre, third-generation Oklahoma farm.
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Science Cafe: Urban Farming in Little Rock
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By Bobby Ampezzan and Dorothy Graves
Every month, an Arkansas scientist or expert provides insight on a science topic as a guest on the KUAR's "Science Café Little Rock" live call-in show.
February's episode of
Science Cafe
featured
Chris Hiryak
, the director of Little Rock Urban Farming and one of our popular Southern SAWG conference presenters.
Chris fielded some of the following questions.
Where does our food come from? When you're in the grocery story do you ever wonder if it's local, genetically-modified and cage-free? Is it organic?
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Below the Surface
Bob Dunkel, a garlic farmer
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The underground network
Is long established
Before the harsher winds blow
And snows and long nights come.
The cloves roots have descended
More like capillaries
Than the river of arteries
That rush from out our hearts.
These tinier miners of minerals march
Quietly past the giant sleeping worms
Branching in form like silken webs
Yet all connected indeed
To the circle of Life itself…
On the table of the Earth
The basal plate is set
For there, is the heart of garlic
Like the moon, that fat white clove wanes
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Yet even when it is gone
And all above is still
Again that plate, still full remains
As the sprout is readied
And the new bulb is defined
Moored and tied by those tiniest lines
That chase the sulfur and calcium find!
It is all a cycle
All a circle of timeless Time
Ever connected umbilically
To this sacred ground.
It holds that self same promise
That each new moon brings:
To envision its wholeness
To pattern perfection
Before the eyes can see
Or fingers feel
The emergence that is Now!
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Submit Agenda Ideas for Next PCAN Call
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Our next Policy Collaborative Action Network call is April 24, 2018. We'd like to hear from you on agenda topics. Have a burning concern you would like to share? Want to know what others are doing to meet their local officials? Want to share what you are doing in your community? We want to hear from you!
Please submit your thoughts, ideas and concerns by March 30th, and email
[email protected]
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We will do our best to have someone on the call who can help address your issue. Look for a final agenda and call registration information in early April! Thanks and we look forward to hearing from you.
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- Wednesday, March 14, 2018
- 1:00 PM 2:00 PM
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- Wednesday, March 21, 2018
- 7:00 PM 8:30 PM
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- Tue, Mar 27, 2018, 8:00 AM to Fri, Mar 30, 2018, 5:00 PM
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Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group's mission is to empower and inspire farmers, individuals, and communities in the South to create an agricultural system that is ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just, and humane. Because sustainable solutions depend on the involvement of the entire community, Southern SAWG is committed to including all persons in the South without bias.
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Do you have something you would like to share in
Seeds of Sustainability
?
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