The Thin Dark Line: David Huggins on the Global Soil Crisis
Soil is crucial to sustaining life on our planet, feeding everything from microbes to elephants. Unfortunately, the world’s soil is being reduced to a thin dark line. Tillage and erosion are the root causes of agricultural soil loss and land degradation, creating one of the most serious environmental problems worldwide.
Tillage, the turning of soil by hand, animal or machine, leaves the soil vulnerable to wind and water erosion. It also scars soil in such a way that the soil’s ability to provide nutrients and sustain productivity is greatly diminished. The resulting soil-loss crisis threatens not only food production but many ecosystem services that provide clean water and air as well as biodiversity, thereby helping to maintain the overall health of the planet. Read more »
Essay Contest for FFA Members - Win $1000
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The Rodale Institute has announced its first annual essay contest entitled “How Can Farming Restore Human and Ecological Health?” The contest is open to high-school students who are FFA members and are enrolled in vocational agriculture classes. The essay should creatively grasp and discuss the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for coming generations of farmers as they face diminishing natural resources, mounting evidence of environmental problems, and over-use of chemicals in food production. Learn more »
Styger Family Dairy Farm
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“We want to leave the land better than when we found it,” explained Linda Styger. She and her husband, Andy, began dairy farming in the Chehalis Valley nearly 30 years ago and became certified organic in 2004. Making the switch to organic proved economically advantageous.
“It’s a consistent pay price and we can budget accordingly,” Styger told the group at an early October Farm Walk sponsored by Tilth Producers of Washington and the Washington State University Small Farms Team. Read more »
National Rankings for Ag Sciences at WSU
We're number two--and number four, six, seven and eight! Researchers in the agricultural sciences at Washington State University are among the most productive in the nation, ranking in the top 10 in almost every ag-related discipline, according to statistics recently released by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Nov. 15, 2007. Learn more about about the productivity of our world-class faculty.
On Solid Ground
Subscribe to our free weekly e-newsletter, On Solid Ground, and stay current with research and new from WSU's College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences. In this week's issue: New Director, Range Transition, Organic Expands. After you subscribe, you'll receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription; if you don't see it in your inbox be sure to check your junk mail folder and mark it as safe.
Voice of the Vine
Voice of the Vine is a free, bi-weekly e-newsletter covering viticulture and enology at Washington State University. Each issue brings you one or two short articles featuring profiles of researchers, students, and alumni working in Washington's world-class wine industry. Subscribe today! Visit the Voice of the Vine archive. After you subscribe, you'll receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription; if you don't see it in your inbox be sure to check your junk mail folder and mark it as safe.
Farming among the next crop of local startups
As demand grows for local food -- an appetite fueled by health-conscious urban families, schools, food banks and restaurants -- many are questioning where that supply and a new generation of farmers will come from, says an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Our Farms to Your Table
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Check out this new video from the WSDA. It's about 10 minutes long and is available in both high- and low-bandwidth versions.