The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location. The map is based on the average annual minimum winter temperature, divided into 10-degree F zones.

While most gardeners and farmers have been aware of their specific growing zone, they may not be aware that the USDA have updated the  plant hardiness zone map to reflect changes in zones due to climate change.

For instance, our zone here in the Denver area was 5a, and is now considered a 6a–one full zone change. Be sure to check your zone before planning your garden or farm this season!

Photo by Law Keven - Creative Commons

Original article by John Kinsman on Common Dreams.

On Wednesday January, 11 Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Herschberger must appear before a county judge in Baraboo, WI. His crime? Providing unpasteurized dairy products from his small herd of about twenty pastured cows to members of his own buying club.  Half way across the continent in Maine, Daniel Brown, another family farmer with a small livestock herd was notified last November that he was being sued by the state for selling food and milk without a license.   At the time he was milking one Jersey cow.

In Valencio County, New Mexico, the Hispano Chamber of Commerce was forced to cancel its popular Matanza Festival set for Jan. 28th under pressure from the USDA which said the centuries old tradition of processing and serving pigs on site could no longer be done outside of a federally certified slaughter facility.   Last July in Oak Park, Minnesota bureaucrats threatened Julie Bass with up to three months in jail for daring to grow vegetables in her own front yard.  In September,  Adam Guerroro was ordered to remove his kitchen garden because it was deemed a “public nuisance” by Memphis, Tennessee officials.  Apparently, Michelle Obama’s victory garden at the White House falls under a different jurisdiction.

This government crackdown on family farmers is absurd given the current sordid state of our food/farm system and the urgent need to relocalize agriculture for the sake of our health, as well as that of the planet.   Study after study has shown that the most dangerous food is usually that which has endured the most processing and traveled the furthest.

“With millions of Americans contracting food borne illnesses each year, the USDA is committed to supporting research that improves the safety of our nation’s food system,” wrote USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan in the December 2011 issue of Agriview.  In the same issue, it was also revealed that U.S. meat and milk exports had failed to pass the European Union’s standard for drug residues.   Deborah Cera, leader of the drug compliance team at the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, admitted there were many violations involving scores of drugs in U.S. livestock.  In a November 2011 article in the Wisconsin State Farmer, Kim Brown-Pokorny of the WI Veterinary Medical Association,warned that Wisconsin was the worst violator nationwide in terms of illegal drug residues in the meat of culled dairy cows.  Yet, there was no mention in either article of prosecuting or penalizing these drug users or even informing U.S. consumers of this obvious food safety threat.

Continue reading the complete article on Common Dreams.

Willie Nelson has long supported family farms. He has been involved with Farm Aid since it began in 1985 (and is now the president of that organization). While Occupy Wall Street has focused our attention on our banking system, our food system is even more concentrated than our banking system.  In his recent article on Huffington Post, he said:

From seed to plate, our food system is now even more concentrated than our banking system. Most economic sectors have concentration ratios hovering around 40 percent, meaning that the top four firms in the industry control 40 percent of the market. Anything beyond this level is considered “highly concentrated,” where experts believe competition is severely threatened and market abuses are likely to occur.

You can read Willie’s full article here.

A bit older news, but still something to pay attention to. Why do government officials, and even some neighbors feel threatened by vegetable gardens in front yards? Why are lawns okay when they are a total waste of water, yet growing food is illegal?

High Altitude Permaculture presents the 6th annual Permaculture through the Seasons!  A local 8-month course in Boulder, Colorado with Permaculture Design Course Certification.

March 10th – October 14th, 2012.  Second weekend of each month.

Course Facilitators: Sandy Cruz, Barbara Mueser, and Lynne Duguay.

Guest Instructors: Jason Gerhardt, Becky Elder, Marco Lam, Adam brock, and more!

Program Cost

$950.00 if registered by 1/10/12
$1100.00 if registered by 2/10/12
$1200.00 after 2/10/12
Some work/study half-trades available based on financial need and skills.

Download the course flyer and registration form.

Permaculture through the Season Course Flyer

Permaculture through the Seasons Registration Form

Call Sandy Cruz to register – 719-539-7685 or visit www.HiAltPC.org for more information.

Fun info-graphic from Frugal Dad.

Source: Frugal dad

It is hard to believe that we are coming up on another farm bill in 2012. It is almost harder to believe that Colorado Local Sustainability has been around  since 2007, working to promote sustainable farmers and ranchers in Colorado, and beyond.

Check out this short video by Michael Pollan about the upcoming farm bill.

Go to the original article By Barbara Damrosch, on the Washington Post

While the supercommittee deliberated about farms, food and spending, inboxes were bulging with suggested priorities. On Slow Food USA’s wish list was “funding for conservation, new farmers and other programs that support sustainable farmers and ranchers.”

Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardeners International, proposed “using the federal tax code to promote gardening through a $1,000/household garden stimulus package.” My own two cents’ worth came in an address at Maine’s Common Ground Country Fair titled “It’s a Cute Little Movement, but Can It Feed the World?” I’d been provoked by a flood of articles declaring that only large-scale, industrial, biotech farms can save our increasingly overpopulated planet. That small farms and gardens cannot do that has become a mantra, self-replicating its merry way to pseudo-truth.

Plenty of studies prove otherwise, and the one that does the best job of exploding the myth is the massive effort, launched in 2002 by the World Bank, called the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, or IAASTD. Unprecedented in its inclusiveness, it involved 61 countries and more than 400 agricultural scientists. As the work went forward and 500 pages of distilled findings came together, evidence piled up that small-scale, diverse, sustainable farms (and even home gardens) had the most potential to solve the world’s hunger problems while reversing modern agriculture’s devastation of our ecosystems.

Continue reading the full article on the Washington Post.

photograph by Eric Michael Johnson for The New York Times

In these continuing challenging times, I’m sure many will relate with this article, and perhaps become inspired to do the same. – ed.

Go to the full article by Susan Gregory Thomas on the New York Times site.

I’M not interested in being hip or a hippie. Nor does my happiness particularly hinge on artisanal cheese. (Odd, perhaps, given that I grew up a stone fruit’s throw away from Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif.)

As a 42-year-old Brooklyn mother of three, what I care about is lunch, and feeding my family on a tenuous and unpredictable income. And so I have 20 fresh-egg-producing hens and a little garden that yields everything from blackberries to butternut squash to burdock root.

My turn with spade and hoe started a few years ago when I found myself divorced and flat broke. My livelihood as a freelance writer went out the window when the economy tanked. I literally could afford beans, the dried kind, which I’d thought were for school art projects or teaching elementary math. And I didn’t know how to cook.

Continue reading the full article by Susan Gregory Thomas on the New York Times site.