Echo

Farm runoff woes: Can voluntary programs alone keep dirt out of the water?

By |

By Jeff Gillies
jeffgillies@gmail.com
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 17, 2009

The Great Lakes and the Chesapeake Bay both field noxious summer algae blooms fueled by dirt and nutrients from farm fields. The six northeastern states that drain into the Chesapeake Bay have a patchwork plan to curb it. It doesn’t work and never will, says a recent report by the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit lobbyist and research group. The report claims runoff prevention programs fail because they’re voluntary — farmers that don’t want to participate don’t have to.

Echo

VIDEO: Fighting to farm by greening the rust belt

By |

By Troy Hale & Geri Alumit Zeldes
Great Lakes Echo
Sept. 9, 2009

Each week about 50 high school and college students feed the hens, tend the greenhouse and sift the new compost at Harvesting Earth Educational Farm located in Beecher, a community outside of Flint. To break up the tasks, farm owners Master Jacky and Dora King, black belts in karate, teach these young workers self-defense moves using rakes, hoes and shovels. For many of these young people, this is their first job. For the Kings, the farm is sowing the seeds of sustainable agriculture that may save Flint.

Echo

Getting Benton Harbor to tap area’s bounty

By |

(MI) The Herald-Palladium – Fruit and vegetable growers from six farms stood at folding tables Wednesday afternoon in the parking lot at the Mercy Center in Benton Harbor. The tables were filled with locally grown produce, all the colors of the rainbow. More

Echo

From junk pile to farm park

By |

(MI) Detroit Free Press – Howard Taylor might never have started his own theme park if his wife hadn’t reached her limit with the junk strewn about their yard. “I bought an old sawmill in 1991 and had the pieces spread out everywhere,” said Howard Taylor, who with his wife, Gloria, has created Wellington Farm Park, where visitors can tour a village that re-creates life on the Depression-era farm he knew as a child. More

Echo

Huge crowds show up for first Edible Flint Food Garden Tour

By |

(MI) The Flint Journal – They came, they saw…and they ate the cherry tomatoes. More than 160 people showed up at the Flint Farmers’ Market Tuesday night to pack a caravan of buses for a free tour of Flint’s booming urban agriculture movement. Not even the organizers expected so much interest and enthusiasm for the first Edible Flint Food Garden Tour.  More

Echo

Big pigs, big problem: Feral swine spread to Great Lakes region

By |

By Chris Parks
parksch3@msu.edu
Great Lakes Echo
July 10, 2009

The wild pigs already troubling southern states are slowly becoming an issue in the Great Lakes region. In recent years these feral swine have been concentrated in California, Texas and southeastern states. But in Michigan alone there were 200 sightings of these animals in more than 60 counties as of late 2008. “Unfortunately, most statewide agencies don’t have individual numbers, but the pigs are now in at least 35 states,” said Seth Swafford, project manager for the United States Department of Agriculture’s feral swine management. And their numbers appear to be increasing in the Midwest, he said.

Echo

Cow power comes to the Great Lakes region

By |

By Thomas Morrisey, tmorrisey@gmail.com,
and Sarah Coefield, coefield@msu.edu,
Great Lakes Echo
July 7, 2009

A new multimillion-dollar research project at Michigan State University will transform manure from a bothersome waste to a green energy powerhouse. The East Lansing, Mich. university’s Anaerobic Digestion Research and Education Center, will focus on developing small digesters that use bacteria to break down manure into biogas. It is part of a group of similar efforts across the Great Lakes region. Biogas is made up of mostly methane, carbon dioxide and effluent sludge, a nitrogen-rich substance that can be used as fertilizer. The biogas, which can be generated from dairy, swine or poultry manure, can be burned to generate electricity and the sludge can be spread on fields as an alternative to using untreated manure.

Echo

Midland’s main drag to become farm market on summer nights

By |

(MI) Bay City Times – Downtown Midland will become a Farmers Market from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday evenings in July and August. Main will close to through-traffic from Rodd to Townsend to allow farmers to sell produce from the backs of their vehicles in the angled parking spaces. More

Echo

VIDEO: New perennial wheat easier on soil, passes cookie test

By |

By Steven Davy, stevenrdavy@yahoo.com
Great Lakes Echo
June 23, 2009

Crop and soil sciences researcher Sieglinde Snapp hopes her work at Michigan State University produces a more sustainable wheat. The variety she’s developing doesn’t have to be planted every year, and early research suggests it is easier on the soil, needs less fertilizer and contains more protein and micro-nutrients. It tastes good, too. Federal agriculture officials like the wheat so much they recently awarded the university a $1 million grant to help bring it to market. Snapp and graduate student research assistant Brook Wilke explain in this video the wheat’s research, potential and cookie test.