OCA's Blog
Dewayne "Lee" Johnson has led what many might call an unremarkable life. The 46-year-old father and husband spent several years working as a school groundskeeper and spending free time teaching his two young sons to play football. But this week he takes center stage in a global debate over the safety of one of the world's most widely used pesticides as he takes Monsanto to court on claims that repeated exposure to the company's popular Roundup herbicide left him with terminal cancer.
Thanks to Regeneration International’s roving reporter Oliver Gardiner for producing “The Spirit of Sadhana,” the first episode of “Trails of Regeneration,” a video series featuring stories from around the world about people who love and care for nature’s ecosystems and human well-being.
Gardiner takes us to Auroville, India, where we meet Velvizhi V, a regeneration steward from Chennai, South India. As she walks through her city, Velvizhi reminds us about the heavy monsoon rains and severe flooding that hit southern Asia in August of 2017, killing more than 1,200 people in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Against a backdrop of video footage from the 2017 floods, Velvizhi explains that even though the city experienced record rainfall, none of that rain managed to replenish the aquifer.
When you have a huge problem, you send your biggest army. You’re probably thinking that army belongs to China, India or the U.S., right?
Wrong. The Chinese army is around 1.3 million people—a fraction of the size of the 2.3-billion global “army of agriculturalists,” says agronomist Guy Webb, in the new 20-minute documentary “Grassroots.”
According to Webb, more than any other group of people, farmers have the ability to solve one of the most challenging issues facing mankind—climate change.
Meet Murray Provine. He used to be a steak-and-potatoes type of guy living a no-exercise, traveling-executive lifestyle.
All that changed after Provine was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Luckily, radiation destroyed Provine’s tumor. He got a second chance.
That’s when Provine decided it was time for him to eat right and take control of his own health. He knew his body was full of toxins. It needed to heal itself. One way to do that, he decided, was to start growing his own food.
Under the tutelage of rancher and consultant Allen Williams, Provine converted his 110-acre horse property in Clarksville, Georgia, into an Adaptive Multi-Paddock grazing farm.
Three years later, Provine and his land are in much better health. Both transformations are well-documented in Peter Byck’s most recent film, “This Farm is Medicine.”
“I think when the traditional people disappear, the traditional values will disappear.”
So says Wendell Berry in a recent film that portrays the changing landscape and shifting values of rural America and describes the lives of farmers who have been deeply affected by the industrial agricultural era.
“Look & See: Wendell Berry’s Kentucky” features observations by this prominent writer, farmer and activist on how the agrarian way of life has been lost.
Despite growing demand for locally produced foods, millions of Americans live in rural areas where they have little or no access to any kind of healthy, nutrient-dense food, much less food produced in their own community.
To build healthy local organic and regenerative food systems, we need help from policymakers and from forward-looking business and community leaders.
We also need strong consumer demand. You can help, by supporting local businesses and independent farmers.
Robert Reich wants you to know about the biggest economic problem you’ve heard almost nothing about—the Monopolization of America—and how it affects what you pay for food and other consumer products.
In his latest video on Facebook, released Sunday and already seen by more than 500,000 viewers, Reich says America’s monopoly problem stems from the “hidden upward redistribution of money and power from the majority of Americans to corporate executives and wealthy shareholders.”
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved last week the first U.S. facility for production of genetically engineered (GE) salmon.
Though the facility near Albany, Indiana, has now been approved, AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. is prohibited from importing eggs necessary for producing GE salmon due to an FDA appropriations law requiring labeling of imported foods derived from “bioengineered” sources. Once the “import alert” labeling guidelines are established, the company will be given the green light to begin production of its AquAdvantage Salmon in the new U.S. facility.
These fish, approved for commercial sale by the FDA in November 2015, are the first genetically modified animals to be approved for human consumption. The FDA is not requiring the product to be labeled as genetically engineered because, as the agency —stated, the data and information evaluated show that AquAdvantage Salmon is not materially different from other Atlantic salmon.
What if there were one solution that could fix a lot of the world’s problems?
That’s how organic farmer Ben Dobson began his TEDxHudson talk a few years ago. “Appropriate organic farming techniques and properly planned grazing can reverse climate change,” Dobson told his audience.
How do you grow sunflower sprouts? Start your own seedlings without plastic pots? Should you save seeds?
These are just a few of the questions people interested in homesteading ask themselves. They’re also topics that the managers of Vía Orgánica, a regenerative teaching farm and ranch in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, provide instruction on to local farmers and students. (Vía Orgánica is a sister organization of Organic Consumers Association).
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