Support your Local Farmers

Here in Hopkinton that might seem silly or unnecessary, or more expensive. But I guess you you never thought of why you should, and your right. Why should you support your local farmers? Well there are plenty of reasons, but we are gonna focus on the a few of the big reasons.

The first reason is buying local. Why is buying local so important? While eating locally produced products means more money stays within our community. Every dollar spent generates twice as much income for the local economy. Locally grown food tastes better because it is typically sold around 24 hours after being picked. In an article by the University of Vermont they state that "Local food keeps taxes down. According to several studies by the American Farmland Trust, farms contribute more in taxes than they require in services, whereas most development contributes less in taxes than the cost of required services. Cows don’t go to school, tomatoes don’t dial 911."

When we buy name brand produce at a supermarket we are supporting factory farming witch is harmful to the environment. So when when we buy from our local grocery store we are buying produce that is typically from our local farms. Buying local produce is better for the environment and sustainability of the local wildlife and their habitats because our local farms conserve fertile soil, protect water sources, and lower our carbon footprint. But how is factory farming or row cropping bad for the environment and our local farms? Well row cropping is used by big industry farms that have "kicked out" smaller family owned farms. These farms are also known as factor farms. They do not practice sustainable farming and do not have a crop rotation. Factor farms have changed the landscape from rolling prairies, big forests, prairie potholes, and small duck ponds to what it is now, just rows of crops in a way that is bad for the environment, the soil and the water. So if we support our local farmers and our environment will be helpful.

Citations

Grubinger, Vern. "Ten Reasons to Buy Local Food." University of Vermont,
     www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/factsheets/buylocal.html. Accessed 18 Dec. 2019.

Deforestation is a World Wide Problem

What do we think of when we hear deforestation? Well i'm guessing the Amazon rain forest, we are constantly hearing about the Amazon being deforested on the news, but deforestation is a really a world wide problem as well. For example 1970 Cambodia had about 70% of it's primary forests but by 2007 they only had 3.1% of their primary forests.

Here in New England we did undergo a forest transition phase prior to 1985 but we have been in a secondary phase of deforestation. Since 1985 we have lost more than 950000 acres of forest. That is just about 5% of New England's forests.

Why is the Amazon being deforested? The Amazon is being deforested for soy bean production, land grabbers and the valuable wood. China is looking to Brazil for soy beans in the wake of the US placing tarrifs on trading with China. As a result of the tariffs Brazil's farmers have began producing more soy beans but are clearing more land from the rainforest to make more fields for soy production. Deforestation has risen by 278%. World wide deforestation accounts for 24% of the earths greenhouse emissions.

Why does cutting down trees increase carbon emissions? Well trees absorb the CO2 though photosynthesis and the trees use the CO2 as food. As a result the CO2 becomes apart of the tree and is stored as wood. So when the tree dies or is cut down the carbon it has been storing gets released into the atmosphere. A tree can absorb as much as 48 pounds of CO2 a year. This means by the time the tree is 40 it has stored about 1 ton of carbon. So when we are cutting down trees that are 300 to 1,000 years old in the amazon, we are releasing anywhere between 25 and 7.5 tons of carbon into the atmosphere. In the Amazon every acre has about 200 trees. So for every acre deforested there is about 5000 to 1500 tons of carbon released into the atmosphere.

Forestry is important but how we go about it is just as important. We cant just cut down all the trees and not replant trees. It is important of the wildlife and our ecosystem. We need to practice sustainable forestry to keep our ecosystems healthy.

Citations

Gaworecki, Mike. "Deforestation has been occurring continuously in New England
     since the 1980s." Mongabay, edited by Mike Gaworecki, Mike Gaworecki , 19
     Aug. 2016, news.mongabay.com/2016/08/
     deforestation-has-been-occurring-continuously-in-new-england-since-the-1980s/.
     Accessed 16 Dec. 2019.

Olofsson, P., Holden, C. E., Bullock, E. L., & Woodcock, C. E. (2016). Time series analysis of satellite data reveals continuous deforestation of New England since the 1980s. Environmental Research Letters, 11(6), 064002. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/6/064002

Foster D R 1992 Land-use history (1730–1990) and vegetation dynamics in central New England, USA Ecology 80 753–72 

Drummond M A and Loveland T R 2010 Land-use pressure and a transition to forest-cover loss in the eastern United States Bioscience 60 286–98

EPA 2015 Inventory of US Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks 1990–2013 (Washington, DC: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) 

How is Factory Farming killing the Environment

What is row cropping and how is it killing our environment? Well let's take a look.


Row cropping is used by big industry farms that have "kicked out" smaller family owned farms. These farms are known as factor farms. They do not practice sustainable farming and do not have a crop rotation. Factor farms have changed the landscape from rolling prairies, big forests, prairie potholes, and small duck ponds but now it is just rows of crops in a way that is bad for the soil and the water.





Factory farms are using fertilizer to try and keep their crops alive and get them the right nutrients. The fertilizer they used is mostly consisted of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. This farming is bad for the soil because when you plant the same crop every year without a crop rotation, the nutrients that crop needs aren't in the soil. So in order for them to keep planting the same crop they are constantly using fertilizer to try and grow their crops. Even with the consistent fertilizing the nutrients aren't staying in the soil but instead it's becoming apart of the watershed and causing major problems with the local water in lakes and rivers.





This watershed from farmland is creating "Dead Zones" and toxic algal blooms. This watershed is finding its way into the lakes and rivers. The tributary rivers from Montana to New York which fed into the Mississippi river are high in nitrogen and phosphorous.

Shannon1

There is three times as much nitrogen as there was in 1950 in the Mississippi river and phosphorous has doubled. This means there is more phytoplankton, more sinking cells, and lower oxygen levels. Once the oxygen levels get around or below 2 the fish start to leave or die.

This gif from a climate.gov website shows what the oxygen levels could be if we don't change how we farm.





What can we do to help solve the problem? Well we can start be having an annual crop rotation to keep healthy nutrient levels in the soil. Another solution would be to plant a few rows of trees, shrubs and a grass strip. This will make a riparian buffer which will reduce sediment erosion and to help prevent fertilizer from getting into the rivers.

Works Cited

Rabalais, Nancy. "The Dead Zones." Nov. 2017. Ted.com, uploaded by Nancy
     Rabalais, Nov. 2017, www.ted.com/talks/
     nancy_rabalais_the_dead_zone_of_the_gulf_of_mexico#t-525069. Accessed 19
     Nov. 2019. Speech.

Shannon1. "Detailed map of Mississippi River tributary structure." 2019.
     American Rivers, www.americanrivers.org/river/mississippi-river/.
     Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.

Lindsey, Rebecca. "Wet spring linked to forecast for big Gulf of Mexico 'dead
     zone' this summer." Climate.gov, www.climate.gov/news-features/features/
     wet-spring-linked-forecast-big-gulf-mexico-%E2%80%98dead-zone%E2%80%99-summer.
     Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.

United States, Congress, Senate. Harmful Algal Bloom Research and Hypoxia
     Research and Control Act of 1998. Congress.gov, www.congress.gov/bill/
     105th-congress/senate-bill/1480. Accessed 25 Nov. 2019. 105th Congress,
     Senate Bill s.1480, agreed to by Senate 30 Sept. 1988.

Hypoxia Task Force, Environmental Protection Agency. (2015). Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force 2015 Report to Congress. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-10/documents/htf_report_to_congress_final_-_10.1.15.pdf (Accessed June 17, 2019)

What are some bad logging practices and

how can we fix them?

In the article What you can do to help prevent climate change, according to experts? they talk about "Solutions to halt the ongoing damage are already available, such as using renewable energy, restoring ecosystems, doing regenerative farming..." These are some solutions to bad logging and farming practices which are unsustainable and unsuitable for a healthy relationship with an ecosystem. 

These logging practices lead to deforestation, and in extreme cases inhabitable land. A good example of unsustainable logging and farming and the aftermath of it would be the great dust bowl of 1930 which lasted a decade and made the land inhabitable and not suitable for farming. They can also lead to dangerous interactions with wildlife. For example the deforestation in India has driven the Indian leopard into towns to find food. This is a dangerous situation and is driving the Indian leopard and other species to the point of being endangered or even worse extinct.

What can we do to prevent these things from happening? Well sustainable forestry will allow loggers to harvest trees without wiping out the forest. This allows loggers to harvest small acre amounts and instead of cutting down all the trees they only harvest the bigger and older trees leaving the smaller to mid sized trees to grow. When you are farming crops on a large scale it is best to do a crop rotation annually or every two years. This is because different crops need different nutrients and a crop rotation allows the nutrients a chance to replenish and keeps the soil healthier. Having a crop rotation also reduces the risk of diseased crops. So you will get a better crop yield when you have a crop rotation. This keeps a healthy environment for farming and forestry.