John Vidal reports that “Fertiliser prices have mostly doubled and in some cases risen by 500% in 15 months as US farmers have rushed to plant more biofuel crop”… ”There have been fertiliser riots or demonstrations in Vietnam, India, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan and Taiwan in the last few months. Last week one man…
Category: Food Security
Families Dig For Dinner As Oil Crisis Hits
Here’s a range of news items related to the cascading effects of rising oil prices around the world: Degraded land, unsustainable agriculture and unaffordable fuel prices are devastating ordinary people in Lesotho, a small, mountainous African nation. How are ordinary families feeding themselves? Click on this link to read this special BBC News report about…
Sustainability Messages From The USA Salmonella Outbreak
Small is good for your health, especially where locally grown and consumed food is concerned. Why? It minimises the scale and spread of disease. The latest Salmonella outbreak in the USA has important messages for Australians: 1.Wash fresh food before eating 2.Install and maintain rainwater systems properly 3.Local food networks contain and minimise certain diseases
Any Suggestions For Reducing Our Larder’s Ecological Footprint?
I’m looking for simple suggestions as to how I could further reduce our larder’s ecological footprint, reducing food miles, greenhouse emissions and making Bellis more sustainable. The cost of food is intimately linked to the cost of oil so prices are rising and I have a tight budget. Last month I listed all the products…
Using Every Drop More Than Once
The last thing we want is for any water to go down the drain. By mid-morning today, heavy showers filled our 21,000 litre rainwater tank. It’s starting to overflow into our network of drainage pipes, which soak the soil deeply from 70 cm down and below. When this network has done its job the subsoil…
International Compost Awareness Week
International Compost Awareness Week started on Sunday and today I installed a new compost bin from Aerobin. It took an hour:
Botanical Stamps
A selection collected by my parents, grandfather and me. One way for a child to learn about plants and places…and a bit of botanical latin too. There’s just one from my grandfather’s collection: Cattleya skinneri, an orchid. Stamps of his era hadn’t tapped into the profitable collectors’ market. There are more from my father’s collection…
New Book: How To Create A School Food Garden
Here is the best step by step guide showing how schools can set up an organic food garden. This book is packed with brilliant, practical suggestions for establishing and maintaining an inexpensive Seed Saver garden. Schools are currently eligible for government grants to help establish organic food gardens, and by using this guide, success can…
Safer Solutions – Media Release
Total Environment Centre (TEC) today released the ‘Easy Guide to Organic Gardening’ at the showcase of the Integrated Sustainability Education Partnership Program. The new guide provides home gardeners with advice on how to avoid exposing themselves and their families to the harmful chemicals found in many synthetic pesticides, fertilisers and herbicides used in the garden.
Investing In Water Security
Level Five watering restrictions came into force in Brisbane this week. On average, each person in Brisbane uses about 198 litres of water per day. Brisbane City Council wants to reduce this to approximately 140 litres of water per day. This target will be hard to achieve as we are entering our long, dry season…
On The Price Of Bananas
Do you buy imported Chiquita bananas? Bananas are so easy to grow organically at home we only really need buy Australian farmed bananas when our own plants are out of season. Chiquita bananas have made gardening headlines before: it’s a soulless, ruthless multinational which until today I only associated with their blatant disregard for the…
Reducing Water Use… Again
We need to make further water economies at home. On the bright side the rainwater tank is just over half full, so that’s enough water for three people for four weeks sparing household use, but if we do this none can be used for gardening. The sewage system provides about 330 – 350l of recycled…
Jerry Coleby-Williams 