Author: blogger

Sustainable agricultural practices are essential to feeding a growing and voracious global population.

Farmers throughout Australia clearly recognise the need for sustainable agriculture. In short, sustainable farms lead to a sustainable business that can be handed down through generations.

There is a strong argument for an industry-based environmental stewardship system that recognises sustainable agriculture practices.

While environmental groups, producer bodies and regional groups in Australia have filled the gap, an umbrella environmental stewardship program would be beneficial.

The industry is in the process of developing a stewardship management system for producers, to allow more effective management and reporting on sustainable agricultural practices.

This system will address five crucial areas: greenhouse gas and energy management; land use and management; soil and water; biodiversity; and feral animals and weeds.

Australian red meat producers actively undertake measures at each stage of production to increase their efficiency, cut greenhouse gas emissions and manage other environmental impacts to help preserve our natural resources.

The domestic red meat industry invests more than $7.5 million each year in research and development (R&D) to find ways to make constant improvements to its environmental performance.

This includes collaborating with other livestock industries and governments in R&D to find practical ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while increasing productivity. Since 1990, emissions from red meat production have decreased by 6.5% per kilogram of product.

Through holistic management of their properties, Australian farmers nurture not only their livestock but the soil, trees, micro-organisms, native animals and vegetation that make up their production system. Not only is this important for sustainable farms but it is important for Australia’s quest to cut overall emissions.

A worldwide analysis of the effects of land management on soil carbon showed there is on average about 8% more soil carbon under well-managed pasture than under native forests.

While sustainable farming practices make good business sense, consumers are also increasingly seeking more information about the sustainability profile of their red meat.

The Australian red meat industry is actively engaged with the Sustainable Agricultural Initiative (SAI) Platform – a unique initiative set up in Europe five years ago by leading food companies with a conviction that a common food and agricultural industry platform can promote sustainable agriculture at a global level.

The SAI Platform is an independent association operating across the agriculture, food and fibre chain and aims to change practices to improve agriculture sustainability outcomes.

The Platform’s business approach is known as the -PPPs’ where three dimensions are considered – people, profit and the planet.

Australian agriculture is in a strong position to meet the growing global demand for food. As an agricultural nation with a strong focus on exports, Australia’s farmers are committed to sustainable agricultural systems.

To continue to harvest the long-term economic benefits of food production, Australia’s farmers need to continue to innovate and invest in sustainable agriculture.

Sustainable agricultural practices should be employed for all Australian farming. Learn more at redmeatgreenfacts.com.au

There are some really unique healing solutions that I discuss in my book that have beneficial healing applications in multiple areas.
Effective Microorganismsare one of the most amazing solutions that cross the areas of human health, animal health, agriculture, environmental remediation, and aquaculture, to name a few of its applications. Here is a chapter from my book that highlights the amazing potential of Effective Microorganisms.
My discovery of EM was another accident. I was looking for a few quotes from Masaru Emoto in his book, The Secret Life of Water, when I stumbled upon references to Hado and Hado Medicine. As I read further I realized that he was referring to the basic premise of this book that everything has a vibration, frequency, and resonance. His term for using energy is Hado. This concept has a different name everywhere in the world, but refers to the same thing, which is the conscious use of life energy. This is yet another data point in my growing collection of data points that supports the discoveries that I made in natural healing and how the energy of things plays into all of them.
EM is part of Dr. Emoto’s set of Hado examples in The Secret Life of Water. He discusses at length the incredible results that were being seen around the world as part of Dr. Teru Higa’s work in using EM in environmental cleanup, agriculture, construction and other applications. Since I’m on a crusade to find cool healing things, I immediately did a web search on Dr. Higa and EM to learn more. What I discovered amazed me and motivated me to get involved in using EM and distributing the products.
EM Technology is the use of antioxidants, enzymes, and other bio-available compounds derived from fermentation of a specific culture of microorganisms to exert beneficial effects on the surrounding environment. The technology was developed by Dr. Teruo Higa, a professor of horticulture at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, Japan. EM Technology is used in making several patented products ranging from various water treatment devices to jewelry, textiles, plastics, and building materials.” EM1 Microbial Inoculant is a liquid containing many co-existing microorganisms. The major groups of microorganisms in EM1 Microbial Inoculant are lactic acid bacteria, yeast, and phototropic bacteria. EM was first developed in 1982 as an alternative to synthetic chemicals in the field of agriculture. Through extensive research and experiments over time, EM became recognized as effective in various fields, including environmental remediation, recycling organic wastes, reducing odor in livestock operations, treating wastewater, and many more.
A significant body of research recorded at the EM Research Organization in Japan supports all of the incredible applications and use cases that are attributed to EM Technology. Time does not permit me to delve deeply into them here as this will be include in-depth in my book where I will have had at least one year of personal experience and research to validate what I already intuitively believe to be true about EM Technology.
My understanding of EM is as follows- the microbes in EM1 Microbial Inoculant are probiotics for the Earth. Like the beneficial probiotics that I take to keep bad bacteria in check in my digestive system, the EM1 Microbial Inoculant does the same thing, only on a much broader scale. In Dr. Higa’s book, Our Future Reborn, he explains how we have forces of syntropy (positive energy, life-giving) effects and entropy (negative energy, destructive) effects on nature and our world. In the invisible world of microorganisms Dr. Higa observed that 10% are good, beneficial to life and 10% are bad, destructive to life, the other 80% are uncommitted. Like spectators in the human race, the uncommitted are watching the action from the sidelines and will jump in on the side of the winning team once they can determine who has the momentum and the will to win.
So to take my metaphor further, EM is the champ in every encounter. It has a knock out punch that the bad bacteria can’t handle. It has what Dr. Higa calls magnetic wave resonance. This is an incredible syntropic healing energy. I call it Ki on steroids.
It defies all common sense and scientific logic. This is one of the reasons I like EM Technology, because like many of the things I embrace, there is no science to completely explain it. Just boatloads of research and documented evidence on its successful application in solving many of the world’s pressing problems.
EM will confound right brain thinkers, scientists, and engineers because it’s efficacy and application defies our collective experience. It delights left brain thinkers like me. It sounds too good to be true. You can’t see magnetic wave resonance, just the results that it delivers. It confounds all the modern thinking and scientific logic. I love it! The people who think what I have written in this book is a bunch of hooey will really dislike EM, because they can’t comprehend it, will want to dismiss it, and then will have to accept it in the face of a large library of evidence that it really works. The proof is in real tangible results. EM absorbs energy. It appears to absorb free form energy from an external source. This mechanism is similar to when plants use carbon dioxide and solar energy to synthesize substances, resulting in powerful energy. In the case of EM, this mechanism is thought to involve a strong antioxidizing function simultaneously combined with the wave effect that absorbs energy from an unidentified source. There are many types of wave motion, but EM wave motion is believed to have ultra high frequency, ultra low energy magnetic wave resonance qualities that defy common sense. Although further study is required, EM’s effects on dioxin and radiation, natural healing powers and energy-conservation properties cannot be explained without this peculiar magnetic wave resonance.
So this citation makes everything crystal clear to you, doesn’t it?
Success stories abound in Dr. Higa’s wonderful book, Our Future Reborn. It is required reading. One of the most incredible stories was the restoration of the Seto Inland Sea with EM. This massive cleanup project started with the formation of a taskforce to educate the public and to gain acceptance and usage of EM-based products for sewage disposal, dioxin pollution remediation, soil remediation, and direct infusions of EM into estuaries and the Seto Inland Sea which was extremely polluted. The fish, shellfish, and seaweed populations were minuscule due to residential, agricultural, and industrial pollution. EM was introduced into all of these sectors for the treatment of wastes. They also set up a massive fermentation system to produce EM1 Microbial Inoculant in quantities to support wide use and to dump directly into the polluted sea.
In just five years the nearly lifeless Seto Inland Sea was teaming with schools of fish. The shellfish populations were at pre-industrial pollution levels. Octopus returned, and the seaweed beds were producing clean, fresh, edible product once again. I have never heard of this large-scale pollution remediation success before. I find it almost unbelievable but it is all documented.

Magnesium deficiency may bring about ADD and ADHDsymptoms. The reasons for this involve understanding what Magnesium is and how it works in our bodies.

Magnesium is a mineral. It is the 4th most abundant element in your body. ADHD studies have shown that Inadequacies in magnesium can bring on a host of problems and symptoms are among the symptoms that have been linked to nutritional Inadequacies of this mineral.

The majority of teen age children in this country have, according to Scientific studies performed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Unites State Department of Agriculture, significant magnesium Inadequacies.

Magnesium is necessary for hundreds of chemical reactions in the body. Our muscle and nerve function depends on magnesium as do our skeletal system and our immune system. Magnesium is needed to maintain normal blood sugar levels and a normal blood pressure. Perhaps the most significant role that magnesium plays is in protein synthesis and energy metabolism.

Magnesium works with calcium to power the cells in our body but according to the 2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and published in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, What We Eat in America, 2006-2007 Report, most of our kids have magnesium Inadequacies. Many younger young kids and adults do as well but the statistics are most alarming for teens. Eighty-nine percent of boys and seventy percent of girls aged 14-18 have inadequate dietary intake of Magnesium.

Research Studies have found that magnesium can be used to improve a host of conditions including anxiety and depression. There is some scientific evidence that magnesium may be able to regulate neurotransmitter function. Deficiencies in magnesium, which can caused by excess perspiration or by decreased diet intake will worsen these conditions.

These Inadequacies may result in faulty neurotransmission as well as anxiety, depression, migraine headaches, mood disorders, hyperactivity and decreased concentration. Low magnesium has also been linked to sudden cardiac death, mitral valve prolapsed, diabetes and hypertension.

Several Research Studies have shown that supplementation with 80 mg to 200 mg of magnesium daily improves anxiety, depression and ADD and ADHD symptoms.

Most multivitamins have between 20mg to 50 mg of magnesium. This may be plenty of supplementation if you, or your children, are eating foods that are rich in magnesium such as green leafy vegetables, lot of whole grains, walnuts, cashews, and peanuts, beans, fish, pumpkin, bananas, avocados, raisins, milk products and tomato paste but is likely not enough if you are not and if this is the case then supplementation is required.

Magnesium is an essential nutritional element that may be deficient in the diet of most Americans. High schoolers in particular, are likely to have magnesium Inadequacies. Magnesium is lost through respiration and sweating and active people are more at risk for having borderline low magnesium levels than people who are sedentary. Eating foods high in magnesium or supplementing your diet with a magnesium vitamin is essential to avoid the poor health outcomes that result from low magnesium levels.

Check your multivitamin to insure that you and your children are getting enough magnesium. Those of us, who like hot chocolate and coffee, have yet another reason to drink more of these beverages. It turns out that cocoa and caffeine both contain a fair amount of magnesium. Some of the mood lifting effects of chocolate and coffee could be attributed to these magnesium levels.

The Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disordercommunity has been quick to recommend fatty acid supplementation to improve the behavioral symptoms that bring on problems in people with Attention Deficit Disorder. The research community is only now learning that nutritional substances such as calcium, magnesium and zinc also play a role in moderating our mood and our behavior.

By supplementing our diets with magnesium we may avoid worsening the symptoms of ADHD and may, in the process not only improve our overall health but also diminish the incidence of developing conditions such as depression and anxiety that often accompany a diagnosis of ADHD.

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A new study says one-point-three billion tons of food are wasted or lost every year, causing significant harm to both the environment and the economy. The food losses occur as an estimated 870 million people go hungry every day.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says it has released the first study to analyze the impacts of global food wastage from an environmental perspective.

The report differentiates between food loss and food waste. Food loss is due to such things as poor harvesting, inadequate storage and transportation. Its more of a supply side issue. Food waste, meanwhile, comes on the demand-side during processing, distribution and consumption.

FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said, Every day, consumers, especially in the rich countries, waste almost as much food as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa. The implication of this massive food waste for food security and sustainability is huge. If we reduce food loss and waste, we have more food available without the need to produce more and putting less pressure on natural resources.

The report Food Wastage Footprint: Impacts on Natural Resources says the amount of food that is produced, but not eaten, guzzles up a volume of water equivalent to the annual flow of Russias Volga River. That unconsumed food, it says, is also responsible for three-point-three billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

Developing countries suffer more food losses during agriculture production. But in high income regions, food waste at the retail and consumer level tends to be higher. Up to 40 percent of total wastage compared with only four to 16 percent in low income regions, he said.

Graziano da Silva added theres also the economic cost.

The food wastage means $750 billion every year. This impressive figure is the equivalent of the GDP of Switzerland.

Joining in the release of the new report is Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP, the U.N. Environment Program. He called the $750 billion figure an extraordinary wake-up call for those thinking about food security and agriculture.

In that figure we may not even capture many of the more indirect impacts that are associated with degradation of natural resources. The impacts on climate change. The drivers that will cost perhaps not todays consumers of food, but tomorrows children and grandchildren, who have to run our economies and mange these impacts in ways that are economically not yet fully captured, said Steiner.

He emphasized the losses and waste do not only occur on land.

We again have phenomena where in many fishing fleets sometimes 20, 30, 50percent of the catch is thrown back into the sea. But it is not as if fish will happily continue to swim. Many of them will be dead and essentially no longer available either for consumption or indeed for maintaining the fish stocks of the world. So, we are really trying to address a phenomenon here today that concerns each and every one of us on the planet, he said.

He said the types of food being raised to meet the demands of growing economies are having a greater impact on the environment. More countries are adopting a Western style diet thats high in meat consumption. Livestock produce a lot of greenhouse gasses.

Our initiative with thinkeatsave.org is to reach out to literally citizens across all countries, all continents, in all sectors, to become part of addressing this phenomenon of wastage that simply is unnecessary, unacceptable and unsustainable in the 21st Century. We are all able to address this issue by becoming part of the solution, said Steiner.

Recommendations to reduce food loss and waste include raising awareness about the problems through media campaigns coordinating international initiatives and strategies and investing in public and private projects that reduce loss along the food chain from field to market to consumer.