Last week Pasa staff had the honor to visit Thistle Creek Farms in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania to talk with farmer George Lake–a grassfed beef farmer with nearly 30 years experience. George described how prioritizing ecological health on his farm often means less need to invest in damage control. However he also shared how the changing climate has made for some tough years recently.

Touring the pastures, we got to see firsthand how the benefits of practices like rotational grazing and integrated pest management cascade to increase the health, productivity, and resilience of the whole farm system. George is meticulous about the number of days he grazes each field, based on the vegetation, acreage, and herd size. His six-year-old granddaughter often helps move the fence lines, and George relies on a beloved trio of sheep dogs to move his herds into new paddocks. “Who else would be delighted to get out there and move cattle on a freezing Christmas morning?”

His systems were developed to minimize the use of fuel and equipment, avoid chemical fertilizers and insecticides altogether, and enhance the complicated relationship between sun, soil, grass, and animal. In recent years however, increasingly extreme weather is taking its toll.

In 2018, Thistle Creek, like many farms in the region, experienced record rainfall. Water infiltration tests of the farm’s perennial pastures indicate their soil can absorb up to 12 inches a day, unlike neighboring lands, whose bare soil washed onto their property. But sustained heavy rains made for a lot of mud.

“It was a tough year,” George said.

“What really killed us though,” he said, “was no sunlight. We really are farming sunlight.” Fewer sunny days reduced photosynthesis in the grazing forage, which reduced the sugar levels in the pastures and, in turn, the milk for nursing calves. “It was like the moms had fed them skim milk.”

Many of the farm’s sustainable practices carried them through that tough year. A visiting entomologist explained to George how refusing to spray hay fields with insecticides had likely spared them from a serious leafhopper infestation, which turned many neighboring alfalfa fields yellow in 2018. 

“We were standing out behind the barn, and he said, ‘You have a lot of lightning bugs, don’t you?’ And I said by the hundreds and thousands! My wife and I come out here at night to watch them… And he said, ‘They eat alfalfa leafhopper.'”

George believes that avoiding chemical inputs has helped increase in beneficial bugs in their soil as well. He told us:

“When we started farming, I couldn’t find any worms for fishing. That’s just how degraded our soils were from extensive chemical fertilizer application. Over the years, with a focus on soil health—the land is now teeming with wigglers.”

So far 2022 is shaping up to be a different kind of tough year, much more dry than 2018, though nearly just as hot. The temperature during our visit was well into the 90s, and the global temperature in June of this year was the sixth hottest on record. Across Pennsylvania, many counties are drier than normal or experiencing moderate drought. A focus on soil health, on farms like Thistle Creek, can help them get through a tough dry year too. But as the tough years begin to stack up, farms of all types will need increased support and resources to weather the change and continue to feed their communities.

At a moment like this, with tougher years in the forecast, it’s so vital that George was willing to share his story with us. Part of what I love about Pasa is that this organization understands the value of gathering farmers and community members together to share our hardships, our triumphs, our wisdom, and the deep joy we get out of being stewards of this earth. 

I left Thistle Creek feeling reaffirmed in my knowledge that farms like George’s are both better prepared to withstand the upheaval of a changing climate and more equipped to reverse some of its most damaging effects. Widespread adoption of these practices is no small lift, though, and will require more support from government agencies, research institutions, and the farming community at large. With the Farm Bill reauthorization on the docket for next year, we have an unprecedented opportunity to do just that.

About the author: Lindsey Shapiro is our new Farm Bill Campaign Organizer. Her time in this role will be spent meeting with farmers, working to amplify their voices, and advocating for policies that support regenerative practices.

Do you have a story to tell about climate change on your farm or in your community? Or thoughts about how the Farm Bill can help? Email Lindsey.

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Every five years or so, Congress updates and passes a massive piece of legislation known as the Farm Bill. As Pasa’s policy strategist, I recently hosted a public listening session with Adrienne Nelson of National Young Farmers Coalition to share issues and opportunities, and to hear about farmers’ experiences and concerns with existing Farm Bill programs. (You can get the recording of this listening session here.)

We’ve hosted a number of listening sessions for the Pasa community on topics ranging from small meat processing and industrial hemp, to pesticide drift and agritainment law. However, the participation and tone of our recent Farm Bill listening session was different from many of our past listening sessions. The term “flog” immediately comes to mind—as in, flogging a dead horse. For many people, bringing up the topic of this giant piece of federal legislation is met with a sense that it’s an exercise in futility. So, why should you care?

“For many people, bringing up the topic of this giant piece of federal legislation is met with a sense that it’s an exercise in futility. So, why should you care?”

For starters, the Farm Bill is BIG. It directs federal spending on agriculture and nutrition-related programs to the tune of almost $100 billion per year. Even for the last two years, when pandemic-related spending has grown more abundant, that’s a lot of money. This is money that has the power to shape our landscapes, our farming practices, our energy investments, and our ability to help support others in need. In fact, 75% of the Farm Bill budget currently goes toward nutritional supplement payments to families, known more familiarly as SNAP payments.

Not to mention, this funding has the power to affect what we might consider the common good—promoting resilient ecosystems, sustainable farming operations, and to access new technologies (the federal Resource Enhancement and Protection (REAP) Grant Program in the Farm Bill’s Energy Title that supports solar energy on farms comes to mind). The growth of the Conservation Title—now at 7% of total spending and one of the four biggest titles in the Farm Bill—has supported many regenerative practices under programs like the Conservation Reserve (CRP) and Conservation Stewardship (CSP) programs that address soil erosion, protect stream water quality, and restore multiple natural resource benefits. 

“This is money that has the power to shape our landscapes, our farming practices, our energy investments, and our ability to help support others in need.”

And yet, disinterest and skepticism among farmers and sustainable agriculture supporters abounds, and for good reason. Farm Bills through the years have skewed toward promoting greater agriculture-industry consolidation. They’ve emphasized economic efficiency over equity or environmental protection, and have generated pollution and animal misery through support of confinement operations. Farm Bill administrators have also systematically denied funding to farmers of color.

There are many groups—including Pasa and our community—working to reshape the Farm Bill into an engine for the kind of farming we want to see. This is not an easy battle. There are many interests and forces on the other side working just as hard to ensure that industrial farming remains in place and is subsidized by Farm Bill programs.

It’s also not clear that funding levels by themselves can make a substantial difference. Yes, we’d like to see more money for conservation generally. But we’d like to see that same funding get spread around more equitably. Many farmers can’t access the largess of the Farm Bill for many reasons: they lease instead of own land; they have no access to land; they don’t know how to apply for program funding; they don’t speak or read English well; or they fear deportation. There is so much more work to do than simply lobbying for additional funding. 

“Yes, we’d like to see more money for conservation generally. But we’d like to see that same funding get spread around more equitably.”

Some groups want to dismantle the entire Farm Bill, particularly the programs that support commodity crops and insure against crop loss—an ever-escalating cost due to our changing climate and more frequent drought, flood, and hurricane-related damages. Others are content to tinker in the margins, hoping an increase of 5% in funding for conservation programs is achieved. We are realistic enough to know that the basic structure of the 2023 Farm Bill—including commodity and insurance supports—is not likely to change quickly. We’re optimistic enough, though, to know we have to start somewhere. 

Here are a few ideas we hope will get you energized, and to get you to rethink why it’s important to engage in Farm Bill advocacy: 

• Let’s increase funding that protects and improves soil health on farms and crop nutrient density. 
• Let’s lower barriers to accessing land and Farm Bill program dollars for all farmers. 
• Let’s ensure farmers of all backgrounds and experience levels get technical assistance and financial support.
• Let’s eliminate incentives for industry consolidation, and let’s redistribute more Farm Bill dollars to small and mid-sized farms. 
• Let’s ensure that new technology doesn’t displace or undermine sound regenerative practices. 
• Let’s support more urban farms, and ensure that people who live in low food access areas—urban or rural—can find and afford fresh, nutritious foods. 

We have 12–18 months to get these and other ideas in front of policymakers—I hope you’ll continue to engage with Pasa and other farming organizations to support these efforts. You’re also welcome to contact me at sara@pasafarming.org to share your ideas about the 2023 Farm Bill, or improving agriculture conservation and food-system policies and programs generally.

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Nuffield’s annual conference brings together over 120 farming scholars from more than a dozen countries representing every continent except Antarctica to share their stories, research ideas, and inspirations toward a better tomorrow not only for farmers and food, but for the wider society and world. This year there was an unexpected and distressing backdrop to the meeting—the war in Ukraine.

Our scholar group was privileged to have a video conference with Kees Huizinga, a Dutch immigrant to the Ukraine who has been farming thousands of acres there for decades. Kees spoke of the night the bombings began in his region, of the doors rattling in his home due to the shockwaves of nearby shells, and of telling his children, awakened by the onslaught, that it was war.

He sounded a desperate plea to everyone present to work and try to create real interventions in Ukraine to save not only his people, but also their farms and crops.

“The time to sow wheat is now,” Kees explained, “but farmers are afraid to work their land…their tractors are targets, and their fields have become battlegrounds.”

Everyone in attendance felt, not only the deeper reality of the terrible suffering occurring, but also the practical reality of the coming scarcity in food as the breadbasket of Europe, and arguably the world, was laid siege to. In the coming days, we would also learn that the agricultural solutions to a looming grain shortage are not as simple as some might think.

At this time, some weeks later, the situation in Ukraine remains difficult and unpredictable. Many Ukrainian farmers did miss their planting windows for wheat and other crops, and many others remain threatened by war. The ability for the country to export what might be harvested in months to come is uncertain, and the predicted scarcity in many food crops for the European and world markets later this year is now nearly certain to occur. 

As a response to these developments, President Emmanuel Macron of France recently declared that “agricultural independence” for his nation would now take priority over the sustainable farming goals laid out in the European Union’s Green Deal, and practices emphasizing production and food security would trump conservation and environmental concerns. Although this is an understandable response to this crisis, agricultural independence for the French does not necessarily address the scarcity issues that will likely arise in the Middle East and Africa this year, who are heavily reliant on Ukrainian imports and, next to the Ukrainian people, may be the ones who suffer the most from the results of this war. 

Nuffield scholars from Kenya spoke at the conference about decreasing yields in their region over the last several years due to climate change, a shift in precipitation patterns and temperatures that is in no small way being driven by farming practices that value short term, input intensive yields, over the long-term building of natural capital and resources. In this sense, the short-term policy response from Macron could, over the long term, only exacerbate food security issues, and the resultant migrations that often arise due to food shortages in Africa, for instance, may very well wind up on the doorstep of Europe. 

Ultimately, if our production systems are in conflict with the preservation and enrichment of our natural resources, are they really taking us to a place of food security? Or are we creating a future where the very building blocks of life, such as soil and water, become scarce; where farming becomes increasingly impossible and conflict becomes inevitable? 

The powerlessness everyone felt when Kees made his pleas was frustrating and real, and the French solution to coming shortfalls in commodities is understandable and perhaps even necessary in the moment, but our real hope for the resolution of such conflicts has to lie in their prevention, which may only come from a sea-change in our culture, itself. Such a change may manifest in myriad forms, depending on where we stand in society and how we interact with the world, but as farmers it must come as an agriculture focused on regeneration and union, and collaboration and peace, both with the natural world, as well as one another. Such a cultural change, like building good soil or growing a forest, requires a long-term perspective and goals, but is essential for realizing a truly secure food system and society.

Kees Huizinga is part of a Dutch foundation that provides humanitarian aid for Ukraine, which can be found at deleeuwkiev.nl.

Ukraine is one of many countries where violent conflict is disrupting food systems.

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What’s Good

The 20 mg dosage is the most convenient to take on an on-demand regimen. The more severe the degree of erectile dysfunction a man suffers from, the higher the dosage should be. 20 mg of the main active ingredient of all Cialis generics – Tadalafil – effectively solves problems with the potency of any etiology, both physiological and psychological, as well as mixed. The latter is the most frequent.

A dosage of 20 mg is characterized by the longest duration of action. Although it is generally believed that any dose of Tadalafil remains in the system for 36 hours, it is clear that this is not always the case. There is a direct relationship between the dosage and the duration of the drug in the body. For dosages of 20 or 10 mg, they are significantly more likely to last 30-36 hours than for a dosage of 5 mg. Thus, Generic Cialis 20 mg is the best option for a romantic weekend.

Dosage of 20 mg of Tadalafil is more effective than other options for men weighing over 85 kg. The fact is that usually the dosage of most drugs is based on body weight. Although this rule is observed mainly in the case of very serious drugs, such as chemotherapy drugs or antibiotics poorly tolerated by the body, to a certain extent, the relationship between dosage and body weight is also relevant for drugs for erectile dysfunction, in particular, PDE-5 inhibitors and Tadalafil. At the same time, it is not necessary to be overweight, it is enough just to be a large man with large muscle mass so that the dosage of 10 mg or even more so 5 mg is practically not felt by the body. In such a case, 20 mg is a much more reasonable choice.

If necessary, for example, if the 20 mg dosage is too strong for you and you are experiencing unpleasant side effects, the pill can be easily divided into two parts and thus get a dosage of 10 mg.

What’s Bad

The dosage of 20 mg has its negative sides. For example, if a man, in general, does not tolerate PDE-5 inhibitors well, the maximum dosage of Cialis generics can cause him unpleasant side effects, such as headache, nasal congestion, dizziness, blood flow to the skin of the face and neck, ringing in the ears. If you experience such sensations, it is advisable to reduce the dosage and consult a doctor.

If you want to buy cheap generic Cialis 20 mg, please note that dividing the pill into four parts to get a five-mg dosage is strongly discouraged. This is due to the fact that the tablet is quite small, and even with the use of a special splitter, you are unlikely to be able to get parts of the same size and, accordingly, the same dosage.

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