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Ranching to Produce Tacos Sin Carbon: The Low Carbon Foodprint of Grass-fed Beef and Sheep Production in the Semi-Arid West
By:
Gary Paul Nabhan, Duncan Blair, and Dennis Moroney
Published: February, 2010
Should the issues of fossil fuel use, carbon emissions
generated from the food system and their contribution
to global warming influence how ranchers manage
their operations and how they sell their livestock
for beef? Perhaps ranchers who are consistently good
land stewards are doing enough already, so that asking
them take on the issue of what happens to their
livestock once it leaves the ranch may be asking too
much. To paraphrase one wise sage, “Ranching can be
one of the most elegant, simple means of providing
food to the world that exists. The trouble is keeping
it simple.”
While ranchers in the American West once faced
criticism for how they managed public and private
rangelands, they are generally getting more praise
than ever before for their innovative land stewardship
practices. But what has replaced the so-called ‘Range
Wars’ is public anxiety over something else: the effects
of ‘industrial meat production’ on global warming,
and the effects of meat consumption on human
health. Consumers and environmentalists appear
to be preoccupied today with issues such as how far
cattle travel to feedlots, and what they eat once they
leave the range.
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Drought drives Middle Eastern pepper farmers out of business, threatens prized heirloom chiles
By:
Gary Paul Nabhan
Published: January 15, 2010
Most Turks live on the water's edge in the far western reaches of their vast country. But many of the spices that perfume the air in Turkey's famous urban bazaars come from the nation's southeastern farming areas of Sanliurfa and Kahramanmaras. In fact, spices from this region rank among the most highly prized condiments and herbs you can find in any spice emporium anywhere.
As I wandered through the Misir Carsisi Spice Bazaar in Istanbul, and the Kemeralti Bazaar at the western terminus of the Silk Road in Izmir, I could see the chile powders, pastes and dried fruits from Sanliurfa and Kahramanmaras proudly and prominently displayed.
Urfa and Maras peppers from Turkey have the same international fame that Aleppo (Halaby) peppers do from Syria, Tabascos do from Louisiana, or Habaneros do from the Yucatan. But their prices are soaring and supplies are becoming scarce—not merely because of international demand, but because of drought and agricultural water scarcity triggered by global climate change.
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10 tips for living gracefully in the desert
By:
Gary Nabhan Special To The Arizona Daily Star
Published: January 3, 2010
• Each time it rains, follow the flow of water through where you live, and see how it can be encouraged to nurture the most life.
• Find what is edible within a quarter-mile of where you live, track its seasons of edibility, and incorporate it into your diet.
• Make an interspecific peace pact with the wildlife that lives closest to you to "do no harm."
• Reduce your carbon footprint by sun-drying all your clothes as well as all the fruit that you can't immediately eat when it is ripe.
• Talk to the oldest person in your neighborhood to learn what the place used to smell, sound, taste and look like.
• Talk to the youngest people in your neighborhood and ask them what they'd like the place to be like in another 10 to 20 years, then help them achieve your common goals.
• Make a list of major environmental or cultural mistakes made in the Southwest over the last century, and promise not to let history repeat itself.
• Make an artistic monument in a nearby public space to all that has been lost in the Southwest - or your neighborhood - and host a day of grieving and a festival of repentance.
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As American as Apple Pie?
By:
Melinda Burns
Published: November 26, 2009
John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed, the pioneer nurseryman, would be turning over in his grave, wherever it is, if he knew how far from the apple tree Americans have strayed.
The barefoot wanderer who carried apple seeds by the bushel from Pennsylvania to the wilderness of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, promoting a vast diversity of apple varieties to help settlers survive on the Western frontier, would not be "happy as can be" to find out that 40 percent of the U.S. crop today is Red Delicious.
Ten other apple varieties such as Gala, Fuji and Golden Delicious largely make up the rest of what's sold in supermarkets. But there was a time in the late 19th century, America's "golden age of apples," when an estimated 6,650 named varieties flourished in "the fruited plain" from coast to coast.
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Rare foods experts visit St. Augustine for pepper
By:
Richard Villadoniga
Published: November 5, 2009
Gary Nabhan, of the Renewing America's Food Traditions Alliance and an award-winning writer on food biodiversity, visited St. Augustine recently to research St. Johns County's datil pepper.
Several years ago. Nabhan first nominated the datil pepper for the Slow Food Ark of Taste, a "Hall of Fame" for rare but flavorful regional foods. Now he and two colleagues are looking at how climate change is affecting food supply, particularly with regard to its impacts on rare, place-based heritage foods.
With the help of Chef Kurt Friese of Iowa City and Kraig Kraft, an agroecologist, Nabhan is touring North America to get a better sense of how culinary traditions are adjusting to changes in the climate and ecosystems.
"We just got back from a trip to northern Mexico, just over the Arizona border. We were looking at a pepper that is harvested there called the chiltepin, which was recently hit by a hurricane that dumped 22 inches of rain in the desert in one day," Nabhan said. "Because it's the only native wild pepper in North America, we've been worried that storms, floods, and even drought are reducing its availability,"
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