#american agriculturist
Text
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY
based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … April 13
c.435 BC – The Greek philosopher Aristippus was born on or around this date (d.circa 360 BC). He was a pupil of Socrates, but adopted a very different philosophical outlook, teaching that the goal of life was to seek pleasure by adapting oneself to circumstances and by maintaining proper control over both adversity and prosperity. Aristippus held that the highest purpose and virtue was the pursuit of pleasure.
Aristippus was born at Cyrene. He came over to Greece to be present at the Olympic games, where he fell in with Ischomachus the agriculturist, and by his description was filled with so ardent a desire to see Socrates, that he went to Athens for the purpose, and remained with him almost up to the time of his execution, 399 BCE
One work attributed to "Aristippus" in ancient times was a scandalous work entitled On Ancient Luxury (or On the Luxury of the Ancient Greeks). This work, judging by preserved quotations was filled with spicy anecdotes about philosophers and their supposed taste for boy-lovers and courtesans. The author supports his claims for Plato's various erotic relationships through his quotation of epigrams attributed to the philosopher.
"The art of life lies in taking pleasures as they pass, and the keenest pleasures are not intellectual, nor are they always moral." - Aristippus
1841 – Michigan amends its sodomy law to specify that emission of semen is not necessary for completion of the crime.
Molinier - Self-portrait
1900 – Pierre Molinier was a painter, photographer and 'maker of objects' (d.1976). He was born in Agen (France) and lived his life in Bordeaux. He began his career by painting landscapes, but his work turned towards a fetishistic eroticism early on.
Molinier began to take photographs at the age of 18, and started his erotic production around 1950. With the aid of a wide range of specially made 'props' - dolls, various prosthetic limbs, stiletto heels, corsetry, dildos and an occasional confidante - Pierre Molinier used his own body as the basis for surreal and fantastic distortions of the human form, blurring sexuality and gender and ultimately producing a large body of photographic work. Most of his photographs, photomontages, are self-portraits of himself as a woman.
By combining costume, props, photography and photomontage he stepped beyond mere photographic representation of himself and his models to create a bizarre and distorted world of gender-confused fetishism and auto-eroticism.
He began a correspondence with André Breton and sent him photographs of his paintings. Later Breton integrated him into the Surrealist group. Breton organised an exhibition of Molinier's paintings in Paris, in January-February 1956.
In 1976, as his health began to decline, Pierre Molinier lay on his bed in front of a mirror, masturbated and committed suicide by shooting himself. The staging of his death initially led police to suspect he had been murdered but it seems that his death was Molinier's final creative act.
1936 – Win Ng (d.1991) was a Chinese American sculptor, industrial designer and illustrator. He is best known as the co-founder of the groundbreaking San Francisco based handmades department store Taylor & Ng.
Ng was born in Chinatown, San Francisco. He studied at the City College of San Francisco and San Francisco State University. After serving in the United States Army he studied at the San Francisco Art Institute receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1959.
Ng was openly gay.
In 1965 Ng met artist Spaulding Taylor and shifted his focus toward utilitarian work. The two founded Environmental Ceramics (the precursor to Taylor & Ng) and moved into creating handmade artware and homewares. The company called Taylor & Ng was founded during the same period and, with the addition of Win Ng's brother, Norman Ng, as president, grew into a major producer and retailer of housewares.
Through their own San Francisco department store and wholesale business, Taylor & Ng not only created a signature style still in demand by collectors, but helped to popularize Asian culture and cuisine. The Taylor & Ng company is credited with bringing the Chinese wok to the U.S. and making it a common kitchen utensil.
Ng died on September 6, 1991 from AIDS related complications. He was 55.
1937 – On this date the award winning playwright Lanford Wilson was born (d.2011). Considered one of the founders of the Off-off Broadway theater movement, Wilson received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Wilson was raised in Missouri by his mother, but in 1956 he moved to California, where he worked and attended college. There, Wilson lived with his father, who did not accept Wilson's homosexuality, and so, in 1957, he moved to Chicago, where he worked as a graphic artist and studied playwriting.
Wilson began his active career as a playwright in the early 1960s at the Caffe Cino in Greenwich Village, writing one-act plays such as Ludlow Fair, Home Free!, and The Madness of Lady Bright. The Madness of Lady Bright premiered at the Caffe Cino in May of 1964 and was the venue's first significant hit. The play featured actor Neil Flanagan in the title role as Leslie Bright, a neurotic aging queen. The Madness of Lady Bright is considered a landmark play in the representation of male homosexuality. It was the longest running play ever to appear at the Caffe Cino, where it was performed over two hundred times. Wilson was subsequently invited to present his work off-Broadway, including his plays Balm in Gilead and The Rimers of Eldritch.
Wilson was a founding member of the Circle Repertory Company in 1969. Many of his plays were first presented there, directed by his long-standing collaborative partner, Marshall W. Mason. The Circle Rep's production of Wilson's The Hot l Baltimore won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, and the Obie Award, and was adapted into a television program by Norman Lear. In 1979 Wilson received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Talley's Folly.
Wilson's style and approach has evolved over the years, sometimes resulting in drastically different effects. Some of his plays are extremely radical and experimental in nature while others clearly have a more mainstream, if still creative, sensibility. His first full length play, Balm in Gilead, is perhaps his most radical, yet it also remains one of his most popular. The play had a memorable off-Broadway revival in the 1980s, directed by John Malkovich, a co-production of Circle Rep and the Steppenwolf Theatre Company.
In addition to writing plays, Wilson has written the texts for several twentieth century operas, including at least two collaborations with composer Lee Hoiby: Summer and Smoke (1971) and This is the Rill Speaking (1992) (based on his own play).
1945 – Joseph Doucé (d.1990) was born to a rural family in Sint-Truiden, Belgium. He was a psychologist and Baptist pastor in Paris. He was openly gay and was among the founders of the International Lesbian and Gay Association. He served as a volunteer soldier in the OTAN base at Limoges (France), where he had time to perfect his French. After one year of pastoral and humanistic studies at Stenonius College (also known as Europaseminär, a Roman Catholic seminary today extinct) in Maastricht, the Netherlands, he began his conversion to Protestantism around 1966.
His Centre du Christ Libérateur was a ministry to sexual minorities. The center had support groups for homosexuals, transsexuals, sadomasochism and pedophiles.
Doucé was killed and the murder has never been solved. According to Doucé's lover, he was taken away by two men, who showed police badges on July the 19th 1990. The body was found in a forest in October 1990.
The killers are thought to be a unit of the French police, Renseignements Généraux, who investigated Doucé because of his support for pedophiles.
1950 – The American actor Terry Lester was born on this date (d.2003). Lester was born in Indianapolis, Indiana and began an acting career while at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.
After years of musical theater, concert performances, numerous prime-time TV guest roles, and a season starring in the 1976 children's series Ark II, Lester had his big break when he joined CBS daytime soap The Young and the Restless (Y&R) in 1980. He created the role of Jack Abbott, a scoundrel who never met a woman (including his own father's wife) he didn't want to take to bed. Lester was so popular that Y&R creator William J. Bell wrote an entire family for him. Y&R was going through a transition period at this time and many fans believe that Lester's star quality helped the show build more viewers and eventually rise to #1 in the daytime soap ratings.
Lester kept his personal life under wraps, but a 2002 In Magazine LA article on former soap star Thom Bierdz claimed that Lester, along with Michael Corbett and Bierdz, made up a trio of gay actors who worked on The Young and the Restless in the 1980s.
1958 – On this date Harvey Lavan "Van" Cliburn, Jr. achieved worldwide recognition by becoming the first American to win the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow. He was all of 23.
In 1998, Cliburn was named in a palimony lawsuit by his alleged domestic partner of seventeen years, mortician Thomas Zaremba.
1966 – Martin Pousson is an American novelist, poet, and professor.
He was born and raised in Louisiana, in the Cajun French bayou land of Acadiana. Some of his favorite writers include Carson McCullers, Truman Capote and James Baldwin, as well as Denis Johnson and Junot Diaz.
His first novel, No Place, Louisiana (2002) told the story of a Cajun family and an American dream gone wrong. The novel won acclaim from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Cunningham and the Los Angeles Times, and it was a finalist for the John Gardner Book Award in Fiction.
His first collection of poetry, Sugar (2005) centered on the lives of outsiders, especially Cajuns, Southerners and gay men. Some of the poems also dealt with racism and the AIDS epidemic. He says that this collection would not have ever been published if it were not for a friend's saved copy of the manuscript. In 2005, he was named one of the Leading Men of the Year by Instinct magazine, alongside Jake Shears, Robert Gant, and Keith Boykin.
He is currently Associate Professor of English at California State University, Northridge, in Los Angeles. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program and the Queer Studies Program, and some of his most popular courses include Narrative Writing, Advanced Narrative Writing, Theories of Fiction, and Gay Male Writers.
He was named a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts in Creative Writing for 2014. The NEA grant was awarded for a collection of short stories in development titled "Black Sheep Boy." The stories are about a homosexual boy coming of age sexually in the bayous of Louisiana. The stories also are about mental illness and werewolf myths.
1990 – Queer Nation – The direct-action group's inaugural action took place at Flutie's Bar, a straight hangout at the South Street Sea Port on April 13, 1990. The goal: to make clear to patrons that queers will not be restricted to Gay bars for socializing and for public displays of affection. More visibility actions like this one became known as "Queer Nights Out."
2014 – The Finnish Post announces that Tom of Finland (Touko Valio Laaksone) will appear on postage stamps.
13 notes
·
View notes
Text
Make the cowboy Mexican again. A man in a vaquero ensemble brands a steer. From a sketch by Franco-American illustrator Edward Jump (1831?-1883), as published in "American Agriculturist," 1870.
Found on the blog JPTAK Science Books.
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
Usually—and this is even more true in “communist” than capitalist countries, where the state is almost the only employer and everyone is an employee—work is employment, i.e., wage-labor, which means selling yourself on the installment plan. Thus 95% of Americans who work, work for somebody (or something) else. In Cuba or China or any other alternative model which might be adduced, the corresponding figure approaches 100%. Only the embattled Third World peasant bastions—Mexico, India, Brazil, Turkey—temporarily shelter significant concentrations of agriculturists who perpetuate the traditional arrangement of most laborers in the last several millennia, the payment of taxes (= ransom) to the state or rent to parasitic landlords in return for being otherwise left alone. Even this raw deal is beginning to look good. All industrial (and office) workers are employees and under the sort of surveillance which ensures servility.
From Abolishing Work, by Bob Black
I don't think any office worker in India believes feudal agriculturists are left alone when they pay rent or that it's a better deal. The indian peasant in drowning in debt, with debt increasing by 58% while real incomes only went up by 14% in the last 5 years. High rates of farmer suicides are a documented phenomenon across the third world.
#anarchist texts take life outside the white collar world more seriously challenge#left discourse#cw: suicide#bob black
23 notes
·
View notes
Text
My favorite line from this:
"...I'm not one for making teleological arguments, but I can tell you that somehow, despite our savagery, we have been over-provided for, and I believe it is a sign of love."
(essay under cut)
Imagine cupping an Ansault pear in your palm, polishing its golden-green belly on your shirtsleeve. Imagine raising it to your lips and biting, the crisp snap as a wafer of buttery flesh falls on your tongue. Imagine the juice shooting out—you bend at the waist and scoot your feet back to prevent the drops from falling on your sneakers. . . .
Imagine it all you can, for it's all you can do. You'll never eat an Ansault pear. They are extinct, and have been for decades: dead as dodo birds. How could this happen to a pear variety which agriculturist U. P. Hetrick described, in a 1921 report called "The Pears of New York," as "better than any other pear," with a "rich sweet flavor, and distinct but delicate perfume"? The dismaying truth is that you can apply that question to thousands of fruits and vegetables. In the last few decades we've lost varieties of almost every crop species. Where American farmers once chose from among 7,000 apple varieties, they now choose from 1,000. Beans, beets, millet, peanuts, peas, sweet potatoes, and rice all have suffered a large reduction in varieties. In fact, over 90 percent of crops that were grown in 1900 are gone.
Of course, next to "Save the Whales," a bumper sticker reading "Save the White Wonder Cucumbers" sounds a bit silly. And as long as we haven't lost pears altogether, the loss of a particular variety, no matter how good, isn't cataclysmic. We have a lot of other worries. How many years of sunlight do we have left? Of clean air? Water? But when we lose a variety of pear or cucumber, even one we're not likely to taste, or, in an analogous situation, when we lose a language, even one we're not likely to hear, we're losing a lot more than we think. We're losing millions of bits of genetic information that could help us solve our big questions, like who we are and what we're doing here on earth.
Farming has always been subject to the manipulations of human desires, but up until the last several decades these manipulations increased crop diversity. Long before Mendel came along, our farmer ancestors were practicing a kind of backyard Darwinism. Early Peruvian farmers, for example, noticed mutations among the colors of their cotton fibers, and by breeding the cotton selectively, they were able to grow different colors to weave vibrant cloth. When farmers moved, they took their seeds with them, and various growing conditions increased crop diversity even further as the varieties reacted to new environments or evolved new defenses for pests or blights. And in this way farmers farmed for about 10,000 years. Even at the beginning of this century, small farms were varied; each grew many crops and sometimes several varieties of a particular crop. If a blight attacked one species of a farmer's corn, it was likely that the farmer, or another farmer nearby, would also have grown a variety of corn that turned out to be resistant.
But as the century wore on, agribusiness was born. Now, giant agricultural agencies develop fruits and vegetables specifically for giant farms, which concentrate on a single variety of a single crop sanctioned for high-yield growth. These new crops aren't self-reliant—many hybrids can't even produce offspring, putting an end to the age-old tradition of gathering seeds from the current harvest for next year's crop. They are dependent upon intensive fertilizers, pesticides, and insecticides. They are grown only if they can withstand mechanical harvesting and the rigors of shipping to distant markets, and these packing considerations shape our diet in startling ways, as anyone who's followed the quest for the square tomato can tell you. Some biotech companies have taken the human manipulations of crops to a profitable—if seemingly unnatural—extreme. Biotech giant Monsanto, maker (and dumper) of hazardous chemicals like PCB, filed for a patent in 1997 for a seed whose germination depends not on being exposed to a rise in temperature or an inch of rainfall, but being exposed to a certain chemical.
So now, according to the International Food Information Council, we have scientists crossing two potatoes to make a new hybrid which will be higher in starch and need less oil for frying, resulting in lower-fat fries. But genetic engineers don't stop with crossing two kinds of potatoes. Genes from a potato could be crossed with a carrot, or a banana, or a daschund, if genetic engineers thought such a crossing would improve the potato's shelf-life. Recently, genetic engineers have crossed the strawberry with a gene from the flounder to make a strawberry resistant to cold. In this way, millions of years of nature's "decisions"—which crops should fail, which thrive, which qualities parents should pass to their offspring—are reversed almost overnight. The Union of Concerned Scientists is—well—concerned. Poet W. S. Merwin likens our position in history now to the start of the nuclear age—we are rushing to embrace technology that will change us in unalterable, unforeseeable ways.
A problem with miracles is that sometimes they don't last. A miracle yield hybrid's defenses are often based on a single gene, an easy thing for continuously evolving pests to overcome. And meanwhile, back at the ranch, there is no more ranch—the small farms that grew the original parent varieties that crossed to make the super vegetable have failed. The parents are extinct. Unless genetic raw material resistant to the pest can be found in some other variety, the hybrid will be lost as well.
The first crop to be nearly wiped out due to lack of genetic diversity is the humble spud, which the Europeans brought home with them after "discovering" the New World. King Louis XVI of France saw the potato's potential for feeding the poor and was determined to spread the crop. He knew that publicly endorsing the potato, however, would earn it the commoner's enmity. So Louis grew a bumper crop and had the field guarded all day, but he removed the guards at night so the locals could raid the field. Potatoes were soon growing throughout France and beyond. In Ireland, the potato became the staple crop—by the 1840s a third of the Irish were dependent on it for nourishment. But since all the potatoes grown in Europe were the descendants of that original handful of potatoes brought over from the Andes, the crop had a narrow gene pool. When Phytophtora infestans struck in 1845, the potato lacked the resistance to combat it. The Freeman's Journal reported on Sept. 11 of that year that a "cholera" had rotted the fields; one farmer announced that he "had been digging potatoes—the finest he had ever seen" on Monday, but when he returned Tuesday he found "the tubers all blasted, and unfit for the use of man or beast." A five-year famine followed that slashed the population of Ireland by 20 percent, killing between one to two million people and forcing one to two million others to emigrate to the U.S. The potato was saved only when resistance to the blight was found in more diversified varieties of the potato still growing in the Andes and Mexico. Had it not been, it's unlikely the potato would be around today as a major crop.
While the potato famine might seem like dusty history, the U.S. corn blight proves we're not doing much to stop history from repeating itself. In Shattering: Food, Politics, and the Loss of Genetic Diversity, environmentalists Cary Fowler and Pat Mooney describe the 1970s hybrid corn plants as "sitting ducks." As a result of a cost-cutting measure, each of the several hundred varieties of hybrid corn seed had the same type of cytoplasm. That made the entire crop susceptible to any disease that could come along and exploit that uniformity—and, of course, one did. Even today we have several dangerously unstable crops including—gulp—coffee and chocolate. The dangers of genetic uniformity are currently being cited in an altogether new arena—the Genome Project. Now that scientists have engineered vegetable hybrids, what's stopping scientists from creating human hybrids? Could cloning so narrow our gene pool that a single epidemic could destroy us like the potato blight nearly destroyed the potato?
Imagine hiking high into the Sierra Nevadas and coming across the Northern Pomos. Imagine being able to converse with them in their language. Imagine clicking your tongue against the back of your teeth to say "sunset," aspirating in your throat to say "waterfall." Imagine learning the idiomatic expression for "hungover" and using it to great effect, comparing it with others you know—how the Japanese expression for "hungover" translates as "suffer the two-day dizzies," how Italians say "I'm out of tune," how the Czechs say "there's a monkey swinging in my head," how Arabs don't have any word at all for "hungover." Imagine trading recipes with an elderly Northern Pomo, then walking with his wife through a stand of ponderosa pine, their trunks so thin, because of the high atmosphere, that you could fit your hand around them. You tell her you need to stop talking, for you've developed a sore throat. She questions you about it, then bends down to a small plant and yanks it out of the ground. This yerba del manza will soothe your throat, she tells you, and she gives hints on how to recognize the plant again should your soreness return. Imagine going to bed that night, your throat calmed, your mind blossoming with Northern Pomo words that will fill the cartoon bubbles of your dreams. . . .
Imagine it all you want, but Northern Pomo, spoken for millennia in Northern California, has perished like the Ansault pear; its last speaker, a woman in her eighties, died a few years ago.
Today we have the impression that there's a rough 1:1 correlation between countries and languages; each nation is monolingual. But this has never been the case. In the sixteenth century, for instance, five major languages were spoken in the English King's domain. Our country was especially language rich because each Native American tribe clung fiercely to its tongue as a signifier of cultural difference; Edward G. Gray in New World Babel estimates that, when European contact occurred, there were between 1,000 and 2,000 distinct tongues in the Americas, nearly half of which are now extinct. A graphic way to understand this is to peruse the maps in The Atlas of World Languages edited by C. Moseley and R. E. Asher. The maps showing pockets of language before the colonizers arrived in America are many-colored, many-patterned quilts; each subsequent map is increasingly bleached, increasingly pattern-free.
Languages don't die because they are in any way inferior or deficient, as has been sometimes supposed in the past. They die because of pressures on minority communities to speak the majority language. Sometimes this pressure is economic, as seen, for example, with the Waimiri-Atroari of Brazil, a tribe of 500 people in the Brazilian Amazon, whose tongue is listed in the UNESCO Red Book of Endangered Languages. The Waimiri-Atroari are mostly monolingual, but they have experienced increasing contact with the Portuguese-speaking majority. The tribe is growing in bilingual members because learning Portuguese widens the Waimiri-Atroari's potential market from 500 members to 160 million. As the proportion of bilingual members of the tribe rises, members of the tribe might begin using Portuguese when speaking to each other; it follows that the motivation for children to learn their native tongue will erode. The language's death will surely follow.
Sometimes the pressure for a minority community to speak the majority language is not economic but political, as has been the case with Native American languages in the U.S. since European settlement began. Early U.S. settlers had a romantic notion of language difference as a cause of personality difference. Since some Native American languages were found to lack abstract concepts like salvation, Lord, and redemption, the settlers presumed the speakers of these languages to be unable to grasp these higher concepts. It seemed to follow that Native Americans' salvation could only be achieved by "liberating" them from their restrictive native tongues. "In the present state of affairs," Albert Gallatin wrote of Native Americans in Archaeologia Americana in 1836, "no greater demand need be made on their intellectual faculties, than to teach them the English language; but this so thoroughly, that they may forget their own." In his report on Indian affairs, Reverend Jedediah Morse recommended the suppression of any texts in Native American tongues. There were supporters of America's original languages—Thomas Jefferson, for one, compiled vocabulary lists of Native American words throughout his lifetime. But even today we haven't a national policy of language preservation. In fact, between 1981 and 1990, fifteen states enacted "Official English" laws to guarantee English as the language of the U.S. government. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in his 1839 Democracy in America, "the majority lays down the law about language as about all else."
Languages are termed "moribund" if they are spoken only by a small group of older people and not being learned by children. These languages stand in contrast to "safe" languages, as defined by criteria set out in Robins and Uhlenbeck's Endangered Languages. A safe language has, at a minimum, "a community of 100,000 speakers" and the "official support of a nation-state." These numbers don't necessarily represent a swelling, robust population—Gaelic, for example, is among the safe languages—but 80 percent of the languages spoken in North America fail to meet even those standards. In Australia, 90 percent of the languages are moribund. As I write this, sixty-seven languages in Africa are being spoken for what may be the last time. The more fortunate of them are being documented by linguists, who spend much of their professional lives rushing to record a language before it dies. When it does, they find themselves in the rather lonely position of linguist Bill Shipley, the last human being on earth who can speak Maidu.
In my girlhood I thought that languages were codes that corresponded; each word in English had its exact equivalent in every other language, and language study was the memorization of these codes. Later when I studied my first languages I learned that such codes do not exist; each language is a unique repository of the accumulated thoughts and experiences of a community. What do we learn about a culture by examining its language? The Inuit people live in the northernmost regions of the world, in small, roadless communities on the ice, and lack our modern electronic conveniences. They have no word for boredom. Poet Anne Carson writes of the Yamana of Argentina, a tribe extinct by the beginning of the twentieth century, who had fifteen names for clouds, fifty for different kinds of kin. Among the Yamana variations of the verb "to bite" was one that meant "to come surprisingly on a hard substance when eating something soft, e.g., a pearl in a mussel." The Zuni speak reverently of "penaµ taµshana," a "long talk prayer" so potent it can only be recited once every four years. The Delaware Indians have a term of affection, "wulamalessohalian," or "thou who makest me happy." The Papago of the Sonoran Desert say "S-banow" as the superlative of "one whose breath stinks like a coyote."
During this century, eighty-seven languages spoken in the Amazon basin have become extinct because their native speakers were scattered or killed. Some of these forest dwellers were both nonviolent (their languages lacked vocabulary words for war and bloodshed) and democratic (they included terms for collective decision making). When these languages died, they took with them not only the specialized knowledge that the tribes had gained from thousands of years of natural healing and conservation, but ways of living we might have done well to study. In the absence of these examples, as John Adams wrote, "we are left to grope in the dark and puzzle ourselves to explain a thousand things which would have appeared very simple if we had . . . the pure light of antiquity."
But even beyond this rather romantic notion of the need for language preservation, there are concrete and empirical losses to science when languages become extinct. There's a wealth of information that can be extracted from languages by the use of statistical techniques, and this information can be used not only by linguists, but by anthropologists, cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, geneticists, and population biologists, among others. Hypotheses about human migration patterns can be tested by seeing whether words have been assimilated into a language from the languages of nearby populations. Hypotheses about neural structures and processes can be tested by analyzing the phonology and syntax of a language. Hypotheses about the hardware of our brains capable of generating sentences can be tested against the different sentences. What must all infant brains have in common that any child can acquire any language? The more data we have, the closer we can come to answering questions such as this. Furthermore, recent studies indicate that language learning causes cognitive and neural changes in an individual. At a recent conference at the Center for Theories of Language and Learning, Dr. Mark Pagel argued that when a child acquires a disposition to categorize objects through word-learning, some neural connections in the brain are strengthened, while others are weakened or eliminated. Previous learning affects a system's way of categorizing new stimuli, and so Pagel concluded that, although it may be true that all humans "think in the same way," one's native language influences one's perceptions. When we lose linguistic diversity we suffer a consequent loss in the range of ways of experiencing the world.
Yet we needn't constrain ourselves to discussions of hard science, for the issues involved in diversity are more far-reaching. If the language ability, as many theorists hold, is what separates us from animals, it is the central event of human evolution. Each language that dies takes with it everything it might have taught us about this unique aspect of our constitution. If language is a well-engineered biological instinct, as Steven Pinker argues in The Language Instinct, each language that dies takes from us another clue to the mystery of what keeps the spider spinning her web or the hen warming the eggs in her nest. The cognitive organization which shapes our language facilities also shapes other mental activities related to language, such as music and mathematics. Each language that dies not only weakens linguistics but all of these related fields—all fields, in fact, that seek to understand the human brain. Each language that dies takes from us a few crucial parts of nature's tale, so much of which (even how and when the universe was created) still eludes us. In fact, each language that dies weakens our most vital challenge—to engage the world in all its complexity and to find meaning there. This is the definition of both art and religion. To lessen the complexity of the world is to lessen our moral struggle.
I've written "personal essays" before, and this isn't one of them. I haven't told you very much about myself. I haven't told you if I'm a scientist (I'm not) or a linguist (I'm not). I'm a poet. So the argument could be made (perhaps some of you are making it right now) that I'm not qualified to write this essay. But I'm qualified to make metaphors, and that's what I've tried to do. I read books on crops and languages and I begin to hear them speaking to each other, and soon the desire is born in me to speak of them to you.
I've argued for empirical reasons we need diversity on our table and in our ears. But I think one of the most important reasons we need diversity isn't based on grubby need, isn't based on a what-can-nature-do-for-me mentality. I don't want the argument to rest solely on that because plenty of people will think they have all that they need. And in a way they're right. After all, we live in an era of hysterical data. It's exhausting. Let's have enough faith in our own self-interest, if in nothing else, to assume we will never lose the pear or the potato. Let's have enough faith in our own torpidity, if in nothing else, to assume we will never have a unilingual world. So okay, we lose a few varieties of Ethiopian sorghum—varieties once so beloved they were named "Why Bother with Wheat?" and "Milk in my Cheeks." Do we really need forty kinds? Isn't four enough? It's not like only having four friends, or even four varieties of dogs. A seed company streamlining its offerings isn't like a museum streamlining its Van Gogh collection. And if we lose a few obscure languages, maybe that's the price one pays for having fewer translators and English as a "universal business language," saving time, frustration, and money. Why should we be overly concerned if what's lost wasn't useful to us in the first place?
Of course, there's an old rejoinder but a good one—our responsibility to the future. In poem No. 1748, Emily Dickinson writes, "If nature will not tell the tale / Jehovah told to her / Can human nature not survive / without a listener?" But nature ceaselessly tries to tell her tale to the patient and attentive, and her tale is still unfolding. Each seemingly interchangeable variety of sorghum contains a distinct link of DNA that reveals part of nature's story. Similarly, each language is a biological phenomenon that reveals millions of bits of genetic information and contains within itself clues that help us understand how our brains are organized. What clues our progeny will need is beyond our power to know. We can't imagine what will be useful, necessary, what will provide a link, prove or disprove a hypothesis. Losing plants, losing languages: it's like losing pieces to a puzzle we'll have to put together in a thousand years, but by then puzzles may look entirely different. We might put them together in the dark, with our toes.
Yet beyond the idea of what will be useful to future generations, we, right here, right now, have a need for needless diversity. A world with fewer fruits and vegetables isn't only a world with an endangered food supply. It's also a world with less flavor, less aroma, less color. We suffer a diminution of choice. As Gregory McNamee writes in "Wendell Berry and the Politics of Agriculture," we're experiencing "an impoverishment of forms, a loss of the necessary complexity that informs an art rightly practiced."[1] And a world with fewer languages isn't only a world with more limited means of communication. It's also a world with fewer stories and folk tales, fewer hagiographies, fewer poems, myths, and recipes, fewer remedies, fewer memories. We possess the accumulated vision and wisdom of fewer cultures. We become like hybrid corn: less diverse, with less accumulated defenses, susceptible to dangers that our "parents" might have battled and overcome, dangers they could have helped us with, were they not in their graves.
What I want to say is this: for twenty-eight years I've been carrying on a love affair with words and the world and I've come to believe that the sheer magnitude of creation blesses us. The gross numbers, the uncountability of it; as if the world were a grand, grand room full of books and though we might read all we can we will never, ever outstrip its riches. A thought both unsettling and comforting. If we are stewards of the world, we are stewards of a charge beyond our comprehension; even now science can tell us less about the number of species we have on earth than about the number of stars in our galaxy. There is something important in the idea of this fecundity, this abundance, this escape hatch for our imaginations. I have read Robert Frost's poem "Design," and I have read Gordon Grice's essay on how the black widow spider kills her prey with ten times the amount of poison she needs, and I'm not one for making teleological arguments, but I can tell you that somehow, despite our savagery, we have been over-provided for, and I believe it is a sign of love.
Poet Wendell Berry urges us to care for "the unseeable animal," even if it means we never see it. So, I would argue, must we care for the untastable vegetable, the unhearable language, which add their link, as we add ours, to nature's still-unfolding tale. They deepen nature's mystery even as they provide clues to help us comprehend that mystery. They enrich us not only because they can serve us, not only because they are useful, but because theyare. Their existence contributes to the complexity of the world in which we are, a world we still strive—thankfully, nobly—to understand.
49 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Charles Cardoza Poindexter (March 10, 1880 – June 3, 1913) was a professor at Fisk University. He was known for being the founder of Alpha Phi Alpha Society which became Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated. He was born in Pennsboro, West Virginia. He attended Ohio State University (1899-1903) earning a BS in Agriculture. He wrote "The Development of the Spikelet and Grain of Corn." He attended a graduate program at Cornell University (1905-1907). He married Helen Florence Newton (1906-1913). He served as a Virginia delegate to the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations Convention. He was the organizer of a group of literary students at Cornell University. The group consisted of 15 students and included females. The group met every two weeks at 421 North Albany Street. He felt the group should serve the cultural and social needs of the African American community and not be an elite secret society. In December 1905, he organized a meeting of students which included Murray, Ogle, Morgan T. Phillips, Chapman, Kelley, Callis, Tompkins, and Tandy. In March 1906, the name Alpha Phi Alpha was introduced. Under his leadership of the first banquet, initiation procedures, and policies were introduced. A vote confirmed the name Alpha Phi Alpha with the colors of old gold and black. The initiation of new members took place on October 30, 1906, at a Masonic Hall including Eugene Kinckle Jones, Lemuel Graves, and Gordon Jones. In his absence at a meeting, the fraternity idea was pushed for a vote by Murray and was seconded by Robert H Ogle. He submitted a letter of resignation. He would remove himself from the organization after this period. In January 1907, he resigned when he took a new job in Hampton. This job was as an assistant agriculturist. The term used for him as agreed by members of the fraternity was Precursor. At Fisk University, he served as the Professor of the Agriculture Department and Biology. While there he implemented programs such as the annual spring day celebration. Among his botany students was Alpha Phi Alpha historian Charles H. Wesley. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpm6ZR4rAEN/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Why Consider Buying Homeowners Insurance In Papillion and Omaha, NE?
Many Americans make a living from their farm and concentrate on agriculture predominantly. It is worrying to learn that crop yield cannot always be predicted accurately. Losing the crops may result in financial losses, often jeopardizing the farmer’s well-being. Moreover, one needs to invest in specialized equipment and employ several individuals to fulfill the obligations as well as ensure productivity. People with livestock must ensure their health and attend to them during sickness, too. All such compulsions make it necessary for agriculturists, farmers, and those who depend on the land to purchase farm insurance in Omaha and Bellevue, NE.
It is essential to know that such insurance is a special type of insurance policy available for people in various professions. The right coverage must be invested in to ensure complete protection. Some of the best reasons to opt for farm insurance include the following:-
· Being a Full-Time Farmer- Operating a farm comes with many adversities. Crop insurance may become necessary to cover the financial risks when the yield is not as expected. This is equally applicable to big farmers and ranch owners as well as those who have upgraded from a small plot of land to a small agricultural business
· Machinery & Equipment- Farming cannot be successful with bare hands. Instead, one has to use multiple machinery and equipment for such purposes. Items such as tractors, husking machines, grain bins, silos, and other farming implements do not come cheap The insurance coverage will pay for repair and replacement of the equipment as needed. One may extend the coverage to include water boilers, pressure vessels, and heating & cooling systems. Refrigeration units and electrical distribution systems may benefit the user when the insurance company compensates for the repairs.
· Livestock & Feed- Raising livestock for a living can be a joyful experience. But one is usually fraught with anxiety as there are many things to take care of. Livestock insurance is a variant of farm insurance that may be customized as per one’s need. The type of animal covered does not matter greatly either. The cattle, pigs, sheep, and other animals may also be insured separately. One may insure each animal individually when they are of high value. This works perfectly for horses. Herd insurance is another option that covers the animals collectively. A third way to insure livestock is to pay a specified sum for blanket coverage. It is essential to read through the terms & conditions before signing the insurance documents. The insurance may cover damage caused to the animals during natural disasters, wild animal attacks, theft, and burglary. Still, it is advisable to inquire about coverage allotted for sickness & diseases affecting the herd.
Apart from guarding one’s profession, one must also ensure adequate protection for tangible assets. Purchasing homeowners insurance in Papillion and Omaha, NE, can enable one to minimize financial hardships in the aftermath of natural disasters.
0 notes
Text
America’s Bio-Stimulants Market Is Gears Up For 13% Market CAGR Boost With Strategic Factors
Buy Now
The US Bio-stimulants market has witnessed tremendous growth in the last few years and is all set to grow significantly between 2022 and 2029. The primary growth drivers of the market are increasing demand for sustainable agriculture, an upsurge in the demand for seaweed as a raw material, high agriculture production worldwide, and others.
STORY OUTLINE
The demand for bio-stimulants in the market decreased by 22% due to the disruption of the supply chain in 2020.
The country has a total consumption volume of 5.5 thousand metric tons of bio-stimulates which is one of the highest in the country.
84% of American adults believe that environmental sustainability is the need of the hour for agriculturists.
According to Ken Research, The Bio-stimulants market is growing at a significant growth rate in America as its helping agriculturalists match the growing demand for natural ingredients from consumers. The market is highly supported by the administration and has proven very beneficial for the farmers. The US Bio-stimulates market is the second biggest market North American bio-stimulates industry with a market share of 49%. The growth of Bio-stimulants is attracting huge investments in the agriculture sector.
1. Influence of COVID-19 on the US Bio-stimulants Market
Download a Sample Report of US Biostimulants Market Growth
The pandemic affected adversely the overall growth of the US Bio-stimulants market as the industry faced a shutdown of manufacturing facilities and restrictions on transportation and logistics. Additionally, the demand for bio-stimulants in the market decreased by 22% due to the disruption of the supply chain in 2020.
During the Pandemic demand for healthy and organic food items grew significantly as the consumer’s interest shifted towards non-chemical food items. This sudden shift assisted the US bio-stimulants market to grow by 34% post-pandemic in 2021.
The role of government was also crucial during the pandemic for the US Bio stimulants market. The government promoted the uses and consumption of Bio-Stimulants by different means. The government supported the industry both financially and technically by providing them with the necessary
2. Current Scenario of the US Bio-stimulants Market
The US Bio-stimulants Market is dominating the global Bio-stimulants market and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 13% between 2022-2029.
Among all the crop types bio-stimulants have the most impact on row crops. Row crops incorporate crops such as corn, rice, wheat, barley, and soybean leading the bio-stimulants market by covering 37% of the market.
On the contrary, horticultural crops are the fastest-growing crop type in the bio-stimulants market. The country has a total consumption volume of 5.5 thousand metric tons of bio-stimulates which is one of the highest in the world.
3. Growth drivers of the US Bio-stimulants Market
Download a Custom report of US Biostimulants Market Analysis
The market is influenced by various factors affecting the market. Some of the major growth drivers of the market are sustainable agriculture, an upsurge in the demand for seaweed as raw material, high agriculture production worldwide, and others
Sustainable agriculture is one of the major reasons behind the growing demand for organic and chemical-free food among customers. 84% of American adults believe that environmental sustainability is the need of the hour for agriculturists. Bio-stimulants help farmers approach the sustainable way as they help in high crop productivity and soil fertility maintenance.
Growing demand for seaweeds in farming to enhance the crop’s productivity to improve the quality of the soil is another variable influencing the market for bio-stimulants. Bio-stimulants consist of different seaweed extracts as it is used in modern agriculture for getting better results from soils and plants.
Seaweed farming is the fastest-growing aquaculture in America. Farmers in Alaska alone grew about 11000 pounds of sugar, ribbon, and bull kelp in the year 2019.
4. Major Players of the US Bio-stimulants Market
Some of the major players in the US Bio-stimulants market are BioLine Corporation, Corteva Agriscience, Hello Nature USA Inc, Humic Growth Solutions, Valagro USA, BASF SE, UPL, Gowan Group, The Mosaic Company, ILSA S.p.A, Hafia Group, Rallis India Limited, UPL Australia, and FMC Corporation.
Recently, Plant Response Inc., an MNC fertilizer manufacturer, was acquired by The Mosaic Company, one of the market leaders. This acquisition aided the global business expansion of the Mosaic corporation. Additionally, this acquisition gave the business the ability to offer consumers sustainable products and solutions.
About GOActiv Technology, UPL Australia launched a new set of stimulant arrangements in June 2021. The method is entirely focused on encouraging natural products, vegetables, plants, and tree crops to respond to certain physiological or abiotic stimuli. This method is entirely dependent on an ocean growth concentration that is 100 per cent pure.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the US bio-stimulants market has illustrated exceptional development prospects, balanced for a significant CAGR of 13% between 2022 and 2029. This climb is moved by numerous components including an increased demand for sustainable agriculture, the surge in seaweed utilization as a crucial raw material, strong global agricultural production, and more. The COVID-19 widespread at first posed challenges through disturbances to supply chains, however, the market bounced back with a 34% development in 2021 due to increased requests for natural food. The back from the government and the market's significant part in advancing eco-friendly farming practices played a critical part in this resurgence. With a dominating impact on push crops and a burgeoning centre on horticultural crops, the US bio-stimulants showcase remains a significant player in forming the agricultural landscape.
0 notes
Text
#OneNETnewsINVESTIGATES: Unveiling the 'Infinite Food Glitch' between Lettuce and Yogurt as discovered by a British YouTuber
(Written by Miko Kubota / Radyo Bandera Patrol #4 news reporter of OneNETnews and Station Manager & President of ONC)
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM -- In a groundbreaking discovery… Agriculturist, Dairy Technologist and British YouTuber named Tom Carroll was shed light on a technical concerned issue known as the 'Infinite Food Glitch' (IFG). This glitch revolves around the interplay between two seemingly harmless food items (Lettuce and Yogurt). Our exclusive investigation of OneNETnews delves into the science behind this glitch, potential health risks associated with excessive consumption, and the actions proposed by the American and British government officials, factories, dairy and agriculture institutions to address this issue.
youtube
youtube
(Tom Carroll via YT Shorts Video)
The 'Infinite Food Glitch' refers to a peculiar phenomenon where the individuals of Lettuce and Yogurt creates an illusion of infinite farm sustenance. Videos on YouTube Shorts have garnered enormous attention, highlighting the glitch's existence and its implications.
The science behind this glitch lies in the unique properties of the aformentioned food items: Lettuce, a leafy green vegetable, is renowned for its low-calorie and high fiber content, along with vitamins and minerals. While Yogurt, which is a dairy product, and is rich in protein, calcium & probiotics.
When consumed together, the combination triggers a satiety response in the brain, leading to a feeling of fullness that surpasses the real dietary consumption. This illusionary effect can result in overeating and potential health risks.
While both food object individuals offer numerous health benefits, but immoderate intake by virtue of the 'Infinite Food Glitch' can lead to certain warning signs. Overindulgence in Lettuce may cause digestive issues, such as bloating and gas. Similarly, excessive Yogurt intake, can lead to an imbalance in gut bacteria, lactose intolerance symptoms and potential weight gain.
To address the IFG, American and British government officials, factories, dairy and agriculture institutions are taking proactive measures. The Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF), Associated British Foods (ABF) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) are collaborating with most organizations like the American Dairy Association (ADA) and the U.S. Dairy Export Council respectively (USDEC) to raise technical awareness about this food glitch. These government institutions are working towards implementing stricter labeling regulations, educating consumers about portion control and promoting a balanced diet. Additionally, they are investing in research to better understand the physiological mechanisms behind the 'Infinite Food Glitch' and develop guidelines for its safe consumption.
In the end, the 'Infinite Food Glitch' between Lettuce and Yogurt was raised concerns about overeating and potential health risks. The unique combination of these 2 food items, triggers an illusion of infinite sustenance, leading to excessive consumption. While the science behind this glitch is intriguing, caution must be exercised to avoid digestive issues and imbalances in gut bacteria.
American and British government officials, factories, dairy and agricultural institutions are actively working towards addressing this issue through awareness campaigns, labeling regulations and independent research initiatives.
SCREENGRAB PHOTO COURTESY: Tom Carroll via YT Shorts VIDEO
BACKGROUND PROVIDED BY: Tegna
SOURCE:
*https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/Tom_Carroll
*https://socialblade.com/youtube/c/tomcarrollyt [Referenced Statistics via Social Blade]
*https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RWZ_Rx9l5BE [Referenced YT Shorts Video #1 via Tom Carroll]
*https://www.youtube.com/shorts/E2VokIMAOf0 [Referenced YT Shorts Video #2f via Tom Carroll]
*https://www.youtube.com/shorts/g9F8H20lAwE [Referenced YT Shorts Video via Museum of Science in Boston]
*https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4nlC_GyWJKY [Referenced YT Shorts Video via Arnie Negrete]
*https://www.webmd.com/diet/health-benefits-lettuce [Referenced Medical News Article #1 via WebMD]
*https://www.webmd.com/diet/health-benefits-greek-yogurt [Referenced Medical News Article #2f via WebMD]
*https://pharmeasy.in/blog/ayurveda-uses-benefits-side-effects-of-lettuce/ [Referenced Medical News Article via PharmaEasy India]
*https://www.thedonutwhole.com/how-much-yogurt-a-day-is-too-much/?expand_article=1 [Referenced Medical News Article via The Donut Whole News Bureau]
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Agriculture
*https://www.americandairy.com/about-us/
*https://www.thinkusadairy.org/about-usdec
*https://resources.usdec.org/About/MembersConsumer.cfm
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculturist
*https://blog.mentoria.com/career/dairy-technologist/ [Referenced Biography Article via Mentoria]
*https://www.rabdf.co.uk/about-us
and
*https://www.abf.co.uk/about-us/abf-at-a-glance
-- OneNETnews Team
#london#united kingdom#OneNETnewsInvestigates#investigates#infinite food glitch#youtuber#food#tom carroll#awareness#patched#lettuce#yogurt#infinite#dairy#vegetables#government#factory#OneNETnews#Youtube
0 notes
Text
The American ecologist Jared Diamond called agriculture the “worst mistake in the history of the human race.” Abandoning the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and settling down to farm the land wasn’t exactly an advantage for our ancestors. Agriculture is a backbreaking pursuit, and the diet of farmers was much worse than that of their free-ranging forefathers.
(...)
When the Ice Age came to an end around 11,700 years ago, the climate stabilized and became warmer. These were ideal conditions for farming, and it was around this time that our ancestors began to cultivate crops. Agriculture was an answer to a pressing question. As the earth warmed up, the human population exploded. Cultivating crops was initially a way of supplementing the diets of groups of hunter-gatherers who now had extra mouths to feed. This created a feedback loop. Producing food surpluses meant that the population increased again. That, in turn, meant that farming became even more important for covering the food needs of early humans.
Eventually, farming became all-consuming. Early agriculturists had continued to hunt. But a thousand years after the emergence of agriculture, hunting had largely been abandoned. Cattle, sheep, goats and pigs had all been domesticated and integrated into farming itself.
Farming might provide a reliable source of calories, but it can also bring famine and disease in its wake. Many agriculturists relied on narrow diets of a few staples like wheat or corn. That’s a sure recipe for nutrient deficiencies and illnesses like scurvy, goiter and anemia. Over-reliance on a small number of crops also exposes farmers to famine and food shortages. Even when farmers squirrel away surpluses to tide them over in lean times, these can be quickly depleted by consecutive poor harvests or war. Horrific famines are the result.
Because agricultural populations grow so quickly, diseases flourish among them. Leprosy, tuberculosis, influenza, smallpox, plague and other diseases were unknown to hunter-gatherers, but they thrived in the dense settlements of farmers.
0 notes
Text
In our present, poor capitalistic society, the man who has artistic needs cannot satisfy them unless he is heir to a large fortune, or by dint of hard work appropriates to himself an intellectual capital which will enable him to take up a liberal profession. Still he cherishes the hope of some day satisfying his tastes more or less, and for this reason he reproaches the idealist Communist societies with having the material life of each individual as their sole aim.
"In your communal stores you may perhaps have bread for all," he says to us, "but you will not have beautiful pictures, optical instruments, luxurious furniture, artistic jewelry--in short, the many things that minister to the infinite variety of human tastes. And you suppress the possibility of obtaining anything besides the bread and meat which the commune can offer to all, and the drab linen in which all your lady citizens will be dressed."
These are the objections which all communist systems have to consider, and which the founders of new societies, established in American deserts, never understood. They believed that if the community could procure sufficient cloth to dress all its members, a music-room in which the "brothers" could strum a piece of music, or act a play from time to time, it was enough. They forgot that the feeling for art existed in the agriculturist as well as in the burgher, and, notwithstanding that the expression of artistic feeling varies according to the difference in culture, in the main it remains the same. In vain did the community guarantee the common necessaries of life, in vain did it suppress all education that would tend to develop individuality, in vain did it eliminate all reading save the Bible. Individual tastes broke forth, and caused general discontent; quarrels arose when somebody proposed to buy a piano or scientific instruments; and the elements of progress flagged.
The society could only exist on condition that it crushed all individual feeling, all artistic tendency, and all development.
- The Conquest of Bread, Peter Kropotkin (emphasis mine)
0 notes
Text
Coffee in Philippine Culture
Coffee plays a vital role in Philippine culture. Regardless of your age, class, or location, it’s normal for early-rising Filipinos to start their day with a fortifying cup of coffee and toasted pandesal or a classic full rice breakfast of rice and eggs paired with tuyo (dried fish), tocino (sweet cured pork), or traditional Filipino sausages called longganisa.
Traditionally brewed coffee drinkers of our grandparents’ generation have a sentimental attachment to Liberica, locally known as Kapeng Barako. Younger generations and coffee lovers now enjoy Second Wave and Third Wave coffee shops, which have become an important “third space” for many people whose lives consist of work, home, work, and school.
A quick history of Philippine coffee
Coffee is not endemic to the Philippines. The first coffee beans – Liberica beans, to be exact – were brought to the Philippines in 1740 by two Spanish Franciscan friars and planted in the cool, elevated plantations of Lipa, Batangas. This marked the beginning of what historians call a golden era for Philippine coffee, which lasted almost 150 years.
Liberica beans from the Philippines soon became a valuable export to Europe and America. They could command up to five times the value of Arabica beans, also cultivated in the Philippines. And when other major coffee-producing territories like Sri Lanka, India, Java, and Sumatra were hit in the 1870s by a destructive fungal disease called Coffee Rust (Hemileia Vastatrix), the Philippines was, for a short time, the world’s leading coffee producer.
Unfortunately, Coffee Rust attacked and eventually destroyed Philippine Liberica plantations in 1889. Whatever crops could be saved from Batangas plantations were eventually replanted in the nearby province of Cavite. However, Liberica has yet to regain its prominence, and coffee production and export have declined in importance for many decades.
During the American period, the Americans encouraged Philippine agriculturists to plant Robusta beans (Coffea canephora). Unlike Arabica and Liberica, which grow at optimal levels at minimum altitudes 200-300 meters above sea level, Robusta is easy to cultivate in the lowlands and is more disease and insect resistant. Today Robusta is the country’s most dominant variety. Most of the Philippines’ Robusta crop is used in the production of instant coffee by Philippine and multinational coffee producers.
Instant coffee is still an essential component of Philippine coffee culture. Many brands of convenient instant coffee are sold in supermarkets, together with many types of 3-in-1 coffee sachet products that include powdered coffee, creamer, and sugar, all in one packet.
Second-Wave and Third-Wave Coffee
The interest in Philippine coffee experienced a resurgence in the early 1990s when enterprising coffee businesses banded together to relaunch Kapeng Barako and promote many small groups of Philippine coffee producers in the Calabarzon Region, the Cordilleras, and many parts of northern and southern Mindanao.
The arrival of Seattle’s coffee brands, notably Starbucks and Seattle’s Best, and other major coffee shop brands in the Philippines (the so-called “Second Wave”) also helped spark interest in the coffee origin and sustainability. In the last decade, many independent coffee shop owners have begun sourcing their beans directly from coffee cooperatives and do some – or a lot – of their in-house bean roasting.
Today, passionate Third Wave coffee drinkers are terroir-driven and are deeply interested in where the beans came from, what types of beans they are (Arabica, Robusta, Excelsa, or Kapeng Barako), and what flavor profile they might have (nutty, floral, fruity – or a combination of the three). More often than not, by supporting certain coffee shops, you directly support coffee cooperatives that these shop owners and small distributors champion – whether they’re from Sagada, Batangas, Sulu, or other emerging coffee-producing areas in the Philippines.
So whenever you visit your favorite coffee place or are looking for a new coffee type to sip, ask your seller more about their latest batch of coffee beans, their origin, their flavor profile, and how best to brew it.
We hope you enjoy the flavor discovery that comes with every cup you have!
Please visit our Coffee page to learn more about the specifics of our coffee beans Philippines.
0 notes
Text
Controlled release Fertilizers Market Overview, Key Players Analysis, Comprehensive Research Study, Competitive Landscape and Forecast to 2026
The global controlled-release fertilizers market size is prognosticated to reach USD 3,862.2 million by 2026. According to a report published by Fortune Business Insights™ titled, “Controlled-release Fertilizers Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Type (Slow-release, Coated & Encapsulated, and Nitrogen Stabilizers), Application (Cereals, Oilseeds & Pulses, Fruits & Vegetables, & Others), and Regional Forecasts, 2019 - 2026” the market value was USD 2,375.9 million in 2018. The forecast period is set from 2018 to 2026, and the market is likely to witness a CAGR of 6.37% on account of increasing demand for food to suffice to the needs of the increasing population worldwide.
Some of the key vendors of the CRF fertilizers market include:
Nutrien
Yara International
Helena Chemical
SQM
JNC Corporation
Kingenta Ecological Engineering Co. Ltd.
ICL
Haifa Chemicals
AGLUKON
Pursell Agri-Tech
Koch Industries
Introduction of Cost-Efficient CRF Fertilizers to Help Market Gain Impetus
The American Plant Food Control Officials (AAPFCO) defines controlled-release fertilizers as plant-nutrient containing fertilizers that delay its availability for plant uptake and use after application. With the increasing population, governments of various nations are imposing security on food. This is likely to help promote the delayed-release fertilizers market growth. Besides this, companies are trying to introduce cost-efficient and encapsulated CRF fertilizers and this will further attract high slow acting fertilizers market revenue in the forecast duration.
The increasing environmental concerns are further propelling agriculturists, farmers and others to improve the utilization of fertilizers for increasing nutrient uptake among crops. This, as per analyst at Fortune Business Insights™, will further contribute to the decline in environmental stress and ultimately help to increase the overall CRF fertilizer market size in the foreseeable future.
However, the lack of proper laws for protecting controlled-release fertilizers may affect the overall CRF market size in the forecast period. Nevertheless, government efforts and the launch of various educational programs for farmers are likely to help create lucrative controlled-release fertilizer market growth opportunities in the near future.
Asia Pacific to Continue Dominance on Account of High Production and Consumption Rates Derived from China
From a geographical perspective, North America is dominating the market on account of the presence of large number of players. However, Asia Pacific is likely to register the fastest delayed-release fertilizer market growth rate with a CAGR of 7.1% during the forecast period. This is attributed to the rapid increase in the population of countries especially China and India. This is further propelling the rise in demand for food all over the region. Japan and China are the two major market leaders in Asia Pacific with both high production and consumption. Growth in China is owing to the rise in research and development of innovative agricultural products, coupled with the presence of market players namely Hangfeng Evergreen, Kingenta International, and others in the nation. Moreover, conducive policies concerning smart fertilizers in Japan and China are further expected to help this region continue dominating the market in the years to follow.
Adoption of Merger and Acquisition Strategies to Bode Well for Market Vendors
Key players such as ICL, Pursell, and SQM have raised the bars and set new standards on cost-effective specialized fertilizers. This is ultimately encouraging agricultural companies to heighten their production scale and expand their portfolios by increasing the number of product launches. Besides this, new players in nations such as China, Japan, and the U.S., are entering into the CRF fertilizer market looking at the future opportunities the market will provide. Recently, companies such as Haifa Chemicals, Agrium, and Kingenta adopted a merger and acquisition strategy for the expansion of their portfolio across all geographies.
Some of the key industry developments in the CRF fertilizers marketare:
December 2017 – A leading producer of specialty fertilizers and biostimulants namely COMPO GmbH, announced a partnership with Kingenta for research and development of efficiency enhanced technology commonly called EEF technology.
June 2018 – The inauguration of a novel fertilizer coating facility was announced in Alabama by Pursell Agri-Tech, and their industrial partner Stamicarbon B.V. Pursell Agri-Tech, has built this plat for producing next-generation delayed-release fertilizers.
Browse Complete Report Summary:
https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/controlled-release-fertilizers-crf-market-101973
0 notes
Text
October 21, 2022
Important Middle Woodland Canal in Ancient Alabama Analyzed
A mile long canal built for canoe travel by Native Americans between 576-650 CE connected the Gulf of Mexico to Oyster Bay and Little Lagoon in Alabama. They built dams at both ends of the canal to guard against flooding of the canal. In the winter, canoes could traverse the distance to the Gulf. In the summer, it would have been a footpath through the forest.
Middle Woodland villagers, living at Plash Island, probably built the canal to get to camps closer to the Gulf to process, smoke and dry fish and shell fish for preservation. They were not agriculturists so this was crucial to their survival.
The canal would have also been a good conduit for long distance trade from Mobile Bay to the entire southeast. And there is no evidence for a chiefly elite during this time period. So an equalitarian effort was undertaken to build the canal and constantly clean the canal out and divvy up the water.
The research was published in the Journal of Field Archaeology.
The report is here at Smithsonian Magazine
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/archaeologists-dig-up-1400-year-old-native-american-canal-in-alabama-180980742/
0 notes
Text
October 21, 2022
Important Middle Woodland Canal in Ancient Alabama Analyzed
A mile long canal built for canoe travel by Native Americans between 576-650 CE connected the Gulf of Mexico to Oyster Bay and Little Lagoon in Alabama. They built dams at both ends of the canal to guard against flooding of the canal. In the winter, canoes could traverse the distance to the Gulf. In the summer, it would have been a footpath through the forest.
Middle Woodland villagers, living at Plash Island, probably built the canal to get to camps closer to the Gulf to process, smoke and dry fish and shell fish for preservation. They were not agriculturists so this was crucial to their survival.
The canal would have also been a good conduit for long distance trade from Mobile Bay to the entire southeast. And there is no evidence for a chiefly elite during this time period. So an equalitarian effort was undertaken to build the canal and constantly clean the canal out and divvy up the water.
The research was published in the Journal of Field Archaeology.
The report is here at Smithsonian Magazine
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/archaeologists-dig-up-1400-year-old-native-american-canal-in-alabama-180980742/
0 notes
Text
Pages 254 and 255 of the 1881 American Agriculturist
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
