Perhaps the most important activity undertaken by CSANR each year is the selection of new BIOAg projects to fund. The goal of the BIOAg competitive grant program is to engage a broad, interdisciplinary spectrum of WSU faculty in projects that further the development, understanding, and use of biologically-intensive and/or organic principles, practices, and technologies to […]
A couple of weeks ago Dr. Jeff Ullman, formerly of WSU, gave a provocative seminar on the fate of various constituents of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the environment. He and his co-researchers have discovered that a wide range of chemicals from these products do not degrade when going through our bodies, animal bodies, […]
Last November, at the WSU Building Soils for Better Crops conference, farmers from Kansas, North Dakota, and Colorado all spoke on the benefits they were seeing from using multi-species cover crops. These cover crop “cocktails”…
Soil is often called the “living skin” of planet Earth; an essential but fragile part of the biosphere. Attention to soil health (or soil quality) has waxed and waned over the years, but it appears to be making a comeback. In the past few months I have been to two exceptional meetings on soil health […]
As several CSANR faculty members have agreed to do, including Andy McGuire and David Granatstein, I am responding to the question posed by Center Director Chad Kruger on September 18: Achieving farm and food system…
Managing Change Northwest recently brought Allan Savory of the Savory Institute to the Pacific Northwest to speak to the Washington Cattleman’s Association, the Tilth Producers of Washington, and a special workshop and keynote in Seattle…
Managing Change Northwest recently brought Allan Savory of the Savory Institute to the Pacific Northwest to speak to the Washington Cattleman’s Association, the Tilth Producers of Washington, and a special workshop and keynote in Seattle…
I recently saw an infographic that stated, “There are no life forms in the soil, which is sterilized…” What was it talking about? Soils on the moon? A toxic chemical spill? Soils around Chernobyl? Nope,…
Three studies on the relationship between agriculture and global carbon dynamics were released in the past couple of weeks that are relevant to Pacific Northwest agricultural systems. Two are studies published in a special issue of the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation from CSANR’s Climate Friendly Farming Project (Brown and Huggins; Stöckle et al.) […]
I had the opportunity to attend the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) meeting for a day last week. The day was devoted to the Crops Subcommittee which is charged with looking at all the production inputs to be allowed or prohibited in organic agriculture. This is a daunting job, and board members (who are volunteers) […]