As we hear about the Copenhagen talks and what is coming out of them, very little is being discussed about the impact of US agricultural practices and climate change.  The Seattle Times had an article up last week about a UW climate scientist, David Battisti, and his shift in interest from the looking at the regional impacts of global warming to understanding the impacts of climate change on crops around the world. 

Seattle residents can apply to get free apple and cherry trees under a pilot program provided by the City of Seattle's Neighborhood Matching Fund.  If interested, check out Seattle's ReLeaf Web site.  The program, the City of Seattle's Tree Fund, created to absorb carbon dioxide emissions, filter air pollution, reduce noise pollution, and provide habitat for birds and wildlife.

In Oxnard, California, an onion farmer, Steve Gill, has been using juice from the 40% of the discarded portions of onions that Gills Onions processes, about 150 tons of waste a day, to create energy to run refrigerators and lighting at the 14-acre plant.  By generating their own electricity from the waste of their production processes, the processing plant saves $700,000 each year on electricity costs plus another $400,000 a year on disposal costs.

Jim Wilcox, of the Wilcox Family Farms, has slowly become a believer in sustainable agricultural methods.  According to an article in the Tacoma News Tribune, he says of Wilcox Farm's shifts, “We’re changing for two reasons.  One, it’s good business, and, two, it’s the right thing to do.” . . . “Twenty to 30 years ago, we weren’t very good stewards of the land,” he said. “We’ve kind of seen the light.”

Wilcox Farms has been in business 100 years this week. The family has 1,500 acres along a mile-long stretch of the Nisqually River; they've been selling milk and eggs, at one point selling 1 million gallons of milk a week.

Last Saturday was the second monthly South Park "Market on Wheels".  This is a new Latino-themed farmers market in the middle of the South Park neighborhood.  There are 26 vendors signed up who bring fresh produce, delicious prepared foods, jewelry and more to sell.  They also generally have lively music in a corner of the market.  This year the markets are once a month on the third Saturday of each month.  Next year, with luck, they will be able to go weekly, allow people who grow small amounts of a single crop space to sell what they grow, have a youth-grow program and more.  Next markets will be Aug. 15th and Sept. 19th.  It's worth the visit.

What if we really got serious about urban farming and eating healthful food?  Serious as in building greenhouses on empty lots in urban areas - where there are five layers of plants growing organically; literally tons of composting going on; fish growing in tanks and providing waste for recycling back into plants; worms galore; and people streaming in to learn how to do more?  The NYT has a great article on an urban farmer in Milwaukee, Will Allen, who does just that.