AVA encourages vegetable farms to adopt new technologies

At Kok Fah Technology Farm, a machine sows 25,600 vegetable seeds per hour. They are then watered by automatic spray, cooled in a vacuum cooler and packed factory-line style.

Before they adopted such technology, workers at this Sungei Tengah farm used to dump buckets of water over their crops, broadcast seeds manually and sell their produce to middle-men in large rattan baskets. The new machines have helped the farm increase leafy vegetable production from 500 tonnes in 2008 to 1,400 tonnes a year now.

via AVA encourages vegetable farms to adopt new technologies.

Making their stands – Philly.com 3 Philly Farms

What if you just want to buy some vegetables?

Recently, I had the chance to visit three very different farming operations, all of which have a public retail component operating within Philly city limits. Community-oriented and independently operated, these farms exist slightly outside the mainstream market hype, but each exudes a strong, sincere passion for agriculture, education and, of course, eating.

For a change of farmers-market pace, pay one of these places a visit.

via Making their stands – Philly.com.

Tory MP Paul Maynard claimed over £10k in expenses for biscuits, soap and coasters

Tory MPs doing away with need for satire – they are satire on responsible democratic government – problem is that they are actually the government!

Pride's Purge

(not satire – it’s the Tories!)

Tory MP Paul Maynard has been in the news recently for labelling as extremists campaigners who want the government to assess the impact that benefit cuts are having on the sick and disabled.

Like most Tory MPs, he probably thinks benefits paid to the disabled are a waste of taxpayers’ money.

Unlike the £10,007.77 of taxpayers’ money Maynard himself claimed as expenses in just 5 months for things like soap, coasters and biscuits presumably:

MP’s biscuit claim among expenses

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The Gun Report: July 11, 2013 – NYTimes.com

A 4-year-old girl is in critical condition after being shot by a stray bullet while watching television in Columbia, S.C., Monday night. According to preliminary reports, shots may have been fired between a group of people on foot and a silver Dodge charger near the Colony Apartments. Police have released surveillance video of the suspects.

via The Gun Report: July 11, 2013 – NYTimes.com.

Domestic Violence in Lebanon: A Law Isn’t Enough

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

Let’s call her Rachel.

Rachel is a brilliant doctor. She went to the US from a far away country, battled her way through a speciality and ended up doing a subspecialty that brought her salary to the six figures. She had what many people – not just women – around the world can only dream of: economic stability and independence, influence, power.

And yet, Rachel went to work one day with a bruise on her arm. Her secretary asked her where that bruise had come from. I bumped into a revolving door, Rachel answered. The secretary was skeptical but dismissed it because she couldn’t do otherwise. A week later, Rachel came in with a bruised eye. There was no revolving door which can cause this, so the secretary called 911 who made sure Rachel’s upcoming days were nothing short of safe, away from the monster back home who was using…

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Why I Was Arrested for Peacefully Protesting a Radical Legislative Agenda | Food & Water Watch

Denying hospice care to sick people is just wrong. Eliminating 17,500 pre-school slots for four-year-olds is just wrong. Eliminating tax credits for 64,000 military families is just wrong. The people of North Carolina deserve better. Thankfully, Moral Mondays allow us to come together and fight for what we deserve.

via Why I Was Arrested for Peacefully Protesting a Radical Legislative Agenda | Food & Water Watch.

Farming for a sustainable community: A training manual | American Friends Service Committee

“Farming for a Sustainable Community: A Training Manual” documents the knowledge of Don Bustos, lifelong New Mexican farmer and director of AFSC’s New Mexico program, and the farmer-to-farmer training program developed by AFSC to pass down the knowledge he and his ancestors have known for generations.

via Farming for a sustainable community: A training manual | American Friends Service Committee.

Volunteers get a deal!

Ohio Valley Greenmarket

   GM Logo

We are in need of volunteers for Ault Park on Sunday August 4

Volunteers will help direct vendors to their assigned set-up locations, direct guests to specific areas of the Greenmarket festival, pass out information in the speakers tent, set-up chairs, maybe direct some traffic, count festival attendance with one of those cool click-counters, hand out water, answer questions you may not know the answers to, and help with clean-up.

Time slots are available in two shifts on Sunday.

  • Volunteers will receive discounted tickets to the Community Dinner (save $20/person)
  • A swag bag filled with goodies from sponsors (neat stuff!)
  • A 1-year subscription to Edible Ohio Valley ($28)
  • Lunch from Chipotle + gift cards

TOTAL VALUE OF $100+

*** Two volunteer shifts on Sunday, August 4 ***
9a-2p & 1p-6p

I want to VOLUNTEER!
Community Dinner on Saturday + Volunteer Sunday

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IRIN Asia | Pakistan’s coast – where the sea is an enemy not a friend | Pakistan | Environment

“The town of Keti Bunder has been relocated three times, having to move inwards because of the encroachment of the sea. The able-bodied young men have left looking for livelihoods elsewhere as agriculture is no more, and marine catch has been severely reduced.”

This sense of despondency exists too in other areas of Thatta, such as Kharo Chan, a `taluka’ (administrative unit) where Shamshad Bibi, the mother of four young children, lives in her village.

“The 10 acres or so of land we had is mainly destroyed. Nothing grows on it because of the salt water. Now we just keep a small herd of goats and my husband tries to fish when he can. There is no future here for my children,” she told IRIN.

via IRIN Asia | Pakistan’s coast – where the sea is an enemy not a friend | Pakistan | Environment.

AP Exclusive: The CIA and a secret vacuum cleaner – Wire Politics – The Sacramento Bee

Confined to the basement of a CIA secret prison in Romania about a decade ago, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, asked his jailers whether he could embark on an unusual project: Would the spy agency allow Mohammed, who had earned his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering, to design a vacuum cleaner?

The agency officer in charge of the prison called CIA headquarters and a manager approved the request, a former senior CIA official told The Associated Press.

Mohammed had endured the most brutal of the CIA’s harsh interrogation methods and had confessed to a career of atrocities. But the agency had no long-term plan for him. Someday, he might prove useful. Perhaps, he’d even stand trial one day.

And for that, he’d need to be sane.

“We didn’t want them to go nuts,” the former senior CIA official said, one of several who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the now-shuttered CIA prisons or Mohammed’s interest in vacuums.

via AP Exclusive: The CIA and a secret vacuum cleaner – Wire Politics – The Sacramento Bee.

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