OK. We talked about the ten most influential people of the 21st century. Let's try for the ten most influential Montanans of the last year (or 2 or 3). Here's my list:
1. Brian Schweitzer
2. Will Descamps
3. Max Baucus
4. John Tester
5. Waded Cruzado
6. Denis Rheberg
7. Donald Molloy
8. George Dennison
9. Bob Lake
10. Canis Lupus
Looking at this or any list you have to understand the huge impact of government in our lives and on the Montana economy.
#1 It makes sense that the Gov tops our list. His impact is felt on all the major aspects of our life and work: the state budget, K-12 education and higher education, tourism, agriculture, etc. Schweitzer named a new Regent and two new University Presidents were hired. Make no mistake about it, the Gov has a huge say in who they are a big say in what state govt money goes where.
#2. Will Descamps is the State Republican Party leader. In a year when they had a huge landslide at the polls, he has to get a lot of the credit. Much of that comes from recruiting candidates well before the election. Admittedly it was a national trend that rolled over Montana, but the state GOP was poised to take advantage and it did in a big way. We'll feel the influence of the 2011-13 legislature for a long time.
#3. Max is one of the most powerful Senators in Washington and that is always felt at home. If the Gov controls the flow of state money in MT, Max controls the flow of the federal money in MT and MT gets a lot relative to other states. He has a big say in nominees for federal jobs in Montana (US Marshall, etc.) and his impact on Montanans through PPACA (Obamacare) and ARRA (The Stimulus) was huge. The big question buzzing around is:Will we see Schweitzer vs Baucus in 2014? I bet not.
#4. Jon Tester is all over LiTW and the Newspapers over his Wilderness Bill that, of course, met the same fate as wilderness bills over the last thirty years. I know there was stink over his DREAM vote, but beyond most of us liberals, nobody in MT gives a damn about that. Look for a Rheberg-Tester matchup for 2012.
#5. Waded Cruzado is the new President of Montana State University. She has hit the ground running and, since Montana University System campuses are economic engines for most major population centers in the state she has a big impact. Cruzado's energy is palpable. She has already begun a major reorganization of the MSU branch of the university system. Look for much more before she leaves for greener pastures.
#6. How could we not include Denny? He also gets some credit for leading the GOP sweep in MT and for stirring up the "Great Wolf Debate" (which really isn't great at all). Denny also has some impact in WDC, but not much. He's most infamous for being one of the least effective legislators under the dome, except when it comes to building his personal fortune though is position. He still manages to win by a landslide. Go figger.
#7. Donald Molloy, as our Federal District judge has a huge impact with rulings on Canis Lupus and other key MT economic and environmental issues. He also made the headlines by moving to senior status. Of course Max will have a big say on who Obama names to replace him.
#8. George Dennison retired after a very influential career and essentially picked his own replacement. The infamous $65K "search that never was" made national headlines. His impact on the other side of the U-system (UM vs MSU or Griz-Cat) has been big and his exit was no exception. What will come from the new Prez (Engstrom)? Two months isn't enough time to tell.
#9. Bob Lake? You might ask.... yes, because the state senator, owned by the real estate industry, was the behind the scenes operator who engineered and shepherded CI-105 through the electoral process. It stands as a hallmark to special interest politics and it's one of the biggest ruses that has ever been pulled over the eyes of Montana voters. The cynical notion of using millions in out of state funding to eliminate a tax that doesn't exist most certainly sets a precedent to be followed in the future.
#10. Canis lupus, the grey wolf, has been illegitimately splattered all over our state newspapers and blogs. If there has ever been a bigger non-issue, I don't know what it is. But three of my top 10 influencers are there because or the great grey-boy. So who am I to talk?
Truth be told the grey wolf has little influence on our economy or lifestyle, except to pull in a few more tourists, sell some more pictures and provide government work to some micro-managing wildlife mangers in MT, ID and WY. Grey-boy also serves to get Do-Nothing-Denny reelected.
So there you have my top ten....who shows up on your list?
Yes, we will indeed have to "Wait for Superman". Predictably, anyone watching the movie should come away with a different perspective. "Waiting for Superman" (WFS) is a powerful, compelling movie. I wholeheartedly agree with the central, core message of WFS: That is the absolute value and overiding need for excellence in public education in American society. The movie is absolutely correct that public education, along with equal protection under the law, provide the foundation of equality and opportunity for all. Anyone who ever thought that privatization of the public schools is any solution must be convinced otherwise.
The movie is exceptionally well made in both technical and artistic terms. If the personal, anecdotal stories of deprived inner city children don't touch your heart, then you don't have one. So WFS could easily convince virtually any viewer that the problem with the public education system, is exactly as defined: It is an uncaring, overtly bureaucratic system populated with too many lousy teachers and dominated by wretched unions that protect them; and the single solution to it all is charter schools. In those terms the movie, if it is supposed to be a documentary, is almost completely inaccurate in terms of defining the problems and proposing solutions.
Indeed, WFS could be defined as propaganda because it is about 90% true. WFS cleaverly strings together several half truths:
1. The inner city is populated by families where parents care for their children and want nothing but the best for them in terms of their education, but "the system" denies them. Indeed, the movie states outright that the surrounding problems in the environment do not cause the problems in the schools. Rather WFS proposes that it is the bad schools that cause the surrounding poverty and social dislocation. Reality: Dysfunctional families are one of the greatest challenges to public education and poor schools are intricately linked to dysfunctional families.
2. Funding for inner city schools is not an overriding problem, if only the money was spent on charter schools instead of public schools. Reality: Funding is not THE solution, but the solutions definitely involve costs that the public is not willing to support.
3. All students should be doctors and educated to the same level; all students should pass. It is the public school system, bad teachers and their unions that cause failure. Reality: No Child Left Behind made the same error. The ugly reality is that not all students will succeed, in spite of our best effort, be it a rural or urban, K-12 or higher ed setting, some students will fail. Teachers are not superheros. The medical equivalent is that some patients will die in spite of our best efforts.
4. There are some good teachers, but most of them are bad and need to be fired and the evil unions make firing a teacher virtually impossible. Reality: Teachers are much like most of other workforces in other domains. Some of them are great, most of them are good, and some of them are bad. In fact, bad teachers do get dismissed, but like most situations school HR departments prefer resignations, early retirements and other methods to absolute firing because it's a cheaper easier means to the end. Those numbers weren't included in WFS distorted data.
5. While unions may have been necessary years ago based on exploitation and abuse of teachers, they are no longer necessary because those problems don't exist anymore. Reality: Unions in public education are MORE necessary today not less, if only because of the viscous attacks on public education (see yesterday's posting).
6. Superman is Michelle Rhee. Idolatry is always tempting. Reality: If we want to fix our schools, colleges and universities, we're going to have to do it ourselves in a unified effort absent the ugly fingerpointing in WFS.
So, the movie does a great job in showing how depriving public education can devastate a child. However, it is overtly simplistic and completely inaccurate as to the root causes of that deprivation and niave its simple solutions.
I most certainly don't have all the answers. I thought that the movie did reveal one good point: That students from challenging environments need much more structure. Some of the charter schools are, in fact, academies where the the kids go and live. I think most would agree that's could be a solution for some failing schools. But who's going to pay for it? Not Joe Public in America today, they want their low taxes.
The mischaracterization of charter schools in WFS is ridiculous. Charter schools often spend at least twice as much per student as the surrounding public schools. Hence they can limit class size and provide much longer instructional time. Charter schools also cleverly cherry pick students by limiting applicants so that the lottery is already picking from among the best "applicants" not all students as depicted in WFS. Charter schools can also purge noncompliant (failing or truant) students. Those and a few other tricks easily produce 90%+ success rates, and even that depends on how we define success.
OK, enough criticism of WFS. Oh wait, how could I (of all people) forget its union bashing? I'm getting a little weary, but in simplest terms WFS is infected with the same goofy virus infecting employee/employer relationships in modern America. In our modern Guilded Age the pervasive attitude is workplace nirvana i.e. "my boss is really a good person and if I just do my job they'll take good care of me"; that companies never fire or abuse good employees; workers aren't entitled to pay raises because that increases the deficit and it's bad for business; and, of course, unions are the source of all evil.
I do know a few things here. Yes, unions are an imperfect solution to the natural, inherent adversarial relationship between employers and employees, but I've yet to see a better one. In perfect world we wouldn't need unions. But we don't live in a perfect world and the reality is unions are largely the result of bad management. In fact if you examine most workplaces the worse the management the stronger the union. Unions do end up, not to their own liking, in the unenviable position of "protecting bad employees" on occasion. However, if we have to protect one bad employee to protect five good ones, then so we must. Overall, unions do much more good than harm, and they will have to be included in any formulation that provides solutions. The similtaneous attack on both teachers and unions by the enemies of public education is not a accident. It's also not a solution.
The workplace for teachers, police, firefighters and most other public employees is often politicized by public management boards. Unions have evolved there to protect workers from the naked politics of the accompanying public opinion and whim. Years ago teachers were easily fired or abused because one key parent didn't like the class or their spoiled child didn't like the teacher. Those problems still live today, but unions have mitigated them. Removal of tenure and unions will simply bring us in one large circle where those same problems will be pervasive.
Did WFS change my perspective? Absolutely. Did it provide any insights into the real problems and did it propose any real solutions: NO. In the public forum that followed, the panel and most of the audience at the Wilma seemed to see through WFS or at least they perceived that it was certainly not applicable to the Montana situation. One size does not fit all and there is no simple overriding solution.
One essential item leading to any solution that I know is that America fundamentally needs an attitude change when it comes to education. We need to embrace a true love of learning in a way that we have never before because our existence, as we know it, absolutely depends on it. Perhaps WFS will enhance that awakening, but it certainly fails to provide solutions by virtue of its divisive plundering of those who care most about educating Americans.
My favorite adage is that "Education isn't just about kids, it's about everyone, forever". The enemy is not the teacher or professor in the classrooom. Indeed, they need to be empowered to excel, not berated so that even the simplest achievements are a struggle. The real enemies are public apathy, indifference and negligence....and outright ignorance. So I guess WFS may achieve a few things, but in the end it leaves us all, like the inner city children, hoping for something magic to happen.
"Education": Instead of the traditional positive association with our greatest national attributes, the term now seems to elicit immediate concern and is synonymous with a crisis. This represents a major success for the "New Right". If you don't recall "The New Right" was a 1980's term for Ronald Reagan's new brand of conservatism that swept the country and represented rebranding of Barry Goldwater's libertarian conservatism.
Rebranding of "education" to a negative, particularly public k-12 education, was one of the highest priorities on the New Right's agenda. They saw teachers as liberal, corrupting communists and, thus, destroying this bastion of corrupting liberalism i.e. the "education establishment" by replacing it with state-subsidized religious and charter schools was one of their highest priorities. They saw the prototypical public teacher as as educated, activist woman in the feminist mode, or an emasculated male, as they reviled teachers.
Note that this movement continues on today, but it has been joined by a group of elite conservative Democrats who vent their frustration at public schools. Their anger originates from the panacea that expansive social programs of the "Great Society" would solve all the ills of society, especially urban poverty. Although many of these program are quite successful, they can't bear the reality that the problems are intractable and more complex than anyone ever imagined; thus the "frustrated ex-liberal" backlash and teachers make an inviting target. Barak Obama and his Education Secretary Arne Duncan are the prototypes.
Finally, we must add anti-intellectuals, the religious right, and the corporate anti-unionists to the mix. To the latter, public employees are a target because they represent a strong block of unionized workers in America. (Yes, the New Right agenda to expunge unions from the private sector has been largely successful.) So, the public sector unions, including teachers unions and public employees are the last bastion in the view of conservatives. Wiping out public employee and teacher unions represents their final front in the war against socialism in anti-labor terms. Note that (please note the disclosure) I, as a card carrying MEA-MFT (teachers union) member, a union President and a college Professor at a public university, also embody that evil.
All this has reportedly has come to fruition in "Waiting for Superman". The movie is supposed to be an emotional tear-jerker about the modern deprivation our youth by the education establishment. Let's find out:
"The Missoula Education Foundation hosts a screening of the education documentary "Waiting for Superman" on Monday at 4:30 p.m. at the Wilma Theatre, 131 S. Higgins Ave. The movie will be followed by a panel discussion, with an audience question-and-answer period. Admission to the event is $5.50." (posted in yesterday's Missoulian)
My prejudices are obvious. I'll be there to oppose the conservative agenda and support my K-12 brethren. However, I am also going to try to objectively watch the movie and then attend the forum. I'll do a post-mortem here tomorrow.
More misery and tough times ahead for our country and we have really lousy leadership that doesn't hold much hope for solving anything soon.
Part of the answer is to look to our best and brightest for ideas, and then hope that the policymakers can square themselves away for just a moment to get things right.
For me, one of those people is Paul Krugman. He has a great critique in todays NY Times of Obama's bummer Presidency and what he (Obama) can do to get it right. (....er...."correct" that is...he's already too far right). http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12...
Another one of my favorites is Robert Reich. The former labor secretary to President Clinton is arrogant, but also very smart. His piece in Salon today probably sums up the employment problem and potential solutions as well as any recent column that I've read.
Combine this with Rob's outstanding reference to the Atlantic article and we've got a bonanza. All that pretty much sums up the situation that we're in and even has some great ideas on how to get out of "Bush's Revenge" aka "The Great Recession" or our current economy.
I submitted the following to Reich's piece. We met last spring in San Fransisco at an economic
conference.
Hi Robert. Please recall from our conversation in SF: As you point out education is one of two essentials in protecting or growing wages. The other is collective bargaining. Remember slide #19? It showed that, not only is a lack of higher ed the problem, but that a College Education is becoming a relative term. States are gutting funding for higher ed, accelerating a trend that started 20 years ago. Now, there are only two public universities left in the top 25 (Yours, UCB, is one at 22nd) with none in the top 10. The funding gap is leading to an opportunity gap whereby a student with a degree from a private university has much greater value and, therefore, disproportionately greater opportunity than a student with a public university degree.
Regarding wages, I believe that the Great Recession is also proving that collective bargaining is the other great essential (with education) to protecting or growing wages. Indeed, I submit that the correlation between bargaining power and economic prosperity is no longer a correlation but cause and effect. The lower the bargaining power the lower the wages; pretty simple. So, it's education and collectivism as the cornerstones to the long-term rebuilding of our economy. You agreed before, do
you still?
BTW, I would throw in two things to a govt based recovery plan:1. a program were the FED buys up the current, outstanding student loan burden and forgives the bottom 20% and then refinances the rest at prime plus 1%. 2. Lower the retirement age and eligibility for social security and medicare to age 60. That'll create jobs!! Check out our "Left in the West Blog" http://leftinthewest.com/
What do you call bullying when a principal does it?
More than 35 parents and guardians of students who reportedly were publicly shamed at a school assembly for failing grades packed the regular Poplar School Board meeting Monday night and were quickly ushered into a closed-session meeting.
This is really pretty unbelievable. Similarly unbelievable is Aaron Flint's response:
I can only imagine if this would have happened to me when I was a kid. My parents probably would have thanked the principal for giving me the kick in the rear I would have deserved.
Poplar isn't a run-of-the-mill school. It is facing intense poverty and has faced a rash of suicides in the past year (5 suicides in a year in a middle school).
And this isn't about some tough-minded, hard-hearted v. touchy-feely liberal debate either. If you want to change behavior, these sorts of shenanigans are pretty much the dead wrong way to do it. Call me crazy, but I'm guessing that the children in question were aware of their own grades. So the students didn't learn anything (if they did, this is an even more shameful exercise). They specifically didn't learn how to do better.
Maybe the research I've read is wrong. Maybe the best way to turn kids around is just to yell at them more in public. Or maybe we should actually solve the damn problem.
The Helena school board met last night to address concerns over its sex ed curriculum. There were changes:
It removes an earlier plan to teach kids in first grade that people of the same gender can love each other, and strikes plans to teach second-graders it is hurtful to make fun of gay people by calling them names. Instead, the proposal stress current policy against bullying of all kinds - such as harassment for sexual orientation and many other reasons....
Also gone from the plan is an earlier proposal to teach, starting in grade five, different types of acts included in sexual intercourse.
It also makes sure that starting in fifth grade educators are clear that abstinence from sex is a "healthy choice" and "the only 100 percent effective way" to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Other sections on general sex education remain.
They'll still be teaching nutrition. According to the Matt Gouras report, "sex education advocates still gave the revised proposal a warm review." Here's a copy of the revised curriculum (pdf), complete with edits. So much for the process being done in secret, eh?
Both Pogie and Jamee Greer were tweeting the event. Pogie: "Twice sections have been removed because 'they have been misrepresented.' How is that an argument to remove it?" Just goes to show, if you don't like something about a policy, make sh*t up about it. Works like a charm, apparently.
JameeGreer: "Board thanks community members who have gotten invovled, and heartened by the passion behind this. They want to see the community involved in everything at the same level, including drop out rates and attendence." Again, sex sells. How do you gin up outrage about policies on dropout rates or attendance? And, yes, I realize the board was being facetious.
Wow, the foul-mouthed Missoula school board member has finally stepped down (excellente!). Hilariously, following her resignation, she blamed her departure on a Missoulian reporter who's "the one who fomented this." 100 Bonus points to Ms. Pickhardt for the dollar word, but let's subtract a few hundred thousand for ducking responsibility.
Just as great, before blaming a reporter for reporting, Ms. Pickhardt apparently sarcastically said that her resignation email was not authentic. She seems like a real mature individual.
Separately, I'll just wonder why Alex Apostle is getting a 20% pay bump. Was it needed for retention? Is Mr. Apostle being so amazing that this was due?
Managers and executives are important. I shouldn't denigrate the discipline too much since I'm one myself. But at the end of the day, education happens in classrooms. We underpay new teachers in this state, but we have expanding management operations.
I've been a critic of hard-and-fast rules regarding classroom spending in the past since I don't think statewide, one-size-fits-all solutions are a good idea. But school boards and administrators need to be working hard to cut fat, move resources into classrooms, and build better schools more efficiently.
For all the bitching I hear about teachers, it is important to remember that these systemic measurements fall on managers and executives. Alex Apostle has laid out some big goals. Let's see if he can hit some targets before we start giving him big dollars.
Her claim that the curriculum process has been completed behind closed doors is, to be polite, a damn lie. Literate Americans can read Board minutes and attend meetings. At the end of the "interview," Allen-Gailushas even makes it clear that it's her fault for not getting involved earlier:
This has opened me up to needing to pay attention more, whereas I never really thought about it before.
To recap, the Board's public meetings and minutes are tyrannical because Allen-Gailushas didn't pay attention to what was going on.
Allen-Gailushas's reasoning for suing OPI is another demonstration of the keen analytical work of the Tea Party and its citizen lawyers. According to Allen-Gailushas:
Because they're [OPI] at the head of the school district and they have not come in to stop what the school board is doing...
Neither is NATO. Why not sue them? They have about the same level of jurisdiction over local curriculum.
You know, this is startlingly familiar to Tei Nash's outburst against Missoula's anti-discrimination ordinance, isn't it? Gin up some passion over a (deliberate?) misinterpretation of the ordinance/curriculum, incorporate it into some wider "culture war," demand the city/county bend its regulations and processes (and the rules of logic) for your complaints, and sue the h*ll out of any government organization who's within arm's reach, all the while complaining about wasted tax money.
Allen-Gailushas' lawsuit is also a nice representation of the conservative Tea Partying. It's all about the Constitution...until the Constitution protects immigrants and Muslims. It's all about government being accountable to the people, unless the people, you know, want to end discrimination against gays and their kids to know about nutrition. It's all about the rule of law, until the rule of law causes poorly written and ill-conceived lawsuits to be tossed from court. It's misplaced rightwing populist ire with racist, homophobic, and xenophobic overtones dressed up as a "movement," and lovingly embraced by a media looking for a clean "he said/she said" dichotomy for its political narrative.
Anyway...keep an eye on Pogie's site. He's obtaining a copy of the lawsuit. Expect hilarity to ensue...
Okay, so Dennis Rehberg votes against a federal aid package that would bring Montana $68 million in state aid, "with more than $30 million going to school districts" and the rest to help with pay the state's Medicare bills.
Really? Really? Denying Montana federal money in a recession?
Quote of the day from Dennis McDonald: "You can lead a congressman to Washington, but you can't make him think."
Seriously, Rehberg is looking pretty bad this summer.
Those of us whose local new source is the Helena IR (lovingly known as the Idiot Review down at the local brewery) know that the paper wins no awards for fairness and accuracy. Rather, it has suffered what many view to be a recent series of journalistic embarrassments, such as closing its Washington Bureau while investing in junk video content no one wants, and printing rogue solo-opinions (perhaps the rest of the editorial board refused to go there) from a single member of its editorial board, Publisher Randy Rickman. I'm missing lots of things here, such as the infamous "illegals" label applied to undocumented workers (even my in-laws in Maine heard about that one) but I was unable to locate the link.
And now, this past Sunday, this nonsense appeared. Heads up Helena, it seemed to scream, scary progress is about to be made. The proposed health curriculum update is driven by science, concern for students' health, and public safety. And, even the IR was reluctantly forced to admit (though it hurriedly ran the above referenced editorial first) most people are in favor of it.
But dude, the important, seasoned education experts on the editorial board seemed to say, there's lots of anonymous online comments from the same three people Harry Potter book-burning crowd about it. These Harry Potter book-burners seem obsessed with forcing an outmoded, dangerous social agenda grounded in the social morals of the 1800s on students. But hey that's better than anything that might rile up our sacred cows.
What sacred cows, you ask?
In our state's capital city there are three entities above all else that essentially produce their own news.
First, the Carroll College/Helena Catholic Diocese Public Relations Office will issue sometimes two or three "articles" a week that get republished by the Helena IR, and subsequently local television. While these tend to paint the school in a good light, they are often not relevant to non-Catholics or those not living on campus. The other entities are the St. Peters Hospital/Helena Catholic Diocese Public Relations Office and of course, the Montana Meth Project. There certainly isn't anything untoward about glorifying the Meth Project while Mike Gulledge, National Vice President of Publishing for Lee Enterprises serves as Chair of the Montana Meth Project board.
Check out the most recent issue of the journal Science which takes a look at ways to improve food security as the world's population is expected to top 9 billion by 2050. To best nourish both people and the planet, the journal suggests a rounded approach to a worldwide agricultural revolution by encouraging diets and policies that emphasize local and sustainable food production, along with the implementation of agricultural techniques that utilize biotechnology and ecologically friendly farming solutions.
Karanja is a professor at the University of Nairobi. Nierenberg is a senior researcher with the Worldwatch Insitute in Washington, D.C. Njenga is a Ph.D. student at the University of Nairobi.
Driving through the crowded streets of Kibera slums in Kenya, it's nearly impossible to describe how many people live in this area of about 400 hectares, the equivalent of just over half the size of Central Park in Manhattan.
Everywhere you look, there are people. Anywhere from 700,000 to 1 million people live in what is likely the largest slum in sub-Saharan Africa.
And despite the challenges people here face - lack of water and sanitation services, space and lack of land ownership are the big ones - they are thriving and living.
We met a "self-help" group of female farmers in Kibera who are growing food for their families and selling the surplus to their neighbors.
Such groups are present all over Kenya - giving youth, women and vulnerable people the opportunity to organize, share information and skills and ultimately improve their well-being while giving them a voice that otherwise would not be heard.
The women we met were growing vegetables on what they call "vertical farms/gardens." But instead of skyscrapers, these farms are in tall recycled sacks filled with soil, and the women grow crops in them on different levels by poking holes in the bags and mainly planting seeds/seedlings of spinach, kale, sweet pepper and spring onions.
The women's group received training, seeds and sacks from the French NGO Solidarites to start their sack gardens.
The women told us that more than 1,000 women in their neighborhood are growing food in a similar way - something that the International Red Cross recognized as a solution to food security in urban areas during the 2007 and 2008 political crisis in the slums of Nairobi.
For about a month, no food could come into these areas from rural Kenya, but most residents didn't go without food because so many of them were growing crops - in sacks, vacant public land such as that along rail lines and along river banks.
These small gardens could produce big benefits in terms of nutrition, food security and income. All the women told us that they saved money because they no longer had to buy vegetables from the markets or kiosks, and they claimed that the vegetables were fresh and tasted better because they were organically grown - but that sentiment also might come from the pride of growing something themselves.
Mary Mutola has farmed on this land for over two decades. She and the other farmers - more women than men - don't own the land where they grow spinach, kale, spider plant, squash, amaranth and fodder. Instead, the land is owned by the National Social Security Fund, which has allowed the farmers to use the farm through an informal arrangement.
In other words, the farmers have no legal right to the land. They've been forced to stop farming more than once over the years, and although they're getting harassed less frequently, they still face challenges.
About a year ago, the city forced them to stop using untreated wastewater (sewage from a sewer line which they tapped into) to both irrigate and fertilize their crops. Although wastewater can carry a number of risks, including pathogens and contamination from heavy metals, it also provides a rich - and free - source of fertilizer to farmers who don't have the money to buy expensive fertilizer in stores and other inputs. And because of longer periods of drought (likely a result of climate change) in sub-Saharan Africa, the farmers didn't have to depend on rainfall to water their crops.
But even with the loss of their main water supply and nutrient sources, Ms. Mutola and the other farmers are continuing to come up with innovative ways of growing food crops - and incomes - from this farm.
In partnership with Urban Harvest, the farmers are not only growing food to eat and sell but, perhaps surprisingly, also becoming suppliers of seed of traditional leafy African vegetables such as amaranth, spider plant and African nightshade for the commercial vegetable rural farmers who supply the Nairobi city with these high-demand commodities.
Kibera farmers have always grown fodder for livestock feed for both urban and rural farmers. But by establishing a continual source of seed for traditional African vegetables, they're helping dispel the myth that urban agriculture benefits only poor people living in cities.
Using very small plots of land, about 50 square meters, and double dug beds, the farmers can raise seeds very quickly. Fast-growing varieties like amaranth and spider plant take only about three months to produce seeds, worth about 3,000 Kenyan shillings (about $40) in profit. And these seed plots - because they are small - take very little additional time to weed and manage.
The future for these farmers continues to be uncertain. Their land could be taken away, the drought could further jeopardize their crops, and the loss of wastewater for fertilizer could reduce production. But they continue to persevere despite these challenges.
Everywhere I travel in Africa, there's increasing acknowledgement about the importance of nutrition when it comes to treating HIV/AIDS. Many retroviral and HIV/AIDS drugs don't work if patients aren't getting enough vitamins and nutrients in their diets or accumulating enough body fat.
According to Dr. Rosa Costa, Director of the Kyeema Foundation in Mozambique, many farmers are often too sick to grow crops, but "chickens are easy."
Unlike many crops, raising free-range birds can require few outside inputs and very little maintenance from farmers. Birds can forage for insects and eat kitchen scraps, instead of expensive grains. They provide not only meat and eggs for household use and income, but also pest control and manure for fertilizer.
Jessica Milgroom isn't your typical graduate student. Rather than spending her days in the library of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, her research is done in the field-literally. Since 2006, Jessica has been working with farming communities living inside Limpopo National Park, in southern Mozambique.
When the park was established in 2001, it was essentially "parked on top of 27,000 people," says Jessica. Some 7,000 of the residents needed to be resettled to other areas, including within the park, which affected their access to food and farmland. Jessica's job is to see what can be done to improve resettlement food security.
But rather than simply recommending intensified agriculture in the park to make better use of less land, Jessica worked with the local community to collect and identify local seed varieties. One of the major problems in Mozambique, as well as other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, is the lack of seed. As a result, farmers are forced to buy low-quality seed because nothing else is available.
In addition to identifying and collecting seeds, Jessica is working with a farmer's association on seed trials, testing varieties to see what people like best. In addition, farmers are learning how to purify and store seeds (see Innovation of the Week: Investing in Better Food Storage in Africa).
Weevils, the farmers tell Jessica, are worse than ever, destroying both the seed and crops they store in traditional open-air, granaries. But the farmers are now building newer granaries that are more tightly sealed and help prevent not only weevils but also mold and aflatoxins from damaging crops.
Today, farmers and breeders alike have a greater respect for Mozambique's indigenous seed varieties. According to Jessica, one of the biggest accomplishments of the project has been getting breeders and farmers to talk to each other. "It's been interesting for both groups," says Jessica, "and it needs to be a regular discussion" between them.
For the past few months, we've been collecting information about agricultural innovations from all over the world (survey in English and French). We shared the initial responses in September and even more responses in November, but continue to receive interesting information and recommendations from farmers, NGOs, research groups, and policymakers in a multitude of countries. Below are a few tidbits we'd like to share.
The following projects, already featured on the Nourishing the Planet blog, have recently provided information for our survey, further describing their agricultural innovations and helping us as we seek to define innovations that best nourish people as well as the world in our upcoming report, State of the World 2011.
From Never Ending Food in Lilongwe, Malawi: The Nordins are educating others about permaculture and growing indigenous crops to increase income and improve food security. You can read about Danielle's visit to their home and farm here: Malawi's Real "Miracle" and Sweeping Change.
Please continue to share your agriculture innovations with us. We look forward to featuring your success stories on our blog and in Nourishing the Planet. Stay tuned for more updates from the survey-maybe next time it will be your innovation we highlight!
Mokolodi Wildlife Reserve used to be known more for raising livestock than protecting wildlife. But after years of ranching degraded the land, the owner decided to devote the area to protecting elephants, giraffes, impala, kudu, crocodiles, hippos, ostrich, warthogs, and various other animals and birds. But the reserve hasn’t stopped raising food.
In addition to teaching students and the community about conserving and protecting wildlife and the environment, they’re also educating students about permaculture. By growing indigenous vegetables, recycling water for irrigation, and using organic fertilizers—including elephant dung—the Reserve’s Education Center is demonstrating how to grow nutritious food with very little water or chemical inputs. (See Malawi’s Real “Miracle” and Emphasizing Malawi’s Indigenous Vegetables as Crops.)
I met with Tuelo Lekgowe and his wife, Moho Sehtomo, who are managing the permaculture garden at Mokolodi. Tuelo explained that the organically grown spinach, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, green peppers, garlic, basil, parsley, coriander and other crops raised at the garden are used to feed the school groups who come regularly to learn about not only animals, but also sustainable agriculture. Tuelo and Moho use the garden as a classroom, teaching students about composting, intercropping, water harvesting, and organic agriculture practices. The garden also supplies food for the Education Center and Mokolodi’s restaurant, feeding the hundreds of students and tourists who visit the non-profit reserve each week.
The Mokolodi Reserve is another example of how agriculture and wildlife conservation can go hand-in hand.
Sylvia Banda started Sylva Professional Catering Services Limited in 1986, even though just 30 years ago women weren't allowed to own businesses-or even eligible for loans-in Zambia. She began her business by serving people food she cooked and brought from home on what she calls, a "standing buffet," because she didn't have enough money for tables and chairs.
Not having furniture didn't stop Sylvia's business from taking off; she made almost a hundred dollars after a few days. And with her husband listed as the proprietor of her business because land rights are limited if not inaccessible to women in Zambia, Sylvia was able to grow her small "standing buffet" into three subsidiary businesses.
Sylva Professional Catering Services Limited is dedicated to creating, selling and serving nutritious foods, made from indigenous and traditional products that are purchased from local farmers and merchants. Sylvia provides work for 73 people and has developed partnerships with local development organizations, using her financial and popular success to become a proponent of farmer and employee training. She calls it "economic emancipation."
Sylvia's success has benefited not just her own family, but the wider community as well. And Winrock International, an organization that collects examples of projects focused on sustainable food, improving livelihoods and preserving local food traditions, hopes to extend her positive impact even further still by making her case study available as a resource and model for potential entrepreneurs-and for policy makers and NGOs who support potential entrepreneurs-around the world.
For more information about Sylvia's work and other projects that are focusing on sustainable food, improving livelihoods and preserving local food traditions, see Winrock International's site on Community Food Enterprises.
This Dennison report on the Otter Creek coal tracts likely augurs how political wrangling will shape itself in the coming months and (hopefully) years:
The head of the company that owns more than half the coal in southeastern Montana's Otter Creek Valley said this week that he'll be surprised if anyone bids on state-owned coal there, because the Land Board probably set the minimum price too high.
Chuck Kerr, president of Great Northern Properties in Houston, also told the Gazette State Bureau that the state is asking a lot by requiring potential coal developers to pay an entire "bonus bid" up front.
"I think that's going to be a stretch," he said. "I think 25 cents (per ton) is too high. But we could be surprised."
Get it? Republicans will push against the Land Board, claiming they set the price too high on purpose to prevent the coal from being leased. After all, why not? They have a tendency to treat public land as corporate America's backyard, why not try to pressure the Land Board to essentially give away the state's coal tracts? It's good for teh childs! Well, not so much.
But then that's assuming the fuss and bother over Otter Creek coal isn't just Kabuki theater for the masses. Again, see George Ochenski's short history of the coal tracts: there are probably too many obstacles in the way of coal development in Otter Creek. Here's what he said then:
Unfortunately, it's a fool's game initiated by Republicans but now being perpetuated by Democrats, who hold every seat on the state's Land Board. Ironically, as the nations of the world meet in Copenhagen to wrestle with the disastrous impacts of climate change, Montana's top elected officials continue to greenwash the mining and burning of the most polluting fuel on the planet.
To get back to the physics of politics, it's clearly time for the Democrats on the Land Board to pull the plug on Otter Creek, write off our losses, bring this bad idea to a dead stop, and move on to the change we were promised and so desperately need.
But somehow the coal tracts have come to represent commitment to Montana's rural educational system. If, god forbid, you oppose development in Otter Creek, you hate children in Eastern Montana. It's as simple as that. And as an additional bonus for the Krayton Kernses of the world, by fighting for development in Otter Creek, you can stick it to those know-it-all scientists and their global warming plots to take over the world. You don't even have to develop the coal, all you need to do is make skittish Democrats vote for coal, too, and that's enough.
I went on a pilgrimage and a Board of Regents meeting broke out.
For the uninitiated, the Board of Regents is the autonomous governing body of the Montana University System (MUS), which includes community colleges and the colleges of technology.
The legislature appropriates money to MUS, but it is the Board and Presidents who, through a convoluted and arcane process, set policy for the system and decide who gets what and how much. Under the cloak of academic freedom and constitutional license, the "Board" strenuously safeguards its independence from the grubby clutches of the legislature.
These folks also determine how much more students pay in fees and tuition for the privilege of partaking of the enterprise. Not enough dough? Raise tuition. Or, freeze faculty salaries. Or, lay off staff.
So, just who are these 'Regents' and how do they earn the assignment? The Governor appoints the seven regents, six to seven-year overlapping terms. And this pretty much Schweitzer's crew. (Believe it or not, he re-appointed one Racicot appointee and the term of one Judy Martz (remember her?) appointee ends next year.):
Stephen Barrett (Bozeman) - Chair
Clayton Christian (Missoula) - Vice-Chair
Lila Taylor (Busby)
Lynn Morrison-Hamilton (Havre)
Todd Buchanan (Billings)
Janine Pease (Poplar), seventh member is
Robert Barnosky (Billings), the student regent who serves a one-year term.
Jessica Milgroom isn't your typical graduate student. Rather than spending her days in the library of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, her research is done in the field-literally. Since 2006, Jessica has been working with farming communities living inside Limpopo National Park, in southern Mozambique.
For the past few months, we've been collecting information about agricultural innovations from all over the world (