Sustainable Salmon

Sustainability is a term that I hear almost everyday. Most of the time, it involves local initiatives like water, farming, food, minerals, etc. Today when I heard the word it did not involve any one of these terms. It involved salmon. I discovered that local restaurant, Acacia, serves sustainable salmon. This sparked my curiosity and I decided to do some research on sustainable salmon.



One of the main principles in sustainable salmon farming is to protect the native salmon populations, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Sustainable salmon are grown mainly in pens in the ocean around the northwest part of the United States. I found that Alaska was a hot spot when it comes to sustainable salmon. What the salmon are fed seems like a crap shoot to me. Some sustainable salmon farm Web sites some said they feed their salmon a vegetable based feed or a fish based feed made of forage. Forage is a fish that humans don't eat because it is really small and bony. Some fish farmers want to keep that fish plentiful so "feed manufacturers are developing new feeds that will replace some of the fish-based ingredients in salmon feed with ingredients from other sources such as vegetables – yet still provide high quality, nutritious farmed salmon,"according to New Brunswick Salmon Growers Association.

One of the essential functions of sustainable salmon farming is that the salmon have escapement routes. These allow the salmon to spawn. Since salmon spawn in fresh water, farmers must allow them to go spawn inland. Salmon only spawn once and the amount of salmon allowed to spawn are regulated. This is a healthier method of fish farming as opposed to the fish farms that keep the salmon hostage, creating an unhealthy environment for them. Farmed fish are harmful to the environment because they pollute the water with their leftover food and feces and they can breed with wild fish and disrupt their natural habitat, according to Fishonline.


"The point of sustainable salmon management activities is to keep the full range of salmon resources productive to the full extent possible. Protection of salmon production in the short-term takes the form of limiting harvests to allow ach the spawning grounds. Protecting the salmon production in the long-term means protecting the spawning and rearing habitats, including the entire salmon bearing ecosystem, from degradation . Habitat protection takes the form of land use planning and regulation, including regulating natural resource extraction activities."
-Alaska Department of Fish and Game

In my opinion, sustainable fish farming should be utilized more often by fish farmers, especially since farmed fish are not as good to eat as fresh and they harm the environment. Also, since wild fish are becoming scarcer and scarcer, this would be a life-saving alternative to the wild fish.

The National Environmental Trust offers a customer petition for sustainable farmed salmon on their Web site. Click here to fill one out.

FishWise is a Web site that provides information on sustainable fishing and healthy seafood for you and me.

Cucurbita pepo= Pumpkin

This week I decided to blog about pumpkins because I had heard the word "pumpkin" mentioned at least one hundred times last week. Since it is almost Halloween and Thanksgiving, the pumpkin rave has started. I'm going to take a look at how to grow pumpkins organically and the uses for our large orange friends.

Growing
Have you ever picked pumpkins at a local farm for Halloween? From the time I could walk, my family and I would go pumpkin picking every year before Halloween. I specifically remember tripping and falling through fields of pumpkins in search of the perfectly-shaped pumpkin. The vines and stems were prickly and thick so the farm guide would have to cut it for me. Out of plain curiosity, I've decided to give you information on how to grow pumpkins according to Pumpkin Growing Tips.

If you want to have your pumpkins by Halloween, Pumpkin Growing Tips suggests you plant your seeds in May or June.

Plant pumpkins in soil that is not humid (which would not be a problem in surrounding areas of Tucson, Ariz.). The soil has to have a pH of 6.0 and have rich, well draining soil. Pumpkin Growing tips suggests using compost.

A large piece of land, preferably farmland, would be most suitable for growing pumpkins but a garden will do. They are vines and need a lot of space. Pumpkin Growing Tips suggests planting pumpkins on mounds, four to five feet apart.

Pumpkins don't need a lot of water. They can be watered infrequently but prefer a good, deep watering once in a while.

Shade is important to allowing the pumpkin to grow to its maximum. Vine leaves help protect the budding pumpkins from the sun but putting up things to shade them helps a lot. Pumpkin Growing Tips recommends using burlap.

If growing them doesn't interest you, maybe going to a local farm to pick them will.
Here are some pumpkin patches near Tucson that are open to the public:
Local HarvestThis Web site allows you to search for a pumpkin farm by zip code, city, or state.
Buckelew Farms
Apple Annie's Produce and Pumpkins

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Pumpkins
Pumpkins have many uses. In my family, we don't just carve the pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern (Click here for a good example on carving jack-o-lanterns). We bake the seeds and eat them. If you are looking for a more interesting way to eat the pumpkin seeds, try making pumpkin seed brittle. We also make pumpkin pie with them. If you cut the pumpkin in pieces and bake them like you would any other squash, you can blend or food process the pumpkin into puree to use for a pie. Here is a good recipe for pumpkin pie.

Pumpkins not only look festive, they have many other uses. So before you throw your pumpkin away, think about the really great foods you can make with it.

Agriculture & UA Sustainability Week

The University of Arizona's Campus Sustainability enlightens students, faculty, and the community with many questionable resources like energy, water, air quality, and food, that we are starting to hear more and more about in life and in the desert.

Next week, Campus Sustainability will be holding Sustainability Week from Wednesday,October 24 to Wednesday, October 31. After checking out the Campus Sustainability Web site, I came across a Web site about sustainable agriculture in Arizona.

The UA Cooperative Extension (an outreach program from the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences) and the National Resources Conservation Service work with farmers in Arizona to, according to UA Cooperative Extension:
-improve profits
-protect the environment
-enhance the quality of the lives of farmers and ranchers

Sustainable agriculture is a system that can sustain itself without destroying the land, environment and people, according to Cooperative Extension. Cooperative Extension helps farmers reduce the amount of non organic input. The general goal of the UA Cooperative Extension is to improve the lives of the communities by offering informal education to all who are interested, according to Cooperative Extension. Lately, sustainable agriculture has been a concern due to foods that have preservatives, additives, chemical fertilizers, pesticides (which have been detected in groundwater in the Midwest), according to Cooperative Extension.

In my opinion, sustainability is important to incorporate into our lifestyle not only because of the reasons listed above, but because of the rise of produce imports from other U.S. states and countries. I had never felt strongly about this until I went to Italy. All of the produce I ate was produce that was in season. I was not eating watermelon during the winter, like you can in the United States. Plus, the produce there had more flavor and it was not perfect. I don't know how sustainable the Italians are when it comes to agriculture, but from what I saw in markets and grocery stores, most of the produce was from a town in Italy.

I think that a sustainable community prove more efficient in the long run. To be able to survive off of the desert would be a large-scale challenge but I think it is something that needs to be supported more. I think that Sustainability week, the UA College of Agriculture, organizations like Tucson Community Supported Agriculture, and farmers markets around town help spread the word of living a healthier life, sustainably.

Click here to view this really awesome Web site about Controlled Environment Agriculture. You can also see tomatoes growing LIVE!


Next week, check out my blog about where to go in Tucson to shop for sustainable produce.

WWOOF Around the World

While waiting to go on another expedition with Humane Borders on Friday, I coincidentally discovered my blog topic for this week, along with a program that could potentially be a post-graduate adventure for me.

World-Wide Opportunities On Organic Farms (WWOOF) is an organization that helps people find international organic farms to volunteer at. After you become a member of WWOOF, they give you the contact information of host farms in whichever country you choose. You, the WWOOFer, must call and make arrangements with the host farm to see if they have any available positions for you.

There are WWOOF host farms in almost every country I could think of. On their Web site, there are two lists, one with countries that have national WWOOF organizations and one with countries with independent WWOOF hosts. From what I could understand, the difference between national and independent is that you directly contact the independent host farms.



In exchange for your work, the host farm provides you with food and board. You work anywhere from four to six hours a day, six days a week, sowing, making compost, gardening, planting, cutting wood, weeding, making mud-bricks, harvesting, fencing, building, typing, packing, milking, and feeding according to the WWOOF Web site.

So on Friday as I was waiting for my Humane Border adventure, I started talking to an ex-WWOOF member, Emily Hertz. Emily told me she had WWOOFed in New Zealand and had an amazing time. Prior to her WWOOF experience, Emily was accepted into a graduate school program. She changed her mind at the last minute because she wanted to experience life outside of academia. She said she chose New Zealand because it was English-speaking and she didn't want to have any miscommunications. Most people I know that have been to New Zealand never want to come back. Although she loved New Zealand, Emily wanted to come back because she was too far away from her family. She told me it was a 20 hour plane ride back home. (Yikes!)



Emily's experience with WWOOF inspired me. I have been thinking about volunteering abroad but I do not want to be gone for two years or pay thousands of dollars to work for free. It costs anywhere between $25 to $50 to become a member of WWOOF, depending on the country you choose. Some host farms even cover you under their health insurance.

All you need is a plane ticket and an open mind.

For more information, check out these links:
WWOOF Newsletter
WWOOF Handbook
WWOOF History