Eat More Organic! Four Corners TV programme .. on Dioxins, dangerous chemical crop spraying, in Australia ...

Am watching a vitally important programme on 4 Corners about chemical 2,4-D and its effects on health, our crops and the astounding fact that this well-known dioxin is still being sprayed as a herbicide and I believe as a pesticide in Australia.  Many of us were wrongly of the belief that dioxins had been banned long ago, in this country. Not so, it seems.

The point of the programme is that unsafe chemicals are still being used within our environment without our realising and that we are continuing to imbibe them whether through breathing the air, eating produce grown near where they've been distributed, drinking water seeping through from contaminated groundwater or directly by the people spraying the chemicals and their families who are then exposed to the chemicals as well.

Ten kilometres of chemical drift are occurring on to market gardening properties affecting the sex of the crops, causing two cobs to form and other types of plant deformities. When flowers and fruit form this is a particularly volatile time of impact.

One company had announced it was going to review the use of the chemical back in 1995 but as still taking action on the matter 11 years later.  The stories of Australian men back in the 1970s spraying  both 2,4-D and agent orange (that was banned) on to crops and weeds without protective masks, footwear and clothing who are deceased or dying from dioxin poisoning still all theses decades later are horribly shocking but must be seen, to convince us of the power of the chemicals industry and how we are still today so compliant in their every day administration.

Am watching this programme whilst typing, therefore some details need to be verified by watching the programme back on I View (given that I'm typing this in somewhat of a hurry).

http://www.abc.net.au/iview/?series=2303988#/series/2303988.

One really insidious aspect is the lack of information about the source of 2,4-D and insufficient testing and regulation abut the presence of dioxin, and the fact that toxicity can be minimised with enough care and attention.  What is astonishing is that the substances supplied by China, and being tested by 4 Corners representatives are allegedly of higher toxicity levels than were being used 20 years ago!

Go to the ABC - 4 Corners link above to watch back this compelling and shocking story.

If this is not sufficient food for thought to get more of us growing our own, or eating organic food, I don't know what is.

Macedon Ranges Inspiration

Some shots from Macedon Ranges

Recently, a couple of us were working up in the Macedon Ranges. We are going to be recommending indigenous plants for a rural property. 

The range of indigenous plants is simply huge, and very important to know these because soil and weather conditions vary so much from region to region.  

On a farming or rural property, just as with private urban landscaping, it's ideal if we can think about  bio-diversity. Key points for habitat creation and maintenance are:  switch to organic fertilizers,  more benign pesticides to protect the local critters.  Remember, without the critters, there can be no habitats! Birds and reptiles need somewhere to forage and nest, so single stemmed plantings aren’t so ideal. Go for some bushy shrubs, prickly trees (eg Hakeas), exposed rocks for reptiles, nesting boxes in tall trees.    Rather than a planting area which is immaculate, leave around leaf litter, mulches (worms, beetles),  hollowed trunks, and twigs for small creatures to shade themselves under.  Grasses and nectar plants also attract caterpillars and butterflies.      

The landscape mimicks the land

Blue-green algae in Gippsland lakes and elsewhere are making havoc for local fishing, wild-life, and of course tourism.  Blue-green algae is caused by excess nutrients entering the waterways, due to sewerage run-off and over fertilisation. Our lands grow barren as we turn over crops without practicing traditional crop rotation, companion planting or other permaculture principles. Meanwhile birds and other pollinators head off to greener pastures.  Hence pests become a problem and the bad cycle continues with pesticide use on the rise and land and habitat degradation compounding as a result. The land needs a bit of a rest. 

Similar things are happening at the local urban level, in our back-yards as we are turning them in to mono-cultures resulting from more streamlined gardens, which means the pollinators don't have much to attract them.  Again off the birds and bees go to greener pastures. Urban run-off leaves little water left in the ground, with the water-table needing replenishing after years of drought.  Run-off to creeks, and oceans is on the increase as we continue to build up our back-yards. Fertilisers high with nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogent) leach in to the ground and flow off in to creeks which lead to the sea, again causing blue-green algae blooms, and making eco-systems sick.  I wonder if it is a coincidence that  our Melbourne metropolitan beaches are being rated as 'fair' .

Remember, that our back-yards, though seemingly just our private domain are also an extension of the wider land and our waterways, and we should be much more careful as to how we use them.