Veterinarian Gundi Rhoades lives in Inverell, NSW, Australia

From an Article by Gundi Rhoades, Sydney Morning Herald, December 26, 2019

Bulls cannot breed at Inverell. They are becoming infertile from their testicles overheating. Mares are not falling pregnant, and through the heat, piglets and calves are aborting.

My work as a veterinarian has changed so much. While I would normally test bulls for fertility, or herds of cattle for pregnancy, I no longer do, because the livestock has been sold. A client’s stud stock in Inverell has reduced from 2000 breeders to zero.

I once assisted farmers who have spent their lives developing breeding programs, with historic bloodlines that go back 80 years. These stud farmers are now left with a handful of breeders that they can’t bear to part with, spending thousands keeping them fed, and going broke doing it.

Cattle that sold for thousands are now in the sale yards at $70 a head. Those classed as too skinny for sale are costing the farmer $130 to be destroyed. They are all gone and it was all for nothing. The paddocks are bare, the dams dry, the grass crispy and brown. The whole region has been completely destocked and is devoid of life.

For 22 years, I have been the vet in this once-thriving town in northern NSW, which, as climate change continues to fuel extreme heat, drought and bushfires, has become hell on Earth.

Here, we are seeing extreme weather events like never before. The other day we had about eight centimetres of rain in 20 minutes. These downpours are like rain bombs. They are so ferocious that a farmer lost all of his fences, and all it did was silt up the dam so he had to use a machine to excavate the mud.

Most farmers in my district have not a blade of grass remaining on their properties. Topsoil has been blown away by the terrible, strong winds this spring and summer. We have experienced the hottest days that I can remember, and right now I can’t even open any windows because my eyes sting and lungs hurt from bushfire smoke.

For days, I have watched as the bushland around us went up like a tinderbox. I just waited for the next day when my clinic would be flooded with evacuated dogs, cats, goats and horses in desperate need of water and food.

The impact of the drought on wildlife is devastating to watch, too. Members of the public are bringing us koalas, sugar gliders, possums, galahs, cockatoos and kangaroos on a daily basis.

The koalas affect me the most. To see these gorgeous, iconic animals dying from thirst is too hard to bear. We save some, but we lose just as many.

The whole town is devastated. My business has halved. But with no horses to breed, no cattle to test and care for, what am I going to do? I have worked day and night to build a future for my family, but who would want to buy our property out here? Who would want to buy a vet clinic in a town where there are no animals to treat because it’s too hot and dry? Where the cattle become infertile from the 40-degree heat. All this on black, baked ground.

I am 53 years old. Can I start again?

Climate change for us is every day, and I am not suffering on the same level as my friends, my clients and the helpless animals I treat. As a veterinarian I am becoming more and more distressed, not just about the state of my town, but the whole world.

Bushfire smoke moves over Inverell.

Personally, I have had weeks when I just cry. It just bloody hurts me. I also have times when I get really angry and I start to swear, which I have never done in my life.

I also have times when I think about the potential this country has to create a renewable future with clean, green energy, and end our reliance on fossil fuels.

You only have to look at how resilient our farmers are in the face of devastating, extreme weather conditions to understand that we can make a powerful, meaningful difference to our future.

The government has no idea what it’s like for us. It has no empathy. Its members don’t know how much it hurts when they just say yes to another coal mine.

I would invite Scott Morrison (Prime Minister) to come and see what life in Inverell is like. In case he chooses not to, I’ll paint this picture for the country and hope people can start to realise and understand the devastating impact climate change is having. I hope they will take a stand for the people, the places and the animals whose voices are too small for him to hear.

>>> Gundi Rhoades is a veterinarian, scientist, mother, beef cattle farmer and member of Veterinarians for Climate Action.

#######################

See also: ‘The Darling River will die’: Scientists say mass fish kill due to over-extraction and drought | The Guardian, February 18, 2019

Soil Disturbance Challenge for Doddridge County Watershed Association

The Earth’s Soil Serves as a Carbon Storehouse

Analysis by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor and Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

An exciting new way to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide by a natural process is being discussed in many places. See here, and see here, and see here, and see here, for example.

To understand it, some background is needed. As the reader will know, most of our energy in this age is derived from burning carbon containing compounds (fossil fuels) in the form of natural gas, oil and coal. They are burned with oxygen in air and carbon dioxide is formed. Less energy is derived from the hydrogen in these compounds atom for atom, and most of the compounds formed from the sulfur, phosphorus. and other elements present in fuels are pollutants.

The process of burning (combustion) oxidizes carbon and the other elements, but some of the carbon dioxide and water from the air are converted to plant life by photosynthesis. Decomposition of dead plants and animals exposed to the air also contributes carbon dioxide. The evidence indicates this has been going on for 2.8 billion years. Sometimes in geological periods past there has been greater or lesser amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than now. The return to plant life of oxidized carbon through photosynthesis is slow.

Much of plant life grows roots into the soil. When the plant dies its roots are converted to a soil carbon form known as humus to gardeners. This is done by fungus, (actually up to 1.5 million species are present in the soil worldwide according to a recent article in Science, the journal of the AAAS) and other microorganisms. As everyone knows, humus helps hold nutrients in the soil, and water. This helps new plants to grow. Scientists now understand soil based life is an association between plants and special microorganisms acting between soil and plant roots. This helps the plants to get nutrients from the soil and from the soil carbon compounds (which are very numerous and complex) in humus.

The excitement is that in many parts of the world soil carbon is depleted, but with proper management it can be rebuilt. It is a huge reservoir – one source gives 2.7 x 10¹⁸ long tons of carbon in soil compared to 0.78 long tons in the atmosphere and 0.75 long tons in biomass, i.e., living matter.

According to Rattan Lal, director of Ohio State University’s Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, the world’s cultivated soils have lost between 50 and 70 percent of their original carbon stock, much of which has oxidized upon exposure to air. (Notice this is cultivated soils, not all soils.) Some of it goes back 15,000 years to when forests were first cleared for crops.

Regenerating these soils involves agricultural practices such as using year-around cover crops, and what is commonly called rotational pasture and other measures. Top priority would be in restoring degraded and eroded lands, avoiding both deforestation, and farming of peat land. Restoration of mangrove areas along coasts, salt marshes and sea grasses would also play a part.

The good thing about this method of reducing carbon dioxide, in contrast to mechanical sequestration, is that it increases the capacity to produce food for the coming increase in world population by increasing soil productivity, and making soils more resilient to both floods and drought. It is not high tech, but involves techniques already with an advanced state of understanding. It is not capital intensive, but education intensive.

One of the most severe problems is with grassland. Much of the world’s agricultural land produces grass and is not suitable for crops, except for certain small favored spots. It is too dry, too hilly, or too wet for crops which produce parts that can be eaten by humans. Grasslands developed under herds of grazing animals, so they are adapted to each other.

Here is a video of an expert, Allan Savory of Rhodesia (now Nyasaland) in Africa explaining the method in a TED talk. It will be recognized by any Appalachian farmer as “rotational grazing.” It is also called holistic management. The animals are kept close together, stay on one spot long enough to eat the top one-third or one-half the plant, the part that has the highest sugar content, then moved on. (The customary practice now is to keep animals in the same field continuously, in the worst case, as long as any of the plant growth remains there.)

The claims of holistic management have their detractors, too. But if you are “into” research on extreme hydrocarbon energy exploitation (shale drilling, mountaintop removal, deep water drilling, etc.) you have learned to look at who is financing what. Don’t skip the last line. Established environmental groups can be slow to change, too! They can’t argue that grazing doesn’t reduce grass fires, though, a benefit important near habitation.

Ohio State University maintains the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, which lists four measures for reestablishment of soil carbon: afforestation, wetlands management, no-tillage of soils and close management of grazing. (1) Reforestation is the name that has been used for decades when the objective was to get the resulting timber. It is now recognized as a good way to build soil, too, because trees have the same kind of relations with microorganisms and humus as grass. Our Appalachian soils developed under forest cover. It is also recognized that the carbon in timber (since it is protected by roofs, etc., last decades to centuries after the tree is cut, before returning to carbon dioxide.

(2) Wetlands often preserve carbon for a long time, since the remains of plants are cut off from oxygen at the water level. Peat is a residue built up from wetland plants that is almost entirely organic. At one time it was cut and dried for fuel, a practice which has largely been discontinued. However peatlands can be drained and farmed, resulting in oxidation of the peat to carbon dioxide. The emphasis is now on preventing this from being done. (3) “No tillage” means not plowing to plant crops which have been traditionally handled this way. Plowing and tillage are primarily weed control activities. Today the best method for corn, soybeans and such like is to plant a cover crop, frequently a legume, which gets good growth before winter and keeps the ground covered and crowds out baby weeds. This prevents oxidation of the carbon in the soil, adds to it, and helps fertilize the main crop. It also helps control some insect pests and encourages wildlife.

So holistic management of soil can remove some carbon dioxide from the air and do it for decades to come. This can provide quite a few other benefits to society, such as food, timber, erosion and flood control, improved wildlife habitat, and scenic values. It is not  high tech nor does it does it require rare or expensive materials. It employs and educates many people, including the poorest, all over the world. Well now, it looks pretty good, doesn’t it?

This article was prompted by a recent extended review from Yale University.

WV Farm House & Land

WV Officials: Farming is the Future

From an Article by David Beard, The Morgantown Dominion Post, Sunday, May 5, 2013

Delegate Larry Williams and others are looking in to what may seem an unlikely — and overlooked — direction to bring prosperity to West Virginia: Farming.

“It just has all kinds of potential,” said Williams, D-Preston. West Virginia’s annual food consumption spending totals about $7.1 billion, said Williams, state Agriculture Commissioner Walt Helmick and WVU Extension’s West Virginia Small Farm Center Program Leader Tom McConnell.

Only a tiny portion of that — about $500 million — comes from West Virginia farms. “Is there an opportunity?” Helmick asked. “Absolutely a huge and significant opportunity. Can we grow all $7 billion? No.” But it’d be realistic to increase in-state production to $1 billion, he said. The big question is how.

The Legislature will study possible answers during the 2013 interims, thanks to a resolution Williams authored — HCR 139. “Larry is a good example of the person that should carry the ban- ner for agriculture and the promotion of agriculture,” Helmick said.

That’s apparent on HCR 139, which drew 37 co-sponsors, including Finance chair Harry Keith White, Judiciary chair Tim Miley, Health chair Don Perdue, Majority Leader Brent Boggs, Majority Whip Mike Caputo, and a number of Republicans.

West Virginia isn’t known as an agricultural state, McConnell said. A large part of the agribusiness industry is devoted to cattle: About 65 percent of the state’s 23,000 farms have beef cattle, making it the second-largest agricultural enterprise after contract poultry.

But feeder cattle, Mc-Connell said, are shipped out of state to get fattened and finished. Meanwhile, West Virginians consume about 72 million pounds of beef a year — most of it from outside the state and c o u n t r y. Expanding slaughter-rendering processing facilities for beef and pork could create 2,585 jobs, McConnell said. Right now, this industry employs less than 150 people.

A WVU Extension study by McConnell estimated the potential economic benefit of raising and processing all the beef and pork in-state at 14,295 additional jobs, when factoring the direct, indirect and induced effects of the production. Indirect and induced spending are the economic ripple effects of the original spending, as the cash flows through additional hands.

One place to start could be the schools, Williams said. Preston County has the only approved school-based slaughter and processing facility, he said. “It would be a great place to start a pilot project to show it could be done.” Williams noted that Preston County Schools just received funding for a support facility for the vocational-agricultural department’s plant — $451,000 from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and $35,000 from the House of Delegates.

There’s also a need for more private facilities across the state, all three said. Another piece of the puzzle is fruits and vegetables. Since most farms are devoted to cattle, HCR 139 says, fruit and vegetable production has room to blossom.

If West Virginia farmers grew enough vegetables and fruits to meet 75 percent of the fresh seasonal produce needs of all West Virginians, the resolution says, it would create an estimated 1,330 jobs (519 jobs in farming and 398 jobs in food and beverage retail). The resulting increase in production would create an estimated $93.9 million in additional sales.

Helmick and McConnell note that West Virginia’s small farms can’t compete with the huge mega-farms in other states, so fruit and vegetable growing has to be approached on a regional and community basis, such as co-ops and direct farm-to-community sales. There may be a way to open new land to farming. Helmick said he’s meeting with officials from some southern West Virginia counties to talk about converting reclaimed mountaintop removal sites to farmland.

Along with land, the state needs more farmers, McConnell said. The WVU Extension Service exists to help with all this through e Education, support and vision. Williams is optimistic, too. “The sky’s the limit to this,” he said. “It’s going to take a lot of planning, and some people that have some vision. We have everything we need to do it.”

Helmick agrees. “It is an exciting time for agriculture in West Virginia.”

Note from S. Tom Bond:

All this is great, but West Virginians are not going to want to buy fruits and vegetables if they think they may be affected by polluted waters or organic vapors from shale drilling. And they are not going to buy animals that have been killed or aborted or otherwise affected by it, either. Dairy has already been adversely affected in Pennsylvania. And, royalties are like caffiene, it stimulates by decreasing debt, but you get dependent on it, and it lets you down in the long run.

Lost Creek, a village a few miles south of Clarksburg, is proud of the fact it was once the largest shipping point for cattle on the B&O Railroad between St. Louis and Baltimore. We have great climate, good rainfall and suitable soils, but difficult hillsides. Obviously with the increasing world population, food will be in demand. They say the average item on your plate travels 1600 miles. If we don’t transition to another form of energy, transportation may become even more expensive.

Also, quite obviously the shale drilling effort will be exhausted in a few decades, but the residues and drilling platforms and roads and rights-of-way for pipe lines will be conspicuous for hundreds of years. Bless the legislature for good intentions, but their pieces don’t fit together.