NEWS BRIEFS
Casual and Comfortable
The canvas upper
and cork footbed
make a terrrific
combo.
New for Spring: Classic Skipper
Find Footwise Eugene on Facebook
someone is growing very short plants.
Growers who want to lower their electric
bills and save the planet while they relieve
the pain of chronically and terminally ill
patients can use compact fluorescent bulbs
for maximum efficiency.
Scott says that his vegetation room uses
entirely compact fluorescent lighting, and
he sees a difference of several hundred
dollars between the energy bill for his
compact fluorescent room and the more
expensive high-pressure sodium lights.
Different types of cannabis growth
require different light, which is measured
as the color temperature (the hue of a light
type) in Kelvin. “Flowering for compact
fluorescents is 2,700 K, for vegetative
growth it’s 6,500 K,” Scott says. “It can be
a pain in the butt to get your hands on.” He
says he’s seen the right type at Lowe’s, but
not at Jerry’s or Home Depot.
EWEB has a rebate plan for compact
fluorescent and light emitting diode
fixtures, but they only apply to hard-wired
fixtures on the list of Energy Star qualifying
products, which may disqualify a lot of
marijuana growers. If anyone could figure
out a way around the EWEB qualifications,
it would be the activists who managed to
lessen the legal impacts of medical pot in
the face of a draconian federal drug policy.
— Shannon Finnell
SMALL SCALE
FARMING
Farmers gathered in the Coquille Room
of the EMU on the first day of the Public
Interest Environmental Law Conference to
discuss subsistence rights, the faults of
monoculture and agrichemical agriculture,
and how to reinvigorate small-scale
farming in this country.
“Food is the center of our society, our
culture,” said Jorge Navarro of Huerto de
la Familia, a group that provides organic
farming opportunities for Latino families
in need throughout Lane County.
“Everything begins and ends” with food,
he said.
According to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA), the number of farms
in the country has declined from four
million to 2.2 million since 1959. This is
the result of monoculture farming, the
practice of farms growing one specific
crop, and the rise of the “industrial farming
complex.” The lack of diversity in major
commercial farms is bad for farming
because it opens up the entire farm to
danger from swarms of pests and creates
an economy dependent on just a few
specific crops, the panelists said.
“When you simplify an ecosystem, you
weaken it,” said Larry Brewer, program
director for the Oregon Biodynamic
Group.
The panel offered some positive
examples of sustainable and non-
consumerist farming working on a small-
scale. Paul Atkinson, who owns Laughing
Stock Farm off of Territorial Highway,
shared his experiences exchanging turkeys
with other small-scale farmers for meals
instead of money. Michael Moss discussed
the benefits of herd sharing, in which
consumers pay farmers a fee for a farmer
to board a cow, obtaining milk — or in this
case, cheese — in exchange.
“I don’t like to talk about ownership; I
like to talk about taking care of the land
and animals,” Atkinson said.
While these practices have worked on a
small scale, agriculture as a whole in this
country remains driven by monoculture
and consumerism. When the Earl Butz-led
USDA provided large subsidies to massive
corn farming operations, small-scale farms
couldn’t compete with the low prices and
were bought up or failed.
“Nothing is sustainable if practices are
being committed that could bring the
whole ecosystem down,” Moss added. “I
don’t believe in insular activism.”
— John Locanthi
SANDALS SHOES CLOGS BOOTS
&#SPBEXBZt%PXOUPXO&VHFOFt
48.BEJTPOt%PXOUPXO$PSWBMMJTt
.PO4BU4VOtXXXGPPUXJTFDPN
COOS BAY:
A DUMPING
GROUND?
Coos Bay has long been an important
site for the timber industry with its strategic
positioning along the Coos River, the
Pacific Ocean and lush forests. However,
as discussed at the “Rural Oregon: Not a
Dumping Ground for Dirty Development
Projects” panel at the Public Interest in
Environmental Law Conference, logging
is no longer the only environmental issue
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
EUGENE WEEKLY MARCH 10, 2011 9