Miyazaki to triple number of hogs and beef

The authorities in Miyazaki Prefecture who are deciding how many meat animals (beef and pork) will be slaughtered in reaction to the latest foot and mouth outbreak. They are guessing 205,000 additional animals.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-19/japan-to-triple-cattle-hog-cull-on-foot-and-mouth-update1-.html

Japan to Triple Cattle, Hog Cull on Foot-and-Mouth (Update1) - BusinessWeek

www.businessweek.com

Japan will almost triple the number of animals to be culled in Miyazaki prefecture, a major farming region, as an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease threatens the nation’s livestock industry.

 

That is 155,000 pigs, each pig producing 75kg of meat for 11,625,000kg of pork. 50,000 beef at 225kg of meat for each animal, making 11,250,000kg. If you figure that one Japanese person consumes, on average, 43.9kg of meat per year, and there are about 30,000 people in my town, that means that the amount of meat wasted in Miyazaki is going to be 17.369 years worth of food for every man woman and child in the town. 

 

What in the world is going on?
-Beef cattle production requires an energy input to protein output ratio of 54:1
-Grain-fed beef production takes 100,000 liters of water for every kilogram of food.
-On lands where feed grain is produced, soil loss averages 13 tons per hectare per year.
-"More than half the U.S. grain and nearly 40 percent of world grain is being fed to livestock rather than being consumed directly by humans."

 

These resources aren't coming from Japan. (all except the water maybe) The rest is coming from the rest of the world. Japan don't need burgers that bad.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/aug97/livestock.hrs.html

Eating Simpler and Closer to Home for Happiness and Health

In the eight years that I have been living with my wife, she has supported a total change in my eating habits, and thus an enormous change for the better in my life.  I characterize our  lifestyle as a modified macrobiotic lifestyle, and credit it with ending my asthma problems and helping me find a happier, healthier lifestyle.

These are my suggestions, but basically the keys are to simplify and keep it close to home.

I. Eat local
Eating food grown locally means eating food that is balanced with the seasons where you are. It's possible to grow food in greenhouses, and we avoid that, but other food that grows near where we live is in a similar synch with the environment around us. The big implication here: if it doesn't grow near you, avoid it. If you live in sugar producing country, enjoy whole sugars. If you don't, avoid it. Same goes for coffee, bananas, or anything else that grows far away from you.

II. Eat seasonal
This mean to consume foods that are growing where you happen to be. Eating locally and eating seasonally are linked, bringing us the same benefits. If we eat what is close to us and what is growing now, we can't go wrong. If nothing is growing because everything is covered by snow, then canned food that grew around you in the summer is the next best thing.

III. Eat simply
There are so many cookbooks and recipes floating around out there that our expectations for what we  consume are artificially exaggerated. We don't need meals that originated exotic restaurants. Simple meals cooked at home by and for people who love each other are the ticket.

We eat brown rice, miso soup and a simple vegie dish, sometimes with a piece of fish nearly every day. From time to time we may have a pasta dish, but we eat simply and enjoy everything we have.

IV. Eat with people you care about
Sharing a meal brings people together. There is just no question. Cook it and share it with people that matter to you.

V. Avoid meat
No one needs the negative energy from meat, and while cutting it out entirely may be very difficult, cutting back should be no problem. We very rarely consume meat from warm blooded animals and feel great. Our children have never had meat in their lives, and have had very little fish. They eat like horses and play and study as well or better than other children their ages.

VI. Quit micromanaging your food
Media and marketing entities try to focus our attention on the micro nutrients that we are or are not getting. I have found this microscopic view is crap. I was brainwashed into thinking vitamins and supplements, calories, grams of protein and fat were important. If you are following the above hints, you need not concern yourself with anything else.

There are ways to improve our lives through our habits surrounding food, but none of those ways involve making it more complicated. Simplify, and enjoy what you have cooked with people who are important to you. 

Talk with a veteran farmer

This morning I went to meet with a local veteran farmer who shares similar views on farming. His name is Kannnatsu. Our friends introduced us, because he was such and interesting person, and also may be able to start our rice seedlings for us.

There is some background here that is important. Though we initially started farming, expecting to plant rice in an untilled paddy, we have since found that tilling will be essential, until we get a good cover crop established. So this year we have plowed and will be planting rice sprouts.

Starting the seedlings from scratch is a tricky job that starts with selecting the good seed from the whole batch, soaking it until it sprouts, and then planting it in small containers something like ice cube trays. After the sprouts grow covered for about 10 days, then most farmers uncover them for 10 more then plant. Mr. Kannnatsu plants his after a total of 35 days, so they're quite a bit taller.

Mr. Kannatsu is convinced that building the soil is the key, and not with chemical additives, but with rice straw, husks, and bran. He also suggested that if our goal is to plant our paddy without tilling it, then leaving water in it year round is the best way to go. Writing this makes me wonder what will happen around harvest time, when other farmers' paddies are relatively dry and they can lay their cut rice plants on the ground before binding them and hanging them on the racks to dry. Something else to learn.

It was a dense conversation with more content than I could easily process. He is a professional with a lifetime of experience, and I am a true beginner. It is funny to me that I started on this journey of self sufficiency thinking that our small family would be alone in our efforts. I had no idea that I would meet so many like-minded people who are working with nature and with each other to provide good food for themselves and others.

Japan: Far too much roadway for one country

There is a Japanese myth that tells of a country, a nation of cars. It is a country where automobiles capture the imagination of the young, and the ethos of that people is melded with the machines. To the Japanese this country is across a vast ocean, but like in most stories of this kind, it is actually themselves.

Japan has become a car society, and they are willing to sacrifice greatly for it. They are willing to pave over more of their country, and die in greater numbers than that far away country to appease the auto gods.

Of course the fabled country in Japanese myth is the United States, but let's compare. Japan has 377,835 km2 of land area. They are number 61 in the world. The US has 9,629,091 km2 of land, number 3 in the world. Japan has 949,101 km of paved road, number 6 in the world. The US has 4,209,835 km of paved road, number 1 in the world.

That means that Japan has 2.5 km of paved road for every km2 of land. The US has 0.43 km of road for every km2 of land. Japan is willing to pave over their rice fields for their cars, even though their food self sufficiency is only 40% (An exaggerated, terribly over optimistic figure).

They are also willing to sacrifice their people in greater numbers. For every billion vehicle-kilometers, 10.3 Japanese die for every 9 Americans, even though Japanese travel less then half the distance annually that Americans do, 24,000 and 57,000 miles respectively.

This ridiculous situation grows worse by the day, especially at this time of year when they are crazily spending up every last yen of their budgets on road work. This also effects me, because the country is planning to build two more roads, one an elevated highway, and the other a road to service it, that will pass uncomfortably close to my home. This while the population shrinks and ages at a rapid rate. Its population could drop by half this century, meaning year by year the burden on each person of maintaining these roads will grow and grow.

It's time Japan rethink its automobile fetish. It will need all of its people and resources to maintain their people in the years to come, but what it does not need is more roads.

A Nation of Farmers: Guess what book I'm buying now.

This looks like a book that belongs on the shelf of every revolutionary farmer.

内容:

"A Nation of Farmers: How City Farmers, Backyard Chicken Enthusiasts, Victory Gardeners, Small Family Farms, Kids in Edible Schoolyards, Cooks in Their Kitchens, and Passionate Eaters Everywhere Can Overthrow Our Destructive Industrial Agriculture, and Give Us Hope for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness in a Changing World."
- Civil Eats » Blog Archive » A Nation of Farmers: A Handbook for Food System Revolutionaries （Google サイドウィキで表示）

Yoi To Make

This is a video version of the stills below. You can see how the pile driver works and hear the work song that goes along with it. There are several versions of this song, some of the quite ribald, so it was always fun, even though the work was hard.

One foundation stone

one foundation stone
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is one completed pile with the stone planted. One beam will sit on top of this stone.

Group Pull3

group pull3
Originally uploaded by touzanka

Another shot of the thumper ready to drop.

Notice the pile of stones that will be pounded down.

Group Pull4

group pull4
Originally uploaded by touzanka

Log up in the air, ready to drop.

Ropes-n-pullies

ropesnpullies
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is how the pile driver looks when it's ready to go. We all grab a rope, haul the thumper up, and let it drop. All to the rhythm of the singer, the owner of the house, who has done his best to remember the yoi to make song, a great work song.

Foundation guide

found guide
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a photo of the guide for the foundation of the house. There are markings on the boards which form a grid helping us determine where each of the piles should be placed. In the forground is a pile of rocks that will form the piles.

Yoi To Make stomper

log
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is the business end of the Yoi To Make. It is a 100 kilogram pine log attached to the tripod with pullies and ropes to lift it off the ground and drop it onto a pile of rocks.

This forms the foundation for one beam of the house.

inner wall

inwall
Originally uploaded by touzanka

The wall on the right is the covered wall, and that on the left is what a section looks like before it's covered from the inside. The gap at the bottom is a window.

innnerwall 2

inwall2
Originally uploaded by touzanka

You can see the difference in the color of the mud. The brown on the left is the older mud. That on the right is the newer mud.

outwall

outwall
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is the dried outer wall. Lots of daylight getting through here.

More on mud walls

Since the outside half of our mud walls was up dry, thanks to the terrific weather, we put up the inside half on Thursday. Again with the help of seven other hard working friends, we got the job done in one day. Thursday's work went smoother for three of reasons, we had more practice, the outside wall gave us something to push against, and the new mud was easier to apply.

We started at 9:30 by mixing up the little bit of mud we had left, and uncovering the new load of mud we received for the remainder of the walls. The old mud had gotten harder, because the weather had been unusually dry and windy. The new mud, having been covered with plastic, was ready to go.

The inside walls went up much easier than the first time. The first reason was that all of us had experience at it. Also, since the outside wall was already done and the big gaps in the bamboo lattice were filled up, the new mud went on much smoother. Finally, the straw in the new mud had been chopped up finer and had rotted longer, so it was easier to spread. The smell was quite a bit stronger, too.

One other interesting feature of the different mud is the color. The mud we used on the outside of the building was from a nearby source, and is tan in color. The newer mud is chocolate mousse color. You can see that in the photos.

We will cover the walls once more with a thin layer of mud with a higher sand content for the sake of appearance and making it varmint proof. Now there are lots of gaps in it as a result of the mud drying. Sandier mud won't crack as much.

Mud supply

dwindling mud
Originally uploaded by touzanka

Actually, this isn't enough mud, and to finish up the inside walls, we are going to have to find some to buy. There aren't many, but people do still make mud for wall commercially.

Gradually working your way down

from the inside
Originally uploaded by touzanka

From the inside

frominside2
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is what the wall looks like from the inside.

Looks and smells bad

looksbadsmellsbad
Originally uploaded by touzanka

Smells nearly as bad as it looks.