Organic Funding Help & Brewing Trouble

Organic Funding Help & Brewing Trouble plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Idaho organic producers who carry out conservation practices consistent with an organic system plan may be eligible for funding according to Alexis Collins, NRCS Public Affairs Specialist.

COLLINS: Producers who are currently certified organic or ones that are transitioning to organic production are eligible to apply for the program. And organic farmers that have some environmental problem on their farm and can resolve it with some specific conservation practices should be the ones that come in and apple for these programs because we can help them with funding for those practices that might help resolve the issues.

A new interpretation of an old state law blocked home brewers and amateur winemakers in Oregon from participating in friendly tastings and contests. The Department of Justice told the Oregon Liquor Control Commission the law did not allow non-licensed amateurs to share their carefully crafted homebrew anywhere except at home. Tuesday, the Oregon Senate unanimously endorsed Senate Bill 444, which would rewrite state law to allow homemade beer and wine to be made, transported and consumed. It would clear the way for contests to resume in time for summer and fall judging.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

At housing design competitions you expect to see designs for energy efficient solar houses, underground houses, tree houses, perhaps even collapsible take it with you houses, but not housing for migrant workers designed to serve as a rainwater collector as well as an eight hundred square foot living space. The Canteen Farm House, a rain-gathering house for migrant workers was an award winner in the D3 Housing of Tomorrow competition. The idea behind its design is to comfortably shelter migrant workers, while collecting and distributing rainwater through an “elastic, expanding exterior skin”. Sounds like something right out of Star Wars doesn’t it? In theory, the elastic outer skin of the Canteen Farm House would swell with water as it filled up, then reroute that water to an existing irrigation infrastructure. Solving two problems at once, comfortable shelter and water shortages. Will we see Canteen Farm House communities spotted across the rural countryside anytime soon? Probably not. While the design is award winning, and definitely innovative, it is also, at least for now, impractical. But dreams have to start somewhere.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.