Articles
Saturday Food Chain
Every Saturday morning, from 9 to 10 a.m, join KSCO's Michael Olson for a discussion on local farm and agriculture issues.
Metrofarm.com
Journalist
Michael Olson produced, wrote and/or photographed feature-length news for a variety of media, including the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner newspapers, Skiing and Small Space Gardening magazines,NBC, ABC, Australian Broadcast Commission, and KQED Public Television networks. His production and photography helped win a National Emmy nomination for NBC Magazine with David Brinkley. Olson is the author of MetroFarm, the Ben Franklin Book of the Year Finalist and Executive Producer and Host of the syndicated Saturday Food Chain radiotalk show, which received the Ag/News Show of the Year Award from the California Legislature. He recently authored Tales from a Tin Can, which is the oral-history of a World War II US Navy destroyer that earned a Starred Review from Publishers Weekly.
Business Person
Olson designed, blended and packaged a fertilizer for container-grown house and garden plants; certified and registered the product as a “specialty fertilizer” with the State of California; and sold the product to the national lawn and garden market. Olson has over two decades of broadcast media management and, as General Manager of newstalk radio stations KSCO & KOMY in Santa Cruz, California, has helped hundreds of locally-owned businesses compete against national chains. Olson is currently a partner in the MO MultiMedia Group of Santa Cruz, California.
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DIVINING BY DOWSING
Food Chain Radio Show #781 • March 9, 2013 • Sat 9AM Pacific
Michael Olson hosts Dowsers Steven Herbert and Sue Trumpfheller
What else might be devined by dowsing?
Do you believe dowsing can find water?
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A few years back, I watched as a friend contracted for a water well to be drilled on his newly purchased parcel of mountain ridgetop!
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Other landholders on this ridgetop had not faired well in their drilling of water wells, and consequently most of the neighborhood’s wells produced mere trickles of water.
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The well-driller, a grizzled veteran of decades of drillings, said, “I won’t drill on this property without a dowser!” And so the recommended dowser was contracted to “witch a well.”
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The dowser, an equally grizzled veteran of decades of dowsing, cruised the property behind a well-used forked willow branch, occasionally stopping here and there at the dipping of the forked willow. Finally, he stopped dead in his tracks and said, “Right here! You will find 30 gallons per minute at 365 feet.”
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And that is, within a foot or two, where the well-driller found 30 gallons per minute on the bone dry ridgetop.
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Having seen this dowsing, and the proving up of its call, one simply must ask…
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What other answers might be divined by dowsing?
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Ubiquitous Soy & Precocious Puberty
Food Chain Radio Show #911 • March 2, 2013 • Sat 9AM Pacific
*********Michael Olson hosts: Nancy Chapman, Executive Director, Soyfoods Association of North *********America & Pharmacist Ben Fuchs, Host, Bright Side Radio Show
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Could ubiquitous soy cause precocious puberty?
A challenge: Go out into the world and find a loaf of bread that does not contain some form of soy. Good luck!
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Soy is in the hamburger, in the hamburger bun, and in the milkshake. In fact, soy is in many, if not most, of the processed foods we eat, including:
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Baked Goods: breads, cookies, crackers, etc.
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Breakfast cereals: hot cereal mixes and protein bars
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Pasta: including U.S. National School lunch pastas
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Beverages & Toppings: coffee whiteners, whipped toppings, protein drinks
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Meat, Poultry, Fish: products processed from whole parts
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Dairy: imitation milks, cheeses, frozen yogurts, milk blends
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And of course, soy is in the baby formula.
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We now feed our children soy in many of their foods from the day they are born until the day they go out into the world on their own.
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Wait! There is another thing to consider about our children: They are becoming sexually mature at a much younger age. In the 19th century, girls began menstruating at the average age of 15. Today girls begin at the average age of 12. Boys also are maturing years earlier, with some groups developing at the age of nine!
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The ubiquity of soy in our children’s foods, and the precocious puberty of our children, lead us to ask…
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Can Animals in Agriculture be Treated Humanely?
Michael Olson talks with Matt Rice, Director of Investigations for "Mercy for Animals". They discuss, along with callers, whether or not animals can be treated humanely in a food market as large as that of the United States.
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Solutions for the Labor Shortage
In a follow-up to last week's show, Michael Olson continues to address the labor shortage that is causing some of our crops to go unpicked. What are some of the solutions to this problem that would have been unheard of just a few years ago.
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Where are all the farmworkers?
With 30 million Americans out of work and millions more underemployed, farmers are still having a hard time finding the help needed to keep a farm profitable. Michael Olson's guest for this week is Dr. Ann Lopez, Executive Director of The Center for Farmworker Families. www.farmworkerfamily.com
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GMO's and Monsanto Woes
Michael Olson invites Professor Emeritus of Perdue University Dr. Don Huber. They discuss concerns over the possibility of a newly discovered pathogen that could be causing spontaneous abortion rates of 20-45% in animal that feed on genetically engineered crops. Some believe that this new pathogen is a direct result of Glysophate, a herbicide developed and sold by the Monsanto corporation .If this is true, what will the Monsanto bug do to us?
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