Goods From The Woods - Wild Crops Harvest Farm

Goods From The Woods - Wild Crops Harvest Farm

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• Our Work With Wild Lands and Native Forest Systems in sustainable wild harvests (142)
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• US Certified Organic Herbal Production: Q&A
• Understanding Witch Hazel Production - Getting a Picture
• Dwindling Certified Land for American Organic Herbal Production
• Missouri Native Plants for health and Beauty Cheryl's Native
• Knowing Nothing - Humbled by Germans Herman, Mo.
• American Pine Nut Harvest Forecast 2008:
• Wild Crop Harvesting and Wild life Impact
• Goods From The Woods organic wild crops certificate
• When You Sell an Organic Farm - turn in the certificate
• 2008 American Pine Nut Harvest - Pinon Nuts
• Ozarks Wild Berry TIme
• Certified Organic Witch Hazel Hydrosol / Distillate $10.00 pint, $65.00 gallon
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Our Work With Wild Lands and Native Forest Systems in sustainable wild harvests

• Wild Crops Farm Documenting Sustainabilty
  

  This is our bottom. The land stair steps up in 3 levels. Most of the time, the bottoms are cleared for grazing. The forest here is pretty young and along the edges of the hollar thick with young stick like trees.

  Its been raining for 4 days and the news is filled with stories of floods in the Ozark. First chance we had, we took off in the woods with our camera.
  We finished our application for wild crops certification on this property. I haven't counted the species on our list, but I used www.ifcae.org data base to research the Non Timber or Special Forest Products that COULD be here. Then, as we harvest we photograph, pre harvest, during harvest and post harvest. This is the only way that an inspector can really monitor the wild crop harvest together with the daily harvest log. The daily harvest log is a journal that show how much was harvested where. This is how an organic certifier can determine that the harvest comes from the property and meets the sustainability criteria.

  
• 20 lbs of plum flowers for plum flower essence- awesome!!!!!!!!!
  

  Think 8 foot screen door, think flowers piled 8 inches, think spring and the smells that define the earth as it awakens from winter. It is a beautiful awakening and a beautiful product of love and nature.

  
• 2008 American Pine Nut Harvest - Pinon Nuts

  Its getting to be pine nut harvest time and everyone is getting restless. Yes, there will be a pinon nut harvest in 2008. I am not going to give anything away, on our blog at this time. BUT, look at www.pinonnuts.org for information about viable harvest areas in the Southwestern United States. Looks like there is a good harvest in certain places, like.....oh, almost slipped, see www.pinonnuts.org for info on 2008 harvesting areas.

  

  Pinon Penny's pine nuts. These are Nevada Pinon Nuts. THere will be a 2008 harvest. More information available!
  
• 22,000 tons of wild foods harvest in Alaska yearly

  One thing we stress on a regular basis is the scope of wild harvest. In the American Herbal Association Tonnage report, one sees the amazing amounts of yearly wild harvest for American Wild Botanicals. Rarely, do I ever see documentation of wild food harvests. This article from the Tundra Drums caught my eye

  

  Why is it that public land managers continue to think in terms of board feet for our forests?

  The Federal Subsistence Management Program quotes, "Subsistence fishing and hunting provide a large share of the food consumed in rural Alaska." The state’s rural residents harvest about 22,000 tons of wild foods each year – an average of 375 pounds per person.

  A 2004 Report on the Status of Alaska Natives by the University of Alaska Institute for Social and Economic Research indicates that our people in Western Alaska consume 640 pounds of wild food per capita. Fish makes up about 60 percent of this harvest.

  
• 45,000 tons of medicinal plants to Germany alone

  Each year, 45,000 tons of medicinal plants are used in Germany -- more
  than in any other European country. But this booming business also creates
  problems for species preservation.

  

  Drugs made from medicinal plants have become ever more popular among
  doctors and patients in Germany in recent years. Around 75 percent of
  customers in German pharmacies reach for a natural product when they buy
  non-prescription medications. In 2006, so-called phytopharmaceuticals
  accounted for around 2 billions euros ($2.9 billion) worth of revenue, or
  about a third of the total revenue in non-prescription medications. That
  translates into a high demand for the raw materials for these products --
  medicinal plants and their leaves, flowers, roots, and seeds.
  http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3106747,00.html

  My question- how many of our native plants end up overseas? What would be the value to our wild lands if these were certified wild crop organic harvests?

  
• All Natural Beauty and Sharambrosia

  Origins had invited us to give this distillation and we are excited about certified organic cosmetics entering into the American mainstream. I looked over their website and saw it to be encouraging. Yet, I think there are outstanding pioneers doing work for women in health and beauty. Sharon has been encouraging us and supporting our native plant work for about 2 years. She has a way of finding real people working at creating healthy products for a healthier world. We are very glad to have friends like her! She published this article about our work and made us, stop working to take a good photo for her publication.

  www.wildcrops.com and www.pinenut.com" title="" width="216" height="192" />

  Thank you Sharon for the wonderful spotlight on our work and our products!
  
• American Herbal Products: Harvester, handler, home : A trip through the wild world of botanicals supply chains

  The United States Forest Service recently requested comments on the fee structure for botanical harvests. The AMERICAN HERBAL PRODUCTS ASSOCIATION prepared excellent comments. Unless a person is engaged in wild harvesting chances are you would not read the comments (23 pages of an adobe file). We support the collection of certified wild crops and found the comments to be excellent. With the permission of the Association, I am posting excerpts.

  

  Bloodroot - a wild harvested plant, difficult to find. It is a powerful medicine and I know of three people who treated themselves for cancer with it. The root pictured went to treat skin cancer on the face of the person who harvested it.

  It is important in evaluating how the proposed rule may affect the many people who harvest the relevant forest products to know something about standard harvest
  practices for those species that are used by the dietary supplement trade.
  It is AHPA’s understanding that most of the material that comes into trade is harvested by self-employed individuals or small groups of friends or family members who work together but do not have any formal business relationship.

  These self-employed harvesters sell the materials that they collect to local buyers, usually after conducting basic cleaning operations and often, but not necessarily, after dehydrating these harvests. It is at this transaction point that the current value of a harvested commodity to the actual harvesters is established. These local buyers subsequently resell the materials toregional consolidators (who may also serve as “local buyers,” as that term is used here, for harvesters in their immediate vicinity or with whom they have established direct purchase agreements), or may skip this intermediate transaction if they have identified buyers further upstream in the materials’ marketing route. Most relevant forest products obtained by harvest in the wild, however, come into the manufacturing trade, both domestic and foreign, from the regional consolidator point, and are then sold directly to consumers or used in the production of value-added ingredients and finished consumer products.

  So, that is how botanicals move from the forest to your home for consumption. It is a low impact, family styled business for the most part. You tell me, how many people are there that can go out in the woods and find these plants?

  
• American Pine Nut Harvest Forecast 2008:

  We forecast pricing to be in the range of $12.50 per pound of 2008 pinon nuts. (Gas and other expenses is forcing pricing upward). The first nuts of the season .... http://www.pinenut.com/pinon_nuts.html

  

  2008 American Pine Nut Harvest Pinon Penny

  As a producer of wild crops, I understand that forecasting wild harvests yields is a critical part of their management. Using harvest forecasts helps people see the values in their wild systems that would other wise go unnoticed, save timber. It is crucially important that people find economic value in their native plant systems or at least greater biodiversity. I believe that economic data must be collected which will prove to decision makers of large land holding, its profitable to keep wilderness. Case in point, The Pioneer Forest one of our partners in other wild crop harvesting. Its there care of the forest that makes commercial harvest possible, thus saving many thing and creating great opportunity.

  

  Regardless, of work in the Ozarks, I was very excited to work on a project that pulled together information for the American Pinon Pine Nut Harvest. Together with the BLM, The Colorado Wood Utilization Team, Institute for Culture and Ecology, Goods From The Woods assisted in creating a page for forecasting the 2008 pinon pine nut harvest potential. We would love feedback that will help support the project. I think it is a very important step forward in creating better pinyon pine tree understanding and values. Here is the link. http://www.pinonnuts.org/forecast2008.htm and also see www.pinenut.com/pinon_nuts.html for ordering information.

  
• Ancestors - Those who lived on this land before us

  Some of the first settlers came in 1829,mostly to the Meramec, Spring Creek and Dry Fork valleys. Land could be purchased for five cents or less an acre. William Thornton, Daniel Troutman and Daniel W. Wooliver were among the 1829 settlers, followed by William
  Blackwell, Lewis Dent, Wilson Craddock and Silas Hamby.

  

  Silas Hamby 1811 - 1901 Texas County Mo

  George and I stopped at a tiny grave yard near our old home in Licking. I walked through the cemetery thinking that these people were my ancestors, too. They lived on this land. They raised families, earned what they needed with their hands. They knew this land, the seasons, the plants, the trees. They saw it before industrialization, before tractors, before chainsaws, before feller bunchers and fescue.

  As I walk in the forest, I often wonder what this land was like before the settlers came. We saw Silas'stone and he was oldest person in the cemetery. So, Silas saw this land before the changes. At some point in time, the last person with 1st hand knowledge passed away. I wonder if that was Silas.

  
• Another View of The "Low Value Forest"

  This is mostlikely going to be a topic of this blog for its life time. The average return on agriculture acreage is $500.00. There is a huge push to turn forests into fuels. I understand that the corn ethonal plants can process "low value forest plants now"
  In Missouri there are 405 species of forest plants know for the food, medicinal and ornimental values. 38 species of medicine plants are harvested by the ton in Missouri. 99.999% via illegal harvest. Forest Managers don't have the man power to manage, so they don't and don't know the value of our "whole forest" just the trees they do manage.

  

  Low value forest plants do not exisit. Our forests do not belong in gas tanks.

  Let's take another native plant Echinacea 6lbs of fresh plant material = 1 gallon of hydrosol value $250.00 wholesale market (and up!). That same plant's raw botanical value freshly harvested is .75 lb. $40.00lb value added, $1.50 lb dried and sold to broker.
  The point is the LOW VALUE forest is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. Our forests do not belong in our gas tanks and we have to show value if we are going to keep them safe from post oil mania.

  
• Aromahead's Contribution: free online aromatherpay class

  I have been looking for possible clients for our witch hazel distillations and in a quandary about where to market the product. Three larger companies have stated they will take the entire inventory. BUT, I would really like to see it go to smaller companies who have been ethical about organic ingredients. I looked around the web and found some real jewels. One company I really liked was aromahead.

  

  Translating from the natural world to the human world. A story for people who consume

  They put out a free online class in aromatherapy,http://www.aromahead.com/online-classes.php Also several online classes that are very affordable. I can tell from their pages and Andrea Butje's reply to my email that there is a passion for the medicine of creation. I got such a great feel from our exchange.

  I don't know if we can find a way to do business. I do know these woman are working, teaching, sharing and developing tools for people to understand the plants and their healing ways. In doing healing work, for people, for plants,for the planet it is about sharing the tools we have and teaching each other ways of being another kind of human being.

  Maybe, I figured out what I want to do. Maybe, I want our product to go to those are willing to tell its story.

  
• Baboon Sex: Monkeying around with wild plums

  As we harvest wild plums, I felt this fell in the our news catagory on wild harvesting.
  We have been trying to get the full spectrum of the wild plum flower hydrosol phyto chemicals of the American species

  Baboons use contraceptives ?

  

  What do baboons know that people don't?

  Nigerian baboons appear to be self-medicating with a wild plum that has a contraceptive effect. This is the first known example of an animal deliberately ingesting a contraceptive plant.

  Biologists have found that fruit and leaves of the Vitex donian plant, otherwise known as the African black plum, are affecting female baboon hormones and preventing pregnancy in a similar way to the human contraceptive pill.

  "The hypothesis that [this fruit] can regulate sexual behaviour… is very exciting and, if supported, could have a major impact on the study of primate reproduction", commented primatologist Wendy Saltzman, at the University of California in Riverside, USA.

  After detecting unusual progesterone levels in olive baboons (Papio anubis) in Nigeria's Gashaka-Gumti National Park, British researchers set out to probe the effect of the plum on the primate's reproductive biology. They tracked two troops of baboons and recorded their consumption of the plum as a proportion of their total diet.

  
• Before you certify your forest organic wild crop

  Identifing Native Plants - where to get help:

  The face of rural america has changed. That is like saying the sun is rising in the east this morning. Large land owners timber off their holdings and sub-divide into small vacation lots. Corporate land owners prepare plantation planting of timber crops and the the retired person just does not have a clue about how to manage a wild landscape for income. There are very few human resources with on the ground knowlege to help identify wild plant species and how to go about certifing wild crops. I guess that is why we are so committed to making our blog a "how to".

  There are a handful of permaculturists, botanists, restorationists and herbal harvesters to teach and develop the information for wild crop certification. I mentioned Roxann's page for ginseng in my last post. There is a fellow in North Carolina that is able to certify lands wild and consult on woodland economics.

  Mr. Robin Suggs, Moonbranch Botanicals. http://www.moonbranch.com Robin "gets it" in a way almost no else does. He has a background in horiculture, ecconomic development and training in organic certification. He harvests and plants and buys wild botanicals. He is a "go to" guy. Check out his credential list:

  Member:
  American Herbalist Guild
  Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project; Farm Partner
  Co-op America
  Green Products Alliance
  National Network of Forest Practitioners
  North Carolina Consortium on Natural Medicines
  North Carolina Goodness Grows/NCDA&CS
  North Carolina Natural Products Association
  Southwestern North Carolina RC&D Council
  United Plant Savers

  You have to know, this man is committed to doing all that he can to help the plants, the planet and the people. Robin is an awesome human being.

  Before you get ready to certify your lands wild crop organic - you have to know what is there - what should be there. Most rural landowners have lost the connection with the native landscape. For the last 50 years farms have been on tractors and woodsmen have been on feller bunchers. The experts in managing wild landscapes are few and far between. Sort of an oximoron, as there are no experts and one does not manage wild landscapes, but incorpates into them.

  Before you start looking for someone to certify your forest wild crop organic, you have to know what is there and what should be there. What the plants are worth and where to sell them. We are going to try to help with this. You are welcome to send comments and questions.

  
• Blogging the wild plum bud

  Our wild plum flowers are budding out 8 days earlier than last year. We thought we make a record of our buds and harvest. This helps our wild organic certifier, any plant science person and creates a great picture log. This is a plum plum bud picture taken 3/22/07.
  Last year our first day on the ground was April 1 and the temp was in the mid 40's. Yesterday's high was about 70 degrees and partially sunny.

  
  
• Buying Fanny - tax rebates for rural investors

  We could have done just about anything with our tax rebate. Being rural investors, we bought a little ass. Fanny is her name and she came home during the days of my shrunken band with. So, George - is learning to speak donkey. The Ass whisperer...I have lovingly daubed him.

  

  This is very, very different from her world. We took the responsibly of Fanny, and long and short- George is zenning with his Fanny as I write. Adorable is just not the world.

  He is out there near her. He took her up and down the street, showing off his adorable Fanny. We need her to be comfortable in trusting him. I am hoping that he will introduce his Fanny to the lady across the road, Mrs. Wood. She kind soul and I am sure you will enjoy George's Fanny, unless Fanny stomps her little dogs. I think an introduction would be a good thing. Perhaps, help everyone get along better.

  This year George's Fanny will apprentice and help with tools, light supplies. It is an important process, establishing a long term relationship. One wants to do it with care and foresight. In our world we take care of life with pleasure. We want George's ass to be happy.

  
  It has been going very, very well as Fanny is loving and gentle. She is comforted by George and they have developed a bond. George is a loving, fun, gentle human being. It is not surprising , George and his Fanny were destined. That was the end of donkey searching.

  He goes out to be with her several times a day. She has her own space, which I think is important to all creatures. She is sleeping. He went in after she opened an eye and sat with her . They both snoozee for a while. Donkey snuzzing....

  She wakes up and seems to be confused by her surroundings, a very natural thing when you have been moved. George is right there. I thought it was brilliant. She had a sense of place and safety to associate with him. They are going to be a lovely team George and his Fanny. The rebate check covered her, the fence, supplies and .....now.....she needs a companion.

  But, I too am entralled with George's little Fanny and think there is no harm in a second donkey. Perhaps he will be Tuchie or a little French Tuchea.

  
• Certification and Management of Non-Timber Forest Products

  Tapping the Green Market: Certification and Management of Non-Timber Forest Products
  by Patricia Shanley; & Abraham Guillen Sarah A. Laird Alan R. Pierce
  PUBLISHER
  EARTHSCAN
  ©2002
  ISBN-10 1853838713
  ISBN-13 9781853838712
  FORMAT Hardcover
  PAGES 456
  Size 9.5 x 7 x 1.25 Inches
  Weight 2.05 Pounds
  PUBLISHED 01/01/2003
  Non-Fiction
  From Strand Bookstore

  Explains the use & importance of market-based tools such as certification & eco-labeling for guaranteeing best management practices of NTFPs in the field, in the People & Plants Conservation Series.

  
• Certified Organic Wild Crop Witch Hazel Distillation

  It has taken pretty close to a year to work out all the details. We will have 100 acres of certified organic wild witch hazel harvest area here in Missouri. What an exciting step forward. This is a very large private forest and our first steps with this land owner in moving toward the inclusion of NTFPs in a forest management plan.

  

  Goods From The Woods is excited about partnering with a very large land owner to certify 100 acres of creek bottom wild organic for witch hazel production!

  Along that line, many forests have Forest Stewardship Council certifications. The Non-timber forest products (everything other than lumber) can be certified under FSC criteria. The FSC criteria are vastly different from the USDA criteria for organic wild crop. For products that are consumed the USDA criteria would be favored. For products that are decorative in nature, it would not matter greatly.\

  
• Certified Organic Witch Hazel Hydrosol / Distillate $10.00 pint, $65.00 gallon

  I have been getting emails about our pricing for certified organic witch hazel distillate / hydrosol. Product will be available soon and we will be producing apx. 500 gallons over the season. IF you wish to reserve product at this pricing, email us wild@wildcrops.com

  

  Wildcrops.com is pleased to announce its pricing for certified organic witch hazel. $10.00 pint, $65.00 a gallon. Fresh, hand harvested
  
• Change of Subject: Wild Moss Harvest

  One of the people I respect greatly in non-timber forest products or wild harvesting world is Eric T Jones, Ph.D.Environmental Anthropologist, Institute for Culture and Ecology . I won't write today about how I met Eric, Katie and Rebbecca. Suffice to say, they have shaped the direction of my work and provide leadership, support and a great deal of inspiration.

  I wanted to share about what Eric wrote in a discussion on moss harvesting:

  

  I was also a commercial moss harvester in Oregon in the 1980s. Then and now I oppose moss harvesting in most areas other than salvage zones and tree plantations and a few other situations. I think there is simply too little known about moss. We need more science, especially science that takes the time to find out how harvesters actually harvest. There are quite a few studies published on NTFPs that don't offer any proof as to what they are researching actually matches up with what the majority of harvesters do. In my experience harvesters quite often have a large bag of tricks.

  That is Eric's background; he has been on the ground since he was a child harvesting and working. But, here is the key part of Eric's post:

  I haven't done any studies myself on moss habitat loss outside of reporting claims by harvesters in interviews, but it's pretty obvious just walking around any of the private forest clearcuts, former mountains in the east, massive housing developments on the Pacific Coast, etc. etc. that moss is probably a lot harder hit by nonharvester activities than harvester activities. I think we are on safe ground voicing such concerns, caution, and a call for more research. As you point out the "International Association of Bryolgists" is planning on writing the guidelines but maybe we can ask them to write others instead, or broaden them to include nonharvesting activities? Is this not a realistic request to make? Who can we can contact in your committee?

  I did not mean to offend you, really. I'm not arguing that you should do less science or somehow alter the results to be harvester friendly. I am a scientist, my dad was a scientist, I think it is incredibly important. I'm trying to engage you and others in a professional discussion on some serious issues. I've been lucky enough to interview several hundred nontimber forest product harvesters over the years, some of which are moss pickers. That hardly makes me qualified to speak for them but at the least I can get a few of their concerns into discussions such as these that may end up having an impact their lives. It would be great if others who have worked with moss pickers would also contribute issues.

  
• Cicada songs

  There are many sounds in the world. Its good to hear a rhythm of summer. We are moving into new ways of working. Higher degrees of success. Tonight is fine summer night to listen. Its hot around here, waves and waves of buring passion to build....something new .... Then some stillness (oh good lord, I make myself laugh in the pun of still)

  

  This cicada just emerged from it crusty brown casing into a hundred huges of green. frame by frame....a bug emerged

  George did this one morning. He caught caught up watching the cicada come out of its shell. I thought it was a cool metaphor for where we are now.

  
  

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