Kansas Reflector readers may think the break between common and veto periods of the Legislature as a lovely and carefree time for journalists, stuffed with household excursions and yoga lessons. Certainly we cleanse our minds with hikes and mountaineering, searching traditional literature whereas ingesting natural tea.
Fats probability.
Information from the Statehouse has scarcely slowed, and sufficient has piled up during the last couple of weeks that it’s time for a column sorting by the very best, the worst and the weirdest of this irritating interregnum.
Advertisement
Gov. Laura Kelly signed two payments distinguished by messy legislative course of this week. (Jan. 27, 2022, picture by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
Governor encourages dangerous lawmaking
The Legislature has made an unintelligible hash out of its regular routines, passing a shell invoice full of 29 (depend them, 29) tax measures and an anti-sanctuary metropolis invoice with out absolutely listening to from opponents.
Gov. Laura Kelly signed them each.
You may anticipate the previous senator to pay a bit extra consideration to how the sausage was made and name out legislative leaders for operating roughshod over their very own guidelines. As an alternative she saved her eyes fastened on this November’s elections, even taking credit score for the huge tax bundle.
Republicans had no motive to take the trail they selected. They take pleasure in supermajorities in each the Senate and Home of Representatives. They’ll cross no matter payments they want. Nonetheless, leaders choose shortcuts on the expense of their constituents.
Advertisement
Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab’s reelection marketing campaign highlighted a shock endorsement this week. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
Sudden endorsement touted
Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab has been keeping off a main problem from the fitting. So this week he broadcast an endorsement from former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, he of the disastrous tax “experiment.”
Brownback, who additionally served as the USA ambassador for non secular freedom, was at one level the second least-popular governor in the USA. He’s not the primary individual you or I’d flip to for an endorsement. However, he may effectively have some sway with Kansas conservatives.
Given Schwab’s dogged insistence at calling out election conspiracies whereas representing a celebration that bathes in them day by day, he might use some assist.
Kansas Legal professional Normal Derek Schmidt has been focused by the Democratic Get together over the state’s lack of Medicaid growth. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)
State Democrats canine Schmidt
The Kansas Democratic Get together has made some odd decisions in its quest to outline Republican Legal professional Normal Derek Schmidt. I get it: He’s dealing with off towards the Democratic Kelly in a high-stakes race.
Their newest tactic, nevertheless, hits the bullseye. The get together is highlighting the significance of increasing the state’s Medicaid program. On Thursday, they had been in Wellington, reminding us as soon as once more that voters and plenty of legislators help growth. Who doesn’t? GOP management.
All of the Democratic Get together has to do is state the info: “As Legal professional Normal, Schmidt has continued his campaign towards Medicaid growth — and towards Kansans’ means to entry well being care — by blocking growth for 150,000 Kansans, together with over 470 in Sumner County.”
Advertisement
Sen. Rob Olson, R-Olathe, and Sen. Cindy Holscher, D-Overland Park, had been on reverse sides of a invoice banning “sanctuary cities” in Kansas. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
Making the implicit express
Once I wrote about Kelly signing that anti-sanctuary metropolis invoice earlier this week, I didn’t go far sufficient. The column highlighted the gap between the governor and progressive advocates within the state who labored relentlessly to cross the Protected and Welcoming ordinance in Wyandotte County.
Kelly’s veto was a kick within the tooth to progressives. That’s undoubtedly true.
However it was additionally a hostile gesture towards the state’s Latino group, and I didn’t make that clear within the column. Greater than 12% of the Kansas inhabitants is Hispanic or Latino, and that group deserves a governor who listens and addresses their issues.
I’ll admit, I assumed the earlier paragraph went with out saying. As somebody who is aware of many advocates within the progressive area, I centered on the strain between their work and the governor’s political expediency. However I ought to have made the implicit express and acknowledged those that will really feel the worst results of this merciless laws.
Advertisement
Stickers and buttons had been laid out on the COVID-19 vaccination clinic at West Center College in Lawrence on Saturday, Nov. 13. (Clay Wirestone/Kansas Reflector)
Simmering beneath all of it
We nonetheless have a pandemic winding its method by Kansas and the nation. Protection has dwindled and issues receded, however new variants proceed to bubble up.
As of April 14, the seven-day common of latest circumstances was 151 and eight,524 Kansans had died from COVID-19. Many people have delightedly ditched masks and rushed to renew our routines of early 2020. That’s comprehensible, and I’ve adopted the group.
What’s going to occur, nevertheless, if circumstances spike once more? Will anybody on this state present the political will to impose new public well being restrictions? Will well being officers have the latitude to share uncomfortable information with their fellow Kansans? Will extra folks in our state roll up their sleeves for vaccines?
Because the smart males say, whew.
Tales hold effervescent, and veto session approaches like a balky freight practice. For now, although, it’s time to return to my mountaineering and yoga. If these don’t fulfill, maybe I’ll simply take a nap.
Women Are Roasting The Kansas City Chiefs On Instagram
Advertisement
On May 11th, Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker gave a commencement address to graduates from Benedictine College. During his speech to the private Catholic liberal arts college in Kansas, he suggested Pride Month was a “deadly sin,” condemned abortion rights, and informed women that they had “the most diabolical lies” told to them (after he quoted a Taylor Swift song earlier in his speech, of course).
He went on to speak about his wife, Isabelle, claiming she would be the first to say that “her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother” and that he was able to be the man who he is because his wife embraced one of the most important titles of all: being a homemaker.
After Harrison gave his speech, it not only garnered a direct response from the NFL stating that Harrison’s views were not those of the NFL as an organization but also widespread backlash from people across the country. But while a lot of people have vocalized their disgust about the commencement address on their own personal social media accounts, women have begun to leave sarcastic comments about their “abilities as a woman” directly on the Kansas City Chiefs’s Instagram account — and they’re brutal in the best way possible.
Advertisement
1.
Here are some of the top comments that were left on multiple Chief’s Instagram posts, like this woman who’s sad she won’t be able to attend any more games because of her “true vocation.”
2.
Advertisement
Or this woman who said her life hasn’t begun because she’s not married to a man yet.
3.
It seems like snack time is vital for this couple.
Advertisement
4.
This commentor also wants some clarification.
5.
A woman watching men on TV? Not in this household.
Advertisement
6.
Sorry, gotta skip the game, the kitchen is calling.
7.
Advertisement
Maybe this person’s husband is nice enough to give permission. Fingers crossed.
8.
Who needs thoughts when you have a husband, am I right?
Advertisement
9.
Shoot, I bet our 84 cents to the dollar won’t even be worth anything.
10.
I would be concerned, too.
Advertisement
11.
This woman doesn’t even believe she’s considered to be “alive” before marriage.
12.
Advertisement
Even the men are wondering what they can do with their wives now.
13.
At least this man is honest about his wife’s “abilities.”
Advertisement
14.
It’s a valid question.
15.
Finally, does anyone know the answer to this question?
Advertisement
Do you have any thoughts about Harrison Butker’s commencement speech? Tell us in the comments below.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – Friday is the 70th anniversary of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case that ruled segregation in schools unconstitutional. It forever changed the face of public education and Kansas schools say today the work continues to make students of all races feel equally supported.
“When I think about it being only 70 years, that’s not a long time,” said former Shawnee Mission Public Schools DEI coordinator Dr. Tyrone Bates.
As local educational leaders throughout the Kansas City area explain, progress toward racial equality in schools hasn’t always been linear.
“The Supreme Court justice’s opinion was not that schools should be segregated because it was the right thing to do but rather African Americans were inept, they were not qualified to teach students of color,” said Bates.
Advertisement
Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools officials say looking back at the past 70 years, its schools have become more diverse. Currently, its student population is 60 percent Hispanic, 30 percent black, and multiracial.
“I believe that all of our students need access to dual language programs, multilingual resources, resources outside of their community to help support the community,” said KCKPS diversity, equity, and inclusion executive director Dr. Canise Salinas-Willich.
The district’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion department works with other departments to create programs and policies that are inclusive for all students. Students have also been given the chance to share their personal experiences and give feedback that can create real change in the district.
“Our investment in our students is evident as we invest in their voices and we invest in making sure that we bring quality education, quality work into the classroom,” said Salinas-Willich.
Meanwhile, Dr. Bates now works in consulting but during his tenure with SMSD, he established equity practitioners. These are staff members who learn how to support each building in the district. He also established employee resource groups that support staff members who are part of marginalized groups.
Advertisement
“I’m proud of the fact that many administrators were doing whatever they could to break down barriers and bridges between students of different backgrounds,” said Bates.
Last year, a black student at Shawnee Mission East High School was called a racial slur by another student and attacked. Bates explains how this is an example of how racism still exists in schools and communities.
“There’s still work to be done around understanding racial equity, understanding racial justice. There’s a tremendous difference between the two. Racial equity is about improving outcomes. Racial justice is about breaking down hierarchies so we don’t have glass ceilings for people who are not in economic power,” he said.
Bee farmer Jimmy Lunsford handles a hive at Ioway Bee Farm, the largest tribal apiary in North America. Credit: Mark Birnbaum Productions / American Heart Association
When one of the elders in the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska asked if he could keep bees on the reservation, Tim Rhodd’s answer was straightforward: “Absolutely.”
Soon, the bees started buzzing in the alfalfa fields. Then they started pollinating.
Advertisement
Then they all died.
“Once we started looking into it, we found there was a chemical (class) called neonicotinoid that caused the death of these bees,” said Rhodd, the tribe’s chairperson. “That was the very, very first part of what I had seen that we were doing things wrong.”
Facing the reality that their soil was contaminated—and the realization that the same harmful insecticides that killed the bees would be bad for them, too—the Ioway started questioning their farming practices.
After receiving a grant in 2019, the tribe switched its farming operations from monocropping—growing one plant in the same soil, year after year—to regenerative agriculture, a process designed to promote biodiversity and soil health by minimizing disturbances and maintaining living roots as much as possible.
By caring for a rotation of diverse crops throughout the year—rather than controlling the soil year-round for just one seasonal crop—farmers eliminate the need for herbicides and pesticides.
Advertisement
Moving away from monocropping is as much a challenge to standard practice as it is a physical feat. The so-called Green Revolution in the 1960s changed industrial farming to address food shortages by ushering in the extensive use of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. Working to improve the yield of a single crop became the norm, thanks in part to profitability and operational efficiency.
But monocropping has been shown to damage soil health, and farmers’ reliance on pesticides and herbicides can harm pollinators and water supplies while insects and weeds rapidly develop resistance to the chemicals.
“Just monocropping, eventually you use up all of your nutrients,” said Olivia Brien, tribe member and its director of communications. “And what happens is that you run out of the nutrients to grow good food, so then you’d have a desert. It becomes a desert.”
The tribe’s Ioway Farms operation has implemented regenerative practices and indigenous methods across 2,400 acres of row crop production and 2,500 acres of pastureland in rural northeast Kansas, near White Cloud. The tribe runs Ioway Farms along with several other ventures—including a bee farm, a seed company, a hemp farm and an orchard that includes pears, peaches, plums and apples.
The farm generates vital revenue for the tribe and helps the Ioway, also known as the Báxoje, reconnect with their culture—and the land. The tribe found historical evidence that diverse irrigation processes mimicking a more natural system had been in place on the land within the past 200 years.
Advertisement
Lance Foster, tribal historic preservation officer and former vice chair for the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, stands atop a burial mound site dating from 1200 to 1400. Credit: Walter Johnson Jr./American Heart Association
“Holism is about everything being parts of the whole,” said Lance Foster, tribal historic preservation officer and former vice chair of the tribe. “You cannot have health without the land. You cannot have good food without the land. The Ioway don’t have a word for wilderness, because to us, it wasn’t wild. It was our home.”
The tribe also started practicing adaptive multi-paddock grazing, a system of managing livestock to mimic the constantly moving herds that once roamed the prairies so that their grazing patterns encourage more biodiversity in the soil.
“Once we have our healthy soils, we’ll be able to have healthy plants, healthy animals, healthy humans,” Rhodd said.
That includes the bees. A 2019 study in the journal Global Change Biology found the United States is among the countries where the increasing number of pollinator-dependent crops—such as soybean—has far outpaced the diversity of crops that bloom at different times, giving bees a year-round habitat.
Advertisement
Credit: American Heart Association
At Ioway Farms, flowering plants line the border of crops.
“Nature hates one crop; it hates a monoculture,” said Eric Fuchs, a consultant with Understanding Ag, a regenerative agriculture consulting company that works with the tribe to implement regenerative practices.
“So, we want to see diversity. A lot of the fields, we’ll have pollinator strips around the edge, and we’ll have multi-species cover crops planted. There is living root in the soil at all times. There will always be something when you come to the Iowa tribe that will be green.”
The decision to move away from monocropping was an easy one, tribal leaders say, even if the work involved has been difficult. The Ioway believe making their land more diverse and productive year-round is the key to solving challenges from sustainability to food security to soil health.
Advertisement
“There are a lot of different definitions of regenerative,” Fuchs said. “From my perspective, it’s leaving things better than they started out. A lot of things in agriculture over the last 100 years or more, it seems like it’s a ‘take, take, take’ agriculture. We do things … that actually improve the soil for future generations.”
They’re seeing signs of success already. Improvements in the quality of the tribe’s soybean yield have paved the way for valuable business with tofu producers, for example.
“We’re actually developing new markets that we’ve never had before,” Rhodd said. “I’m very proud to say that the farm team has had 100% food production across all of our acres. That’s been one of our goals, and we met that goal.”
In the fall, Ioway farmers harvest the crop they planted the previous year and follow directly behind the combine harvester with a seeder, planting cover crops such as rye, along with turnip or radish. The cover crops grow through the winter, and in the spring, the Ioway flatten them to keep the ground temperature lower, control weeds and provide nutrients for the next layer of soybean or corn.
“It makes you feel pretty good when you’re driving around in December and stuff is green—not dead,” said Kyle Rhodd, the manager of Ioway Farms and brother of the tribe’s chairperson. “It’s pretty amazing to see.”
Advertisement
Kyle said the move to regenerative agriculture has been transformational for the tribe. And it’s changed the way he sees the soil.
“I honestly didn’t look at the soil as a living thing,” Kyle said. “I just looked at it as dirt. Going along on this journey, it makes you realize there is so much more than just dirt on the ground. … There are living organisms down there that are getting taken away from all the chemicals being used.
“With a biology in the soil, making that all mesh—it’s already there. Why do that synthetically when you can let nature take its course?”
The Ioway have seen the benefits of caring for the soil in the quality of their produce.
“After one year of regenerative principles, the Ioway came back and said their tofu beans had a better, nuttier flavor and yielded better,” Fuchs said.
Advertisement
“What we’re seeing is what’s happening in the soil—healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy animals, healthy food. … We have seen changes that impact all over the country. The way we grow food—the health of our food, the nutrient density of our food—it’s a broken system.
“This type of agriculture is a learning curve, but it can be done.”
A review of research, published in 2017 in the journal Nutrition Reviews, found diversifying crops may improve diets and nutrition outcomes in people living in low- and middle-income countries.
The Ioway believe that’s what regenerative agriculture will do for them. They say providing fresh, nutrient-rich produce for local tribal members and neighbors in their rural area of northeast Kansas—where access to healthy food is limited—will help them take ownership of their own health and reconnect to their land.
“All of us are indigenous to somewhere,” Brien said. “All of our ancestors understood that you have to live in balance, and we aren’t currently living in balance. That change is going to be difficult, but it’s for the best. It’s wonderful. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Advertisement
Provided by
American Heart Association
Citation:
To save their soil, Kansas tribe shifts to regenerative agriculture—and transforms their farms (2024, May 17)
retrieved 17 May 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-05-soil-kansas-tribe-shifts-regenerative.html
Advertisement
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/dlnews/J3B5VUB4AJBETGDNWVTTBSEACE.jpg)
