Dan Hemesath's Blog

Dear President Trump,

As a 78 year old retired farmer/priest/photographer, I have some serious thoughts about what would be good for all of us including the Trump administration.

While I don’t agree with you on some issues, you are the president of the most powerful nation on earth. I think that you want to make a positive difference and that you want to be loved and respected, especially by wise and thoughtful people.

If you hope to go down in history as a good president, you will need to step away from the rhetoric that got you elected, and start to work with the thoughtful, people in the electorate from both sides of the isle—in other words, get back to the truth and get away from much of the nonsense that got you elected. I know that you know this.

You will need to prove your words that “no one loves women, blacks, and latinos more than you do”.

One example: An approach to deal with the immigration problem, that will show your understanding and concern would be focusing on causes, rather than symptoms of the problem.

Let’s look at working on the cause of the flood of immigrants entering the US rather than putting a band aid or a wall on symptoms.

What is the cause? Why are so many people leaving Mexico? One of the main causes, is our farm bill. By enticing our farmers to produce way too much corn, we have this huge surplus which we export to Mexico at such a low price that the Mexican farmers can’t survive. Many have committed suicide and many others in desperation come to the US.

Also, by using trade with Mexico as leverage, pressure the oligarchs in charge to treat their poor and underprivileged more fairly and they won’t be forced to leave their country to survive.

Both here and in Mexico, another result of too much cheap corn is the massive production and marketing of corn sweeteners which are cheaper than sugar. The problem is that corn sweeteners , found in practically every processed food, are one of the main causes of the obesity epidemic. No wonder both the US and Mexico lead the world in obesity.

Also, the emphasis on chemically based monoculture agriculture has thrown millions of farmers out of work and made our food supply less nutritious, one of the main causes of health problems and the high cost of health care.

I suggest that the farm bill be changed to make it profitable for farmers to move away away from too much corn and soybeans, to the production of other, healthier products, and a crop system that relies more on biology rather than chemicals.—a farm bill that levels the playing field for small farmers, benefits consumers, and makes the population healthier.

To follow through in these areas would show your depth of understanding and could make you a much loved and less hated president.

By the way, one of the very good things that you did even before the oath of office was to stop the Republicans from doing away with the ethics committee.

I also agree with you on your plans to rebuild our infrastructure.

sincerely,

Dan Hemesath

Vivian Kaloxilos, of the Valhalla Movement Network, asks Dr. Elaine Ingham to give an example of the use of compost/compost tea to control erosion. (Youtube interview Dec. 5, 2014)
Dr. Ingham gives the following, rather extreme example:
In the state of Washington, a client who was a vice-president of Microsoft, had a house on a steep slope overlooking Lake Washington. It was built into the hill on a 70 percent slope.
The trees on the property had been cut down and were replaced with unattractive shrubs.
To clear off the shrubs on the slope above the house the owner used Round-up and diesel fuel during the summer. Then in the fall, when the rains started, things went really bad. With the plants dead, the whole hill, the slope above he house, started sliding down toward the house. It promised to be a total disaster if something wasn’t done.
The first landscape specialist that the owner went to, wanted to cover the whole property with a slab of concrete at a price of several million dollars.
The second landscape specialist suggested putting in a series of six retainer walls, like terraces, each about fifteen feet high, also at a price tag of several million.
Since neither of these solutions would achieve the natural look he sought, a third specialist was consulted, a man using the biological approach that Dr. Ingham espouses He gave his plan which was to get the biology into the soil and immediately. How much? $300. He was hired.
The next day he came back with a small conveyer belt, and some really high quality compost.
He started at the bottom the slope with compost six inches thick, covering the whole hill with six inches of compost. Then he started over again with another six inches, and another until he had about two feet of compost covering the slope.
Then, using climbing gear, to make a minimum disturbance, he planted a lot of 8 inch to one foot tall shrubs and trees.
The plant roots, working with the compost introduced microbes, grew quickly and went deep into the soil. For example, the Butterfly bush grew from one foot in April to five feet in July and roots underground, went even deeper.
The slope became stable with the plants incorporated into the slope. Later an outlook tower has been placed near the top, and today the soil is so stable, that no one would suspect that once it was a crisis situation.
The place looks beautiful.

With this system, Dr. Ingham, using good compost, along with the right kind of seeds has been been successfully retaining slopes along roads all over the world—slopes that would just keep on eroding when other controls such as hydro-seeding were attempted. The same success was achieved with dam faces in the Ferguson Texas area—dams that were in danger of being lost through deep gullies caused by erosion.
Also, the slopes on roadsides are treated, using a type of snow-blower on a truck, blowing good compost, mixed with seeds and compost tea. This has worked in many places including Adelaide, Australia, where other systems had been total failures. All of the above material was taken from Vivian Kaloxilos” interview of Dr. Ingham on Youtube.