Seeking economic justice for the family-scale farming community. Through research, advocacy, and economic development our goal is to empower farmers - partnered with consumers - in support of ecologically produced local, organic and authentic food.
Reuters UK
By Jasmin Melvin
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. food supply is at risk of being invaded by unapproved imports of genetically modified crops and livestock, a USDA internal audit report released Wednesday said.
The report, released by the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Office of Inspector General, said the USDA does not have an import control policy to regulate imported GMO animals. Read the rest of this entry »
Obama Administration Challenged to Clean up Bush’s Organic Mess
WASHINGTON, DC: As former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack begins his confirmation hearings in Congress, a controversy is brewing in the organic food and farming industry concerning his appointment.
For the last eight years, Bush administration officials at the USDA have been widely criticized for “monkeywrenching” the National Organic Program. They have been accused of not enforcing the law and, among other improprieties, allowing giant factory farms to produce organic milk, meat, and eggs.
Understandably, the industry viewed Barack Obama’s election as a likely turning point. Read the rest of this entry »
In December Oprah Winfrey publicized her weight gain, admitting that she’s put on 40 pounds in the past couple of months. Among other things, the powerful talk show host is blaming organic, multigrain blue chips for packing on the pounds.
Milk was an unpopular product only a generation ago, and then business executives and the government pushed its consumption. Some couldn’t compete and cheated.
LA Times
By Barbara Demick
Reporting from Xingtang, China — Like many Chinese peasants of his generation, 53-year-old Wang Zhengnian had never seen a cow until he reached adulthood. He certainly never drank a glass of milk.
The fact that Wang now spends his days tending 400 cows on a farm near Beijing says a lot about the way China created a dairy industry out of thin air. But in their haste, the Chinese made mistakes that left six babies dead and hundreds of thousands ill from tainted milk. Read the rest of this entry »
New York Times
By WES JACKSON and WENDELL BERRY
The extraordinary rainstorms last June caused catastrophic soil erosion in the grain lands of Iowa, where there were gullies 200 feet wide. But even worse damage is done over the long term under normal rainfall — by the little rills and sheets of erosion on incompletely covered or denuded cropland, and by various degradations resulting from industrial procedures and technologies alien to both agriculture and nature.
Soil that is used and abused in this way is as nonrenewable as (and far more valuable than) oil. Unlike oil, it has no technological substitute — and no powerful friends in the halls of government. Read the rest of this entry »
