When I was a young lass growing up in Iowa, the way we thought about food was different than it is today. We lived “in town” and had a prolific backyard garden. It was lined with rows of exuberant Rhubarb and fences of sturdy pole beans. The swing under the Concord grape arbor was where we “took the shade” and shucked sweet green peas from their tender pods. Every summer we trekked out to “The Farm” where the extended family on my grandmother’s side had inhabited vast sections of verdant farmland for decades. No chemicals, no cages, no mono cropping existed, but instead a fully integrated non-chemical Eden where food grew and people flourished. Organic production takes us back to that place while showing us our future path to sustainably feed the planet. Continue reading “Back to the Future; Only Organic”
Month: February 2015
Arctic® Apple vortex set to descend upon the US!
Does the world really need a new spin on the basic apple? Apparently the folks at Okanagan Specialty Fruit and now the USDA think so. There’s a new apple variety, created in a laboratory that could soon be coming to a store near you. It looks and smells like an apple but with one distinct difference, the molecules that express its genes have been tinkered with so they don’t turn brown. Continue reading “Arctic® Apple vortex set to descend upon the US!”
GMO Call to Action: We’re not in Kansas anymore!
I
ts nigh on February already in this New Year and the 114th Congress has been busy setting their agendas. With a multitude of new things underway, one of the sneakiest is a little pernicious bill that originated from a House Representative in the state of Kansas. Last April Representative Mike Pompeo and G.K Butterfield introduced the “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2014” (HR 4432)” which they claim would protect consumers by eliminating confusion and advancing food safety. Sounds great until you look into the verbiage more closely where it becomes evident something else is afoot. The man behind that curtain doesn’t want you to know what’s in your food. This bill would assure that no GMO labeling laws happen in any state and for quite some time! Continue reading “GMO Call to Action: We’re not in Kansas anymore!”
Why is foully raised food so cheap? A few chickens have something to cheep about.
There has been quite a kerfuffle in the media and in agriculture posts about the rise of egg prices due to a new animal welfare law in California. Back in 2008 California voters approved a statewide initiative requiring that eggs come from chicken (still) in cages that (at least) provide room for the birds to lie down, stand up, turn around and fully extend their wings. The law went into effect January 1, 2015 and it applies to all eggs sold in the state wherever the eggs were laid. According to the Wall Street Journal editorial board, “The state’s latest animal-rights march is levying a punishing new food tax on the nation’s poor.” Which leads me to ponder…why is food produced under dubious methods glorified just because it is cheap? Continue reading “Why is foully raised food so cheap? A few chickens have something to cheep about.”