Tag: Agriculture

  • Seed Saver Encouraged to “Pass Them On”

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    Dayna McDaniel, co-founder of Seed-Savers, KC, shares with reporter Cindy Hoedel of the Kansas City Star Magazine her reason for starting Seed-Savers, KC and the first seed she ever saved. It was a tomato presented to me by a neighbor, back in the 1970s. I had just moved into the neighborhood and I noticed this…

  • Pesticide Residue Strengthens Case for Organic Farming

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    My Google Alerts is ablaze with articles about pesticide residue found on organic produce.  Paul Hanley’s level-headed piece in the Star Phoenix explains why this finding “drives home the importance of expanding pesticide-free organic farming practices.” Providing food free from chemical residues is just one goal of organic farming and perhaps not the most important.…

  • “We are not protesters, we’re protectors”

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    This Fall Winona LaDuke and folks from Honor the Earth, along with the Horse Spirit Society, Owe Aku and the White Earth Land Recovery Project led a horseback ride from the Headwaters of the Mississippi along the proposed route of a new oil pipeline that would cross the White Earth reservation. It was the third of…

  • Sustainable, People-Centered Agriculture Lies in Agroecology

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    In keeping with the general theme of a new “gift” economy, Colin Tudge and Graham Harvey’s article in the Ecologist focuses on “a sustainable, people-centered agriculture.” …we are launching our ‘Manifesto for a new agriculture’ at the Oxford Real Farming Conference 2014. A key theme is ‘agroecology’ – farming that takes its lead from nature. It conceives…

  • Earth Friendly Gardens

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    I stopped by my friends Fred and Deb’s house the other day and noticed they had their seed catalogs out with pages of heirloom plants already bookmarked. As early as it seems, within the next couple of months Fred will have his grow light going and his heat mats out warming spinach, kale and lettuce…

  • Ohio Coops Worth 3.7 Billion

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    Farming co-ops aggregate and market farm products, supply members with the fertilizer and other things they need in order to farm, and provide financial services. Local farming co-ops reach into bigger towns, too, by marketing meat, grain, fruits, vegetables, fiber — and even rock salt — produced by or for member farmers to processors, retailers…

  • Registration opens Monday for MOSES organic conference

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    Registration for the 25th MOSES Organic Farming Conference at the La Crosse Center opens Monday. The conference, sponsored by the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Services in Spring Valley, Wis., will take place from Feb. 27 through March 1. The event has grown from a meeting of about 90 people 25 years ago to the…

  • Women Break Through the “Grass Ceiling”

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    Eleanor Bader celebrates women’s leading role in the sustainable and organic agriculture sector: According to the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, the number of women-operated farms more than doubled in the 25 years between 1982 and 2007. In fact, female farmers now make up the fastest-growing sector of the country’s changing agricultural landscape…

  • Organic Farmer Role Model for Educated Indian Youth – Many From Corporate World

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    A reader, who is also interested in the organic food movement, shared a link to the following article.  It is so encouraging to hear about educated young people taking up organic farming instead of heading off to corporate jobs. Many youngsters are pouring into Pakkam, a village in Thiruvallur district, about 35 km from Chennai…

  • Cooperative Economic Model Cont.’d

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    In a speech in honor of October as National Cooperative Month, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsak lauds the cooperative economic model: “Agricultural cooperatives are a driving force in the nation’s thriving farm economy. Because they are farmer-owned and operated businesses, the sales dollars and income generated are much more likely to be returned and spent in…