Web-only Features Archive

A Woman Farmer’s Empowering Life Story

Atina Diffley and her husband MartinIf Atina Diffley’s life could be briefly expressed, it might be said that she has triumphed over adversity throughout the years. She overcame an abusive marriage. She and her second (and current) husband prevailed over the many odds against becoming successful organic farmers—long before its benefits were generally recognized. Together they managed to stop one of the world’s largest companies from running an oil pipeline directly across their land, and in doing so laid a successful defensive foundation for many organic farmers to come. And through the telling of her story in her new book, Turn Here Sweet Corn: Organic Farming Works, Atina is communicating her many practical, farming, and life lessons learned—with heart, depth, humor, and a true gift for words.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

Meat Production Goes Local by Going Mobile

Guest post by Katherine Gustafson, via Yes! Magazine

Mobile Slaughter UnitBruce Dunlop was an engineer before he became a farmer on a picturesque island off the coast of Washington in 2002. This technical background turned out to serve him well in producing pork and lamb to sell from Lopez Island Farm. Faced with the financial and logistical difficulty of transporting his live animals 200 miles to the closest USDA-permitted slaughterhouse on the mainland—a trip that included a 45-minute ferry ride—he began designing the nation’s first mobile slaughterhouse, in cooperation with Washington State University extension and Lopez Community Land Trust.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

Organic Farmers with an Aversion to Waste

Bill and Karla ChambersMany of us today think about what we may be wasting, an awareness that leads us to recycling, composting and other such activities. But from the beginning, Bill and Karla Chambers operated their Stahlbush Island Farms—located in Oregon’s lush Willamette Valley—with the idea that waste was intolerable. This thinking has guided virtually every aspect of their operations since the farms’ founding in 1985.

The doctrine of waste aversion has taken them in a unique direction: that of exclusively marketing their produce either frozen or canned. “Produce comes in and out of ripeness in a very short period of time,” Karla Chambers told Organic Connections. “For example, our Super Sweet Corn comes in and out of prime in three days. If you follow the fresh market, if corn or blueberries are coming out of Chile, it’s probably 15 days by the time the crop is picked. It goes to the packinghouse and gets loaded on a container for a shipment north. Then it goes into distribution, to the grocery store, and then sits in your home. Of course, we don’t eat it on day one; it can be many more days before we consume that fresh produce.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

How Big Food Lobbying Is Defeating Anti-Obesity Efforts

 Guest post by Michele Simon, Appetite for Profit

Junk food marketing to children. Photo via SMHThis week, the nation’s top public health experts gathered at a much-trumpeted obesity conference hosted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called Weight of the Nation. (A quick glance at the agenda reveals nothing that would even begin to challenge the food industry.)

Released at this bland event was an equally uninspired report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM, an advisory arm of Congress) called, Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention: Solving the Weight of the Nation. The irony of the report’s title gets lost among the 478 pages that aim to solve “this complex, stubborn problem” with “a comprehensive set of solutions.”

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

10 Ways to Spring Clean GMOs Out of Your Home

Guest post by Courtney Pineau, Communications Manager of the Non-GMO Project

Most major breakfast cereals contain GMO ingredientsIn our household, spring cleaning is often inspired by those first days of springtime sun when I discover the cobwebs and dust bunnies that have been hiding in the shadows all winter. It’s amazing what a little light can expose. Spring cleaning our diets is the same way–when you look a little closer you often find that your food contains unwanted GMO ingredients. I hope these spring cleaning tips help you find new ways to nourish your family with healthy non-GMO foods.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

America’s Teens Turning Green

Teens Turning GreenOn more than 500 campuses of middle schools, high schools and colleges, Teens Turning Green has become a life-changing experience for young people. It allows them to drastically improve lives and the environment in a wide variety of ways—including eco-based fashion, transforming our food system, and eliminating hazardous chemicals in everyday life; and through TTG’s various programs, students are able to effect real, positive change toward a healthier, greener and more sustainable world. This expansive movement was begun and is run by the mother-daughter team of Judi Shils (mother, founder and executive director) and Erin Schrode (daughter, co-founder and spokeswoman).

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

The Art of Domestic Microfarming

Jenna Spevack and one of her microfarmsJenna Spevack is an artist and designer and an art professor at City University of New York. She is also an environmental advocate, with an art exhibition titled 8 Extraordinary Greens.

The gallery show consists of a series of furniture objects converted into what Spevack calls domestic microfarms. “My art studio landlord collects objects from junkyards,” Spevack explained to Organic Connections. “I’ve taken these salvaged objects and turned them into little microfarms—outfitting them with lights and a sub-irrigated planter that I developed.” The objects include bookcases, tables and other items, neatly fitted with planters sprouting the likes of beets, chard, arugula, cress and kale.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

An Organic Rancher’s Comments on Pink Slime

Guest post by Michele Simon, Appetite for Profit

Grass fed beefInterview with Rod Morrison of Rocky Mountain Organic Meats

Rod Morrison is president of Rocky Mountain Organic Meats, a Wyoming company that produces 100% Certified Organic, pasture raised and finished meats. As a sustainable farmer who understands the realities of meat production, he has an opinion or two about the recent uproar over pink slime. 

MS: What do you make of the whole pink slime debacle?

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

North Carolina Tackles Going Local and Sustainable

Harvesting at CEFSNorth Carolina is a state known for its agricultural production—tobacco, corn and soy. It is also the number two pork-producing state in the nation. Yet since 1994, the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS)—a joint effort between two of the state’s leading universities and its Department of Agriculture—has been heavily researching and promoting organic, sustainable and local agriculture. Today, CEFS’s impact is being felt statewide, creating highest-ever demand for local and sustainable production and setting a remarkable example for many other states in
the nation.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

Using Technology and Excess Produce to Solve Hunger

Gary Oppenheimer in his gardenLegendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow once said, “The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.” One of those rare people who not only see but act on what was has clearly been invisible to most of us is Gary Oppenheimer. Since he founded AmpleHarvest.org, he has been named CNN Hero, has received major media coverage, has spoken at TEDx Manhattan, has been praised by First Lady Michelle Obama, and was even invited to the White House to meet the President.

What’s it all about? AmpleHarvest.org matches the food pantries used by more than 50 million Americans living in food-insecure homes with the over 40 million people who grow fruits, vegetables, herbs and nuts in home gardens—and who often have an excess. Prior to the site, the problem was that gardeners could not find local food pantries (also called food shelves, food closets, food cupboards or food banks in some areas) to donate to, as many were not online. AmpleHarvest.org provides a central repository for these pantries so that gardeners can easily locate those nearest them.

GD Star Rating
loading...

Is BPA the FDA’s Latest Gift to the Chemical Industry?

Guest post by Michele Simon, Appetite for Profit

BPA can leach out of plastics into foods and liquidsIn a long-awaited decision, last week the Food and Drug Administration disappointed health advocates once again by allowing Bisphenol A or BPA, a known endocrine disruptor, to remain approved as a chemical additive in food containers such as plastic bottles and metal cans.

While the agency says it’s still studying the matter, a number of groups say the science is clear enough. Indeed, in the four years since the filing of a legal petition asking for a ban (a court order was needed to force FDA to respond), evidence of potential harm from BPA exposure has only increased. Of particular concern are young children, as the chemical often lines infant formula containers and baby bottles.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

Chef Clayton Chapman Brings the Food Revolution to Omaha

Clayton ChapmanThe Grey Plume has been dubbed “The Greenest Restaurant in America” by the Green Restaurant Association. Not only are ingredients for their menu sourced locally from sustainable growers—and all dishes based upon seasonal crops—but every detail of the restaurant itself has been fashioned to be eco-friendly. Yet perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this eatery is its location: Omaha, Nebraska, in the very heart of industrial agriculture country.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

Pink Slime Maker Goes on the Defensive

Guest post by Michele Simon, Appetite for Profit

Beef Products Inc's defense for Pink Slime: t-shirtsIn a surreal press conference on March 29th, 2012, Beef Products Inc took its best shot at making up for its silence during weeks of public lashing over what has been dubbed “pink slime,” an additive in ground beef made through a high-tech process that BPI invented. (See my previous posts here and here.) The event came in the wake of major grocery chains announcing they would stop selling beef containing the filler.

But while I was expecting a slick corporate PR presentation, instead all we got was a pathetic display of politicians out of touch. One by one, the governors of the three states that are home to BPI plants spoke of the media’s “smear campaign” and (predictably) the potential job losses in their respective states.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

Northampton’s Organic Community Gardens

by Bruce Boyers

Grow Food Northampton logoAn entire town getting behind and pushing locally grown, sustainable food for the community is a dream that many of us have—but in Northampton, Massachusetts, home of Smith College, that dream is becoming a reality.

As this is being written, 100 gardening plots in the town’s new 17-acre community organic garden are being seriously vied for by citizens, schools and groups, while a recently established organic farm is expanding, and yet another is opening in the upcoming season. In total, 121 acres are being developed simply and only for sustainable organic farming. The entire scenario was brought about under the guidance of nonprofit organization Grow Food Northampton.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

The Non-GMO GMO?

GMO No MoIn a stunning reversal of stance, biotech megacorporation FoodGen Inc. has made a guarded admission that genetically modified crops might actually be harmful to human health, soil, and other non-GMO crops. On the heels of this announcement, however, FoodGen also revealed plans to release their new line of GMO corn, which contains genetically altered traits that work to counter previous GMO traits introduced into the corn, thereby producing a “non-GMO” variety.

“We are very attentive to the needs of our consumers,” John J. Phlegm, FoodGen vice president for public awareness told Organic Connections. “Due to considerable misunderstandings of GMO technology created by various radical food factions, many in the public sector have come to believe that GMOs are harmful. While our scientific research runs completely counter to these beliefs, we nonetheless wish to deliver to our customers products which they think are good for them.”

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

McDonald’s Now Sells to Kids Through Goats

Guest post by Michele Simon and Kelle Louaillier

The McDonald's GoatTo call McDonald’s latest advertising campaign aimed at children cynical doesn’t give enough credit to the fast food giant and its ad agency, Leo Burnett. The company says the new series of ads starting this month is part of McDonald’s “nutrition commitment to promote nutrition and/or active lifestyle messages in 100 percent of its national communications to kids.”

How will the purveyor of Big Macs, fries and Coke accomplish this lofty goal? Perhaps by explaining that McDonald’s is an occasional treat? Or that sharing home-cooked meals is one of the best ways for families to ensure good eating habits? Perhaps McDonald’s could educate kids about the federal MyPlate recommendations to make half your meal fruits and vegetables?

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

GMOs—People Pushing Back

2012 March Organic Non-GMO Report CoveJournalist Ken Roseboro has been writing and reporting on the issue of genetically modified foods since their beginnings. In 2000, he saw and filled a vital need for a publication dedicated strictly to informing the public about GMOs, and his highly informative magazine The Organic & Non-GMO Report has been more than fulfilling that need for twelve years.

Having closely monitored the GMO situation for so long, Ken now sees the rising public groundswell on the subject as a major threat to the biotech industry and a considerable win for the public at large.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

Battle against GMOs: Update

GMO updateby Bruce Boyers

Since 2006, Bill Freese has been the Science Policy Analyst for the Center for Food Safety (CFS)—a nonprofit organization leading many legal and scientific battles against genetically modified organisms (GMOs). He recently sat down with Organic Connections to share his considerable insight into the latest developments in the push for labeling and eventual eradication of GMOs, of which he and CFS are an integral part.

Dow 2,4-D-Resistant Corn

The most alarming news that has emerged in recent months is the impending USDA approval of Dow Chemical’s 2,4-D-resistant corn. 2,4-D is a highly toxic herbicide, and approval of this strain would mean increased 2,4-D use.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

The Whistleblower Fireworks Behind the Pink Slime Media Explosion

Guest post by Michele Simon, Appetite for Profit

What pink slime looks like before being added to beefThis past week, the media woke up to the shocking reality that our meat supply is in fact industrialized. Long gone are the days of your friendly local butcher grinding meat for your kids’ hamburgers. Taking its place is a corporate behemoth you probably never heard of called Beef Products Inc.

BPI now finds itself on the receiving end of consumer outrage over its ammonia-treated ground beef filler a former USDA official coined “pink slime.” Thus far, a petition aimed at getting current USDA officials to stop using the scary stuff in school lunches has garnered more than 200,000 signatures in about a week.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

A Food Supply Safe from GMOs

We are not a science experimentA lot of us are worried about GMOs in the food supply. One enterprising woman who was fighting that same fight from a retail level several years ago banded together with a number of other like-minded individuals, seriously stepping up the game, and the result is the Non-GMO Project—which not only has set a firm non-GMO standard for products, but has now labeled some 3,000 of them so that shoppers are clearly informed.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

Local Dirt: Making “Buy Local” Work

Heather Hilleren“Buy local.” Sounds easy enough, but how easy is it for local producers to reach supermarkets, restaurants, hospitals, schools and other potential outlets? Heather Hilleren, while working for a natural products retail chain, wondered the same thing as she watched both buyers and vendors struggle to get local food into the store in which she worked. With considerable determination, she set out to solve these issues—and, with an extremely innovative website called Local Dirt, she has done so.

“When the chain I was working for opened their Madison, Wisconsin, store they were buying from about two dozen local farmers,” Hilleren told Organic Connections. “As each year went by, you would think that they would have developed more relationships and bought from more farmers, but in fact the exact opposite happened. Each year they were dropping their local farmers to the point where, after a few years, they went down from two dozen to two.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

Sevenly—Using Social Media for Charity

Sevenly TeeAt twenty-seven years old, Dale Partridge has already done more than some people will do in a lifetime. He started his first company at 17, and ended up selling it two years later for $50,000. He then established several other companies, including a faith-based entrepreneurial conference and a chain of rock-climbing gyms that still produce considerable revenue. But his heart truly lies in his current venture, Sevenly, which, since its opening in 2011, has raised nearly $250,000 for charitable causes around the world.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

Science and the Labeling of GMOs

Guest post by Gerhard Adam

genetic modificationThere have been several articles talking about opposition to GMO foods as being "anti-science" and raising the issue of the precautionary principle1, but in fairness, we have to consider what the role of the precautionary principle is, before we just blow it off as an alarmist parlor trick.

Let's be clear. ALL questions have scientific legitimacy and some may be well-thought out, while others may be totally off the mark. This doesn't make them unscientific, it just makes them uninformed. If a particular view persists after the proper information has been provided, then the individual could be accused of being unscientific, or at least obstinate.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

The Apple Pushers: Mary Mazzio’s Heartfelt Documentary

by Bruce Boyers

The Apple Pushers posterSeveral years ago, Mary Mazzio came to a crossroads in her life. Down one course her education would take her, as an attorney, into politics; down another, she could become a filmmaker. She ended up choosing the latter and could not be happier about the decision. “I’m so glad that I took this path,” Mazzio told Organic Connections. “You could only dream that you could create content that would actually motivate or inspire people. We’ve seen that happen time and time again, and there’s nothing more humbling or rewarding.”

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...

The “Food” We Eat

Guest post by Karen Morton

Karen Morton is president and founder, EcoUrbia Network, Canada, a Canadian not-for-profit organization advocating for local food and organics, extended producer responsibility, ethical e-waste recycling and waste reduction strategies.

Maple Leaf's "natural" hamSystems are in play to keep us ignorant of what we’re really eating - including the ‘fresh’ produce we buy (what I call “invisible transparency”), along with processed substances (junk food in disguise)—case in point: a ‘nutrition’ bar with 12 grams of sugar (the equivalent of 3 teaspoons).

Food processors and marketers use word games to confuse us. “Distilled celery extract” is, in fact, a nitrite—Maple Leaf’s* packaging claim of “all natural” deli meats came under scrutiny by CBC’s Marketplace* in their recent “Lousy Labels” expose—Maple Leaf changed the label once they were exposed, and now confess that this product does indeed contain nitrites (kudos CBC!); that Canada and the U.S. are the only two industrialized countries in the world without regulations requiring mandatory labeling of GMOs (consider that Canada is one of the world’s largest producers of GE crops); and we’re dumbed down by a litany of false nutritional claims: Wonder’s bread with fibre includes the “hull” of the oat, but not the actual grain—a “fibre” with zero nutritional value—we might as well eat dead leaves off the ground.

Read the rest of this feature »

GD Star Rating
loading...
« Previous Entries
QR Code Business Card