Agriculture in Business

Posts Tagged ‘organic’

Farmers and their Diversified Horticultural Marketing Strategies [DVD]. V. Grubinger. 1999. University of Vermont Extension. Available for purchase at: http://www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/Videos/marketvideo.htm Featuring Dave and Chris Colson, New Leaf Farm. Durham, ME.

Duration : 0:7:3

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Technorati Tags: agriculture, farming, Marketing, organic, restaurant, sales

The OrganicNation.tv crew visited Purdue University’s Throckmorton Farm in Indiana where we spoke with Professor Fred Whitford about what pesticides are and how they’re used on conventional farms. (Make sure to check out Part 2 of the video in which Professor Whitford shows us organic pest control tactics.)
http://www.OrganicNation.tv

Duration : 0:4:19

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Technorati Tags: apples, farm, orchard, organic, OrganicNation.tv, pesticides, purdue, sustainable, toxic chemicals

Farmers and their Diversified Horticultural Marketing Strategies [DVD]. V. Grubinger. 1999. University of Vermont Extension. Available for purchase at: http://www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/Videos/marketvideo.htm Featuring Karen and Jack Manix, Walker Farm. Dummerston, VT
Funded by the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (USDA).

Duration : 0:6:49

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Technorati Tags: agriculture, farming, farmstand, Marketing, organic, Vegetables

Farmers and their Diversified Horticultural Marketing Strategies [DVD]. V. Grubinger. 1999. University of Vermont Extension. Available for purchase at: http://www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/Videos/marketvideo.htm Featuring Paul and Sandy Arnold, Pleasant Valley Farm. Argyle, NY.

Duration : 0:7:7

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Technorati Tags: agriculture, farmers, farming, Marketing, organic, Vegetables

Farmers and their Diversified Horticultural Marketing Strategies [DVD]. V. Grubinger. 1999. University of Vermont Extension. Available for purchase at: http://www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/Videos/marketvideo.htm Featuring Paul Harlow and Dennis Sauer, Harlow Farm. Westminster, VT.

Duration : 0:7:25

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Technorati Tags: agriculture, cooperative, farming, Marketing, organic, wholesale

Methyl iodide is a chemical so toxic that it’s used in lab settings to grow cancer cells. The substance also reportedly causes late-term miscarriages and groundwater contamination. Yet despite these known (and frightening!) risks, an onslaught of public outcry, and opposition from reputable scientists including six Nobel Laureates, California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) recently registered methyl iodide as a pesticide “safe” for use on the state’s strawberry fields. Perhaps CDPR needs a lesson on what the word “safe” means.

Environmental groups are fighting back. Yesterday, on Governor Jerry Brown’s first day in office, a coalition of farmworkers and environmental health organizations announced that they were filing a lawsuit challenging the state’s approval of methyl iodide. Earthjustice and California Rural Legal Assistance filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Pesticide Action Network of North America, United Farm Workers of America, Californians for Pesticide Reform, Pesticide Watch Educational Fund, Worksafe, Communities and Children Advocates Against Pesticide Poisoning, and farmworkers Jose Hidalgo Ramon and Zeferino Estrada. The groups allege that the decision to register the pesticide not only violates a number of state environmental laws, but that the CDPR acted illegally in declaring an “emergency” situation in order to rush the registration of methyl iodide.

Understanding just how out of line the CDPR was requires a little bit of back story. First, virtually no one wanted CDPR to register methyl iodide. The scientific community was vehemently opposed to its use, as were Californians and a coalition of environmental and public health groups. Still, the maker of methyl iodide, Arysta LifeScience, lobbied hard for its approval, luring Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the head of CDPR to the dark side. So CDPR approved methyl iodide for registration in early December of 2010. That’s offense number one.

After CDPR approved methyl iodide, the decision should have undergone a public comment period before the pesticide earned official registration. However, CDPR declared the pesticide’s registration to be an “emergency” situation, bypassing the public comment period and rushing it into official registration on December 20, 2010. That’s offense number two.

While caving to corporate pressure and shadily declaring an “emergency” situation are bad enough, what’s worse is how CDPR ignored a mountain of evidence highlighting methyl iodide’s dangerous nature. Methyl iodide is listed as a “chemical known to cause cancer” under California’s Proposition 65, and its use is linked to late-term miscarriages. Breathing in the substance can cause slurred speech, vomiting, and kidney damage, while direct contact with the chemical can burn one’s skin. Yet the CDPR wants to let farmers spray methyl iodide all over the state’s 38,000 acres of strawberry fields, as well as on tomatoes, peppers, nurseries, orchards, and vineyards. “I honestly think that this chemical will cause disease and illness,” Dr. John Froines, head of the state’s own scientific review committee, said in a press release. “And so does everyone else on the committee.”

While spraying methyl iodide, a fumigant, on the state’s strawberry fields poses huge health implications for residents living nearby, those most seriously impacted by the use of this toxin are farmworkers. “Farmworkers are on the front lines of methul iodide use and will suffer the most tragic consequences,” Erik Nicholson, National Vice President of the United Farm Workers, said in a press release. “If this decision is allowed to stand, strawberries may very well become the new poster child for giving farmworkers cancer and late term miscarriages.”

While Gov. Schwarzenegger didn’t stand up to corporate pressure, environmental groups are hoping the Gov. Brown will do the right thing. The coalition is asking Gov. Brown to immediately reverse the CDPR’s decision to register methyl iodide and implement a program that helps strawberry farmers use non-toxic pest control measures.

Along with the announcement of the lawsuit, the coalition delivered a list of signatures from 52,000 people opposed to the use of methyl iodide in California. More than 15,000 of these signatures came from Change.org members. So let’s keep the pressure on now that Gov. Brown is in office.

WWW.FRANKTORTORICI.COM

Duration : 0:11:7

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Technorati Tags: cancer, carcinogen, fda, food safety modernization act, Gov Jerry Brown, herbicides, holistic, methyl iodide, no to methyl iodide, organic, organic strawberries, pesticide free, pesticides, strawberries, wellness

Dr. Andrew Weil, renowned medical expert on natural health and wellness, tells why and how he uses the Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 lists from EWG’s Shoppers Guide to Pesticides.

Duration : 0:3:3

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Technorati Tags: eating, environmental, ewg, foodnews, group, healthy, On, organic, pesticides, produce, working

WSU’s online certificate in organic agriculture, the first in the nation, develops a solid background in the agricultural sciences, including an understanding of complex agriculture and food systems. Students develop knowledge and skills that are applicable to all industries and agencies involved in the food chain — from production, processing, and delivery to policy, regulation, and education.

The online certificate is ideal for professionals working in agriculture or related fields who require in-depth knowledge of organic systems, those wanting to pursue a career in organic agriculture, anyone interested in beginning a community supported agriculture (CSA) farm, home gardeners, as well as current WSU students in other majors at WSU with an interest in organic agriculture.

Duration : 0:2:29

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Technorati Tags: eating, farming, organic, wsu

Reporter Jason Shoultz visits the Adams Cattle Ranch in Florida where the family patriarch, 82 year old Bud Adams, is celebrated for his wildlife photographs as well as his prime cattle. Reporter Sarah Gardner visits an unusual farming operation in Ohio where state prison inmates play a major role in bringing crops and cattle to market. Reporter Akiba Howard visits a century old citrus operation in Californias central valley where four generations harvest citrus from 125 thousand trees!
Reporter Yolanda Vazquez takes us to Tennessee where a hobby that started with raising goats has now turned into an award winning artisanal cheese business.

The Monsanto Company – http://www.monsanto.com and the American Farm Bureau Federation – http://www.fb.org make presentation of America’s Heartland possible.

Duration : 0:26:46

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Technorati Tags: Adams Cattle Ranch, agriculture, Akiba Howard, America's Heartland, animal welfare, Bud Adams, California, cattle, cheese, Citrus, Conservation, crops, environment, family, farm, farming, Florida, food, food safety, free-range, generational, goats, heritage, history, inmates, Jason Shoultz, KVIE, Livestock, meat, ohio, organic, PBS, PETA, photography, prison, produce, ranch, ranching, rfd-tv, Sarah Gardner, stewardship, Sustainability, sustainable farming, tennessee, Yolanda Vazquez

Are small farms and gardens going to be against the law? Well if the liberals in congress have their way it will be. This ridiculous law is just one of many that congress is going to push on us to protect us. Well I for one am getting tied of losing my freedoms to the government in the name of protecting me. I can protect myself. I dont need the help of the federal government. All that I need is that they stay out of my way.

As is stated in this video, this law will only hurt small business. It will just create another layer of federal bureaucracy to further hinder small farms, and small organic farms. While, as is usual for most laws, it will not help us at all, or very little. If I have to die of salmonella to keep my freedoms, then I am willing to die, because like they say, freedom is not free.

So if I understand this law correctly, the government will now monitor what you are growing in your own garden, what food you buy at your local grocery store, and even the fruits and vegetables that you buy at your local farmers market, what a joke.

This is what is coming to America, total government control of your life, from what you eat, where you go, who you see, where your children go to school, what your children learn at school, etc. etc., I could go on and on. Just what part of total government control would someone not understand? Is this what Americans want? I dont think so, so we had better start acting up or this what we will get.
jbranstetter04

LeaveMyFoodAlone.org: A Petition to Defeat HR 875
Ive been noticing an increasing uproar in the blogosphere and the agricultural news community about H.R. 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. Introduced by Democratic Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Congresswoman with indirect family ties to agricultural giant Monsanto, the bill drastically revamps and overhauls the food safety mechanisms by which the Federal government attempts to guarantee the purity and safety of the food Americans consume.
Although my default position is to be somewhat skeptical of these mass semi-panics, in this case there seems to be some meat to the complaints. Many of the elements of the bill as it stands seem to put the Federal government in a position of tremendous power over even the smallest of agricultural producers literally, the gentleman next door growing a row of organic tomatoes and requiring them to do business pretty much the way that the giant agricultural companies do business. Now, the big ag companies take a lot of unfair hits sometimes, but we can all agree that not everybody wants to run their farm that way. Thats why there are thousands of organic farms, and plenty of old-fashioned smallholders who do things their own way. Everybody wants food safety but very few people want the weekend hunter, the hobby gardener, and the small organic operation treated like cogs in the food machine.
Whats more, and troubling to anyone with a memory of the history of government expansions of power, the bill puts all this authority in the hands, not of the FDA (which has handled food safety at the national level for more than a century) but in an ill-defined and shadowy food czar working out of the White House. You dont have to be a frothing partisan to be reluctant to put any President so directly in charge of the food supply of the country. Its my view that, while there may be ideas of value in this bill (although in my reading thus far I havent found any), the bill as it stands would be a terrible idea, one that does nothing to enhance food safety but instead makes it impossible for small producers to compete with the big companies, often imposing what amounts to de facto bans on organic produce or naturally-gathered food and game.
As of now, H.R. 875 is in committee, meaning that the members of the House Committees on Energy and Commerce, and the House Committee on Agriculture, are reviewing the bill and listening (theoretically) to citizen and lobbyist input. The word on the Hill is that companies like Monsanto are all for the bill although the bill would inconvenience Big Ag, large companies are much better able to absorb the burden of regulation than smaller companies, and thus are often advocates of having lots of regulation simply because they know they can shoulder the load and their smaller (annoying) competitors cannot. The good news is that most bills never make it out of committee, and with H.R. 875 having to pass through two committees before getting out onto the House floor, the odds are probably fairly good that the bill will never become law. (especially if we as ag professionals take action)…
http://blog.alextiller.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=2729&PostID=58102

Duration : 0:6:14

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Technorati Tags: 875, act, ban, beck, bureaucracy, businesses, Buy, control, eat, farmers, farms, food, Gardens, glenn, Government, home, hr, Markets, modernization, monitor, organic, paperwork, protect, safety, sell, Small, US