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An estimated 150-200 organic dairy farmers and their supporters from Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa held a "demonstration" at the La Crosse County Fair on Thursday. Their goal was to convince USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to take immediate action against "factory farms" allegedly saturating the market with illegal organic milk. Notably, Aurora Dairy was mentioned as having violated organic rules without receiving reprisal of any kind. Read more...
Updated July 6. See below.
Yesterday,organic farming activist Andrew Kimbrell, the executive director of the Center for Food Safety, wrote a piece for Huffington Post called "Obama Organic Family Garden: Swimming in Sludge?" in which he suggests that lead levels in the Obama's garden -- said to test at 93 parts per million -- are high enough to consider avoiding that soil for growing fruits and vegetables. Says Kimbrell: Read more...
Fresh off organics getting a big $50 miliion kiss on the cheek, Sustainable Food News (SFN) is reporting that "Kathleen Merrigan, USDA's Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, confirmed Tuesday during the National Organic Standards Board’s biannual meeting in Washington, D.C., that the agency will create a stand-alone division dedicated to organics." Read more...
In the article It's Organic, but Does That Mean It's Safer?, writers Kim Severson and Andrew Martin set their sites on organics' role in the current salmonella outbreak, a target totally worth firing at. We've done it ourselves. Read more...
Kathleen Merrigan, Director of the Agriculture, Food and Environment Program at Tufts, has been appointed Deputy USDA Secretary.Pop the champagne, kids, because this one's a win for the organic movement and sustainable farming. Read more...
OK, so it's been peanut butter recall mania lately. But I feel like nobody's noticed the organic side to the story. Read more...
This article, Hops outlook: Bumper crop, some relief from high prices good news for local brewers (Ukiah Daily Journal) is fascinating on several fronts. So fascinating to El Dragón, in fact, that I have to go lie down a minute before I start blogging this post.
Whew. Much better! See, the article hits a number of topics that I think Fair Food Fighters should know about, especially if you like microbrews, organics, or best of all, organic microbrews.
First off, it's looking like our long national nightmare is over: The hops shortage is at an end! From the article: Read more...
Big Organic is making a play to cozy up to the USDA Secretary-elect Tom Vilsack, and it's as pathetic a bit of fawning as you'll ever see. Check out www.supportvilsack.com, if you have a strong stomach for abject toadyism.
To assess what kind of opinions and arguments Jim Riddle would bring to Obama's USDA, we suggest reading his writings. Here are four articles by Riddle that lay out his vision for organics, sustainability, and his passionate rejection of GE crops.
There's an excellent op-ed piece in today's San Francisco Chronicle about the poposed changes to the organic dairy and livestock standards. It's written by Albert Strauss of Strauss Family Creamery and the editorial does an excellent job of explaining what's wrong with the proposed changes.
