How Much of Your Food Labeled as Organic Is Actually Organic?

The Atlantic By Barry Estabrook The USDA keeps a list of inorganic products that can legally go into foods labeled organic, but new board members could change things When is “USDA Organic” not organic? More often than you probably realize. The USDA keeps a “National List” of inorganic products that can legally go into foods… Read more »

Monsanto Spent $2 Million Lobbying Gov’t in 3Q

Bloomberg BusinessWeek Associated Press WASHINGTON: Monsanto Co. spent $2 million in the third quarter to lobby the federal government on issues including regulations for genetically engineered crops and patent reforms, according to a recent disclosure report. That’s slightly more than the $1.9 million Monsanto spent a year earlier and up almost 18 percent from the… Read more »

Carrots in the car park. Radishes on the roundabout. The deliciously eccentric story of the town growing ALL its own veg

The Daily Mail – UK By Vincent Graff Admittedly, it sounds like the most foolhardy of criminal capers, and one of the cheekiest, too. Outside the police station in the small Victorian mill town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire, there are three large raised flower beds. If you’d visited a few months ago, you’d have found… Read more »

Monsanto Spent $2 Million Lobbying Gov’t in 3Q

Business Week WASHINGTON — Monsanto Co. spent $2 million in the third quarter to lobby the federal government on issues including regulations for genetically engineered crops and patent reforms, according to a recent disclosure report. That’s slightly more than the $1.9 million Monsanto spent a year earlier and up almost 18 percent from the $1.7… Read more »

Newsletter – Winter 2011

Our hardcopy newsletter for Winter 2011 is now available online. Please see it at the below link. In it you’ll find: School Snacktime: Toxic Exposure? GE Crops in Refuges Challenged Organics at a Crossroads Pesticide Residues Exceed Safe Levels in Kids Foods Update on Raw Almond Sales Ban Farmer Profile: Klesick Family Farm in WA… Read more »

Enforcement Hammer Falls on Giant Arizona Organic Factory Farm Dairy

USDA Action Spurred by Industry Watchdog’s Investigation CORNUCOPIA, WI – An industrial-scale organic dairy, located south of Phoenix in the desert Southwest, is poised to lose its USDA organic certification.  The enforcement action at Shamrock Farms is the result of a USDA investigation into organic livestock management practices that was triggered by a formal complaint… Read more »

National Organic Standards Board Meeting Report

Economic Power/Corporate Lobbyists Manipulate the System The National Organic Standards Board November meeting in Savannah, GA, held Nov. 29 to Dec. 2, revealed the deep divide that exists in the organic industry between public interest groups (like Cornucopia), farmers and consumers fighting for a strong and meaningful organic label and corporate executives and their paid… Read more »

Veterans Sowing Seeds of Farming Success

USA Today By Jens Manuel Krogstad, The Des Moines Register With help from a growing national network of farmer support groups, the 26-year-old Albers plans to graduate from college next year and grow organic vegetables on a four-acre plot at his family’s farm in northeast Iowa. Farmer-Veteran Coalition planted the seed for his venture this… Read more »

Aroostook Farmer the Face of Organic Growers’ Fight Against Monsanto

[NOTE: The Cornucopia Institute is also part of the lawsuit challenging Monsanto’s patenting of life.] Bangor Daily News By Kathrynn Ohmstead I have wanted to catch up with Bridgewater organic farmer Jim Gerritsen ever since he was named in October to the 2011 list of 25 visionaries who are changing the world by the national… Read more »