For a good part of his life, Dennis McDonald was teaching journalism and English students to write. Now he’s teaching everyone about the benefits of organic farming.

Estherville Daily News (Iowa)
By Michael Tidemann – Staff Writer

When Dennis McDonald and his wife planted their first good-sized garden in their back yard in the 1980s, little did they know where those first efforts would lead.

Thursday, McDonald, marketing director for Soper Farms, an Emmetsburg-area organic farming and gardening concern, told Estherville Rotarians how he found himself in the organic farming industry and the benefits of organic food. Read Full Article »

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Organic Consumers Association
By Will Allen, Cedar Circle Farm, Vermont, and Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association

The world’s most hated corporation is at it again, this time in Vermont.

Despite overwhelming public support and support from a clear majority of Vermont’s Agriculture Committee, Vermont legislators are dragging their feet on a proposed GMO labeling bill. Why? Because Monsanto has threatened to sue the state if the bill passes. Read Full Article »

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USDA
Gwen Sparks (202) 260-8210
gwen.sparks@ams.usda.gov

WASHINGTON – Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced today that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is seeking grant applicants for the 2012 Farmers Market Promotion Program.

Approximately $10 million is available for marketing operations such as farmers markets, community supported agriculture and road-side stands. The grants, which are administered by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), are available through a competitive application process on www.grants.gov. The grants aim to increase the availability of local agricultural products in communities throughout the county. They will also help strengthen farmer-to-consumer marketing efforts.

“These grants will put resources into rural and urban economies, and help strengthen efforts to provide access to nutritious and affordable foods,” said Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan. “This program not only supports the health and well-being of local communities but also the economic health of their farms and businesses.”

Projects that expand healthy food choices in food deserts or low-income areas (where the percentage of the population living in poverty is 20 percent or above) will receive additional consideration. Read Full Article »

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The Boston Globe
By Holly Jennings

GRANBY — Few foods manage the double role of unassuming staple and symbolic superstar as well as the egg. Since ancient times, beginning with pagan spring rites, the fertile egg, with its looping, spherical shape, has represented the continuity of life, the cycles of death, and renewal.

Every spring the egg transitions from what’s for breakfast into a significant carrier of religious meaning. For Jews during Passover, a hard-cooked and roasted egg has come to represent one of the festival offerings made in the destroyed Temple of Jerusalem. It is placed on the Seder plate beside other ritual foods, representing sadness over the loss of the temple, but also hope that it will be rebuilt. For Christians, the egg’s long association with Easter appears to have established itself during the Middle Ages. Peasants offered them to the local priest in return for absolution necessary to take communion on the holy day.

During the rest of the year, the egg is simply something good to eat, a complete and highly portable protein source in a protective shell, waiting to be boiled, roasted, baked, steamed, poached, or fried. Not all eggs are alike, however. Read Full Article »

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NPR
by Dan Charles

Since it seems to be Pest Resistance Week here at The Salt, with stories on weeds and insects, we might as well just pull out all the stops. So, next up: Why didn’t Monsanto’s scientists foresee that weeds would become resistant to glyphosate, the weed-killing chemical in their blockbuster herbicide Roundup?

In 1993, when Monsanto asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to approve Roundup-tolerant soybeans, it dispensed with the issue of potential resistant weeds in two modest paragraphs. It told the agency that “glyphosate is considered to be a herbicide with low risk for weed resistance.”

The company also wrote that several university scientists agreed “that it is highly unlikely that weed resistance to glyphosate will become a problem as a result of the commercialization of glyphosate-tolerant soybeans.”

Oops. Read Full Article »

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