The Atlantic
By Jeff Fisher

“Your hands are going to bleed.”

Anne Cure, owner of Cure Organic Farm in Boulder, Colorado, said this softly while looking off into the distance as Jack, one of the other farmers, described the day’s task of transplanting thousands of seedlings from the greenhouse into the field. The “bleeding hands” comment was not ill-natured in any way; it was merely a statement of fact, one learned through many springs of transplanting thousands of seedlings into the field. This was the acknowledgment that today the fields were going to be especially tough to plant. It would be a painful process for a new ­farmer’s hands.

Cut, cracked, and bleeding fingers are just the start of the physical hardships of farming. Read Full Article »

Posted in Talking Points

If your local National Public Radio station does not carry the Diane Rehm show, which broadcasts live from Washington DC every weekday, please click on the link above. The show will be broadcast at 11 AM (Eastern). In addition to Miles McEvoy and Mark Kastel, New York Times reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal, who covered industrial-scale organic agriculture in Mexico, will also appear. Read Full Article »

Posted in Talking Points

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.”
-Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

In the last years of his life King received criticism not just from the segregationists in the South but even from Democratic Party leaders in the North and black leaders in the civil rights movement. He had started talking about worker’s rights, a more equitable distribution of wealth, and how unjust the war in Southeast Asia was.

The most polite thing I can recall him being called by his enemies was “troublemaker.” Read Full Article »

Posted in Talking Points

The Huffington Post Green
by Maria Rodale, CEO and Chairman of Rodale, Inc. and book author

I demand organic. It’s that simple. I know, you’re thinking, “Of course you demand organic. You wrote the Organic Manifesto and grew up on an organic farm.” True, but, even if I didn’t, I would demand organic and so should you. In lieu of giving you my big speech about how organics can feed the planet and make us safer, I will focus on one very good reason why I demand organic: GMOs. Genetically Modified Organisms, or, as the FDA says, foods that have undergone genetic modification, meaning they’ve been engineered and altered at the genetic level “using any technique, new or traditional.”

Choosing organic is the only way, right now, that I can make sure I am not feeding my family potentially dangerous biotech ingredients. And although the food manufacturers have done a tobacco-industry-worthy job of trying to convince us that GMOs are safe, the truth is that the science is starting to say otherwise. Read Full Article »

Posted in Talking Points

Boston’s NPR – On Point
With Jane Clayson in for Tom Ashbrook
Aired 11:00am EST Monday, October 10, 2011

Farmer/philosopher Joel Salatin says get off your laptop, get in the dirt and live with it.

Joel Salatin is heralded as the high priest of the pasture. And for good reason. The Virginia farmer speaks the gospel of local, clean, and healthy eating. No pesticides. Uber-organic. Just a man and his earth—with as little government interference as possible. Devotees are eating it up.

Now, he’s out with a new clarion call for a nation of unhealthy eaters: Get off your laptop and get your hands dirty. Get close to the earth. Understand where your food and fuel comes from. Before it’s too late.

Listen to the full broadcast at http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/10/10/joel-salatin Read Full Article »

Posted in Talking Points