Larkin Hoffman Attorneys
by Jennifer Singleton

Minnesota’s organic farmers may now have greater protection against neighboring farmers’ pesticide use. The Minnesota Court of Appeals recently held that when chemical pesticides drift from one farm to another, the resulting damage may provide a basis for claims of trespass, nuisance and negligence. The decision reverses the lower court’s determinations that Minnesota does not recognize trespass by particulate matter and that the damages necessary to sustain causes of action for negligence and nuisance cannot exist unless pesticide contamination exceeds the five percent limit established by National Organic Program (NOP) regulations. With organic farming becoming increasingly widespread and profitable, this decision may have far-reaching implications for those involved in Minnesota’s agriculture industry. Read Full Article »

Posted in Talking Points

Michael Hart, a conventional livestock family farmer, has been farming in Cornwall for nearly thirty years and has actively campaigned on behalf of family farmers for over fifteen years, travelling extensively in Europe, India, Canada and the USA.

In this short documentary he investigates the reality of farming genetically modified crops in the USA ten years after their introduction. He travels across the US interviewing farmers and other specialists about their experiences of growing GM. Read Full Article »

Posted in Talking Points, Video Gallery

Vermont Coalition for Food Sovereignty

Quietly slipping under the radar last week the Town of Barre was the second municipality in the state to pass a measure supporting food sovereignty. The first was Barre City on March 4, 2011. In both towns food sovereignty was expressed as the “right to save seed, grow, process, consume and exchange food and farm products.” Read Full Article »

Posted in Talking Points

Fair Food Fight
Barth Anderson

It must be tough writing a book about good food. Because you can’t give readers a literal taste of what you’re talking about, all you can do is try and convince people that you have a superfine palate and keep using words like “delicious” and “yummy” over and over.

This is why the book CHEESEMONGER: A LIFE ON THE WEDGE by Gordon Edgar (Chelsea Green; 2010) is a cut above most books about food. Not merely a cheese brochure with “flavor profiles” of various cheeses (though it does offer great info about various cheeses at the end of each chapter), CHEESEMONGER is like having beer with a smart friend who knows cheese so well that you want to keep buying drinks to hear everything he knows.

Gordon Edgar is the eponymous “cheesemonger,” the head buyer and seller of cheese at San Francisco’s famous Rainbow Co-op grocery store. Read Full Article »

Posted in Talking Points

La Vida Locavore
by: Jill Richardson

A story has been developing over the past month involving lies, toxic sludge, Hollywood celebrities, and poor, inner city school children. It centers around the Environmental Media Association (EMA), a group of environmentally conscious Hollywood celebs, and the “organic” school gardens they’ve been volunteering at for the past past couple years. Stars like Rosario Dawson, Amy Smart, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and Nicole Ritchie have generously adopted Los Angeles schools, visiting the schools and helping the children garden. What the celebs didn’t know is that their organization’s corporate donor – Kellogg Garden Products – sells both organic compost and soil amendments and ones made from sewage sludge. Seventy percent of Kellogg’s business is products made from sewage sludge. Sewage sludge is not allowed on organic farms and gardens. Read Full Article »

Posted in Talking Points