‘Local’ Grows on Wal-Mart

The Wall Street Journal (link no longer available) By Miguel Bustillo and David Kesmodel Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which scours the globe seeking the lowest-cost suppliers, is finding it can save money by buying more fruits and vegetables grown closer to its stores. Other food retailers, including Supervalu Inc. and Safeway Inc., also are racing to expand […]

Wafting Poison Makes Fertile Ground for Suit in Stearns County

Star Tribune (Minneapolis) by: JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY Court rules pesticide drifting onto organic farm constitutes trespass. Oluf Johnson’s 1,500-acre farm in Stearns County is an organic island in a sea of chemically treated corn and soybeans. Improperly applied pesticides repeatedly drift over from neighboring farms, often with dire consequences for Johnson. But now, thanks to a […]

Long-time Organic Farmer and Researcher Kevin Brussell Tragically Killed

Kevin Brussell, 56, a long time organic activist, researcher and working organic farmer, was tragically killed on Saturday, June 11. Kevin’s wife, Juli, has established a scholarship fund in memory of her husband. The scholarship fund will support beginning farmers. Kevin was the superintendent of Organic Dairy Research at the University of New Hampshire, overseeing […]

Newsletter – Summer 2011

Our hardcopy newsletter for Summer 2011 is now available online. Please see it at the below link. In it you’ll find: – Animal Welfare Standards Delayed – Farmers and Seed Producers Launch Preemptive Strike Against Monsanto – New Additions to Cornucopia’s Board of Directors and Policy Advisors Panel – Who is Mischa Popoff? – New […]

The USDA’s Regulatory Hammer Finally Comes Down on Promiseland Livestock

One of the Largest Scandals in the Organic Industry’s History is Over We are proud of The Cornucopia Institute’s role in bringing this scofflaw to justice.  For years, many in the industry suspected Promiseland Livestock was “laundering” conventional animals as organic (replacement heifers mostly going to giant factory dairy farms and beef cattle). Cornucopia’s formal […]

Farmers Talk Genetically Modified Crops

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 […]

Resistant Weeds Leave Farmers Desperate

As effectiveness of herbicides wanes, some try mixtures of older, more toxic chemicals, others pay itinerant workers to weed by hand. St. Louis Dispatch BY GEORGINA GUSTIN Farmers in the state’s south are resorting to some old-fashioned tactics. Weeds in cotton fields have gotten so tenacious — some with stems 4-inches around — that farmers […]

Pastureland: Looking For A Fresh Start

CBS Minnesota By Joy Sommers Steve Young-Burns is a man on a mission. He is passionately spreading the word about PastureLand Co-op, organic Minnesota dairy farms that are in jeopardy. What began in 1999 as a collective of farmers interested in keeping their land, waterways and animals in peak health became a purveyor of rich, […]

Organic Farm in Salem Recognized by State

wytv.com A farm in Salem (OH) is being recognized as one of the most sustainable and organic farms in the state of Ohio. And on Tuesday, the public got a chance to see exactly why during a free tour. The Heritage Lane Farm in Salem made it on the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association’s […]

Food in Dry Times

An old North Dakota farm is a laboratory for growing food when water runs short. Yes! Magazine by Frederick Kirschenmann I learned the important lessons about water very early in my life. My father and mother began their life on our family farm in North Dakota in 1930. Their years as beginning farmers were thus […]

The Little Company That Could

Organic Cereal Maker Nature’s Path Has Charted Its Own Course and Thrived Environmental Magazine by Christine MacDonald Few independent organic brands have been around as long or seen such sustained growth as the family-owned, family-run cereal maker, Nature’s Path. The business, based in British Columbia, Canada, has been churning out breakfast fare with organic grains, […]