Mark Kastel

Cornucopia invites all good food advocates in the Dallas/Fort Worth area to join Mark Kastel for drinks and an informal talk about organic food, health, and agricultural policy on Saturday, January 14 at 5:30 PM at Smoke restaurant next to the Belmont hotel in Dallas. Appetizers will be provided and cash bar/cocktails/soft drinks will be available. All are welcome to stay for an informal dinner with Mark and other Cornucopia members and supporters.

Mark, cofounder of The Cornucopia Institute, will be in Dallas presenting the banquet keynote at the 2017 Texas Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association Conference in Mesquite on Friday, January 13. If you haven’t yet, there is still time to register to attend the banquet and/or the full conference. You do not have to attend the conference to join him for drinks on Saturday evening.

Mark’s conference keynote on Friday will focus on Protecting What We Have All Built Together.

The market niches we’ve created in the good food movement—organic, grass fed, farmstead, CSA, farmers’ market—are being co-opted. Mark’s discussion will explore approaches we can all use to protect the integrity of organics. Truly ecological farms milking cows can’t compete with 9,000-cow “organic” CAFOs (in Texas).

If a family-scale farm is producing high-quality eggs, with chickens outside, as organic consumers expect and USDA regulations mandate, they are at a competitive disadvantage in a market that includes 200,000-bird “organic” henhouses. And, if a family-scale farm is producing organic grain they cannot compete with the growing invasion of questionable “organic” imports from China, India, Brazil and Romania.

During the banquet keynote, Mark will lead a conversation about what we can do as owners of the organic label, and the good food movement, to defend our marketing vehicles against those who seek to exploit the goodwill of organic consumers. He will also be leading a workshop on Saturday morning on The Competitive Environment in Local, Direct Marketed and Organic Foods: The Guerrilla Marketing Advantage.

RSVP for the Saturday evening reception at Smoke by contacting Jason Cole
(608) 625-2000 | [email protected]

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