On March 19 a California court delivered a gut punch to the USDA organic label, betraying the trust of consumers and demoralizing authentic organic farmers. The ruling announced by the Northern California federal district court allows soilless produce operations to remain certified organic under the law. The lawsuit filed...
Join The Cornucopia Institute as we keep you informed via web updates and live tweets from the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) meeting online. We will be sharing the play by play of the meeting on April 28, 29, and 30 below and with our Twitter followers at #NOSB...
Preserving Gullah farming traditions and food culture in South Carolina Story and photo by LeeAnn Chisolm Morrissette I met Sara’ Reynolds Green, lovingly referred to as “Mama Sara’,” and her husband Bill when I was commissioned to interview them...
The Cornucopia Institute is adamant that the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) enforce the required management of the living soil. Authentic...
The Spring 2021 Cultivator, Cornucopia’s quarterly newsletter, is now available online. Download the PDF. In it you’ll find: Cornucopia’s New Executive Director is Building Bridges Organic Policy Watch The True Cost of Industrial Beef Kalamazoo People’s Food Coop is Nourishing Community A Legacy of Stewardship in South Carolina Soil...
The mid-level Communications Manager position will be crucial to enhancing Cornucopia’s visibility and sharing its mission and impact with the public. This remote position is ideal for someone looking to combine a heartfelt passion for organic food and farming with storytelling skills. The ideal candidate must be a willing...
A new rule is coming. And it’s desperately needed to ensure that healthy calves from organic cows grow up eating grass alongside their relatives. That scenario is commonplace among Cornucopia’s five-cow-rated dairies. But in industrialized organic dairies, scofflaws have long flouted existing “origin of livestock” rules, continuously transitioning conventional animals into production...
As corporations have swiftly eroded the boundaries of organic regulations, authentic organic farmers have suffered the consequences of a stagnant regulatory arena for over a decade. The Trump administration’s hostility to new regulation did not help. Congressional orders failed to move the Origin of Livestock (OOL) and Strengthening Organic...
North Dakota seed breeders safeguard the future of food By Marianne Landzettel Theresa Podoll breathed a cautious sigh of relief. The harvest on her North Dakota farm had gone well and, at the time of our conversation in early October, snow was absent from the forecast for the rest of the month. “In 2018 and...
Ushering in a New Leadership Era With a Fierce Protector of Organic Viroqua, WI – Following many months of teamwork to navigate a founder transition, the board of The Cornucopia Institute voted unanimously to promote longtime staff member Melody Morrell as the organization’s next executive director. “Melody Morrell has...
Here’s a quixotic scenario: a secretary of agriculture who is cozy with farmers, not corporations. Instead, we are preparing for the return of Tom Vilsack, who served as secretary of agriculture in the Obama administration between 2008 and 2016. Most recently, Vilsack worked in the private sector, as president...
This article was previously published in the winter issue of the Cultivator, Cornucopia’s quarterly newsletter. By Michele Marchetti, Co-Director of Development and Communications at The Cornucopia Institute Huddled inside a trade show booth, Anne Ross, JD watched dozens of icons, each representing an international shipping vessel, inch across a computer...
The Cornucopia Institute, through research and investigations on agriculture and food issues, provides needed information to family farmers, consumers and other stakeholders in the good food movement and to the media.
