With No Soil to Certify, They Can Contaminate the Earth and Sell Faux-ganic Produce to Unsuspecting Consumers “Organic” hydroponic production is a form of factory farming: the ground is leveled, compacted, and often covered with plastic, while plant roots bathe in synthetic nutrients or are supported by sterile substrates...
How Cornucopia’s DIY Certification Guide helps you determine which farms provide the best food in the absence of organic labeling Spring marks the return of fresh eggs, colorful produce, and more diverse offerings at farmers markets and CSAs. Signs and advertisements make many claims about production methods, but it...
Cornucopia’s Take: Last year, Cornucopia publicized the identity of multi-billion dollar agribusinesses and their affiliates, located in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, which have been connected to grain imports of questionable organic status. The article from Organic-Market, below, credits Cornucopia with uncovering organic grain fraud and chronicles the...
Cornucopia’s Take: The Real Organic Project has brought to light a shocking practice in large-scale, “organic,” hydroponic production. Many of these facilities are being built on land that has been compacted and doused with herbicides, including glyphosate. While the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) uncomfortably insists that this practice...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The Cornucopia Institute’s Board of Directors would like to thank Mark Kastel for nearly 15 years leading the organization. His foresight, dedication, and guidance have been instrumental in building Cornucopia into the preeminent organic watchdog and champion for family scale organic farming. As one of The...
Cornucopia’s Take: Cornucopia has heard from organic farmers and businesses who have asked their certifiers for a moratorium on hydroponics and to identify fraudulent dairies and egg operations. Cornucopia’s infographic, A Perfect Picture of Corruption, shows an example of the some of these conflicts of interest. The organic food...
USDA Has “Willfully Failed” on Congressional Mandate to Prevent Fraud When farmers lobbied Congress to pass the Organic Foods Production Act in 1990, their intention was to create a level playing field in the market and to affirm the credibility of organic labeling in the eyes of consumers. Unfortunately,...
Cornucopia’s Take: Creativity and diversification may help some organic dairy farmers keep their doors open. The farm in the story below has been able to take advantage of its proximity to major cities. While urban sprawl has meant the death of many farm operations, it seems to be saving...
Cornucopia’s Take: The article by OFARM’s John Bobbe below was originally published in The Milkweed. Bobbe is a strong ally in stopping the flow of fraudulent organic imports into the U.S. He has recently retired from OFARM, but he assures us he will continue to work on these important...
Cornucopia’s Take: Wisconsin lost nearly two dairies a day in 2018, most of them family farms. As factory farm “organic” dairies continue to grow their operations, ethical organic farmers continue to lose their footholds as well. Use Cornucopia’s Dairy Scorecard to choose the best milk, cheese, butter, and other...
Finding a Way of Life on Windy Acres Farm by Jason Cole, Research Associate at The Cornucopia Institute Photo courtesy of Windy Acres Farm What is the meaning and purpose of work? Is it...
Cornucopia’s Take: Although more kinds of crops are now grown than in the 1970s, almost half of all farmland in the world currently produces wheat, corn, soy, or rice. Monocultures are notoriously vulnerable to pests, disease, and increasingly wild swings in precipitation and temperature. Biodiversity improves the resilience of...
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.
