Lettuce and the Big Food Nightmare
August 18, 2026
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 and ...
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 ...
In honor of the 30th anniversary of the Organic Foods Production Act, we asked some of the early champions of the modern-day organic movement to reflect on what the label means to them. Read the essays from Dr. Joan Dye Gussow, Dr. Barry Flamm, and Elizabeth Henderson below. Dr. Joan ...
The Winter 2020 Cultivator, Cornucopia’s quarterly newsletter, is now available online. Download the PDF. In it you’ll find: Why I farm, by Cornucopia Board President Cameron Molberg Exposing Organic Grain Fraud North Dakota Seed Breeders, Prairie Road Organic Seed Welcoming Back Charlotte Vallaeys We Need You Revisiting the Origin of ...
Demystifying the policy that impacts organics farmers and consumers In the wake of massive destruction to the organic dairy marketplace, a languishing rule intended to prevent the continuous cycling of conventional livestock into organic operation will finally reappear as a second proposed rule for public comment. Reporting from the fall ...
How a noni farmer in Hawaii found abundance in a cup of worm castings By Michele Marchetti Eighteen years ago, Steve Frailey boarded a Hawaiian Airlines flight with a suitcase brimming with 12 pounds of Indian blue worms. Those worms play a vital role in Frailey’s 70-acre certified organic farm ...
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 October 28, 29, and 30 below and with our Twitter followers at #NOSB or ...
Welcoming back a nutrition and food policy expert who helped build Cornucopia A central member of the brain trust that built The Cornucopia Institute is returning as a consultant. Charlotte Vallaeys served as Cornucopia’s director of farm and food policy from 2007 to 2013, helping build Cornucopia’s culture and shape ...
The Cornucopia Institute’s yogurt scorecard now focuses exclusively on organic brands, the safest way to avoid toxic pesticides like chlorpyrifos. Cornucopia’s Organic Yogurt Scorecard ranks 225 varieties of organic yogurt from 29 brands. Organic yogurts that received the highest score were sourced from milk that received the highest rating on ...
Tales from an Upstate New York Produce Department By Michele Marchetti In early December, as snow fell steadily on the Finger Lakes, Andrew Hernandez II (right) huddled with eight New York farmers to map out plans for the abundance that, come summer, turned GreenStar’s stores into a backdrop for a ...
The Fall 2020 Cultivator, Cornucopia’s quarterly newsletter, is now available online. Download the PDF. In it you’ll find: Industrial-scale Organic Exploitation South Africa’s Organic Authority Back-to-School Snacks Food Justice and GreenStar Co-op Beef Finishing Hawaiian Organic Noni
...The Wisdom of Wood Prairie Family Farm [This article was previously published in the spring issue of the Cultivator, Cornucopia’s quarterly newsletter.] by Rachel Zegerius, Co-Director of Development and Communications at The Cornucopia Institute Hardcover books, almanacs, seed catalogs, and three-ring binders spilling loose leaf papers reach skyward behind Cornucopia ...
