We need more markets – and veggie eaters
Grist - 8/26/2011. By Tom Laskawy – Earlier this week, I asked the question: How many farmers markets is too many? On a related note, this new study [PDF] looked at Americans' fruit and vegetable consumption – one of the main variables driving farmers market sales. How close do we come to eating the recommended five servings a day? Not very. Only about one-quarter of Americans manage it. |
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Forget potatoes: Idaho now grows CAFOs
Grist - 8/26/2011. By Twilight Greenaway – When the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act (Proposition 2) passed in California in 2008, it granted laying hens nominally more space in their cages. Industrial egg producers – claiming their costs would go up – threatened to leave the state before 2015, when key portions of the law go into effect. Perhaps sensing an opportunity, Idaho lawmakers passed a series of laws more or less inviting the poultry industry to their state. |
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Gardeners urged to act ahead of Hurricane Irene
Village Soup - 8/25/2011.9632_peppers.jpg) Orono: Hurricane Specialist Stacy Stewart Sr. with the National Hurricane Center said that Hurricane Irene is "forecast to become a larger than average hurricane." This means its wind field, both of tropical storm-force and hurricane-force winds, will cover a large area. East of the storm's eye is where the strongest winds will be. With so much wind, UMaine Cooperative Extension Vegetable Specialist Mark Hutton advises gardeners to harvest tomatoes that are starting to show color, peppers that are of an adequate size and green beans that are ready for picking. |
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Maine, Vermont growing wheat again
Portland Press Herald - 8/24/2011.AP – Westfield, Vt.: Amber waves of grain are rippling again in parts of New England, once considered the region's bread basket. Vermont and Maine ceded that distinction to the Midwest in the 1800s, when the Erie Canal and intercontinental railroad made it easier to move grain long distances. But small farmers on the nation's coasts have begun planting wheat again as more people clamor for locally grown food. |
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