Vote for your favorite farmers’ market today
TreeHugger - 6/21/2009. By Sara Novak – If you love your farmers' market, now you can show it by voting on America’s Favorite Farmers' Markets. According to AFT, at the end of the contest a large, medium, and small farmers' market will be awarded a title and win a shipment of No Farms No Food® tote bags for the winning market managers to distribute to the shoppers that made it happen. You can vote until midnight on August 8. The winners will be announced thereafter. More and more people are headed back to the farmers' market according to the most recent USDA Census of Agriculture, which reported that nearly $1.2 billion stayed in local communities from direct to consumer sales—up 49 percent since 2002. |
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US and Canada agree on organic equivalency
Organic Consumers - 6/20/2009.By Caroline Scott-Thomas – The US and Canada have come to an agreement on organic equivalency standards, expanding organic trade opportunities, US Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced on Wednesday. The new rules mean that both the USDA Organic seal and the Canada Organic Biologique logo – which is due to be introduced on June 30 – may be used on certified products in either country. |
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NAIS R.I.P.?
Organic Consumers - 6/20/2009.By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson, No NAIS – I've been grousing about NAIS, the National Animal Identification System, since 2006, when we got a letter from the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture inviting us to put radio frequency ID tags [on] our poultry so the government could come and slaughter them if someone, somewhere, came down with a case of bird flu. |
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Lettuce From the Garden, With Worms
New York Times - 6/20/2009.Op-Ed by Nicholas D. Kristoff – Growing up on a farm near Yamhill, Ore., I quickly learned to appreciate the difference between fresh, home-grown foods and the commercial versions in the supermarket. |
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