Good news for a new year

Here's a little tidbit of good news to start your new year right. Last week a California appeals court upheld a previous, landmark ruling that organic farmer Larry Jacobs has the right to sue a neighboring farm for pesticide drift that occurs through volatilization. The lawsuit was on behalf of Jacobs Farm Del Cabo, whose organic herbs are sold in Whole Foods stores all over the country. Jacobs' farm was contaminated in 2007 when pesticides from a neighboring Brussels sprouts field volatilized and made their way to his fields, making his entire dill and rosemary crops unmarketable.

We hear on a pretty regular basis from organic farmers and gardeners in North Carolina who are frustrated and concerned about the risk of pesticides drifting onto their crops. This ruling may set a positive precedent for not only those farmers and gardeners, but also for farm workers who are often on the receiving end of pesticide drift.

There is of course, still plenty of bad news to go around. Here's a story about a group of South Carolina hunters who were hospitalized after they were exposed to the pesticide Temik while hunting. Temik is used a lot in North Carolina, and many of the violations that the NC Pesticide Board settles each year involve the mishandling of this particular toxic pesticide.

Here's to progress, and a whole new year of working to make harm from pesticides a thing of the past!

NC Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council - Meeting #2, Earth Day 2010

The new NC Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council met for the second time yesterday. Here's a little report on the highlights:

Federal food safety legislation - Several members of the Council have been at work trying to figure out how proposed federal food safety legislation might affect small farmers in NC, and representing that perspective in the national discussion. The general sense is that the federal legislation isn't considering the needs of small farmers nearly enough, and that though the Senate bill is better than the House version, neither are great. The Council members asked for materials they can use to contact their representatives about this issue. More info on this issue and how to take action is available from the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (check out the "Action Alerts" section).

CEFS Farm to Fork Guide - This publication, just released, is the result of a statewide Farm-to-Fork initiative and includes lots of good ideas for the Council about where to start and what topics to tackle. They got a quick summary of the highlights in their meeting, and started discussing its implications. Get the guide from CEFS (right side of the page).

Funding for the NC Ag Development & Farmland Preservation Trust Fund - This Trust Fund is at risk of losing all funding for the 2010-11 fiscal year, and that would be a real shame, because it has been a source of funding for great initiatives in the state, and already in just 2 grant cycles, it has helped many farmers to stay on their land. The Council passed a resolution to submit a joint letter to the NC General Assembly leadership and request that the Trust Fund receive $5 million this year, and also talked about contacting legislators as individuals. More information and how to take action for farmland preservation funding.

Subcommittees of the Council - The Council spent the remainder of the meeting approving a set of guidelines and a structure for subcommittees, which of course they can change later as needed. For now, they'll have three subcommittees. These are not the exact titles, but the topic areas are: Public health, hunger & fighting obesity; land, people & natural resources; economic development & infrastructure. Subcommittees will have to keep minutes, and report back to the whole Council on what they do. I expect that subcommittee members will be posted to the Council's webpage soon. The presentation slides from yesterday's meeting are also posted here.

The general feeling of this meeting was somewhat tedious and bogged down. Discussions and decisions that ought to have been relatively straightforward took a long time to muddle through, and it seemed the main culprit was not so much disagreement, but that "Robert's Rules of Order" weren't working so well for them. I for one really hope that a solution to that problem can be worked out ASAP, because it seems a real shame for a group of such interesting and inspired people to come together, in many cases from very far away, and then to have to spend their precious little time together bumbling through the small stuff.

Future meeting dates have been set for July 22 in Raleigh and September 9 in Asheville. We'll keep on keeping you posted!

Tips for Avoiding Genetically Modified Foods

Guest post by Toxic Free NC volunteer Hayes Simpson

For a long while now, I have carried around an index card in my wallet billfold, which contains a list handwritten by my own dear Mama. The list includes the top fruits and veggies to buy organic (as in the Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce from Environmental Working Group). She also listed fish and shellfish that contain fewer toxins (as in the Seafood Selector from Environmental Defense Fund).

I’m sure that many of you are familiar with these lists and others like them, and they may have changed your buying habits in a big way, or maybe just when it comes to certain staple foods, such as apples, spinach, and potatoes. I'll admit that it was only once in a while that I remembered to check my Mama's list.

But another closely-related food issue has caused me to stop consuming sodas, and to “floor-it” when my stomach is grumbling and the golden arches are beckoning. I am talking about the unsavory subject of GMO’s which until recently brought to my mind visions of acres of picture-perfect, bright yellow, completely inedible corn, and futuristic, square watermelons stacked neatly into a towering pyramid for display purposes.

I was lucky enough to be introduced to some information that really helped me to put my limited knowledge about organic food shopping and genetically modified foods into context. It started when I was shown a clip from the film, Everything you HAVE TO KNOW about Dangerous Genetically Modified Foods.

I learned that, in fact, the crops that are most likely to be genetically modified are corn, soybeans, canola, and cotton. Very few fresh fruits and veggies sold in the U.S. currently are genetically modified, but did you know that there are dozens of common ingredients derived from the big four GM crops that may be genetically modified? In the words of my two year old, “Ewwwww!” So the best advice for keeping GMOs off your plate is to read labels, and know that anything containing one of these ingredients is questionable, unless of course the product is marked "certified organic" or "non-GMO."

The film explains that there are a some very serious health concerns about genetically modified ingredients, including the potential to cause allergies. More information is available at: http://www.responsibletechnology.org They also provide an excellent Non-GMO Shopping Guide (in case your Mama hasn’t already made you one.)

Good luck, and eat well!

Mujeres sin Fronteras - Women without Borders

I am so pleased to introduce the Mujeres sin Fronteras ("Women without Borders") to the blogosphere! It's a privilege to know these amazing ladies in the Kinston area who are starting a cooperative organic farm on land owned by a local church. The group is facilitated by Melissa Bailey, with support from Toxic Free NC's Leadership Council.

The Mujeres are migrant farmworkers with a home base in North Carolina. Ironically, even though they work 10-to-12 hour days, 6 days a week growing and harvesting vegetables all through the growing season, they have a hard time affording food for their families during the winter months. This is a common challenge for North Carolina's farmworkers - in fact, a 2004 study from Wake Forest University found that among the 100+ NC farmworkers they interviewed, "food insecurity" was about 4 times more prevalent than for the US population overall.

The Mujeres sin Fronteras initially came together out of a desire to support one another through those lean months of the year. After talking through their needs and hopes, they decided to pursue a cooperative farming model, since after all, farming is what they know best, and food is what they needed most immediately! From their mission statement:

The Mujeres sin Fronteras (Women Without Borders) has the single goal of organizing impoverished women, their families and youth to create sustainable communities.

We work with those who care about us to:
- Educate people about the need for sustainable community environments;
- Increase our ability to affect change where we live, work and learn;
- Advocate for the resources we need locally to achieve the American Dream; and
- Promote farmworkers as farmers and directly assist with the creation of sustainable food systems.

The Mujeres sin Fronteras broke ground on their new cooperative farm in early March. (At left is a photo of volunteers and youth on ground-breaking-day at the Mujeres sin Fronteras farm site - photo courtesy of Melissa Bailey. The photo above is of a new vermicomposting bin donated to the Mujeres, complete with labels and instructions in Spanish! Photo by Billie Karel.)

There are so many benefits to cooperative organic farming for this group of women. The Mujeres will supplement their families' diets with healthy organic foods year-round. They intend to sell their organically grown produce locally, which will diversify their families' incomes. They are very deliberately involving their children and other young farmworkers in the project in order to connect youth to the land and educate them about food, farming, and sustainable business. Ultimately, what they're doing is so powerful to me because they are building a community based on cooperation and sustainability, instead of exploitation. Their organic farm will reduce their families' dependence on conventional agriculture as an occupation, which exposes them all too often to dangerous chemicals, unfair labor practices, and drastic seasonal fluctuations in income.

The Mujeres sin Fronteras are taking greater control of their community's food supply, and of their own livelihoods, and I just can't say enough about how inspiring they are, and how proud Toxic Free NC is to support them!

You can donate directly to the Mujeres sin Fronteras to support their cooperative organic farm by sending a check to their fiscal sponsor:
Home Missions and Evangelism of OFWB
2600 West Vernon Ave.
Kinston, NC 28504
(Please make out your check to "Home Missions and Evangelism of OFWB," and put "Women without Borders" in the memo line.) The Mujeres are collecting private donations to use for seed, tools, training on organic farming and interpretation of organic farming resources, and transportation. If you're in the Kinston area and would like to help out at the garden, contact Melissa Bailey at 252-286-7064.

Toxic Free NC is working with rural communities all across the state to get sustainable food projects like this one off the ground. Thank you for supporting our shared work!

gardeners' tool: what's in your fertilizer??

On Saturday my husband came home from the garden store with a little bag of fertilizer labeled "For Organic Gardening!" I was skeptical. Fertilizer is notorious for being full of other contaminants besides the potassium, nitrogen and phosphorous you want out of it.

The bag directed me to the company's regulatory website to read about the ingredients. That website directed me to this one: The Washington State Fertilizer Product Database. Hot dog!!

I looked up the "for organic gardening" fertilizer and discovered that it contained 37.9 ppm arsenic. Arsenic! Just to put that number in perspective, the EPA's arsenic limit for drinking water is 0.010 ppm. That makes the fertilizer levels more than 3,000 times higher than the EPA's limits for drinking water. It was also full of mercury, cadmium, lead, and plenty of other stuff that doesn't belong in my vegetables. And I want to put this stuff on my garden.... really?

Luckily we have a nice big compost pile in our backyard full of rich organic matter for the garden. We returned the bag of fertilizer (and told the store why we were returning it - they were a bit taken aback).

The good news is that you don't need to buy fertilizer additives for your garden - compost is easy to make at home. The bad news is that fertilizer is full of virtually unregulated contaminants. The Washington State database lets you find out what's there - but only after you've bought the stuff. The USDA should crack down on fertilizer makers. The rest of us can learn about organic gardening and make our fertilizer the do-it-yourself way.

New NC Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council convenes

North Carolina's brand new Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council met for the first time on Feb 2nd in Raleigh. The Council is charged with making recommendations to the NC General Assembly about how to grow and strengthen North Carolina's sustainable and local food system.

Thank you to everyone who helped Toxic Free NC and our partners at the NC Sustainable Food Systems Coalition advocate for the legislation that created this Council last year. Nice work, folks - we couldn't have done it without you!

Below are some of my notes and impressions from the meeting, but here's the super short version: The Council is a very impressive group of people, and while they didn't actually get to start doing much of anything yet in their first meeting, my sense coming out of it was one of sincere optimism for what they'll achieve.

* Lots of people: All but one Council member was in attendance, and this with the roads still a bit dicey across the state because of snow a few days earlier. Nice! Lots of other people also came to watch - the Department of Agriculture had to pull out more chairs, and it was still standing-room-only.

* Input from the public (or lack thereof). Open meeting laws mean that all the Council's meetings must be open to the public, and that there must be minutes or recordings also made available to the public - keep an eye on this website for meeting agendas and notes. Anything sent to or from the Council about this body is also public record. But, there was no time for public comment at the Council's meeting. There's a way to submit comments over their website, which will then become part of public record, but what's the plan for actually reading and following up on them? That hasn't been discussed yet, but based on attendance at the first meeting, it sure seems like North Carolinians have a lot to say to this Council!

* The Council members. Everyone on the Council introduced themselves and their motivations for serving at this meeting, which made me think a lot about the Council's make-up and how that will affect the recommendations they make. The full membership list is posted here. My observations:

FARMERS: There are 8 farmers and one person in commercial fishing on the Council by my count - mostly small or medium-scale, and mostly organic or sustainable. I think this will give the Council's work a solid grounding. There's lots to talk about, but there's also lots to DO, and farmers tend to be doers, so this is a good thing indeed.

THEMES: One big theme in many of the Council members' introductions was a desire to preserve working farmland. Commissioner Troxler, Andrew Brannan (Farm Transitions Network), Dania Davy (Land Loss Prevention Project), and John Day (NC Association of County Commissioners) all spoke directly to the issue of keeping farmers on their land and farming during their introductions.
Another big theme that I heard in Council member introductions was improving access to healthy and affordable food, especially as it pertains to combating childhood obesity. Members who mentioned this specifically as part of their introductions include Dr. Jeffrey Engel (State Health Director), Dr. Lynn Harvey (Department of Public Instruction, Child Nutrition Services), Dr. Alice Ammerman (Center for Health Promotion and Disease Control at UNC-CH), Earline Middleton (Food Bank of Central & Eastern NC), Mary James (Dogwood Farms & Willing Workers Cooperative), and Willy Phillips (Full Circle Crab Company).

DIVERSITY: The Council is a very diverse group in terms of expertise and geography, and it could be a lot worse on gender and race. By my (strictly superficial) count, the Council is made up of 18 Caucasian men, 5 Caucasian women, and 3 African American women. That isn't nearly enough women or people of color to fairly represent our state's population, but it's more than I'm used to seeing in such contexts. Conclude from that information what you will! Notably absent are Latinos, farm workers, or anyone who could speak knowledgeably to the perspectives of those groups.

* "This is not a fad. It's a force." The Council got a little pep talk from John Vollmer of Vollmer Farms. John spoke mostly about his recent trip to New England, and his vision that North Carolina, like Vermont, could be gaining farms instead of losing them, and that we could produce enough food to feed our state year-round. Vermont's food system is like a farm-fresh tomato, he said, a tomato that's so good, it makes you wonder why you ever bothered buying lousy tomatoes out of season at the grocery store! We don't yet really know what we're missing in NC, but once we get a taste, we'll never go back. He also addressed Commissioner Troxler directly to say, "This is not a fad. It's a force."

* Leadership & Super-fast Robert's Rules. The final order of business in the first Council meeting was discussing leadership structures for the Council and electing a chair. Commissioner Troxler was elected chair and Nancy Creamer vice-chair in rapid succession. In fact, it was very rapid - the Council suddenly swung into Robert's Rules at this point, full throttle, and it moved really fast! We really hope that Council members weren't too caught off guard by the sudden transition. In any case, from the discussion around these elections, it sounded like the plan is to tap some other Council members to serve on a leadership committee that will work with the chairs to set agendas and coordinate subcommittees.

That's it! Thanks again to everyone who helped to bring this Council into being, and a huge thanks to everyone who is volunteering to serve on this Council. Please stay tuned for more updates.

Food Safety Bills in Congress

Guest post by Toxic Free NC volunteer Christopher Grohs.

US Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) has issued a proposal for revamping the current Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that’s causing an uproar among advocates of organic farming, and has generated a lot of chain emails about protecting organic farms. The proposal would split the FDA into two separate groups, establishing a new Food Safety Administration. With all the recent outbreaks of salmonella and food contamination, it’s of little surprise that Americans are pushing for stricter regulations and greater accountability in the food production sector. Though the bill is coming from a place of concern for food safety, some advocates for organic farming contend it contains many provisions that could be detrimental to small-scale organic farmers.

According to Gov Track's article on HR 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, the bill will “establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes.” To accomplish these goals, the government will increase its power and presence over the food industry by giving a newly created Food Safety Administration control over all farms, which will be reclassified as “Food Production Facilities.”

The proposed regulations appear to be prohibitively hard for small farmers to comply with, and so would favor massive, corporate factory farms. Organic farming advocates argue that the string of food safety scares in the US are the result of mishandling by large, corporate agricultural facilities and not small-scale organic farmers, so why punish them?

Interestingly, Elanor over at The Ethicurean reports that HR875 isn't moving much in Congress, but meanwhile several other food safety proposals might be bigger threats. Read her post here.

Whatever the case may be with these different proposals flying around Capitol Hill, it's clear that most would, in effect, put a small band-aid on a huge problem. The current commercial food system is a failure on food safety, and on many other fronts as well: labor rights, sustainability, humane treatment of animals, public health and more. We won't achieve food safety without a significant overhaul.

With our new, more food-minded administration in the White House and the USDA, we can't let our guard down. Rather, we must redouble our efforts to support our local farmers, talk to our neighbors about supporting organics, and let our state and federal representatives hear that local and sustainable farming is important to us.

Why I am thankful this year

Here is some good news for you: our President-elect reads. And it is a possibility that he reads this very blog. In a recent interview with Time Magazine reporter Joe Klein, Barack Obama mentions having read Michael Pollan's letter to the next Farmer-in-chief in the New York Times Magazine. How did Obama find out about the article? Surely, he has been reading Fair Ground posts.

And not only that, an ABC News article released today about Barack Obama's new White House Budget director, Peter Orszag, contains this quote from the President-elect:

"There's a report today that from 2003 to 2006, millionaire farmers received $49 million in crop subsidies, even though they were earning more than the $2.5 million cutoff to qualify for such subsidies. If this is true, it is a prime example of the kind of waste I intend to end as president."

It seems that Barack Obama has also been studying up on U.S. Farm Policy. It is true that since World War II, subsidies for farmers have focused on commodity farmers; those who raise vast quantities of corn, wheat, and soy, for example. A myopic intensity of increasing productivity while making food as cheap as possible has lead to the predominance of monoculture (one crop) industrial agriculture. Over the years, fewer and fewer farmers have grown more and more of one thing, with those singular crops traded on global markets, throw in big subsidies, and that's how you get millionaire farmers. Not very many of them, of course.

So thanks, President-elect Obama, for your recent reads. While I've got your attention, sir, I would direct you and our other Fair Ground readers to the USDA's article U.S. Farm Policy: The First 200 Years (pdf, 83 KB). I hope everyone enjoys the fruits of their harvest this Thanksgiving!

-Guest post by Kate Pattison, Toxic Free NC volunteer

Pollan's letter to the next Farmer-in-Chief

In last week’s issue of the New York Times Magazine, Michael Pollan, the UC Berkeley professor, journalist, and best-selling author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, scribed an open letter to the next president of the United States, or as Pollan terms it, the Farmer in Chief.

Since beginning a study of Sustainable Agriculture at Central Carolina Community College, I have become keenly aware of the breakdown of the U.S. food system and crisis we are facing as a nation. I hope John McCain and Barack Obama have had the chance to read Pollan’s letter, because it is not only the American food system that’s under threat. Pollan’s letter offers up solutions to fix our food system, as well as the obesity crisis, climate change, national security threats, and our addiction to foreign oil.

Think about it this way: since the end of World War II, U.S. Agriculture has focused largely on producing the greatest volume of commodity crops possible. These crops - wheat, soy and corn - trickle down to U.S. consumers as foodstuffs in the form of over-processed, barely recognizable, pre-packaged snacks and meals. It has been relatively cheap to produce food in this way because oil used to be so cheap. Oil, not just for fueling tractors, is also the basis of petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides, which are used in incredible tonnages to continually turn out the greatest quantity of the largest possible crops.

Now that we face a crisis in the price of oil, the rest of the world is facing a crisis in obtaining cheap food. At home, our overly-centralized, large-scale agricultural system pumps out foods which are all too vulnerable to bioterrorism. Even if the food supply were better protected, the nutritional quality and long-term safety of consumption is at question. Pollan cites Centers for Disease Control numbers that estimate that one in three American children will develop Type 2 Diabetes, a disease which can result in blindness, amputation of a limb, and early death -- and which is also 100% preventable.

The solution? Pollan urges the next president of the United States to view agriculture, specifically sustainable agriculture, as one solution that can help eradicate obesity, climate change, terrorist threats to our food supply, and our oil addiction. Sustainable Agriculture is based on three main tenets: that farming should benefit of the farmer, the community, and the environment. Pollan’s application of community-based sustainable farming principles to much larger, national threats is elegant and sensible.

Pollan envisions the First Family leading the charge by installing a White House farmer, complete with a productive five-acre garden on the White House lawn. Recipes and gardening tips could be posted and shared on their website. The president, Pollan says, can appeal to all parts of the political spectrum in embracing sustainable food, whether encouraging hunters to supply their families with wild meats, or aiding evangelicals and lefty environmentalists alike who seek alternatives to the fast food diet. As with the Victory Gardens of World War I, we can take control of our food sources and our communities, and face down economic, health, and energy disasters around the dinner table.

- by Kate Pattison, Guest blogger and Toxic Free NC volunteer

Local & Organic Food on NC Campuses - Advances in Food Democracy

There's an exciting (and delicious) trend afoot: college campuses in North Carolina are turning to locally-produced, organic foods for their dining services and on-campus restaurants! To get up to speed on what Triangle campuses are doing, check out this great article in last week's IndyWeek about the "FLO Food" movement at UNC, and similar efforts at Duke and NCSU.

Across the state, students and staff at colleges and universities are working on getting their own dining halls to go local and organic, and it's not just the crunchy colleges you might think of first, either! This is really exciting to me for a lot of reasons, but to sum up the highlights -

If a college campus can do it, just about anyone can. At the top of the list of reasons why people don't eat local and organic food, you'll probably find things like "it costs too much," or "it's hard to find," or, for large-scale kitchens, "there's not a large and consistent enough supply for what my restaurant/school/etc needs." But, goshdarnit, if a university dining service that makes thousands of meals a day can do it, than so can just about anyone! I think our NC university dining services are dispelling some important myths about buying local and organic food:

> It doesn't necessarily cost more, and when it does, it's often worth it. I like the example of the hamburger made of local grass-fed beef that costs $1 more, but students buy more of them anyway because they taste better and it's the right thing to do. If you're truly strapped for cash, that $1 really might not be worth it, but I think a lot more people could, and would, make that choice if they had the option.
> You don't have to buy everything local and organic for it to count - start somewhere! According to this article, dining services at Duke are serving between 16% and 35% local foods, depending on the place. That's fantastic, so long as they're not misleading anyone to think that it's more than what it is. As consumers, we have to be like the Duke dining hall - we have to buy as much local and organic stuff as we feasibly can, and trust that with time, it'll get easier. Any business we can consistently send to local and organic farms helps our local economy, environment, and our own health. With a little time, the supply side of the equation will catch up to us, and we'll be able to find more affordable local and organic foods.....but we've got to start buying what we can now!
> It's not just fancy stuff, and it's not just veggies. Nope, "organic food" does not just mean shitake mushrooms, sprouts and broccoli rabe (say what?), and it doesn't just mean something you eat at a fancy restaurant for special occasions. It also comes in normal everyday varieties....your green beans and your mashed potatoes, your carrot sticks and apple juice. And, it's not just your fruits and veggies that come locally produced and organic - it's also meats (pork, beef and poultry), eggs, milk and cheese, honey and more. Heck, it's even your Christmas tree! All these products are available organic and North Carolina-grown, so please don't forget to look for them!

Most of all, this article makes me happy because it's about democratizing good food. By that, I mean that everyone deserves the choice to eat healthy, locally-grown organic food, not just people who live near natural foods stores, and not just wealthy people. When large institutions that serve a broad cross-section of the community commit to providing these options, that's a huge step in improving our food democracy! Where else do we need to see more local and organic food options?
K-12 schools!
Childcare centers!
Office & hospital cafeterias!
Your regular grocery store!
Where would you like to see more local or organic foods? Need help making a plan to get them? Please don't hesitate to contact us!

Feeding our kids, without contamination

Did you need another reason to buy organic food for your kids? If so, yesterday's news from Emory University ought to do it.

Yet another study shows that kids who eat "conventional" diets -- that is, food grown in the standard way with chemical fertilizers and pesticides -- have significant levels of neurotoxic pesticides in their bodies. And when those same kids switch to an organic diet -- that is, no chemical fertilizers or pesticides -- the pollution disappears from their bodies. When they go back to "conventional" foods, the pesticide residues come right back again.

Researchers at Emory University followed a cohort of 21 elementary school-aged children and measured the pesticide metabolites for two common insecticides -- chlorpyrifos and malathion -- in their urine and saliva. These two pesticides belong to a larger family called "organophosphates," which target the nervous system. There is a wealth of evidence that exposure to organophosphates harms children, particularly their developing brains.

This study is important, not just because it's another sign that organically-grown foods really are different from conventional (and therefore worth the extra investment), but because it shows that federal laws designed to keep pesticides out of our kids' diets aren't working.

If you're one of those families who's looking for strategies to buy organic foods without breaking the bank, check out our article Organic on a Budget. But safe food shouldn't just be for families who have an organic grocer nearby and can afford to shop in it -- all our kids should be able to eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables without contamination by neurotoxins. You can help make that happen, too:

• Introduce some families you know to the local farmer's market.
• Organize with your PTA to get your school's cafeteria buying local, organic produce. Check out farmtoschool.org for some neat resources.
• Let your elected officials know that pesticides don't belong in our kids' bodies. Not only should we be lowering the "tolerated" levels of pesticide residues on our foods, but we should be promoting sustainable agriculture that reduces dependence on toxic chemicals for all growers.

organic holidays

This week, as we gather with friends and family to give thanks for life's blessings, we also begin a frenzied holiday season. Chances are, the Thanksgiving holiday has got you thinking about gifts, parties, holiday baking and decorating, and a million more to-do list items. We've put together some resources to make your to-do list a little more sustainable, starting with organic Christmas trees:

Looking for an organic or sustainably-grown Christmas tree or wreath? Look no further than PESTed's annual guide, a great place to start your search.

PESTed also has a great archive of recipes for locally-grown North Carolina produce. Check out these tasty concoctions like sauteed collards, baked winter squash and apple crisp. Most of these great recipes come from our friends Anne Everitt and Susan Spalt, who both draw their ingredients lists from the Carrboro Farmer's Market.

Bloggers from around the environmental community are compiling resources for sustainable holiday celebrating and gift-giving this year. Check out this great sampling:

• Durham blogger Shari of The Glass Doorknob interviewed different artists each day last week, with links to their hand-made items to inspire your holiday gift list;
• The NC Conservation Network is planning a green-holiday blog post for later this week;
• Ethicurean just posted their vegetarian Thanksgiving favorites;
• Treehugger has an annual Green Gift Guide.

...and of course, one of the greenest gifts of all is a gift to PESTed. Check out our donations page to find out how to support our work, and how to make a donation in honor of a friend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Legislative wrap-up: Organic agriculture

Momentum, excitement... but no money. That's basically the bottom line of what happened for organic agriculture during North Carolina's 2007 legislative session.

You may recall that Senator Janet Cowell filed a bill called the "Organic Economic Opportunities Study" that would have funded a baseline study to understand the current and potential economic impact of organic agriculture in North Carolina. House and Senate members from both parties signed on to her idea, which would have not only looked at the potential impact, but the potential obstacles to organic growth in the state.

Unfortunately, like many other good ideas, the study didn't make it into the General Assembly's budget this year. The study would have cost $125,000, and legislators didn't manage to pull the funding together.

However, organic advocates took heart in the new excitement around organic agriculture at the legislature this year. Legislators heard from organic growers in their rural districts about the economic benefits of organic farming, and many from urban districts heard from their constituents that the demand for locally-grown, organic foods is nowhere close to being met. At a local, organic breakfast sponsored by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association in April, legislators heard from several of North Carolina's organic farmers about the hope, and the profit, that organic can provide for small farmers.

We are looking forward to building on this momentum, and the new awareness of organic farming, during next year's legislative session. You can help! Sign up for PESTed Action Alerts (if you don't already get them), and take every opportunity you can to let your elected officials know how important local, organic agriculture is to you.

Organic growth

Last week the nation's largest grocery chain, Kroger, announced that it would be adding lots of organic products to its line of house brands. By the end of 2007, Kroger will add 60 new certified organic products to its "Private Selection" label. The announcement comes as the USDA is considering a rule change to weaken the organic standards to allow food processors to include a list of 38 non-organic substances in "certified organic" food products.

Just a week before, Kroger had already announced that it would be removing all milk produced with synthetic hormones from its shelves, due to - you guessed it - consumer demand. Consumers frequently cite synthetic hormones for their shift to organic milk - and milk is frequently the first organic product that consumers try when they begin buying organic products.

Consumers concerned about unscrupulous foreign producers, synthetic hormones, GMO's, pesticides and other pollutants in their foods, are changing the grocery shelves by voting with their dollars. The organic foods market is growing consistently by as much as 20% annually, according to the Organic Trade Association. Consumers are concerned about the purity of their foods, and those who can are directing their dollars towards cleaner food choices. (See PESTed's recent article, Organic on a Budget, for tips on eating organic without breaking the bank).

As far as this writer can tell, while consumers are paying close attention to all the red flags on food production, the federal government is out to lunch. Country-of-origin labeling? GMO's? Synthetic growth hormones? Atrazine? 2,4-D? Yawn, we'll let the market decide.

Luckily, grocers are paying attention - and responding. I think I'll toast Kroger's decision with a certified organic beer.

Go organic to fight global warming!

Need another reason to buy organic food?

According to findings from the ongoing Farming Systems Trial at The Rodale Institute, organic grain farming, including low- or no-till soil preparation and cover cropping, actually increases carbon sequestration in the soil by 15% - 28% compared with conventional farming techniques. Translation: 15% - 28% percent less carbon dioxide goes into the atmosphere because it's bound up in the soil. This is in addition to reduced carbon dioxide emissions from farm equipment on organic farms (no-till means fewer passes over the field with a gas-guzzling tractor and about one-third less carbon emissions), and from the production of petroleum-based fertilizers. Add to that buying local AND organic, and you eliminate still more greenhouse gas production from food transport. Wow!

So what does carbon sequestration mean, and why do organic farms have more of it? Well, the folks at Rodale have a couple explanations:

One is that organic cultivation focuses on building up carbon-based organic matter, or humus, in the soil. Humus refines soil texture and holds nutrients and water. Soil rich in humus is more naturally fertile, and holds a more consistent level of moisture, even in the face of heavy rains or drought. Plus, humus is made of carbon! On a conventional farm, application of nitrogen-rich chemical fertilizer stimulates soil organisms to break down any humus in the soil very quickly, and when they do, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. On an organic farm, humus is added to the soil and breaks down very slowly, so it feeds the plants over a long period of time, AND releases much less carbon dioxide.

Another reason has to do with mychorrhizae - microbial fungi that are naturally present in organic soil. These mychorrhizae actually work symbiotically with plant roots, helping them to take up more water and nutrients from the soil in exchange for a 12% share of the (carbon-based) energy that the plants make using photosynthesis. This means that plants working together with mychorrhizae are doing more photosynthesis and fixing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the soil, in addition to being healthier and more disease resistant. Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides used in a conventional farming system actually kill off some of the mychorrhizae and stop this symbiotic carbon sequestration from occurring.

But how much greenhouse gas are we talking here? Is this enough to put a real dent in global warming? Here are some numbers to put this into perspective:

If all 160 million acres of corn and soy grown in the US were transitioned to organic, they'd be sequestering about 580 billion extra pounds of carbon dioxide per year. That's like taking 58.7 million cars off the road, or about 25% of the cars in the US. Yow! If ALL American cropland went organic, it'd be like taking more than half the cars in the US off the road.

Check out this video (starring Percy Schmeiser) about the Rodale findings, and be sure to add "eat organic food" to your list to-dos for reducing your carbon footprint, right up there next to compact flourescent lightbulbs, carpooling, or riding your bike!

Local farms in the news

Following on the heels of a successful Piedmont Farm Tour, NBC 17 news this week did a great story on how consumers can buy a share in a local farm, also known as "Community Supported Agriculture" or CSA. CSA's are popping up all over North Carolina, and they're a great way for consumers to get a bounty of fresh, locally-grown produce all season long at a good price, and directly from a farmer they know and trust.

Some CSA farmers like Hilltop Farms' Fred Miller, allow members to come out and work on the farm (look for PESTed staffer and Hilltop Farms member Billie Karel weeding organic strawberries in the NBC17 story!). Working at the farm increases a family's connection to the place their food comes from, a welcome change in today's industrialized food market, where one box of cereal might contain ingredients from farms and factories on every continent.

A bill working its way through the NC General Assembly would put some state investment behind local, organic growers in North Carolina. The NC Organic Economic Opportunities Act would fund state research on the current status of organic agriculture in North Carolina, and its potential for growth. Even with CSA's and farmers' markets on the rise in our state, the vast majority of organic foods eaten here were grown someplace else - most often California.

You can support local, organic agriculture in North Carolina by urging your state representatives to support this important bill, and of course by buying locally. Check out this handy list of CSA farms in NC to find out how you can sign up for one!

Residues for the sweet

Yet another reason to hate on Valentine's Day, scourge of the single, boon to the greeting-card companies:

Unless you have been living under a rock for a while, you have probably already read the news stories about the frightening amounts of nasty pesticides used by the cut-flower industry, especially in Colombia, which produces the majority of the world's cut flowers.

So what can you do about it? You could get your sweetie some fair-trade certified organic chocolates instead. Or take her/him to dinner at a swanky local restaurant that specializes in locally-grown foods. Massages and days at the spa tend to be good for the environment and workers, as well.

But if it just isn't Valentine's Day without some long-stemmed roses, check your local grocer for organic flowers certified by Veri-Flora, an international organization that certifies organic flower growers. Personally, I like to buy my bouquets in season at the local farmer's market - which means skipping the flowers on Valentine's Day. As long as I still get the chocolates...