Our Good Food Organization Guide Now Published

Food Tank and the James Beard Foundation have just released the third annual Good Food Org Guide, which features 1,000 nonprofit organizations creating a better food system across the United States. Download the guide and check out the website HERE!

NY Times Article Reinvigorates the ‘Say NO to GMO’ Movement

Last Friday, the New York Times posted a fascinating and in-depth article which examined the ecological and political controversy of genetically modified crops. Almost 20 years ago, the United States and Canada began introducing genetic engineering and new technology into agriculture under the guise that crop yields would increase beyond conventional crops. However, this did NOT happen (shown comparatively to Europe’s corn crops which grew nearly identical to those of Canada and the U.S.) and instead we find ourselves in a state of disease, sickness, and ignorance as “Monsanto has said that the corn seed of 2025 will have 14 traits and allow farmers to spray five different kinds of herbicides.” Most likely, this will be in addition to the standard neonic insecticides that farmers still use and that big Agribusinesses refute, regardless of research scientists continuously proving its detriment to life and the environment. It will be the achilles heel of our global society to be forever motivated by money without respect to life—one researcher quotes directly from the EPA, “a monetary value is assigned to disease, impairment and shortened lives, and weighed against the benefits of keeping a chemical in use.” Yikes!!! As the Black Eyed Peas said in 2003, “Where is the Love?“

Take action by NOV. 15: Sign this petition telling the National Organic Standards Board to keep genetically modified organisms out of certified ‘USDA organic’ food! And visit iEat Green’s take action board to stay current with organizing food activists groups.

Italian Winemakers Offer Up Refreshing Perspective For Farming

Since the Old Farmer’s Almanac was first published in 1972 by Robert B. Thomas, it has become one of North America’s most popular reference guides and oldest continuously published periodicals. The almanac is a written record and prediction tool based on a complex series of natural cycles, including astronomical events, tides, weather, and other phenomena with respect to time. Based on his observations, Thomas eventually devised a secret weather forecasting formula which is said traditionally to be 80 percent accurate. That could be why many farmers and gardeners still today rely on the almanac’s long range weather forecasts, full moon dates, weather history, sun rise and set times, best planting dates, and of course, enjoy the folklore!

Though the almanac is intended to predict the weather (and the Old Farmer’s Almanac relies on a theory that weather is a result of magnetic storms on the sun‘s surface) there are still some who question the accuracy of this function. Regardless, with climates changing rapidly and unpredictably, who knows if the almanac will become as cherished as it has been well into the future… As for now, the NY Times article about this Tuscan winery and biodynamics, the Australian philosopher, Rudolf Steiner’s agricultural perspective, will keep us believing in the forces unseen and the power of tuning to the rhythms of the earth!