Forget Facebook’s Farmville (and stop asking me to find a home for your lonely black sheep), the new online game Kersplat! is a fun alternative, and it also reminds us of the challenges that people in Africa face.
The hosting organization Send a Cow developed the game to educate people about the virtues of “Magic Muck,” […]

continue reading.....

The safest kind of burger?

If you ever wanted proof that corporations matter more than people in our society, you need not look further than the New York Times article on how 22-year-old Stephanie Smith was poisoned by the O157:H7 strain of coli that contaminated a “burger” from food giant Cargill. As we learn in the […]

continue reading.....

A charming blog by university student Suttira Kaewthep talks about her experiences living with an organic farming family in northern Thailand. Supported by the Institute for Sustainable Agricultural Communities, farm families in the province of Mae Tha are moving away from chemical agriculture to organic agriculture, selling their wares through an Organic Market.
Suttira quotes a […]

continue reading.....

The most recent Farm Bill provided funding for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) Transition Option - a new initiative to help beginning and minority farmers access the 4.2 million acres of farmland that is about to come out of the CRP, by offering incentives to farmers to sell or lease to them. Current is reporting […]

continue reading.....

This powerful U.S. State Department film reminds us we will need to feed an additional 1.8 billion people by 2030. Narrator Matt Damon also warns us that for each 1 degree of global warming, we face a 10% reduction in food production. Though vague on details, the film does come down squarely in favor of […]

continue reading.....

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Federal Judge Jeffrey White has ruled that the USDA illegally approved Monsanto’s “Roundup-Ready” GMO sugar beets in 2005. Today’s ruling in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco does not ban sale of the crops currently being harvested in Oregon’s Wilmette Valley, but plaintiffs in the case expect to […]

continue reading.....

One of the bigger challenges I have faced with the new hoophouse is organizing the fall planting. The first decision is what to plant. Then when to plant. And whether to plant seeds directly or start seedlings indoors for transplanting.
And what do you do with the summer plantings that are still producing? That patty pan […]

continue reading.....

The Christian Science Monitor recently ran a short article on a new breakthrough in using the natural pesticide jasmonic acid. Jasmonic acid is a natural pesticide that plants release when attacked, but spraying plants with the substance never caught on with farmers because doing so slowed plant growth. Research in England suggests that dipping the […]

continue reading.....

Download the PDF of the Farmer’s Guide to the Conservation Stewardship Program
Because of the short timetable between announcement of the program in August and the end of the federal fiscal year September 30, farmers who want to sign up for the program face a short turnaround time to apply. Eligible applicants who apply now can […]

continue reading.....

If I offered you a slice of this Health Kick tomato at a farmstand in Michigan today, I would bebreaking the law

At a farm marketing meeting in Michigan two years ago, a participant talked movingly about how his mother supported the family during the Depression by selling homemade pies to area restaurants. “If it […]

continue reading.....