Organic farming is a way of organic farming where you don't use pesticides.
Created by myrstu4 on Oct 8, 2008
Last updated: 11/14/08 at 10:37 AM
Tags: organic agriculture
Maggie's Vegetarian hosts the national "Sustainable Table" tour of America, connecting this local organic tradition to a national organization. Somewhere between 50 and 100 people showed up to show their support for local organic food.
http://www.sustainabletable.org/roadtrip/blog.php?id=66
By 2006, Lincoln had three farmer's markets. A farmer's market opened up on Old Cheney Road, and at Piedmont Shopping center. The Piedmont center only had about ten vendors, but the Old Cheney Road shopping market had about forty by 2006. They were both open from May to October. The Old Cheney Road Farmer's Market seems to have lots of fresh produce, much less crafty items than the Haymarket Farmer's market.
http://www.dailynebraskan.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=1fc320a9-2f8f-4ccc-b1ce-d197b255d02e
They try to get the people that are on the edge of local and fast food to stay local. Buy Fresh Buy Local dose this by using stickers in grocery stores and farmers markets where local food is sold. I've even seen no a show that is about growing food in your garden a short sponser clip of Buy Fresh Buy Local on TV.
http://www.buylocalnebraska.org/
Sustainable Table was created by a nonprofit called GRACE. They show people good examples of already working systems of organic and local foods. They do this by going to those places and inviting people to join them there and talk with them about what they've seen. They travel the country as part of the "Eat Well Guided Tour of America," which has been featured on NPR and in the New York Times. They also address the problems with the way we use fertilizers by producing "The Meatrix" series of animated videos about industrial farming. Do a google search for "the meatrix" to see an example.
http://www.sustainabletable.org/
This organization started with one garden in 2003. The owner and founder Andy Witkowski brought the company up from the ground. This organization tries to help the people who come from other countries through the catholic social services. The people who come here would always farm there own food and this is a transition for them.
http://www.communitycrops.org/
Maggie's is the only organic and local restaurant left in Lincoln. Maggie only serves food from her home or from the local farmers market. At first she served breakfast and lunch. Now she only serves during lunch time. Maggie's is a member of buy fresh buy local, and has pictures of the people that grew the food up on the wall.
http://www.maggiesvegetarian.com/about/
With the explosion of the internet came a new, cheap way to do national marketing campaigns. Foodroutes helps to coordinate polling about demand for local food, provides help with marketing local food for local farmers, and also "implementation strategies for state and local food system policies funded by the Farm Bill." By 2006, Foodroutes had teamed with the Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society to found Buy Fresh Buy Local for Nebraska, a marketing campaign for Nebraska Farmers.
http://www.foodroutes.org/faq1.jsp
The store is struggling with its new as a larger business. Consultants are brought in to help institute an aggressive marketing campaign, reset the store, and work to boost sales. Note the parallels between this and Cascadian Farms' sellout to Welch's.
In 1988, the Open Harvest Board and staff begin researching the feasibility of relocating the store. In 1989, Membership dues increase to $125 for an individual and $190 for a household, to be paid over a three-year period. Loans are secured for Open Harvest's move to our new location. In 1990, the co-op moves to 1618 South Street, with 5,000 square feet of retail space, rent at $4,000 a month, and a new deli.
After 60 minutes did a show on the food industry's use of the chemical Alar on apples (in February 1989, according to Wikipedia), America became fearful and started buying lots of organic food. The growing organic industry wasn't ready for the boost in sales, and many companies, including Cascadian Farms, took out loans to expand. Over the next couple years, they discovered that they had overestimated the industry's growth, and had to become involved in corporate politics in order to survive. A majority stake of Cascadian Farms' stock was sold to Welch's; many organic farms became involved in the modernization that companies already involved with industrialized agriculture demanded.
http://www.cascadianfarm.com/
LHDC (Lincoln Historic Development Corporation) made a farmers market. This provided a city outlet for local food form outside city limits.
http://www.historichaymarket.info/events/farmers_market.asp
Nebraska Sustainable Agricultural Society has a convention every year, the Annual Healthy Farms Conference, and has lots of information for farmers about sustainable farming practices. Their logo has a cow whose lips are green because he's grass-fed. You can purchase an annual membership which gives you lots of access to information about sustainable farming. Your membership dollars support buy fresh buy local nebraska as well.
http://www.nebsusag.org/about.shtml
When Open Harvest started it was a buying club. As they got big they started a store, and if you wanted to buy from there you had to volunteer. Then in 1976 they were so big that they hired a general manager, which was Mark Vasina. Open Harvest literally built it's self, most of the volunteers there were carpenters or knew how to work with wood. Mark told me that the walk-in freezer they had at one of their first stores was made by volunteers.
http://www.openharvest.coop/
The buying club moves four times and changes names twice, first to "Starseed Food Conspiracy" and then to "Our Store." With two hundred and fifty members, the buying club is operating out of the basement of Trinity United Methodist Church.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&safe=active&q=Trinity+United+Methodist+Church+lincoln+ne&fb=1&cid=0,0,17209417631519018586&ll=40.805786,-96.690931&spn=0.016794,0.036478&t=h&z=15&iwloc=A
Originally called the New Cascadian Survival and Reclamation Project, Cascadian Farms would eventually become one of the largest distributes of organic food in the world. Michael Pollan writes, "At the time Kahn was a twenty-four-year-old grad school dropout from the South Side of Chicago, who had been inspired by [books] 'Silent Sprint' and 'Diet for a Small Planet.'" According to Pollan, he also subscribed to 'Organic Gardening and Farming.'
http://www.cascadianfarm.com/
A small ten-member buying club called the People's Food Co-op forms. They store food in a garage at 21st and Q streets.
Earl Butz, secretary of agriculture under Richard Nixon. He overthrows the ever-normal grainery that had been responsible for keeping corn prices stabilized since it was established during the Depression-era New Deal reform. His policies encourage farmers to plant as much corn as they can possibly farm, and reimburse (with taxpayer money) any expenses they incur as a result of planting more corn than the market can handle. As a result, grain prices fall to levels that support the expanding fast-food industry, and farmers can no longer run small operations, feeding a frenzy of farm buyouts by larger farming corporations. This changed the playing field for the organic farm movement later on, forcing the organic movement to compete with farming corporations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Butz
Over 100 people arrived at the site to begin building the park. Local landscape architect Jon Read and many others contributed trees, flowers, shrubs, and sod. Free food was provided and community development of the park proceeded. Eventually, approximately 1000 people became directly involved, with many more donating money and materials. The park was essentially complete by mid-May.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Peoples+Park,+berkeley&ie=UTF8&ll=37.866121,-122.256364&spn=0.003409,0.004828&t=h&z=18
In 1961 Polyface, a self sustaining farm, started. It produces more than your average farm and yet is a self sustaining organic farm. It has lasted for two generations so far.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Polyface+Swoope,+VA,+USA&ie=UTF8&ll=38.119129,-79.226274&spn=0.00444,0.006909&t=h&z=17
Sir Albert Howard's gained a lot of publicity in Rodale's Organic Farming and Gardening, a periodical read by both the founders of Polyface and Cascadian Farms. Many of his essays were featured here.
http://www.westonaprice.org/farming/history-organic-farming.html
Michael Pollan says that it is the "Movement's bible" (145)because, Albert Howard talked about how the fertilizer would lead to artificial everything."artificial manures lead inevitably to artificial nutrition, artificial food, artificial animals and finally to artificial men and women."
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/howardAT/ATtoc.html
Thoreau's famous quote, "In Wildness is the preservation of the world," comes from this extended speech/essay, in which he explains how he leads a life mediating between civilization and nature, in search of the Wild, and helping other people relate to the Wild.
http://eserver.org/thoreau/walking.html
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