Tell USDA to Protect Organic Integrity, Beginning with Alfalfa USDA is poised to approve GE alfalfa despite the agency’s acknowledgment in its environmental impact study that GE contamination of organic and conventionally grown crops presents a huge problem.
Mother Earth News: Interest in Local, Organic Seed on Rise Mother Earth News recently published results from an organic garden seed survey provided to about 200 seed companies in the U.S. and Canada. Results show increased interest in locally and organically produced seed.
Take a Virtual Tour of Nash’s Organic Produce (Sequim, WA) Nash’s Organic Produce is one of the most successful organic farms on the Olympic Peninsula, and a long partner in OSA’s participatory plant breeding work. Listen to one of Nash’s farmers, Kia Armstrong, talk about the importance of on-farm seed work and their efforts to develop nutritious, regional varieties of carrots and kale.
Charting a Course for Seed Self-Determination In 2005, when Monsanto purchased Seminis, the world’s largest vegetable seed company, organic farmers found themselves facing an ethical quandary. Do they continue purchasing seed varieties they had relied on for years, now owned by a multinational biotech giant, or do they scramble to find alternatives that work as well on their farm?
OFRF Issue Bulletin: “Forging a Path to An Organic Seed Future” The day after the State of Organic Seed Symposium last February, a farmer approached me in the hallway of the Upper Midwest Organic Conference. He was not a newcomer to farming by a long shot, but he was relatively new to organic. He’d been sitting in on a workshop session summarizing challenges in organic seed, and he told me that seed issues were one of the things that drove him out of conventional farming and towards organic.
Organicology: The study of a sustainable food future. February 10-12, 2011 Portland, Oregon
