August 2nd, 2010

We don’t really need the federal government to tell us to appreciate Farmer’s Markets. It’s pretty obvious how these markets can help us — bringing the freshest produce to town, supporting local farmers and food artisans, increasing our “food security” and expanding our universe of healthy options.

Popularity: 4% [?]

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March 11th, 2010

(The piece posted here is the Introduction to Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment by David Kirby. The new book (March 2010)  examines the environmental contamination and heath impacts of industrial livestock production.)

David Kirby, author of Animal Factory

Many Americans have no idea where their food comes from, and many have no desire to find out.

That is unfortunate.

Every bite we take has had some impact on the natural environment, somewhere in the world. As the planet grows more crowded, and more farmers turn to industrialized methods to feed millions of new mouths, that impact will only worsen.

Popularity: 2% [?]

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August 7th, 2009

By Shermakaye Bass
Green Right Now

Okay, here’s the poop on cow power: Dairy farmers from Wisconsin to Vermont are learning that they – and their bovine partners – can produce more than milk and manure. By converting the methane from cow patties into electricity, rural farms can provide their community with power – and in the process, eliminate the odors associated with dairy farming.

“The neighbors like it,” quips Steve Costello of the Central Vermont Public Service (CVPS)’s Cow Power program, which supplies 4,000 customers with the help of 6,000 cows. “You can have a barbecue on the Fourth of July without worrying the dairy farm next door is going spread some manure and wipe everyone out!”

Popularity: 2% [?]

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March 16th, 2009

By Christopher Peake
Green Right Now

It’s already mid-March and that means the snows will melt and if the ground’s not too saturated farmers will soon be planting seeds for the food that will feed us this year.

Since time immemorial farmer’s markets have been with us: farmers harvest, bakers bake, dairy farmers milk their cows and they all meet at a central location where there’s lots of foot traffic … and they sell. The common theme: the food is fresh.

Popularity: 7% [?]

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August 27th, 2008

By Catherine Girardeau

Marin County dairy farmer Albert Straus started moving toward a “slower” way of doing business back in 1994, when his family-owned farm, Straus Family Creamery, became the only organic dairy west of the Mississippi.

Straus, whose organic ice cream will be scooped out at the Ice Cream Pavilion at Slow Food Nation, has been producing organic milk, yogurt, butter and ice cream under the family name ever since. Straus grew up on his father’s conventional dairy farm in Marshall, California, a town so small it had a one-room schoolhouse, on the shores of Tomales Bay in western Marin County, 60 miles north of San Francisco. He joined the farm as a partner in 1977 and made the risky, but prescient decision to transition the operation from conventional to organic in the early 1990s.

“Someone approached me about doing organic milk for ice cream,” Straus said in an interview in a makeshift conference room above his dairy. “I had no clue what it was. It took me three-and-a-half years to figure out what “organic” meant. No one else was doing it. There was one small co-op in Wisconsin, Organic Valley, but that was it.”

Popularity: 1% [?]

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