A Local Organic Food Framework

Our Western diet is leaving us open to various escalating assaults on our health. To mitigate the effects, a renewed focus on the essential nature and nutrition of food is vital.   

Please feel free to reproduce and distribute widely, referencing the author and providing a link to this page.

Seville Orange Marmalade

This year, Gundi - with some help from me - has been cooking up a fresh batch of four different types of Seville orange marmalade: regular orange and lemon, orange and lemon with organic sugar, whisky orange and lemon, and, new, ginger orange and lemon. All are tangy and thick-cut, just the way we like it!

Kellie at www.kelliesfoodtoglow.com reports that "In common with other oranges, Seville oranges are great sources of Vitamin C and fibre, but also have useful amounts of some B vitamins, beta-carotene and alpha-carotene, lutein (for eyes), potassium and tumour-preventing beta-sitosterol, hersperetin and naringenin. The high amount of pectin found in Seville oranges is not only great for achieving ‘set’ with marmalade (you should never have to add commercial pectin) but it also binds to some carcinogens that are produced in the gut and carries them out of the body." Good news, indeed.

Armed with this marmalade (currently suffusing the house with its citrusy aroma), grass-fed beef and dried herbs, spices and teas, we will be at Evergreen Brickworks farmers market next Saturday, February 15, then weekly from March 8 on. Hard to believe that a month from now, it is traditionally time to turn over the thawing soil in the greenhouses and plant the first of the spring greens. I think we may be still skating on thin ice by then and putting off the growing season for a week or two. We’ll just have to see what Nature has in store for us next…

Snowed-in, Blown-in

Our Massey 35 tractor stranded in deep snow (similar conditions to now) in early March, 2008. Since retired, traded in to Jack the earthmover in return for grading of our second greenhouse.

  

Here we are, snowed in on the farm. The long laneway out to the road is filled in with three to four foot drifts. Gundi and I snow-shoed out along it yesterday; it was crusty in parts but billowing into dunes with the wind whipping fine grains over the surface. So, we are snowed out from the world – not a great hardship with the comforts of a toasty wood-fire and bright sunshine out the window combining to keep the sharp cold at bay. We have supplies of food and drink to last us through these days, until the wind abates enough for us to have the laneway blown out. Our neighbour Sid, with his mega-tractor and rear-mounted snow-blower, will come and blow away the massive build-up and re-connect us to the outside world. I do have to meekly admit that, without very powerful machinery in extreme weather such as this (unseen around these parts for ten years or more), we would be stranded back here but for snow-shoes. There is no way we could clear such a volume of snow.

We are fortunate to be in winter mode with no tropical getaway planned this year. This is a time for catching up on writing, reading, researching soils and seeds, food and farming, healthy approaches and alternatives to this fast-encroaching world run by mad men with few morals.

 Evergreen Brickworks winter farmers market runs every Saturday of the winter. We will be making an appearance with grass-fed beef and more on February 15. On Saturday, February 22, I shall be at the annual consumer organic conference in downtown Toronto organized by the Toronto chapter of Canadian Organic Growers http://www.cogtoronto.org/COG_Toronto/2014_Conference.html  This year’s show is called The Organic Vision - in Search of Change. I will be signing my book High Up in the Rolling Hills and showcasing Rolling Hills Organics herbal teas, dried herbs and spices, and a fresh batch of our tangy Seville orange marmalade. On March 8 we are back full-time every Saturday at Brickworks. By then, it is hoped that the snow and underlying ice will be thawing and little green shoots will be poking up in the greenhouses. Though frigid folks from the deep south to the far north may be denying it at this exceptional wintry time, Springtime is not so very far away.  

Off-Season on the Farm

Recent screenshot from my Pinterest page, www.pinterest.com/peterfinch/

It is off-season on the farm. Time for creative pursuits like reading, researching, and writing. I have spent quite some hours recently - through the bone-chilling weather outside, toasty by the woodstove inside - delving into some themes that fascinate and inspire me. The media by which I have made these explorations are two-fold: books in print and Pinterest. That may sound like going from the sublime to the ridiculous, but both channels have been highly rewarding.

In books, I have been taking in There is a Season by Patrick Lane, The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane, The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King, Secrets of the Soil by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, Grass, The Forgiveness of Nature by Charles Walters, The Real Crash by Peter D. Schiff, The Farm as Ecosystem by Jerry Brunetti, Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver, earth works by Scott Russell Sanders, An Epidemic of Absence by Moises Velasquez-Manoff. I have been thoroughly captivated by them all.

On Pinterest, I have developed several boards of interest - Magical Places, Magical Foods, Magical Plants, Health Naturally, Art & Sculpture, Home is Where the Heart is, Green Heroes. I like the format of Pinterest; it draws the viewer in via the image, following up by opening worlds of words, detailed analysis and so deeper meaning through web links.

You can find boards from my Pinterest page that are pertinent to this blog here:

www.pinterest.com/peterfinch/green-heroes/

www.pinterest.com/peterfinch/magical-plants/

www.pinterest.com/peterfinch/health-naturally/

www.pinterest.com/peterfinch/magical-foods/

GMO and ‘Natural’ Food Fight: Treacherous Terrain

By Ronnie Cummins 
Organic Consumers Association 
As reported at www.organicconsumers.org December 31, 2013 

 2014 is shaping up to be a decisive year for the future of food and farming.  Grassroots activists are gearing up for new legislative battles, including state GMO labeling laws and county bans on growing genetically engineered crops. Meanwhile the multinational food corporations last month raised the stakes in the ongoing David vs. Goliath battle by petitioning the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to allow companies to continue to label or market products that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as "natural." And all signs point to efforts by industry and the FDA to float either voluntary, or watered-down mandatory GMO labeling laws that would take away states’ rights to impose strict GMO labeling laws, and also exempt a large percentage of GMO ingredients from labeling.

For more than two decades, Monsanto and Big Food have poisoned and profited with impunity, thanks to the FDA’s reckless1992 dictate that pesticide-drenched (Roundup-resistant) or insecticide-impregnated (Bt-spliced) crops and foods are “safe and substantially equivalent” to non-GE foods. Now, the Biotech Bullies and Junk Food Giants are under siege by a well-informed and passionate grassroots food movement that is determined to drastically reduce or eliminate the market share of genetically engineered and chemically-intensive foods and crops. 

Since natural health and food activists discovered the “Achilles Heel” of the GMA and processed junk food industries—mandatory labeling—there has been no stopping this movement. Over the past several years, this movement has painstakingly built a broad national coalition to demand laws requiring mandatory labeling of foods containing genetically engineered ingredients, the same types of laws that have been passed in the European Union and scores of other nations. Food activists, bolstered by a growing number of successful class action lawsuits, are also demanding that food manufacturers and retailers put an end to the routine industry practice of fraudulently labeling or marketing products contaminated with GMOs and other chemicals as “natural” or “all natural.”

In the past two years, citizen activists in 30 states have pressured legislators to pass mandatory GMO labeling laws, with partial success in three states: Vermont, Connecticut and Maine. Anti-GMO campaigners boldly challenged the mega-billion-dollar biotech and Big Food establishment in 2012 in California (Proposition 37) and 2013 in Washington State (I-522) by launching state GMO labeling initiatives. Pro-organic and natural health activists raised a multi-million dollar war chest and mobilized millions of voters in two hard-fought and highly publicized campaigns that industry barely won (51%-49%).  Both initiatives garnered national attention. Combined, they forced the biotech and food elite to spend $70 million ($12 million of which was illegally laundered in Washington state through their front group, the Grocery Manufacturers Association) and wage a blatantly dishonest campaign that ultimately divided the industry and damaged the reputations and sales of a number of national brands, including Coca-Cola (Honest Tea and Odwalla); Pepsico (Naked Juice); General Mills (Cascadian Farm and Muir Glen); Unilever (Ben & Jerry’s); Dean Foods (Horizon, Silk, White Wave); Heinz (Heinz Organic), Nestle’s, and Kellogg’s (Kashi, Morningstar Farms, Gardenburger). 

Meanwhile, inspired in part by this anti-GMO grassroots upsurge, over 100 class action lawsuits have been filed across the U.S., charging major food corporations with labeling fraud for labeling or marketing GMO-tainted or chemically processed foods and cooking oils as “natural” or “all natural.”  Rather than admit that much of their product lines are junk foods filled with synthetic chemicals and GMOs, and that nearly the entire $70-billion “natural” products industry is based on fraud and deception (i.e. misleading health minded consumers into believing that unregulated, non-certified “natural” products are “nearly organic,”), large companies such as Pepsi, General Mills, Kellogg’s and Con-Agra, and specialty brands such as Chabani and Barbara’s will likely pay out millions of dollars in out-of-court settlements this year while quietly removing “natural” and “all natural” labels from their non-organic products.

GMO labeling laws are the cornerstone of the anti-GMO movement. But consumers are also expanding the fight by demanding outright bans on the growing of GMO crops. A number of counties in California, Washington and Hawaii have already passed bans, while a half dozen others, including counties in Oregon and California, will vote to create GMO-free zones in 2014.

Beyond “Exemptions:” Comprehensive Labeling

In a bizarre but effective propaganda move, polls reveal that Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) bamboozled millions of voters into voting “no” on mandatory GMO food labeling initiatives in California and Washington by pretending to take the side of consumers. How? By pointing out that these ballot initiatives failed to require GMO labels on restaurant, cafeteria and take-out food, and on meat and animal products. During the California and Washington campaigns, industry hammered home its message that the proposed initiatives were “incomplete,” “confusing,” “expensive” and riddled with “loopholes” that somehow benefitted nefarious “special interests.” In fact, consumers would have preferred a more comprehensive law, with no exemptions. But state laws mandate single-subject or limited provision language, and federal law preempts mandatory state labels on meat packages (though not on grocery store shelves, or on meat and dairy cases). 

In the wake of Monsanto and the GMA successfully sowing confusion over GMO labeling “exemptions,” a growing number of activists have decided to call industry’s bluff by upping the ante. Future plans include pushing not only for GMO food labeling laws, but for all-inclusive food labeling legislation that will require restaurants, schools and grocery stores to label not just foods that contain GMO ingredients, but also foods from factory farms where animals are fed GMO-contaminated feed. 

As Alexis Baden-Meyer, Political Director of the Organic Consumers Association puts it: 

“Tens of millions of Americans want to know if the food they buy contains genetically engineered ingredients. They want to know whether the meat, fish and animal products they consume come from animals reared on factory farms or CAFO’s (Confined Animal Feeding Operations), where the animals are inhumanely confined, routinely fed genetically engineered grain, injected with synthetic hormones, engorged with growth promoters and dosed with antibiotics. Concerned consumers want and need this information whether they are shopping in a grocery store, sitting down in a restaurant or worrying about what their kids are eating in the school cafeteria. After we win the upcoming strategic battles over GMO food labeling in Vermont and Oregon, organic consumers and our allies will push for comprehensive factory farm labels as well.”

Industry’s Next Move: Co-Opting the Right-to-Know Movement

Industry sees the writing on the wall. As the head of the GMA admitted last year “we can’t keep fighting these labeling battles in every state.” Monsanto, Bayer and their allies such as General Mills, Coca-Cola and Pepsi know that in 2014, several states including Vermont and Oregon will likely pass mandatory GMO food labeling laws, while a flood of successful class action lawsuits will highlight the fact that major brands are fraudulently labeling their GMO and chemically-tainted junk foods and beverages as “natural” or all natural. 

Once a greater degree of labeling transparency is required by law, even if in just a handful of states, leading food manufacturers will find themselves in a terrible bind. Will Kellogg’s or Coke admit that their products contain GMOs in Vermont or Oregon, while refusing to divulge this fact in the other 48 states, Canada and Mexico? Or will they be forced to do what they’ve already done in the EU, take these GMOs out of their products? Similarly if they can’t label their junk foods as “natural” or “all natural,” how will they successfully compete in the marketplace?

Backed into a corner by the anti-GMO movement, industry has come out fighting. The GMA has called on the Obama Administration and the FDA to bail out Big Food. If grassroots-powered state laws and class action judges will no longer permit the biotech and food industry to secretly tamper with non-organic food and then fraudulently label these products as “natural,” then industry wants the federal government to take away states’ power to require GMO labeling, and at the same time, take away the judiciary’s power to rule on fraudulently labeled “natural” products.

Leaked documents obtained by the New York Times reveal that the GMA is lobbying the FDA to allow the use of “natural” on food labels even if the products contain GMOs. As Times writer Stephanie Strom reported on Dec. 19:

“Use of the term "natural" is now generating battles similar to previous fights over terms like organic, amid initiatives in several states that seek to label foods in a more transparent way. Last summer, Connecticut passed legislation on labeling that would make it illegal to use the word "natural" on the packaging of any food product containing biotech ingredients, and the governor signed it on Dec. 11.”

At the same time former USDA officials Dan Glickman and Kathleen Merrigan are floating the idea that certain members of the organic elite might be persuaded to back off on the demand for strict GMO labeling if certified organic products are allowed to state on their labels that they are “GMO-free.” As Glickman and Merrigan told the LA Times: 

“Mandatory GMO labeling of all food will continue to arouse passions on both sides of the issue. Though it may not satisfy all GMO-labeling advocates nor be welcomed by all leaders in the biotechnology industry, allowing a GMO-free organic label provides more choice in the marketplace and responds to the demands of millions of American consumers in a practical and common sense way.”

Meanwhile informed sources in the organic industry are warning that the FDA might be preparing to propose a watered-down federal GMO labeling law designed to co-opt the organic and anti-GMO Movement and take away states’ rights to pass stricter labeling laws covering all genetically engineered ingredients basically nullifying laws now under consideration in Vermont, Oregon and several dozen other states. 

This strategy would involve the FDA allowing foods made from highly processed GE ingredients, such as cooking oils, high fructose corn syrup and sugar beets, that contain no easily detectable GE proteins down to a specified level to be labeled "natural”; and certified organic foods to be labeled as “GMO-free.” Under this strategy, labels would be required on only those foods that contain readily detectable GMO proteins, as determined by standardized tests. In other words a large percentage of GMO-tainted foods would still not have to be labeled.

So as we near victory on the GMO labeling front in Vermont and Oregon, and in class-action lawsuits this year, we must beware FDA treachery and the willingness of some in the organic and so-called “natural” industry to sell us out. If the FDA proposes a watered-down federal GMO labeling bill, or a rubber-stamp for the fraudulent industry practice of labeling GMO-tainted foods as “natural” or “all natural,” we must raise holy hell, and mobilize as never before.

Either way 2014 is shaping up to be a make or break year for citizen activism on the food and farming front, part of a larger battle that will determine whether we, the grassroots majority, take back our democracy, or surrender to the corporatocracy and their indentured media, scientists and politicians. 

Review of the Season

Gundi and Peter tanned and tired after garlic seedhead harvest

For our farm, this has been a challenging year for farming and a grindingly good one at markets.

On the bright side of things:

We love our seed suppliers. They provide us with 100% certified organic seeds of tried and trusted variety and quality. Seeds come from small farms produced by growers who really care about continuing to provide the kernel of tomorrow’s harvest.

Enthusiastic help came this year from Marcia who lives nearby in Hastings. She negotiated the hills to work on her electric bike and became our trusty weeder of the greens. Gundi obliged with willing washing and I gladly bagged, labelled and took to market. I am ever happy to see those same greens disbursed into ready shopping bags. On my drive home from market with the empty bins that had oh so briefly housed them, I like to imagine customers at home already preparing their summer dinner with our fresh succulent salad greens.

Harvests of calendula, lavender, and garlic seedheads were prolific. Having planted 7,000 Siberian Red hardneck garlics purchased from our horse manure supplier The Glen Road Organics, a field full of garlic scapes was too much to sell, given that garlic scapes appear for all farmers at the same time in late June and early July. So, many of them evolved from this swirling curl into a rod-straight seedhead pointing skywards. Gundi picked and bunched them. The seedheads were closed, opening and then bursting forth with purple-sheathed seeds. We collected the seeds and bagged them into power-packs of intense garlicky flavour and nutrition which could be picked from for salads and stir-fries and stored refrigerated for weeks. 

At farmers markets, once the harvest got rolling in July, sales went on the up and up, as they have been doing for several years now. Somehow, despite weather challenges, we are able to continue to produce and sell more and more per market.

We have to thank our lovely customers. At Riverdale, there are these days less vendors and less customers. The market misses its founding dynamo, Elizabeth Harris. In her spirit, we stick with the market, though with admittedly not the same ardour as in her time. And so, loyal customers stand by me and thank me constantly just for showing up. And they buy, whether out of gratitude or need, it doesn’t matter. At Evergreen Brick Works in the Don Valley, Saturdays are without doubt the high point of the sales week. Traffic there keeps increasing, while we try to increase production just to keep up with demand. It’s not easy, but all we can do is plug away at it, explaining away the constraints. With the city of Toronto having faced flash floods and frequent inundations, customers were amazed to hear of ongoing dry on the farm and the consequent meager harvests.

At both markets, I loved introducing customers to my book and selling quite a number. Feed back was overwhelmingly gratifying, sometimes moving. Details are at www.HighUpintheRollingHills.blogspot.com.

On the dark side of things:

The early season lack of rain lasted for around six weeks in June and July.  Without moisture, early season plantings of beets, carrots, lettuce, chard didn’t grow fast enough and were overwhelmed by weeds.

A few Toronto restaurants serviced by Chris Temple loved the early season greens and herbs, but grew frustrated by the dwindling supply as the heat and dry took hold. It was with some relief that Chris and I agreed to discontinue supply as of the end of August, allowing me to concentrate on the two markets. Production especially of salad greens rebounded strongly in September, and autumn delivered record sales right through to the end of November.

Genetically-modified crops (GMOs), glyphosate, neonicotinoids and other pesticides continue their unchecked march across the landscape on conventional industrial-scale farms all around us. Corn and soy, corn and soy, as far as the eye can see. Commodity prices are down a little, so farmers are hedging with a little more wheat, oats, barley thrown into the mix, but there is no mistaking that corn and soy are king. Industrial farming is extending its reach, bulldozing fencelines, installing tile drainage, consolidating field size to allow ever-bigger machinery with which to plant, spray, and harvest. Industrial farmers receive ready grants and loans from the government and banks for these so-called “land improvements”. In the wake of this gouging and poisoning of the countryside – which goes in tandem with a land-grab by hedge-fund and pension-fund investors – the health of pollinators and an entire ecosystem is sacrificed. Neonicotinoids in the dust coating of seeds (especially corn) are playing havoc with the cascading health of the bees, the butterflies, the frogs, the insects, the birds, the wild animals and doubtless us humans too. We attest to it with the plummeting numbers of all this wildlife around us. We saw nary a bee, hardly any Monarch butterflies, fewer frogs, less deer and wild turkeys; no foxes or wolves, just a proliferation of coyotes.

As it got hot and dry in June, we were adopted by three coyote pups who must have been orphaned with their parents shot by farmers. They looked emaciated. One morning I went down to the greenhouse to discover not three, but ten of them nested in bundled-up row covers in the greenhouse. They had to go!  I imagine they must have all starved in the ensuing days, but there was nothing we could do to help them but shoo them on their way.

Early in September we lost our little black cat, Negra, to illness. I loved her so much and miss her dearly. I still see her waiting at the sliding back door, waiting patiently to come in after another happy foray into the wild outdoors.  

We will continue to purchase certified organic seeds from family farms and locally-owned seed suppliers. We will continue to grow specialty greens, vegetables, herbs, flowers that are fresh, full of vitality, energy, flavour, and nutrition. We’ll grow more kale, chard, lettuce, fresh herbs, mixed greens. Every last leaf will be certified organic. We will continue to enhance our soils, rotate our crops, and view our farm as an integral part of the natural world.

We do it for the love of it. What else is there to go by but love?

Heinz plant closure part of trend squeezing farmers out of Canada’s system, says NFU

The closing Heinz plant in Leamington, Ontario

Note to farmers: Don't put all your tomatoes in one big basket

News Release from the National Farmers Union

(Leamington, ON) – The closure of the Heinz ketchup plant announced last week is the latest of several Canadian food processing plants bought and then closed by investors that move production to other countries in pursuit of higher profits. The trend bodes ill for Canadians who want to eat food that is grown and processed within our borders, and is a direct result of the federal government’s policy drive to expand agri-food exports at the expense of Canadian food sovereignty.

“Since 1989, Heinz’s Leamington plant has shut down the pickle line, its peach, baked bean, soups and vegetable canning lines, the frozen vegetable product line and its vinegar operation. From hundreds of products now all that is left is baby food and tomato product lines. Even so, the plant was still very profitable,” said Mike Tremblay, Essex County Local NFU-O President. “The new owners want even higher profits, and free trade deals just make it easier for processors to pick up and move, leaving our farmers with no market for their tomatoes and other vegetables, and putting hundreds of local people out of work.”

Canada’s produce growers work hand-in-hand with the processors. Although the growing season is short, producers can provide fruit and vegetables year-round as long as there are companies to can, freeze and package what we produce for longer-term storage. A viable food processing sector and farmers with the capacity to produce enough of the foods necessary for a balanced diet are critical parts of a successful food system.  

“It is ironic that as Canadians are becoming more interested in buying locally-produced food, our supermarkets have less access to products that are actually grown in Canada,” said John Sutherland, NFU Ontario President. “According to Statistics Canada, the total area used to grow vegetables declined by 13.5% between 2006 and 2011, due primarily to the loss of processing capacity. The only way to reverse this problem is to refocus Canada’s food policy to promote food sovereignty instead of commodity exports.”

NFU Vice President (Policy) and BC vegetable producer, Colleen Ross commented, “It would be a shame if local farmland that is so well-suited to vegetable production could no longer be used due simply to the lack of processing capacity. There are pockets in each province where the combination of excellent soil and micro-climate makes ideal vegetable-growing conditions. Without policies to ensure local and regional processors’ survival, our farmers can’t make a living and Canadians will end up eating even more imported fruit and vegetables.”

In recent years, the CanGro fruit, tomato and vegetable plant in Exeter, north of London, ON and its peach plant at St. Davids in the Niagara region, along with the Bick’s pickle plant in Dunnville, ON were purchased by US-based multinational corporations and then closed. The local farmers who grew vegetables for them have either quit, now export produce for lower prices or have switched to growing crops such as soybeans, corn and wheat. Increasingly, grocery stores are buying food that used to be grown in Canada from companies that have shifted production to lower-cost processing facilities in India, Brazil, United States, Mexico and elsewhere.

“This is the price that ordinary Canadians – in this case, farmers and workers – pay for a food system dominated by global corporate interests,” Ross declared. “For these corporations ‘local’ is simply wherever they can get the cheapest price.”