Sustainable farming is taking "organics" a step further.  The health of an ecosystem is about more than organic production methods... it also depends on habitat for native wildlife, water management ... and more.

Buy food from a sustainable farmer! Chemical-free fruits, vegetables, and grains, antibiotic and hormone free meats, free-range chickens and eggs, milk and cheese from grass-fed cows, and more.

A growing number of farmers are choosing to work with nature, and are adopting farming practices that build up the soil, reduce runoff, create habitat for wildlife, treat livestock humanely and best of all, produce safe, wholesome food. But the most environmentally sound farming practices in the world mean little if they don't provide a good income for the farmer. 

Farmers using sustainable methods cannot prosper without the help of urban and rural consumers.

As sustainable and organic farmers explore creative new ways to market their carefully grown products, consumers can support their choice to farm sustainably by purchasing those products listed in the Stewardship Food Directory.

To assist you in preparing meals using locally grown, sustainably-raised products, see our collection of recipes. We also encourage you to hold your own local foods dinner (or potluck, cook-out, banquet, or brunch) to promote the connection between good food and good farming. We have compiled a Local Food Dinner Planning Guide with a few suggestions and resources to get you started. 

The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1982 to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture and to develop sustainable communities.

Commemorative 25th Anniversary Poster

For its 25th anniversary, LSP commissioned a commemorative poster by artist Ricardo Levins Morales of the Northland Poster Collective. For almost three decades, the Northland Poster Collective (http://www.northlandposter.com) has featured the art of social justice, the tools of grassroots organizing and activism, and the craft of union workers. For LSP, the artist has created a beautiful piece entitled, "KEEPING THE LAND AND PEOPLE TOGETHER." It is a colorful poster portraying a food and farming system that benefits the land, its people and our communities.

To order by mail, contact Louise Arbuckle in LSP's Minneapolis office at 612-722-6377 or info@landstewardshipproject.org. 

Since its founding in 1982, the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) has worked steadfastly for environmental and social justice in rural America. They began by educating rural and urban people on the ethics of farmland stewardship through cultural programs and by creating a farmer-to-farmer network to help farmers move to more sustainable farming methods. In response to growing concentration of farmland ownership, they demanded that corporations owning farmland be held accountable to good land stewardship practices. In response to urban sprawl, they initiated discussions on smart growth and farmland preservation options.

LSP has helped dozens of communities organize to stop factory farms and linked sustainable livestock producers to potential urban customers. Working in the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, LSP backed federal policy promoting farming alternatives that are good for the land and good for farmers. We have introduced hundreds to Whole Farm Planning and Monitoring. And they have helped Community Supported Agriculture farms get established throughout the region.

Land Stewardship Project
812 E. 35th St., Suite 200
Minneapolis, MN 55407
Phone: 612-722-6377
Fax: 612-722-6474
www.landstewardshipproject.org

"Eating Local" and Sustainable Food Production in the San Francisco Foodshed

Local food is distinguished not only by where it originates, but also by who produces it and how. The question is being asked, "Could the City of San Francisco feed itself with local food from farms and ranches within 100 miles of the Golden Gate?"

Agriculture within the San Francisco Bay area "foodshed," as defined for a 2008 study, produces 20 million tons of food annually, compared with annual food consumption of 935,000 tons in San Francisco and 5.9 million tons in the Bay Area as a whole.

More than 80 different commodities are represented, only a few of which are not produced in enough abundance to satisfy the demands of the City and Bay Area: eggs, citrus fruit, wheat, corn, pork and potatoes. Many other commodities are available only seasonally, even though northern California has a long growing season.

Most of what is produced in the San Francisco foodshed study area comes from the Central Valley and the Salinas Valley. Only 18% of the farmland in the 10 million acre study area is irrigated cropland, but it is responsible for 3/4 of total agricultural production by dollar value. This land is increasingly threatened by urban development. Already, 12% of the foodshed study area is already developed and new development is consuming farmland at the rate of an acre for every 9.7 residents.

If this continues, 800,000 more acres of farmland will be lost by 2050.

 

The American Farmland Trust is about more than farms. These folks are concerned about the food supply for everyone -- from rural areas to big cities.

An elaborate food distribution system has beveloped between producers and consumer that has matured into delivering inexpensive, standardized food products. But times are changing because of organic food trends, and scares about contaminated foods from afar. The US food system is evolving in the direction of delivering the "story behind the food" in response to growing consumer demand. But it has a long way to go.

Food that is identifiable as "local," including food that is organically or "sustainably" produced, is a very small fraction of both total regional agricultural production (0.5 percent) and of total U.S. retail sales (2.8 percent). This sustainable sector of the food system is growing rapidly.

Despite the challenges of locating locally grown foods for families and local restaurants and institutions such as schools, there are significant opportunities to increase "eating locally" in San Francisco and the Bay Area. The local food movement in the region has as much momentum as anywhere in the country. Strong Farmers Coops, Farmers Markets, and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operations make it almost convenient!

Many public and private institutions (such as schools and hospitals) are now seeking to source food locally. As the fossil fuel era wanes, fresh, local food may gain an advantage in the marketplace over food that is processed and shipped long distances.

Read more about the growing local food trend in the San Francisco Foodshed Report.

The same generic lure can attract three species of mealybugs, which would cut costs for growers by allowing them to deploy a single pheromone trap rather than three.
 
The only scouting tool nurseries currently use for mealybugs is labor-intensive visual inspection of crops. Mealybugs are cryptic pests that conceal themselves in cracks and crevices of plant material. Without careful and regular sampling, mealybugs can reach economically damaging levels before growers realize plant-material infestation has occurred.
 
During the past two years, University of California, Riverside, researchers, including graduate student Rebeccah Waterworth, who is studying with UC Riverside entomologist Jocelyn Millar, has worked in several nurseries in Riverside and San Diego counties, deploying pheromone-baited traps to detect and follow citrus, longtailed and obscure mealybug populations.
 
"Fortunately our experiments determined that there is no major interference among these pheromones so a combination lure containing the pheromones of all three mealybug species can be used," Waterworth said.
 
The synthetic pheromone lures are deployed in sticky traps, where male mealybugs are then captured and counted. Some of the practical questions involved in developing pheromones for trapping mealybugs include the dose and longevity of the pheromone lures and how to monitor the seasonality of field populations of the three species.
 
Waterworth's results show longtailed mealybugs have clearly seasonal trends in their activity with populations increasing October through early spring and falling to low levels during the hotter summer months.
 
"The major peak in activity during the cooler winter months was counterintuitive, because most other insect pests show declines in their activity through fall and winter," Millar said. "The seasonality of this species is also apparent in other crops at this production location."
 
In addition, researchers are assessing the reproductive biology of the three mealybug species to determine whether pheromone-based control measures, such as mating disruption, are likely to be successful. They examined whether females can reproduce asexually as well as sexually, the number of times both males and females can mate, and details of their reproductive behaviors that might have implications for the use of pheromones for monitoring or controlling these insects.
 
"With citrus mealybug, we found that males and females can mate multiple times, as long as matings occur rapidly," Millar said. "However, one day after mating the first time, females become unreceptive to further mating attempts, suggesting that materials transferred to the female during mating have triggered changes in the female's physiology. Similar studies are in progress with the other two mealybug species."
 
The UC Integrated Pest Management Competitive Grants Program funded this study.

Wild rice, peaches, avocados, brocolli, lettuce, ... the list goes on!  California is the American produce center because of our wonderful year round weather, fertile valleys and access to markets.  And Americans can keep this asset robust by buying and cooking American foods!

Want a cookbook that is all about California grown foods?  It's free on the CaliforniaGrown.org website!

California is the leading producer of fresh peaches, plums and nectarines in the United States producing 60% of the peaches, 95% of the plums and 90% of the nectarines.

Most of these fruits are grown within a 50-mile radius of Reedley, a quiet California Central Valley town near Fresno. Other growing areas exist near Bakersfield, Modesto and Sacramento. Approximately 1,500 farmers, small and large, grow these three fruits commercially, hand picking them in the orchards and hauling them to packing sheds.

Guy Fieri Promotes California Grown Products

 

Guy Fieri is known for creating food that is as fun, fearless, and fundamental as his larger-than-life personality. Check out a video from his recent visit to Sacramento where he talked with local California growers…

Remember the little fruit stands that used to be the norm along suburban and rural roads?  I grew us shopping at our neighbors' farm stands...and even sold homegrown dill and apples in our own miniature version as a rural version of a kids' lemonaide stand.  Can you imagine the sparse customers for dill? :-)  But we actually had a few regular customers who needed dill for their pickle canning...and it gave  me my first taste of agricultural marketing!

California is a big state...an agricultural state and a state with millions of potential "local shoppers".  Now we just need to understand WHY that is important.   My husband and I were discussing the news I read this morning about a man from Croatia flying to New York to buy clothes because they are such a bargain right now!!!!!  What?!?  Croatia -- that war ravaged country that is trying to recover -- they are flying to New York City -- one of the most expensive US cities in which to live?  What's changing this drastically?

One word.  We've lost our local manufacturing // and agriculture.

That's why shopping at local farm stands, local farmers markets and insisting that your grocery store carry locally grown produce rather than imports is important. 

Barbara Steinberg recently wrote about how she's trying hard to buy local...and how it's not always easy!

I really took it to heart when learning about the whole "farm to table" philosophy, which promotes buying produce that's been grown within 100 miles of home.  Let me tell you something...it's tough.  But I try. And failing that, I tell myself, "It must at least have been grown in California." When that doesn't work...at the very least, it should be grown in the U.S.  How hard could that be? Well, sometimes really, really hard. Why? Because labeling is so misleading and even with produce you to read the fine print.  Haas California avocados are a great example. You see them everywhere.  But many times, those buttery fruits are grown in Chile. CaliforniaInsier.typepad.com

Buy   There are great farm, wine, and harvest trails throughout the state.

Barbara includes a wonderful list of FARM TRAILS in California on her blog.  I hope that if you live in California, or are coming to visit this summer, you'll support our local California farmers ... and treat yourself to the succulent, fresh, tasty products of our all-American soil!  Barbara's list of FARM TRAILS is worth exploring!

The Organic Center has researched a new method to quickly and cost-effectively track changes in soil quality brought about by the transition to organic farming.

Alan Franzluebbers, Ph.D. and Richard Haney, Ph.D., two leading soil scientists working for the Agricultural Research Service, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, wrote The Organic Center's Critical Issue Report (CIR 2006.2), "Assessing Soil Quality in Organic Agriculture." The full report is available for free at: http://www.organic-center.org/science.environment.php.

The report explains why better tools are needed to manage the transition of soils when farming methods change from chemical-based to organic.

"How we manage soil and how the soil responds to this management are critical issues facing the long-term success of our society," says Alan Franzluebbers, ecologist with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service in Watkinsville, Georgia and co-author of the report. The proposed minimum-data-set (MDS) approach for assessing soil quality is composed of routine chemical and biological assays that can be carried out in most soil testing laboratories for a collective cost of less than $100 per sample.

In 2007, The Organic Center plans to begin a national survey of soil quality on conventional, transitional and organic acreage. The Center's project will apply, test and refine the MDS approach, and integrate the measures into an index of soil quality.

"Farmers and scientists have recognized for decades that well-managed organic systems improve soil quality," says Chuck Benbrook, Ph.D., and chief scientist of The Organic Center. "But better tools and solid data are needed to quantify these benefits and identify the best strategies to maximize them."

The degradation of soil quality continues in the United States as a result of erosion, the compaction of soils, leaching of nutrients, and loss of soil structure and biodiversity.

Organic farming methods have great potential to reverse these losses by increasing soil organic matter content, building the pools of nutrients cycling within soils, and enhancing soil microbial communities. The Organic Center's work on soil quality seeks to accomplish two goals.

First, development of practical tools for farmers, crop consultants, extension specialists, and agronomists to use in the field in mapping the course for cost-effective transitions from conventional production to organic management. New tools are needed to determine how quickly a soil can be transitioned, how resilient the soil is likely to be during the transition process, and how soils and crop yields are likely to respond to key organic farming practices and inputs. Soil microbial activity, in particular, can offer a benchmark for transitioning from conventional to organic farming systems.

"There is a need to provide farmers with a soil test tool to guide a cost-effective transition," says Richard Haney, soil chemist with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service in Temple, Texas. "Microorganisms are very sensitive to changes in the soil and we can take advantage of this fact by tracking the impact our management practices have on soil microbes."


The Organic Center's second goal is to develop methods to quantify the benefits to farmers, rural communities, and the nation from improvements in soil quality possible through organic management. Key benefits that will follow expansion of organic production, and which need to be quantified, include: increased efficiency of nitrogen use; less reliance on purchased sources of nutrients; reduced runoff and leaching of nutrients and pesticides, and hence improved water quality; more stable crop yields; and higher returns to farm labor and management.

The Organic Center's next Critical Issue Report focusing on soil quality will be released in the spring, 2007. It will address the potential of organic farming systems to increase the efficiency of nitrogen use in corn production in the Midwest.

The Organic Center is a 501 (c) (3) organization founded in 2002 to present and provide peer-reviewed scientific evidence on how organic products benefit human and environmental health. The Organic Center's research and educational efforts are funded through individuals, foundations, businesses and government programs.

For information about The Organic Center, its current programs and scientific reports visit www.organic-center.org.

Science is showing that organic fruits and vegetables not only taste better, but they are better for you. Nutrient content in organic fruits and vegetables is, on average, higher than in conventionally grown fruits and vegetables. In many cases, the amount of antioxidants found in organic fruits and vegetables is 30-percent higher compared to conventionally grown produce.

Taste plays a huge factor in converting consumers to try new foods and according to a Minnesota Opinion Research Inc. poll, 43 percent of consumers say taste is a major reason why they purchase organic fruits and vegetables. So what are the other 57 percent waiting for?

"People have a lot of misconceptions about what an organic meal tastes like," says celebrity chef Akasha Richmond. Eighty-five to 90 percent of the ingredients she uses in her A-list recipes are organic. "Because organic is associated with something that is good for you, people think it will be too healthy and have no taste. But after they try it, most people are shocked at how much more flavor some of their favorite foods have."

And while chefs like Richmond have known instinctively for years that organic produce can add flavor to their menus, a new state of science review, published by The Organic Center, shows why organic fruits and vegetables often taste better.

Published studies have analyzed the sensory appeal of organic fruits and vegetables compared to their conventional counterparts.

Organic fruits and vegetables tend to score higher in taste because they are sweeter than conventionally grown foods. Scientists say this is because of the nutrient density of organic produce and their smaller size. Conventional farming methods are designed to produce bigger fruits and vegetables, but increasing cells size adds more water, diluting the concentrations of both vitamins and natural flavors.

Organic apples, strawberries and tomatoes showed some of the most significant differences in taste, according to the report.

The report also dispels another misconception about freshness. Contrary to what most people believe, organic fruits and vegetables often have a longer shelf life than conventionally grown foods. The higher levels of antioxidants, considered a natural preservative, are actually part of what enables some organic fruits and vegetables to store longer. The other contributing factor is the lower levels of nitrates that come from synthetic fertilizers, which aren't used in organic farming.

Science is showing that organic fruits and vegetables not only taste better, but they are better for you. Nutrient content in organic fruits and vegetables is, on average, higher than in conventionally grown fruits and vegetables. In many cases, the amount of antioxidants found in organic fruits and vegetables is 30-percent higher compared to conventionally grown produce.

To get a copy of the taste state of science review, go to http://www.organic-center.org and visit http://www.MO2010.org to find out how you can make a difference by just eating 10-percent organic.

Boulder, Colo. - (June 13, 2007) - Much more than the fate of the multi-billion-dollar fresh leafy greens industry is at stake in the wake of the 2006 fall's E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak linked to pre-packaged spinach products.

Why? Because increasing daily consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables is an essential first step in improving the health of the average American. Any factor that erodes confidence in the safety of fresh produce undermines ongoing efforts to increase consumption of these healthful foods.

According to a Critical Issues Report released in June 2007 by The Organic Center, the good news is that since last fall, growers and processors of fresh leafy greens, especially in California, have adopted significant, new prevention-based food safety practices aimed at preventing another outbreak.

The study, Unfinished Business: Preventing E. coli 0157 Outbreaks Caused by Leafy Greens, is authored by The Organic Center's chief scientist Charles Benbrook, Ph.D. While noting progress made, the report highlights several additional steps that are justified in light of current science and the magnitude of the issue.

The Western Growers Association led the effort leading to adoption by processors and handlers of a set of "Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) Metrics." Market leader Fresh Express has committed $2 million for research on how to prevent future outbreaks, and Natural Selection Foods has implemented a new "test and hold" program that has helped ensure that all shipped product is pathogen free.

"Prevention of foodborne illness outbreaks requires innovation, attention to detail and diligence from 'farm to fork,'" says Dr. Benbrook.

The new report provides an in-depth discussion of the likely causes of the 2006 outbreak, and includes a dramatic series of pictures of the outbreak field and surrounding area. "One lesson learned is that cattle, manure and fresh leafy greens make for a volatile mix," according to Benbrook. Until more is known about how pathogenic E. coli finds its way to leafy green fields, the report calls for one-half mile separation between grazing cattle and leafy green fields. The GAP Metrics currently require only 30 feet.

The new report is available at no charge in .pdf form at The Organic Center's website, www.organic-center.com. Click on "State of Science" in the menu bar and then on "Food Safety" to download the report, or go to The Organic Center's website.