Good Food is Everybody's Business
Large conventional retailers replicate stores across the landscape and are not so careful about reflecting local community demographics and product preferences. Natural food co-ops, because they are member-owned, take on the personalities of their surrounding neighborhoods. Food Front Co-op in Portland OR shows how different is good.
Erick Haakenson, Jubilee Farm, Carnation WA, talks about the next generation of organic farmers coming of age and taking their place in the history of agriculture.
Contrary to popular belief, a good living can be made on an organic farm. What’s required is farming smarter, not harder. In The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook, Richard Wiswall shares advice on how to make your vegetable production more efficient, better manage your employees and finances, and turn a profit.
As urban homesteading becomes increasingly popular, more people are refraining from store-bought eggs to try their hand at raising backyard chickens. However, despite the many potential benefits, it’s still necessary to take precautions against disease and pathogens like Salmonella.
Once again, we ride out the storm, it’s a rough ride, but I stay in the saddle, the sheep stay on the farm, and all is not lost! The rams, however, are locked in the ram pen in the lower barn, pending their sale within a month or so.
There is a hydrological term for the end and next beginning of the flooding season wrapped around Summer. It’s called the “Shoulder Season.” The end of the shoulder season is the last flood in the Spring and the beginning, the first in the Fall. We are still touching shoulders with this past year’s season in Western Washington after what many feel is one of the worst flooding seasons we’ve ever had. Yet, the resilience of the farmers should amaze us all.
Over the last 70 years, the beef industry has changed considerably, evolving into an intense, industrial enterprise designed to put as much weight on as many cattle as fast as possible and get the resulting meat to market as quickly as possible. In response to the damaging impact of feedlot production, more and more farmers and ranchers are choosing to return to – and improve upon – traditional methods of raising cattle on grass.
It’s been a cool, late spring here in Puget Sound, which means there’s still time to plant a garden. In fact, we’ve just gotten the tomatoes we bought at the Seattle Tilth Edible Plant Sale in the ground! Buying starts and seeds from local growers and at local sales ensures that you get plants that are climate-appropriate. There are some plants that just don’t do well in our short summers!
