I receive a lot of incredibly useful information from the Organic Farming Research Foundation. Now they have a new email newsletter, and the first issue looks great. Here’s a pic of it. If it looks good to you, head on over to the Organic Link sign-up page and subscribe to the newsletter yourself.

Here’s Sara’s latest newsletter on where to buy some great grass-fed (fully pastured) beef, and some market dates through February:

Here’s an announcement from the Organic Farming Research Foundation. Looks like there’s money to be had – $50 million from the USDA for organic growers and those trying to transition. The deadline is March 12.

January 28, 2010 2010 EQIP Organic Initiative Deadline is March 12, 2010 Updated Program Information Available on OFRF Website Now is the time to apply for the USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) Organic Initiative. USDA has again allocated $50 million for this program, which serves certified organic growers and those transitioning to organic farming systems. The program provides financial and technical assistance to growers to implement conservation practices relevant to organic agriculture. Interested producers have until March 12, 2010 to sign up for the 2010 program. To sign up, visit your USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) local service center. Eligible Applicants The EQIP Organic Initiative is available to agricultural producers who are: Interested in transitioning to organic. In the process of transitioning to organic. Already certified organic and interested in transitioning more acreage to organic. Already certified organic and interested in adopting conservation measures on their farm. Already certified organic and interested in transitioning more acreage to organic AND adopting conservation measures on their farm. Organic producers who are exempt from certifying are still eligible to participate in the program. Additional information on eligibility is listed on our EQIP Organic Initiative Resource Page. If you applied to the Organic Initiative in 2009 and your application was deferred, you will receive a letter from the NRCS informing you of your options. Payments Producers who receive EQIP Organic Initiative contracts with NRCS are paid 75 percent of the cost for the organic conservation measures they implement. Beginning, limited resource, and socially disadvantaged producers (those considered “historically underserved” by the USDA) are paid up to 90 percent. The program provides up to $20,000 per year with a maximum total of $80,000 over six years. March 12 is the last day to submit your application for this year’s funding. The process can be complicated, so we urge you to start now. More Information OFRF has updated information about the 2010 EQIP Organic Initiative, including application instructions, criteria for applying, information about the practices and payment schedules, and a list of organizations that assist growers in their state, on our EQIP Organic Initiative Resource Page. This page will be updated as needed, so check back frequently. Organic and transitioning producers can also apply for the regular EQIP, which funds on-farm conservation activities, but not specifically related to organic farming systems. This program has higher payment limits, but the application process is much more competitive due to the larger number of applicants. The 2010 ranking cutoff date for the regular EQIP may have passed in your state – check your state’s NRCS website for more information. Join the Organic Farmers Action Network today!

Organic Farming Research Foundation, 303 Potrero St. #29-203, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 tel. 831-426-6606 www.ofrf.org

I’ll be heading down to San Marcos tomorrow and Friday for the annual Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association conference. Legendary head of CMAWC, ‘Ranger’  Rick Williamson and I will be visiting farms on Thursday, and then spending the next day at the trade show and in conference talks.

Rick represents Williamson County at TOFGA, and I’m becoming a member, so we’ll be involved on Friday evening in the election process for the new president and vice president  of the association.

Rick said he’d drive if I take pictures, so a report better than a thousand words will come your way next week about our adventures down on the farm

We think we’ve been earnestly increasing our crop yields using industrialized agriculture in order to feed our burgeoning human population. Daniel Quinn says it’s the other way around.

Populations grow because we produce more food. And yet the starving around the world are still starving. We’re growing the starving population also. That’s how badly human civilization has misinterpreted its survival requirements.

All of these assertions require citations to sources of course. I’ll get them here for you eventually, not today.

For now I’ll just add that we’ve developed a relentless agri-business machine that only knows how to follow the industrial model of continually increased production.

Never mind that yields are falling, our inherited soil-nutrient base is depleted, our seed archive is precarious, and the fossil fuels that drive it all are becoming unaffordable.

Never mind that it’s all for nothing, that this whole unsustainable machine doesn’t reach to the starving, that it externalizes our biofuel costs to cause famine in the third world, while the hungry die from complete lack of nutrition, and the well-fed, by the greatest irony of all, get sick and die of chronic illness brought about by today’s civilized form of malnutrition.

Nowadays we’re used to depending on the Comedy Channel to report the news. Michael Pollan was on the Daily Show yesterday, promoting his latest book, Food Rules.

Pollan theorized back in September, in a NYT article called Big Food vs. Big Insurance, that if health insurers are forced by reform to cover the unhealthy they could turn into an enemy of agri-business (which creates unhealthy people).

He makes the point well here, pointing out that the food industry today creates patients for the health industry.

More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.

The Times says water provided to more than 49 million people in the last five years “has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.”

Furthermore, says the Times,

Studies indicate that drinking water contaminants are linked to millions of instances of illness within the United States each year.
- Millions in U.S. Drink Dirty Water, Records Show

The New York Times says it has compiled and analyzed millions of records from water systems and regulators around the nation, as part of a series of articles about worsening pollution in American waters, and regulators’ response.

Frankly, I’m glad NYT has had the generosity to fund this kind of study. Eventually we have to learn that bad politics will kill us. An E.P.A spokeswoman is quoted in the NYT article as saying:

The previous eight years provide a perfect example of what happens when political leadership fails to act to protect our health and the environment.

This is E.P.A. itself telling us that the previous administration didn’t care enough about the common citizenry to enforce our safe water laws. The Obama administration is making it a top priority. We’re going to have to become political people purely to live healthy lives.

Or else be very local. Once again, the lesson is you can’t trust anyone regarding what you eat or drink except people you know.

Here’s a slightly nuanced story in the Washington Post about a DC restaurant called Founding Farmers (lovely name!) that claims it’s all about “sustainable” food. Turns out they rushed into print a little too soon on that score however, considering the amount of quality control they still had to learn. Oops.

See ‘Green’ cuisine not always as ordered

I’m not going to outline the story here – it’s worth a read because it gives a pretty balanced weighing of the pros and cons of the restaurant’s operation compared with its menu claims. It’s hard not to sympathize a little with Founding Farmers – and the comments to the article from readers frequently say things like, why pick on people trying to do some good? But the message here is that the devil is in the details, and we have to pay attention to the details if we want to survive.

Because, as the story shows, it can be a treacherous thing just trying to eat healthy. And by the way, “farmwashing” doesn’t appear in the story once, although it should. It’s like greenwashing, the telling of fibs by companies trying to ride the sustainability wagon without actually being, well, sustainable.

(You get it already, but if you want more collateral, in my old town of Santa Fe they can explain farmwashing to you and make it entertaining.)

In the end, it comes down to if you can believe the claims made by anyone or anything that tells you a product is organic, or sustainably grown, or healthy – or even free of poison (which might have been easier in a less polluted, earlier age).

Local Food Grid takes as a working rule of thumb that the entire food chain is poisoned. This is the basic ground zero that we have to start from. Everything is poison – except, what might not be?

How about food from a farmer I know personally? Grown in soil I’ve seen. From animals pastured on grass I’ve watched grow. How about food offered to me by people who look me in the eye, and have a vested interest in my not getting sick?

As a concept it’s very simple. Just a matter of building the local infrastructure, and the local economy woven in, snug against all storms.

As schools start removing junk food and beverages, we’re finding that kids DON’T go home and binge on junk. Instead, they eat better at school and no worse at home.

This is according to a study just completed by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. The full story is here.

The food industry had argued that cleaning up school food (a health disaster and a national disgrace in my opinion) and substituting healthier choices would lead to counter-swings by kids deprived of their treats.

The study’s lead author explains that

financial pressure from both the food industry, looking to build brand loyalty, and the schools, which get a cut of the profits from vending machines, is the main reason there is opposition to removing soft drinks and junk foods.

We’re going to be lied to all the way along the path to healthy living.

It sounds cynical but I believe it’s simply the truth, that we can’t trust anyone with our food and drink except people we know, which means local. We also need solid science, and clear research by institutes like Rudd that build a solid reputation by proving their claims with facts.

Chefs get it: the best ingredients are the freshest, and that means local. Authentic flavor also comes from absence of processing – local again. As all the old jobs disappear, probably forever, sustainable jobs in the new economy show their fresh faces. Jobs such as those created by local cuisine.

Fortune Magazine just last week featured the stories of 6 green cooks – chefs who use local ingredients, bought from local farmers or even grown themselves.

Chef and restaurateur Jeremy Barlow described discovering that the best way to find the cheapest and freshest ingredients was to turn to nearby farmers.

“As my passion for cooking evolved, I made the connection between getting good product and buying local, and what that does for the environment,” he says. “It’s about the importance of keeping farmland around within a region in order to support a community. Without farmers you have no community.”

Portland caterer Brittany Baldwin, chef and farmer both, saw a market in catering meals prepared using local ingredients, and was surprised that no one had thought of it. She leased a half-acre to raise quail and chicken, growing beets, sweet peppers, onions and salad greens.

Baldwin’s idea spread throughout Portland and she now has a waiting list longer than six months. A typical customer might be a young family of four that is too busy to organize dinner; or a grandmother following new dietary restrictions; or a wealthy couple who wants to entertain guests with fresh, local produce. “All the time and realize how lucky I am,” says Baldwin.” I wake up, I go out in the garden, and I pull the order.”

Check out the full article for profiles on all six new-economy entrepreneurs.