In-depth, offbeat, or thought-provoking features about aspects of SOLE food, from eating locally to farms marketing to methods of food preservation.

Not exactly a food topic, but if you’re still deliberating about a Christmas tree (real tree? artificial tree? no tree? see what Grist’s Umbra had to say), here are two ideas that are easier than buying a live one that you have to try to plant somewhere:
My choice, an idea borrowed from a friend: a […]

Dairy cows were among the victims of Washington’s floods. Photo by Mike Kane for the Seattle P-I.

Washington and Oregon suffered disastrous rain and wind for days starting on December 1, and farms in southwest Washington were hit particularly hard. Some dairies dumped their milk when a 20-mile section of I-5 closed and the milk couldn’t […]

In my last post, I took a lengthy look at the role that farmers play in the livestock production system. In case you didn’t make it that far, here’s my conclusion: In their role as feed-growers and animal-raisers, farmers are an important but virtually powerless piece of the system. Wedged between big companies selling them […]

In a recent post on Grist, Tom Philpott ran down the list of problems that this year’s Farm Bill debaters have blamed, loudly and repeatedly, on subsidies: “everything from the obesity epidemic to the explosion in CAFOs in the late 1990s to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico… [to] steamrolling farmers in Mexico, […]

A frustrated Dan Nagengast, executive director of the Kansas Rural Center, said after a recent forum on pharmaceutical crops that opponents needed to take the fight somewhere else.
Some 35 to 40 people attended the forum in Topeka on Nov. 14, which provided a pile of handouts, but it got little press and essentially no public […]

Following last fall’s crisis over E. coli contamination of spinach, the growers, distributors and retailers of salad mix started talking about improving their safety practices. A fair amount of activity in this area has been happening in California, including some bills in the legislature and voluntary standards like the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement. (Be […]

In-depth, offbeat, or thought-provoking features about aspects of SOLE food, from eating locally to farms marketing to methods of food preservation.

Tomorrow’s New York Times Sunday Magazine has a story about the DVD release of “Sesame Street: Old School,” and its bizarre-sounding agrarian sequences on farms.Many of them can be found on YouTube.

A rural-centric news round-up contributed by our friends at the Center for Rural Affairs.

John and Yvonne Bauman and their six children raise pastured chickens for eggs and meat plus other livestock on a small farm in Garnet, Kansas.

Autumn is apple season in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, an opportunity to taste apples at their peak and remember how good an apple can be. For many, the apple’s standing has been diminished by too many cardboard-like Red Delicious apples served as token pieces of fruit on airplanes or at other establishments. […]

In-depth, offbeat, or thought-provoking features about aspects of SOLE food, from eating locally to farms marketing to methods of food preservation.

This multigenerational family farm, in business since 1866 (here’s the old part of the home[]http://www.flickr.com/photos/foodperson/1506163547/in/set-72157602305466561/], raises pastured chickens [http://www.flickr.com/photos/foodperson/1507022506/in/set-72157602305466561/]and turkeys (heritage [http://www.flickr.com/photos/foodperson/1506162945/in/set-72157602305466561/] and white[http://www.flickr.com/photos/foodperson/1506164151/in/set-72157602305466561/]…. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/foodperson/1506163279/in/set-72157602305466561/] Pendleton’s Country Market…. Not only do they operate a decent-sized diversified farm, growing everything from commodity crops (corn, wheat) to asparagus to bedding plants to cut flower, but they also are ceaseless promoters of local agriculture, including their own farm, of course, and active in 4-H…. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/foodperson/1506166281/in/set-72157602305466561/] Karen was in the “villa,” butterfly net in hand, to catch monarchs passing through weeks beyond their usual migration and pointing out the freshly deposited butterfly eggs and swallowtails’ defense mechanism.[ http://www.flickr.com/photos/foodperson/1507025320/in/set-72157602305466561/] Visitors also could buy bedding plants, pumpkins [http://www.flickr.com/photos/foodperson/1506166013/in/set-72157602305466561/ ] and assorted other items…. To top off the day, I went to a neighbor’s birthday party, which was catered by Local Burger (owned by another neighbor; I live a cool neighborhood), and had an elk burger (among the selection of local burgers offered) with meat supplied by a farm tour rancher, Rocky Hills Elk Ranch (no website; email credmonds /at/ yahoo), and some of those Wakarusa Valley Farms salad greens.

Over the Labor Day weekend, I visited one of my favorite farmers at her Barton Organic Farm and talked to her about the ups and downs of organic farming while helping harvest seeds for next year.