Blog

Our friend Jonathan Shepard is a documentary film maker who is the mastermind behind "The Sharecroppers." Recently, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver borrowed some of his chicken footage for their amazing piece. Check out both videos!

Hormel Foods Corp. agreed to buy Applegate Farms LLC for about $775 million, a move that would give the maker of Spam a foothold in the organic-meats category. Closely held Applegate’s annual sales are expected to be about $340 million this year, Hormel HRL, -0.39%  said in a news release Tuesday announcing the deal. A […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Agriculture Department has developed a new government certification and labeling for foods that are free of genetically modified ingredients. USDA's move comes as some consumer groups push for mandatory labeling of the genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. The certification is the first of its kind, would be voluntary — and companies […]

Well-meaning people have, for a good many years now, been forming a “consciousness” about where their food comes from, who produces it, and how. This gets tedious. But it’s also sensible, given how important food is in our lives. Computers, it would seem, deserve similar attention. They are constant companions; they shape our experience. Many […]

Uma Rapiti Farm New Zealand: We are a family who have a small, organic farm on Waiheke Island, New Zealand.  We are looking for someone with experience in organic farming/permaculture to help on our land as part of a work exchange. The property is relatively new to our family; we have been developing it as […]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbQi119hRMg&w=853&h=480] http://www.gmofreemaui.org

Tickets for the tasting are $15 and can be purchased online at maine-fare.org OR by calling 207-338-6575. Ticket holders receive 10 3oz pours, and must be 21 years of age to enter the event. And find more information here.

Here is the updated schedule: Mendocino Farm Hack Mendocino County will host its first FarmHack at the Little Lake Grange and Ridgewood Ranch in Willits, CA this December 6-7. This weekend long event will bring together business owners, engineers and mechanics, farmers and home-scale producers to learn about the possibilities of ethanol production and use. A […]

Ecopolis Iowa City: Community Forum Launches Regenerative City Initiative by Jeff Briggers, Huffington Post A broad range of community members in Iowa City, Iowa kicked off the "Ecopolis Forum" today, a groundbreaking series of monthly winter conversations on creating the first regenerative city of the arts, food, renewable energy, and commerce in the heartland. Featuring […]

Watch the trailer for the new documentary Food Chains! Here's the scoop: "There is more interest in food these days than ever, yet there is very little interest in the hands that pick it. Farmworkers, the foundation of our fresh food industry, are routinely abused and robbed of wages. In extreme cases they can be […]

Growing Heart Farm (growingheartfarm.com) is hiring a young farmer or farming team to operate 1.5 acres in cultivation for the 2015 growing season.  Private 2 bedroom apartment provided on our 41 acre farm 1 mile from metro north train station in Wingdale, NY. We are open to a range of experience levels, however, this position […]

Ferguson Action has released their demands for racial justice, divided into "Our Vision for a New America" and "National Demands." The demands are ambitious and utopian, but also simple and straightforward because they deal with the basic rights of a human being in a civil society. They provide practical policy responses the systemic injustice that […]

There's a new resource for learning about how to grow good, sustainable food, who's growing it, and how you can better understand your place in the new ecosystem we're all trying to build: EthicalFoods Magazine. Ethical Foods is looking out for your health, the renewability of the earth, and sharing farmers' insights with the world. […]

Mark Bittman's article in the New York Times, Nov. 25, 2014. There are four basic ways to change the food system. I talk about three of them a lot: The first is to eat differently, focusing on good food and especially plants; the second is to bring change to your work, whether that means becoming […]

When: 12/6/2014 Where: Grange Ag School. 16200 Willits Road. Willits, CA 95490 Mendocino County will host its first FarmHack at the Little Lake Grange and Ridgewood Ranch in Willits, CA this December 6-7. This weekend long event will bring together business owners, engineers and mechanics, farmers and home-scale producers to learn about the possibilities of […]

There is a wealth of information and data online about land governance. However, much of this content is fragmented and difficult to locate, and often it is not openly licensed to enable wide dissemination and reuse. Grassroots knowledge may be particularly hard to find, or may not be available online, and the data and information […]

Noon, December 6, 2014 at Sub Edge Farm, 199 Town Farm Rd., Farmington, Connecticut Presented by Bennett Konesni, Edith Gawler, and friends. Join Bennett Konesni and Edith Gawler (of Sylvester Manor and worksongs.org) for this small-group, hands-on, sing-out workshop  at Sub Edge Farm in Farmington. Participants will learn a collection of songs useful on vegetable farms […]

Though the XL Keystone Pipeline failed to pass the Senate, other measures in the house  passed H.R. 4012, which places restrictions on scientists and creates room for industry experts with  financial ties to those affected by EPA regulations. The bill is being framed as a play for transparency:  Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, argued that the board’s current structure is problematic […]

(From the Wall Street Journal and Shareable.net) There are an estimated 300 so-called seed libraries in towns and cities across the U.S., including Boston, Cleveland, Nashville and Tucson, up from about a dozen in 2010. Most are affiliated with public libraries, where residents can "borrow" seeds to plant in private gardens, then return others they […]

via Truth-out.org by Penn Loh of YES! Magazine When Glynn Lloyd couldn’t source enough locally grown produce, he decided to grow his own. Since 1994, Lloyd has run City Fresh Foods, a catering company based in Roxbury—one of Boston's lowest-income neighborhoods. He wanted his business to use locally produced food, but at that time it […]

Winona LaDuke, a Native American activist and author, gives a clear, impassioned rundown of why the federal government will not return land taken from Indian people and why they should return it.

This film examines a cooperative of the Brazilian Landless Movement (MST) in the South of Brazil, which struggled for access to land and then transitioned to ecological agriculture, or agroecology. This MST cooperative is demonstrating the possibility of an alternative model of flourishing rural life, which provides thriving livelihoods for farmers, produces high quality and […]

Mark Bittman of the New York Times, Michael Pollan of the University of California, Berkeley, Ricardo Salvador of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Olivier De Schutter of the Catholic University of Louvain have collaborated on a new article in the Washington Post that puts forward a plan for a national food policy. For the […]

Join Reverend Billy & the Stop Shopping Choir on Thanksgiving Day in St. Louis, Missouri for a communal dinner on Monsanto's front lawn. It should be a great time! The group will meet at 1 pm at Stacy Park and then hike up to Monsanto World Headquarters. Find out more HERE.

Greenhorns, in partnership with Organic Consumers Association were in attendance last month at the national gathering of the FFA. The FFA National Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, saw a sea of 60,000 students representing every nook and cranny of America (and its territories) gathered together for fellowship, belonging, education and scholarly competition. Between the ages of 13 and 18, many of these students are next-in-line to the family farm and occupy a strategically powerful position in the future of American Agriculture; they are kids with land. With a self-confidence rarely seen in teenagers and impeccable public speaking skills, these students in their blue corduroy jackets cut quite the impressive figure, particularly in a stadium context.
They are team-spirited, motivated and articulate, and most of them credit these qualities to the organization that brought them together, the FFA. The FFA is turning these next-in-line farmers, agriscientists, ag teachers and farm sympathizers into successful leaders, fierce entrepreneurs, and good Samaritans...for Big Ag.
This polished youth constituency at the FFA sing the praises, almost exclusively, of Big Ag. How did this happen? Lets start with the obvious place; let’s follow the money.

You might not know it, but a legislative battle is being waged over who can produce food, where they can sell it, and when the government can shut them down. The most recent incarnation of this is a modification to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) that will make it possible for the FDA to […]

from KWMR in partnership with the Post Carbon Institute. KWMR 2-Hour Special: Leaders of the Young Agrarian Movement Facing the Future Monday, Nov. 10th - 12pm to 2pm (Pacific Time) A collaboration between the Farm and Foodshed Report (Robin Carpenter- Host) and Post Carbon Radio (Bing Gong & Karen Nyhus - Co-hosts) featuring:   Severine […]

Kick off the holiday season with an evening of good music, local food, and the release of the brand new Farmers Guild Cookbook, a collection of recipes from our favorite young farmers and their own harvest, along with a collective exploration into our agrarian future.

New Farmers Needed. Be one in a million— Join Rogue Farm Corps in 2015! Applications are now open for positions throughout Oregon. FarmsNext is an entire season of hands-on training and skill-based education in sustainable agriculture for aspiring farmers and ranchers. This immersive on-farm experience combines field training with a mentor farmer, classroom learning with […]

(Photo courtesy of Pete Walton, taken at the National FFA Conference) From NPR: Top agribusiness companies, including Monsanto, DuPont, John Deere and Dow, have moved into the information business, offering to help farmers collect that data and analyze it — for a price. But some farmers are starting to worry about how that data will […]

Sometimes the most compelling way to expose an injustice is to flip it around and visit it upon the powerful. Remember the great scene from “Erin Brockovich” where the hero brings a glass of contaminated water to a meeting with the companies her clients have accused of contaminating their drinking water. “You claim this water […]

Lauren Markham, author of  The New Farmers, an article in Orion Magazine, recently spoke on Wisconsin Public Radio about the young farmer movement. Have a listen, she gives the Greenhorns a big ole' shout-out and boost! Greenhorns were also recently featured with Lauren Markham on Michael Olsen's food chain radio show to discuss the future […]

Extra! Extra! Come out this Friday Nov 21st in NYC for a short talk by esteemed author and University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaigne professor of Law Eric Freyfogle, followed by drinks and a discussion of land rights. "Give us Liberty and give us Land"   Friday November 21st, 6-8 pm" at Jimmy's 43 43 East 7th Street Between […]

Todays post is the text of an opinion piece written by William C Gehrke and published in The Kansas Union Farmer on April 16, 1936! Gehrke does an incredible job of articulating the benefits of organizing farmers, the challenges posed by hegemonic education, and the insufficiency of "rugged individualism and the gold standard." His remarks […]

Check out the text of Richard Heinberg's talk at the recent Techno-Utopianism conference in New York. -- How to Shrink the Economy without Crashing It: A Ten-Point Plan The human economy is currently too big to be sustainable. We know this because Global Footprint Network, which methodically tracks the relevant data, informs us that humanity is […]

Check out this video from The Rules, a non-profit dedicated to rethinking the consolidation of power in the global economy! Learn more about their vision HERE.

45 LEADING SCHOLARS, AUTHORS AND ACTIVISTS (including our own Severine von Tscharner-Fleming) convened at The Great Hall of Cooper Union, New York City, for a public “TEACH-IN” on the profound impacts—environmental, economic and social—of runaway technological expansionism and cyber immersion; the tendency to see technology as the savior for all problems. A change of direction is […]