Wood
Prairie Farmer Named One Of 25 Visionaries Who Are Changing The World
WOOD PRAIRIE FARMER NAMED ONE OF 25
VISIONARIES
WHO
ARE
CHANGING THE WORLD BY UTNE READER
Long-time
potato farmer selected for efforts to
protect family farmers.
Bridgewater, Maine – Jim Gerritsen, a Maine
organic potato farmer with
a decades-long record of community involvement and activism, has been
named by
the editors of Utne Reader to the magazine's 2011 list of 25
“People Who
Are Changing the World.”
Gerritsen was selected
for his ongoing work
leading efforts by independent family farmers to protect themselves
from the
threat of Monsanto litigation related to the corporation's patents on
genetically modified seeds, an effort he sees as critical to the
preservation
of organic farming itself and organic foods as a choice for consumers
and their
families.
Each year, Utne Reader
selects 25 people
“who possess an inspiring combination of imagination, determination and
energy,” said Utne Reader's editor-in-chief David Schimke in a
statement. “These are people who don't just think out loud, but who
walk their
talk on a daily basis.”
Working with Other Family
Farms for a Better
Planet
Gerritsen, who grows
organic seed potatoes
on his family's Wood Prairie Farm in northern Maine, is president of the Organic
Seed
Growers and Trade Association (www.osgata.org), the national
membership trade
organization of the organic seed community, lead plaintiff in the
OSGATA et al
v. Monsanto lawsuit.
OSGATA is joined in the
lawsuit by 82 other
family farmers, seed businesses and agricultural organizations. The plaintiff organizations have over 270,000
members, including several thousand certified organic family farmers.
This landmark organic
community lawsuit asserts
that Monsanto's patents on transgenic (gene-spliced) seed fail to meet
the
“social utility” requirement of patent law and are therefore
invalid.
The suit also seeks court
protection for innocent
family farmers from Monsanto patent infringement lawsuits in the
perverse
situation where their farms are contaminated by Monsanto genes through
unwanted
genetic trespass, such as when wind-borne transgenic pollen is blown
from one
farm to another.
“Our lawyers asked
Monsanto to provide a legal
covenant not to sue our group of family farmers, and Monsanto refused. We thus are forced to seek justice and
protection in court,” said Gerritsen.
The lawsuit is currently
in pre-trial procedural
motions.
A Longstanding Commitment
to Community
For 35 years, Gerritsen
and his family have owned
and operated the organic Wood Prairie Farm in Bridgewater, Maine. Located in Aroostook County,
which is the top potato producing county in the country, Wood Prairie
Farm is a
small Certified Organic family farm producing various types of seed and
specialty potatoes, including the award-winning Prairie Blush variety
discovered by the Gerritsens, plus vegetable and grain seed.
The farm's modest scale
allows Gerritsen and his
family to focus on growing the highest quality seed potatoes for an
ever-increasing number of committed catalog customers in all
fifty
states.
Gerritsen believes
organic farming produces a
superior result and is better for the land. “Northern
Maine has been growing potatoes for 200 years, and some of
the
best potatoes anywhere in the world come from here,” says Gerritsen. “And I like to think our hard work and
commitment to our soil and organic
farming at Wood Prairie Farm produces some of the best potatoes in Aroostook County.”
Gerritsen is a tireless
advocate for organic
farming and family farms, regularly speaking at conferences and
events,
including the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA)
Common
Ground Country Fair and Farmer-to-Farmer Conference, The Organic Seed
Growers
Conference, the Slow Food Terra Madre Conference in Italy,
and other conferences across the United
States
and Canada.
About the Utne Reader
Visionary List
In addition to Gerritsen,
others on the 2011 list
include David Simon, creator of HBO's The Wire and Treme;
Azzam
Alwash, Nature Iraq founder and marshland rehabilitator; Rep. Keith
Ellison
(D-Minn.), a congressman working to foster dialogue between Muslim and
Christian interests; Gary Paul Nabhan, an author called “the father of
the
local food movement”; Debbie Sease, national campaign director of the
Sierra
Club; and Humira Saqeb, founder of a women's magazine in Afghanistan.
The Utne Reader's “People
Who Are Changing the
World” profile of Jim Gerritsen is available at www.utne.com/Environment/Utne-Reader-Visionaries-Jim-Gerritsen-Organic-Seed-Growers.aspx.
About Maine's
Wood Prairie Farm (www.woodprairie.com;
800-829-9765)
Wood Prairie Farm is
located in Aroostook County,
the largest county east of the Mississippi River and Maine's
historic center of potato
farming. For over 35 years, Jim
Gerritsen, his wife Megan and their family have used organic farming
techniques
on the fertile land
of Wood Prairie Farm
to
grow the finest potatoes, seed, vegetables and grain nature will
produce. Wood Prairie Farm is MOFGA
Certified Organic,
and its seed potatoes, kitchen potatoes, seeds and other products are
available
direct to the customer by mail order from its website and catalog. Wood Prairie Farm is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/woodprairiefarm.
Additional
information about OSGATA et al v. Monsanto is available at www.woodprairie.com/wpf_news.
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