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CRUNCHING MOFGA’S NUMBERS OF CERTIFIED ORGANIC OPERATIONS AND OFFERING PERSPECTIVE.

As the chart below indicates, organic is growing in leaps and bounds in the State of Maine.
Maine Organic Farmers and Gardener’s Assn (MOFGA) certifies as Organic about 540 operations, over 450 of those are farms. Certified Organic farms represents 5.5% of all Maine farms.
The largest Organic Certifier in the United States is CCOF (California Certified Organic Farmers) and they certify 2300 farmers. Assuming for the moment all of CCOF’s certified farms are in California, Maine has 6x the number of Certified Organic farmers per capita as does California. If Maine’s population were to suddenly burgeon to that of California – Heaven Forbid! – and we maintained our proportion of organic farms, Maine would have 13,500 Certified Organic farms, or over 30 organic farmers per Maine Township. Jim

CHART1

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BROKEN PROMISES: A SAD TALE OF WOE & INSIGHT INTO THE NEW ‘WHOLE FOODS’ IN OUR MODERN PREDATORY ECONOMY.

Regardless of one’s opinion about WFM, this distressing story does offer a good teachable glimpse into rough waters ahead.
The somber reality is that many family farmers – for many decades – have found farm stability and safe harbor by selling to Whole Foods. And similarly, many earnest eaters have sought out good food for their families by shopping at WFM.
Our advice for families: develop a relationship with an honest, local Certified Organic farmer and join a buying club or bricks & mortar retail Co-op for needs local farmers can’t provide. Jim, Caleb & Megan

“Whole Foods, which had been AtlantaFresh’s main customer for over a decade, turned out to be both generous patron and cruel master—an industry power broker that helped vault AtlantaFresh from regional specialty to national brand, and ultimately helped ensure its demise. But the dairy’s ruin probably wasn’t about Marks’s product, its pricing, or our appetite for grass-fed milk. It was a matter of bad timing: Whole Foods is undergoing a major shift in its corporate culture, as it moves its sourcing away from regional suppliers and starts focusing more on a centralized purchasing model.”

https://newfoodeconomy.org/atlantafresh-whole-foods-contract/

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NEW POLL SHOWS AMERICAN FARMERS UNIVERSALLY OPPOSE MONSANTO-BAYER MERGER.

Results from a major new poll were released today which reveal the VAST MAJORITY OF FARMERS ARE VERY CONCERNED OVER THE PROPOSED MONSANTO MERGER. https://foe.org/…/poll-farmers-overwhelmingly-oppose-bayer…/
Existing Anti-Trust laws need to be enforced and the Monsanto-Bayer merger blocked. A valuable white paper has been written which fleshes out Farmer-Poll results. Bottom line: ratcheted-up Monsanto monopoly control is bad for America. Jim http://foe.org/…/2018-FINAL-White-Paper-with-PAN-3-7-2018.p…

“‘This survey underscores what we’ve been hearing from our farm family members for decades – that overwhelming consolidation has substantially eliminated competition in the marketplace. Four or five firms dictate the prices that farmers pay for their inputs. Family farmers deserve fair prices, choices in what they plant, and the type of market competition that incentivizes firms to compete and innovate for their business. A Bayer-Monsanto merger stands to move each of these factors in the wrong direction, and that is away from competitive markets. Our survey makes it pretty clear that farmers want the merger blocked,’ said Roger Johnson, President of National Farmers Union.”

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NEW MAP VISUALLY DEPICTS WALMART’S JOB DOMINANCE ACROSS AMERICA. The map shows the largest private employer in all 50 States.

This map begs the question, how much of rural America’s economic angst and frustration correlates with the ascendancy of low wage employer Walmart?
Economists have explained Maine’s position as the ‘oldest State’ is not so much because we have so many older people as that we have so few younger people.
Could there be a parallel that has Walmart dominating because of job shortfalls in rural America? Jim

http://didyouknowfacts.com/map-shows-largest-employer-every-state/

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WHAT THIS NEW STUDY REVEALS ABOUT HOW THE RICH & ‘NON-RICH’ EXPERIENCE HAPPINESS

A new study in the journal ‘Emotion’ provides reassurance that the most of us who are NOT rich don’t necessarily enjoy LESS happiness. However, our happiness comes in ways different from the rich. Jim

“After all, they wrote, people with money are more insulated from social and environmental threats. That gives them the luxury of being able to focus on their own “internal states and goals” instead of having to worry about other people.

“Those who inhabit the lower classes, on the other hand, often find themselves at the mercy of others. They may be more vulnerable to crime, for instance, or may be forced to send their children to underfunded schools. In their case, the researchers wrote, the best coping strategy is to muddle through together. That requires them to focus on other people instead of just themselves…

“The survey probed people’s happiness by asking about seven distinct positive emotions: amusement, awe, compassion, contentment, enthusiasm, love and pride. Each emotion was described in a concise sentence, and survey-takers used a 7-point scale to show how much they agreed or disagreed with the statement…

“On the other hand, people with less money were more likely than their richer counterparts to agree with statements that indicated compassion (‘Nurturing others gives me a warm feeling inside’), love (‘I develop strong emotions toward people I can rely on’) and awe (‘I often feel awe’).”

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-happiness-rich-poor-20171219-story.html

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BREAKING NEWS! YES, YOU’LL WANT TO READ OUR REVIEW BEFORE YOU TAKE IN THIS NEW ‘WASHINGTON POST’ ARTICLE ABOUT USDA-CREATED MAYHEM IN THE ORGANIC WORLD.

First off, though it was much more diplomatically stated in the article by former USDA National Organic Program (NOP) head Richard Matthews, USDA has a long history of hatred for organic farming. Why? Because for its 100-year history organic farming has been a vociferous, rebellious, soil-based reform movement dedicated to correcting the gigantic errant failures of toxic and now increasingly concentrated modern agriculture. Organic farming has always represented a SERIOUS THREAT to the status quo and the financial prospects of Industrial Ag. Of course, Industrial Ag calls the shots at corporate-captive rogue agency USDA. The fact is, the biggest problem has been a LACK OF WILL at USDA to enforce provisions of the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) upon fake “organic” mega corporate operations.

In recent years, a major organic reform effort has been called “Keep the Soil In Organic” (https://www.keepthesoilinorganic.org/). We have been challenging the USDA’s illegal allowance of imposter soil-less multinational corporate Hydroponic produce to be labeled as “organic.” Do note the article’s failure to cover at all the hot-button Hydroponics issue. Could this ‘convenient editing’ be due to Amazon-owner Jeff Bezos, new owner of the ‘Washington Post’, being a MAJOR INVESTOR, along with other billionaires, in the huge soil-less Hydro vertical farm operation called ‘Plenty?’
Yes, increased USDA funding is needed to keep up with double-digit growth of organic. But even more important is for USDA to muster the will to enforce existing organic law. Jim

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/21/organic-food-fraud-leads-congress-to-weigh-bill-doubling-usda-oversight/?utm_term=.bb8dcf903f34

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WE MUST USE THE JUDICIAL BRANCH TO FORCE ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE COUNSELS PIONEERING SCIENTIST.

Thirty years ago Dr. James Hansen, then a NASA scientist, was one of the earliest researchers to sound the warning bell about climate changes so severe they would severely impact life on earth.
In the intervening years, a very independent Dr. Hansen has continued his research and issuance of sober warnings. Now he is advising the courts be used as a tool to lessen negative impacts from climate change. Jim

“Former NASA scientist James Hansen says the litigate-to-mitigate campaign is needed alongside political mobilisation because judges are less likely than politicians to be in the pocket of oil, coal and gas companies.

“‘The judiciary is the branch of government in the US and other countries that is relatively free of bribery. And bribery is exactly what is going on,’ he told the Guardian on the sidelines of the UN climate talks in Bonn…

“He does not mince his words. The international process of the Paris accord, he says, is ‘eyewash’ because it fails to put a higher price on carbon. National legislation, he feels, is almost certainly doomed to fail because governments are too beholden to powerful lobbyists. Even supposedly pioneering states like California, which have a carbon cap-and-trade system, are making things worse, he said, because ‘half-arsed, half-baked plans only delay a solution.’

For Hansen, the key is to make the 100 big ‘carbon majors’ – corporations like ExxonMobil, BP and Shell that are, by one account, responsible for more than 70% of emissions – pay for the transition to cleaner energy and greater forests. Until governments make them do so by introducing carbon fees or taxes, he says, the best way to hold them to account and generate funds is to sue them for the damage they are doing to the climate, those affected and future generations.

Hansen is putting his words into action. He is involved in a 2015 lawsuit against the US federal government, brought by his granddaughter and 20 others under the age of 21. They argue the government’s failure to curb CO2 emissions has violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/17/we-should-be-on-the-offensive-james-hansen-calls-for-wave-of-climate-lawsuits

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WHY HAS THIS COMPUTER SCIENTIST BEEN RELENTLESS IN HER ADVOCACY FOR USE OF PAPER BALLOTS?

Contrary to many of her opponents – some of whom have become latter day converts – Barbara Simons knows her stuff when it comes to computers.
Understanding much better than the rest of us of the frailty and stunning hackability of inherently flawed electronic voting machines, Ms. Simons is certain “paper and pen” ballots are the only way to go. She is an expert to listen to.
Read this remarkable piece about the power of one, from the ‘Atlantic’ which relates rare perseverance and lonely determination to guarantee America will regain an honest and accurate voting process.
Our modest farming town of Bridgewater, Maine, population 610, like a lot of small towns, carries on and goes mostly unnoticed. However, Bridgewater stands ahead of the curve and WE HAVE ALWAYS USED PAPER BALLOTS. America, feel free to call for directions. Jim

“Simons, who is now 76, had been a pioneer in computer science at IBM Research at a time when few women not in the secretarial pool walked its halls. In her retirement, however, she was coming off as a crank. Fellow computer scientists might have heard her out, but to the public officials she needed to win over, the idea that software could be manipulated to rig elections remained a fringe preoccupation. Simons was not dissuaded. ‘They didn’t know what they were talking about and I did,’ she told me…

“Simons was called a Luddite. At times, she was treated as just short of raving. At a League of Women Voters convention, she took a turn at the microphone to challenge the league’s president. The moderator tried to yank the mic from her hand…

“‘It’s not that I don’t like computing or I don’t like computers. I mean, I am a computer scientist,’ she said. ‘Many of the leading opponents of paperless voting machines were, and still are, computer scientists, because we understand the vulnerability of voting equipment in a way most election officials don’t. The problem with cybersecurity is that you have to protect against everything, but your opponent only has to find one vulnerability.'”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/guardian-of-the-vote/544155/

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THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK!

Monsanto, leading a self-serving gaggle of monitarly-motivated malevolent mercenaries, is suing California in an effort to jettison science and replace it with a more profitable kid glove treatment of its deadly herbicide, Glyphosate.
To review, Glyphosate is the chief ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, the world’s most commonly used herbicide. Over the past two decades, fully 80% of GE (genetically engineered) crops have been sprayed with deadly weed killer Glyphosate.
The scientific arm of the World Health Organization has determined Glyphosate to be a “likely human carcinogen.” This fact figured in prominently in California’s designation of Glyphosate as a carcinogen.
Alarmingly, studies show 93% of Americans have glyphosate in their bodies (https://livingmaxwell.com/93-percent-americans-glyphosate-u…). Even more worrisome is the fact that Glyphosate – at even the tiniest amounts (measured in parts per Billion) – delivers negative impacts on human health.
Monsanto and cronies legal efforts are designed to replace science with profit-making. No thanks, Monsanto, we’re not buying! Jim

“The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment made the decision in July.

“The agency said Wednesday it followed proper procedures in listing the herbicide and ‘stands by its decision.’

“California’s Proposition 65, a ballot initiative passed in 1986, requires the state to protect drinking water sources ‘from being contaminated with chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.’

“It also requires businesses to warn California users about their chemicals’ dangers…

“Monsanto sued the California agency in 2016 to block glyphosate’s potential listing. The case was dismissed in March, but the seed and chemical company is appealing the ruling.”

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/2017/11/15/iowa-farm-groups-monsanto-sue-california-roundup-glyphosate-cancer-causing-chemical/866446001/

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KATAHDIN WOODS AND WATERS NATIONAL MONUMENT ‘PARK LOOP ROAD’ NOW CLOSED FOR THE YEAR.

With ponds and soil freezing over now in northern Maine – as well as bouts of snow – the National Park Service has seasonally closed the beautiful ‘Park Loop Road’ in the southern portion of America’s new KWWNM in the Katahdin Valley near Patten and Shin Pond.
One may still access the northern portions of KWWNM – those roads are still open for the time being.
For planning purposes, KWWNM is a little over a 3 hour drive north of Portland, Maine. Exit I-95 at Medway and head up the highway that goes through Grindstone.

https://www.nps.gov/kaww/index.htm