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Wood
Prairie Farm
The
Seed
Piece Newsletter
Organic
News
and
Commentary
Tuesday March 04, 2014

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In This
Issue of The Seed Piece:
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Brighter
Days But Our Cold Lingers.
Wishful
Thinking of Summer. One
of the benefits of being in the organic seed potato business is that we
get to vicariously enjoy multiple Springs as the warmer weather moves
ever and ever further northward. This time of year dozens of
calls a day come in from folks already in their gardens and itching to
plant a new crop of tasty
new potatoes.
All Winter long, beginning in January, while Northern Maine is bleary
and white with deep snow and cold, our southernmost customers in
Florida, Texas and California begin to relate stories of Winter’s
demise and their slow crawl into Spring.
As the weeks progress, the stories offered are similar in nature but
they come from farmers and gardeners in latitudes with bigger numbers
expressing greater distance away from the equator.
It’s at this time of year we
begin mailing out our Summer catalog. This year it highlights Adirondack
Red. We are farmers. We are
optimists. We are hopeful of the good and warm things ahead.
Jim
&
Megan Gerritsen & Family
Wood
Prairie Farm
Bridgewater,
Maine
Click here for the
Wood Prairie Farm Home Page. |
USDA Request. Tell
us now, truthfully, what you really think. Don't be bashful.
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ACTION ALERT TODAY!
Last Day to Tell USDA Their "Co-Existence" Policy is Bogus.
USDA
has been soliciting Comments on the preposterous concept it
disingenuously dubs “Co-Existence.” Today – March 4 - is the
last
day to submit Comments. Organic farmers and organic eaters
need
EVERYONE’S help conveying to USDA that their co-existence plan is a
flop. USDA's concept of "co-existence" means perpetual contamination of
organic crops and total lack of accountability. Organic farmers must be
protected from catastrophic contamination by genetically engineered
(GE) pollution. Submitting
your Comment is easy and here’s how. Please
do it today.
Meanwhile, a new landmark
survey just released by Food & Water Watch and OFARM
clearly documents that it is organic farmers that are singularly
bearing the costly burden of GE contamination. If you grow or
eat
organic food you will find this survey fascinating.
Below are the Comments we submitted to USDA last night.
Jim & Megan
We
are certified organic farmers. We have been farming organically for 38
years and we have been Certified Organic by MOFGA since 1982. We make
our living raising and selling certified organic seed.
We could
not be more opposed to your false policy of “co-existence.” The entire
concept is without foundation and represents an unconscionable taking
from organic farmers. Your policy threatens our survival as organic
farmers and puts at risk the entire organic community because of your
disregard for the near certainty of GE contamination of organic and
nonGE crops. Your unresponsiveness to the concerns of the organic
community have already brought about the economic collapse of the
organic canola industry in North America due to contamination from GE
canola. This is totally unacceptable. We urge you to reverse your
policies and stop promoting the self-serving position of the biotech
industry. You should instead represent and protect the interests of
American organic family farmers and in that way the real interests of
the American people.
American law is based on English Common Law
which goes back hundreds of years to the Magna Carta. Organic farmers
have a right to security on our farms. We have a right to farm the way
we choose without intimidation by biotech. Biotech does not have a
right to trespass onto our farm and ruin our organic seed crops with
their questionable and unwanted GE technology.
The biotech
industry is the polluter and they must be restrained by government from
causing harm to the commons. Just as the owner of a bull must maintain
good fences to prevent neighboring cows from being bred, it is
imperative that biotech be forced to prevent its transgenic pollution
from harming the commons. If biotech is unwilling or unable to stop the
polluting transgenic gene-flow from damaging the commons, then their
product registrations must be revoked by USDA and they must be shut
down.
Any buffer required to prevent transgenic pollution from
damaging the commons must come from the polluter’s side of the fence.
We will not surrender our inalienable rights from one inch of the land
we own and steward and from which we make our living. We will not
accept contamination by the biotech industry and we expect USDA to
protect our rights.
It is not fair for innocent organic farmers
who may become the innocent victims of GE contamination to be subject
to claims of patent infringement for illegally possessing patented
technology by owners of the biotech pollution. USDA must protect
innocent organic farmers from this unjust legal liability.
It is
not fair for organic farmers to be forced to purchase insurance to
compensate us for contamination by biotech corporations. The reality is
“GE contamination insurance” is a fraudulent concept. By its very
definition, insurance is designed to offer compensation for the
aberrational and rare occurrence. However, GE contamination is neither
rare nor aberrational. It is commonplace and widespread because the GE
technology is a recognized failure and causes widespread contamination.
This is the fact. “GE contamination insurance” therefore is a deceitful
concept. Biotech is the source of the contamination problem and they,
and they alone, must provide the remedy. Neither innocent farmers nor
American taxpayers should have to bail out biotech corporations from
their financial responsibilities caused by their reckless polluting
behavior.
We are very much concerned that biotech would
manipulate and twist any insurance arrangement into a “license to
pollute” and this is totally unacceptable. We absolutely do NOT want
financial compensation for GE contamination. We want our property
rights protected and we want biotech to be restrained from their
aggressive polluting behavior.
USDA has a job to do and it means
representing the best interests of American family farmers and the
American people. Your concept of co-existence is dishonest and poorly
conceived. Please do your job and jettison this abysmal policy proposal.
Click
Here for Our Organic Maine Certified Seed Potatoes.
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Notable Quotes:
Plato on Apathy.
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Carrot Cake
Muffins
Photo
by Angela Wotton |
Recipe:
Carrot Cake Muffins
2
1/2 cup organic
whole
wheat flour
2
tsp baking
powder
1
tsp baking soda
2
tsp ground cinnamon
1
tsp ground nutmeg
1/2
tsp ground allspice
1/2
tsp ground cloves
1/2
tsp sea
salt
2
eggs
1/3
cup turbinado sugar
1/3
cup sunflower oil
1
1/3 cup buttermilk
1
tsp vanilla
2/3
cup chopped pecans or
raisins
1
1/2 cup grated organic
carrots
Preheat
oven to 375 degees. Sift
together dry ingredients
into a large bowl. In a separate bowl, beat eggs, sugar, oil,
buttermilk and
vanilla. Mix together with dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in
carrots
and pecans or raisins.
Bake
25 minutes. Makes 12 - 16
muffins.
- Megan
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Special Offer: FREE Vermont Compost
Soil Mix
The sun is getting higher in the sky and even though the nights are
still cold in Northern Maine, the longer sunny days hold the promise of
warmer weather ahead. It’s time even up here to
plant our
starts of onions, tomatoes and peppers. You can guarantee your success
by using our top
quality organic soil mixes from our friends at Vermont Compost.
Here's your chance to give
your plants a strong organic head start. Earn One FREE 6-
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Light, or Compost
Plus when your next purchase totals $55 or more. FREE
6-Quart Sack of Vermont Compost Soil Mix offer ends Monday, March 10,
2014.
Please use Promo Code WPF1172.
Your order and FREE
6- Quart Sack of Vermont Compost Soil Mix must ship together by 5/8/14.
Offer may not be combined with other offers. Please call or click today!
Click here for our Wood Prairie Farm Organic Garden Vegetable Seed
Section.
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Vermont Organic Compost Mix.
You should start start with the very best.
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Our Mailbox:
Committed and Honest, Organic Nutritious Food, Systems From Nature.

Committed and
Honest.
Dear WPF.
We heard today on NPR that folks are
giving up
offering organic eggs because they cannot get organic feed for their
chickens...too much effort and 'untidy farms' (no herbicide) per
farmers who get twice as much for the feed. One step forward, three
steps back.
DW
Winchester, VA
WPF Replies.
That telling "untidy farms" comment may offer
insight that
those folks were fair weather "farmers" who lack a commitment to
organic and growing healthy food free of environmental toxins. I was at
a local MOFGA organic meeting recently and a young Amish man who grew
up on a Wisconsin egg farm and now lives in Aroostook County, is
gearing up to produce certified organic eggs for Maine and beyond. He
is committed and honest. He is the type of organic family farmer our
community needs.
Jim
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Organic Nutritious
Food.
Dear WPF.
I
talk to everyone that I can about the food that is in the grocery
stores. I get tired of hearing from people that eating organic is too
expensive. Not only do I spend less money on food now, but I've lost 25
lbs. I'm not hungry all the time now that I'm eating nutritious food!
We have a farmer here in Michigan that grows Wood
Prairie
Farm's potatoes! They are the best. They're the only potatoes I buy at
the farmer's market!
LM
World Wide Web
WPF Replies.
Thanks from all of us. Your food dollar purchases
illustrate how the conscious spending of our dollars and the attendant
trade turns can transform the economy and our country.Keep up the good
work!
Jim.
Systems From Nature.
Dear WPF.
New
USDA Report Cites Problems With GE Crops.
The initial tests that gave such good numbers for GMO farming, could be
due in part to using rich soil, then as time went on, the soil becomes
depleted and toxic requiring remediation. Isn't that enough to deem
them substantially unequivalent to naturally grown crops? Can't it be
challenged from that standpoint?
SC
WWW
WPF Replies.
"Conventional"
crops, which FDA compares GE crops to, are supposedly (in reality
fraudulently) "substantially equivalent." They are not, however, both
GE crops and conventional crops are really anything but natural.
"NonGE" aka conventional crops, are fertilized with soluble chemical
fertilizer and protected from pest damage by synthetic chemical
fungicides, herbicides and insecticides. Organic crops on the other
hand, truly mimic nature in that they rely on natural systems (systems
from nature). Organic crops are free from being grown with persistent
chemical pesticides. Organic is the clear and singular best choice for
our families and for our environment.
Jim
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Wood Prairie Farm Quick
Links
Jim
& Megan Gerritsen
Wood
Prairie Farm
49
Kinney Road
Bridgewater,
Maine 04735
(800)829-9765
Certified Organic, Direct from the Farm
www.woodprairie.com
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