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Wood
Prairie Farm The Seed Piece Newsletter Organic News and Commentary Friday, March 20, 2015
Volume 21 Issue 6
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In This Issue of The Seed Piece: Game-Changing Altered Genes, Twisted Truth Book
Released Today!
Special Offer: FREE Organic Potato Fertilizer. Move 'em On, Head 'em Up! The Best Potatoes for Chips & Roasters. Notable Quotes: Socrates on Life. Recipe: Delicious Black Bread. Mailbox: Catastrophic Drought & Co-Existence Fraud. This edition of the Seed Piece can be found in our Seed Piece Archives. |
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The Winds of Change. 
Beautiful Street Artist
Mural Heralds The Peoples’ Resistance Against Industrial Agriculture
and GMO Food. A promising sign of the peoples'
steady march towards victory over the death culture of GE
crops is the growing tide of artists drawn to the cause of food
sovereignty. This stunning
mural is the work of talented Los Angeles-based
graphic designer 'Mear
One' (a.k.a. Kalen Ockerman).
Meanwhile, our friend, Steven Druker, is out with his powerful new book, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth which you will not want to miss! Steve will be in Maine this Fall to deliver a Keynote Address at MOFGA’s famous Common Ground Country Fair – see you there! And please don’t miss the article with details our new parcel Tracking Number System. From here on out, if we have your email address, you will automatically receive the Tracking Number for your order as it ships from our Maine farm. The Spring is still young and there is still plenty of time to order your Organic Seed Potatoes, Organic Vegetable Seed, Organic Cover Crop Seed and Much Much More from our Wood Prairie webstore. Or Call (800) 829-9765 and we’ll be happy to help you! . Jim
&
Megan Gerritsen & Family
Wood
Prairie Farm
Bridgewater,
Maine
Click here for the Wood Prairie Farm Home Page. |
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 Altered Genes, Twisted Truth.
Earthshaking new MUST READ book by courageous Steve Drucker.
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Game-Changing
Altered
Genes, Twisted Truth Book Released Today! BREAKING NEWS! JAW-DROPPING NEW BOOK WHICH EXPOSES HISTORY OF FRAUDULENT APPROVAL OF GE CROPS BY U.S. FOOD & DRUG ADMINISTRATION (FDA) HAS BEEN RELEASED! Steven Druker's landmark book, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth promises to be a real game-changer which blows out-of-the-water false Biotech propaganda that GE foods are safe. Last month, Steve appeared on our day-long GMO plenary session panel at the Missouri Organic Association (MOA) Conference in Springfield MO. His bold and well-documented presentation stunned the audience made up of Missouri farmers and consumers. Citing secret internal documents obtained from FDA files in a lawsuit discovery procedure, Steve explained the serious concerns of the FDA’s own scientists over the safety of GE food were swept under the carpet and willfully ignored by political leaders with a set agenda to promote GE food. This Alliance for Natural Health-Europe article captures the revelations. "...US lawyer Steven Druker argued that 'contrary to the assertions of its proponents, the massive enterprise to reconfigure the genetic core of the world’s food supply is not based on sound science but on the systematic subversion of science and it would collapse if subjected to an open airing of the facts'...Not only has Druker used his razor-sharp legal mind to come to grips with the available science, he’s also been able to crystallise its many weaknesses and show how it can be used subversively to make the case for GM foods. Even more importantly in my opinion, Druker shows how the science is both corrupt and fraudulent...Supporting Druker at the press conference was Jane Goodall PhD...she spoke of her deep concern for the release of GM crops worldwide, their potential effects on the environment and the difficulty of detecting such effects after the event." Here are some of Dr. Jane Goodall's powerful words from the book's Foreword. They lend valuable perspective to the monumental nature of this new book: “Without doubt one of the most important books of the last 50 years...I shall urge everyone I know who cares about life on earth, and the future of their children, and children’s children, to read it. It will go a long way toward dispelling the confusion and delusion that has been created regarding the genetic engineering process and the foods it produces....Steven Druker is a hero. He deserves at least a Nobel Prize.” Please follow Jane's admonition. Order and read this great book and then help spread its truth far and wide. Thanks! Jim & Megan Click Here for our Wood Prairie Farm Certified Organic Vegetable Seed. |
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Special
Offer: FREE
Organic Potato Fertilizer.
We carefully blend and bag our Organic Potato Fertilizer
right here on Wood Prairie Farm according to our own tried-and-true
organic recipe. We’ve found this fertilizer really
works! So,
how do you know if your garden soil needs additional organic fertilizer
– or – is it sufficiently fertile already? |
 Organic Potato Fertilizer. Learn How to tell if your garden needs it. |
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 Caleb Gerritsen. Movin' them doggies Maine style. Watch this video and notice the wind blowing the snow around yesterday. |
Move
'em On, Head 'em Up! Sometimes just keeping up with shipping orders seems to approach the work of a cattle drive and keeping them stray ‘doggies’ herded and headed for market. Those of us who grew up as kids watching black-and-white Westerns on television in the early 1960’s will remember the iconic weekly show Rawhide. While the episodes are long forgotten, not so the memorable Rawhide theme song, sung and made famous by cowboy-sounding Frankie Laine. Yesterday we shipped out a pallet of organic seed potatoes destined for another family farmer. Megan took a video (1:45) of the truck- loading process. It was a cool day, noontime and about +18ºF. Son Caleb, in snowsuit, is driving our 4WD Mastercraft rough-terrain forklift. Everyone will be able to see our still-building-piles-of-snow - another 20” has fallen since Sunday. If you look real close you can see this winter’s incessant wind blow the powdery snow into airborne horizontal flight. You will also see our furry friend, old-timer Snowball – our Great Pyrenees – for whom cold weather has never been a problem. Now, as always, we send smaller parcels out by the U.S. Post Office and Fedex, and a few by UPS. However, this week we reached a milestone on Wood Prairie Farm. This week we went live with our long-awaited New Electronic Tracking Number System. Here’s how it works: If we have your email address, once your parcel ships from our farm you will receive an automatic notification via email. Included in that notification email will be your package Tracking Number. Simply cut & paste that Tracking Number into any browser (such as Google) and you can then track the progress of your order as that ‘doggie’ leaves chilly Maine, bound for warmer destinations. Let us know what you think! Jim & Megan Click Here for Our Wood Prairie Farm Certified Organic Cover Crop Seed. |
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Best Potatoes for Chips & Roasters. Here’s an intriguing article from the United Kingdom. It will most definitely help motivate you to plant potatoes so you can reap a delicious harvest. The real treasure and fun will be found by growing your own supply of exceptional potato varieties, digging them fresh and cooking them right away. Many of the varieties the author mentions are hard to find in the USA. However, two of our best-tasting varieties – Yukon Gold and the heirloom Rose Finn Apple are mentioned as excellent varieties for eating fresh from the garden. "If you want delicious potatoes, something you’ll be glad you wished for, you need to think with your cook’s hat on. And now’s the time to do it. Chips, potato dauphinoise, roast potatoes, potato salad, Lyonnaise potatoes, creamy mash and buttered new potatoes. These are the seven best reasons I can think of to grow your own potatoes." Megan Click Here for Our Wood Prairie Farm Organic Maine Certified Seed Potatoes. |
 "Treat them Gentle". We'd tell our youthful hand pickers to treat potatoes with the same care you would give eggs. This author wrote a good article but could use a reminder on handling. |
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Recipe: Delicious
Black Bread.
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast 1 1/3 c warm water (105 - 115F) 1 tsp natural cane sugar or brown sugar 2 T cocoa powder 2 T finely ground espresso beans 1/4 c molasses 3 tsp caraway seeds, plus more for topping 3 T unsalted butter, cut into pieces 2 tsp sea salt 2 c coarsely grated potatoes (2 medium) 1 1/3 c rye flour 3 1/4 c bread flour or all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting olive oil for baking sheet 2 T buttermilk or milk In a large mixing bowl whisk the yeast with warm water and sugar and set aside until foamy. In a small saucepan over med-low heat, combine the cocoa, coffee, molasses, caraway, butter, and salt. Stir constantly until just melted. You want the mixture to be lukewarm when adding to the other ingredients. Combine the grated potatoes and molasses mixture with the yeast mixture in the large mixing bowl. Add the flours, and stir until you've got a soft tacky adhesive dough. Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes, adding flour as needed, until the dough is elastic and springy. You can also do this step using the dough hook on your mixer. Shape the dough into a ball, rub with a bit of olive oil and place seam-side down into an oiled bowl. Cover and allow to rise a warm place for 1 -2 hours. Gently press down, with a closed fist, across the surface of the dough. Turn dough out onto counter and shape into a round loaf. Place on a very lightly oiled baking sheet , then cover loosely with a cloth. Allow to rise a second time in a warm place until nearly doubled in size, about an hour. Uncover, brush with buttermilk, sprinkle with a dusting of flour, 1 tsp caraway seeds, and use a serrated knife to slash an 'X' deeply across the dough (do your best not to deflate the loaf). Bake for 20 minutes at 425F. Lower heat to 350F and bake for another 20 - 25 minutes. Remove from oven and place bread directly on rack to cool. Megan. Makes one extra-large loaf. - Megan |
 Delicious Black Bread. Photo by Angela Wotton |
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 Catastrophic Drought. Dear WPF. Nothing we can't grow ourselves. VA WWW WPF Replies. California's drought will effect all of the country. We have good friends who farm in the West and California. It is a grave situation. The drought is extreme by every measure. This year's early, extremely hot weather has exacerbated the drought by increasing evapo-transporation. The situation is approaching potentially catastrophic levels for family farmers whose margins are tight even in a normal year thanks largely to our 60-year federal Cheap Food Policy. They deserve our understanding. Jim. Co-Existence Fraud. Dear WPF. Anti-GMO, Biotech Factions Clash at Food Summit. My favorite analogy is still if one neighbor is painting their home purple & the wind carries it to neighbors house & whom is responsible for the mess to clean up...How can GMO ever be non-invasive to organics? Where is the common sense, just give me the info so I do not wonder any more & so I can choose my own way to eat healthy. Thank you for all you are doing. CC WWW WPF Replies. Here's the good news: Longtime OSGATA Treasurer Isaura Anduluz of New Mexico attended this meeting in North Carolina. She represented the peoples' interests. Isaura is intelligent, has rare backbone, integrity and resolve. She has served as an appointee on USDA Secretary Thomas Vilsack's 'AC 21 Committee.' AC 21 has been attempting to grapple with the intractable GE contamination issue. Isaura was the lone AC 21 member to file an official dissent to AC 21's first Report. That action took courage. Sadly, with their unholy alliance on display, the Federal government/industry continuing strategy appears to be to ignore the GE contamination problem and pin their false hopes on the fallacious notion of 'Co-Existence'. 'Co-existence' is an illegitimate concept because it falsely claims that GE farmers and nonGE/organic farmers can farm side-by-side in harmony. The concept ignores the biological reality of GE contamination via wind-born GE pollen-spread. Incredibly, 'Co-existence' proponents deny that GE contamination is a real problem and that GE contamination has had any economic impact. The collapse of the organic canola industry in North America has been due to GE contamination. In the real world, such an organic industry collapse can not be explained away as 'no economic impact.' It is bold and preposterous to ignore the clear historical fact of organic canola's collapse. This single example should illustrate to everyone how the deck has been stacked against the organic community. Furthermore, it is immoral and unconstitutional to ignore the private property rights of organic farmers who choose to grow on their own farms clean food and seed without GE technology and who want the crops grown on their farms for their own families and customers to be free of Biotech's patented and flawed GE technology contamination. It is noteworthy that before becoming USDA Secretary, while Mr. Vilsack was Iowa Governor, he received the Biotech Industry Organization (BIO) 'Governor of the Year' award. We're sorry if Secretary Vilsack finds the organic community's refusal to abandon our rights and our concept of food sovereignty as inconvenient or disagreeable. However, we will not back down. And we don't want the Big Boys - from any corner - to sell us out in our determination to protect the peoples' interest. 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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