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Wood
Prairie Farm The Seed Piece Newsletter Organic News and Commentary Friday, November 13th 2015
Volume
22 Issue 23
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Piece?
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In This Issue of The Seed Piece: |
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Long Harvest Ends. 
Last Truckload of Wood Prairie Carrots.
It took a week of patience for dry weather, but it was worth the wait
for this week’s spectacular sunny and mild Indian Summer to arrive in
Maine. With a couple of sunny and breezy days the ground
dried sufficiently to get our Juko harvester back to work.
With Caleb (orange cap) and Megan and crew digging up the last of the
harvest – while Jim worked on our new catalog – we finished up with the
last of the Bliss
Beets a full day before Thursday’s
rain. Immediately after harvest, Caleb switched to picking
the last of the rocks from the potato fields and
then followed with deep chisel plowing.
We still have next year’s potato field – now full of a crop of biofumigant rapeseed - yet to plow down. And our seasoned firewood logs yet to cut and split up. But getting the crops all harvested is that long-awaited milestone every farmer likes to see. . .  Jim
&
Megan Gerritsen & Family
Wood
Prairie Farm
Bridgewater,
Maine
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It has become a troubling and recurring pattern
for the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) to disrespect and ignore
the Congressionally-mandated citizen stakeholder National Organic
Standards Board (NOSB). The Organic Foods Production Act of
1990 created the NOSB with the important role of advising the NOP on
matters critical to the operation and success of the organic community.
Jim Statement to the NOSB from
Agrarian Elders. October 24, 2015
We believe organic crop production must always be soil-based.
Therefore, crops grown from non-soil-based production systems, such as hydroponics, must never be considered or labeled organic. Signed by Agrarian Elder: |
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Special
Offer: FREE Organic Butte Certified Seed Potatoes.
We have grown Butte
Russets for many, many years and are extremely
devoted to this variety. Jim remembers meeting Dr. Joe Pavek
- Butte’s breeder from the University of Idaho - at a memorable Potato
Association of America (PAA) meeting in Bangor, Maine in
1995. He gushed like a school girl with praise for this
remarkable variety. Butte is a reliable, high yielding,
workhorse potato. When compared to its chief rival, Russet
Burbank, Butte leaves Burbanks in the dust with better taste,
a 20% higher protein content and a whopping 56% greater amount of Vitamin C.
This year we had near perfect growing conditions and raised the
prettiest crop of Butte we’ve ever grown. |
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 Listen to Steve Druker's Keynote Speech at MOFGA's Common Ground Country Fair last September. |
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Recipe: Rosemary
Garlic Fries.
1 large Butte
potato, roughly peeled and cut evenly into strips
2 T olive oil
1-2 cloves fresh
Garlic,
minced
1 T fresh
rosemary, minced
Salt and pepper
to taste
Preheat oven to
475ºF. Soak cut potatoes in a large bowl of hot water for 15 minutes,
then drain and dry thoroughly on a towel. Dry the bowl they were
soaking in and return potatoes to the bowl. Drizzle potatoes with 1T
oil and sprinkle with the garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper. Toss to
evenly coat.
Drizzle the
remaining tablespoon of oil onto a baking sheet and spread to coat
evenly. Arrange the potatoes on the baking sheet in a single layer.
Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 5 minutes. Remove the foil and
bake for another 15-20 minutes, until fries are golden and crispy.
Megan |
 A Healthy and Tasty Side Dish. Photo by Angela Wotton. |
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 Dear WPF. Thank you for this post, Crops to Courtroom: Chemical Drift and Lawsuit Potential. This is a topic that we're especially interested in because of the location of our homestead with farm fields to the west of us. We've talked to the landowner and the farmer who farms the land, and our property is mapped and listed on Driftwatch. But the owner claims that the chemicals don't hurt her grass (she lives adjacent to these fields, as well) and so she can't understand that there's any danger. It's a case of don't know / don't want to know / don't care. We've made it clear that chemicals will harm our organic gardens and our livestock, but that has been mostly ignored. We told her about my horse that nearly died years ago (in another location) because of chemical drift when someone sprayed for weeds on their property. That, too, fell on deaf ears. We've been checking into chemical trespass laws here in our state, and your post gives me helpful information as we continue to research this topic. JG WWW WPF Replies. Here is the post our Facebook friend was referring to. Find the followup Facebook discussion here. Jim DO ORGANIC FARMERS HAVE A RIGHT TO FREEDOM FROM UNWANTED CONTAMINATION ON THEIR OWN FARMS? Why the lack of clarity in American agriculture? Why the supposed confusion that every citizen's foundational right to security and integrity on their own property - as clearly established for many hundreds of years under English Common Law going back to the Magna Carta - somehow may not extend to farmers on their farms? This point of law is AT LEAST AS CRITICAL for citizens who don't farm because if a farmer is not guaranteed the right to security and freedom from harmful unwanted trespass then ALL citizens have lost forever their right of access to clean, pure food. We are extremely sensitive to this loathesome chemical/transgenic trespass issue because in 1979 our isolated Wood Prairie Farm was 'accidentally' sprayed with "Sevin" (carbaryl) by the State of Maine's then annual massive 3 million-acre "Spruce Budworm Suppression Project." According to established procedure, we had provided notice to the State that our farm was a "high sensitivity parcel with residence" and officially filed for an exemption which was accepted and mapped. However, despite taking these precautions we were 'accidentally' sprayed and as a result disqualified for the pending organic certification of our crops. We made our point by suing the state. Acknowledging their culpability the State settled out-of-court. Unfortunately, the farmers' legal limbo continues to this day. Here's one hopeful development: This court action was from 2010. We need more rulings like this one to extend the precedent of farmers having the right to be secure on their own farm. http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_16923749 This recent article from Texas touches on various aspects of unwanted chemical contamination. Jim & Megan "'Trespass is really interesting because when you think about trespassing, you think about somebody walking onto your property or throwing something you can see onto your property,' she said. "But the definition, she continued, also includes particulate matter, or drops of substances such as dust or smoke the naked eye cannot observe. An example is Borland v. Sanders Lead Co., a 1979 Alabama case in which the court ruled in favor of a farmer whose crops and livestock were sickened by a neighboring smeltering operation." |
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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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