PLANET IN PERIL

Society for a GE Free BC 51 municipalities yesterday supported a motion brought forward by Metchosin to make Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities a genetically engineered free zone – Details here. Designed by PLT

John Vidal - The Guardian Organic Canadian potatoes. PLT photo In a village in India's poorest state, Bihar, farmers are growing world record amounts of rice, potatoes and wheat with no GM, and no herbicide. Is this one solution to world food shortages? Details here. PLT:  These breakthroughs need to be shouted from the rooftops. Do North American farmers even know about this?  Here in my home province of Manitoba, Canada, commercial potato-growers spray their crops up to 5 times a season with potent fungicides. How healthy is that?  Excellent story, John!

The Guardian By shunning all but organic farming techniques, the Himalayan state will cement its status as a paradigm of sustainability. Details here. PLT: How refreshing! If only our neanderthal leaders in North America would watch, listen and learn from this! 

David Neufeld - Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Our family business includes growing bedding plants. In the spring of 2010 every tomato, pepper and marigold we started curled up grotesquely and died. Details here. ==== Please also read: "Organic Farmer Worries About Weedkiller Sprayed in Ditches in Rural Manitoba"  

            Coldplay's haunting classic "The Scientist" is performed by country music legend Willie Nelson for the soundtrack of the short film entitled "Back to the Start." The film, by film-maker Johnny Kelly, depicts the life of a farmer as he slowly turns his family farm into an industrial animal factory before seeing the errors of his ways and opting for a more sustainable future. Both the film and the soundtrack were commissioned by Chipotle to emphasize the importance of developing a sustainable food system.

By Paul Hanley, Special to The StarPhoenix September 27, 2011 The results are in from a 30-year side-by-side trial of conventional and organic... Read more here.

Dr. Mercola Interviews Ronnie Cummins - Feb 14, 2011      If You Eat Organic Food, You Have Just Been Betrayed

Manitoba Co-Operator - Staff - 10/19/2010  Work on a "Buy Manitoba" branding campaign...

Organic Food Council - Se. 15-'10 This event, which starts... Organic tomatoes. l.p. photo

by Matthew McDermott, TreeHugger, New York, NY Se 3, '10 In the tug of…. Strawberries photo by l.p.

By Leah Zerbe - Rodale Institute Au '10 Our organic table at Old Market Sq. in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba. 2006. l.p. photo A landmark report says the U.S. government has been grossly underestimating the effect of environmental toxins on our cancer risk.

John Vidal, environment editor - 8 Aug 2010 The Guardian 'Priceless collection' in Russia was never registered so does not officially exist, say developers
 Russian president Medvedev has ordered an inquiry into the station being turned into private housing. Photograph: Frans Lanting/Corbis

By Abby Massey - Worldwatch Institute In agriculture, sometimes less... Canadian wheat field l.p. photo

ScienceDaily (July 1, 2010) There really is... Editor's note: "See interesting footnote below from the Organic Food Council of MB. l.p. Late Blight Update There have been three additional confirmed cases of late blight in commercial conventional potato fields in the province this week. One case is in the central region, one in the western region and one is near Winnipeg. The Disease Severity Values (DSVs) for late blight risk have gone over the threshold values in many parts of the province, which increases the risk of infection. With widespread rains and very moist conditions, areas with low DSVs could also have localized high-risk spots (such as low spots, areas near tree lines, etc). With the high moisture in fields in many parts of Manitoba, the risk of late blight is high. To help prevent late blight, organic potato and tomato producers in high-risk areas must follow a five-day spray schedule using approved copper products, making sure to always follow

The Economic Times - 15 Jun 2010 HYDERABAD: Organically grown cotton is more... Read full Greenpeace report here.

Greetings and Happy New Year from all of us at the Organic Food Council of Manitoba! garden photo by l.p. 2009 was an extremely busy and exciting year for the Organic Food Council of MB (OFCM-COG), as well as for the organic sector in Manitoba and across Canada. THANK YOU! for your ongoing support and interest in OFCM-COG and our programs: Growing Up Organic (GUO) and Manitoba Farm Mentorship (MFM) . Here's a sampling of what's new at OFCM-COG: Access GUO resources for child care facilities or join us at our Food For Their Thought info session on February 9. Find a farm mentor through MFM or attend one of our upcoming farmer workshops being held January through March. Check our our freshly updated calendar of events . We simply cannot do what we do without the support of our members, program participants, and sponsors, and all of the champions of Manitoba's sustainable food and farming movement - YOU! Please continue to off

Nov. 26 -'09 - Organic Consumers' Asn. 4,200 Years of Farming on the Colorado Plateau On the Colorado Plateau farming has been an unbroken cultural tradition for at least 4200 years. The Navajo, Zuni, Apache, Hopi, Paiute and Tewa have cultivated the most diverse annual crop assemblage in the New World north of the Tropic of Cancer. The Wayana's Cultivated Eden The farming system of the Wayana society of French Guyana is based on diverse and flexible cultivation, with characteristically high biodiversity. Organic agriculture and permaculture form a rich, biologically complex system of food production, complimented by wildcrafting, fishing, and hunting. In Wayana, there is no artificial separation between cultivated and wil

By Makenna Goodman, Chelsea Green Publishing. Posted November 6, 2009. Bees teach us how to live our life in... l.p. photo