Weekly Top 5: Organic News You Need to Know #40

What Does the Amazon-Whole Foods Deal Mean to an Organic Farmer in the Hudson Valley?

McEnroe Farm is a 1,200-acre organic farm in the Hudson Valley of New York state. Starting out life as a dairy farm in 1953, it transitioned to raise organic Angus and Hereford beef cattle in the 1990s adding vegetable and compost production operations in 2000, as well as poultry, pigs, and sheep raising. It has been certified organic for 25 years.

Read more here.

The Soil Champion Who Might Hold the Key to a Hopeful Climate Future

Compared to sea level rise and super storms, soil is not at the center of most people’s thinking about climate change. But David Montgomery is here to change that.

For the former MacArthur fellow’s most recent book, Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life, and his third book about soil, Montgomery traveled the world to document the wide range of methods farmers are using to restore the health of the world’s soil. Like a travelogue for the environmental set, the book elegantly integrates Montgomery’s research with age-old wisdom about farming.

Read more here.

Publix Plans to Build First Greenwise Store Outside of Florida

Publix announced it will open a new Greenwise store in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina in early 2019, according to a news release. This will be the company’s first Greenwise located outside its home state of Florida, and the second new location announced under Publix’s reboot of the natural and organic store format.

Read more here. 

A Growing Number of Young Americans are Leaving Desk Jobs to Farm

For only the second time in the last century, the number of farmers under 35 years old is increasing, according to the U.S. Department of Agricultures’ latest Census of Agriculture. Sixty-nine percent of the surveyed young farmers had college degrees – significantly higher than the general population. This new generation can’t hope to replace the numbers that farming is losing to age. But it is already contributing to the growth of the local-food movement and could help preserve the place of midsize farms in the rural landscape.

Read more here.

CIFI Achieves Non-GMO Certification for Sweet Potato Ingredients

Carolina Sweet is CIFI’s sweet potato-based sweetener, which can replace ingredients like high fructose corn syrup. All of CIFI’s sweet potato-based ingredients have obtained Non-GMO Project Verified status. All of CIFI’s ingredients are sourced from 100% USA-grown sweet potatoes and produced in an SQF Level 2 Certified Facility in North Carolina.

Read more here. 

“Vernon Peterson never hesitates to tell it like it is. He is all about organic and what organic means to the success of his family farm and to California agriculture. Farming — and organic — are better because we have Vern on our side.”

Cathy Calfo
CCOF’s Executive Director/CEO