Search results for “apples”:
Woolworths Supermarkets are a common site Down Under, where locals call them Woolies. They are the biggest grocery realtor in Australia, with over $42 billion in annual revenue. Citing rising demand for organic produce as the reason, the company is launching a $30 million fund that will help farmers “improve the quality, range and volume […]
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While the Farm Bill update hasn’t made it through Congress yet, it’s passage is an eventual certainty, if perhaps broken up into pieces. In an opinion piece in The Hill, economic policy Research Fellow Michael Farren with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University proposes a different and radical option – a full repeal of […]
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The apple harvest season is swinging into full gear, and in the NW corner of the country organic apples are growing on more trees than ever before. The Packer, the leading produce-industry newspaper, reports that the volume of Washington State’s organic apple crop will grow by another 30% this year. Apple orchards now are found throughout […]
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Thanks to Peter Melchett for his provocative blog on why, across the EU, the government, farmers, food industry, and consumers are all pulling in the mostly same direction to grow the volume and quality of home-grown organic food. Lessons learned from the efforts of many individuals, companies, and organizations in the EU are worth heeding […]
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It is a badly kept secret in Washington, D.C. that the USDA , and the U.S. government as a whole, does more to slow the growth in organic farming than support it. There are several ways that the USDA, other government agencies, and the Congress bring about this unfortunate outcome. #1 Denial of Consumer Health […]
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When Amazon, the king of online retail, bought Whole Foods for $13 billion in 2017, many saw a future of on-demand delivery of affordable organic produce and packaged foods. Financial disclosures revealed in Amazon’s 2017 annual report demonstrate that the company is betting on this future too, in the form of a huge investment in […]
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What is driving the growth in organic apple production in WA state? First and foremost, consumer demand. Over the last five years or so, most of the fruit buyers for major supermarkets, food companies, restaurants, and exporters have been pushed by their customers to expand the diversity and quality of organic apple offerings. Since Washington […]
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The U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance is one of the well-funded, influential organizations seeking to educate the public about all-things-agricultural (albeit, mostly conventional ag). They address food and farming-related economic, trade, federal policy, conservation, food safety, biotech, and research issues. Their CEO, Randy Krotz published an opinion piece July 6, 2017 in AgriPulse, a widely […]
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The new EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, announced March 29, 2017 that the agency will retain the existing registrations of the high-risk insecticide chlorpyrifos (aka Lorsban). Eric Lipton of the New York Times covered the announcement, and the EPA press release and the full text of the decision is posted on the EPA website. As the New York […]
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Among the fake news making the rounds is that organic food is no safer than conventional food because organic farmers use pesticides too. Ken Roseboro debunks many of the “alternate” facts circulating about pesticide use on organic farms in a well-researched story in The Organic and Non-GMO Report. Of course organic farmers have to manage […]
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