Walden Farm

07/17/2020

07/05/2020

"Household gardening supports high emotional well-being scores across 5 measures."

As cities seek to become more livable and environment-friendly, activities like bicycling, walking, and urban gardening (household and community-garde…

07/04/2020

"If you cooked at home you could feed four people a hearty, healthy meal at half the price."

Junk food may have captured the American palate, but a few simple ingredients and techniques can win it back.

04/20/2020

Join Joel Salatin, Curtis Stone, Charlotte Smith, Ray Tyler and more..

11/22/2019

Cargill is marketing its new stevia substitute [EverSweet] as “non-artificial.” What does that mean? Consumers who click on the link provided in the press release will not get a straight answer. The web page twists itself in knots trying to describe the new process, which involves genetically engineering yeast to convert sugar molecules into a substance that mimics the taste of stevia, as a “centuries old technique” — without once mentioning genetic engineering or the genetic modified organisms (GMOs) used to make the product.

The international food conglomerate Cargill is ramping up commercial-scale production of its genetically engineered sweetener, EverSweet, in a new $50 million production facility that began operating this week in Blair, Nebraska. The plant will “be producing enough EverSweet to sweeten many millio...

09/12/2019

The U.S. government dispossessed 1 million black families of their farms. This is one family’s story.

08/29/2019

08/28/2019

Farmer Story Time:
Some years ago I went to a Southern Landowners Conference which was a pat tof a settlement by USDA in a lawsuit accusing them of racism in the way they ran programs. I had met and talked with a USDA/NRCS employee and joined him at a table for lunch. Those at the table were all white USDA employees.

One of them started talking about a new program and how he had to have 3 days of classes to learn how the forms for it should be filled out. Then he said, "These dumb farmers, I give them the forms and they don't know how to fill them out. Then they turn around and say we're racists!"

I couldn't keep my mouth shut. I yelled across the table, "You have a college education and need 3 days of training to fill out a form? And then you say farmers are dumb because they can't with no training?!!!" I stood up, picked up my plate and left the table.

I spotted a table of black farmers I'd met in a session not far away and sat down with them. They were cordial, welcomed me and asked," What's up with that over there?" I told them the story and what I'd said and, to a man, they leaned back in their chairs, threw thie heads back and laughed. The first one who recovered from this looked across the table at me as if to say, "Welcome to our world, H***y."

This was one of my many lessons, offered lovingly, from a black person about white privilege.

06/30/2019

When you go to your local Farmers market, buy the tomatoes with green shoulders:

Mutation tied to color also decreases sugar content

06/22/2019

“In order for local farms to compete, they need scale-appropriate regulations. It’s not realistic to ask a local farmer in Maine to drive hours to get to a USDA-inspected processing facility and turn a profit,” said Pingree, who has been an organic livestock farmer for nearly 40 years and raises grass-fed beef and chickens on her island farm in North Haven, Maine. “The PRIME Act will help change federal regulations to make it easier to process meat locally, helping farmers scale up and give consumers what they so clearly want.”

PRIME Act will help change federal regulations to make it easier for farms and ranches to process meat locally and sell in their own state.

06/01/2019