Anna Lappé, Maverick Farms, and the next generation of farmers

Watch this video from MSN about Maverick farms hosted by Anna Lappé of the Small Planet Institute

 

Maverick Farms is an educational non-profit farm dedicated to family farming as a community resource and reconnecting local food networks.

Maverick Farms formed in spring 2004 to preserve a small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, an area under intense pressure from development. It operates as an open laboratory, experimenting with human-scale farming techniques and traditional food preparation.

Maverick Farms works to reclaim the pleasures of eating and sharing meals in a culture overrun by industrial agriculture and flavorless food. The project arose out of Springhouse Farm, which for 30 years sold hand-picked vegetables to local restaurants. Maverick Farms is continuing with that tradition while embarking on new education and outreach projects to connect local food producers and consumers.

They just started a new program that they call Farm Incubator and Grower Program (FIG) on mentoring aspiring young farmers and teaching them over the course of two years all that great stuff you need to know about planning crop rotations and balancing farm budgets, and running a CSA and restaurant supply business.  On successful completion of the training, Maverick works with the young farmers gain access to land, financing, equipment, and a ready-made markets to launch their own farm enterprises.  The program will hopefully help to reestablish local food sources in the area.  Because viable local food systems are often constrained by a lack of both land under cultivation and new farmers, FIG will collaborate with local landowners, land trusts, and town and county governments to identify land that could be rented at below-market rates or deeded as common agricultural property.

I found Maverick Farms from this Grist article.  Grist is great for all environmental news!

 

Evil=The World According to Monsanto

A French documentary called “The World According to Monsanto” caused quite a stir in the US alternative agriculture community this week. Dubbed “A documentary that Americans won’t ever see,” this hour-and-fifty-minute documentary is available free through google video. 

Pretty cool if you ask me, but I haven’t watched the whole thing.

   

Monsanto was founded in 1901 by equally scary looking John F. Queeny.

The film first aired on ARTE, a French-German cultural channel on March 11 and made its way to the states by early April where many Americans saw it.  This doumentary about scary mega agribusiness corporation, Monsanto, was made by French journalist and film-maker Marie-Monique Robin. The fact that there is not that much else out there about the film probably suggests that not many other people have watched the whole documentary either. I’ll have to watch it and get back to you…

Protesters fighting to remove Monsanto’s milk hormone rBGH from the market

Monsanto has been around for ages and is a leading force behind so-called “conventional agriculture.” There’s lots of people fighting against this blackhole of a company around the world. 

The company’s profits for fiscal year 2007 are a disgusting $1.06 billion.

Check out:

Millions Against Monsanto Campaign

MonsantoWatch.org

SourceWatch Monsanto