Category Archives: Organic Farming

Information about organic farming techniques

Save the Bees!

Image  To follow up on yesterdays post, here is a petition you can sign to help stop the use of the pesticide that is killing bees.  Credo Action is hosting the petition.  Here is an except from their article with the petition:

A blockbuster study released this week by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), has for the first time labeled the pesticide clothianidin as an “unacceptable” danger to bees.1

Scientists have long thought that clothianidin is at least partially to blame for the alarming rate that bees have been dying off in the U.S. – nearly 30% of our bee population, per year, has been lost to so-called colony collapse since 2006.2

But the EPA has repeatedly ignored scientists’ warnings and Americans’ urgings to ban its use, citing lack of evidence.

Now, the EFSA study could be a major breakthrough to convince the EPA to take emergency action, and suspend the use of clothianidin to stop the precipitous decline in global honeybee populations.

Tell the EPA: Immediately suspend the pesticide that’s killing bees!

Please take a moment to sign this petition!  Link is HERE

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Filed under Green Living Tips, Green News Items, Organic Farming, Toxins

Our Precious Bees

bees on a honeycomb

precious honey bees

The evidence still seems to point to pesticides as the culprit in the demise of our precious bee population.  It’s bad news, but at least we know, and we can do something about it.

I came across this article today:

The world’s most widely used insecticide has for the first time been officially labelled an “unacceptable” danger to bees feeding on flowering crops. Environmental campaigners say the conclusion, by Europe’s leading food safety authority, sounds the “death knell” for the insect nerve agent.

Quoted from “theguardian” a UK publisher:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/16/insecticide-unacceptable-danger-bees

The Europeans are publishing study results on this issue.  Now we need to get moving here in the US.

You can find my earlier comments in this previous post here:  https://grandstrandorganics.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/pesticides-to-blame-for-bee-colony-collapse-disorder/ from the Rodale Institute.  The photo and article from 2010 are no longer online at their site.  But I did find this article there:  http://rodaleinstitute.org/2012/honeybee-crisis-update/

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Why Organic is Worth the Price

Photo of people and buckets of applesAccording to the Organic Trade Association , “there is mounting evidence that if all the indirect costs of conventional food production—cleanup of polluted water, replacement of eroded soils, costs of health care for farmers and their workers—were factored into the price of food, organic foods would cost the same or, more likely, be cheaper.” We are just learning about what the harmful effects pesticides have on our bodies. It is too soon to tell what health care costs will be associated with all of the chemical exposure. Buying organic is certainly worth it.

This is the closing statement in a terrific article that I found today.  The full text is definitely worth reading.  Click HERE

The website where I found this article is called “Generations of Organic”Generations of Organic logo and seems to be a project of The Organic Center The Organic Center logo.  The site is full of great information: recipes, stories, nutritional data, etc.  Check it out www.GenerationsOfOrganic.org

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‘God’s diet plan’: Health food is organic farmer’s ministry

Organic farmer Richard Kann says his hydroponic-vegetable farm helps him fulfill his Seventh-day Adventist faith

By Jeff Kunerth, Orlando Sentinel

7:16 p.m. EDT, September 8, 2011

There are those who believe in locally grown organic food because they are health-food aficionados and others who believe corporate industrialized farming is bad for your health and some who believe that food trucked halfway across the country is harmful to the planet.

Organic farmer Richard Kann believes he’s on a mission from God.

“We regard this as a health ministry,” said Kann, owner of Heart of Christmas Farms, an organic farm that produces hydroponic vegetables in east Orange County. “Everything is natural and God-given. We call it God’s diet plan.

“Kann is putting his faith as a Seventh-day Adventist — healthy body, healthy mind, healthy spirit — into practice by raising squash, beets, tomatoes, lettuce, herbs and greens without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or soil.

Follow this link: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-adventist-organic-farm-20110908,0,4822144.story to read the full article.

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Filed under Eco-Friendly Products, Green Living Tips, Green News Items, Healthy Eating, Locally grown food, Organic Farming, Toxins in Food