Organic Thinking

There are a ton of organic sites for you to check out on the web. We will have periodic updates on critical organic issues from time to time, such as the USDA regulatory guidelines for organic agriculture coming out this summer. We will also do…

Organic produce normally has a higher price, usually due to labor costs, environmentally friendly farming practices and the limited number of organic growers. You, along with the organic farmer, are paying higher prices as an investment in the future — a future in which environmentally…

Baystate Organic certifies Waldingfield Farm’s vegetables are 100% organic.

Organically-grown produce is grown, packaged and stored without the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, or irradiation. Conventional produce farming uses these chemicals to control attacks by insects, fungus and weeds. Organic produce is minimally processed to maintain the integrity of the food. Organic farmers…

There’s good reason why many chefs use organic foods in their recipes. They taste better. Organic farming starts with the nutrients of the soil which eventually leads to the nourishment of the plant and ultimately our palates.

Mono cropping is the practice of planting large plots of land with the same crop year after year. While this approach tripled farm production between 1950 and 1970, the lack of natural diversity of plant life has left the soil lacking in natural minerals and…

Although organic foods might seem more expensive than conventional foods, conventional food prices do not reflect hidden costs borne by taxpayers, including nearly $74 billion in federal subsidies in 1988. Other hidden costs include pesticide regulation and testing, hazardous waste disposal and clean up, and…

Although more and more large scale farms are making the conversion to organic practices, most organic farms are small independently operated and owned family farms of less than 100 acres. It’s estimated that the U.S has lost more than 650,000 family farms in the last…

A Natural Cancer Institute study found that farmers exposed to herbicides had a greater risk, by a factor of six, than non-farmers of contracting cancer. In California, reported pesticide poisonings among farm workers have risen an average of 14% a year since 1973, and doubled…

Many pesticides approved for use by the EPA were registered before extensive research linking these chemicals to cancer and other diseases had been established. Now the EPA considers that 60% of all herbicides, 90% of all fungicides, and 30% of all insecticides are carcinogenic. A…

American farms have changed drastically in the last three generations, from the family based small businesses dependent on human energy to large scale factory farms highly dependent on fossil fuels. Modern farming uses more petroleum than any other single industry, consuming 12 percent of the…

Water makes up two-thirds of our body mass and covers three-fourths of the planet. Despite its importance, the EPA estimates pesticides (some cancer causing) contaminate the ground water in 38 states, polluting the primary source of drinking water for more than half the country’s population.

The Soil Conservation Service estimates that more than three billion tons of topsoil are eroded from the United States croplands each year. That means soil is eroding seven times faster than it is built up naturally. Soil is the foundation of the food chain in…