Promisedland looses its organic certification.

[hippywife]

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Happy-Homesteader/Promiseland-Decertification.aspx

[katkat]

1. So, who the heck is legitimately organic? (gets headache.) n/t

[hippywife]

2. Right now the one I buy

is Organic Valley. It's still a privately owned cooperative of dairy farmers.

You might find these charts useful, katkat.
http://www.msu.edu/~howardp/organicindustry.html

This link, too: http://www.localharvest.org/

[katkat]

3. Geez

That BigBusiness owning most everything chart is kind of alarming.

I buy dairy products from local sources - Rhody Fresh milk (local and no hormones) and eggs at farmer's markets if I can find them. At least I don't see Amy's, another one of the brands I buy, on that BigBusiness chart.

By the way, there are a couple of winter farmers markets that have started up nearby, so it looks like a winter supply of eggs. (In my fantasies, I have lovely pet chickens roaming in my house :-)

[hippywife]

4. Did you scan all the way down?

Amy's is on like the third or fourth chart down, along with Organic Valley, showing as still privately held.

I can get fresh milk but I have to drive for it and it's not on my path between work, home, and the other places I need to stop when I work half days on Friday so I can grocery shop on the way home instead of wasting gas coming back into town on the weekend.

You might want to check your local regs if you have a home with a yard. You may be able to keep a few chickens yourself if you want. They are really easy to take care of and fun to watch, with little personalities all their own. Most places that allow chickens, just might not allow roosters, but that's fine if all you want are eggs and not chicks. We are in a rural area so we have nine at the moment.

:)

[katkat]

5. I would love to have chickens

But it gets below freezing, way below freezing, here in the winter. I also am not up to getting bonded to animals again, having had three of my four older cats pass away with long drawn out illnesses the past few years. (Not to the point where I let them suffer, of course.) I need another lifetime and a good local vet, of which there are none here since mine retired, to get ready for that again.

[Warpy]

6. It gets to the teens and sometimes single numbers

here in the high desert. My next door neighbor just keeps the chickens in their house with a 60 watt light in the ceiling and that seems to provide enough warmth for them. It's a small house and I think she's only got 3 hens now (one having died of extreme old age).

The main problem is that they slack off laying in fall in winter.

Backyard chickens are common here in this city as they were in my old neighborhood in Boston. Roosters sometimes fall afowl of noise abatement laws in cities, so that's the only thing to watch out for.

[katkat]

7. try minus 10 :-)

Still leaves problem of getting attached.

[Mind_your_head]

8. Organic Valley is not 'localvore' (sp?)

They're BIG (and not local).

'Organic Valley' :eyes: *cough* charges high high prices that you might be better off paid to a LOCAL farmer who IS trying to be a localvore....

If organic valley is the 'best that you've got to choose from, well....that's really, really a "bad sign".....

Peace,
M_Y_H

[hippywife]

9. Not everyone has access to local milk.

While that is preferable, Oklahoma law prevents dairy farmers from selling their milk off property. So I have to drive a ways to get fresh milk, which I used to do. I just don't have the time any more to make the trip except on weekends when I try not to drive at all. And I'm really lucky to have it that close. Many people, in cities, don't have even that access so having a privately owned cooperative milk product available is good.

I buy as much as I can from our local coop but you can't get everything you need locally. There is absolutely no fruit in OK in the winter, and only root veggies for the most part. Some green house grown greens, and we are experimenting with a cold frame set up in our own garden.

You kind of have to weigh the costs and do what you can where you can to offset what you can't change, has been my experience.

And the word is locavore. ;)

[NashVegas]

10. Wow, That's a Really Dickish Post

I'm fortunate enough to live where there's access to regional milk; the 3 producers who get their product into small specialty stores make no organic claims, though they claim to operate "in spirit" with organic standards, whatever that means. Price is about the same - $3.50-$4 per half gallon.

This is in a top 50 market. Most people don't have it so lucky, and even most people who do have better things to do than take criticism from some holier-than-thou type who expects everyone to go out and visit their local farmer and know exactly what questions to ask.

[hippywife]

11. I don't think MYH meant it that way.

I know I can sound that way, too, when it comes to the food system in this country at times. :hi: :hug:

[NashVegas]

13. I Do

[Dover]

12. Oh no! Thanks for that info. Well maybe this will help to push awareness of locally grown

products as people get fed up with the big operations. I posted this in another thread and know I've also seen it posted before. It's a website that helps you locate local produce in your area:

http://www.localharvest.org/