Farmers Can Receive Grants to Move to Organic Farming
Transition will ditch GMOs and toxic chemicals
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Two Midwestern states in the U.S. are offering farmers three years of support to move to organic crop production. Farmers would ditch GMOs along with their toxic pesticides and herbicides. The aim is to boost acreage of organically-grown crops in the U.S. once the upper Midwest is well on its way to sustainable farming.
North Dakota and Minnesota have both started grant programs. Minnesota led the way in 2013 and North Dakota began its program this year. The grants, ranging from $750 to $1000, help farmers to transition to organic crops. The money can be used for everything from soil testing to education on how to grow food in a sustainable way.
The new programs disallow using chemicals. Farmers who are switching from mainstream to organic farming practices will learn how to grow crops without using chemicals.
Lowell Kaul, an organic farmer near Harvey, North Dakota, who serves on a board that advises the state agriculture commissioner, explains:
“. . . there’s a learning curve there that the farmer needs to go through.”
Kaul also noted that a government-approved agency must certify the crops as organic before the farmers can sell them in the organic market.
The Organic Trade Association (OTA) is lobbying for a government-administered transition program that will give farmers better financial and educational support as well as certifying them. Nathaniel Lewis, the OTA’s senior crops and livestock specialist, says there’s even talk of offering new organic farmers premium prices for their produce.
Hopefully the grant programs will spread to other states. The citizenry of the U.S. could certainly use more organic farms. Almost half of Americans polled have said they want to eat organic food, and sales of organic food are booming. Recent sales have reached $35 billion annually.
There is certainly a healthy market waiting for any farmer who wants to heal his or her soil and start farming sustainably and organically.
Source:
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| Christina Sarich is a humanitarian and freelance writer helping you to Wake up Your Sleepy Little Head, and See the Big Picture. Her blog is Yoga for the New World. Her latest book is Pharma Sutra: Healing the Body And Mind Through the Art of Yoga. |
It’s a nice gesture, but $750 -$1,000 is woefully too little to be an effective incentive…
The soil is contaminated with GMOs and round-up like residue. It would take about a decade for some farms while other farms two decades to purge the soil of the toxins. To remove the GMO off-spring, land and soil fire burning is needed a few times per year. 500+F heat for 20-mins will destroy the GMO seedlings and off-springs. Then after all this is done, a certified non-GMO organic firm needs to do extensive testing to verify that the land is ready for organic crops.
You really need to come back down to earth pal.
This is another attempt to hide the failures of their technology and a
push to keep agriculture addicted to their toxic and carcinogenic
chemicals. In reality, industrial monocultures use more land to produce
nutritionally empty commodities, most of which are used as biofuel and
animal feed. Only 10% of the corn and soya is used directly as human
food. This is not, by any stretch, a food system.
Another lie they are spreading is what is being referred to as
“Climate Smart Agriculture”. In truth it is actually “Climate Stupid
Agriculture” as it is the next hasty step that leads to guaranteed
destruction of the earth and society.
It is designed to make farmers and society dumb by giving up their intelligence, traditional knowledge and skills, and then forcing them to buy “data” controlled by
distant, centralised and exploitative systems.
This is another attempt to hide the failures of their technology and a
push to keep agriculture addicted to their toxic and carcinogenic
chemicals. In reality, industrial monocultures use more land to produce
nutritionally empty commodities, most of which are used as biofuel and
animal feed. Only 10% of the corn and soya is used directly as human
food. This is not, by any stretch, a food system.
Every seed is an embodiment of millennia of nature’s evolution and
centuries of farmers’ breeding. It is the distilled expression of the
intelligence of the earth and intelligence of farming communities. It
cannot be the private property of a Monsanto, it belongs to everyone.
Source,
commondreams dot org/views/2015/10/16/big-ag-doesnt-serve-us-reflections-world-food-day
LOL, into repeating yourself there moron? must to an organic failure.
Said the well known pro-GMO spokesperson and activist…
Nice reply when you don’t have a meaningful response.
So glad to see this program but it’s a JOKE ! 750.00/1,000.00 to help switch over to Organic ? How about Obama stops golfing and give farmers 10/100k to switch ? It takes real money ! This is an insult to all farmers.
No more of a joke than you are kimmie.
Great response fascist.
Your comment is about as informative as a fascist can get.
Keep up the good work traitor.
just following in your footsteps mommies little moron.
As vague as a statement that a fascist can make, care to elaborate on your meaning there?
Monsanto DuPont shill