News From Other Sources
There’s a lot going on in the world of organic farming. Our community is always striving to grow and educate. We’ll aggregate and share other organic news from a variety of sources in this section.
OFRF News
Three Springs Farm
August 30, 2018 – Three Springs Farm is a certified organic farm located in eastern Oklahoma in the Ozark Hills. Farmers Mike Appel and Emily Oakley cultivate over thirty different crops and more than 100 individual varieties on three acres of land. Their goal is to maintain a family operation that demonstrates the economic viability of small-scale farming. Both Mike and Emily studied farming in college, then Mike worked at Full Belly Farm in California while Emily finished grad school at UC [...]
Common Wealth Seed Growers
August 28, 2018 – In 2018, OFRF awarded a grant to Edmund Frost of Common Wealth Seed Growers in Virginia to assess resistance to both Bacterial Wilt and Cucurbit Downy Mildew among selected cucumber and muskmelon seed stocks, and to continue with the development of a pickling cucumber that is resistant to both diseases.
OFRF Funded Researchers Aim to Boost Organic Grain Production in Upper Peninsula
August 7, 2018 – In 2017, OFRF awarded a grant to researchers at Michigan State University to examine organic grain productivity in support of the organic livestock industry in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Organic grain production is virtually non-existent in the area and sourcing outside of the region is quite costly. The goal of this project is to increase knowledge of grain performance in an organic system, leading to the expansion of certified organic grain production and entry into the growing market for natural or organically produced meat. Results [...]
Taking the Next Steps for Organic in the Farm Bill
June 29, 2018 – In a sweeping show of bipartisanship, the Senate voted 86-11 to pass their version of the Farm Bill. With the House passing a different version of the bill without Democratic support, lawmakers will meet later this summer to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate bills. With the current Farm Bill set to expire on September 30, 2018 there is a lot riding on this process. Here is a comparison of some of the organic provisions. Both the House and Senate bills have strong support [...]