Festomato was generously supported by: Jammin Crepes, The Experimental Farm Network, Autumn Olive, Whole Earth Center, the Princeton Public Library and the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. Special thanks to the farmers who donated Tomatoes to our Events: North Slope Farm, Jeff’s Organics, Cherry Grove Organic, Martenette, Chickadee Creek, Muth Family Farm and...
Reasons organic food is so expensive 1. No chemicals = more laborThe Organic Farming Research Foundation explained it well: “The organic price tag more closely reflects the true cost of growing the food: substituting labor and intensive management for chemicals, the health and environmental costs of which are borne by society.”2. Demand overwhelms supplyRetail sales...
Organic foods are those grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers, as well as other materials such as hormones, antibiotics and genetically modified organisms – all of which are used in conventional agriculture. Organic farming practices include the use of cover crops, manures and crop rotations to fertilize the soil, maximize biological activity and maintain long-term soil health....
At the beginning of this year, I took over the position of Executive Director of Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey. Over the past several weeks, our farming network has experienced an unprecedented surge in consumer demand driven by public concerns about the safety of the fresh produce supply chain, supply of eggs and...
Support your family’s health, your local farmer, your local community and reduce your carbon footprint by joining one of our region’s many CSAs. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members form a community that supports their local farm in return for a steady supply of farm-grown products. Each CSA is different, ranging from ones with drop-off services...
The EAT-Lancet commission, an offshoot of the Lancet, a medical journal from Great Britain, recently published a landmark paper titled: Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on Healthy Diets for Sustainable Food Systems https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31788-4/fulltext. The importance of this report cannot be minimized. Worldwide, there is an epidemic of hunger, obesity and unhealthy diets that...
A French study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, followed 70,000 adults for five years to gather evidence on whether eating organic foods lowered participant’s risk of developing cancer. Most volunteers where women in their mid-40s who provided information about how frequently they consume 16 different types of organic foods. Those who ate the most organic...
“Securing Fresh Food from Fertile Soil, Challenges to the Organic and Raw Milk Movements”, by Dr. Joseph Heckman, is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Digital Object Identifier for citation: https://doi.org/10.1017/s1742170517000618...
An article recently shared by Cornucopia Institute describes ways in which consumers can improve gut health through diet and also steps farmers can take on the field to protect biodiversity. The human gut microbiome lives and is influenced by the food we eat. Eating a diet rich in vitamins and minerals from healthy, fresh, diverse,...
Not all produce is created equal. Some fruits and vegetables are more susceptible to soaking up pesticides than others. The dirty dozen include fruits and vegetables that have a softer outer layer such as strawberries and apples, while the clean fifteen include thicker-skinned produce such as eggplant and cantaloupe. The Environmental Working Group has comprehensive guides...
