The Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT) filed suit this week on behalf of 60 family farmers, seed businesses and organic agricultural organizations, against Monsanto Company as a preemptive measure “to protect themselves from being accused of patent infringement should they ever become contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified seed, something Monsanto has done to others in the past.”

“This case asks whether Monsanto has the right to sue organic farmers for patent infringement if Monsanto’s transgenic seed should land on their property,” said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT’s Executive Director and Lecturer of Law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. “It seems quite perverse that an organic farmer contaminated by transgenic seed could be accused of patent infringement, but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement, so we had to act to protect the interests of our clients.”

Monsanto calls the organization’s allegations “false, misleading and deceptive.”

The plaintiffs’ approach is a publicity stunt designed to confuse the facts about American agriculture. These efforts seek to reduce private and public investment in the development of new higher-yielding seed technologies. This attack comes at a time when the world needs every agricultural tool available to meet the needs of a growing population, expected to reach 9 billion people by 2050. While we respect the opinion of organic farmers as it relates to the products they choose to grow, we don’t believe that American agriculture faces an all-or-nothing approach. Rather we believe that farmers should have the ability to choose the best agricultural tools to farm their own land and serve their own end-market customers. We are confident that these multiple approaches can coexist side-by-side and sustainably meet the world’s food needs over next 40 years.

This question may on the surface sound like an oxymoron. How can you be developing technologies to improve the environment, yet hurt it at the same time? According to Rogers, this is in fact happening every day, all over the world. Rogers breaks up the offenses into three categories: food, shelter and transportation.

The crux of the food section studies what organic farming really means (or doesn’t mean) and the movement to “beyond organic“.

So let’s talk a little about Rogers’ view of agriculture. She writes, “The fallout from conventional agriculture can be devastating. Synthetic fertilizers typically contain high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, much of which is eventually washes into coastal waters where it fuels rampant algae growth.” The result are Dead Zones where no fish can survive.

She continues by saying that pesticides linger on food, which “wreak havoc on human health.”

Ironically, she does note that organic farming may not be all that friendly either. Many farmers who are part of the locally grown organic movement, barely, if at all follow USDA’s guidelines for organic food due to expense and time constraints. And many opponents to the current definition of organic claim that food grown this way is virtually no better than conventional ag.

Rogers defines the locally grown organic movement as a group of farmers who are going above and beyond government regulations and are growing food in a manner that is truly environmentaly sustainable. She cites examples of how this group of people are expected to lead the reinvention of the food system. However, she writes, they can barely make ends meet. Even accounting for the people who are willing to pay a higher price for organic food, farmers working in this niche are barely, if at all, making ends meet. This she says, is just one example of green gone wrong. Green gone right would support these farmers.

While she doesn’t necessarily get into the debate or organic versus conventional ag, she does open your eyes to the fact that the move to “organic” is causing environmental disasters around the world. Farmers in many countries are tearing down rainforests in an effort to gain more cropland to grow more organic food to feed the world. This is an unintended consequence, that Rogers notes has major negative implications. She also demonstrates that practices in the name of the environment may be better on the surface, but are actually worse than current methods when you dig under the surface.

Regardless of where you stand on conventional or organic farming, I do believe that she is right. There are many environmental injustices happening around the globe in the name of sustainability. So, if you’d like to learn more about what is going wrong in the environmental movement and how to change course, then Green Gone Wrong is a good place to start.

What initially upset me was not so much that NabiscoWorld is promoting growing your own garden. What upset me is that there are so many companies and organizations engaging in campaigns against production farming. Ironically, at the same time, there are companies and organizations trying to end organic farming as well, such as the Grocery Manufacturing Association, because organic farming is cutting into their profits.

What alarms me with these organized smear campaigns is that not only does all type of farming have its place – your own garden, organic gardening or production farming–but that you’re being giving a pack of lies on all sides to get you to quit eating a carrot that wasn’t (or was) organically grown. If you eat organic, you’ll die because the food supply isn’t safe; if you eat a carrot commercially produced, you’ll die because of the pesticides used in the growing process.

I believe in choice. Each person should have the choice to eat food that is grown in a way that corresponds to his or her own belief system. However, what I don’t believe in, is how people are vilifying production farmers for the safe food they produce to feed us here in America and around the world. And maybe most amazing is that each year they do this on less land with less inputs.

The real issue that consumers should be concerned about is how America is going to take the lead to feed more than 9 billion people between 2040-2050. If you end production farming as we know it, then you remove the only viable way to feed to world in the future. So let’s quit bickering and rally to support ALL American farmers.

One of his points was derived from a book he is currently reading titled, Dirt, by David R. Montgomery. He discussed how the book showed him the importance of good soil to societies. An interesting thought? Yes, but I think this book looks like it might be worth checking out. Here is a description of its contents:

“Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it’s everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it’s no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth’s soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations.”

Will you be reading this book?

Eric says that since last year the organization continues to grow. He says they had almost 2,700 people attend their Annual Organic Farming Conference and Organic University. He says they exist to help farmers who want to grow organic become successful. The next annual conference is scheduled for Feb. 25-27 in Lacrosse, WI with over 60 workshops on all aspects of organic and sustainable farming.

You can listen to my interview with Eric here:

Consumer demand for high quality organic beef has been exceptional and this partnership will ensure supply to an increasingly savvy and discerning organic consumer.

While other beef companies are struggling to supply the market with increased demand as traditional retailers take organic beef “behind the counter” and offer more choice cuts, Dakota Beef is flush with cattle and prepared to meet demand. Innovative supply chain management and long term partnerships with certified organic beef producers make this possible. Looking forward, the partnership with Organic Prairie will ensure strong supply chain in the future, “We currently see more certified organic calves on feed than ever before and that bodes well for the demand that this consumer driven product is creating,” says David Wilcox, an organic cattle finisher from Madison, South Dakota. Ranchers are happy too, Mike Olson, a 1000 head organic rancher from Utah says, “The organic cattle industry seems likes it become streamlined and organized for the first time ever, which is great news for those of us who have stuck with it for so many years.”

More than 150 tons of sweet onions are giving some Bolivian farmers a $340,000 harvest. The recent bountiful shipment to Los Angeles marked a three-year U.S. Agency for International Development effort to make Bolivian onion growers international competitors.

So far, it’s working. The agency’s $20 million investment in 2002 has generated more than $40 million in family earnings, boosting per capita income for the 40,000 participating households by almost 50 percent in a country where the average family exists on just $4,400 per year.

The legal filings in federal courts in Seattle, Denver, and in Minneapolis, against the retailers, come on the heels of class action lawsuits against Aurora Dairy Corporation, based in Boulder, Colorado. The suits against Aurora and the grocery chains allege consumer fraud, negligence, and unjust enrichment concerning the sale of organic milk. This past April, Aurora officials received a notice from the USDA detailing multiple and “willful” violations of federal organic law that were found by federal investigators.

Aurora, with $100 million in annual sales, provides milk that is sold as organic and packaged as store-brand products for many of the nation’s biggest chains. Besides Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, and Safeway, Aurora serves as supplier to 15 other national and regional chains.

Independent investigators at the USDA concluded earlier this year that Aurora-with five dairy facilities in Colorado and Texas, each milking thousands of cows-had 14 “willful” violations of federal organic regulations. One of the most egregious of the findings was that from December 5, 2003, to April 16, 2007, the Aurora Dairy “labeled and represented milk as organically produced, when such milk was not produced and handled in accordance with the National Organic Program regulations.”

“This is the perfect example of modern-day Agri-business bullies literally stealing the milk money from an unsuspecting public,” said Washington state consumer Rachael Doyle.

Hoop houses are erected on the site and collards, kale, mustard greens, salad mix and spinach are a good example of the crops that will be grown year round. Graduates from the job training program are working on site.

The U.S. organic sector is expected to grow from $13 billion in 2003 to over $25 billion in 2007. However, less than 3% of organic produce available in Chicago is grown locally.