Grains growing again in Willamette Valley

A beautiful day in the Valley today, especially in Shedd, where the 2013 "Stock Your Pantry" event brought many local farmers together to sell direct to happy people like us, who took home a wonderful box of Fuji apples, 20# of terrific organic rolled oats from Greenwillow Grains, 5# of locally grown wild rice from Running Wild, and two giant blocks of the always-amazing and delicious cheese from Full Circle Creamery (nice story about them here).

We are still fully stocked up on wheat berries and flour, so we didn't need to buy anything from this fascinating farm family below, a nice lady and her husband, who was a professor of ecology and natural resources who retired from Rice University and returned to farm on 12 lovely acres in Albany.  We're eager to try their stuff as soon as we next need flour.  Note their great vision for their small holding:  To participate in the 21st-Century reinvention of small-scale agriculture, building on the perspective (and limitations) of our age and experience to create a sustainable subsistence farm.

Free chances to learn both vital & fascinating things

A local massage instructor has broadened her range to add teaching others how to grow food for the future; she has licensed some fascinating films and will be showing them in both Salem and Oregon City to kick off a series of classes (offered on a sliding scale) on the most vital topic of all:  how we can grow more food with fewer inputs.

Nice looking free intro to permaculture talk ----> @ 6 p.m. Wed 1/23 @ Lifesource Community Room

Another Valentine's Week Do Not Miss: Joel Salatin (Free)

Joel Salatin holds a hen during a tour of Polyface Farm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Willamette University is making tremendous strides.  The prior President sat on the board of directors for Portland General Electric (PGE), primary owner of the single biggest source of world-wrecking CO2 in Oregon, the Boardman power plant (also a prodigious source of toxic Mercury, which lowers IQ all over the world) and was never heard to utter a word about coal.  

Since then, he has been replaced by a NASA veteran, someone who probably gets that the world is running very short of time to avert climate catastrophe.  Last year's Dempsey Lecture was by Dr. James Hansen of NASA, who spoke about his creative plan for carbon taxes with 100% rebates to citizens.  

This year, Joel Salatin will speak; since industrial agriculture is responsible for a huge share of climate-wrecking pollution, Joel's determinedly place-based model of agriculture is important ... and vital for the Willamette Valley.  

 America’s most famous sustainable farmer to deliver Dempsey Lecture

Farmer Joel Salatin believes our country’s food system is in a state of crisis — from nutrient deficiency to pollution to animal abuse to rural economic decay — and that all of these issues can be solved by one thing: local food.

It’s not a surprising statement from the self-described “lunatic farmer” whose roles in Michael Pollan’s best-selling book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” and the film, “Food, Inc.,” have turned him into one of the most prominent spokespeople for the local and sustainable food movements.
Salatin will bring his ideas to Willamette University Feb. 12 when he delivers the 2013 Dempsey Lecture. Titled “Local Food to the Rescue,” the lecture begins at 7:30 p.m. in Hudson Hall at the Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center. The event is free and open to the public.

Salatin’s family-run Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley uses alternative practices — including chicken tractors and pasture-fed “salad bar beef” — that have become a model for sustainable farmers across the country. Polyface serves more than 10 retail outlets, 3,000 families and 50 restaurants through on-farm sales and metropolitan buying clubs.

“Most of the things that I do or say are considered lunacy by the conventional agriculture community,” Salatin says. “We’re a nation which is well-fed but undernourished. We lead the world in obesity, cancer, Type 2 diabetes and a host of other chronic maladies. Clearly it’s not just a matter of bins and bushels and volume, it’s a matter of nutrient density and food quality. Those are things our conventional system doesn’t even consider.”

Even regions like the Willamette Valley, known for its thriving sustainable and local agriculture communities, have room for improvement, Salatin says.

“I haven’t been any place in the U.S. where 95% of the food produced there isn’t exported first and then reimported,” he says. “We should be growing it here, processing it here and eating it here. That is ultimately a far more secure food system.”

In addition to farming, Salatin is a prolific writer and sought-after conference speaker whose humorous and conviction-based speeches are akin to theatrical performances.
“If you think the current food system — 1,500 miles between farmer and plate, gluten intolerance, factory farming, reduced aquifers, manure waste pollution and a host of other maladies — if you think all of that is just wonderful, then don’t come to my lecture,” he says. “But if you care about any of that, and that’s not the kind of world you want your children to inherit, then I want you to come.”

This event is sponsored by the Dempsey Foundation and Willamette University’s Center for Sustainable Communities.  Info: Joe Bowersox, 503-370-6220.

Related Event

Willamette will host a free showing of “American Meat,” a documentary featuring Joel Salatin, on Feb. 5 at 7 p.m. in the Paulus Lecture Hall (Room 201) at the Willamette University College of Law.

The film highlights the state of the country’s livestock industry. After the showing, filmmakers and local experts in sustainable agriculture and the locavore movement will lead a roundtable discussion.

Protect the Priceless Jewel, fertile, uncontaminated Willamette Valley Farmland

Genetically Tampered Canola threatens to destroy the
Willamette Valley specialty seed growers livelihood -
Thanks Oregon Department of Ag!

It is truly, staggeringly, astoundingly, chart-toppingly stupid-to-the-point-of-insane to imperil a singular world resource of the exact conditions needed to grow precious specialty food crops that command top dollar and provide food security insurance in a threatened world, simply in order to grow a near-worthless commodity product (canola oil) that is only hot because of outrageous and unjustified subsidies as fuel for cars.

If this wasn't so deadly serious you would be justified in thinking this was like a "Candid Camera" skit, where the idea was to propose something so outrageous that people would be justified in tarring and feathering anyone who proposed it.

Below is an email from Kendra Wolf, a MoveOn member in Beaverton, who created a petition on SignOn.org, the nonprofit site that allows anyone to start their own online petition. If you have concerns or feedback about this petition, click here.

Dear Salem MoveOn member,

Oregon is a major producer of the world's seeds for European cabbage, Brussels sprouts, rutabaga and turnips. Recently, our Department of Agriculture decided to allow 2500 acres for the growing of GMOs (genetically modified organisms).

The introduction of genetically modified canola would not only threaten the livelihood of seed farmers but would also pose serious dangers (such as increased pesticide use and herbicide-resistant superweeds) to the environment.

That's why I created a petition on SignOn.org to the Oregon Legislature, which says:

Stop the Oregon Department of Agriculture's decision to open 2500 acres to genetically modified canola.

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

Genetically modified canola has been genetically altered to withstand the herbicide Roundup, allowing farmers to spray more herbicide without destroying their crops. The cross-pollination of genetically modified crops with weeds creates superweeds that are also herbicide resistant.

The Huffington Post reported that more than two dozen weed species have become "resistant to Roundup's chief ingredient glyphosate, causing farmers to use increasing amounts both of glyphosate and other weed killing chemicals to try to control the so-called 'superweeds.'" This dilemma facing farmers is now driving up the "volume of herbicide needed each year by about 25 percent," and farmers are forced to use older, more dangerous herbicides as a result.1

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

Thanks!

–Kendra Wolf

Source:

1. "Genetically Modified Crops Have Led to Pesticide Increase, Study Finds," The Huffington Post, October 1, 2012.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=285870&id=60259-19567772-L3ffAYx&t=4

This petition was created on SignOn.org, the progressive, nonprofit petition site. SignOn.org is sponsored by MoveOn Civic Action, which is not responsible for the contents of this or other petitions posted on the site. Kendra Wolf didn't pay us to send this email—we never rent or sell the MoveOn.org list.

Want to support our work? MoveOn Civic Action is entirely funded by our 7 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from CEOs. And our tiny staff ensures that small contributions go a long way. Chip in here.

Awesomely cool

We have a few spots left for GeerCrest Farm's
Farm Life Experience!

Our Farm Life Experience Program is open to children from ages 8 to 16

Rates: $395 per week, including lodging and all meals and snacks.

Space available in the Following Sessions:

July 9 - 13, 16- 20, 23 - 27, 30- Aug 3,
Aug. 20-24

Go to our Farm's education page
Watch a video of education programs at GeerCrest Farm

GeerCrest is reviving the traditional homestead farm, where the multi-generational farm family grows a diverse supply of food, shares its agrarian way of life with children and promotes the welfare of its community. The Farm-Life Experience at GeerCrest Farm is based on the belief that children need to experience the daily rhythm of farm life because it gives them a foundation on which to grow into productive members of society.



GeerCrest Farm 12390 Sunnyview Rd NE Salem, OR 97317

Best Bet: World heroine Sandra Steingraber returns to Portland

Image by dunrie via FlickrThe Dr. Sandra Steingraber event has been rescheduled to April 5, 2012.

The Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP) is hosting a free talk with renowned activist, ecologist, and author, Sandra Steingraber.

The event will be held from 7-9 p.m. on Thursday,
April 5th at The Old Church,
1422 SW 11th Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97201.

The author of numerous books including the seminal Living Downstream and most recently Raising Elijah, Dr. Steingraber will speak on the link between environmental pollution, human illness and cancer.

Steingraber has won numerous awards, including Chatham College’s biennial Rachel Carson Leadership Award, the Hero Award from the Breast Cancer Fund, the Environmental Health Champion Award from Physicians for Social Responsibility, Los Angeles, and most recently the Heinz Award. She has served as an advisor to the California Breast Cancer Research Program, provided Congressional briefings, and lectured on many college campuses. A columnist for Orion magazine, Steingraber is a scholar in residence at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York.

NCAP is a non-profit organization that works to protect community health and the environment through research, organizing and advocacy to promote alternatives to pesticides. They are based in Eugene, OR and have been active in pesticide reform throughout the Northwest for 35 years.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information or to arrange interviews,

Josh Vincent, Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP)
541-344-5044 x 22 jvincent@pesticide.org

Interviews with Sandra can also be arranged through the above contact.

NCAP - www.pesticide.org
Sandra Steingraber

Related articles

• Sandra Steingraber Discusses Hydrofracking (timesunion.com)
• "Raising Elijah": An Interview With Ecologist and Author Sandra Steingraber (desmogblog.com)
• Why I'm Donating My Heinz Award Money to the Fight Against Fracking (edmortimer.wordpress.com)

Now Hear This! Seed-Starting Learn-by-Doing Workshop Tomorrow!

Come one, come all!
All are invited to lend a hand this Saturday as we start seeds at the
Oregon School for the Deaf.

WHO: YOU! Anyone interested in learning how to start seeds in our climate

WHAT: we’ll be doing: OSD is the site of a 2-acre urban farm, and this year we’re gearing up the summer youth program to grow even more food on that site. This Saturday we’ll be doing some seed starting, preparing seed flats, and maybe planting in the garden if time allows. For folks interested in the basics of starting seeds, this will be a great opportunity!

WHERE: The Oregon School for the Deaf Urban Farm. 999 Locust Ave. NE, Salem
(Click on address for a map; from Cherry turn right on Locust, then take a right on Maple. Enter through the gate on your right. Meet at the greenhouse.)

WHEN: Saturday, 2/18 from 10 – noon.

HOW to pack: Bring weather-appropriate clothes, sturdy shoes, water to drink and a snack if you so desire.

WHY: Because hunger never takes a holiday!

For more information, please call Ingrid at 503-798-0457. See you Saturday!

Ingrid Evjen-Elias
Community Gardens Resource Coordinator
Marion-Polk Food Share

T: 503-581-3855 x329
C: 503-798-0457
F: 503-581-3862
E: ievjenelias@marionpolkfoodshare.org
1660 Salem Industrial Drive NE
Salem OR 97301-0374
www.marionpolkfoodshare.org/

LOVESalem HQ sees First Potatoes of 2011

For an urban farmer, there's no feeling closer to digging buried treasure than digging spuds.

The Yukon Golds and Red Clouds made a few nice big spuds but didn't produce a lot of tonnage for some reason.  But the Carolas -- a delicious creamy yellow variety -- sure are hitting big!  That book carton has just one section of a bed's worth, with lots more left to dig tomorrow.  Tomorrow I'll also be digging the All Blues and the Buttes (a great Russet) that were very heavy producers for us last year.

In other garden news, we also bought Crazy Neighbor an electric leaf "blower" -- not because she plans to be one of the idiots who stands around using electricity to blow leaves around instead of just picking up a rake, but so that she can use the blower in vacuum/mulcher mode.  This thing uses a heavy-duty metal fan that shreds leaves and twigs into fragments and dumps them into a big bag about the size of a king-sized pillow case.  The stuff inside is PERFECT for winter mulch on garden beds. 

Crazy Neighbor has several gigantic, decidedly deciduous trees and not too much garden use for the leaves.  LOVESalem HQ, on the other hand, has only dwarf fruit trees and but many garden beds.  Ergo, a symbiotic pairing -- we buy the leaf mulcher/bagger, she does the leaf cleanup on her yard and, instead of having to deal with bagging them and getting someone to take them to the leaf haul day, she shares the treasure with us. 

(I have read in several places that leaf mulch is like compost Viagra because trees have those ginormous root systems that pull up nutrients from way way deep and away from the surface, giving you the "good stuff" so often washed through the top few inches of soil in our heavy rain climate).

Fordham Shuts Down Farm Program, Makes 'Catch-22' Demand for Catering Permit

Yikes.

WORD: Joel Salatin: How to Prepare for A Future Increasingly Defined By Localized Food & Energy - Blogs at Chris Martenson

Image via Wikipedia

A very, very smart guy.  Given our natural gifts, Salem should be a leader in this type of thinking, which is going to be evermore valuable.

Worthwhile OSPIRG Effort

Image via WikipediaIt's bad enough that we so often fail to do what needs to be done. What's even worse is when we subsidize things that absolutely should NOT be done, such as the conversion of corn into a diluted, lower-energy form of motor fuel (ethanol), which robs the land of productivity and people of food, while helping prop up a high-input, destructive, highly-petrochemical-dependent and polluting form of industrial agribusiness. The capture of the US Department of Agriculture by Big Agribusiness is one of the travesties of our time, and we're all paying the price. OSPIRG has joined a good campaign to turn the "Farm Bill" back into a slightly less horrific thing, and it's worth your support.

Oregon is blessedly free of the worst of this, but there are definitely pressures to keep pushing small farms off the land and consolidate more and more. By helping make the Farm Bill into more of a "Food Bill," you are helping preserve our single most important asset, our fertile land and soil.

When Jack Hedin, a Minnesota farmer, rented a few acres of land from neighboring corn farms to grow watermelons, tomatoes and other vegetables for a local health food store, he learned first-hand how unhelpful farm subsidies can be.

Jack ended up paying $8,771 in fines for one growing season [1] because, as he learned, it’s illegal to use land marked for corn to grow anything that isn’t subsidized. Corn or soy — often the main ingredients in processed junk food? Good to go. Fresh fruit and vegetables? Not so fast.

At a time when nearly one in three kids in the United States is overweight or obese, we can't let our farm policies continue to underwrite cheap junk food.

Thanks to a historic opportunity, now's our chance to end these handouts. We're hoping to get another 40 supporters to give $40 to expand our campaign.

Can you chip in to help us demonstrate the public support it will take to deliver a win?

In anticipation of a larger Farm Bill next year, the House has introduced a bill that would reform the worst of these subsidies, cutting $28 billion over the next 10 years from the program that is responsible for making unhealthy processed food so cheap and ubiquitous. This bill is an important first step and an unprecedented opportunity.

The opportunity exists because the public is increasingly aware that agribusiness subsidies are misdirected.

Agribusinesses, to prevent farmers like Jack from competing, have carved out a convenient system for themselves. Of course, they are doing everything they can to keep these handouts.

Consider this:

• The richest 4% of agribusinesses — which includes giants Cargill and Monsanto — receive almost three-quarters of the subsidies.
• 87% Oregon farmers receive no subsidy payments at all. [2]
• In the last presidential election year alone, these big agribusinesses spent more than $200 million on lobbying and campaign contributions.
• Cargill, one such giant agribusiness, is receiving government assistance even though it’s is the largest privately owned corporation in America and recently reported quarterly profits of $1.49 billion.

I’m still confident that we can win, because when I talk to people about this campaign, they’re just outraged. We’ve talked to thousands of Oregonians who now know how the government is underwriting the childhood obesity epidemic — and many of them won’t stand for it either.

It will take that public outrage to push past the junk food lobby and convince Congress to act. That’s why we’re:

Organizing grassroots support to put pressure on our representatives;

Building a strong coalition of children’s advocacy, public health and taxpayer groups to join us; and

Publishing research and getting our message out in the media. And to do all that, we're hoping to get another 40 supporters to give $40 in next two weeks to expand our campaign. Can you help with a donation right now?

Thanks for all you do.

David Rosenfeld, OSPIRG Executive Director

[1]. New York Times, "My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)".
[2]. Environmental Working Group Farm Subsidy Database.

Free Fall Seed-Starting Class from Marion-Polk Food Share

Image via Wikipedia

Summer Educational Series
Marion-Polk Food Share Community Gardens Program

Fall Seed Starting with Soil Blocks



Tuesday, August 9
4pm – 6pm
Oregon School for the Deaf Greenhouse
999 Locust St. NE
Salem, OR
Enter of Maple St. NE.
Drop in – No RSVP required.

Learn about the “soil block” method of seed starting (no plastic needed!) with local expert, educator and Marion-Polk Food Share volunteer Pete Nagy. Lend a hand and help start seeds for the Oregon School for the Deaf Urban Farm. All produce from the project is donated to Marion-Polk Food Share.

About the host:
Pete Nagy has been a dedicated community garden organizer for the past three years, working at the Oregon School for the Deaf Urban Farm, the Northgate Forgiveness and Peace Garden and many others. Pete pioneered the soil block seed starting method in Salem, and is a skilled speaker and teacher.

Upcoming for September:

Season Extension with Cold Frames
With local winter gardening enthusiast and small business owner Michael Taylor

Seed Saving: Continuing an Ancient Tradition. Host TBD.

For more information contact Ian Dixon-McDonald, Community Gardens Program Director
(503) 581-3855 x329, imcdonald@marionpolkfoodshare.org.

Back to the future with 4H and FFA

Image via WikipediaSince it's Ed Week here at LOVESalem, here's an example of the kind of thing we should be doing significantly more of, in every school, every year, not just a few weeks in the summer for the rural kids: helping kids learn about the environment, also known as nature, also known as "where everything you eat must start."

The 4H programs and Future Farmers of America programs are especially vital now that the world is learning, to its dismay, that there is no magic pixie dust that allows us to keep adding people to a finite planet without having to search harder for resources and fight over them more.

Our agricultural ignorance is what allows us to be sold policies that starve people in poor countries so that we can squander vast resources while pretending to create "renewable" fuels by turning petroleum-based agricrops into ethanol (while exhausting and depleting the soils and damaging rivers and the atmosphere).

In the future, one of the most important skills will be knowing how to manage food crops in harmony with the natural local cycles and traits. The 1500 mile salad is likely to be as long gone as the dodo bird -- we will, perforce, whether we want to or not, be "locavores" to a great extent. Our schools should be doing a lot more to make sure that we can actually thrive while doing so.

The members of the Oregon State Fair Foundation would be honored to have you attend the ribbon cutting for the Oregon Youth Village. We want to take this time to thank our supporters, past board members, donors, and grantors. We also want to welcome the public to come and find out about the Oregon Youth Village.

Please join us for the all day celebration...

7:00 am Public Tours Start

12:00 Ribbon Cutting Ceremony - with Mayor Anna Peterson

7:00 pm Public Tours End

The Oregon State Fair Foundation is pleased to announce the official ribbon cutting for the first of 25 Oregon Youth Village Cabins on the Oregon State Fair Grounds. These cabins will house the 4H and FFA youths during State Fair each summer. OSFF would be honored if you would join us on Friday, June 24th 2011. Public tours of the cabin start at 7am. We have featured speakers, and several legislative and other community leaders in a video presentation throughout the day. Cabin tours for the public will continue until 7pm.

For more information please see our website at www.oregonstatefairfoundation.org.

Please call 503-779-4152 for more information.

Celebrate Earth Day with Queen of the Sun and a local hero

The best movie house between San Francisco and Vancouver, B.C., our own fine gem, Salem Cinema, brings a super-special event to Salem for Earth Day, QUEEN OF THE SUN, along one of the local beekeepers profiled at the 6 p.m. showing on Saturday, April 23:

QUEEN OF THE SUN: What Are The Bees Telling Us?

United States. 2011. Directed by
Taggart Siegel. (83 mins.)
Not Rated.

What's all the buzz about? In celebration of Earth Day, please join us for the magnificent documentary QUEEN OF THE SUN: WHAT ARE THE BEES TELLING US?

Jon Betz and Silverton commercial beekeeper Andy Angstrom will join us on Saturday, April 23rd to answer questions following our 6 PM screening!

This wildly entertaining honey of a documentary is a dynamic, fascinating, bee-autiful blend of poetry and science, providing not only an eye-opening education on the collapse of our honeybee colonies and the affect on our earth's fragile ecosystem but the information necessary to prompt action. For the gloriously shot QUEEN OF THE SUN, winner of swarms of awards, Portland filmmaker Taggart Siegel (THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN) made a beeline around the globe to interview some of the world's most gregarious and passionate beekeepers. Their heartfelt, hopeful and focused proposals to inspire sustainable practices take some of the sting out of the vital, alarming message this thoughtful film brings to the hive.

Green Valentine's Day: August 14, not February 14!

Remember: Put it on your calendar now, let's celebrate with our sweeties when it makes the most sense for us here in the lush and abundant Willamette Valley -- and that ain't February 14.

Seedy Saturday! March 5, Silverton Grange

Image by Satrina0 via Flickr

Silverton Seedy Saturday
Saturday, March 5, 2011 - 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Free for Everyone to Attend!

"Seedy Saturday" is an event where people get together to swap garden seeds, especially heirloom varieties, or varieties that have been in the family for generations. But the event is so much more!

* Free Garden Seeds. Bring some to trade too (Not required)
* Master Gardeners to answer your gardening questions
* Demonstrations on Using Worms for Composting
* The buzz from Marion County Beekeepers Association
* Grab a couple free seed catalogs to browse
* Nutritionist discussing fresh vegetable meals
* Learn about gardening with water conservation in mind
* And so much more...

The Silverton Grange Hall is located at 201 Division Street, Silverton.

From Main & Water downtown, head south 1.7 miles on Water Street towards Silver Falls State Park, and turn left on Division Street. There is a large State Highway sign for the Grange Hall on the corner.

More Information: seedysaturday2011@yahoo.com

The new Sustainable Valentine's Day: August 14!

Image by Getty Images via @daylifePlan ahead now: tell your sweetie that, henceforth, you won't be pitching woo with those air-freighted hothouse flowers in February, but you'll deliver a much more loving gift under the sun on August 14, when the flowers around Salem are so mind-bogglingly beautiful that you'll wonder why you ever settled for the imports.

It's time to say a firm no! to fossil-fuel-flowers, the kinds grown in South America and shipped via jet airplane up to northern markets in the dead of winter.

Let's start a new kind of peace movement right here in the city named for peace, a movement about stopping the war against climate stability, a movement about making peace with the beautiful and bountiful place we live by acting carefully to protect it against our excesses and outmoded habits. Instead of just keepin' on the old ways, let's be smart, and time-shift Valentine's Day six months, to August, when there is a glorious abundance of gorgeous flowers throughout the Willamette Valley, and a real dearth of holiday celebrations.

Support local farms and growers with your dollars, keep your money circulating around you and enriching your own community, instead of sending it on an airplane to fly straight into the pockets of the oil companies and Wall St.

A Historic Opportunity to Reconnect with Salem's Past . . . and Future

Dear friends and community members,

A number of community residents recently attended a presentation about the Sustainable Cities Initiative plans that were presented by University of Oregon students for Minto Brown Park.

We were excited about many of the students' ideas. In particular, we would like Salem residents and park users to think about renovating the Cherry Orchard,and adding an organic community garden at that site.

We invite you to come see the orchard. The attached flyer has information on Cherry Blossom tours of the orchard planned for April, and work parties scheduled for March. The city has volunteered to provide some gloves and tools for the work.

This idea fits well into the existing Master Plan for the park, which calls for organic gardening at that site. City Council is considering designating $100,000 of the recent Federal payment to replant the historic Minto orchard with native habitat. We think that with all the farmland that is to be planted with natives, saving the orchard and providing for organic community gardening is a better use of that little corner of the park.

Local Hero: Judge White

A true man-bites-dog story: Monsanto runs into a government official who can't be bought and sold the way the company does with politicians and USDA cronies spinning through the revolving door.