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| Why Organic?- Excluding the last few decades, organic agriculture has been the only form of agriculture practiced on the planet. Under its simplest definition, organic agriculture is farming without synthetic chemicals.
- After the Second World War, however, there was a movement towards mechanization and homogenization of farming. Larger chemical and energy-intensive farms spread across the landscape, utilizing billions of pounds of toxic pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and animal drugs.
- Amidst this agricultural industrial revolution, several astute pioneers of the organic movement emerged, heralding the dangers of ecological insensitivity and calling for a return to the responsible farming methods of our past. A leader of this group, Lady Eve Balfour, provides a simple description of the counter-movement that emerged:
- The criteria for a sustainable agriculture can be summed up in one word- permanence, which means adopting techniques that maintain soil fertility indefinitely, that utilize, as far as possible, only renewable resources; that do not grossly pollute the environment; and that foster biological activity within the soil and throughout the cycles of all the involved food chains.
Why Buy Local or Regional?- Today, much of our food, conventional and organic alike, is traveling literally thousands of miles from farm to fork. Along the way, food loses its nutritional value, burns fossil fuels, and contributes to global warming. Local foods provide exceptional taste and freshness, strengthen our local economy, and support endangered family farms.
Why Fair Made ~ Fairly Traded, Grown, Sewn, or Manufactured? - While local and organic local food, fiber and bodycare have made great strides in recent years, family farmers and farmworkers continue to struggle to make a living, sweatshops continue to proliferate in the fields and factories, and multinational corporations are gradually conquering organic businesses.
Why Break the Chains?- The quality and range of America's daily essentials is being dictated and degraded by a powerful network of Brand Name Bullies and Big Box chains. By "outsourcing" from sweatshops in factories and fields, by cutting corners on public health and the environment, and by sucking up billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, business behemoths such as Wal-Mart, Monsanto, Starbucks and others have constructed a vast global shopping mall of cheap goods and conveniences, reinforced by a non-stop, 24/7 glut of multi-media distractions.
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