SantaFe.com

A £12m EU-funded investigation into the difference between organic and ordinary farming has shown that organic foods have far more nutritional value.

Up to 40 per cent more antioxidants, which scientists believe can cut the risk of heart disease and cancer, could be found in organic fruit and vegetables than in those conventionally farmed.

In the four-year Quality Low Input Food project, the biggest of its kind to date, a farm in north-east England grew conventional produce alongside organic varieties. Cattle were also farmed on the 725-acre plot, where it has been discovered that organic...

Monday, October 29, 2007
by Emily Dugan • SantaFe.com

“We may be looking at the dumbing down of organic standards, the watering down of standards to produce food on that scale....” Robin Seydel, of La Montanita Co-op.

Tucked between two houses on a back road in Bosque Farms, sits an organic oasis consisting of little more than an acre of farmland. Chickens cluck and strut in large areas fenced off by wire. Orange winter squash vibrate with color in uneven rows. Stands of brilliant yellow sunflowers spring unbidden to face the sun. Jesse Daves bends to lift a white sheet that shades green peppers from sunburn. When asked about Wal-Mart’s...

Wednesday, November 1, 2006
by Pari Noskin Taichert • localflavor magazine

Milk has been one of the leading success stories in organic agriculture. While conventional milk prices have stagnated for decades, farmers producing organic milk have received over fifty percent more for their product. Such premiums have allowed family-scale dairies to remain in business in a difficult market.

Consumers of organic milk have paid more for the product, often happily. Many take comfort from U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations that prevent organic farmers from using feeds with inorganic chemicals and genetically-modified organisms. Pesticide residues, such as Lindane,...

Tuesday, August 1, 2006
by Dan Brannen, Jr. • localflavor magazine

Steve Warshawer tosses around words like biodynamic agriculture, dual-purpose breeding, decentralized relationship systems and principles of transparency like the breeze tosses the feathers of his 500 chickens. As we traipse through coops, Steve collects eggs amid the gentle cacophony of chirps and squawks from his black, white and zebra striped hens, explaining the issues of concern to Mesa Top Farm. His egg, bird and vegetable farming enterprise is just eight miles from Santa Fe–eight miles and a world away over dirt roads and through numerically coded gates.

Monday, May 1, 2006
by Kelly Koepke • localflavor magazine

I’d never been to a poultry farm before and I didn’t know quite what to expect on my visit to Pollo Real in Socorro. The truth is, it’s not that fancy; chicken wire and polyurethane sheets become lightweight yurts–trailer homes to keep the chickens dry during the winter and in spring perfectly functional brooding houses. “Everything on the farm comes from what you have laying around to make it work,” Tracey Delehanty told me, noting my curious looks.

Joel Salatin, a guru of the sustainable-food movement who has won cult status among farmers for his innovations in pastured poultry, puts...

Monday, May 1, 2006
by Emily Beenen • localflavor magazine

The folks at Los Poblanos are striding into the future by rooting themselves in the past. An organic farm, an organic lavender enterprise producing soaps, skin conditioners, and oils, an adobe inn evoking the colonial era, and a cultural center share twenty-five acres of what was a 500 acre, early 18th century Spanish land grant. Mature shade trees tower over the narrow lane that leads into the property in an area of northwestern Albuquerque still noted for open spaces and equestrian centers. In the 1930’s, Albert and Ruth Simms, both representatives in the U.S. Congress, owned Los...

Sunday, May 1, 2005
by Barry Fields • localflavor magazine