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Nick’s Organic Farm is Montgomery County’s only organic seed farm (one of a few in the entire Chesapeake region). It’s also strategically isolated and protected from cross-pollination by GMO crops grown on nearby conventional farms. This seed operation and its soil, under continuous organic management for last 31 years, cannot be easily moved elsewhere. Unfortunately, Nick's farm is being threatened by the County government to use for soccer fields. There are over 500 soccer fields in the county and only 1 organic seed farm.
The alternative vision is to turn Nick's farm into an educational center for school children. If we don’t do something NOW, we will lose this amazing educational resource. You can help! We need to demonstrate that we value education, the environment, healthy local food, organic, sustainable agriculture, and we refuse to see it destroyed. www.savenicksorganicfarm.org
Estrella Farms Click here to donate.
Kelli Estrella, a farmer and award-winning cheesemaker whose pastureland is tucked into a bend of the Wynoochee River in Washington State, has become a potent symbol in a contentious national debate over the safety of food produced by small farmers and how much the government should regulate it. Mrs. Estrella, her husband and six adopted children from Liberia, make tasty artisan cheeses from the milk of her 36 cows and 40 goats and sell it at farmers’ markets. The FDA raided her farm and took all her cheese on October of 2010 because a pathogen was detected in the Spring and rectified as is industry-standard worldwide. However, the FDA suspects “all of the batches cheese” may contain a sub-type of Listeria. According to experts, the Estrella’s hard cheeses do not support Listeria. The Estrella Family Creamery could safely operate in any European country.
Low levels of Listeria (L-mono) can be found in any cheese, but Washington and some other states have a zero-detection limit with a zero-tolerance standard. The cleanest of cheese producers cannot achieve the standard; whether or not Listeria is detected. The zero-tolerance policy dictates that all on-site cheese cannot be sold if one batch is contaminated.
Read more here: http://estrellafamilycreamery.com
Morningland Dairy
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In 30 years of Morningland Dairy production there have been no complaints or reports of illness connected with eating their raw milk cheeses, yet in August of 2010 the FDA and Missouri authorities, using improperly handled and very questionable test results from California, made the dairy recall all cheese sold in 2010, embargoed all the remaining cheese, refused to properly test the cheese, denied them a jury trial, judged them - without any proof - to have an unsanitary plant and sick animals, ordered them to make unaffordable changes to the plant that are not required according to regulation as well as to do expensive testing of the cheese that also is not required according to regulation, and have since badgered the dairy with false accusations and demands for information from their new, private membership association, insisting specifically that they include members’ private information and threatening the dairy with a $100/day fine until they acquiesce to the FDA's demands.
Read more at: http://www.morninglanddairy.com/
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