Organic Food Resource Guide

Here's one of the best reasons to eat organic food: "Our task must be to free ourselves . . . by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty." - Albert Einstein

Magazines:

Acres USA: The oldest largest magazine covering eco-agriculture. Not vegetarian, but well worth reading. For instance, the March, 2003 issue features an article about an organic almond orchard which does all it's own processing and sales. There are also articles on locally grown and marketed organic food, large scale production and distribution of compost and manure "tea", plus news about organic agriculture, and "the other side of agriculture", along with strong editorial content.

Home of Organic Gardening and Compost Gardening The Organic Gardener's knowledge is unsurpassed, and this website is a complete, indispensible resource. If you're new to organic gardening, it will inspire and guide you. If you're a seasoned gardener, you'll be surprised at how much more there is to know. Learn all about composting, cover crops and green manure, soil, weed control, watering, seed saving, worm bins, gardening tools and how to use them. Etc, etc.

Johnny's Selected Seeds An excellent resource for a complete range of seeds, plants, gardening products, and books. It's oriented more toward commercial scale gardening, but has much to offer the serious home gardener. I recommend their print catalog over the website, as it has abundant information about seed varieties and growing instructions, plus something I haven't seen anywhere else: Johnny's print catalog offers a wide variety of cover crops and green manures, and provides a valuable usage chart.

Organic Gardening Magazine: We get the print magazine at our public library. the online version has articles, free newsletter, products, etc. Free public forums on ideas and information, new gardener support - warm, informal, and helpful. If you can't find Organic Gardening in print, subscribing online is inexpensive.

Links:

Green People: Claims to be the world's largest searchable database of eco-friendly products, including food co-ops, whole food grocery stores, and farmers markets. And I'm inclined to agree. Green People gives new meaning to the phrase 'world-wide-web'. What's exciting to me is that each of these thousands of links represents a green business run by real people who are making it happen.

Grocery Store Wars: NOT coming soon to a theater near you, this Star Wars send-up is a hysterically funny online cartoon video, promoting organic food. You'll need Flash Player 7 to view it. Starring Cuke Skywalker and ObeWan Cannoli. As our writer friend Christine Schrum put it, 'it's very savvy vegetarian'. See Grocery Store Wars now!

Local Harvest provides a free directory of farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area, where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies. Just click on the map to zoom in, or use the search form for quick results. If you are a farmer, market manager, or run a business related to locally-grown food, you can add your listing to the directory - free. "The freshest, healthiest, most flavorful organic food is what's grown closest to you."

National Organic Program - USDA - This site is the public face of the NOP. It doesn't tell what goes on behind closed doors - every kind of dirty deal - but it's access, of a sort, to the workings of the USDA NOP.

Organic Consumers Association is one of the most important sites on the web if you're pro-planet earth Read the SV Review to see why.

Soil Association: An organic certification body, in the UK. Compare and contrast to the USDA NOP. Lots of excellent info about organic food, sustainable ag, resources, etc. Visit their Consumer Guide and Library. According to this site, 3 out of 4 households in the UK buy organic food.

Wikipedia - Organic Food This is a long, thorough, thoughtful, informative article on organic food, with plenty of documentation and references. Highly recommend.

Organic Food Links from Savvy Vegetarian

• 'Congress Weakens Organic Standards' by Ken Roseboro
• Gaia's Garden: Permaculture, ecological gardening
• Garden's Gift: Zen of Gardening
• 'Got Local Organic Milk?'
• 'Ode to Spring: Confessions of an Obsessive Organic Gardener'
• Organic Consumers Association Review
• 'Organic Food: What Is It and Why Should We Eat It?'

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