Land-Soil for Organic Ag. Self-Gov & The Basis For All Else!

The Original Organic Agriculture Ethic is based on the life-giving fertility of a healthy soil ecosystem. However the USDA organic label is currently in the process of being severely compromised now by extending the organic certification to hydroponics and thereby eliminating soil as the basis for true organic agriculture.

Date:   12/13/2016 12:17:36 AM   ( 8 y ) ... viewed 4927 times

November 26, 2022 - The Importance of Land and Who Owns It? By Anna Von Reitz -

"When the current world organizational structure was set up, three basic jurisdictions were set up: air, land and sea.

The Pope controlled the air.
The Spanish King controlled the land.
The British King controlled the sea.

And the Spanish and British Kings both owed their offices to the Pope, albeit, in different capacities.

So when we talk about land in the modern world we are talking about: (1) cadastral surveys, and (2) Spanish Land Grants -- whether or not Spain ever directly occupied or possessed the land in question.

Once the Spanish King put his signature on a Land Grant, that Land Grant and the Deed accompanying it, is the Possession of the Grantee and no superseding action can remove it.
Land is what the rest of us call the Subsoil underlying a country. Land is fundamentally important, because it underlies everything on Earth, including the Oceans. It is what creates and gives rise to the Soil--- and the Soil's Jurisdiction defined as the top six inches of the Land.

You cannot have a country without land, a nation (population) has no standing without land.

So it is of critical importance that our land was--- and is---- properly granted to us by the King of Spain as of 1778, and the Deeds have been preserved along with the Treaties by General Cortez and his family, so that there is no question whatsoever that our country is rightfully founded and we have the possession and ownership of it as acknowledged by all current systems of international law.

To the extent that pirates have come upon the land and tried to claim it and have enforced a brutal and foreign system of land "titles" to overlay the actual grants, grant- deeds, and patents, the Maxim of Law applies: "Possession by pirates does not change ownership."

The British King and the Pope combined cannot change what the Spanish King has written and what they, themselves, have agreed to.

Whereupon we have invoked our underlying grants and deeds and patents and brought them forward with full standing to rebut the presumption that there are no Americans still retaining their native birthright and inheritance interests.

We are here, present and accounted for. The land of this country belongs to us and to all those who accept and retain their birthright nativity; and, with the land goes the soil, which is part of the land.

2 comments:
1.
(This Blog-writer) November 26, 2022 at 6:59 PM Goodness! (IMO) Every Red-Blooded American must know everything that is stated above here, completely understand all of this as well as all its implications - ASAP! https://www.curezone.org/blogs/fm.asp?i=2346773 —[98]
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April 21, 2022 - On Sustainability -

"There's a huge global movement towards sustainability, towards a way of life that's rooted in higher values and ethics. Even in the cut-throat world of business, the ultimate domain of selfishness, the idea of social responsibility is flowing everywhere. A new dawn is approaching for humanity, and the 27th (Gene Keys) Gift is at the heart of the matter. We all need to get on this wave and ride it.

We all need to find our higher purpose. We need to locate its vibration inside us and let it radiate within the cells of our being. We need to let it flow into all our relationships, and then into our work and our actions. We'll instantly begin to prosper. Giving releases the currents of healing. It heals us, and it heals the whole. Giving of our self out of the joy of our own heart, out of the generosity of our inner being – that's true power. That's what will move mountains. Make no mistake about the power of this Gene Key, it will transform our world."[97]
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February 19, 2021 -

"...By spending less money on imported things, people aren’t supporting the people who aren’t taking care of their land and people. It’s much more powerful than protesting."[96]*
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February 17, 2021 - The American Natives Were Right -

"...we maintain that by the Ultimate and Universal Law, the American Natives were right --- land does not belong to us, we belong to the land; furthermore-- our egos aside, land and soil is a gift to us, as further evidenced by the Biblical account of God granting possession of the Earth to Adam and his offspring. The planet was given to us all with one caveat --- that we be caretakers of the Earth and the animals. That responsibility goes with the grant of true ownership."[95]
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February 2, 2021 - The Necessity for "Self-Government" of Small Farms -

The legal realm depends upon a voluntary agreement and in this instance[94]* the nexus for that was the farm’s registration – however that can be revoked by each of the farmers. That is one piece required for extricating the farms.

Another piece is regarding the business structure of the farm. If legally incorporated (as opposed to a Lawful corporation formed by common law Right) then that farm is subject to the state which makes incorporation problematic for the farmer (who just wants to farm and engage in local “trade” as opposed to international commerce).

Lastly (but not least) is the piece regarding legal counsel. The loyalty of a BAR member is to the BAR and their courts. When the farm is not registered, not incorporated and the farmer stands in common law then there really is no need for an attorney. When returning to and standing in the common law the farmer can lawfully require that an injured party present their claim to him and thereby allow him to respond to the injured party. In this instance there is no injured party and therefore the “case” should lawfully be dismissed without prejudice for each farmer.[94]
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June 6, 2020 - The Country With Land and Soil Jurisdiction! -

"Nation or Country?" By: Anna Von Reitz

The proper way to reference our land and soil jurisdiction is “country”.

Your country can accommodate a great many nations that exist in all jurisdictions of the law.

For starters, there are 248 Native Nations that co-exist with us.

There is a Muslim Nation that has chapters in all fifty States.

The British Territorial U.S. Citizens and their fifty State of State Governments represent fifty more “nations” on our soil, plus seven Insular States making up a total of 57 more Nations.

Until recently, we have also had fifty STATE OF STATE organizations and 185,000 Municipal Corporations and all the Federal Civil Service employees and dependents making up many more nations on our shores.

We are the only ones who can talk about the country— all these other “nations” can reference their nation as “the” nation, and do!

So to avoid any misunderstandings or appearance of deceit about what jurisdiction we are talking about, please train yourself and everyone else to talk in terms of our “country”.

Everyone and anyone can have a “nation”— and can live here peaceably with us, but only the American People have a country.[93]
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Comment/Notice:

When this blog-writer fills out governmental types of forms (i.e for Veterans Administration) and is apparently required to select a "country" (among multiple choices of countries across the international spectrum) with one choice of dubious definition that is referred to as: "United States" (dubious because there is at least one supreme court decision that includes three distinct definitions for "United States") and when it appears that he has no choice but to select "United States" as his country then let it be known that his "definition" is one the refers to The United States of America (unincorporated) upon which the American people have their "land and soil jurisdiction." - Declared and Published at 11:27 AM Pacific.
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May 19, 2020 - Education For Self-Government -

"... Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight. It is therefore imperative that the nation see to it that a suitable education be provided for all its citizens."[92] - Thomas Jefferson.
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Comment:

All personal complaints, legal and ethical issues presented by every food and health "movement" (mentioned in this blog) concerning the federal government are examples of why "Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight."
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See May 10, 2020 at four postings down.
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April 26, 2020 - The "Food Movement" or Lack Thereof -

Dave Chapman writes: "... As Michael Pollan has said, until we can light up the switchboards, we don't have a food movement. We need to build movements so powerful that we can transform government. Huge ask. That is an unlikely goal to reach, but we have little choice if our children and grandchildren are to survive and thrive."[89]
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Comment:

At first glance the thought of building "movements so powerful that we can transform government" may seem appealing to some people. Especially if "government" is failing to do its job. Even though the list of failures is virtually inexhaustible (See: "The Many Methods Used to Deceive The Nations!" and additional CureZone blogs by this Blog-writer in case you don't have your own "list") it doesn't mean "government" can be transformed. If it can't be transformed then why set up a "movement" for that purpose that "is an unlikely goal to reach"?

Yet transformation is needed! The transformation that this writer sees that is needed is firstly one that takes place individually. "Be transformed by the renewal of your mind." The American people have been deeply conditioned to "think" in certain ways not only about "government" but about who they are in relation to government. The conditioning has been incremental since the day that George Washington took a whispered nervous oath as "President of the United States"(i) on April 30,(ii) 1789.

"When Washington was elected to the Office of President by the Presidential Electors, he became President of the United States of America, because that is the way the Constitution was written. The Office of President of the United States of America is not an Office under the authority of the Constitution. The United States of America was created by the Articles of Confederation, the second Organic Law. That Organic Law does not require a president to take any oath of Office, so George Washington becomes President of the United States of America without taking any oath. When Washington does take an oath, it is an oath to an Office that has no definite term or any qualifications."[90]
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(i) House Report on the Time, Place, and Manner in which, and of the Person by Whom, the Oath Prescribed by the Constitution Shall be Administered to the President of the United States, 4/25/1789, Records of the U.S. House of Representatives.:
https://congressarchives.tumblr.com/post/83812107006/225th-anniversary-of-the-first-congress-well-be

(ii) According to the science of the cards "Destiny Cards" the "Planetary Ruler Card" April 30 is the Jack of Spades known as "The Actor Card."
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April 20, 2020 - "This Land Is Your Land" -

This song popped into this Blog-writer's head this morning and inspired a search and review of that as well as the lyric-writer Woody.[88]*
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April 12, 2020 - "Real Organic" -

The current "weekly update from the Real Organic Project"(ROP) said: "... the use of satellite imagery, should probably be a part of all organic inspections for livestock operations."[87]
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Comment:

This Blog-writer wonders whether anyone of the several ROP boards has heard that the illnesses that are now attributed to "COVID-19" are being recognized as symptomatic of accumulated factors including electro-magnetic, microwave and other frequency interferences which includes those that are occurring from satellites in the earth's atmosphere. This probably deserves further research as to what the current impact is with the hundreds (if not thousands) of satellites that are broadcasting signals as they essentially engulf the entire planet.
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May 10, 2020 - "Whose government is it?" - Dave Chapman[91]
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Comment:

Dave presents a worthy question that I don't think is rhetorical.It immediately follows four preceding questions that are certainly not rhetorical. The question that this Blog-writer has is who will consider this question? ......... The writer would like to know because these are the people he would like to dialogue with!
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March 23, 2020 -

"... The land and soil of this country is owed to Americans, not 'U.S. Citizens'. ..."[86]
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March 1, 2020 - A Book (Food Fix by Dr. Mark Hyman) Comment -

There is no doubt in my mind that "the food system" is the (burning) issue that impacts our lives in detrimental ways. This book appears to present "the foundations for the solutions." I'd very much like to see to what these "foundations" are! I invite the possibility of being gifted with the book for a careful reading plus blogging my commentary at CureZone.com.

In the video clip Mark makes brief mention of people having "a lot more power than we think" and he apparently gives three examples by saying: "we can vote with our fork ... our dollar and ... our vote." A healthy skepticism can question the effectiveness of these examples when they are considered in light of the severities of this issue plus the urgency for "change" - that Mark identifies as the need "to transform the planet in crisis." One can only wonder why this crisis exists when we have had our "forks, dollars and the vote" for longer than any individual alive today? .........

Is it possible that we need more than "our forks, dollars and the vote"? ......... Is "a lot more power than we think" something to be discovered in these three examples or does the power lie beyond these things? .........

Consider the need for personal transformation before attempting to "to transform the planet in crisis." -
We need to transform ourselves before we can effectively change a system that has entrenched itself in the American psyche virtually since the "Civil War." Our quintessential transformation goes beyond "forks, dollars and the vote." Believe it or not - "dollars" and "the vote" are actually part of the crisis! These three "examples" do not give people "a lot more power than we think." The real crisis is not revealed simply by pointing to the system - not unless that includes the historical disempowerment of the people. The crisis of the people's power is what needs to be seen before “understanding the problems and challenges we face ..."[85]
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July 2, 2019 - "We have lost our fundamental footing on the land and soil, and that precious connection with where we come from ..." -

"... Once you experience the past you know why you, a living man or woman, are part of the land and soil jurisdiction. It makes sense --- your body comes from the land and soil and returns to it after death. The ground we stand on, is the final being, home, and resting place of all our ancestors.

There is a logic, a reason, that we are part of this country, and not just this nation.

There is a reason that we are owed the Law of the Land.

It is this fundamental truth, this circumstance of Being, that all the purveyors of fantasy and the con artists in the courtrooms and the Wall Street geeks and the Producers in Hollywood are trying to avoid.

I remember my younger cousin being astonished when she learned that John Wayne was dead. 'But I just saw him yesterday at the movies.....' This is the Fake World, where the man is dead, but the image lives on. This is the world where fiction is mistaken for fact, the world where people like Henry Kissinger try to plan out the next 200 years for the rest of us.

I sometimes get grouchy because I find myself having to explain what Thomas Jefferson deemed 'self-evident'---but Thomas Jefferson lived in a different place in time. What was self-evident to him has become obscure for us now. We have lost our fundamental footing on the land and soil, and that precious connection with where we come from and what we ultimately are.

We forget where we came from and then, lose track of where we are going, ..."[68]
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Comment:

Re: "the Law of the Land" in his context includes "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God."[69]
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November 24, 2019 -

The organic movement has a deep history of decentralized, small and productive farms that are vital to economic, social, and environmental health.

But there is a false agricultural narrative creeping in. It goes something like “small farms are nice, but only big farms can feed the world. Without the efficiencies of Big Ag, people will inevitably starve.”
...

The notion of “cheap food” is used by corporations to justify chemical use, animal cruelty, pollution, low wages, sick farmworkers, and the displacement of millions of farmers off their land. But with all these side effects, should the food really be considered cheap? .........

Producers that flood the market with "cheap" food not only compromise our environmental health, but they also fail to feed people as promised. ...

It is been disturbing to see the same flawed reasoning infiltrating the organic sector.

The organic brand is witnessing the perpetuation of the same “get big or get out” myth that has infected conventional farming. This time it goes something like, “In order to feed the world cheap organic food, we must compromise organic values and standards for greater efficiencies."
...

I don’t buy it. First of all, I have seen many Real Organic farms in my travels that have scaled up and still maintain the fundamental pillars of organic farming: health, ecology, fairness, and care. There is no need to compromise our standards. These standards are what people think they are buying when they choose organic. ...

Secondly, we must address the real costs of unchecked corporate capitalism. What are the consequences of consolidated wealth, decision making, and power? What are the environmental costs of extraction, heavy inputs, and fossil fuel use? What are the costs of nutrient run-off from soluble fertilizers? What are the costs of animal confinement? Sometimes the efficiencies that consolidation can bring are not worth the social and environmental costs.

Real Organic farming is not impossible on bigger farms. But the intensive land stewardship of real organic inevitably results in the proliferation of much smaller farms than those dominating industrial agriculture today.

Soils rich in carbon are black and spongy and result from good organic practices. They absorb water when it rains and hold onto nutrients instead of allowing both to run off the farm.

Soil systems thrive when billions of interdependent diverse microbes interact. We too must foster the diversity of farms within our movement. This will prevent the consolidation of organic into the hands of the powerful few selling a false promise of cheap organic. ...[82]
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Comment:

Re: "we must address the real costs of unchecked corporate capitalism" - The quintessence of all of this is the "unchecked corporate" nature of "Big Ag" (as well as "Big" every other incorporated business). Until we the People realize and become willing to respond to the unlawful nature of the legal realities and abuses perpetrated via this form of business run-amok (largely because of the extraordinary political advantages that corporations have gained over the past four plus generations) all of "the costs" mentioned above will continue unabated.
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October 24, 2019 -

“Those of us farming organically today did not invent the concept of organic agriculture. It is a gift from 100 years of development by wise people who farmed before us. We are the beneficiaries of the intuition, experimentation, and dedicated efforts of our predecessors who were concerned with the detrimental effects on food quality caused by industrial methods. They developed the art and science of organic farming because they understood that proper nourishment of human beings only results from proper nourishment of the soil. Organic farming is best defined by the benefits of growing crops on a biologically active fertile soil. Crop resistance to pests and diseases is an outcome of farming a soil that fully nourishes the crops.” – Eliot Coleman[79]
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October 26, 2019 - Continuing With the "Gift" of Organic Agriculture.

If you were to investigate the history of organic agriculture[81] you would come to J.I. Rodale who in the early 1940s "coined the term 'Organic,' but some 20 years earlier, an Austrian anthroposophist, Rudolf Steiner, had already developed the philosophical, theoretical, and practical underpinnings of yet another holistic approach to sustainable agriculture: Biodynamics."[80]
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Comment: Therefore if we trace the beginnings (of what came to be more popularly known as "Organic") back "100 years" then we'll find - the "Agriculture" lectures of Rudolf Steiner of 1924. One might wonder whether Eliot Coleman had this course in mind when he expressed his thoughts regarding the "gift of organic agriculture."[79]
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January 12, 2020 - Healthy Soil Is Truly The Quintessential Foundation of All Biological Life! -

"What does a Real Organic Farm look like? We will have to go back to the inception of Organic Agriculture as a concept within modern agriculture. Rudolf Steiner, the founder of biodynamic agriculture, articulated this in 1924 by stating that: 'The farm can be conceived as a kind of independent individuality, a self-contained entity. Every farm ought to aspire to this state of being a self-contained individuality. This state cannot be attained completely, but it needs to be approached….'. His statement reflects the other founders of organic agriculture that this kind of agriculture is based on the fundamental principle of integrity; that everything in nature is interdependent and that the farm is a living organism. Let me share how I understand this statement.

I think of a single cell organism as an analogy for the farm as a living self-contained organism in that any organism has one or more semi-permeable membranes. Semi-permeable membranes are not designed to keep everything in and leave everything out, they discriminate what comes in and what leaves. Membranes allow the organism to have integrity. A more complex barrier to consider is the skin. Healthy skin protects animals from a wide range of environmental hazards, and each major opening of this barrier is cause for concern. If the farm is viewed like any other self-contained organism where is the analogy of a membrane or skin that ensures its integrity? Yes, it is the soil itself.

Healthy soil is like the skin in that it protects from a wide range of environmental hazards. -

Over my lifetime of working with soil I wonder if exposing the soil isn’t like breaking a skin or breaching a membrane. Leaving the soil exposed is compromising the integrity of the farm as a living self-sustaining organism. The rapid depletion of organic matter of the former prairies gave us plenty evidence that cultivation caused both massive erosion and rapid mineralization of organic matter. At the time of Manifest Destiny, the soil organic matter was around 15%. In many places this has dropped to less than 5%. Aside from the tremendous loss of soil health, this also implies the release of 260 tons of CO2 per acre into the atmosphere over the course of 150 years.

Cultivation reduces organic matter and reduces soil health in general; absence of living roots eliminates mycorrhizal activity in the soil. And absence of mycorrhizal activity reduces the ability of the soil to hold nutrients. ..."[84]
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October 9, 2019 - What is Wealth? -

"...
The original landed gentry were as wealthy as their lands were productive and their holdings expansive. Before the industrial revolution, in other words not too terribly long ago, this very basic connection was not only well understood, but it formed the basis for societal hierarchies. There were wealthy people who owned land, and there was everybody else.

The reason for this is simple; land is the source of primary wealth. Rich soils, concentrated ores, thick seams of coal near to the surface, oil, running water, and abundant fisheries are all examples of primary wealth. Today we might call this our natural resource base but once upon a time owning it was the literal difference between a life of ease and a life of hardship."[75]
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Comment:

Also: inner peace is health and health is wealth therefore inner peace is wealth as well! And love is required for inner peace therefor love is wealth as well! And gratitude is required for inner peace therefor gratitude is wealth as well!
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July 15, 2019 - “Real Organic” Standards -

1. First, for uncompromised nutritional value all crops must be grown in a biologically active, fertile soil attached to the earth and nourished by the natural biological activities of that soil. There are so many important soil processes that we could not replace even if we wanted to, because we are still unaware of all the benefits they contribute.

2. Second, soil fertility should be maintained principally with farm-derived organic matter and mineral particles from ground rock. Why take the chance of bringing in polluted material from industrial sources when fertility can be created and maintained internally?

3. Third, deep-rooting green manures, cover crops, and grazed pastures must be included within broadly based crop rotations to enhance biological diversity. The greater the variety of plants and animals on the farm, the more stable the system.

4. Fourth, a “plant positive” rather than a “pest negative” philosophy is vital. The focus must be on correcting the cause of pest problems (sick plants) by strengthening the plant through creating optimum soil conditions to prevent pests, rather than merely treating the symptom (pest damage) by trying to kill the pests that prey on weak plants. More and more scientific evidence is available today on the mechanisms by which a biologically active fertile soil creates induced resistance in the crops.

5. Fifth, livestock must be raised outdoors on grass-based pasture systems to the fullest extent possible. Farm animals are an integral factor in the symbiosis of soil fertility on the organic farm.

–Eliot Coleman[72]
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July 7, 2019 - Real Organic Project Update -

The most current message "Real Organic Project"[70] concluded with a quote that this blog-writer researched to identify the source from which he now quotes in full:

ORGANIC AGRICULTURE: SOME BASIC TENETS -
Despite the range of agricultural practices followed by organic farmers, most of them are guided by certain basic values and beliefs which may be called the "organic ethic." Some of the principal tenets of this ethic are summarized below. ...

Nature is Capital -- Energy-intensive modes of conventional agriculture place man on a collision course with nature. Present trends and practices signal difficult times ahead. More concern over finite nutrient resources is needed. Organic farming focuses on recycled nutrients.

Soil is the Source of Life Soil quality and balance (that is, soil with proper levels of organic matter, bacterial and biological activity, trace elements, and other nutrients) are essential to the long-term future of agriculture. Human and animal health are directly related to the health of the soil.

Feed the Soil, Not the Plant -- Healthy plants, animals, and humans result from balanced, biologically active soil.

Diversify Production Systems Overspecialization (monoculture) is biologically and environmentally unstable.

Independence -- Organic farming contributes to personal and community independence by reducing dependence on energy-intensive agricultural production and distribution systems.

Antimaterialism -- Finite resources and Nature's limitations must be recognized.

In summary, organic farmers seek to establish ecologically harmonious, resource-efficient, and nutritionally sound agricultural methods.[71]
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October 20, 2019 - 1200 Lobbyists in DC For Big Ag & Food Processing Industry -

"Organic farming has grown from a small, niche market to a booming, $40-billon industry that 'has been great for our rural economy, and we don’t anything interfering with that,' U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) told rally-goers. 'It is our job to make sure we preserve that brand.' Pingree, who runs an organic farm in New Haven, Maine, warned farmers what they’re up against: 'There are 1200 lobbyists on the hill that work for the agriculture and food processing industry. They spend $350 million dollars a year on forming opinions in Washington, and that is more than the defense industry.'

'So don’t underestimate their power,' she added. 'They would be very happy to have a lot of variations on "organic" to water down this brand, and the consumer will be completely confused.'"[76]
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Comment:

The "1200 lobbyists" and the "$350 million dollars a year" are not in and of themselves the real problem that needs to be dealt with. The real life problem is the ever-growing, humongous health crisis[77] that is currently consuming the nations (most especially in The U.S.A.)! One critical factor implicated in this crisis is the extent that the "foods of commerce" have displaced most all of the people's real nourishing traditional foods. Although real organic farmers need to "preserve that brand" and doing so has its benefits for the farmers and the communities they the larger arena continues to have its detrimental effects on the greater populace. The vision of this blog-writer is to: "Create another society on another foundation."[78]
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May 31, 2019 -

"... It's the reclaiming of the land --- the actual and factual world -- that I care about and value, and upon which all our lives and well-being depend. Money and credit are as nothing compared to the value of the land and the soil, the reality which gives money and credit any meaning.

Rather than endanger or muddy my claim to the land and soil, I would gladly forego any other claim, because as long as I have the land and soil, I have the basis of all wealth and happiness and security. I have the ground solid under my feet, and on that solid foundation, I can build a new world. And while the money and the credit may fail, the land and soil endure.

Thus I may be less than sophisticated, yet in my own way, wise in bringing forward the claim to the land and soil as an American State National --- one of the lowly People of this country who are owed the return of all title, all right, and all interest in the land and soil of this country."[67]
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Comment:

Most agreeable except for the "American State National" part although if that is what it truly takes for Anna's "claim to the land and soil" then so be it for her. This writer sees a distinction between the "American State National" and the "free inhabitant" who retains all of their unalienable rights to access that upon which their "lives and well-being depend." The "free inhabitant" is recognized and full acknowledges as such in the Organic Law. The "American State National" is another story (possibly a mystery) that needs to be substantiated in Law and that is in written Law. Kindly show me the Law!
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April 29, 2019 - Private Land Ownership Is Required for The "Great Ideas" -

"...Niccolo Machiavelli, in his oft-reviled but rarely read treatise on governance, 'The Prince,' advised all would-be practitioners in statecraft that a state is most secure when the property of its citizens is not threatened by the government."[65]
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Comment:
The above quote can be a reference not only for the "government" it also deserves consideration for "We The People" in all our regards for "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" (i.e. soil, organic agriculture, self-government and the blessings of Good Health). After all, isn't this largely what the Declaration of Independence and the whole American Revolution was primarily about? If you agree then do you realize that globalistic "one-world government" is contrary to these quintessential "High Ideas"?
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March 19, 2019 - A Harmonic Convergence of Microbiomes

"... In my tradition, a Feng Shui master would always inspect the soil of a property. You smell it, touch it, feel the texture, the color etc. From these you can tell masses about the health of the soil and the micro-organisms in it. Good soil is dark, crumbly and has an aroma. In my own work inspecting properties for potential buyers, I still keep this tradition even if the owner is unlikely to be a gardener. Why? Good soil around the house means that when you trample dirt into the house, it’ll be good bacteria coming in and my two decades of professional experience suggest that homes on plots with good soil are often places where the homeowners have fewer health concerns over the years. I feel it's important not just to eat fermented foods but to help the soils under our control be well-fed as our microbiome and its will harmonise over time. The war on bacteria needs to come to an end and the place that starts is in kitchen, toilets and gardens all over the world."[55]
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Comment:
Going the full distance on ending "the war on bacteria" may possibly require the reclamation of our original Self-Govenerment and in this instance this may be a great example of the integral nature of "Soil For Organic Ag, Self-Government & The Basis For Health!"
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March 9, 2019 - “The Global Warming Folks” Who Say: "Cows Cause Global Warming."

Fortunately Sally Fallon Morell has responded to "such a preposterous statement"![53]

Sally also gave attention to the plight of the small farmer:
"...Governments will encourage confinement systems of dairy and beef production so the methane can be captured and turned into natural gas. There will be lots of grants and other incentives to the corporate farms to help them do this. But the cows raised outdoors will remain targets since it’s harder for the small farmer to fight back. Look for proposals to tax grass-fed cows coming soon."

I see the urgent need for supporting “the small farmer”. The need has been apparent to me for well over the past decade since the raw milk raids under color of law with overwhelming deadly force. When our local community lost a small farm in 2011 that motivated me to enroll as a student of the Organic Laws as taught by Lawyer-professor Ed Rivera who founded the “Organic Laws Institute.”[54] I understand how it is possible to say “it’s harder for the small farmer to fight back.” This is much like “David and Goliath.” I think we would agree that today’s “Goliath”/giant/s are the most-dominant food & chemical-ag corporations.

Then there is another giant known as “government.” It will be a truly glorious day when “the small farmer” essentially re-discovers the Organic Laws and understands what each of these four most-foundational Laws say about every American’s Lawful relationship to government – especially concerning the Lawful limits to government regarding what government can tax! The only way that “the small farmer” can pay a grass-fed cow tax is essentially by voluntarily donating a self-assessed contribution – unless the farmer is milking government cows on government property. The Organic Laws positively show how this is so. Its about time that America came back home by returning to the real Law!
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February 26, 2019 - "The Gut" and "The Garden" Are Soil-Mates!

"...
Our organic farm did an experiment where radish plants were planted in soil enriched with the byproduct of the RnA ReSet Drops manufacturing process. We were not expecting anything dramatic to happen, but we were as shocked as the farmers to see a significant increase in the yields of this crop, compared to the crop that wasn't planted with the RnA ReSet Drops medium.

... why would this matter to us humans? Well, if this can happen to plant cells, imagine what it can do for your body!

Insects, worms, bacteria, and weeds are only programmed to "attack" weak, dying, or dead life forms. Humans, animals or plants are surrounded by invaders and only succumb when they are in a weakened state. So, did the RnA ReSet Drops infuse the radishes with life and energy and make them incompatible with the organisms looking to cull out the weak plants?

This experiment demonstrates:

The amazing thing that happens when food crops are fed the RnA ReSet Drops
There's more to health than what science dictates
Homeopathy and energy plays a role in healing the body

To learn about this exciting experiment, watch the video:

https://youtu.be/JYtwEN2zj-E

Aloha,

Dr. Carolyn Dean."[45]
-

The above "byproduct" is now available as "Mighty Mash." For more information go to: http://rnareferrals.refr.cc/chefdoctorjemichel
and click on "Visit RnA ReSet" and on that next page click on: "Shop" then see "Mighty Mash" in the fourth row.
-

***
March 25, 2019 - Continuing from above -

I’m helping support my local farmer. He’s also experimenting with the spent barley sprouts, which are left over from our RnA Drops production. Within a few short weeks he noted a 20% increase in crops, even though he’s already doing organic, biodynamic farming, and applying rock dust.[56]
-

***
February 24, 2019 - "Real Organic" -

...One thing is clear: Nothing is clear. The world is changing very fast, and no one knows what is going to happen next. CAFOs (large confinement livestock operations) are getting certified as organic on a massive scale and certified hydros are displacing soil growing in a number of “organic crop” categories such as berries, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers. [44]
--

Comment:
The corporate-ruled commerce of agriculture that is removing soil from agriculture is possibly the most insanely-driven impulse I know of! The present-day sacrifice of soil on the alter of commerce (what god might this alter be for?) probably has its own history, possibly traceable to the historic dustbowl of nearly a century ago. Unfortunately we don't really remember that now. Would the retelling of agricultural history make a difference? I don't think the Corps of Ag have any ears to hear of such. That won't matter if the people can recover their soil & land-based jurisdiction. Nevertheless there is still a history of the American farmer that the real organic farmers of today may appreciate and possibly be inspired by. Toward that possibility I offer the following:

Agriculture in Commerce vs. Agriculture in Trade -

“… while early American society was an agrarian society, it was last becoming more commercial, and commercial goals made their way among its agricultural classes almost as rapidly as elsewhere. The more commercial this society became, however, the more reason it found to cling in imagination to the noncommercial agrarian values.”[57]

Trade is a private transaction between unincorporated businesses and people swapping goods and services. Commerce is business conducted between fully incorporated business entities.[58]

The most significant difference between these two ways of doing business is in the relationship to external Government. In “trade” the business is completely private between the people. In commerce there is a third party governing every transaction.

Consequently there are two fundamentally different interests that can be characterized within the two ways of doing business. Incorporated entities are soul-less entities with a "bottom-line"-governing principal of profit. People and their unincorporated businesses are free to be self-governed and can harmonize through truly humanitarian principals in support of their communities.

“The yeoman, who owned a small farm and worked it with the aid of his family, was the incarnation of the simple, honest, independent, healthy, happy human being. Because he lived in close communion with beneficent nature, his life was believed to have a wholesomeness and integrity impossible for the depraved populations of cities.

His well-being was not merely physical, it was moral; it was not merely personal, it was the central source of civic virtue; it was not merely secular but religious, for God had made the land and called man to cultivate it. Since the yeoman was believed to be both happy and honest, and since he had a secure propertied stake in society in the form of his own land, he was held to be the best and most reliable sort of citizen. To this conviction Jefferson appealed when he wrote: ‘The small land holders are the most precious part of a state.’”[57]

The above Jefferson quote deserves elaboration. It was apparently penned by Jefferson in a letter to James Madison on "28 Oct. 1785"[59] It's essential to know this time-frame to understand what kind of "state" Jefferson referred to. "States" in 1785 are the soil and land-based jurisdictions of each of former Colonies that declared their Independence from the external government of Great Britain and were known as "The United States of America" (unincorporated).

“Benjamin Franklin, urban cosmopolite though he was, once said that agriculture was ‘the only honest way ‘ for a nation to acquire wealth, ‘wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, a kind of continuous miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favour, as a reward for his innocent life and virtuous industry.’”

This Franklin quote also deserves further reference.

“Among the intellectual classes in the Eighteenth Century the agrarian myth had virtually universal appeal. Some writers used it to give simple, direct, and emotional expression to their feelings about life and nature; others linked agrarianism with a formal philosophy of natural rights. The application of the natural rights philosophy to land tenure became especially popular in America. Since the time of Locke it had been a standard argument that the land is the common stock of society to which every man has a right—what Jefferson called ‘the fundamental right to labour the earth’; that since the occupancy and use of land are the true criteria of valid ownership, labor expended in cultivating the earth confers title to it; that since government was created to protect property, the property of working landholders has a special claim to be fostered and protected by the state.”

The “true criteria of valid ownership” is important element when considering the contrast between external government vs self-government since both are proprietary based.

“At first the agrarian myth was a notion of the educated classes, but by the early Nineteenth Century it had become a mass creed, a part of the country’s political folklore and its nationalist ideology. The roots of this change may be found as far back as the American Revolution, which, appearing to many Americans as the victory of a band of embattled farmers over an empire, seemed to confirm the moral and civic superiority of the yeoman, made the farmer a symbol of the new nation, and wove the agrarian myth into his patriotic sentiments and idealism.”

The idea of the early American farmer as: “a symbol of the new nation” deserves greater inclusion in our thinking regarding who all the “Founding Fathers” were!

“Still more important, the myth played a role in the first party battles under the Constitution. The Jeffersonians appealed again and again to the moral primacy of the yeoman farmer in their attacks on the Federalists.”

Another important reference that deserves inclusion here.

“The Jeffersonians, moreover, made the agrarian myth the basis of a strategy of continental development. Many of them expected that the great empty inland regions would guarantee the preponderance of the yeoman—and therefore the dominance of Jeffersonianism and the health of the state—for an unlimited future. The opening of the trails-Allegheny region, its protection from slavery, and the purchase of the Louisiana Territory were the first great steps in a continental strategy designed to establish an internal empire of small farms.”

The thought of which probably was feverishly exciting to those individuals directly engaged in this “continental strategy”. This is before great changes that occurred in the 1860s and therefore “the health of the state” most likely refers to unincorporated States of soil and land-based jurisdiction rather than foreign incorporations doing business as “State of” or as a “STATE”.

“Much later the Homestead Act was meant to carry to its completion the process of continental settlement by small homeowners. The failure of the Homestead Act ‘to enact by statute the fee simple empire’ was one of the original sources of Populist grievances, and one of the central points at which the agrarian myth was overrun by the commercial realities.”

I suspect the “overrun by the commercial realities” was finally codified and encoded as of the 1860s.

“In the very hours of its birth as a nation Crèveceur had congratulated America for having, in effect, no feudal past and no industrial present, for having no royal, aristocratic, ecclesiastical, or monarchial power, and no manufacturing class, and had rapturously concluded: ‘We are the most perfect society now existing in the world.’ Here was the irony from which the farmer suffered above all others …”

The above is an important reference regarding the original idea of freedom that was most largely agrarian supported.

“… when good times returned alter the Populist revolt of the 1890’s, businessmen and bankers and the agricultural colleges began to woo the farmer, to make efforts to persuade him to take the businesslike view of himself that was warranted by the nature of his farm operations. “The object of farming,” declared a writer in the Cornell Countryman in 1904, “is not primarily to make a living, but it is to make money. To this end it is to be conducted on the same business basis as any other producing industry.”

If the farmer’s “object of farming … is … primarily … to make money” then he is one step away from transforming his farm to another work site of a corporation.

“The final change, which came only with a succession of changes in the Twentieth Century, wiped out the last traces of the yeoman of old, as the coming first of good roads and rural free delivery, and mail order catalogues, then the telephone, the automobile, and the tractor, and at length radio, movies, and television largely eliminated the difference between urban and rural experience in so many important areas of life.”

“Radio, movies, and television” all supported by corporate interests were the deeper means of reprogramming of the agrarian culture mindset into the newly emerging homogenized society.
-

***
April 14, 2019 - "Real Organic" Agriculture Needs Consumers to Be More Fully-Informed About "Organic" CAFOs Dairy -

"... it's the nature of grass to stand in one place and the nature of cows to move about, but CAFOs make the cows stand in one place and the feed move to the cows! This insanity is only possible because of cheap oil."[62]
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***
July 21, 2019 - Worth Repeating -

"It's the nature of grass to stay in one place and the nature of cows to move about. But what we've done is make the cows stay in one place and the grass move about. How smart is that?"[73]
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***
April 7, 2019 - The Oxymoron of The Decade Called: "Organic Hydroponics." -

"...the use of herbicides is the smoking gun for 'organic hydroponics.' However, nothing about allowing hydroponic to be labeled as organic makes sense. If you accept the idea that a system of growing food totally based on inputs and totally divorced from a soil ecosystem could be called organic, then the use of herbicides is just another small step. But we don’t accept that idea in the first place."[61]
--

The above quote represents a growing systemic symptom of corruption that is inherent in large corporate/commercial food systems and which dominates another large corporate/commercial legal system that people think represents their government. The root cause of this corruption was made possible primarily by dumbing down the American people via the public education system designed by private interests to their advantage.

The antidote to the "root cause" of the "corruption" requires Individuals to be willing: to unlearn what they were taught in school and how to "think", to be willing: to face their emotional anxieties of upsetting "apple carts" and a willingness: to claim the courage to be transformed by the renewal of their mind dedicated to rediscovering true American Individualism.
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***
May 10. 2019 - Organic Standards in America Now Severely Compromised With Certification of Hydroponics -

... hydroponics CAN’T fit into the real meaning of organic. Organic farming is based on the principle of stewarding the life in the soil in order to provide superior nutrition for plants, animals, and humans. ... It is, in fact, the opposite way of farming from “conventional.” This foundation of soil stewardship is well understood in the rest of the world, as clearly defined by IFOAM (The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements). The United Arab Emirates has just joined the rest of the world in prohibiting hydroponic from being certified as organic. It is also well understood in our own law, the Organic Food Production Act. And yet, the USDA continues to be the rogue nation embracing hydroponic as organic.[66]
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***
August 4, 2019 - The Necessity to Question the Belief that: "It is our government. Can we reclaim it?" -

This quote comes from the current update by Dave Chapman of the "Real Organic Project."[74]
--

Comment:

Yesterday this blog-writer posted his inspiration for teaching the Organic Laws based on "The Four (now five) Agreements. The third agreement states: "Don't Make Assumptions." The fifth says: "Be Skeptical But Learn To Listen."The challenge in applying these agreements to conventional beliefs about government is that we were conditioned with the beliefs since early childhood long before our brains had developed the cognitive ability by which we could question these beliefs. Americans were conditioned since kindergarten to believe we had a government that was absolutely true (red white and) blue American and that this government was of, by and for the American people. Anything that said otherwise was judged as anti-American (i.e. communistic, fascist, etc.). However that prevailing condition is finally now changing with new discoveries, new disclosures, and the new insights that have been gained from investigative reporting based on dedicated independent research. "Our government" truly does need to be reclaimed however what currently exists (since at least the Lincoln administration plus some previous evidence) are foreign corporate fictions that are occupying the offices of government under color of law and that are not American and not "of, by and for" the American people! For proof of this see the articles of Anna Reitz.
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***
February 28, 2019 - The Impact of "the Whole Realm of Commerce" on All of This -

Another Very Brief History Lesson -

... In a relatively short period of time, "commerce" has exploded onto the world stage and guided by the single-minded demand for profit, has fueled a new brand of Corporate Feudalism, clearly visible in the economic polarizations that commerce has created.

Along with the explosive growth created by institutionalized gambling (insurance, commodities markets, stock exchanges, investment and brokerage houses, investment banking, bond markets, etc. are all forms of institutionalized and increasingly deregulated gambling) came another "push" to bulk up the commercial markets --- the securitization, bonding, and enfranchisement of practically everyone and everything on earth.

Commerce, by definition, is business conducted between two incorporated entities, and incorporated entities have to be sponsored and chartered by governments or enfranchised by other corporations that are sponsored by governments. All incorporated entities are "unnatural" and consist of total legal fictions, businesses created by businesses, corporations created by other corporations, and totally cut off from the realm of physical reality.

To funnel this explosive growth and keep the momentum going and to benefit themselves, the promoters of the whole realm of commerce --- the Municipal Government of Rome operated by the Roman Pontiffs -- approved the securitization, bonding, and enfranchisement of living people, and thereby reduced men to things --- commodities to be traded, corporations to be moved about and controlled and held to account like any other corporations, little bricks in the vast edifice that the Civil Municipal Government has been building. ...[46]
--

Now Focused on the "Foods of Commerce" Industry -

Based on the above quote from a master teacher (of how the world/system operates and how we can choose to not be "of" that) what Weston A. Price identified as the "foods of commerce" are in reality now virtually all the foods that fill the main isles of all the grocery stores all across the United States of America (unincorporated). These foods are manufactured for long shelf-life to minimize the loss of profits, they are manufactured with the cheapest ingredients to maximize profits and to get those they rely on mammoth mono-cropping of corn, wheat, soy using farming technologies that destroy the soil and pollute the environment. The real cost of "the foods of commerce" is un-calculatable when considering all the expenses for "making all whole" - including: restorations of soil and the environment, recovery of people's health, reimbursement of all the medical expenses, and all other expenses for related injuries, damages and losses as a consequence of destructive agriculture, industry and anything else regarding the "foods of commerce"!

The corporations that own the companies of "the foods of commerce" do not and can not care about "impact"! Corporations are soul-less entities! The fact that each corporation is referred to as a "Person" only uses the term for legal advantages and has nothing whatsoever to do with real, live, Individualized, spiritual beings who are having a human experience. "Person" is persona and the etymology traces back to "mask." In other words it is the corporate veil. There is no soul in that at all! Consequently the is no regard for living things: living soil, living plant life, living animals, the life and life-giving elements of a living environment and last but most certainly not least - living people.

However there is one thing that can be said to "live" through the corporate "Person". That also is a soulless entity that feeds on the collective mind that formed and sustains the corporation. This almost ghost-like corporate entity holds what can be referred to as "a root of all evil" which some humans realize as "the love of money."
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***
March 8, 2019 - "Food for Thought"? -

“Our food now is polluted as never before … by huge industrial interests, protected most often by governments.” -
“Terrors of the Table: The Curious History of Nutrition” By: Walter Gratzer.
-

***
March 1st, 2019 - If You Realize the All-Inclusive Impact of "Displacing Foods of Commerce" Then These Products Can Possibly Be Likened Unto "Weapons of Mass Destruction." Hold That Thought While Reading The Following -

"For countries that manufacture arms, nothing is obviously more profitable than exporting them. And that's how they are able to sell all kinds of increasingly deadly weapons to nations who could jeopardize the peace and security of the entire planet with their endless conflicts. ... On the one hand, a lot of money is made; but on the other, such profit will prove to be very costly. So much is spent trying to put an end to conflicts that break out all over the world! We must therefore also understand economics as the science of making forecasts. For a good economist, the immediate advantages do not suffice – what will happen later? And the day people realize that they have set out on a dangerous path, it is very difficult to turn back."[47]
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***
June 9, 2019 - Current Report From "Real Organic" -
Feed The Soil, Feed The Planet

Hi Chef,

We don’t get many wins with the Federal government these days. But we had one last week. USDA had been allowing the use of prohibited substances for hydroponic producers just days before certification. We stopped them from allowing glyphosate and insecticides for hydro berry operations. That means there will be a little less Roundup sprayed in America next year.

It is a small victory, but we must celebrate our wins. The bigger problems of integrity in the National Organic Program continue. Hydroponics, CAFO eggs and milk, and fraudulent imports all continue. Real Organic Project was not created as an advocacy group to reform the USDA. Perhaps that is why we were successful in this organizing effort. We were formed to create a viable add-on label that would represent real organic food to the eaters of America. Still, when we learned about the glyphosate spraying, we couldn’t ignore it.

"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'"

This was written by Anne Lamott, in her book, Bird By Bird. It is a good story to remember when we face overwhelming tasks.

The News Starts To Come Out -

I started to raise this issue of spraying prohibited chemicals in a session at EcoFarm last January. It was a panel on add-on labels that was facilitated by CCOF Executive Director, Kelly Damewood. It included Laura Batcha, Executive Director of the Organic Trade Association (OTA), Elizabeth Whitlow, Executive Director of Regenerative Organic Certification, and Paul Muller representing Real Organic Project. At the end of the panel, Laura made a statement that the NOP would NEVER permit the use of herbicides in certification. I stood up at the microphone and told her that I had reports that glyphosate WAS being permitted just weeks before receiving certification in hydroponic berries.

Her brief reply was, “If you have proof, file a complaint.” I have since gotten to hear that line a lot.

I can’t think of many examples where filing a USDA complaint led to a positive outcome. The complaint against Aurora Dairy following a front-page expose in the Washington Post led to a perfunctory USDA investigation. The sole visit to the Colorado CAFO was announced ahead of time. Unsurprisingly, the cows were on pasture THAT day.

More to the point, where was the outrage of these organic leaders at my report?

Finally, Public Outrage -

The outrage came months later, after I put out a very public letter. I wrote about meeting with Jenny Tucker (Head of NOP) and asking if such practices were being permitted by the USDA. She said yes they were permitted. The public outrage following that was so extreme that some even accused me of making the whole thing up. Some insisted that this could not be happening. In an interview with Civil Eats, Jenny Tucker claimed that she had investigated these reports with the named farms and certifiers, and that they were not following these practices. It was another failed “investigation.” Then at the Seattle NOSB meeting, Jenny stopped answering all questions relating to the issue, claiming these were all “hypothetical.” Apparently, she thought she didn’t need to answer because the certification of hydroponics was “a settled issue.”

The Americert Letter -

Recently I was able to send out compelling evidence that this spraying was, in fact, happening. A letter from the accredited certifier Americert clearly laid out that prohibited pesticides such as glyphosate had been used just prior to gaining certification in hydroponics operations, and that the USDA knew about it.

USDA Response -

The USDA responded to my last letter by immediately issuing a memo to certifiers imposing new standards on transition time for hydroponic producers. They are now requiring that hydroponic producers follow the same three year transition time required of real organic farmers. Of course, the memo simply applies the laws codified in the Organic Food Production Act. It doesn’t contain new rules. It just insists that the old rules be applied.

One of those rules (6504) states that organic crops shall “not be produced on land to which any prohibited substances, including synthetic chemicals, have been applied during the 3 years immediately preceding the harvest of the agricultural products”. So that seems clear. The only question is how they thought that this would not apply to hydroponic producers? Is that because they aren’t really organic? USDA Certified Sort Of Organic?

They also state that:

“The OFPA, Section 6502 defines a certified organic farm as ‘a farm, or portion of a farm, or site where agricultural products or livestock are produced.’”

So that would mean that greenhouses are included in this “decision”. They might not have any “land” but they are certainly sites where agricultural products are produced. Unless we can’t even call hydroponics “agriculture”.

But wait a minute. They go on to say:

“This memo clarifies that the legal requirements related to the three-year transition period
apply to all container systems built and maintained on land.

“Certifiers must consider two questions when certifying container systems:

• Eligibility: Is the land eligible for organic production?”

I’m just wondering if USDA considers greenhouse and enclosed factory production to be “land”?

Is It Clear Now? (Comment: LOL!) -

So amazingly, even the clarification isn’t entirely clear. This is not a minor question, with the prospect of hundreds of acres of conventional hydroponic greenhouse vegetables transitioning overnight to become “organic.” That is coming quickly. So please, Dr. Tucker, answer this question. Does your clarification include ALL certified organic production, or only that outside, in the fields?

The memo goes on:

“Certifiers must evaluate the compliance of the overall system, including maintaining or improving natural resources, supporting nutrient cycling, promoting ecological balance, and conserving biodiversity.

“This memo applies to all new container systems that have not yet been certified under the organic program. It is not retroactive to already certified operations and sites. All currently certified container system operations retain their certification as long as they maintain compliance with the regulations.”

Well, that first paragraph is a whopper. How is it possible for a hydroponic system to support nutrient cycling and promote ecological diversity? Is the USDA going to honestly evaluate that?

The second paragraph is a whopper as well. They have earlier said that none of this is happening. Now they are saying that yes, it has happened, and yes, it was against the law, but we are letting them keep their certification. We are giving them a mulligan. Because…???

Call To Action -

I ask that the USDA reverse this position. Make these producers go through the 3-year transition period like all other organic growers. Failing that I ask that they tell us which farms have sprayed prohibited chemicals. Don’t we, as customers, have the right to know? And which certifiers approved them in the first place?

Having written about all the problems, let us take a moment to enjoy that we won something. This is our first win of any significance since they passed the 2010 NOSB recommendation to prohibit hydroponics. It has been a long dry spell.

What Did We Win? (Comment: A Very Good Question!) -

I believe that the most important victory here isn’t the shift in USDA policy. It is still an immensely flawed policy that permits hydroponics, CAFOs and fraudulent imports. We don’t need to change the laws to fix all this. We “merely” need to enforce the laws we already have. As it turns out, that is not easy.

A respected certifier recently wrote to me:

“We always caution container folks that they are going to be required to meet ALL requirements. We certified a hydroponic grower back around 2010. I took that app because “everyone else” was doing it, so we thought we would jump in. It lasted about a year and a half and when that grower surrendered we notified NOP and the world that we would no longer certify hydroponics. When we did an audit in 2012, (a coworker) asked me why. I slid the copy of the regulations that were on the desk over towards him and said: “If NOP tells me which regulations to ignore, and which to apply when certifying hydroponic, we’ll consider it”. He quickly closed the regs, slid them back, and said we didn’t have to if we didn’t want to.

“We’ve never seen an application from anyone who even approached CAFO status – but know this – there is nothing in the new OLPP that we did not already require/look at. To us, all of the livestock requirements were already in plain view and still are.”

It really isn’t better laws that we need. It is enforcement of the good laws that already exist. Hydroponics are already forbidden. CAFOS are already forbidden. Fraudulent grain imports are already forbidden.

But who will police the police? (Comment: Another very Good Question) -

The important victory we won last week is the coming together of the organic community. As we wake up from our trance of helplessness against the power of the government/corporate alliance, we remember that the government only functions with our permission, and the corporations only thrive with our support. We do have choices that we can make. This conversation has been going on all of our lives, and it will continue much longer than we will. Unless we fail so badly that there are no people, corporations, or governments left.

The Real Organic Project is thriving with your support. Our certification program for our add-on label is growing splendidly. Linley inspected 12 farms last week. Applications are coming in a steady stream now. And so are donations. Our thanks to all of you who are being so generous. Our special thanks to the two large donors in the last two weeks. One angel donor made such a large and generous anonymous donation two weeks ago. But to all of you, large or small, your donations make our work possible. We are building a new system, and we don’t want the foundation of this movement to be the backs of the farmers. They are already carrying enough weight.

Please share this letter with your friends. I apologize for the lawyerly details, but such is government policy. To help create the change, please sign our petition to take back organic.

Dave
--
Dave Chapman
Executive Director / dave@realorganicproject.org
Get Emails from the Real Organic Project
Real Organic Project / realorganicproject.org

“...the way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world. Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds.” -Michael Pollan, Omnivore’s Dilemma

http://www.RealOrganicProject.org
The Real Organic Project has been created to help educate and connect those who care about organic farming.

Our mission is to grow people’s understanding of traditional organic values and practices. Our first goal is to create an add-on label to USDA certified organic to provide more transparency on organic farming practices.
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March 7, 2019 - Reclaiming Soil-Based Jurisdiction For Original Self-Government in Each American State -

In 1980 I shared a Mother Earth article by Eddie Albert regarding "civilization rests on topsoil"[52] in classes that I taught in Chicago. Now, thirty-nine years later I see additional insights that can update the original message presented by the famous "Green Acres" actor.

Many of us have come to realize that "the problems of food and soil" mentioned by Albert can now be directly traced to a seemingly unquenchable greed among the dominant mega "foods of commerce" corporate industries that direct the present agricultural state throughout the USA. We now know the truth that the legal fiction known as "Corporate Personhood" was fraudulently assumed to gain a politically recognized status that operates above the real life status of the people by usurping power and authority over people, as well as their soil and land plus the soil and land-based jurisdiction that used to be exercised via their unincorporated States.

Fortunately there is a remedy to the above stated legal fraud and all the subsequent usurpation. The remedy is for the people to reclaim their land and soil-based jurisdiction in each of their original geographically defined unincorporated States and then recall the corporate charters on each corporation that has caused injury to people and the soils of their respected States. The process of reclaiming the land and soil-based jurisdiction is straight forward. However there is another process for each individual before it is possible to reclaim the original State jurisdiction. The individual needs to learn and make a personal status correction. One place that I can recommend for this learning process is the blog by Paul Stramer.

Following here is an article link that includes the subject matter of reclaiming "land and soil-based jurisdiction in each of their original geographically defined unincorporated States.":
http://www.paulstramer.net/2019/01/for-all-jural-assemblies.html
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April 1, 2019 - An Example For "People To Reclaim Their Land and Soil-based Jurisdiction" -

Anna Von Reitz - I have already completely explained that the soil jurisdiction is what belongs to the "Republics"-- all of them including Texas. The Wisconsin Republic occupies the soil of Wisconsin, The Maine Republic occupies the soil of Maine, and guess what? The Texas Republic occupies the soil of Texas.

The "soil" as defined in law, is the top six inches of the land. That is what The Texas Republic controls.

The "land" is everything underlying the soil. Texas controls that.

Obviously you have to have both land and soil together or you can't control one or you can't live on the other--- take your pick.

So, The Texas Republic owns the Soil and Texas owns the Land. The Republic controls the nation and Texas controls the international relations of the nation.

Since we are talking here, with regard to the American States Assembly, about international relations with everyone outside of Texas, we are talking about the State level--- Texas, and not talking about the soil jurisdiction inside the borders of The Texas Republic.[60]
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March 6, 2019 - Digging Deeper in History to Grok The Bigger Picture! -

"... previously undescribed stable isotope determinations of charred cereals and pulses from 13 Neolithic sites across Europe (dating ca. 5900-2400 cal B.C.), which show that early farmers used livestock manure and water management to enhance crop yields. Intensive manuring inextricably linked plant cultivation and animal herding and contributed to the remarkable resilience of these combined practices across diverse climatic zones."[48]
--------

Comment: It's apparent that "early farmers" had a much greater understanding and value for soil and how to rebuild it then any modern day hydroponic grower.
-------

"Agriculture began in the Fertile Crescent more than 11,000 years ago."[49]
------

Comment: Agriculture is most certainly land and soil based and always has been for well-over 11,000 years! In truth Hydroponics is a modern day science experiment and not really agriculture. Agriculture is a source of civilization as well as culture. Hydroponics is totally impotent in this regards.
-----

"Domestication of cattle and the subsequent advent of cow’s milk as a source of nutrition was integral to the growth and expansion of human societies."[49]
----

Comment: Hydroponics is incapable of producing "a source of nutrition" that is anywhere near that of real milk and its capacity to sustain human societies.
---

Eddie Arnold’s Mother Earth News article[51] popped into my awareness and in my search for that I found a heap more:

Soil Quotes -
“The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”– Franklin D. Roosevelt (I included this one for my professor friend who has one of the highest regards for Roosevelt of anyone I know. However I have to say that although FDR didn't destroy the soil he did come mighty close to destroying the nation.)

“Upon this handful of soil our survival depends”-- Sanskrit text,1500 BC (this is the first quote that I had searched for that then led me to this "heap.")
  
“While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.”– Thomas Jefferson (I wonder if Eddie was quoting Tom.)

“To be a successful farmer one must first know the nature of the soil.”– Xenophon

“Despite all our achievements we owe our existence to a six-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains” — Farm equipment association of Minnesota and South Dakota

“I can’t imagine anything more important than air, water, soil, energy and biodiversity. These are the things that keep us alive.”– David Suzuki

“If we pollute the air, water and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.”– David Suzuki

“If the soil is destroyed, then our liberty of action and choice are gone …”– W.C. Lowdermilk

“Soils are the basis of life, ninety five percent of our food comes from the soil.” –Maria-Helena Semedo

“Almost all other issues are superficial by comparison to soil loss. So why don’t we talk about it?”–George Monbiot

“War and pestilence might kill large numbers of people, but in most cases the population recovers. But lose the soil and everything else goes with it.”–George Monbiot

“Soil is an almost magical substance, a living system that transforms the materials it encounters”–George Monbiot  
  
“Whatever is affixed to the soil belongs to the soil”– Anglo-Saxon Law

“Essentially, all life depends upon the soil”– Charles E. Kellogg

“There can be no life without soil and no soil without life; they have evolved together.”– Charles E. Kellogg

“Civilization has its roots in the soil.”– Charles E. Kellogg

“Soil organic matter sustains agriculture, which sustains civilization”– Rattan Lal
Soil organic matter generates and regulates every ecosystem service that sustains life on earth”– Rattan Lal

“Nowhere in nature are species so densely packed as in soil communities.”–FAO

“Healthy soils are the basis to healthy food production”–FAO

“Soils store and filter water improving our resilience to floods and droughts”–FAO

“… the Latin name for man, homo, derived from humus, the stuff of life in the soil.”– Daniel Hillel

“so commonplace and seemingly abundant are soils that we tend to treat them contemptuously”– Daniel Hillel

“There is nothing in the whole nature which is more important or deserves as much attention as the soil. Truly it is the soil which nourishes and provides for the whole nature, the whole of creation depends on the soil, which is the ultimate foundation of our existence”.–Friedrich Albert Fallon – German scientist, 1862

“Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us.”–Theodore Roosevelt

“Soils are developed; they are not merely an accumulation of debris resulting from decay of rock and organic materials … In other words, a soil is an entity — an object in nature which has characteristics that distinguish it from all other objects in nature.”–C.E.Millar & L.M.Turk

“A cloak of loose, soft material, held to the earth’s hard surface by gravity, is all that lies between life and lifelessness.”–Wallace H. Fuller

“We are strong in terms of tillage, but weak in terms of fertility.”– Woody Tasch

“We have less and less organic matter, and fewer and fewer people who know what it feels, smells or tastes like.”– Woody Tasch

“We are overlooking soil as the foundation of all life on earth”– Andres Arnalds

“Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals.”–Aldo Leopold

“To understand the birds, you must first understand the plants.  To understand the plants, you must first understand the soil“–William H. Drury[50]
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Comment: In 1980 I returned to Chicago (after my initial time in California since early '78) with the intent of teaching the newest knowledge I had gathered regarding practical nutrition which was my top interest when I had left Chicago in my uncle's "big yellow taxi" (without the meter running ; ~ ). When I came across the Mother Earth News article by Eddie Arnold in Chicago I made photocopies and included it with my other materials for my classes in indoor gardening. The ideal was to include a soil mix in trays using compost made in barrels (possibly kept in the basement). Although I didn't achieve the ideal some good seeds were sowed through the presentations and classes that I was able to create at a couple locations. Now the information for home-based methods for composting is readily available everywhere via the internet but in 1980 that really did not exist for people. The live presentations naturally held certain excitement for me whereas I can't say I feel any excitement about blogging. However no matter how many classes I could possibly teach I'm reasonably sure i couldn't have reached the numbers of people that see this and my other blogs here at CureZone. I just don't have a real good idea of the actual extent that "good seeds" are being sown anywhere. That's the downside of working with "a virtual reality."
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February 3, 2019 - "Real Organic" Update -

"... California has been the epicenter of support for certifying hydro as organic. The last time I was in California I was attending the USDA Hydroponic Task Force meeting in San Diego, where the hydro proponents outnumbered the soil advocates two to one. How strange to have soil advocates as a minority in a discussion about the meaning of organic.

The three organizations that pushed hydroponics through the USDA are strong in California. They are CCOF (California Certified Organic Farmers), OTA (Organic Trade Association), and the Coalition For Sustainable Organics (created for the sole purpose of promoting hydro in organic). The common thread between these three organizations is Driscoll’s, which is a major supporter of each. Most dismaying of these three was CCOF, which had always been highly respected in the Northeast. Seven years ago they were even heroes to us. When they came out in support of certifying hydro, it broke our hearts. How could this be? ..."[40]
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Comment: Real Organic Agriculture needs direct connection with the soil in two distinct ways. -

The first need is for the soil is for all that is planted and grown in the soil and/or raised on pasture. The second need (that fully supports the first need) is for the original freedom that is the birthright of every American farmer, grower, rancher, etc. (as well as the rest of the American people) that is the fruit of our Unalienable Rights to Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness! This freedom (that this writer asserts as a "second need" for soil) is declared in the first Organic Law and is further developed in the second Organic Law. Do you know what the first and second Organic Laws are? ......... If not and if you are an American you need to know. The first two Organic Laws are soil-based.

Original/Organic American Law is based on the American soil and land. In Law the soil is the top six inches of the land and the land is everything underneath the soil. We are born on the soil of the state. I was born on the soil of Michigan state. State soil is the original foundation for our self-government. This was clear and well known for the first (approximately) 88 years of the existence of The United States of America. The event known as the "Civil War" confused our original jurisdiction. The confusion was accomplished via the "States" of the states that were compelled to adopt Federal Government State Constitutions that essential declare a Federal State/franchise. The soil-based jurisdiction (as the basis for our independent self-government in full respect to our original freedom) began to be ignored as the collective government known as the "United States" began expanding toward a complete Federalization that continued into the 20th century.

However, a full return to our soil-based jurisdiction has begun! Our complete return to true self-government (as per the first two Organic Laws) will allow us to finally let go of what amounts to as a foreign government substitution as well as all the alphabet agencies that have been increasingly oppressive to American farmers and which many organic farmers have become most aware of. The unwarranted attacks on several small family farmers as of about ten years ago is what originally inspired me to become a student of the Organic Laws as taught by the leading professor of American Law: Dr. Ed Rivera.
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February 4, 2019 - More "Soil-Based Jurisdiction" -

... The jurisdiction of the people/People on the land and soil of their States is absolute, unincorporated, and sovereign. The unincorporated County and State Court Juries established by your unincorporated County and State Jural Assemblies have the ability to nullify any corporate statute, rule, or regulation, any "Federal Code" and can keep these foreign statutes and codes from being applied to any of the people of this country. ....[41]
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Comment: I'd like to have a fully-funded "advertising budget" to blanket the billboards throughout every small family farming community with the above quoted message plus a great artistic illustration of a farmer kicking federal "butt" off the "land and soil" and out of the "County and State"!
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February 11, 2019 - "The National Jurisdiction: Soil" - By Anna Von Reitz -

In our discussion of the American Government that we are heir to, we identified three "unions" of various kinds of "states" that existed long prior to the creation of the Federal Government.

They were and are:

The United States -- a union of soil jurisdiction "landed (e)states" formed by the former colonies via Unanimous Declaration issued July 1, 1776, published July 4, 1776. This is our "national jurisdiction". Each state has defined geographical boundaries.

The United States of America - a federation of Land Jurisdiction States formed September 9, 1776 for the purpose of joint operations in international jurisdiction, including the international land and sea jurisdictions. This is our international jurisdiction. Each State has defined geographical boundaries.

The States of America -- a confederation of inchoate "States of States" formed under The Articles of Confederation, March 1, 1781, for the purpose of conducting the business of the States in global commercial jurisdiction. These "Federal States of States" have no defined geographical boundaries and exist only on paper. (These are the "Missing" Federal States of States.)

Please note --- all this is our American Government, which existed prior to and which created the Federal Government as an "instrumentality" to provide services to the States and People of this country.

Let's look briefly at our "national jurisdiction" --- the soil jurisdiction of each state in The United States. ...[43]
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Comment: Found this article greatly helpful in finally clarifying a personal question that this author held for long enough.
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February 8, 2019 -

The United States (soil) and The United States of America (land). - Note the capital "T"[42] -
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The above is the quintessential crystallization of the original jurisdiction for our own American Self-Government! "Soil" is the top six inches of the land and where most farming activity occurs however that needs the support of all the rest of the land underneath! Therefor these two go together in both farming and in Lawful jurisdiction.
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October 21, 2018 - YouTube Video[33]

Well done video featuring Dave Chapman and Eliot Coleman[34] who both deeply know what real organic agriculture is and how hydroponics produces (what Eliot calls) "virtual vegetables".

Dave mentioned two books by Sir Albert Howard[35] as references for the start of the Organic Movement supposedly in 1940. (Apparently his first book was published in England, 1940 and the first American edition, 1945)[35]

Howard has been referred to as the father of organic agriculture however Biodynamics[36] is most certainly either the mother or the grandfather!
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October 28, 2018 - Another YouTube Video - Organic Insider Max Goldberg says is: "MY MOST IMPORTANT INTERVIEW EVER"!

"... I had the rare opportunity to ask USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue why the USDA is allowing this (the very controversial hydroponics in organic), even though the law states that farmers must have a plan that 'fosters soil fertility.'[39]

Sonny gives a completely lame reply to the first questioned posed to him! The question was regarding the conflict of hydroponics being certified as organic when the organic standard clearly requires (in the Organic Foods Production Act) the cultivating the soil. Sonny's reply avoided addressing that conflict altogether and instead said the USDA is about feeding people. "Our motto at the USDA its do right and feed everyone ... not only in the US but around the world". This is another example of a governmental entity expanding its authorized mandate beyond the lawful limits that was originally prescribed at its inception! Sonny went on to say: "It shouldn't be competitive ... Shouldn't we in the United States be about how we can grow and feed people more effectively and more efficiently not only in the uS but around the world?" So these technologies need to be embraced not kept out of. The organic industry has done a wonderful job fifty billion dollars! I would be welcome if they would embrace other techniques as well in order to help feed others".[38]
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October 22, 2018 - Scorecard for the National Organic Standards Board Members -

"... The Cornucopia Institute just announced their biannual update to the NOSB member voting scorecard. Cornucopia, which acts as a corporate and governmental watchdog, has long claimed that the intent of Congress to develop a broad-based stakeholder platform has been legally undermined under both Democratic and Republican administrations. 'The board has been stacked with corporate members of the industry lobby group, the Organic Trade Association, and that has reflected in the erosion of scores by individual members over the last four and a half years,' said (Mark) Kastel.

In ranking NOSB members, Cornucopia uses the consensus position of the nonprofit public interest groups that engage with the board through written comments and oral testimony.

'There is a sharp divide on the board. It used to be evenly split among farmers, representatives advocating on behalf of the public, and corporate players,' continued Kastel. 'Today, lobbyists and influence peddlers are eroding organic standards on behalf of agribusinesses that have invested in the organic industry.'

Kastel further opined, 'Just like federal law bans the use of sewage sludge in organic food production, the NOSB was supposed to be a buffer insulating organic rulemaking from the stench of politics as usual in Washington. One of our goals is to restore the power Congress vested in this body to protect the true integrity of the organic label.'”[37]
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December 7, 2017 -

"Building soil fertility, a foundational principle of organic farming, would benefit from having numerous small pasture-based dairies spread across the land providing fresh unprocessed milk. Agricultural universities and the Cooperative Extension System could seize a real leadership opportunity by promoting and participating in this reinvention of dairy farming, and restoring the ecology of this traditional food and farming system."[22]
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September 8, 2018 - People Don’t Want To Buy Hydroponic -

"What has happened is that the hydroponic producers have realized that people don’t want to buy hydroponic. That’s not what people are looking for when they go to buy organic. And the producers also realized that hydroponic was illegal. It was against the rules of OFPA. And they also realized that it was against the 2010 NOSB recommendation that clearly said hydro should not be allowed.

So their solution was to say, 'Organic is what we say it is.' They decided they’re not hydroponic producers! They are 'container' producers. They invented this term called 'containerized' growing. And it’s actually just hydroponic production. They just came up with a new name for it. It was pretty brilliant. So instead of an honest discussion, we got into an enormously confused debate where some people on the NOSB were saying, 'I don’t know. I guess they’re not hydroponic.'"[31]
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March 7, 2018 - The Real Organic Project - These American organic farmers have a spirit that can be likened unto the "Spirit of '76"!

We are hard at work on the simple standards that will define our organic add-on label. In three weeks our fifteen-person Standards Board will come together in Vermont from around the country to create the provisional standards. We will send out an update after that meeting to describe progress on the upcoming pilot project.

This Saturday (Dave Chapman) will be giving the keynote address at the NOFA CT Winter Conference in Danbury. (He) will talk about why the Real Organic Project was formed, and what we hope to accomplish in the coming years.

Please join (Dave) if you can make it. We will be showing the short film of The Rallies to Protect Organic[25] at the beginning of the talk. Sign up for the NOFA conference or to stream the keynote.

Campaign: “Just Ask” -
One of the programs we are most excited about is the “Just Ask” campaign, urging eaters all over the country to ask the staff where they shop whether the certified organic tomatoes and berries offered are hydroponic or are they real organic grown in the soil. And eaters will ask if the eggs and meat and milk came from CAFOs or from farms where the animals got real access to pasture every day.
 
The “Just Ask” campaign has the same goal as the current effort from Cornucopia Institute to Demand Real Organic Food From Real Organic Farmers.[26] Cornucopia wants all organic eaters to send them a card asking major retailers to offer genuine organic choices. If we speak up, the stores will respond. Please visit them and support this campaign.

There has been a flurry of articles about the Real Organic Project:
 
Modern Farmer:
The Real Organic Project: Disgusted With the USDA, Farmers Make Their Own Organic Label
 
IEG Policy:
Organic farmers launch effort for add-on label after disappointing NOSB actions
 
Agri-Pulse:
Organic purists hatching an auxiliary label
 
Organic Farmers Association:
Organic Farmers Write Letter to Secretary Perdue

Finally, we have had a few more people join the Real Organic Advisory Board since my 2/16 letter. We are very proud of many voices that have come together to support us.

Anne Bickle & David Montgomery are Dig2Grow, a husband & wife and a pair of writers who live in Seattle. Dave is a broad-minded geologist and Anne is a free-range biologist with a bad case of plant lust. They chose Dig2Grow because “that’s what happens when you write, talk, and act on things that matter to the well-being of people and our one-and-only planet.”

They both speak widely on the complex world of soil, plants, and animals. They have become champions for the revolution of regenerative agriculture taking place worldwide.

David is a professor of geomorphology at the University of Washington. He is also a MacArthur Fellow. Anne is a biologist with wide-ranging interests that have led her into watershed restoration, environmental planning, and public health.

David has written Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life and Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations. Anne and David co-wrote the book The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health.

Maddie Kempner is the Policy Director of NOFA VT. Maddie worked with the VT Right to Know GMOs Coalition to help pass Vermont’s GMO labeling law. Maddie is passionate about advocating for positive food and farm policy change. She has a Master of Environmental Law and Policy from Vermont Law School. Active in the movement to Keep The Soil In Organic, Maddie has spoken at Rallies in both Vermont and Jacksonville, Florida. She has testified numerous times to the NOSB to protect organic integrity.

Zoë Ida Bradbury. Born onto a sheep ranch along the southern Oregon coast, Zoë grew up birthing lambs in the spring, watching salmon spawn in the fall, and taming plums and tomatoes into canning jars all summer. Her love for food, farming and rural livelihood ultimately lured her back to her native southern Oregon where she has run a diversified fresh market farm — Valley Flora — since 2008, on land shared with her mother and sister.

With her two young daughters in tow, she cultivates a couple hundred varieties of vegetable, berry, fruit, herb and flower crops for local restaurants, foodbanks, farmstand, u-pick, and 100+ CSA shares (all with the help of one old electric tractor, one young diesel tractor, three draft horses, and a couple of wonderful employees).

She graduated from Stanford University and has a masters degree in Community Change and Food Systems. She is a Food & Society Policy Fellow, has written for a number of publications over the years, and co-edited Greenhorns: 50 Dispatches from the New Farmers’ Movement.

Steve Ela is a farmer from Colorado. He is co-owner of Ela Family Farms, which has been certified organic since 1996. He is a current member of the National Organic Standards Board. He was an Organic Farming Research Foundation board member from 2001–2011 and previous OFRF board Chairman.

Steve has been an organizer for several National Organic Tree Fruit Research Symposiums and has participated in and written grants for numerous research projects. Steve has a Master’s in Soil Science, and has served on a wide variety of Boards and Advisory Committees addressing food and agriculture issues nationally, regionally, and locally.

Mary Ellen Chadd started Green Spark Farm in 2009 and now farms full-time year-round with her husband and two little daughters. Mary Ellen attended Evergreen State College majoring in Ecological Agriculture and Community Food Systems.

Before starting her farm in her home-town area in Maine, she worked with the New American Sustainable Agriculture Project there, writing curriculum and training refugees and new Americans in farming systems, marketing for farmers, and farm business planning.

She contributes to the new farmer community by speaking at MOFGA classes and events. Her farm has employed and mentored six young farmers who have gone on to start their own farm businesses.

Will Allen grew up on a small farm in Southern California. He served in the Marine Corps. Will earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1968, studying tropical forest farmers in Peru. Will taught at the University of Illinois and later at the University of California.

He began farming organically in the Santa Barbara area in 1968. He founded Ganesha Growers in 1977 and was one of the first organic farmers in the San Joaquin Valley. He served on the board of California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and helped write the first organic handbook for CCOF. He served on the board and conference committee of the Ecological Farming Association for a dozen years. Will founded the Sustainable Cotton Project (SCP) in 1990 to help farmers learn how to grow organic cotton, convince garment makers to use organic fibers, and reduce farmworker pesticide injuries. SCP convinced Patagonia, Esprit, Levis, Marks and Spencer, Nike, and other garment makers to use organic fibers.

In 2000, he took over the management of Cedar Circle Farm, in East Thetford, Vermont along with his wife Kate Duesterberg. Their activist efforts resulted in the creation of a coalition for labeling GMO products in Vermont. They were successful, and Vermont became the first state in the US to pass a GMO labeling law in 2014. In 2016, Will transitioned his focus to co-found a new non-profit organization called Regeneration Vermont. The goal of Regeneration Vermont is to redirect Vermont agriculture toward regenerative methods that protect and enhance the natural environment, produce healthy food products, provide economic justice to farmers and farm workers, promote animal welfare, and implement climate change remediation through an understanding of, and commitment to, healthy, living soils. Will serves as the Research Director for the organization.
 
Will’s first book, The War on Bugs, was published by Chelsea Green in 2008.

Kate Duesterberg received a Master’s Degree from Southern Illinois University in Community Development & Ag Economics. Since graduate school, Kate has worked to promote local, organic farming – from the perspective of policy advocate, community organizer, institutional change advocate, and farm manager. She started her activist career as Sustainable Agriculture program coordinator at Illinois Stewardship Alliance and then at Rural Vermont, two NGOs working to promote sustainable farming. Kate worked at the University of Vermont (UVM), where she helped establish the UVM Center for Sustainable Agriculture. A major focus was to organize programs to help farmers and agricultural professionals (Extension, NRCS, Department of Agriculture) learn about sustainable and organic farming techniques, calling upon experienced farmers as teachers. Kate also worked with the Women’s Agricultural Network at UVM and the Sustainable Cotton Project in California as managing director.

Since 2000, Kate has co-managed Cedar Circle Farm in East Thetford, Vermont. In 2016, Kate, Will, and their partner Michael Colby founded a new non-profit organization called Regeneration Vermont. The goal of Regeneration Vermont is to redirect Vermont agriculture toward regenerative methods that protect and enhance the natural environment, produce healthy food products, provide economic justice to farmers and farm workers, promote animal welfare, and implement climate change remediation through an understanding of — and commitment to — healthy, living soils.

If you enjoy this newsletter, perhaps you'd like to share it with your friends by sending them to www.realorganicproject.org and inviting them to give us their email address.
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May 22, 2018 - A Comment (that apparently can't get posted at SierraClub because they require a FaceBook sign up).

The full function of soil cannot be imitated, substituted, let alone replaced by soilless agriculture(sic) systems no matter how all those isolated chemicals may appear to add up. Soil life is much more than chemicals!

Soil is not only the foundational basis for growing vegetables (of which some appear to also be grown in the other systems) it is The Only Means for growing pastures that are the long-standing ecologically appropriate source of food for all ruminant animals which is Nature's way for increasing soil fertility.

The irrefutable fact of this irreplaceable source for animals as well as all the other plant species that can not be converted onto "other systems" - plus the fact that the history of Organic Agriculture began with the awareness of the need for healing the soil - altogether places greater urgency toward supporting traditional organic agriculture along with having that form of "Organic" clearly identified as such rather than confused with a totally separate and dubious "alternative" to traditional soil-based agriculture.

The other soilless path can have their own label rather than tag along on the mission trail (that has been blazed by real dirt farmers and growers) that includes a steady stream of earth healers who actually work with the earth matter known as soil![29]
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May 11, 2018 - Something/s Rising! -

Got a reply from Robert Slovak [in reply to my second (duplicate) inquiry regarding the status of the Purist water purification system that we have and that a friend wanted further information on] and this activated a new conversation regarding Robert's latest more advanced water system. Later he referred me to Dr. August Dunning's presentation on our health crisis (at YouTube). Also Robert referred (in part) to the following Senate Report:

Senate Document #264

Document #264 -
Presented by Rex Beach, June 1936 -
United States GPO -
Washington, D.C., 1936 -

[This document is reproduced here in its entirety from a copy obtained from the United States Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C. Some editorial comments have been added and some text bolded for emphasis. All editorial comments are placed within brackets and italicized for identification. Senate Document 264 was written in 1936, and submitted as part of a Congressional investigation into U.S. farming practices. The leading authorities of the day had been sounding the alarm that depleted soils were causing a significant decline in the nation's health, evidenced by a steady increase in degenerative diseases. But when Congress saw the price tag on repairing the nation's farm and range soils, they swept their own investigation under the carpet. Please take the time to read this entire document if you want to know the real reason for disease. The understanding of the problem is the beginning of the solution.]

INTRODUCTION -
"Concerning Dr. Charles Northen: "This quiet, unballyhooed pioneer and genius in the field of nutrition demonstrates that countless human ills stem from the fact that impoverished soil of America no longer provides plant foods with the mineral elements essential to human nourishment and health! To overcome this alarming condition, he doctors sick soils and, by seeming miracles, raises truly healthy and health-giving fruits and vegetables." - Rex Beach

Do you know that most of us today are suffering from certain dangerous diet deficiencies which cannot be remedied until the depleted soils from which our foods come are brought into proper mineral balance? The alarming fact is that foods, fruits and vegetables and grains, now being raised on millions of acres of land that no longer contain enough of certain needed minerals, are starving us - no matter how much of them we eat! This talk about minerals is novel and quite startling. In fact, a realization of the importance of minerals in food is so new that the textbooks on nutritional dietetics contain very little about it. Nevertheless, it is something that concerns all of us, and the further we delve into it the more startling it becomes.

You would think, wouldn't you, that a carrot is a carrot - that one is about as good as another as far as nourishment is concerned? But it isn't; one carrot may look and taste like another and yet be lacking in the particular mineral element which our system requires and which carrots are supposed to contain. Laboratory tests prove that the fruits, the vegetables, the grains, the eggs, and even the milk and the meats of today are not what they were a few generations ago (which doubtless explains why our forefathers thrived on a selection of foods that would starve us!). No man of today can eat enough fruits and vegetables to supply his system with the minerals he requires for perfect health, because his stomach isn't big enough to hold them! And we are running to big stomachs.

No longer does a balanced and fully nourishing diet consist merely of so many calories or certain vitamins or a fixed proportion of starches, proteins, or carbohydrates. We now know that it must contain, in addition, something like a score of mineral salts. [We now know that the number is closer to four score.]

It is bad news to learn from our leading authorities that 99 percent of the American people are deficient in these minerals, and that a marked deficiency in any one or more of the important minerals actually results in disease. Any upset of the balance, any considerable lack of one or another element, however microscopic the body requirement may be, and we sicken, suffer, shorten our lives.

This discovery is one of the latest and most important contributions of science to the problem of human health. So far as the records go, the first man in the field of research, the first to demonstrate that most human foods of our day are poor in minerals and that their proportions are not balanced, was Dr. Charles Northen, an Alabama physician now living in Orlando, Florida. His discoveries and achievements are of enormous importance to mankind.

Following a wide experience in general practice, Dr. Northen specialized in stomach diseases and nutritional disorders. Later he moved to New York and made extensive studies along this line, in conjunction with a famous French scientist from the Sorbonne. In the course of that work, he convinced himself that there was little authentic, definite information on the chemistry of foods and that no dependence could be placed on existing data.

He asked himself how foods could be used intelligently in the treatment of disease, when they differed so widely in content. The answer seemed to be that they could not be used intelligently. In establishing the fact that serious deficiencies existed and in searching out the reasons therefore, he made an extensive study of the soil. It was he who first voiced the surprising assertion that we must make soil building the basis of food building in order to accomplish human building.

Bear in mind,says Dr. Northen, that minerals are vital to human metabolism and health - and that no plant or animal can appropriate to itself any mineral which is not present in the soil upon which it feeds.

When I first made this statement I was ridiculed, for up to that time, people had paid little attention to food deficiencies and even less to soil deficiencies. Men eminent in medicine denied there was any such thing as vegetables and fruits that did not contain sufficient minerals for human needs. Eminent agricultural authorities insisted that all soil contained all the necessary minerals. They reasoned that plants take what they need, and that is the function of the human body to appropriate what it requires. Failure to do so, they said, was a symptom of disorder.

Some of our respected authorities even claimed that the so-called secondary minerals played no part whatever in human health. It is only recently that such men as Dr. McCollum of Johns Hopkins, Dr. Mendel of Yale, Dr. Sherman of Columbia, Dr. Lipman of Rutgers, and Drs. H.G. Knight and Oswald Schreiner of the United States Department of Agriculture have agreed that these minerals are essential to plant, animal, and human feeding.

We know that vitamins are complex chemical substances which are indispensable to nutrition, and that each of them is of importance for the normal function of some special structure of the body. Disorder and disease result from any vitamin deficiency. It is not commonly realized, however, that vitamins control the body's appropriation of minerals, and in the absence of minerals they have no function to perform. Lacking vitamins, the system can make some use of minerals, but lacking minerals, vitamins are useless.

Neither does the layman realize that there may be a pronounced difference in both foods and soils - to him one vegetable, one glass of milk, or one egg is about the same as another. Dirt is dirt, too, and he assumes that by adding a little fertilizer to it, a satisfactory vegetable or fruit can be grown.

The truth is that our foods vary enormously in value, and some of them aren't worth eating as food. For example, vegetation grown in one part of the country may assay 1,100 parts per billion of iodine, as against 20 in that grown elsewhere. Processed milk has run anywhere from 362 parts per million of iodine and 127 of iron, down to nothing.

Some of our lands, even in a virgin state, never were well balanced in mineral content, and unhappily for us, we have been systematically robbing the poor soils and the good soils alike of the very substances necessary to health, growth, long life, and resistance to disease. Up to the time I began experimenting, almost nothing had been done to make good the theft. The more I studied nutritional problems and the effects of mineral deficiencies upon disease, the more plainly I saw that here lay the most direct approach to better health, and the more important it became in my mind to find a method of restoring those missing minerals to our foods.

The subject interested me so profoundly that I retired from active medical practice and for a good many years now I have devoted myself to it. It's a fascinating subject, for it goes to the heart of human betterment."

The results obtained by Dr. Northen are outstanding. By putting back into the foods the stuff that foods are made of, he has proved himself to be a real miracle man of medicine, for he has opened up the shortest and most rational route to better health.

He showed first that it should be done, and then that it could be done.
He doubled and redoubled the natural mineral content of fruits and vegetables.
He improved the quality of milk by increasing the iron and the iodine in it.
He caused hens to lay eggs richer in the vital elements.
By scientific soil feeding, he raised better seed potatoes in Maine, better grapes in California, better oranges in Florida and better field crops in other states. (By "better" is meant not only improvement in food value but also an increase in quality and quantity.)

Before going further into the results he has obtained, let's see just what is involved in this matter of "mineral deficiencies," what it may mean to our health, and how it may affect the growth and development, both mental and physical, of our children. We know that rats, guinea pigs and other animals can be fed into a diseased condition and out again by controlling only the minerals in their food.

A 10-year test with rats proved that by withholding calcium they can be bred down to a third the size of those fed with an adequate amount of that mineral. Their intelligence, too, can be controlled by mineral feeding as readily as can their size, their bony structure, and their general health.

Place a number of these little animals inside a maze after starving some of them in a certain mineral element. The starved ones will be unable to find their way out, whereas the others will have little or no difficulty in getting out. Their dispositions can be altered by mineral feeding. They can be made quarrelsome and belligerent; they can even be turned into cannibals and be made to devour each other.

A cage full of normal rats will live in amity. Restrict their calcium and they will become irritable and draw apart from one another. Then they will begin to fight. Restore their calcium balance and they will grow more friendly; in time they will begin to sleep in a pile as before. Many backward children are "stupid" merely because they are deficient in magnesia. [Magnesium] We punish them for our failure to feed them properly.

Certainly our physical well-being is more directly dependent upon the minerals we take into our systems then upon calories or vitamins or upon the precise proportions of starch, protein, or carbohydrates we consume.

It is now agreed that at least 16 mineral elements are indispensable for normal nutrition, and several more are always found in small amounts in the body, although their precise physiological role has not been determined. Of the 16 indispensable salts, calcium, phosphorus and iron are perhaps the most important. (Now given the findings of Dr. Carolyn Dean we have to add magnesium to this list. cj)

[Today, many nutritionists, scientists and health care professionals insist that as many as 76 minerals are essential to achieving and maintaining optimal health, longevity and resistance to disease. Some of the most convincing evidence of the essentiality of minerals has come from research conducted by the Department of Agriculture.]

Calcium is the most dominant nerve controller; it powerfully affects the cell formation of all living things and regulates nerve action. It governs contractility of the muscles and the rhythmic beat of the heart. It also coordinates the other mineral elements and corrects disturbances made by them. (The same can be said for Magnesium. In fact Calcium requires a right ration to Magnesium - cj) It works only in sunlight. Vitamin D is its buddy. Dr. Sherman of Columbia asserts that 50 percent of the American people are starving for calcium. (Now more than that is starving for Magnesium. cj) A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association stated that out of 4,000 cases in New York Hospital, only 2 were not suffering from a lack of calcium.

What does such a deficiency mean? How would it affect your health or mine? So many morbid conditions and actual diseases may result that it is almost hopeless to catalog them. Included in the list are rickets, bony deformities, bad teeth, nervous disorders, reduced resistance to other diseases, fatigability, and behavior disturbances such as incorrigibility, assaultiveness and nonadaptability. [Cancer, heart disease, and more.]

Here's one specific example: The soil around a certain Midwest city is poor in calcium. Three hundred children in this community were examined and nearly 90 percent had bad teeth, swollen glands, enlarged or diseased tonsils. More than one-third had defective vision, round shoulders, bowlegs and anemia.

Calcium and phosphorus appear to pull in double harness. A child requires as much per day as two grown men, but studies indicate a common deficiency of one or the other as the cause of serious losses to the farmers, and when the soil is poor in phosphorous their animals become bone-chewers. Dr. McCollum says that when there are enough phosphates in the blood there can be no dental decay.

Iron is an essential constituent of the oxygen-carrying pigment of the blood: iron starvation results in anemia, and yet iron cannot be assimilated unless some copper is contained in the diet. In Florida, many cattle die from an obscure disease called "salt sickness." It has been found to arise from a lack of iron and copper in the soil and hence the grass. A man may starve for want of these elements just as a beef "critter" starves.

If iodine is not present in our foods the function of the thyroid gland is disturbed and goiter afflicts us. The human body requires only fourteen-thousandths of a milligram daily, yet we have a distinct "goiter belt " in the Great Lakes section, and in parts of the Northwest the soil is so poor in iodine that the disease is common.

So it goes, down through the list, each mineral element playing a definite role in nutrition. A characteristic set of symptoms, just as specific as any vitamin-deficiency disease, follows a deficiency in any one of them. It is alarming, therefore, to face the fact that we are starving for these precious, health-giving substances.

Very well, you say, if our foods are poor in the mineral salts they are supposed to contain, why not resort to dosing?
That is precisely what is being done, or being attempted. However, those who should know assert that the human system cannot appropriate those elements to the best advantage in any but the food form. At best, only a part of them in the form of drugs can be utilized by the body, and certain dietitians go so far as to say it is a waste of effort to fool with them. Calcium, for instance, cannot be supplied in any form of medication with lasting effect.

But there is a more potent reason why the curing of diet deficiencies by drugging hasn't worked out so well. Consider those 16 indispensable elements and those others which presumably perform some obscure function as yet understood. Aside from calcium and phosphorous, they are needed only in infinitesimal quantities, and the activity of one may be dependent upon the presence of another. To determine the precise requirements of each individual case and to attempt to weigh it out on a druggist's scale would appear hopeless.

It is a problem and a serious one. But here is the hopeful side of the picture: Nature can and will solve it if she is encouraged to do so. The minerals in fruit and vegetables are colloidal; i.e. they are in a state of such extremely fine suspension that they can be assimilated by the human system: It is merely a question of giving back to nature the materials with which she works.

We must rebuild our soils: Put back the minerals we have taken out. That sounds difficult but it isn't. Neither is it expensive. Therein lies the short cut to better health and longer life.

When Dr. Northen first asserted that many foods were lacking in mineral content and that this deficiency was due solely to an absence of those elements in the soil, his findings were challenged and he was called a crank. But differences of opinion in the medical profession are not uncommon - it was only 60 years ago that the Medical Society of Boston passed a resolution commending the use of bathtubs - and he persisted in his assertion that inasmuch as foods did not contain what they were supposed to contain, no physician could with certainty prescribe a diet to overcome physical ills.

He showed that the textbooks are not dependable because many of the analyses in them were made many years ago, perhaps from products raised in virgin soils, whereas our soils have been constantly depleted. Soil analyses, he pointed out, reflect only the content of samples. One analysis may be entirely different from another made ten miles away.
"And so what?" came the query.

Dr. Northen undertook to demonstrate that something could be done about it. By re-establishing a proper soil balance he actually grew crops that contained an ample amount of desired minerals.

This was incredible. It was contrary to the books and it upset everything connected with diet practice. The scoffers began to pay attention to him. Recently, the Southern Medical Association, realizing the hopelessness of trying to remedy nutritional deficiencies without positive factors to work with, recommended a careful study to determine the real mineral content of foodstuffs and the variations due to soil depletion in different localities. These progressive medical men are awake to the importance of prevention.

[Those "progressive medical men" would be shoved into obscurity by the large-scale development of antibiotics and the belief that we could produce a drug for every illness. Preventative medicine was relegated to the back seat by pharmaceutical politics.]

Dr. Northen went even further and proved that crops grown in a properly mineralized soil were bigger and better; that seeds germinated quicker, grew more rapidly and made larger plants; that trees were healthier and put on more fruit of better quality. By increasing the mineral content of citrus fruit he likewise improved its texture, its appearance and its flavor.
He experimented with a variety of growing things, and in every case the story was the same. By mineralizing the feed at poultry farms, he got more and better eggs; by balancing pasture soils, he produced richer milk. Persistently he hammered home to farmers, to doctors, and to the general public the thought that life depends upon the minerals!

His work led him into a careful study of the effects of climate, sunlight, ultraviolet and thermal rays upon plant, animal and human hygiene. In consequence he moved to Florida. People familiar with his work consider him the most valuable man in the state. I met him by reason of the fact that I was harassed by certain soil problems on my Florida farm which had baffled the best chemists and fertilizer experts available.

He is an elderly, retiring man, with a warm smile and an engaging personality. He is a trifle shy until he opens up on his pet topic; then his difference disappears and he speaks with authority. His mind is a storehouse crammed with precise, scientific data about soil and food chemistry, the complicated life processes of plants, animals, and human beings - and the effect of malnutrition upon all three. He is perhaps as close to the secret of life as any man anywhere.
"Do you call yourself a soil a or a food chemist?" I inquired.

"Neither. I am an M.D. My works lie in the field of biochemistry and nutrition. I gave up medicine because this is a wider and a more important work. Sick soils mean sick plants, sick animals, and sick people. Physical, mental, and moral fitness depends largely upon an ample supply and a proper proportion of the minerals in our foods. Nerve function, nerve stability, nerve cell-building likewise depend thereon. I'm really a doctor of sick soils."

Do you mean to imply that the vegetables I'm raising on my farm are sick?" I asked.

Precisely! They're as weak and undernourished as anemic children. They're not much good as food. Look at the pests and the diseases that plague them. Insecticides cost farmers nearly as much as fertilizer these days."
A healthy plant, however, grown in soil properly balanced, can and will resist most insect pests. That very characteristic makes it a better food product. You have tuberculosis and pneumonia germs in your system but you're strong enough to throw them off. Similarly, a really healthy plant will pretty nearly take care of itself in the battle against insects and blights - and will also give the human system what it requires.

"Good heavens! Do you realize what that means to agriculture?"

Perfectly. Enormous savings. Better crops. Lowered living costs to the rest of us. But I'm not so much interested in agriculture as in health."

It sounds beautifully theoretical and utterly impractical to me," I told the doctor, whereupon he gave me some of his case records.

For instance, in an orange grove infested with scale, when he restored the mineral balance to part of the soil, the trees growing in that part became clean while the rest remained diseased. By the same means he had grown healthy rosebushes between rows that were riddled by insects.

He has grown tomato and cucumber plants, both healthy and diseased, where the vines intertwined. The bugs ate up the diseased and refused to touch the healthy plants! He showed me interesting analyses of citrus fruits the chemistry and the food value of which accurately reflected the soil treatment the trees had received.

There is no space here to go fully into Dr. Northen's work but it is of such importance as to rank with that of Burbank, the plant wizard, and with that of our famous physiologists and nutritional experts.
"Healthy plants mean healthy people," said he. "We can't raise a strong race on a weak soil. Why don't you try mending the deficiencies on your farm and growing more minerals into your crop?"

I did try and I succeeded. I was planting a large acreage of celery and under Dr. Northen's direction I fed minerals into certain blocks of land in varying amounts. When the plants from this soil were mature I had them analyzed, along with celery from other parts of the state. It was the most careful and comprehensive study of the kind ever made, and it included over 250 separate chemical determinations. I was amazed to learn that my celery had more than twice the mineral content of the best grown elsewhere. Furthermore, it kept much better, with and without refrigeration, proving that the cell structure was sounder.
In 1927, Mr. W.W. Kincaid, a "gentleman farmer" of Niagara Falls, heard an address by Dr. Northen and was so impressed that he began extensive experiments in the mineral feeding of plants and animals. The results he has accomplished are conspicuous. He set himself the task of increasing the iodine in the milk from his dairy herd. He has succeeded in adding both iodine and iron so liberally that one glass of his milk contains all of these minerals that an adult male requires for a day.
Is this significant? Listen to these incredible figures taken from a bulletin of the South Carolina Food Research Commission: "In many sections three out of five persons have goiter and a recent estimate states that 30 million people in the United States suffer from it."

Foods rich in iodine are of the greatest importance to these sufferers.
Mr. Kincaid took a brown Swiss heifer calf which was dropped in the stockyards, and by raising her on mineralized pasturage and a properly balanced diet made her the third all-time champion of her breed! In one season she gave 21,924 pounds of milk. He raised her butterfat production to 410 pounds in 1 year to 1,037 pounds. Results like these are of incalculable importance.

Others besides Mr. Kincaid are following the trail Dr. Northen blazed. Similar experiments with milk have been made in Illinois and nearly every fertilizer company is beginning to urge use of the rare mineral elements. As an example I quote from statements of a subsidiary of one of the leading copper companies:

Many states show a marked reduction in the productive capacity of the soil…in many districts amounting to a 25 to 50 percent reduction in the last 50 years…Some areas show a tenfold variation in calcium. Some show a sixty-fold variation in phosphorous... Authorities…see soil depletion, barren livestock, increased human death rate due to heart disease, deformities, arthritis, increased dental caries, all due to lack of essential minerals in plant foods.

It is neither a complicated nor an expensive undertaking to restore our soils to balance and thereby work a real miracle in the control of disease," says Dr. Northen. "As a matter of fact, it's a money-making move for the farmer, and any competent soil chemist can tell him how to proceed."

First determine by analysis the precise chemistry of any given soil, then correct the deficiencies by putting down enough of the missing elements to restore its balance. The same care should be used as in prescribing for a sick patient, for proportions are of vital importance.

In my early experiments I found it extremely difficult to get the variety of minerals needed in the form in which I wanted to use them but advancement in chemistry, and especially our ever-increasing knowledge of colloidal chemistry, has solved that difficulty. It is now possible, by the use of minerals in colloidal form, to prescribe a cheap and effective system of soil correction which meets this vital need and one which fits in admirably with nature's plans.
Soils seriously deficient in minerals cannot produce plant life competent to maintain our needs, and with the continuous cropping and shipping away of those concentrates, the condition becomes worse.

A famous nutrition authority recently said, "One sure way to end the American people's susceptibility to infection is to supply through food a balanced ration of iron, copper, and other metals. An organism supplied with a diet adequate to, or preferably in excess of, all mineral requirements may so utilize these elements as to produce immunity from infection quite beyond anything we are able to produce artificially by our present method of immunization. You can't make up the deficiency by using patent medicine.

He's absolutely right. Prevention of disease is easier, more practical, and more economical than cure, but not until foods are standardized on a basis of what they contain instead of what they look like can the dietitian prescribe them with intelligence and with effect.

There was a time when medical therapy had no standards because the therapeutic elements in drugs had not been definitely determined on a chemical basis. Pharmaceutical houses have changed all that. Food chemistry, on the other hand, has depended almost entirely upon governmental agencies for its research, and in our real knowledge of values we are about where medicine was a century ago.

Disease preys most surely and most viciously on the undernourished and unfit plants, animals, and human beings alike, and when the importance of these obscure mineral elements is fully realized the chemistry of life will have to be rewritten. No man knows his mental or bodily capacity, how well he can feel or how long he can live, for we are all cripples and weaklings. It is a disgrace to science. Happily, that chemistry is being rewritten and we're on our way to better health by returning to the soil the things we have stolen from it.

The public can help; it can hasten the change. How? By demanding quality of food. By insisting that our doctors and our health departments establish scientific standards of nutritional value. The growers will quickly respond. They can put back those minerals almost overnight and by doing so they can actually make money through bigger and better crops. It is simpler to cure sick soils than sick people - which shall we choose?"

[We chose chemotherapy, amputations, pacemakers, surgery, and wheelchairs. One fourth of our Gross National Product (1.4 trillion dollars) is now spent on medical care, affectionately referred to (by doctors and drug reps) as "health care."]
Editorial notes by Steven Kessler, RT., MCPS and Charles Martin Simon.

This document is supplied for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to recommend or prescribe any treatment for any condition or illness. Contact a doctor or medical professional who is trained in the use of natural nutritional supplements before adding any new protocol or when starting any health or exercise program.[28]
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March 8, 2018 -

A couple hours ago I was reminded of an article[27] I had read in 1980 about the loss of our topsoil and the need to rebuild it. It struck a permanent chord in me that I believe underscored my preference for truly organic foods which I had been introduced to several years earlier. Now thirty-seven years later and I feel sadness knowing that the true organic standard for organic foods has been disregarded by the government. Fortunately the organic farmers in America are not resigned to doing nothing about that and instead have launched a revival of the original soil-based organic standards. I feel both grateful for this revival and duty-bound to support to the best I can - hence the continuation of this blog.
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October 26, 2017 - Dear National Organic Standards Board,

We stand with the community of organic farmers and consumers that rely upon organic food and agriculture for not only the nutritious and clean food that it provides, but also as the solution for a sustainable future through regenerative agricultural practices. The organic farmers that pioneered the organic revolution decades ago did so in the interest of our health and that of the soil, plants, water and animals to create a system of agriculture we could pass down to the next generations.

Organic consumers understand that when they purchase organic food, it is an investment in our future, our planet and their personal health—all of which are interdependent and inseparable. “What we do to the earth, we do to ourselves.” This is why so many people have chosen to eat organic food—for the promise of a hopeful future for ourselves and also Earth.

The currently permitted organic certification of hydroponically grown food in recent years has deceived consumers as it is not grown in the soil and in accordance with traditional—nor certifiable—organic practices. Consumers have come to expect and rely upon healthy food grown in the soil when they buy organic, which is based upon the regulatory framework in partnership with organic farmers in the U.S. It is disingenuous, at the very least, to allow the production and sale of food as Organic that does not meet the organic standards as set forth by organic farmers and subsequently past National Organic Standards Boards and the National Organic Program.

Allowing hydroponics to be certified as organic erodes the public trust in the organic label and is a great disservice to the farmers whom we rely upon.

The Organic Food Production Act (OFPA) specifically states,

“An organic plan shall contain provisions designed to foster soil fertility, primarily through the management of the organic content of the soil through proper tillage, crop rotation, and manuring.”

Hydroponically grown food—plants that receive their primary nutrients through an artificial feeding tube instead of the fertility, health and vitality of the soil—are not qualified to be certified as organic and therefore, should not be.

We now urge the National Organic Standards Board to vote for the proposal to recommend that hydroponic production not be allowed to be certified organic, and we urge the National Organic Program to implement that recommendation in keeping with the spirit of OFPA and the 2010 NOSB recommendation on hydroponic growing, clarifying and strengthening the organic standards and preserving and restoring a system of agriculture vital to our health and a sustainable future.[21]

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May 3, 2017 -

Hydroponic “Organic” is Illegal

Use of the word “organic” on products that do not comply with the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) and the National Organic Program Final Rule (NOP) is illegal. The NOSB (National Organic Standards Board) recommended against “hydroponic” products being labeled a “organic” on numerous occasions. Neither OFPA nor the NOP have been amended to allow for the products of soilless production systems being labeled as organic. Federal organic hydroponic standards have not been issued, following notice and comment rulemaking.

Companies who make “organic” claims on products produced using soilless systems should be ordered to remove the word “organic” from their products, or face prosecution for violating OFPA, since they are committing fraud. Certifying agents who certify soilless production systems as “organic” should be ordered to discontinue such activities or face loss of USDA accreditation.

As the legal basis for this position, one needs to look no further than the plain language of OFPA and the NOP Final Rule.

OFPA Section 6513 “Organic Plan” states:
“(b)(1) Soil Fertility. An organic plan shall contain provisions designed to foster soil fertility, primarily through the management of the organic content of the soil through proper tillage, crop rotation, and manuring.
(g) Limitation on Content of Plan. An organic plan shall not include any production or handling practices that are inconsistent with this chapter.”

Soilless production systems do not foster soil fertility or build soil organic matter content, as required by OFPA. Organic plans for soilless operations, by definition, include production practices that are inconsistent with OFPA since they are based solely on input use instead of implementing an soil fertility program that builds soil organic matter.

The NOP Final Rule, Section 205.200 “General” states:
“The producer or handler of a production or handling operation intending to sell, label, or represent agricultural products as “100 percent organic,” “organic,” or “made with organic (specified ingredients or food group(s))” must comply with the applicable provisions of this subpart. Production practices implemented in accordance with this subpart must maintain or improve the natural resources of the operation, including soil and water quality.”

Soilless production systems do not comply with NOP 205.200, since they do not maintain or improve the natural resources of the operation including soil quality.

The NOP Final Rule, Section 205.203 “Soil fertility and crop nutrient management” states:
“(a) The producer must select and implement tillage and cultivation practices that maintain or improve the physical, chemical, and biological condition of soil and minimize soil erosion.
(b) The producer must manage crop nutrients and soil fertility through rotations, cover crops, and the application of plant and animal materials.
(c) The producer must manage plant and animal materials to maintain or improve soil organic matter content”

Soilless production systems do not comply with NOP 205.203(a-c) because tillage and cultivation practices do not maintain or improve the physical, chemical or biological condition of soil. Soilless operations do not manage fertility through the use of crop rotations or cover crops, and they do not maintain or improve soil organic matter content.

The NOP Final Rule, 205.205 “Crop rotation” states:
“The producer must implement a crop rotation including but not limited to sod, cover crops, green manure crops, and catch crops that provide the following functions that are applicable to the operation:
(a) Maintain or improve soil organic matter content;
(b) Provide for pest management in annual and perennial crops;
(c) Manage deficient or excess plant nutrients; and
(d) Provide erosion control.”

Soilless production systems do not comply with NOP 205.205, because they do not implement crop rotations to maintain or improve soil organic matter content; provide pest management; manage deficient or excess plant nutrients; or provide erosion control. Soilless systems do not comply with the crop rotation requirement, which is a cornerstone of organic production.

Finally, soilless production systems do not comply with the NOP Section 205.2 definition of “organic production” because they do not “promote ecological balance and conserve biodiversity” as required by law.

Respectfully submitted,

Jim Riddle
Blue Fruit Farm
Winona, MN
Former Chair, NOSB
[13]

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April 30, 2017 -

SAVE ORGANIC STANDARDS
Soil Is Soul
Soil and a plant in hands

"The big question at last week’s National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) meeting in Denver was this: Should produce grown without soil be allowed to be certified organic?

Many defenders of organic, including OCA, say no. As Max Goldberg, of LivingMaxwell.com reports:

Organic was founded on the basis of growing plants in the soil. Period.

People buy organic because it tastes better, has superior nutrition and is optimal for the environment. And this is all the result of the rich soil in organic farms.

Despite the fact that it does have tremendous value to society, growing plants in water or container systems are just not organic. The language in the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) of 1990, which was ratified by Congress, affirms this stance.

But hydroponic produce is being certified organic. Why? Money, of course, says Goldberg.

Big corporate organic interests have pressured the USDA and NOSB to allow hydroponics and other container growing systems, and at each NOSB meeting they do nothing but try to confuse members as a stall tactic."

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March 27, 2017 -

"This week is our last chance! -
Comments are due by this Thursday at midnight." Please "Do it now." [11]
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March 20th, Happy Spring 2017! - "The foundation of organic agriculture is caring for the soil. The foundation of all human existence is maintaining a healthy soil community. Hydroponic production is fine, but it is the opposite of organic. One member of the NOSB has said that this debate is the most significant battle that has ever occurred in the National Organic Program. Pioneering organic farmer Eliot Coleman said that we are in danger of losing 50 years of hard fought gains in the healthy soil movement. We are literally 'losing ground.' We need to take that back. Please join us by adding your name to the petition."[9]

"If the wide earth has anywhere done better
Because of men, be sure they were good men"[10]

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December 13, 2016 -

Just received a message "Update on the Organic Soil Movement"[1] regarding "the movement to keep the soil in the organic". I support this movement the best ways that I can by posting these messages, by joining in the campaigns and by eating soil-grown foods rather than hydroponic varieties. Why do I do this? Because planet Earth and the Human Soul are soil-mates!

I have previously mentioned the fact that there is much more to food than the elements recognized by chemical science.[2]

The demand for organic foods that has steadily grown in the USA over the course of the last half century can be largely attributed to the development of Biodynamic Agriculture that began on the East Coast.

THE ORIGIN OF “ORGANIC” - "Steiner was one of the first public figures to warn that the widespread use of chemical fertilizers would lead to the decline of soil, plant and animal health and the subsequent devitalization of food."[64]

"Rudolph Steiner's concept of 'the farm as organism' was adapted in the 1940’s by the English Baron, Lord Northbourne, an agricultural science teacher at Oxford University, who, inspired by Steiner's writings, first coined the term 'organic farming.'

In the 1950’s, influenced by the rise of Biodynamic farming in Europe, the American J.I Rodale popularized the term 'organic' in his publication 'The Organic Farmer.' Like its Biodynamic forbearer, primary importance was placed on soil health, eschewing synthetic chemicals, and encouraging the use of compost, cover crops, and holistic pest and weed management. However there was a divergence from the fundamental view of the farm as organism."[3]

Although the real life-energy of food is not factored into the organic standards the medium of soil was. Soil is and always has been not only an essential component in the whole concept of organic agriculture but the very foundation of agriculture itself. "...the organic farming movement, ... began in the early part of the 20th century, pioneered by farmers and academics who were responding to obvious problems with 'modern' agriculture, such as soil erosion, depletion of soil fertility and structure, decline of livestock health caused by feed lacking quality, etc. The pioneers (Sir Albert Howard, Lady Eve Balfour, Rudolf Steiner, Jerome Irving Rodale, Aldo Leopold, William Albrecht and others) fostered the notion that the success and sustainability of farming relies on managing soil health." [7] The notion of a soil-less agriculture system is oxymoron.

Hydroponic systems lend themselves to a factory farming approach with the claim of greater efficiency (by eliminating all care for the soil) and hence more profitable than traditional organic farming. The selling points of efficiency and profit have already been addressed nearly one hundred years ago at the time that Rudolf Steiner was approached by European farmers with their concerns for the health of crops and animals suffering from depleted nutrition consequential to the chemical farming methods of the day. The need for healing in agriculture opened the door to a curative agricultural system based on the Agriculture Course of lectures that Steiner gave in the 1920s. From that time forward the perspective on "food" was enlarged upon to include healing - the healing of the earth (soil), plants, animals and Man. Yet this healing impulse has been resisted by the capitalistic impulse. In fact it's actually a market battle that has also included government. Consequently there is much that can be considered and a lot at stake and especially for the traditional organic farmers who are confronted with a formidable compromise on their organic standards. Organic farmers and the American people have relied upon these organic standards since the onset about a generation ago. The situation that exists now with the hydroponic claim to the organic label is that people do not know whether the story-bought organic tomato or organic pepper is actually soil grown or not! The difference is not required to be disclosed. Knowing the growing need for "truth in labeling" - I'm reasonably certain this non-disclosure will not continue much longer. At the very least the "consumers" will want to know.

At the same time the movement for "local" and "know your farmer" continues to grow with traditional organic farmers responding by way of farmers markets and CSA (community supported agriculture) memberships. These avenues for real organic foods will continue to flourish regardless of the "compromise" currently affecting the organic standards. Nevertheless there is a genuine crisis with regards to the USDA organic label access by hydroponic interests.

"Dave Chapman is not afraid of getting a little dirty. For the past 36 years, he’s dug his hands into the soil to plant, then pick, organic tomatoes from his fields and greenhouses in rural Vermont. His love of organics is rooted in a simple motto: “Feed the soil, not the plant.”

So when he heard that hydroponic growers were starting to obtain USDA certification that declared their crops organic, Chapman was incensed. What is organic, he wondered, without the marvel of microbes inherent in dirt?

'They try to pretend that they’re me,' he said. 'They aren’t. It’s a lie.'

Now Chapman is digging in his heels against what he calls the invasive growth of organic hydroponics, grown by farmers who use extensive watering systems and chemical nutrients. He’s pushing the USDA to, as he puts it, 'keep the soil in organic' and prevent hydroponic farmers from gaining a designation that’s become both on-trend and remarkably lucrative."[4]

"Farmer Eliot Coleman is among those who oppose giving hydroponic produce the organic label. He recently joined other farmers at a rally in Thetford, Vt. They were holding signs saying 'soil is the soul of organic.'

'As far as we're concerned,' Coleman says, 'if it's not grown in soil with all the wonderful features that soil puts into the plants, there's no way you can call it organic.'

Coleman's peers call him an 'elder of the organic movement.' ... Coleman thinks that the central principle in growing organic produce is that the farmer feeds the soil, not the plant.

Part of the legal qualification of organic farming — and, in Coleman's opinion, the label consumers have come to trust — is about the healthfulness and stewardship of the land."[5]

On Friday, November 18, 2016 the National Organic Standards Board Meeting in St. Louis decided that "The vote on hydroponics is sent back to subcommittee, maintaining the status quo of hydroponic operations continuing to be certified."[6]
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My comment submitted at the National Geographic page:

Organic label politics vs. the origin of organic agriculture - what a contrast! Is this Shakespeare or is this Dante? The "groundless" attempted usurpation by the organic wannabes shows no respect for where organic agriculture comes from. These "pirates" need their own label. Let them have a black flag with skull and crossbones![8]
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April 14, 2019 - More: "Know Your Farmer"! -

"... Even though organically raised crops should be a better bet nutritionally, this isn’t always the case, and it pays in terms of your health to learn how your farmer replenishes the minerals on his fields."[63]
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May 13, 2017 - Not "Hydroponic" But A Related Threat To Organic Agriculture.

Posted the following comment in response to "An Organic Farm Under Threat"[15]:

The "organic standard" could be raised higher still (i.e. Biodynamic). In any case the "weeds" could be indicating an imbalance in the soil and responded to at that level. Possibly more importantly is the legal status of the farm in relation to the State of Oregon. Is the farm incorporated or is there any nexus with the state? If so then I personally would dissolve the nexus. (I'd also post "no trespassing" signs.)[14]

The above mentioned "threat" can be seen from at least three perspectives or in light of three spheres of influence: Rights Sphere, Economic Sphere and Social/Spiritual Sphere.

Apparently the local county government has threatened to take action upon the farm after not receiving an acceptable response from the farm. That is one issue that needs to be cleared/upgraded by the farm.

One of the comments (at [14]) suggested another issue: "It may be about eliminating competition/expanding markets." I would love to see a community-supported Law Firm (based on the Organic Laws) launch a lawful discovery process to investigate what all has motivated the county to threaten this farm.

**
May 18, 2017 - Some Good News from Azure - the "Organic Farm Under Threat" (in the post of May 13th).

My comment:

Congratulations Azure!
Cheers for your farm and for virtually all Organic Agriculture.
I'm glad the farm has been spared from chemical spraying.
I hope all future conversations with the governmental agency will stay on this course.

Nevertheless - I still continue to think that changing the status of one's relationship with governmental agencies is worth considering. Yes, we have the land to steward and we also have our quintessential freedoms that require our vigilance for preserving - most essentially being the Unalienable Right to be free of government - just as was declared with the first American Organic Law: The Declaration of Independence.[i] It's great to "win" a negotiable conversation however that does not change the status of the individual's relationship with governmental agencies.

[i] And affirmed in the second Organic Law: The Articles of Confederation where you will find the status of "free inhabitant".[16]

***
May 19th, 2017 -

Just added this comment to "Plant Your Dream" by Leslie Goldman (also at CureZone):

Dr. Carolyn Dean - (The "Goddess of Magnesium" author of "The Magnesium Miracle"[17]) developed a superior magnesium product (that doesn't risk diarrhea) and knows (probably better than most doctors) the vital necessity for minerals - especially with magnesium at the top of the list! We have lost the magnesium in our soils and that includes virtually all the organic farms! We need magnesium added back to the farm lands. Carolyn say that can be accomplished by adding rock dust to the soils.

Are any of our local (San Diego County) farmers adding rock dust to their soils? If so I'd like to know who and support them!

***
June 18, 2017 - "How Biodynamic Farming Spawned Organic Farming"[18]

Wise Traditions Journal had featured an article on the history of organic Agriculture (some years ago) that apparently overlooked the Biodynamic "spawning". That article inspired me to research the history and offer a "letter to the editor" with my findings. I will have to unpack my archives to find both the article and this research. I can say in this moment that I had consulted with Andrew Lorand[19]. Fortunately I had hardly started to prepare for this unpacking of "archives" yet not anticipating this particular mission. Now I have some enthusiasm! ; ~ )

***
September 1, 2017 -

The above message of the essence of organic agriculture extends to dairy farming where we find two milks. The first milk has always (for untold thousands of years) been produced by animals feeding upon their natural diet and for cows that food is in the pasture. The milk was consumed whole and in its natural state (AKA raw). The other milk first came into existence only about two hundred years ago and introduced a diet to the cows consiting of brewery waste that made the animals sick and produced "swill milk".

"Official attitudes toward raw milk hardened during the colossal twentieth-century growth of American dairying. The product became more flavorless and anonymous as more drastic processing (including homogenization, which destroys the cream layer of milk) became standard. Consumers and health authorities alike forgot that one farm’s milk might ever have tasted better or worse than another’s—universal knowledge when herds were comparatively small and elite dairies boasted of using the milk of 'Golden Guernsey' or 'All-Jersey' cows. Meanwhile, the training of milk-safety inspectors came to focus on commercial facilities, where sanitary compliance could be measured by fairly standardized formulas . By contrast, milk was produced under more diverse conditions a century ago, and regulators were used to figuring in variables that had now dropped from memory."[20]

Pastures are soil-based. Pastured milk is the quintessential organic milk. The feeding of organic grains to cows is absolutely contrary to a cow's natural diet and therefore does not deserve to be called "organic milk" as it is missing the pasture!

***
December 8, 2017 -

Just posted the following comment at the Weston A. Price.org site[23] after reconnecting with their article on the history of organic farming.

A history of Organic Agriculture is certainly needed as a guiding reference in regards to the vital essential principles upon which the truly organic form of agriculture is based. The Hydroponic industry is clamoring for organic certification under the current U.S. standards – much to the protest of traditional organic farmers and growers. And rightly so as traditionally “organic” not only required soil – it also required cultivating soil fertility! The Hydroponic method has nothing to do with cultivating soil fertility because soil is not included in the method.

Organic agriculture standards are in need of reinforcement. Can this history of “Organic Farming” help? I honestly do not know. However, we may need to consider that if organic standards will not be strengthened then what are our options?

One option is to go Biodynamic. Biodynamics predates organic agriculture.

“In 1924, Steiner (noted scientist, philosopher, and founder of the Waldorf School) held a series of eight lectures for a group of European farmers, who had approached him because they were observing a rapid decline in seed fertility, crop vitality and animal health on their farms.[i] …

In 1928, following Steiner’s agricultural lectures, Demeter (named for the Greek goddess of agriculture) was formed in Europe to promote Biodynamic farming, initiating the first publicly organized promotion of “sustainable” agriculture. A certification system, defined by rigorous farming and processing standards, was implemented, making Demeter the very first ecological label for organically produced foods.”[ii]

The organic standards have been on a decline over the past couple decades and before hydroponics began seeking the coveted certification. On the other hand Biodynamic practices and certification have remained intact, firmly grounded in soil fertility without the compromises that have affected the U.S. organic standards.

Another option to the decline of organic standards is to know your organic grower and their practices. That might require multiple visits, ideally spontaneous!

[i] http://www.demeter-usa.org/about-demeter/demeter-history.asp
[ii] BIODYNAMIC® AGRICULTURE • AT A GLANCE 1/12/12 by demeter-usa.org
-

Just discovered the "missing link" between Biodynamic and Organic agriculture! The following is a nugget form the report:

"In the period from 1924 to 1938 the name ‘bio-dynamic’ was evolved and the practices were tested and formalized. Pfeiffer’s book Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening was the ‘coming of age’ as well as the ‘coming-out’ of bio-dynamics. The book was published in 1938 in at least five languages: English (Pfeiffer, 1938a); Dutch (Pfeiffer, 1938b); German (Pfeiffer, 1938c); French (Pfeiffer, 1938d); and Italian (Pfeiffer, 1938e).

Steiner had presented his Agriculture Course on a single occasion in the summer of 1924; a few months later on 28 September he entirely withdrew from public life due to illness; and he died on 30 March 1925 (Collison, 1925; Whitehead, 2010). His injunction to the Koberwitz group had been to put his ideas to the test, and, when there were empirical results to share the proven practices with the world. Pfeiffer took on that mission and it became his life’s work.

Lord Northbourne (1896-1982) published Look to the Land in 1940 a book in which he coined the term ‘organic farming’. The book was a manifesto of organic farming, and he wrote of the contest of “organic versus chemical farming” (p.81). Northbourne’s terminology of ‘organic farming’ was promptly adopted internationally. Jerome Rodale published the first ‘organic’ journal, Organic Farming and Gardening, in the USA in 1942. The Australian Organic Farming and Gardening Society was founded in Sydney in 1944 (Paull, 2008). Eve Balfour (1943) quoted Northbourne’s book extensively in her best selling book The Living Soil. Composting advocate, Albert Howard (1944), adopted the ‘organic’ terminology as did Pfeiffer (1952)."

There is more to this history that one will need to read to be fully convinced that "Lord Northbourne" got Biodynamics from Pfeiffer as of "1-9 July 1939".[24]
-

***
August 8, 2018 - Letter To Dave Chapman -

Greetings Dave!

Thank you very much for all of your “letters”! I read them with the deepest appreciation for each and every participants in the Real Organic Project! This project is the most rousing initiative that I believe I’ve seen (since I was first introduced to organic agriculture about forty years ago)! Although I don’t have money to contribute I am giving my support in the form of blogging your letters at CureZone.

What you have presented regarding Sonny Perdue speaks to an additional interest that I have and that I often see potentially intersecting with the challenges that real organic farming faces with government. I’m in my sixth year as a student of Dr. Ed Rivera’s course {in The Organic Laws Institute (OLI)[30]}. Ed Rivera is a well-acknowledged leading professor of the Organic Laws of the United States of America. I became Professor Rivera’s student out of a conviction that identifying government's Lawful limited jurisdiction was most essential for me in order to support farmers whom I saw threatened and coerced by government. Prior to my enrollment at OLI I also had a number of years of experience as an independent researcher which allowed me to experience many validations of understanding as I worked through the lessons in the Organic Laws.

I agree with your question: “What is he talking about?” I think it would be good to present that to Sonny (even though I actually do imagine what he was referring to).

You wrote: “My response is that if Perdue doesn’t believe in democracy, he probably ought to move somewhere else.”

I’d like to know what your basis is for referring to “democracy”. I’m familiar with the government school’s teaching of democracy however I don’t see it referred to in the Organic Laws. I’d like to know the place that “democracy” has in Lawful government for the United States of America. Your reference/s on this will be appreciated!

Thank you for considering my inquiry!

I am wishing you the very best success in all aspects of the project!

Warm regards,

~Chef Jemichel
-

***
October 14, 2018 - About 66 Days Later -

No reply from "Dave" as of yet. I'm inspired now to make the point of my response and inquiry (that I had presented to Dave in the above "letter") more clear concerning his reference to "democracy". The following may serve as a start toward greater clarity:

Our fifty nation-states are each owed a "republican" form of government. Note the difference: "republican" (feminine) versus "republic" (masculine) in Latin.

There is no doubt that the Founders who were schooled in both Greek and Latin said exactly what they meant.

Their purpose was to describe the government owed to our soil jurisdiction states as opposed to the "democracy" adopted by the British Territorial Government and the oligarchy of The Roman Republic.

The only "Republic" even remotely related to our Government was the Municipal Government of Rome --- The Roman Republic, under which auspices the District of Columbia owed its aegis.

Thus, there is no American "Republic" related to our lawful government nor any American Government for "which it stands" and never was; except for the distant and intended-to-be minor authority of the now-defunct Roman Pontificate within the District of Columbia, which is, itself, foreign to our government "of the people, for the people, and by the people".

Similarly, except for the British Territorial Government, there has never been a "democracy" here, either.

...

And we are not "a" Republic. And we are not a "democracy". Not now, not ever.

When people ignorantly or with purpose to deceive talk about "The Republic" we take exception to the deceit and when they insist on prattling about "democracy" -- which is an evil form of government our ancestors decried and avoided like the Plague, we hold our noses and try to be diplomatic.

However, in this instance with the Rothschild Empire trying to front both a bogus "Republic" that is billing itself as a "democracy" and the Council of Cardinals milling about wondering what to make of all this, we feel compelled to make our grievances public and explicit.

The actual government of this country is not a Republic and not a democracy--- and never has been either one.[32]
-

Re: "the government owed to our soil jurisdiction states" - I find the phrase: "soil jurisdiction" most interesting and in a kind of synergy with: "the soil basis for true organic agriculture!" Both true "self-government" and true organic agriculture are soil-based! The soil is a real, tangible and most essential basis in and for these two spheres. One sphere has the soil as the basis for living culture the other for Rights. "Democracy" is certainly not soil-based! It is a parasite that eats away at the substance in both the Cultural Sphere and the Rights Sphere.
-

***
November 27, 2019 -

Comment at the Weston A. Price Foundation's website:

So good to read “If you wish to reestablish America as a nation of prosperous farmers in the best Jeffersonian tradition, buy organic butter, cream, whole milk, whole yoghurt, and barn-free eggs. These bring good and fair profits to the yeoman producer without concentrating power in the hands of conglomerates” with essentially one exception as I’d substitute “grass-fed” for “organic.”[83]
-

***********^***********
Notes:

[1] http://us10.campaign-archive1.com/?u=49b011e822aefbbeb68709181&id=0618ebabee&e=d273047ed0

Also see: http://www.keepthesoilinorganic.org/about-us

[2] See the "September 15, 2016" post at: http://www.curezone.org/Blogs/fm.asp?i=1576391

And especially the "September 12" post at:
http://www.curezone.org/blogs/fm.asp?i=2315901

[3] http://www.demeter-usa.org/downloads/Demeter-At-A-Glance.pdf

[4] https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/11/12/organic-farmers-fight-usda-defend-their-turf/hatKOH0ClfmbqyMMwemHBJ/story.html#comments

[5] http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/11/16/502330731/some-growers-say-organic-label-will-be-watered-down-if-it-extends-to-hydroponic?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20161116&utm_campaign=npr_email_a_friend&utm_term=storyshare

[6] https://www.cornucopia.org/2016/11/follow-national-organic-standards-board-meeting-st-louis-mo-nosb/

[7] MOFGA+Hydroponics+Comments+Fall+2016.pdf

[8] http://www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-culture/food/the-plate/2016/11/is-soil-grown-food-fundamental-to-the-organic-label-/

[9] http://www.keepthesoilinorganic.org

[10] http://www.keepthesoilinorganic.org/single-post/2015/11/17/If-He-Can-Make-Her-So-by-Haniel-Long

[11] http://us10.campaign-archive1.com/?u=49b011e822aefbbeb68709181&id=7306721f8f&e=d273047ed0

https://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/organic-bytes-548-dows-dastardly-deeds

[13] http://www.keepthesoilinorganic.org/jim-riddle-nosb-testmony

[14] http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/tenant-farmers-oregon-plans-douse-azure-standard-organic-farm-pesticide/189292#comment-1161059

[15] https://hl.azurestandard.com/healthy-living/info/azure-farm-moro/?utm_source=Azure%20Drop%20Coordinators&utm_campaign=5d6b1677ff-AZUREFARM&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1953aadeee-5d6b1677ff-95749885&goal=0_1953aadeee-5d6b1677ff-95749885

[16] https://vimeo.com/217945829?outro=1&ref=fb-share

[17] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001ODEPY4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

[18] https://www.ediblenm.com/how-biodynamic-farming-spawned-organic-farming-the-city-with-the-golden-garbage-a-north-american-biodynamic-conference-in-santa-fe/

[19] https://drlorand.wordpress.com

[20] “'In Bacteria Land': The Battle over Raw Milk" by Anne Mendelson
Source: Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring 2011), pp. 35-43
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/gfc.2011.11.1.35.

[21] https://next7.org/sign-the-petition/?link_id=4&can_id=cebfcc80acde27b17aa033d1a0c89abe&source=email-does-this-look-organic-to-you-6&email_referrer=email_253963&email_subject=does-this-look-organic-to-you

[22] "Securing fresh food from fertile soil, challenges to the organic and raw milk movements" by Joseph R. Heckman;
Department of Plant Biology Department, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 08901, USA:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/renewable-agriculture-and-food-systems/article/securing-fresh-food-from-fertile-soil-challenges-to-the-organic-and-raw-milk-movements/18325E375E068A538E07EF4E6F6ABA22/core-reader

The following is an extended quote regarding soil fertility from this paper (linked above)
:
"Policy impacts on soil fertility, sustainability and health

The pioneers of the organic farming movement placed great emphasis on health in connection with soil fertility. Howard (1943), for example, wrote of a ‘great linkage between the soil, the plant and the animal.’ and furthermore declared that ‘Soil fertility is the basis of the public health system of the future’ (Howard, 1972). The authors (Baars et al., 2015) of the book on Producing Fresh Milk, The Cow Edition would agree with the organic farming concept that mineral-rich fertile soils are one of a large number of factors promoting healthy dairy animals and enhanced quality fresh unprocessed whole milk.

Albert Howard (1972) was also very much cognizant of the function of livestock on soil fertility when he wrote that ‘Mother nature never farms without live stock….’ Cows as part of the farm ecosystem are effective transformers of relatively low nutrient density forages into nutrient-rich foods with fat-soluble vitamins, proteins and energy-dense fats (Heckman, 2015). On dairy farms, there is a flow of soil fertility through the cow (Bear, et al., 1946). Although cows do extract a fraction of the minerals from their feed to make milk, the larger fraction of the minerals contained in feeds and forages are recycled back to the land through manure application.

Pasture-based dairy farming systems are one of the most effective ways to build soil organic matter content and soil fertility in general (Heckman, 2015). This organic fraction of the soil is a valuable storehouse for carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur and other plant nutrients. Pastures under organic management are ideally a mixed stand of legumes and grasses. This diverse mix enables a farm to be self-sufficient in nitrogen. This biologically captured nitrogen as part of a well-designed crop rotation is supportive of an entire organic farming operation. In this way, pasture and perennial forage crops are foundational attributes of an effective organic farm plan.

Whether organic milk from a dairy farm is provided directly to consumers as fresh milk or as pasteurized milk makes little difference in terms of how soil fertility functions on the farm. However, milk policy can have a huge influence on the number, size and distribution of dairy farms and thereby sustainable soil fertility.

Dairy farms in the business of providing fresh milk directly to consumers are typically smaller operations with a local community of patrons. These dairy operations employ many organic farming practices. This is in large part due to the preferences of fresh milk consumers for organic production systems, especially pasture feeding. A recent study (van Asselt et al., 2015) on dairy farming in the Netherlands concluded that ‘raw organic milk is more sustainable than pasteurized organic milk’ and furthermore that ‘it is also more sustainable than pasteurized conventional milk due to a higher revenue’. Where policy supports production and trade in fresh milk, more farmers are likely to enter the business of producing fresh milk. Thus, more pasture-based dairy farms would contribute to more land area under sustainable soil fertility management."

[23] https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/farm-ranch/a-history-of-organic-farming-transitions-from-sir-albert-howards-war-in-the-soil-to-the-usda-national-organic-program/

[24] http://orgprints.org/19511/1/Paull2011BetteshangerJOS.pdf

[25] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up2Z38rnie8

[26] https://www.cornucopia.org/2017/11/demand-real-organic-food-real-organic-farmers/

[27] https://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-and-Environment/topsoil-loss-zmaz80mjzraw

[28]
http://www.betterhealththruresearch.com/document264.htm

[29] https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/controversial-ruling-says-organic-crops-don-t-have-grow-soil

[30] http://organiclaws.org/welcome-organic-laws-institute/

[31] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/real-organic-project-may-update-reminder-255927?e=7d4d4bfab2

[32] http://www.paulstramer.net/2018/10/stop-talking-about-republic-there-isnt.html

[33] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op3J5GFmfzo&feature=youtu.be

[34] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Coleman

[35] First book: "An Agricultural Testament" by Sir Albert Howard, Oxford University Press, 1940.
This is the book that started the organic farming and gardening revolution, the result of Howard's 25 years of research at Indore in India. The essence of organics is brilliantly encapsulated in the Introduction, which begins: "The maintenance of the fertility of the soil is the first condition of any permanent system of agriculture." ... Excellent on the relationship between soil, food and health.:

Second book: "Farming and Gardening for Health or Disease" (The Soil and Health):
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_link2.html

[36] Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association (BDA) -- "Based on a series of lectures given by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in 1924, Biodynamics is a method of agriculture which seeks to actively work with the health-giving forces of nature. It is the oldest non-chemical agricultural movement, predating the organic agriculture movement by some 20 years and has now spread throughout the world."
http://www.biodynamics.com/:
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_link2.html

[37] https://www.cornucopia.org/2018/10/organic-industry-watchdog-shuffles-leadership-squares-off-with-powerful-lobbyists/

[38] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QB7mKYFvwY

[39] https://organicinsider.com

[40] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/ecofarm-2019-as-the-community-gathers-resilience-is-fertile

[41] http://www.paulstramer.net/2019/02/for-all-jural-assemblies-20.html

[42] http://www.paulstramer.net/2019/02/for-all-jural-assemblies-23-prior-and.html

[43] http://www.paulstramer.net/2019/02/for-all-state-jural-assemblies-26.html

[44] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/real-organic-symposium-at-dartmouth?

[45] Received in an email from RnA ReSet.

[46] http://www.paulstramer.net/2019/02/civil-is-not-civilian-short-explanation.html

[47] https://www.prosveta-usa.com/economics-must-also-be-a-science-of-making-forecasts_2019-03-01

[48] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23858458

[49] http://milkgenomics.org/article/first-farmers-come-go/

[50] http://www.nswskn.com/soil-quotes-2/

[51] https://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/topsoil-loss-zmaz80mjzraw

[52] https://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-and-environment/topsoil-loss-zmaz80mjzraw

[53] http://nourishingtraditions.com/do-cows-cause-global-warming/

[54] http://organiclaws.org/welcome-organic-laws-institute/

[55] Comment by: Angela Ang on February 22, 2018:
https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/abcs-of-nutrition/principles-of-healthy-diets-2/#characteristics

[56] https://drcarolyndean.com/2016/10/sorry-folks-food-is-not-medicine/

[57] https://www.americanheritage.com/myth-happy-yeoman

[58] Anna Reitz at http://www.paulstramer.net

[59] http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s32.html

[60] http://www.paulstramer.net/2019/04/for-confused-texans.html

[61] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/real-organic-project-may-update-reminder-255927?

[62] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/food-subsidized-by-the-tragedy-of-the-commons?

[63] "Magnificent Magnesium" - By: Katherine Czapp:
https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/abcs-of-nutrition/magnificent-magnesium/

[64] https://www.biodynamics.com/steiner.html

[65] http://www.hevanet.com/kort/ESSENCE1.HTM

[66] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/update-on-glyphosate-and-organic-certification?

[67] http://www.paulstramer.net/2019/05/the-two-deals-not-just-new-deal.html

[68] http://www.paulstramer.net/2019/07/time-work-and-being-there.html

[69] https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

[70] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/do-we-dare-to-speak-out

[71] "Report And Recommendations On Organic Farming", Prepared by
USDA Study Team on Organic Farming United States Department of Agriculture July 1980.:
https://pubs.nal.usda.gov/sites/pubs.nal.usda.gov/files/Report%20and%20Recommendations%20on%20Organic%20Agriculture_0.pdf

[72] http://fourseasonfarm.com/how-we-farm/

[73] -Francis Thicke, organic dairy farmer, former NOSB member, and ROP Executive Board Member.
https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/jay-feldman-says-real-organic-needs-a-rigorous-program-434871?e=7d4d4bfab2

[74] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/debate-on-national-organic-program?

[75] https://www.peakprosperity.com/video/the-accelerated-crash-course/

[76] https://www.keepthesoilinorganic.org/rally-in-the-valley

[77] https://www.curezone.org/blogs/fm.asp?i=2428003

[78] Blog: "Cheeta: Cultivate Healing Environments - Enlighten Thru Arts!":
https://www.curezone.org/blogs/fm.asp?i=2252401#i

[79] https://www.realorganicproject.org/real-organic-project-symposium/

[80] "Biodynamic Agriculture - The Mother Paradigm of Sustainable Agriculture and Higher Vibrational Human Nutrition!":
https://www.curezone.org/blogs/fm.asp?i=1489056

[81] Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_organic_farming

[82] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/cheap-food-high-costs

[83] https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/know-your-fats/why-butter-is-better/

[84] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/the-return-of-the-light-2575719

[85] https://www.everywomanover29.com/blog/food-fix-by-dr-mark-hyman-my-review/

[86] http://www.paulstramer.net/2020/03/five-different-political-statuses-five.html

[87] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/rosb-restricts-split-farms-passes-labor-practices

[88] https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/585577/this-land-your-land-americas-best-known-protest-song

[89] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/dear-usda-what-will-it-take

[90] http://www.edrivera.com/?page_id=2

[91] https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/dear-usda-what-will-it-take-2743540

[92] "Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government":
https://famguardian.org/Subjects/Politics/ThomasJefferson/jeff1350.htm

[93] http://www.paulstramer.net/2020/06/nation-or-country.html

[94] https://www.westonaprice.org/help-save-new-zealand-raw-milk/

[95] http://www.paulstramer.net/2021/02/about-australia-and-big-picture.html

[96] http://surfandabide.com/island-earth-independent-filmmaker-cyrus-sutton-speaks-out-on-hawaiis-food-crisis/

[97] r.mailout.genekeys.com/mk/mr/jTc6IAgMIg5lX4L0jcm3ZDYTr0eY5mVK9Co6-lMP3fZigjiBuoTdnHz3cW-zvFOLQWHiyeqp-MBS2-aiUrUMrzHDR3bLtuxXinsWYJEs9bFwE1W5SooMr7GsO86uQakmYonsH7u3GO0

[98] http://www.paulstramer.net/2022/11/the-importance-of-land-and-who-owns-it.html
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Also: "An inverse relationship between cancer prevalence and the magnesium content of water and of soil":
https://drsircus.com/general/magnesium-deficiency-as-a-cause-and-essential-treatment-for-cancer/

Comment: The demise of the soil - which is most largely as the result of corporatized big agriculture - underscores the need for revocation of so called corporate personhood and for the return to limiting corporations by a short leash that is held by the original land and soil-based authority of the People who can also revoke the corporate charter whenever it is deemed to have been violated.
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Related: https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/truth-about-organic-food-supply-chain?

"Scientific Evidence For Biodynamic Food":
https://www.curezone.org/Blogs/fm.asp?i=1576391
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Keywords:

organic label, hydroponic, organic agriculture, biodynamics, soil, soilless systems, Soil Fertility, soil quality, organic farms, organic laws, pasture-based dairies, traditional food, traditional farming, Biodynamic Food, republic, soil jurisdiction, land, Real Organic, organic ethic, soil health, Whose government is it?
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