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8. Organic Dairy Production Meeting -- Wednesday September 13 in Clare The meeting will be held from 9:00AM to 2:00PM, at the Town & Country Restaurant in Clare.

Lowell Rheinheimer, Mideast Dairy Pool Coordinator for the Cooperative Regions of Organic Producer Pools (CROPP)/Organic Valley (OV), visited with farmers during the Horse Progress Days in Clare, Mich. about the potential to create an organic milk pool in Michigan.  OV representatives were surprised by the strong interest of dairy farmers that wanted more information about organic dairy production.

This interest prompted OV to schedule an additional meeting for dairy farmers wishing to learn about the opportunities in organic dairy production.  The meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 13 in Clare.

During the Horse Progress Days s Rheinheimer said, “We anticipate that an OV Michigan milk collection route will be operating in spring of 2007.”, “More than 100 Michigan dairy farmers have expressed an interest in transitioning to organic dairy production and are considering marketing their organic milk as OV members,”. 

Founded in 1988, CROPP is a farmer-owned cooperative based in La Farge, Wisconsin with nearly 600 dairy members in 24 states. CROPP markets an entire line of dairy, juice, soy, egg, and produce products under the Organic Valley Family of Farms label and a line of meat products under the Organic Prairie Family of Farms label.

OV is a farmer-owned and controlled cooperative. Farmers work together to set their own policies and establish their milk pay prices. Member OV farmers like the fact that the cooperative provides them with many support services such as educational workshops, an organic grain program, a staff organic veterinarian, and organic certification assistance. 

“Creating a new organic milk market collection route is both challenging and rewarding,” Rheinheimer continued. “We need farmers to work together and coordinate the time they get certified and are ready to start shipping organic milk.”  “The milk that we pick up must be of very high quality as we are very particular about the quality of our milk supply,” he said. “OV customers demand that high quality, and we deliver.”

Jim Wedeberg, one of the seven original founding members of OV, also visited with dairy farmers at Horse Progress Days.  “The organic milk market is truly a sellers’ market. The demand by consumers has consistently outstripped the supply,” he said.   According to Wedeberg, the organic food industry has averaged 20% growth rates for a decade now.  Organic Valley dairy has done even better, averaging about 27% annual growth rates. 

“We are being pulled by dairy farmers to expand.  They are asking us to market their milk,” said Wedeberg.  OV is currently looking to create additional organic milk collection routes in other states as well.  

OV educates its farmers so that they understand milk marketing.  By managing milk flow, it can achieve and manage a steady supply which means sustainable pay for its farmers.

“Marketing organic milk is a wonderful opportunity available to the traditional family farm,” said Rheinheimer. 

“This marketing initiative hopes to create another organic milk market in Michigan as an additional opportunity for the traditional family dairy farmer in Michigan,” said James Krenek, market development director for Michigan Food and Farming Systems, who has been providing OV with limited marketing assistance. 

Founded in 1998, Michigan Food and Farming Systems is a statewide membership organization (510c3) whose purpose is to promote diverse efforts that foster and sustain food and faming systems that improve economic, ecological and social well-being.  To learn more, visit www.miffs.org, call (517) 432-0712, or e-mail [log in to unmask]

For additional information regarding OV’s program to market organic milk in Michigan, contact Lowell Rheinheimer at 888-809-9297 or by email at [log in to unmask] 

For more information about Organic Valley, visit www.organicvalley.coop, www.organicprairie.com or www.farmers.coop.

9. Harvest Festival at Michigan State University Student Organic Farm October 7, 1-5 pm.

The harvest festival will be on October 7th from 1-5pm. There will be live bands, hay rides, face painting, pie contest, cookies, cider pressing, farm tours, and other fun. This is the first festival of this kind for the Student Organic Farm and we hope that it will be a big success. We look forward to your participation! 

 

 

10. To Market to Market-Produce peddlers make the rounds in area as sites multiply

GENESEE COUNTY

THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

By Ron Krueger

[log in to unmask] • 810.766.6117

Tina and Greg Lawrence are on the circuit. The Tuscola County couple take organic produce to a different small-town farmers market five days a week.

"We go to Linden Wednesday, Millington on Thursday, Ortonville Friday, Frankenmuth Saturday and here (Grand Blanc) Sundays," Lawrence said.

"Our farthest drive is 32 miles, which isn't bad."

 

[log in to unmask]">Seasonal, one-day-a-week farmers markets in suburban and rural towns have come of age.

The Grand Blanc market, which continues through Oct. 29, was a success from its mid-July start, says city community and economic development director Keith Leonard.

"As soon as we announced we were doing it (a weekly market), I had 60 phone calls from people who were interested in being vendors."

Many of those calls were from crafters and others selling nonfood items. Leonard informed them the Grand Blanc market would be driven by farmers from Genesee and contiguous counties with virtually no wholesale produce allowed.

Given that the number of farms in Michigan is falling, that might have seemed unrealistic. Not so.

Both the number of small farms and farmers markets is growing, according to the Michigan Integrated Food and Farming Systems. This is a nonprofit group linked with the state agriculture department.

The number of farmers markets has grown by 65 percent to more than 150 since 2001, according to Dru Montri, a spokesperson for the group. This includes markets at farms and those hosted by municipalities.

"Farmers are finding that, by directly marketing their products to the consumer instead of wholesaling it, they receive a larger share of that dollar," Montri said.

"From the consumer side, more people want to meet the farmers, and these markets fill that need," she said.

One such person is Mary Anne Reising of Flint. She said she eats only organically grown food. She finds two and sometimes more organic growers at the Grand Blanc market. Another vendor, Hampshire Farms in Kingston, sells organic grains and breads there.

Around the area, one can find a municipally sponsored market six days a week. This includes the Flint Farmers' Market, which operates Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

In addition to the Grand Blanc market, others have started this year in Millington and Ortonville (See details below).

Ortonville in Oakland County is one of several Michigan towns hosting farmers markets on Friday nights.

"We switched from Saturday morning to Friday because participation on Saturday had really fallen," said Julie Courtney of the village's Downtown Development Authority.

"We are getting 15 to 20 vendors with about half being food-related, and about 200 people are showing up each week," she said.

The evening features bluegrass jam sessions and a $5-per-person spread catered by a local church.

In Grand Blanc, Patricia Dinger of Grand Blanc Township talked about the market's first Sunday back in July.

"The market is supposed to continue until 3 o'clock, but the vendors had sold out of virtually everything by 1:30. The man who brought sweet corn brought 70 dozen ears, and they were all gone in no time."

11. Brandon: Insights into feeding the world
Farm Press Magazine

Aug 31, 2006 10:11 AM

 

If I may share my personal opinion, this article is full of contradictions regarding world hunger, environmental concerns and genetic engineering (Vicki Morrone)


By Hembree Brandon
Farm Press Editorial Staff

Perhaps no individual has done more to save people from hunger and starvation over the past six-plus decades than Norman Borlaug, whose “Green Revolution” in the 1960s helped farmers in developing countries use high-yield technologies to revolutionize grain crops production.

 

 

The Iowa farm boy, now 92 years old and still going strong, has spent 62 of those years working in food-deficit countries, in the process helping to save millions of lives, and being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and countless other honors.

A new book, The Man Who Fed The World, by Leon Hesser, will be out Sept. 5. It chronicles the life and achievements of this remarkable man, those who’ve worked with him, and those who are continuing to carry elements of the Green Revolution to areas of the world still confronting food shortages, famine, and starvation.

If you’ve never had the opportunity to hear Dr. Borlaug, there’s a radio interview with him, conducted Aug. 9 by Penn Jillette (the big guy of the show biz team, Penn & Teller), that is well worth the hour of listening time. It’s at http://podcast.penn.freefm.com/penn/25352.mp3.

Borlaug doesn’t mince words when it comes to defending modern agricultural practices. Some comments from the broadcast:

• “(Despite doomsday predictions) it’s possible to produce enough food to feed the predicted 10 billion people of the future. The more difficult problem is distributing that food equitably once it’s produced and to be sure we can do it without destroying the environment and to have funding for additional research into new biotechnology and transgenics.”

• “In 1950, total world production of all major cereal grains was about 620 million tons; in 2000, it was more than 1.9 billion tons. (With conventional technologies) we’d have had to cut down approximately three times as much forest or plowed up three times as much grazing land…to produce a harvest equivalent to 2000. That’s how much land high-yield technology saved for Mother Nature.”

• “If we’re interested in tranquil world conditions for our sons, daughters, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, they won’t be built on empty stomachs and human misery. When we have widespread misery in many African and Asian countries, it’s a very fertile ground for sowing seeds of disruption by extremists.”

• “(Those against genetically-engineered crops take) a ridiculous position. If we look at the genetic makeup of bread wheat, which constitutes more than 95 percent of all the wheat in the world, it’s a natural cross done in pre-history of wild wheat and two other wild grasses, producing the basic chromosome we’ve used for traditional genetic modification and more recently with transgenics. (Opposition to GMO crops) is a lot of nonsense.”

• “Same thing with organic versus chemical fertilizers. For God’s sake, I’ve always said, ‘Use all the organic fertilizer that’s available, but don’t come around Third World nations telling them they can produce all the food they need with organic fertilizer.’ (If we tried to substitute manure for chemical fertilizer) we’d have to increase world cattle population by about six-fold…It’s a lot of nonsense, and it comes from people who’ve never produced one ton of food in their entire lifetime.”

 

 

Vicki Morrone

Organic Vegetable and Crop Outreach Specialist

Michigan State University

C.S. Mott Sustainable Food Systems

303 Natural Resources Bldg.

East Lansing, MI 48824

517-353-3542

517-282-3557 (cell)

517-353-3834 (fax)

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