Blue Sky is coming!

Here's a reminder to get your tickets today to our beautiful collaborative event between us and Blue Sky Bakery (a non-profit that helps train youth with barriers to employment) and our partner yoga studio Bloom Yoga Studio!  Get tickets right......here for September 20th!

And now, just because I'm a farmer, I'd like to bring it down a notch again and talk about the weather.

Weather is gorgeous lately, yes, I will concede that (aside from near tornado miss yesterday).  But we are still suffering from the devastating affect of rain early in the season.

Illinois lawmakers and Gov. Rauner have asked Obama to issue a disaster declaration from the USDA for counties that have seen heavy rainfall this season, such as our own Kankakee county. The declaration would allow farmers to get low-interest emergency loans.  As most of you probably can deduce, Peasants' Plot has not been able to acquire much cash flow from market, an important part of our business plan this season. We are harvesting everything we possibly can to our CSA, our much appreciated loyal members.  We wish we were able to give everyone more and have more to sell at market.

The "disaster" of this season feels just as financially acute as a tornado, although I recognize every single day our great luck to have dodged any human or property casualties. June was the wettest month on record in Illinois (since 1888). An average of 9.37 inches fell statewide. In Kankakee specifically we got 17.22" in June when the average is normally 4.14 inches. For farmers this is indeed disastrous and hard to bounce back. Many vegetable farmers haven't been able to finish planting crops or have had to replant flooded fields. Late plantings or reduced plantings mean lower yields. Commodity crop farmers of soy and corn are hurting in the same way but will receive some subsidies from the government and are generally well insured. Crop insurance for our type of small vegetable farm is not yet a viable investment.

We appreciate our members' decision to support the expansion of more organic vegetable growers in Illinois.  It is a tough world for this new farmer generation and we couldn't do it without our CSA.  We are hoping that all our CSA members are with us in the long run--in the commitment to support our efforts to grow organic vegetables just a few miles from home.
The truth is....who else is going to do it?

DARK ACT FAQS

So many peppers!  They got in very late due to the monsoon rains,
 but they are looking healthy!

Other plants, also planted or replanted late in the season, include
KOHLRABI. Lots of direct seeded veggies like turnips and radishes and more!

Tomatoes look GOOD!! I was premature in my
prognosis!  They are recovering nicely from
being underwater in June.

First of all, before I get into all the political stuff, thank you all so much for your continued support during this very challenging farming season. We are sharing similar stories of damaged crops and delayed plantings with our friends of Gray Farms, Beets + Beats, Three Plaid Farmers and Deer Creek Organics, among others, commiserating on Facebook and over the phone. And we keep hearing of other small local veggie stands down by us closing early or not opening up at all. It is hard to be a vegetable farmer, people!  We appreciate our customers all the more for showing us that they care about small family farms and local organic food. So thank you again and again.

Here's the political stuff:

The DARK Act is in the Senate. It stands for Deny Americans the Right to Know and would make illegal any label about anything GMO in your food products.

Polls have shown that more than 90% of people want food to be labeled if it contains genetically engineered ingredients. Several states have already passed laws requiring labeling starting next summer, unless this bill passes through Congress.  This bill has been called the DARK act by those who oppose it. We oppose it on Peasants' Plot because, as a USDA-certified Organic farm (officially certified since June!), we are concerned about the state of organic seed.  GM seed is NOT "organic." We also just think that people should know what is in their food.

Question: What's so bad about genetically engineered foods?

Answer: Maybe nothing. We don't know their longterm consequences except to say that, once GM seed is introduced into the marketplace, the organic seed supply of that crop is endangered with great risk of contamination.  For example, in 2004 foreign DNA was detected in 100% of canola seed tested.  In other words,  the canola seed supply has been completely contaminated by foreign genes. Basically this means, once a crop is approved as GM, we can never turn back.  Right now, zucchini, alfalfa, yellow squash and apples are among the fresh produce items that have a GM counterpart.

Some more Q & A assembled in an email last week sent out by The Food and Water Watch:

Question: What is a genetically engineered food or GMO?

Answer: A genetically engineered food is a plant or animal that has been changed by taking genes from one species and inserting them into the DNA of another species or altering the DNA in a way that could never happen through traditional cross-breeding or in nature.

Question: Aren't genetically engineered foods safe?

Answer: The approval process for new GMO crops in the U.S. is extremely weak and relies solely on the safety tests done by the corporations that are creating these crops. Right now, most crops are approved by federal regulators under the "generally recognized as safe" provision, which means that if a GMO corn variety looks and "acts" like the non-GMO version of corn, it is approved.

Question: But don't farmers need genetically engineered foods to feed the growing world population?

Answer: Over 99% of the GMO crops that are being planted today are engineered to withstand strong chemical applications, or to produce their own pesticides. Often, the chemical companies like Monsanto, Dow and DuPont that create GMO crops also create the chemicals that have to be used with the crops, so the main benefit of these patented crops is for the companies and their profits. Additionally, most of these GMO crops — like corn, soybeans, canola and cotton — are not grown as food for direct human consumption, but rather for animal feed, or to create ingredients in processed foods.

Question: If over 90% of Americans support the labeling of GMOs, why hasn't Congress or the Food and Drug Administration done anything?

Answer: What we eat and feed our families has a direct impact on our health and well-being, and we have a right to know if the food we're eating has been altered in a way that could never happen in nature. Unfortunately, the big food industries spend millions lobbying Congress and federal agencies to keep labels off of GMO foods. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the biggest food and chemical companies, has spent over $50 million to defeat labeling initiatives in multiple states.

Question: Why should I take action and ask my Senators to oppose this legislation?

Answer: Genetically engineered crops are in most processed foods but are unlabeled, so many people who wish to avoid foods with GMO ingredients don't know where they are lurking. GMOs are untested, and it's unknown how these engineered foods may be impacting our health and the environment. At the very least, shouldn't we have a choice to avoid them if we want to? The legislation that Congress is considering will prohibit any states from labeling GMOs and will make federal labeling voluntary, which is what we have already.