Organic Foods: Home

Organic Food and Farming: A Reference Handbook is a valuable resource for students and general readers curious about the history, evolution, and growth of the organic food movement. Organic Food and Farming: A Reference Handbook begins with a deep dive into the origins of organic farming, offering a clear discussion of what constitutes organic production and how that has changed over time. Next, the volume provides a comprehensive overview of growth of organics as both an industry and a social movement and the inherent challenges that occur from trying to be both. The book additionally covers controversial issues and challenges, along with good news about what is working and what is possible. Included are essays by scholars, farmers, and experts working with NGOs as well as profiles of key people and organizations in the organic sector. Additional chapters include data and documents, a comprehensive resource list, and a detailed chronology of the key events in the history of the organic sector. Distinguishing it from others that laud or dismiss organic food and farming practices is this book's objective nature, which allows it to be used as a definitive resource on the topic. Chronology of the years 1840-2019, including more than 100 entries describing key moments in the history of organic farming and food Essays by organic farmers and scholars, including one by Grace Gershuny, author, educator, and one of the original USDA National Organic Program staff members who helped write the original regulations A comprehensive overview of growth of organics as both an industry and a social movement and the inherent challenges that occur from trying to be both Survey of the history of organic food and farming that helps readers identify key issues in an easy-to-understand fashion

Increasingly, Australians are caring more about the origins and values of the foods they consume. This book addresses two often misunderstood agricultural production methods - organic farming and genetic modification. Organic food is grown and produced without using synthetic chemicals such as pesticides and artificial fertilisers; so what are the actual ethical, environmental and nutritional differences between organic and conventionally-produced food? Are organics healthier? Genetic modification is a science-driven crop and animal breeding method which has attracted controversy and confusion in recent years. Which foods are GM, how are they labelled and regulated in Australia, and are there any proven environmental or health-related side-effects? This book serves you up an abundance of information with which to make more informed food choices.

An influential founding member of the American organic agriculture movement and a long-time organic farmer, Grace Gershuny gives us one of the most comprehensive and deeply personal accounts of adventures in that movement ever written. A principal author of the USDA's first proposed National Organic rule, Gershuny left the National Organic Program staff just before the final rule was published. The complicated story of that movement for nationwide organic regulations, which consumed Gershuny's life for five years, is interwoven here with her own personal timeline before, during, and after the arduous federal process.   This memoir explores how the organic revolution became rooted well before the US federal government cared to notice. Gershuny asks important ongoing questions about the organic movement that still aren't receiving enough attention, such as whether organic standards should be consumer or farmer-driven and if organic agriculture architecture will be able to maintain its principles as it becomes mainstream. Entertaining yet urgent, Organic Revolutionary thoughtfully details the personal, political, and practical struggles that ensued in the heroic effort to push the organic movement beyond farmers' markets and into supermarkets.