Name Change for Carrot Creek Urban Farm!

We moved to Alberta – 80 acres of land to grow whatever we want on! So we’re not an “Urban” farm anymore, although the urban techniques (SPIN Farming) we used will be transferred to a large format.

I’m exceptionally excited about this as I’ve had heavy backlash from Big Corporate farmers that tell me it can’t be done.

Wrong.

So I look forward to posting the progress of this vegetable production farm through the years. You’ll see a LOT of changes to everything: pics, headers, offers… I will also be posting daily available produce for my local Alberta customers.

It’s exciting, inspiring and as always, healthy choices – just a whole lot more of them!

Our address:  Carrot Creek Farm – 29034 Highway 587 Bowden Alberta TOMOKO (phone number coming soon…) It’s only 2k east of the Bowden/Hwy 587 exchange (between Red Deer and Olds: 55 minutes from Calgary). Easy to find!

My take on the E-Coli Outbreak and it’s relation to GMO

There is a Universal truth: What you resist, persists.

By now, everyone is aware of the new pathogen E-Coli 0-104. If not, a few articles for you to get up to speed with:

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/06/sequence-yields-clues-to-germany.html?ref=hp

http://www.naturalnews.com/032622_ecoli_bioengineering.html

I first want to address the small vegetable farmers who had to throw out their produce. Cucumbers were cleared of wrong doing yesterday. The EU farmers are very aware that their healthy produce is a threat to Big Agribusiness. In protest, they took all they had and dumped it (if you are going to attack me I simply won’t feed you anymore). Yet, one more reason to grow a garden this year: the food shortages are getting increasingly larger. And another reason to support small local farmers.

The Importance of Seed Banks

April: Sorry for not having written for some time, but this year I have planted and started 5 times what I have done in the past! It’s a good year!

In my area, many of us grow vegetable crops and many have developed seeds for  generations. We have started a seed bank and in collaboration with a few other seed companies and groups, some of us will be growing for seed alone this year. Saving seeds is the easy part. It’s quite another to grow for seed each year. In order to really save seed well, you must grow it and keep it fresh year to year.

Why is this SO important? Andrew Kimbrell of The Center For Food Safety says it well:

My first experience with the perils of large scale seed banks was the scandal that erupted over the Fort Collins collection in the mid 1980s.  Journalists had published stories dramatically detailing the grossly negligent manner in which deposits to the seed bank were treated.  Numerous seed deposits were spilling out onto the floors of the facility, the facility was woefully understaffed, there was no testing of the seed and a virtually complete failure of required regeneration — in short a seed saving disaster. A legal petition by my organization to rectify the decision seemed to get the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) attention. But when no real action resulted we litigated. I was a very active member of that legal team. As such I reviewed much of the material in the case that documented USDA’s complete disregard for the safety and integrity of the seeds under its care. This litigation ultimately forced a settlement where USDA agreed to do an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and conditions at the seed bank improved somewhat.

Join Richmond Food Security Society for the “Clean Bin Project” documentary

Medicated animal feeds and the risk to humans

April: Whenever you see any restaurant or grocer telling you their eggs are healthy or even healthier, ask questions: lots of questions. Under NO circumstances do you have to improve a food unless the conditions exist to create poor foods in the first place.

The story of humans with antibiotic resistance is very personal for me. I was prescribed antibiotics only once, and was found to be allergic to it.  After paying for the test that looks at what is lurking in your system, I find out that I am allergic to every antibiotic. And yet, I have never taken any of them in my lifetime.

We should be asking Canadian and American governments some very, very tough questions…

by Gretchen Goetz | Mar 16, 2011     Link to original article

Administering antibiotics to animals via feed leads to inconsistencies in how much of the drugs they intake, thus contributing to the growth of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, according to a new commentary.

In a paper published this month in Environmental Health Perspectives, experts from Johns Hopkins University and Animal Welfare Approved argue that letting animals “choose” how much of an antibiotic they take by putting it into their feed can pose a severe health risks to humans by allowing drug-resistant bacteria to develop.

“We know a lot about antibiotic resistance in animals, but one thing that really hasn’t been covered very well is medicated feed, and what are the issues surrounding it that make resistance more likely,” says Dr. David Love, project director of Johns Hopkins’ Center for a Livable Future and co-author of the paper.

Health Canada to ban parsley capsules by end of 2011

This was one crazy day: I walk into my favorite health food store and the owner was close to tears. They lose sleep over just buying this store a year ago, and one month later, Harper pulls the rug out from them.

“We are about to lose over half of our product lines, and the shelves are already hard to fill. And now, one of our biggest customer base for parsley caplets is being told by Health Canada that they can’t get it anymore, because there isn’t sufficent evidence available that it is safe.”

I kid you not. I did the research, and it does appear that parsley will be taken off the “natural products” list. But Red Bull Sugar/Caffeine Drink is fine.

I have a call in to Health Canada. Should be interesting.

So here’s my pledge: this year I will grow parsley; lots of it. Dry it. Put it into vegetable based capsules. Sell it. In fact, this year is a really great time to grow all the banned herbs.

This is my pledge, Health Canada. Come and get me. Let’s open this whole BS debate wide enough for all Canadians to hear. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain: for Canadians, at least. Let’s open the raw milk debate up as well. How about the other long list of herbs that, as far as I can Google, have never killed anyone.

We can sell Red Bull but not parsley. We get mercury vaccines. GMO foods. What is this country coming to? Other than a revolution…

Links to this fiasco:

soscanada.net nhppa.org charterofhealthfreedom.org savenhp.org

*Just one funny note: if you go on HC’s site, and send them an email, it asks for all your personal information or it won’t send. When you get the reply email stating yours has been received, there’s an important claimer: “1) IMPORTANT: For reasons of security and privacy, we ask you not to send us any personal information.”

Palm against forehead….