Meet an Eco-Farmer: Rama Farm Marilynn Lynn, Rama Farm Why did you begin farming? As a young child I recognized that I was happiest when pulling weeds or picking backyard raspberries. This understanding inspired a life-long pursuit of back-to-the land self-sufficiency. Have you always been an eco-farmer, or did you make a change? If the definition of eco-farmer is one who works with nature instead of against her than that would apply to our farming philosophy since the beginning. What do you enjoy most about farming? There is joy in every aspect of farming. Highlights include watching a new customer’s surprise when they bite into a peach and juice runs down their chin, seeing the miracle of alpaca births and devotion of the dams, picking a ripe piece of fruit that you have cared for since it was a tiny bud in an unopened flower, and being surrounded by the authenticity of plants and animals. (more…)
Interview: Failure to Protect the People — Advocate, Author Steven Druker Explores the Uncontrolled Experiment of GMOs in Our Food Supply Steven Druker Steven Druker interviewed by: Chris Walters What are genetically engineered foods doing to us? The most chilling thing about the decades-long uncontrolled experiment in mass consumption of food disrupted at the cellular level is that we cannot know — that’s why the term “uncontrolled experiment” is actually an oxymoron. The “massive enterprise to reconfigure the genetic core of the world’s food supply,” as attorney and activist Steven Druker describes it, amounts to a train wreck of historically unprecedented proportions. Law, ethics and science lie smoldering on the tracks while hundreds of scientists and journalists who ought to know better contribute tirelessly to what may be the greatest disinformation campaign since Edward Bernays invented public relations almost a century ago. As the man whose lawsuit against the FDA at the end of the ’90s shook loose piles of incriminating documents, Steven Druker plays a crucial role in the fight against this great mistake. His new book, Altered Genes, Twisted Truth, combines the genres of memoir, policy paper, legal history and scientific primer to arrive at something like a definitive account of the GMO wars. As he recalls, policy warrior was a role history thrust upon him. Druker majored in philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, where he received a special award for Outstanding Accomplishment and went on to earn his Juris Doctor from U.C. Berkeley. He was elected to both the Law Review and the legal honor society. Not too many years later, biotechnology intervened, and nothing was ever the same. ACRES U.S.A. This book comes at the end of a long road for you. Where did it begin? (more…)