The Natural Farmer

Winter 2022
Corporate Capture

Image Credit: Natasha Skov

Editorial for Countering Corporate Capture Issue

by Elizabeth Henderson, guest editor In this issue of TNF, we focus on concentration in the food system. As the cover image chart shows,...

Concentration and Power in the Food System

BY PHIL HOWARD As you know, there's a tendency in many industries to move away from markets characterized by many small firms towards...

Farmers’ Rights: It Is not too Late to Set This Right

BY MICHAEL SLIGH Farmers’ Rights in the international area is used as shorthand for the hard-fought rights to save, share and sell seeds...

A Parity Farm Bill for a Future with Family Farms and Monarchs

by George Naylor Once again, so many groups are focused on the “Farm Bill”, the key piece of legislation that could possibly put some...

Defending the US Organic Movement Against Corporate Capture

BY EDITH COUCHMAN There is a general consensus among informed observers that industrialized, large-scale, corporate interests have...

Farming at the intersection of economic and climate crises

By Grace Oedel, NOFA-VT Executive Director This article was originally printed in VT Digger on August 28, 2022. I belong to a local CSA...

Values-Based Purchasing: Opening Markets for Mid-sized and Smaller Farms

By Laura Edwards-Orr The Opportunity “Good Food Purchasing is an idea whose time has come, and many different entities in our community -...

Danone Puts Local Last: The Fight to save Organic Dairy Farms in the Northeast

By ED MALTBY In August 2021, Danone North America, which owns the organic dairy brand Horizon Organic, notified 89 organic dairy farm...

A Real Organic Dairy Farm

Interview with Chuck Blood by Elizabeth Henderson Q. Tell us a little about your farming Chuck: My partner Mary and I moved to Rocky Tops...

Building a Food Hub for Economies of Collaboration

By CHRIS HARTMAN Economies of collaboration can compete with economies of scale. That theme, first introduced to me at a National Good...

Evaluating Reduced and No-Till:

Findings from a Three-Year Study of Northeast Farmers Utilizing Alternative Tillage Systems BY CHRISTINE MANUCK In 2019, the NOFA...

Finding Common Grounds

By j.p. MUHLY "According to traditional thought, if we fail to organize all aspects of our lives, including our work to make positive or...

Farmer Ground Flour - Growing a Local Grain Ecosystem

BY EMILY REISS Farmer Ground Flour (FGF) is an organic, regional, flour mill in Trumansburg, New York. Its power is more than just...

Inheriting Genetic Resilience in Tomatoes & Ourselves

BY PETRA PAGE-MANN (inspired by ongoing conversations with Maddie Halpert, Matthew Goldfarb among many other curious humxns) In my...

Growing Vegetables in a Perennial Clover Living Mulch: Sawyer Farm’s Tillage Reduction Journey

BY LINCOLN FISHMAN Sawyer Farm is in the Hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. We've been farming here since 2010. In the early years, an...

Winter 2022 Corporate Capture