Real Organic Project

The global hydroponic produce market is not slowing down. "Blueberries are a canary in the coal mine, and there are lots of dead canaries down there. Tomatoes..it's very hard to find an organic tomato in this country now that's not grown hydroponically. Nowhere else in the world is hydroponic allowed to be considered organic, just in the United States. Peppers, cucumbers, greens - more every day. This is not something that we're looking at as a potential future problem, this is a very hostile corporate takeover. My wife and I farm organic blueberries in Central Florida. It's a medium-sized farm and it's not a small scale, we have to wholesale. But we do nothing more and nothing less than steward our soil. That's our primary objective, day in and day out. We take very seriously our stewardship commitment to the entire non-crop parts of the farm. My wife's a wildlife biologist. It's extraordinary how much life we have in our blueberry fields. Most of it I can't identify, I'm not sure what all of it's doing there, but all together it seems to be doing very well. This is a farm of identical size, also in Central Florida, it consists of extraordinary amounts of plastic. You can treat this land on Monday with glyphosate, with dicamba, with 2,4-D, with paraquat, whatever you can think of - a harsh chemical agriculture. On Tuesday you can lay out the plastic, on Wednesday you can put your six inch pedestal and your grow bag there, plant the plants on Thursday, on Friday you have an instant organic disposable plastic farm - what has now become the predominant system for growing organic blueberries. This is not just an addition to organic food in our country, it's a replacement. Real soil is being eliminated in Organics. How do we square this? How do we square the USDA breaking its own laws? I'm Hugh Kent (and I'm Lisa Kent) and we now rely on the Real Organic Project label to help people find real organic, soil-grown produce like ours." #Organic #OrganicFarming #OrganicFood #Hydroponics #Antitrust #Monopoly #USDA #Blueberries #Soil #OrganicAgriculture #Stewardship #Fauxganic #CorporateGreed #RegulatoryCapture #LetsGetReal https://lnkd.in/dhVgUpnS

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Break ‘Em Up!! Watch the trailer now! Our 2024 Symposium is going deep into the rapid, corporate consolidation we’re all seeing in the #FoodSystem and pulling the threads on what this reality will bring to farmers, eaters, and citizens. Is Big Ag dictating how food is being grown? And if so, is it truly “climate smart” or are they shaping what that term means for their own financial gain? Do we really have choices on supermarket shelves? Are unchecked monopolies (and monopsonies) in the food system making it harder and harder to find real organic food, even outside of grocery chains,  if that’s what a citizen wants? Is there a future for a #SmallFarmRevolution and direct sales everywhere? How does urbanization and the gutting of rural America factor into this idea? We hope that you’ll join us for both of our afternoon sessions on Sunday March 17 and Sunday April 7, from 3 to 5pm ET. Speakers include: Vandana Shiva, Michael Pollan, Zephyr Teachout, Eliot Coleman, Alice Waters, Dan Barber, Regi Haslett-Marroquin, Seth Godin, Liz Carlisle, Miguel Altieri, Hans Herren, and more.⁠ Follow the link in our bio and use promo code WAKEUP to save 20% on a ticket to our 2024 Symposium before the week is up!⁠ ⁠ (Our Early Bird pricing ends at midnight ET on Saturday February, 24.)⁠ ⁠ Your ticket includes: interactive viewing, real time chat discussions, live breakouts, and access to both session recordings.⁠ ⁠ ⁠  #Organic #OrganicFood #OrganicFarming  https://lnkd.in/guVMRHky