Gail Nickel-Kailing, December 2nd, 2013 
Erick and Wendy Haakenson, and their son David and his wife Kristin, are farming in a floodplain skirted by the Snoqualmie River. An active farm nearly for 25 years, Jubilee Biodynamic Farm is home to one of the largest and oldest Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs in the state. Jubilee is an intensively managed, diversified farm comprised of 14 acres of fruits, vegetables, and grains and around 35 acres devoted to beef cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks.
Read more: This Much and No More – Jubilee Biodynamic Farm: Small is Beautiful
Gail Nickel-Kailing, October 30th, 2013 
In a region that once supported 480 dairy farms and a rural agricultural landscape, now fragmented by 40 years of residential development, Nash Huber has pieced together 450 acres of rich farmland, almost all of it leased. Through the use of land trusts, restrictive zoning, conservation easements, and leasehold agreements, it has been protected from future development.
Read more: Nash’s Organic Produce – Making the 100-Mile Diet An Everyday Choice
The Snoqualmie Valley Farmers Cooperative, this week made their first delivery of organic produce to 21 Acres Food Hub to be distributed to 100 low-income, home-bound seniors in Seattle.
Read more: New Snoqualmie Valley Farmers Co-op Delivers Organic Produce to Seniors
Gail Nickel-Kailing, January 24th, 2013 
Getting our food from the farm to the consumer – the “supply chain” – is certainly not as simple as it was the past. Once upon a time, the consumer, his/her family, and the local community WERE the growers and a supply chain didn’t exist. Transportation from the field and barn to the kitchen was a matter of feet or yards, not miles. What once was a simple connection with one or two stops along the way, has become a spaghetti-like tangle of connections, links, and cross-links to get fresh fruits and vegetables to your plate.
Read more: Buy local? Why local? Time for the REAL story!
Gail Nickel-Kailing, November 30th, 2012 
Terry’s Berries is a 25 acre organic farm located on the edge of Tacoma in the Puyallup valley where Terry and Dick Carkner have been farming for over 25 years. The Carkners are committed to growing high quality, fresh food for healthy people and to bridging the gap between the consumer and the farmer.
Read more: Terry Carkner, Terry’s Berries, on Growing Organic Berries
Gail Nickel-Kailing, November 4th, 2012 Making out your Thanksgiving menu? Checking it twice? So what’s the most popular pie for dessert? Yes, Virginia, it’s pumpkin pie… but a close second is apple. Good, old fashioned, homemade apple pie! Meet George and Apple Otte, River Vally Organics, growers of organic apples and pears.
Read more: Apple Pie: #2 and trying harder!
Gail Nickel-Kailing, October 10th, 2012 
What does farmland protection have to do with what’s on your dinner table? Or maybe it should be put this way: What does what’s on your dinner table have to do with farmland protection? Think about it… Today, the typical American prepared meal contains, on average, ingredients from at least five countries outside the US. What if we had to grow our food “back home?”
Read more: Preserving Our Farmland: PCC Farmland Trust and Jubilee Biodynamic Farm
Gail Nickel-Kailing, September 29th, 2012 
Take a drive north on Highway 97 and you will pass along the Columbia and Okanogan Rivers between tiers and tiers of orchards growing all kinds of fruit, from stone fruit – apricots, nectarines, and peaches – to apples, pears, and cherries, and the occasional quince. Just a few miles north of Tonasket WA you’ll find River Valley Organics. What’s is it that makes River Valley Organics so special? A unique combination of karma and heart.
Read more: Good Apple Karma
Gail Nickel-Kailing, September 27th, 2012 
Walk into any supermarket and what do you find? Bins of shiny red, yellow, and green apples. What seems like an abundance of apples is an illusion. Just 11 varieties of apples make up 90% of those grown, sold, and eaten in the US. What’s more, 40-plus percent of apples sold are only one variety: Red Delicious. The apple industry has succumbed to the same consolidation and specialization affecting the rest of the food industry. As a result, the number of apple varieties has plummeted.
Read more: A is for Apple
Gail Nickel-Kailing, August 21st, 2012 
Big agriculture is big business; too big, too distant, too reliant on the latest technology, and too focused on profit over good food. Expecting complex technology and genetic engineering to solve the problems of climate change, extreme weather patterns, water shortages, and dwindling supplies of fossil fuels, is not the answer. It is time to go back to the land, to restore our natural resource base and re-invest in our people.
Read more: Crossing the Chasm with Viva Farms
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Two Videos You Shouldn't Miss: The Web of Good Food and Human Health
Dr. Jill Clapperton, Rhizoterra, on Soil Health
Biodiversity in plant communities can enhance the well-being of soil, plants, and animals, and ultimately, human beings. That’s good health in the broadest sense.
Daryl Lasilla, Montana Grain Farmer
Daryl Lasilla, soft-spoken organic grain farmer, grows buckwheat, barley, spelt, and lentils in just outside of Great Falls, in north central Montana.
Click here to see more videos.
Spring is Just Around the Corner! Brown Swiss Calves, Hokah, MN
(Click the image for a larger version: 6MB)
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