Controversial Toronto backyard chicken “farmers” still waiting for the sky to fall

From David Rider, in the Toronto Star:

Trish Tervit holds Pippi, one of her pet hens. Tervit got into backyard chicken farmng as a fun educational exercise for her daughters, and loves the fresh eggs. ANDREW FRANCIS WALLACE/TORONTO STAR. Click image to go to the Toronto Star story.

“Trish Tervit is a friendly mom, an executive with a buzzing iPhone and an outlaw urban farmer collecting eggs on borrowed time.

Her hens — Pippi, Mabel and Elli — peer through a sliding-glass door, schnauzer-like, into Tervit’s Upper Beach semi-detached home.

“I blame my daughter’s Grade 6 teacher,” who brought cute chicks to class, triggering the inevitable “Can we get chickens?” plea from both of Tervit’s daughters.

Will organic farmers be “left behind” in the coming GMO transgenic “rapture” — Stewart Brand seems to think so

From The Call of the Land blog:

Will organic folks be "left behind" in the coming transgenic rapture? Image via Call of the Land

“When Stewart Brand spoke at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in mid-January, he broadcast a vision of a Genetically Modified (GM) future toward which he felt we should all be charging with bright-eyed enthusiasm. “Get out there where it’s getting weird,” he exhorted, “and get weird with it.”

As I sat and listened to Brand talk of the future, I was carried in reverie not forward but backward to 1964. That’s the year my mom took my brothers and me to the New York City World’s Fair where we made a pilgrimage through the most celebrated exhibit of all, Futurama. Sponsored by another GM (General Motors), the exhibit offered a glimpse into what life would be like in the future — as GM engineers wanted to conceive of it. Of course, the future materialized its own way, not in accordance with immaculately engineered visions.

Portland shows the way with raw milk sales allowed at area farmers’ markets

From Emily Parkhurst on The Forecaster.net:

Photo of a Portland farmers market by Steve Minor, via Travel and Liesure blog. Click image above to go there.

PORTLAND — Customers at the city’s farmers markets may soon be able to buy unpasteurized local milk, hard cider, beer and wine to go with their fresh vegetables, meats and baked goods.

City Councilors John Anton and Cheryl Leeman are sponsoring an amendment to the city’s rules that would allow licensed market vendors to add fermented beverages, raw milk and raw milk products, such as cheese, to their wares.

“This is something that was initiated by citizen requests,” Anton said.