mightyriverbc

Please have your order finalized by the evening of Wednesday, October 1. The delivery will be Monday, October 6. If you'd like a .pdf of the October catalog, it is now available. Sorry I missed our meeting! I will try to get more info about switching banks as it is available. There's a program in Viroqua on Thursday, September 18 you might be interested in.

It's about connecting people to their local farmers.

Mark Kastel, co-founder of the Cornucopia Institute, one of the country's 
preeminent organic industry watchdogs, will give a talk Thursday, September
18, at 7 p.m., at the Greenman Music Hall in Viroqua. 

Kastel, perhaps the most provocative voice in the organic community, will
discuss how farmers and consumers can join together to protect the integrity
of the organic label. Although thousands have heard his fiery oratory around
the country this is the first time Kastel, a Vernon County resident,
will speak in the area. This November he is a featured keynote speaker at the
Weston A. Price Foundation convention in San Francisco.

Will corporate investments in industrial scale farms, monopolistic practices,
and foreign imports decouple the organic farming movement from
the environmental, animal husbandry and social justice ethics that consumers
believe they are supporting? And, in order to protect us from the fallout
from factory farm livestock production (E. coli, salmonella), will federal
and state government partner with agribusiness to mandate that all fresh
food be sanitized or sterilized before sale? Kastel will have some answers
followed by a town hall style discussion.

Corporate agribusiness and the USDA seem to have one clear goal: produce
the cheapest possible food, regardless of quality, and if contaminated, use
technology (irradiation, fumigation, heat treatment, etc.) to fix production
problems after the fact.

From 5:30-7 p.m., prior to Kastel's speech, everyone is invited to break
bread with farmers.  Several of the area's top value-added agricultural
producers will sell and sample their wares in the Viroqua Public Market
at 215 S. Main Street.  Sibby's Ozone restaurant will be open with organic
ice cream, meals, beer and wine.  It's an evening all about the meaning
of food and community.

The event is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the Viroqua
Food Co-op, Kickapoo Free Press, Valley Stewardship Network, The Cornucopia
Institute and Viroqua Public Market. For more information: 625-2042 or
cultivate@cornucopia.org