The only way the GM industry and their supporters can make GM look good is if they cook the books. The only way they can sell their product is in unlabelled packages in the US and elsewhere so consumers don’t now where it is. This smacks of desperation, not success.”

Nic Welty employs himself full time year-round raising lettuce, spinach, and other leafy greens in three low-cost passive solar greenhouses, which together cover less than one acre of land. His Nine Bean Rows farm near Traverse City, MI, is one of many smaller, diversified, often first-generation farms in the country that defy expectations, particularly among bankers and others with money needed to finance the new food enterprises.

When most consumers think about making better food choices, they often reserve those changes for the home: smart choices at the grocery store, an occasional trip to the local farmers’ market, cutting back on meat, and substituting applesauce for butter in homemade recipes. But when diners walk through the doors of their favorite restaurants, these smart-eating policies tend to melt away into the indulgent abyss.

By and large, the most environmentally friendly dietary decision one can make is to eat less animal protein (see deforestation, water pollution, and greenhouse-gas emissions, etc). But for many, the notion of eschewing — or significantly cutting back on — meat, eggs, and dairy brings up nutritional concerns. As I see it, not only are those concerns usually unfounded, they should pale in comparison to the question of getting enough plant-based foods.

Monsanto, if you will, is the 1 percent of Big Agriculture–the scourge of small farmers everywhere. But now those farmers are fighting back, backed by activists from Occupy Wall Street. First, some history. In 1982, Monsanto scientists were the first to genetically modify a plant cell. Three years later, the US Patent Office ruled that

An observant cynic once wrote, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” The organic food movement is certainly a great cause and it has definitely become big business. Now the only question is whether we will allow this well-intentioned movement, started by farmers who strived to be stewards of the land, to completely degenerate into a meaningless food trend.

Community supported agriculture is a community-led initiative connecting organic growers with local consumers, each group of consumers supporting a farm by purchasing directly from the grower, in order that the grower may have an assured market for the produce and the consumers know exactly where and under what conditions their food is grown. Each such initiative is known as a CSA.

It’s only a matter of time before there is another case of contaminated food that leads to more drug-resistant infections.  And while regulators should move more quickly to clamp down on the use of antibiotics in animal feed, these outbreaks are symptoms of a much bigger problem that can only be solved by rebuilding a food system that supports local food and farms.