A Napier-based organic food business is assessing the damage caused by a fire in its production operation on Tuesday night.

The Fire Service in Napier said the cause of the blaze at Chantal Organic Wholesalers was being investigated.

Company business development manager David Alexander said part of the single-storey production facility building had been damaged.

"Anything we change from a bulk packet into a retail packet will have some delays, anything we manufacture will have some delays - we don't know how long for," he said.

About 25 people worked on the site and it was too early to say how they would be affected by the fire.

"We're going to have some temporary setbacks," Alexander said.

Moving the production into temporary facilities would also have some impact.

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Fire setback for Napier organic food producer Chantal

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Organic farmers often live on islands in a sea of genetically modified crops. More than 90 percent of the corn that farmers plant is genetically modified to resist pests and herbicides.

And corn pollen gets around.

"Corn pollen can travel many miles," said Frank Kutka, a plant breeder with stories about how far corn will go to reproduce.

"An organic grower from southeastern North Dakota was growing blue corn," he said, "and he had farmers up to five miles away saying, 'Hey, I had a few blue kernels coming out of the combine.' So, yeah, corn pollen blows a long way."

Pollination is vital. But when an organic field is downwind of genetically modified (or GMO) corn plants, contamination happens. Such contamination can cost farmers thousands of dollars, because organic, GMO-free corn often brings a premium price of several dollars more per bushel.

Kutka works for the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society and lives in western North Dakota. He's been trying for several years to frustrate that traveling corn pollen. He's created an organic corn that rejects foreign pollen, and he's now working to grow enough seed to sell.

Organic farmers already take steps to reduce pollen contamination from genetically modified or GMO crops. They plant buffers around fields, and try to time planting so their corn produces pollen before or after genetically engineered corn growing nearby.

There's little data about the extent of genetic contamination, but in a survey done by the organic industry, about one-third of growers reported problems. This year a USDA survey of organic farmers is asking about financial losses caused by GMO contamination.

There's growing demand for organic, non-GMO corn to make everything from chips to baby food, and for use as animal feed. The organic food industry recorded $35 billion in sales in 2013.

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Breeders offering corn that's picky about pollen

MetaWear has just launched the nations first solar and geothermal-powered operation providing cutting, sewing, dyeing, and screen-printing of GOTS- certified organic cotton T-shirts using seaweed-based inks with no toxic inputs.

Fairfax, VA (PRWEB) - Close to our countrys capital, MetaWear has just launched the nations first solar and geothermal-powered operation providing cutting, sewing, dyeing, and screen-printing certified organic cotton T-shirts. This cutting-edge sustainable style manufacturer which uses seaweed-based inks with no toxic inputs, and pays its staff a livable wage was recently certified to the worlds platinum standard for the processing of organic textiles the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS). MetaWear is the first and only US-based GOTS factory of its kind.

GOTS, the textile industrys counterpart to the US Department of Agricultures organic food standard, covers the growing, processing, manufacturing, packaging, labeling, trading, and distribution of all textiles made from at least 70 percent certified organic fiber. As with organic food standards, a textile product carrying the GOTS organic seal must contain a minimum of 95 percent certified organic fibers, while a product with the made with organic label must contain a minimum of 70 percent certified organic fiber. GOTS-certified textiles are free of pesticides, GMOs, formaldehyde, chlorine bleaches, heavy metals, and other chemicals detrimental to humans and the environment, but typically used in conventional cotton t-shirts and textiles.

MetaWear is extremely proud to be paving the way for todays textile industry here in the US. We adhere to the most stringent global processing standards, and offer earth-conscious, socially responsible, and flawlessly-fitting screen-printed apparel perfect for promoting companies brands and messages, states Marci Zaroff, ECOfashion pioneer and MetaWear Co-Founder and President.

MetaWear, located in a refurbished Verizon facility in Fairfax, VA, makes its promotional custom T-shirts for men and women using Fair Trade-certified organic cotton. In addition, the company uses SeaInk, a proprietary dye process that uses a seaweed-derived base with no harmful inputs including PVC, resins, or binders.

With SeaInk, MetaWear can avoid the harmful impact of standard dyes without sacrificing color vibrancy, says CAS Shiver, MetaWear Co-Founder and technical mastermind behind the ink development as well as the solar and geothermal energy practices the company employs.

In addition to being GOTS-certified, MetaWear produced the worlds first Cradle-to-Cradle Certified fashion T-shirt for leading lifestyle brand Under the Canopy also Founded by Ms. Zaroff. This T-shirt was unveiled at the Cradle-to-Cradle Innovation Institutes Fashion Positive launch, celebrating its newest program dedicated to the circular economy. The five categories of focus for C2C Certification include material health, material reuse, renewable energy, water stewardship, and social justice.

I am approached regularly by organizations seeking sustainable, domestically made solutions to their T-shirt needs, says Zaroff. Authenticity and transparency in the supply chain add value, and cheap, toxic T-shirts are no longer seen as acceptable. The days of conventional GMO cotton, plasticol inks, hazardous dyes, and exploited workers are over. Todays smart businesses want to make choices that resonate with their core values.

As a result, MetaWear provides GOTS-certified T-shirts to numerous organic food and beauty companies, and has just partnered with the Organic Trade Association (OTA), where Marci serves on the Board of Directors. OTA members get a 10 percent discount on screen-printed organic cotton T-shirts and in return, MetaWear donates a portion of the total sales to OTA.

MetaWear is on its way to revolutionizing the USA textile industry one GOTS-certified organic T-shirt at a time, states Zaroff.

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MetaWear Launches USA's First GOTS-Certified Ethical Manufacturing And Dye Factory

Although most people believe that organic farming involves no use of chemical pesticides and fertilisers. But an investigation by the Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI), an apex association of the Indian agrochemical industry that advances the cause of Indian farmers through better crop protection strategies, has unearthed just the opposite facts, claims the association. Information sourced by the CCFI under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has established that most farms claiming to be organic do use chemical pesticides regularly to protect their crops; yet they market and sell their produce under the 100% organic label. The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, revealed its findings on pesticide residues in organic vegetables. According to Dr K K Sharma of the IARI laboratory, in the analysis, 33% of organic products, sold in Delhi over the last two years contained pesticides. In fact, the common vegetables which had tested positive at the IARI lab for pesticide residues include variety of fruits & vegetables. Although the maximum residue limit (MRL) is irrelevant to organic vegetables, it was genuinely shocking that the IARI's study showed that many organic vegetables carried pesticide residues far above the MRL set for vegetables. But, when the same IARI analysed 93,120 samples of conventional food from all over India, they found that the pesticides residues in them were only in 1.5%, whereas pesticide residues appeared in 3% (UK) and in 4% (Germany). With 3.1 % samples having pesticide residue, the UK government was very happy and declared that conventional fruits and vegetables were safe in the UK. According to the CCFI study, it was found that most of the organic farmers claimed that they do not use chemical fertilisers and pesticides but use manure as fertilisers and cow urine as insecticides. But it was revealed that before the harvest, to get rid of insects, they used chemical insecticides quite liberally to kill the live insects. According to a study funded by the Stanford University, eating organic food does not make you healthier. Dr Crystal Smith, a lead researcher of the study who looked at more than 200 samples of the content proved that organic food is not necessarily healthier than conventional food. When it came to nutritional content, the study found out that overall there were no clear differences between organic and conventional food. The findings corroborate those of the UK's Food Standards Agency, which commissioned a review a few years ago into organic food claims. There is no difference between organic and conventional foods, if youre an adult and making a decision based solely on your health, said a CCFI report. Government of India gives Rs 10000 per ha subsidy to so called organic farms. CCFI claims that the Indian exchequer has lost a whopping Rs 2,500 crore due to bogus claims on organic farming. According to its report on organic farming in India titled, Myths v/s facts: Organic farming published on November 4, 2014, the report points out how growth under organic farming has considerably slowed down across the globe and that less than 1% of agricultural land is currently under organic agriculture. Organic foods are not all that safe as they have been made out to be, claims CCFI. According to the German Health Authorities, bean sprouts from an organic farm in Germany had killed 31 people and infected a thousand more sometime from May to June in 2011, caused by an E. coli outbreakfrom the pig manure. According to Dr Reinhard Burger, president of the Robert Koch Institute, it is the absence of chemical fertilisers which made the crops more susceptible to contamination caused by the bacteria originating from the pig manure. Consumers must not have forgotten about the alarming news concerning the New Delhi organic food retail outlet back home in India selling vegetables which contained much more pesticide residues. The next time you decide to go for organic food, don't be misguided by the heart, use your head, instead, said CCFI in a press statement.

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Indian exchequer lost Rs 2,500 crore due to bogus claims on organic farming: CCFI

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What Is Organic Food - Epipheo

By: Jamie Goligher

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What Is Organic Food - Epipheo - Video

Darren and Julia Quenault are handing back the organic status of their Jersey farm after nine years. Photograph: Stuart Abraham

Darren and Julia Quenault took their first delivery of non-organic cattle feed a few weeks ago. After nine years of organic dairy farming, they decided to convert back to conventional, and give up their organic status, at the end of last year.

The reason was simple. Cattle feed costs were excruciatingly expensive and we just couldnt absorb them, says Julia. Were saving 1,800 a month. We couldnt have continued, we would have had to put up prices significantly, and we didnt feel we could burden consumers with an extra 12% on the price of milk.

The Quenaults are not alone. Even as demand for organic food remains high, the farmers producing it are falling by the wayside. And the results of their transition might cause anyone else considering it to think hard. Since they made the switch almost eight weeks ago, sales of the milk, cheese, cream and ice cream produced by the couple, their 60 Jersey cows and 10 staff (including their son) have held up.

And yet organic remains a powerful brand. So what are farmers like the Quenaults to conclude? Julia says how important their organic status was to their customers remains an open question, but that many local people are aware of problems with conventional farms. Chief among these is the high level of nitrates in the water supply, which has been linked to the intensive use of fertilisers on potatoes.

There have been surveys about what matters to consumers. Is it food produced locally, animal welfare, the environment or price? she says. Organic standards mean farmers are forbidden from using chemical herbicides, pesticides and fertilisers, and the use of medicines such as antibiotics on animals is controlled. Lower yields and higher costs are offset by a combination of the produces retail price premium, and subsidies paid to farmers to reward their environmental stewardship and protection of wildlife.

Organic was an extra selling point for us, but now that were established, we hope it wont matter too much. Organic is a really hard thing to explain. It means a lot of things, and you cant sum it up in a few soundbites. We believe in the organic ethos, but it was an extra niche aspect for us. There are lots of reasons why people buy our milk.

The Quenaults farm was certified by one of the main British certification bodies, Organic Farmers and Growers, but differences in Jerseys subsidy regime mean their situation is different from that on English, Welsh and Scottish farms. After a period when they were threatened with the prospect of no subsidies whatsoever, the Jersey government offered an amount equivalent to that paid in England. We asked for more because Jersey is one of the most expensive places to produce food, Julia says. It was frustrating more than anything I think they have been short-sighted. There is now just one organic milk producer left in Jersey.

Although the Quenaults decision was specific to conditions in Jersey, they represent a wider trend. UK government figures show that while organic food sales have bounced back from the low that followed the 2008/9 financial crash, the amount of land being farmed organically in Britain continues to shrink. In 2013, the last year for which data are available, land in the process of being converted to organic fell by 24%, with fully organic land falling by 3.9%. The number of producers and processors of organic food fell for the fifth year in a row, by 6.4%, and the number of organic sheep, pigs and cattle also fell.

At the end of last year, four trustees resigned from the Soil Association, the campaigning charity and biggest certification body, and launched a public attack on the organisations direction, accusing it of failing to champion the producers and growers it is meant to represent. Last month a report by the European Environment Agency highlighted huge disparities between countries and the fact that British organic farming has stalled: while 3.3% of land is farmed organically in the UK, the same figure as in 2000, countries such as Austria and Spain have seen sharp rises (to 18.5% and 7.5%), while the number of UK farmers and certified processors making organic food products stands at 6,072, down from 7,567 in 2009.

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Why are organic farmers across Britain giving up?

INDORE: City-based social worker Padmashree Janak Palta and industrialists Ambrish Kela and Arun Dike have joined hands to promote healthy living. Every Sunday, they provide organic farmers a platform to interact with people of Indore and educate them about wholesome qualities of organic food under an organization named Jaivik Setu at Bicholi Mardana.

"The objective is to promote organic food so as to flush out harmful chemicals from our day-to-day lives," said Janak Palta. "The effort is a step to make people aware of its benefits and try to inculcate healthy eating habits," said Ambrish Kela adding, "We are trying to bring organic farmers, who have been working for the past many years in the field, in the forefront. They get a platform where they can directly sell their products to consumers, what is more people get a chance to interact with farmers themselves".

Many Indoreans turn up to check out organic vegetables and fruits. "We don't want to commercialize it much; we are trying to market it as a socializing event. A solar cafe has been set up at the farm where breakfast, lunch and snacks are served," said Kela.

As many as 300 people have participated in the programme so far.

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Interact with farmers, savour organic delicacies every Sunday

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reRHi6VA4AE

Swole Talks Season 2 Episode 04
Swole Talks Season 2 Episode 04 - Should We Be Eating Organic Food?

By: Josiah Sernal

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Swole Talks Season 2 Episode 04 - Video

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llD8ANe6lko

Organic kids in China-they have eating organic food since the first day born

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Organic kids in China-they have eating organic food since the first day born - Video

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Rayappa Kasi Seba Stella Organic Food

By: Amalraja Kasi

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Rayappa Kasi Seba Stella Organic Food - Video