Jake Guest: The Antiwar Movement's Influence On Organic

#118:  A look back with celebrated Vermont farmer Jake Guest to the beginnings of the organic movement. Jake, an early mentor of our host Dave Chapman,  speaks of his beginnings as a student protester at Dartmouth and as a US Army enlistee - and how that all influenced his decision to grow food. 
 
Jake Guest is a (now-retired) farmer and founder of Killdeer Farm in Vermont's Upper Valley, which borders New Hampshire along the Connecticut River. Growing vegetable crops on over 50 acres of land, including four greenhouses of in-ground tomatoes, Jake was an early voice speaking out against the appearance of hydroponic imports into organic produce sections.

To watch a video version of this podcast with access to the full transcript and links relevant to our conversation, please visit:

https://www.realorganicproject.org/jake-guest-antiwar-influence-on-early-days-of-organic-episode-one-hundred-eighteen

The Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince.

The Real Organic Project is a farmer-led movement working towards certifying 1,000 farms across the United States this year. Our add-on food label distinguishes soil-grown fruits and vegetables from hydroponically-raised produce, and pasture-raised meat, milk, and eggs from products harvested from animals in horrific confinement (CAFOs - confined animal feeding operations).

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We believe that the organic standards, with their focus on soil health, biodiversity, and animal welfare were written as they should be, but that the current lack of enforcement of those standards is jeopardizing the ability for small farms who adhere to the law to stay in business. The lack of enforcement is also jeopardizing the overall health of the customers who support the organic movement; customers who are not getting what they pay for at market but still paying a premium price. And the lack of enforcement is jeopardizing the very cycles (water, air, nutrients) that Earth relies upon to provide us all with a place to live, by pushing extractive, chemical agriculture to the forefront.

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