Gary Kleppel

What?! Eating Roundup? What the **** are you talking about? Roundup is Monsanto’s name for their signature weed killer. Its principal active ingredient, called glyphosate (pronounced, glie-foe-sate), was patented in the early 1970s. Roundup is more than just a weed killer, it’s a system. A whole suite of crops have been genetically modified (GM) to be “Roundup resistant”.  That means that a gene from a bacterium that makes Roundup ineffective, has been transferred into certain crops, like corn, soy and…

Question: What is the most important element of a local agricultural economy? Answer: The consumer. Without people willing to buy what we produce, there can be no local agricultural economy. Perhaps vegetable farmer, Ethan Ball, said it best: “I love growing great food. But I like selling it more.” The value of the local producer-consumer relationship cannot be overstated. The money spent by shopping locally, stays in our communities. It travels around the community, “multiplying” its economic impact as it goes. For…