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PLEASE NOTE: In the autumn of 1995, we hatched the idea for a free, local gardening publication. The following spring, we published the first issue of Michigan Gardener magazine. Advertisers, readers, and distribution sites embraced our vision. Thus began an exciting journey of helping our local gardening community grow and prosper.
After 27 years, nearly 200 issues published, and millions of copies printed, we have decided it is time to end the publication of our Print Magazine and E-Newsletter.

Archive for the regulation tag

State house considers right to farm bill

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MI Food News:

Representative Tim Kelly (R-Saginaw Twp) has introduced House Bill 4012 to allow people who live in residential neighborhoods in Michigan cities the right to have a backyard farm from which they could sell farm products.

Amending the “Michigan zoning enabling act” would restore the right that many urban folks thought they enjoyed under Michigan’s Right to Farm Act. Recent regulatory changes have removed the legal protection for people who thought they had an inherent right to raise food for themselves and their families and sell any excess for extra money.

Read the bill here…

Coming Soon: Organic Food From Europe

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NPR:

If you buy organic products, your options may be about to expand. The U.S. and the European Union are announcing that they will soon treat each other’s organic standards as equivalent. In other words, if it’s organic here, it’s also organic in Europe, and vice versa. Organic food companies are cheering because their potential markets just doubled.

Those formal definitions of “organic” actually were codified quite recently — just a few decades ago. Before that, organic farming was more of philosophy, based on the idea that you could grow healthier food by nurturing natural life in the soil. In different countries, there were different prophets of this idea:Rudolf Steiner in Germany; Sir Albert Howard in England; J.I. Rodale in the United States. All of them became organic advocates early in the 20th Century.

Interesting insight into the business and regulation of organic foods.

Read the full story here…

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