Organic News

Consumers blind to toxic dangers at greengrocer

Sydney Morning Herald | 3 July 09

FRUIT and vegetables sold in NSW regularly exceed the permitted levels of chemical residue, yet consumers have no way of knowing how to identify and avoid potentially toxic produce.

The industry-run national testing body FreshTest has confirmed about 2.5 per cent of the produce it tests either exceeds the maximum residue levels set for more than 100 dangerous pesticides and herbicides, or is found to contain traces of chemicals not approved for use on the relevant crop.

But FreshTest is under no obligation to pass the results of its testing on to either the NSW Government or the consumer. And while at least two other states regularly pay FreshTest for state-based results, NSW has never bought any of the data.

Moreover, because the system is industry-run and fully funded by the Australian Chamber of Fruit and Vegetable Industries, the testing is voluntary, done only at the request of either the grower or the wholesaler.

>> read more on this article online

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The ORGANIC GOLD COAST FARMERS MARKET
is open EVERY SUNDAY including this Easter Sunday;
Sunday 12th April 2009.

The crops don’t stop growing for a religious holiday!

Many varieties of produce if left for an extra week in this warm, humid weather would spoil or grow too large to sell.
Also, our Growers have suffered many losses over this season due to the excessive rains and heat and need to sell whatever they can to recoup their losses.
And then there are our customers who are addicted to the
freshest, healthiest, most nutritious vegetables and fruits that they can buy. They can’t afford to shop anywhere else, because we have the very best value Certified Organic produce in South East Queensland!

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Savvy shoppers hunt bargain fresh food in season
Brisbane Courier Mail | 13 Jan 09

According to a recent survey of more than 1000 grocers, Australians are dealing with the increased cost of living by using "tactical shopping", which includes buying seasonal fruit and veg when it's at its best price.

It's easier said than done though, because we're used to having fruit and veg all year round from all over the world. With imports having doubled during the past five years, many of us no longer actually know what's in season when.

And what exactly does local mean anyway? For purists, keen on cutting down global emissions, it can mean as little as a 100km radius. For others it means "Australian grown". Between extremes is the produce grown here in Queensland.

>> read more on this article online

Seasonal eating – what to eat when

Fruit

Apples (Royal Gala) January-July
Apples (Jonathan) February-June

Apples (Golden Delicious) January-December

Apples (Red Delicious) January-December

Apples (Granny Smith) January-December

Apples (Fuji) March-December

Apples (Braeburn) April-December

Apples (Pink Lady) April-December

Apples (Sundowner) May-December

Apples (Lady William) May-December

Apricots January & November-December

Avocados April-November

Bananas January-December

Blackberries January-March & November-December

Blueberries January-April & September-December

Cantaloupes/Rockmelons January-December

Cherries January & November-December

Chestnuts March-July

Custard Apples March-October

Figs January-April & November-December

GrapefruitJanuary-December

Grapes (Flame Seedless) January-March & October-December

Grapes (Menindee Seedless) January-February & October-December

Grapes (Red Globe) January-August & December

Grapes (Thomson Seedless) January-July & December

Grapes (Black) January-June & December

Honeydew Melons January-December

Kiwifruit March

Lemons April-August

Limes January-October

Lychees January-March & November-December

Mandarins (Honey Murcott) August-December

Mandarins (Imperial) April-September

Mangoes January-April & September-December

Nashi Pears February-October

Nectarines January-February & April & October-December

Oranges Navel May-October

Orange Valencia January-April & September-December

Passionfruit January-December

Pawpaws January-December

Peaches (White) January-March & November-December

Peaches (Yellow) January-April & September-December

Pears (Beurre Bosc) February-October

Pears (Corella) April-November

Pears (Packham) March-December

Pears (Williams/Bartlett) January-April

Persimmons March-August

Pineapples January-December

Plums January-April & December

Quinces April & August

Raspberries January-May & October-December

Strawberries January-December

Tamarillos/Tree Tomatoes May-October

Walnuts April-June

Watermelons January-December

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Vegetables

Artichokes Globe/Jerusalem April-December

AsparagusJanuary-April & August-December

Beans (Broad) September-November

Beans (Green) January-December

Beanshoots January-December

Beetroot January-December

Bok Choy January-December

Broccoli January-December

Brussels Sprouts March-October

Cabbages January-December

Cabbages (Chinese/Wom Bok) January-December

Cabbage (Red) January-December

Capsicums January-December

Carrots January-December

Carrots (Dutch) January-December

Cauliflowers January-December

Chillies January-December

Celery January-December

Cucumbers January-December

Eggplants/Aubergines January-December

Endive January-December

Fennel April-November

Garlic February-April

Herbs January-December

Leeks January-December

Lettuces/Salad Mix January-December

Mushrooms January-March & June-December

Onion (Brown/Red/White) January-September & December

Onions (White salad) January-April & July-December

Onions (Spring) January-December

Parsley January-December

Parsnips January-December

Peas January-December

Potatoes January-December

Pumpkins January-December

Radishes January-December

Rhubarb January-December

Shallots January-September & December

Silverbeet January-December

Snowpeas January-December

Spinach January-December

Squash January-December

Swedes January-December

Sweetcorn January-December

Tomatoes January-December

Tomatoes (Cherry) January-December

Turnips January-December

Watercress January-December

Witlof January-December

Zucchinis/Courgettes January-December

 

Earthly riches  | Sydney Morning Herald | 5 Oct 06

The battle for the organic dollar is hotting up but do organics really have an edge?

Steve Skopolianos scans a sea of lettuce, the symmetrical waves of growth stretching half a kilometre to the banks of the Maribyrnong River. He reels off their varieties with the pride of an old-style farmer with soil in his veins.

"Frisee endive, red oak, red coral, cos lettuce, green coral . . ." The list goes on and on.

His pleasure at this glistening crop sprouting from the deep chocolate-red loam on the river flats at Keilor - just 20 minutes' drive to the north-west of Melbourne's CBD - is palpable. Organic bounty such as this is Australia's new gold and Skopilianos has come full circle. His grandfather, George Damtis, first tilled the same ground with a horse and plough, using the same methods of sustainable agriculture, more than 50 years ago.

>> more on this article

Organics on a budget - what are the best buys for your own health (and the planet)?
Sydney Morning Herald - 19 June 07

It was flinching at the $10.00 price tag on a kilo of Brussels sprouts at the local organic market that got me thinking. If the food budget can only stretch to a few organic items then it makes sense to invest in those foods which - when produced non-organically - may have higher pesticide residues. But how do you know what these foods are?

If you're a shopper in the US, you're in luck - there's a fact sheet produced by an environmental organisation, the Environmental Working Group, listing the fruits and vegetables likely to have both the highest and lowest residues. But in Australia, it's not so easy - there's no one place listing all the pesticides used on different fruits and vegetables, says Jo Immig of the National Toxics Network, http://www.oztoxics.org/ntn/,a consumer based organisation working to reduce pollution. While some produce might have many pesticides registered for use on it, this doesn't mean the pesticides will actually be used, or even that there will be residues. On the other hand, some foods may have just a couple of pesticides registered for use on them - but they might be nasty ones and potentially more harmful, she explains. So what's a shopper to do?

A spokesperson for one of the oranisations that certifies organic food in Australia thought the answer was simple - just buy everything organic. In a perfect world I'm sure that makes sense, but on the planet where I live - which has single parents and students struggling on meagre incomes - it's not always realistic.

>> more on this article

Earthly riches  | Brisbane Courier Mail | 26Sep 06

ORGANICS have come a long way since the days when you'd be lucky to find a few dusty looking carrots or blemished apples at the local fruit shop.

It is now the fastest growing sector of the food industry.

There are dedicated organic stores, outlets such as health food shops, delicatessens, food emporiums and even supermarkets carrying an extensive range of organic goods ? and this is due to ever-increasing consumer demand.
The decision to go organic can be made for many reasons. Eating organic produce enables us to avoid the intake of artificial chemicals, pesticides and food additives, and because of the way organic produce is grown, it usually contains higher levels of vitamins and nutrients.

Above all, though, it's the flavour of organic fruit and vegetables, perhaps best described as "tasting like they used to", which persuades people to make the change.

The recipes today are some of the most simple and flavoursome. The chicken in particular uses one of the oldest methods of cooking poultry and makes sure the the full flavour of both the bird and the vegetables is retained.

>> more on this article
 

Organics Agog - Brisbane Courier Mail | 1Aug06

WORLDWIDE demand for organic food is booming and Australian producers can snare a bigger slice of the market, according to a government report.

The Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) has delivered a broad study of the organics industry, finding demand for the products is outstripping supply around the globe.
"Organics is one of the fastest growing sectors in the food industry overall, experiencing double digit growth in most developed markets, compared with 1 to 2 per cent growth rate for conventional food products," the report said.

"There is a large amount of latent unsatisfied demand for organic foods."

Most big supermarkets in developed countries stock at least a small range of organic products, including leafy vegetables, dairy and some processed food.

But in the most developed nations such as the US, Japan and in Europe, organics has become a mainstream category of food, showing strong demand-driven expansion.

While demand began with fruit and vegetables, it has expanded into meat, dairy products, wine, cereals and processed fruits, and the emergence of boutique supermarkets has broadened the range of products even further.

Japan is Australia's biggest market, taking just over one third of our organic exports including meat, cereals, beverages and spices.

The second biggest market is continental Europe, collecting 26 per cent of exports, followed by Britain at 17 per cent.

The report identifies export expansion opportunities for Australia, especially in cereals.

"The cereal category is one where demand is reported to consistently outstrip supply in key markets such as Europe and Japan," the RIRDC said. "Australia's competitiveness in cereals and pulses will allow it to be competitive in baked products, noodles and pasta."

The absence of foot and mouth and mad cow diseases also provided opportunities for expanding Australia's organic meat exports.

RIRDC highlighted organic wine as showing strong export growth potential, after the success of conventional wine exports to the UK, US and Europe.

"As per-capita consumption of wine in these countries increases and people become more sophisticated, there will be a growing demand for organic wines," the report said.

Plenty to chew over - Sydney Morning Herald
24 March 06

If you're prepared to - or are preparing to - fork out the extra cash and go organic in your eating, it may be what you're not paying for that will do you the most good. Pesticides, for example.

Immunologist, restaurateur and organic food advocate Dr Robert Warlow is adamant that they are one of the big threats to our health.

"Pesticides by and large have extremely long half lives that are measured in years, not in days or even hours," Warlow says. "Very few if any are biodegradable, and moreover most are finely lipid soluble [dissolve in fat] - one of the reason they're so effective as metabolic poisons. They invariably get deep inside cells to the point they get into and bond to or damage DNA. That's how they exert their toxicity."

What about withholding periods - not picking fruit or vegetables for a prescribed number of days after application?

"They have no meaning whatsoever," Warlow says.

Biochemist and pesticide expert John Pollak, a retired reader at the histology and anatomy department at Sydney University, agrees.

"One should talk about pesticide formulations - the active component can only make up from 5 to 30 per cent - other components like detergents and solvents can themselves be toxic and can often enhance the toxicity of the active component," Pollak says.

He believes that withholding periods are "useful" - to a certain extent. It doesn't get rid of them, but it may decrease the amounts and the potential toxicity. He agrees we should minimise exposure to pesticides.

But how do you avoid pesticides, herbicides, growth stimulants and antibiotics in meat and the use of artificial fertilisers by farmers on their land? There's only one sure way. Eat certified organic food.

Warlow and another pro-organic doctor, Silas Taylor, cite harm minimisation as the major reason for their position while remaining cautious about the current level of scientific research into the positive health benefits of organic food.

Taylor is a physician who has given up practising medicine to become a nutritional health educator and consultant. His support for organic food is based on his "gut feeling that food that isn't plastered with pesticides and meat that isn't pumped full of hormones and antibiotics not only might taste better but surely it's the route of less harm." Although, as a scientist, he concedes some of the research evidence is "a little difficult for me to take on".

>> more on this article

Growing organically
Brisbane Courier Mail
28feb06

ANDRE Leu's first exposure to organic farming was hardly propitious – working in a Kuranda orchard for $20 a week, sleeping in the packing shed and living on fruit scavenged from the orchard.

But, as he says of his employer, the late Fred Briggenshaw: "He didn't like to part with his money but he did like to part with his knowledge."

Briggenshaw had a superb library packed with the classics of organic farming – F.H. King, Rudolf Steiner, Albert Howard and Julius Hensel – which, with his experience, he made readily available to the Sydney-raised Leu.

The seeds were sown. Leu is now the chairman of the Organic Federation of Australia, the peak body representing 5000 stakeholders. As he says, it is partly an industry and partly a movement, and as supply chains go, it is more of a web.

Leu's farm is a tropical fruit orchard in the far north's Daintree with most of his 164 ha given over to rainforest. He has about 20 ha under production, principally lychees, rambutan and star apples with smaller plantings of durian and mangosteens. He has had the property since 1991 after owning farms at Kuranda and Millaa Millaa on the Atherton Tableland.

In between, there has been time in and out of the industry. Over the years he's garnered a couple of university degrees in communication and adult education, enjoyed several stints as a professional musician, and embarked on regular plant-gathering trips to South-East Asia.

Leu estimates he has introduced 25 new tropical species to Australia over the past few decades including salaks, dukus, langsats, santols, sapodillas and chempedaks. Not household words yet, but neither were rambutans and lychees a few years back.

>> more on this article

 

Venue:
Miami State High School

Miami Sate High School is located at 2137-2205 on the Gold Coast Highway, Miami Queensland.

It sits behind Nobby Headland, a 5 minute walk from the beaches of the Gold Coast. It's easily identified from the highway by a large yellow sign built on an area cut out of the headland behind the oval, that says "Miami High".