Inland FoodWise Online

12/11/2025

More smoke blowing out of the asses of the Trump administration as it rolls out its "Farmers First Regenerative Agriculture Pilot Program."

Not so fast, says Jessica Corbett, senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/regenerative-agriculture). The program is long on rhetoric but falls way short when it comes to the administration's commitment and resources (which the USDA once had, but those resources have been purged).

"The administration has also come under fire for constantly serving the fossil fuel industry; installing an ex-lobbyist, Kyle Kunkler, in a key role at the Environmental Protection Agency and nominating another, Douglas Troutman, for an EPA post; embracing herbicides including atrazine and dicamba as well as “forever chemical” pesticides; and urging the US Supreme Court to shield Bayer, which bought Monsanto, from lawsuits alleging that glyphosate-based Roundup causes cancer.

"As Sarah Starman, senior food and agriculture campaigner at Friends of the Earth, highlighted Wednesday, the Trump administration has also been criticized for cutting billions of dollars in funding previously allocated to promoting regenerative agriculture and firing staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

"The pilot, Starman said, 'is a step in the right direction, and we applaud the intent. But it will only be effective if USDA reverses the past year of massive cuts to on-the-ground conservation staff. Regenerative agriculture requires whole-farm, science-based planning, and right now the agency lacks the army of specialists needed to help farmers design and implement those plans.' ”

If you want true regenerative ag, better to look at the Real Organic Project, (https://realorganicproject.org/), Regeneration International (https://regenerationinternational.org/) and anything Permaculture. It ain't gonna come from Trump's USDA or MAHA. It just ain't.

12/01/2025

LINC (The Local Inland Northwest Cooperative) is hiring a Food Hub Sourcing Manager.

This position will act as a support role for local producers, especially related to onboarding, availability communication, harvest planning, and software literacy to ensure a smooth experience for selling products through LINC. This is an exciting opportunity to work for a small, dynamic cooperative and help strengthen the local food system.

This position is hybrid-remote, starting at $25/hr.

Find more info and application instructions here:
https://www.lincfoods.com/join-our-team

Let Michelle Youngblom, Food Enterprise Director, know if you have any questions.
michelle@lincfoods.com
(507) 766 - 5518

11/15/2025

Good News for Small-scale Egg Producers in Washington State - Action Needed

The Washington State Dept. of Agriculture (WSDA) is looking for feedback on changing the requirements for small farms selling eggs.

The Department is considering rule language that would establish and detail exempting egg producers and packers with flocks of 3000 birds or less that only sell eggs directly to the ultimate consumer from the requirements to obtain an Egg Handler Dealer Endorsement and needing inspections. This would exempt an egg packer with fewer than 3,000 laying hens from needing an egg handler dealer endorsement and from being inspected when only selling shell eggs directly to any household consumer, restaurant, institution, or any other party who has purchased or received their shell eggs for consumption.

Please send your comments to:
Dan Mason
Training and Special Projects Coordinator - Food Safety
DMason@agr.wa.gov

This would be a good rule change and deserves your support. No doubt it will face opposition from industrial/commercial egg interest groups, so this would be a good time for us common folk who believe in revitalizing the availability of locally-grown foods to make our voices heard.

It would remove the ambiguity in RCW 36.71.090 which would seem to already allow small-scale egg producers to sell eggs at farmers' markets (as well as sales through CSA' and on-farm sales which are already allowed) without a dealers' license, inspection or affixing egg seals (RCW 36.71.090 says "It shall be *lawful* for any farmer, gardener, or other person, without license, to sell, deliver, or peddle any ... eggs, ... produced ... by such person" without any reference to the location of the sale), but in practice WSDA seems to require an egg dealer's license to sell eggs at a farmers' market.

AND the proposed language would extend that exemption to include sales to restaurants, institutions, "or any other party who has purchased or received their shell eggs for consumption" [as opposed to for resale]. This is pretty cool!

So PLEASE email Dan Mason (DMason@agr.wa.gov) in SUPPORT of these proposed changes.

AND watch the issue closely as it unfolds to make sure no details in the small print end up making life hard for small-scale producers or negatively affect peoples' ability to make their own food choices.

Inland FoodWise Online will continue to keep you informed on the progress of this initiative.

Read the full article on Inland FoodWise Online

The Washington State Dept. of Agriculture (WSDA) is looking for feedback on changing the requirements for small farms selling eggs. The Department is considering rule language that would establish and detail exempting egg producers and packers with flocks of 3000 birds or less that only sell eggs di...

11/15/2025

Victory! Center for Food Safety Secures Win for the Public's Right to Know in GMO Labeling Lawsuit

A federal court of appeals decision handed down today overturned a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) rule on the disclosure of genetically engineered (GE or GMO) foods. The case challenged the USDA rulemaking which applied the 2016 federal law mandating GMO labeling, now called "Bioengineered." USDA had exempted "highly refined" or ultra-processed GMO foods—such as corn and soy oils—from disclosure, a loophole the court today held unlawful.

Read more:

USDA had exempted

10/15/2025

This is about knocking the legs out from under industrial livestock production (protecting the environment) and giving farmers back their economic power (relocalizing the food system).

The Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance (FARFA) advocates for independent farmers and ranchers. Last month, FARFA helped secure the introduction of the LOCAL Foods Act in the House (H.R. 5341) and hosted a successful Virtual congressional Fly-In of farm freedom activists to put pressure on lawmakers. Next week FARFA is heading to Washington, D.C. to meet directly with congressional offices about the LOCAL and PRIME Acts.

PRIME would allow farmers to sell meat processed at local state-inspected custom processors to consumers within the same state ending the USDA's dictatorial hegemony on meat processing. As filed, it covers even grocery store sales within the state – but the core focus is on getting a direct-to-consumer version into the Farm Bill.

LOCAL would make it easier for families who buy animals by shares to process on-farm with local or itinerant butchers, allowing farmers to have the animals processed on-farm without the cost or stress of transport.

Both of these bills will remove long-standing road roadblocks to building thriving local and regional food systems and economically viable small- and medium-scale producers.

You can help by making sure your lawmakers hear from you before the upcoming meetings. Follow the link below for instructions and congressional contact information.

Please don't be silent. The U.S. food system is broken. These bill would go a long way to fix that if Congress hears from YOU!

https://prod.cdn.everyaction.com/emails/van/EA/EA003/1/72405/9tspDPkCUAfAhdXUA6r3FGj6_IMC0rnUQq_7XftEY0A_archive

08/11/2025

This weekend!! It's FREE. Register at spokanepermaculture.org.

03/28/2025

Action Alert: Act before March 31!
Demand Department of Natural Resources (DNR) halt its plans to transfer around 200 acres of woodland in western Spokane ("Thorpe Road land") to a developer who wants to build as many as 1,000 homes in what is now rare and ecologically sensitive intact forest within Spokane city limits.

Here's the email address for Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove. Write him and urge him to halt this controversial land deal and put the Thorpe Road land back on the Trust Land Transfer Program list.

Email: cpl@dnr.wa.gov

The land in question is a small part of the Department of Natural Resources’ Common Schools Trust fund, consisting of 3 million acres of land "managed by the agency to produce nontax revenue that pays for, among other things, building schools. This revenue is typically generated through leases, including leasing woodlands to logging companies" (Spokesman Review, 3/27/2025). DNR claims revenue from the Thorpe Road land is too low.

30 properties are listed on DNR’s "trust land transfer program." That program has the ability to transfer title of selected DNR lands to other government agencies at no cost. The City of Spokane applied for such a transfer that would have had the land transferred to City Parks at no cost to the city except that DNR ranked the land too low and higher-ranked parcels were approved while lower ranked parcels deferred.

But in an unprecedented action for a property identified for the trust land transfer program, DNR removed the Thorpe Road land from the list for sale. Local conservationists Jeff Lambert and Brian Muegge argue it should instead remain on the list like the other parcels that were passed over during the last round of transfers pending future funds earmarked by the state legislature.

The 3/27/2025 article in the Spokesman Review also outlines several other troubling actions on the part of the DNR board that seem to belie malfeasance on its part in its brutal pursuit of cashing in on the deal with the developer including withholding key data from decision-makers about the ecological value of the land resulting in its low ranking. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/mar/27/conservationists-make-another-last-ditch-effort-to/

Conservationists say they hope to find an ally in the state’s new Public Lands Commissioner, Dave Upthegrove, who might be able to influence the DNR board, but there is not much time. They cite a clause that allows the agreement with the developer to be terminated by April 6, and hope to appeal once more to the DNR board during an April 1 meeting, "arguing the process was rushed and the board was provided a flawed review of the ecological value of the property."

Please email Commissioner Upthegrove TODAY!!

Email: cpl@dnr.wa.gov

Photo: Jesse Tinsley/THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW

03/24/2025

In Spokane.

Come learn about Permaculture & Millwood Community Garden.🌱 eating

12/28/2024

For us long-time advocates of a ban on sewage sludge as fertilizer, this article in today's New York Times is like finding big new present under the tree.

The E.P.A. Promotes Toxic Fertilizer. 3M Told It of Risks Years Ago.
New York Times – Dec. 27, 2024
By Hiroko Tabuchi

Read the article:
https://www.protectmillcanyon.org/

The PFAS (forever chemicals) crisis has recently focussed people's attention on the sewage-sludge-as-fertilizer issue, but this is the first major news reporting which also refers to the other many contaminants in sewage sludge ("biosolids") besides PFAS which we've been screaming about for years.

A few excerpts, but the whole article is worth reading and sharing.
..Betsy Southerland, a former director of science and technology in the E.P.A. Office of Water, which oversees biosolids, said the program had been hurt by staffing shortages as well as an arduous process for setting new restrictions [on known toxic contaminants of sewage sludge]. Action has been slow, she said, even though E.P.A.’s surveys of sludge had shown “all kinds of pollutants — flame retardants, pharmaceuticals, steroids, hormones,” she said. “It’s the most horrible story,” she said...
..“These are highly complex mixtures of chemicals,” said David Lewis, a former E.P.A. microbiologist who in the late 1990s issued early warnings of the risks in spreading sludge on farmland. The soil “becomes essentially permanently contaminated,” he said in a recent interview from his home in Georgia...
..“There are other ways to dispose of excess waste from the cities,” [Oklahoma Republican state legislator Jim] Shaw said in an email. “Contaminating our farmland, livestock, food and water sources is not an option and has to stop.”...

Immediately impose a state-wide emergency moratorium on approving all pending permits for land application of sewage sludge! No more sewage sludge on ag land in Washington.

10/22/2024

URGENT URGENT URGENT - Oct 27 deadline!

Tell WA Dept. of "Ecology" that using toxic municipal sewage sludge as fertilizer IS NOT ECOLOGICAL!!

Comment deadline: Oct. 27.
Comment link: https://swm.ecology.commentinput.com/?id=rM4PhRNKm

Tell them: The State of Washington must cease issuing and nullify any permit that allows the disposal of municipal sewage sludge in any form on homes, farmland, forestland or parkland.

Furthermore, you must pressure the WA Dept. of "Ecology" to live up to its name and inform the WA state legislature that using toxic municipal sewage sludge as fertilizer is not a "beneficial use" of sewage sludge (RCW 70A.226.005). The Dept. for decades has hidden behind the legislature's purely political, shockingly unscientific declaration of that beneficial use as its excuse for brazenly promoting and facilitating the pollution of millions of acres of farmland and the food produced on it as well as surrounding wildlife habitat and surface and ground waters with sewage sludge.

Informed and concerned people have protested against this practice for many years citing credible scientific evidence of the hundreds of toxic contaminants present in municipal sewage sludge and yet the bureaucratic juggernaut has simply plowed over their protests.

But things are changing.

Now that scientists and the general public have learned of the crisis we're in caused by a family of toxic "forever chemicals" (sometimes referred to as PFAS, used as fire retardants, non-stick surfaces, etc.) that are being detected everywhere, including in your bloodstream, and are now known to accumulate in sewage sludge, finally the protests are having an effect.

In the state of Washington, the Dept. of "Ecology" regulates the "land application" of municipal sewage sludge. Periodically the Dept. revises these regulations and reissues what it calls the Statewide General Permit for Biosolids Management ("biosolids" being their pacifying euphemism for municipal sewage sludge). But the Dept. IGNORES the environmental impacts of spreading sewage sludge claiming the practice HAS NO SIGNIFICANT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT which therefore absolves the Dept. from having to conduct any thorough scientific assessment of its impact (what you don't know can't hurt you, right?)

Things changed when the the Dept. was successfully sued last year by a citizen's group called the Nisqually Delta Association. The Pollution Control Hearings Board found that the WA Dept. of "Ecology" had simply omitted any reference to PFAS, PBDEs (similar to PFAS), and microplastics in its documentation supporting its position that the environmental impact of sewage sludge application to farm and other land was "insignificant". The decision of the Hearings Board voided the Dept. reissuing its statewide permit effectively halting any new sewage sludge application sites in the state.

Now, in an appalling effort to restart the sewage sludge program, the Dept. CONTINUES TO CLAIM NO SIGNIFICANT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS result from sludge application to farmland even after it was forced by the Hearings Board to include PFAS, PBDEs, and microplastics in its documentation claiming said insignificance.

AT ALL COSTS (INCLUDING TO YOUR HEALTH AND THE HEALTH OF YOUR CHILDREN), THE WA DEPT. OF "ECOLOGY" WANTS TO AVOID HAVING TO CONDUCT AN ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF THE LAND APPLICATION OF MUNICIPAL SEWAGE SLUDGEy SHAMELESSLY CLAIMING IT HAS NO SIGNIFICANT IMPACT. The Dept. knows that such an investigation would reveal the many hazards resulting from the practice which would necessitate its immediate cessation. Claiming insignificance absolves the Dept. from having to conduct the study. This is bureaucratic malfeasance at its worst.

And now the public has the opportunity to voice our concerns once again about this situation in another public comment period that ends on Oct. 27.

The last time the Dept. had a public comment period on the reissuance of the statewide biosolids permit (2021), out of exactly 100 public comments received by the Dept., 86% of people who submitted written comments didn't want municipal sewage sludge to be used as fertilizer, or that its use be significantly more strictly regulated. 65% wanted an immediate ban.

Please add your voice TODAY!!
Comment link: https://swm.ecology.commentinput.com/?id=rM4PhRNKm

More information is available at https://www.protectmillcanyon.org/

03/01/2024

The framework of Permaculture offers lots of answers for our future as a planet. Mary will be sharing how Permaculture can help you in growing food in your yard that’s regenerative for soil and even sequesters carbon. Come hear her talk about it on Saturday March 2nd at the Shadle Park Library in Spokane.🌱🐝🌳🫶🏾☀️💦.

02/20/2024

The Palouse Conservation District's Fifth Annual Alternative Cropping Symposium, Thursday February 22nd. The event will be held at the Palouse Empire Fairgrounds and will take place from 10am-4pm with a coffee hour starting at 9:30AM. Registration is $5 and includes lunch. For a full schedule of speakers and to register for the event, visit the event page: https://www.palousecd.org/post/alternative-cropping-symposium-02-22-24

Contact Gerrit Bass
Research and Monitoring Specialist
Palouse Conservation District
gerritb@palousecd.org

Source: Rural Roots, a regional non-profit organization dedicated to supporting sustainble small farming and ranching in the Inland Northwest.
www.ruralroots.org

Ed. note: This would be a good venue for someone from the permaculture world to present at. The Palouse needs some serious permaculturing. See "Palouse "Beauty" is Really an Ecological Disaster"
https://inlandfoodwise.online/web/archive/palouse-beauty-is-really-an-ecological-disaster

Learn from Palouse farmers about cover cropping, intercropping, and integrating livestock at the Fifth Annual Palouse Alternative Cropping Symposium on Thursday, February 22, 2024 from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The event will be held at the Whitman County Palouse Empire Fairgrounds outside Colfax, WA. Re...