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A 31-year-old organic farm in Maryland's Montgomery County may not be around for much longer unless we act w. Earlier this year, County officials voted to turn Nick's Organic Farm, the County's only organic seed farm, into two private soccer fields. Unless the decision is reversed, farmer Nick Maravell will be forced  in January to vacate the land he's tilled for more than three decades.

More than 22,000 people have petitioned County Executive Ike Leggett to protect Nick's Organic farm, but he still hasn’t taken action. This Wednesday, Maravell and his supporters need your help to make sure Montgomery County does the right thing and saves Nick's Organic Farm.

Supporters will be holding a rally and press conference and hand-delivering petitions to Executive Leggett this Wednesday. Will you make a quick phone call to amplify their message? It will just take a minute and will show County officials just how much support the farm has. Here’s what to do:

1) Call the County Office of Public Information at: (240) 777-6507. Say that you would like to leave a message for County Executive Ike Leggett.

2) Express your support for Nick’s Organic Farm by using one of the following scripts. Feel free to speak from your heart and share your story—the more personal, the better.

If you live outside of Montgomery County:
Hello, my name is _________ and I am calling in regards to Nick's Organic Farm. Nick's farm is nationally recognized model farm that has pioneered organic and sustainable farming practices across the country. Instead of turning this into soccer fields, the county should use this amazing resource as an educational center. I am from _____(city and state)______ but want you to know that the national food movement community is watching closely to see what Montgomery County does. Please protect Nick’s Organic Farm.

If you’re a resident of Montgomery County:
Hello, my name is ____________ and I am a resident of __(city)____. I am calling as a constituent to ask Executive Ike Leggett to continue his support of local and sustainable food and agriculture by preserving Nick's Organic Farm. This farm is an important educational center for our children. There is immense public support for keeping the farm so please listen to your constituents, and protect Nick’s farm. Thank you for your time.

3) Report back on your experience here.

This is a guest post written by Nora Pouillon, a chef a restauranteur. Her Washington, D.C.-based eatery, Restaurant Nora, is the first certified organic restaurant in the U.S. Nora is an advisor to National Food Day.

Putting food on the pedestal it deserves has been my goal for the last 40 years. Food is my medium. I started Restaurant Nora in 1979 with the goal of sharing healthy, wholesome food with my family, friends, and customers. In doing so, I have sought to demonstrate the importance of organically grown and raised food as a means of not only nourishing our bodies and souls, but also of preserving and improving our environment.

On October, 24, Food Day will draw attention to the dire straits of our global food system and set in motion a grassroots movement to inspire individuals to make safe, sustainable, and healthy food a priority—if not the highest priority—in their lives. Which is exactly what is urgently needed.

The statistics for lifestyle-related disease in the United States alone are staggering. A remarkable 68 percent of adults are considered overweight and 30 percent are obese. One in three children is considered overweight. Some 25.8 million adults and children in America have diabetes. And 26.8 million adults have been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, which is the number-one killer in the United States. Food has a direct link to both disease prevalence and prevention, especially in tandem with other lifestyle measures. We need a national day like Food Day to bring awareness to the fact that whatever we put in our mouths—and the quality of what we put in our mouths—is of utmost importance.

In addition to its role in sustaining or degrading health, food is inextricably linked to our lives as citizens of this planet. How we grow and raise food, starting with how the environment is treated in the process, will dictate our ability to continue to sustain life on Earth. Producing safe, healthy food is the ultimate goal of our agricultural system, which also links animal and worker welfare, social issues like food access and affordability, and again, the maintenance of environmental health.

This is a guest post from Wenonah Hauter, the Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. If you would like to join the non-profit's campaign for fair farm rules, sign the petition here.

President Obama made a promise back when he campaigned in farm states. He needs to keep it.

The President told farmers that his administration would help fix the rules that allow the meat industry to take advantage of the people who raise the animals Americans eat. But, under pressure from Big Meat, the Obama Administration has failed to implement the fair farm rules (also known as GIPSA rules, named for the branch of the USDA that would oversee the rules, the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration).

Fair farm rules and GIPSA might sound wonky, but implementing them is crucial to leveling the playing field for farmers. As is often the case, the devil is in the details. If we want to move towards a more sustainable and regional food system, we need a fair market. We need to start fixing the nuts and bolts of what keeps farmers from being able to fairly market their products. And consolidation of the food industry is one of the major factors in why our food system is dysfunctional.

Nick Maravell of Maryland's Montgomery County has run Nick's Organic Farm for the past 31 years. Maravell leases the site from the Montgomery County Board of Education (BOE), which plans to eventually build a public school on the land once the region's schools become overcrowded.

Year after year, the BOE renewed Maravell's lease — until this year. Beginning in 2012, the BOE will lease the land to the County, which plans to partner with a private organization, Montgomery Soccer Incorporated (MSI), in order to build soccer fields on the site. There was no public hearing on the issue, and no one even informed Maravell that his farm could get taken away until two weeks before the decision was made.

Fans and supporters of Nick's Organic Farm are understandably upset, and they started a petition here on Change.org. We caught up with Maravell to talk about why Nick's Organic Farm should become a food education hub — not soccer fields.

SP: Tell me about your farm.

NM: I started in 1980 as a vegetable farmer. Over the years as I’ve expanded my operation, Nick’s Organic Farm in Potomac has become primarily seed production. I am in a location where I’m not near other agricultural fields, so as an organic farmer, I produce seed that is free of GMO contamination. I have another farm about 30 miles away, and I use my seed there to produce corn and soybean and other crops. I also use some of the seed to mix into my feed that I use for poultry. We have free-range chickens and turkeys.

When food is labeled "organic," you expect that it was produced in a way that is good for both the environment and your health. Unfortunately it seems that up in Canada, that accountability might not be the case for much longer.

The Canadian General Standards Board is considering certifying some net cage-raised salmon (aka farmed salmon) as organic. But here's the problem: The net-cage method of raising salmon oftentimes harms marine life and aquatic ecosystems. Other animals can get caught in the nets, farm-raised salmon can escape and mate with wild salmon (messing up their genetics), and the nets allow waste from the farm back out into the ocean, which pollutes the water.

There are other issues with certifying farmed salmon as organic, too. Under the proposed guidelines, cage-raised salmon could still be labeled organic even if producers use synthetic pesticides in the fish's water. These harmful pesticides would inevitably spread out into the ocean, threatening wild animals like lobsters. "Organic" farms would also be allowed to feed the salmon non-organic feed consisting of wild fish, which could deplete the ocean of wild fish populations, further exacerbating already-struggling wild fisheries.  Non-organic wild feed can also contain toxins, which may pose a threat to consumers. Under traditional standards, none of these practices would be allowed on a certified organic farm — they fly in the face of the organic movement's core principles.

Naomi's Organic Farm Supply is a sustainable food mecca. The Portland, OR store sells all the usual goods you'd expect to see at an organic farm supply: seeds for regional vegetables, flowers, and herbs; mulch; organic plants; and instructional gardening books. But the shop is so much more than that, too.

Naomi's provides the means for organic gardeners everywhere — from the backyard novice to the experienced large-scale grower — to get up-and-running. The shop offers educational workshops on activities like beekeeping, chicken-raising, and animal-rearing. Naomi's also sells a wide range of live critters like organic chicks, ducklings, pullets, bees, and worms for composting. If there's a farm animal you want that the store doesn't have, husband-and-wife owners, Naomi and Neil Montacre, will do their best to help you get it.

But this local food haven may soon be forced to pick up and move to make way for another business — a Les Schwab Tire Center, which Portland already has nine of (without even factoring in surrounding areas).

It's been more than a month since Maryland's Montgomery County informed organic farmer Nick Maravell that he will need to vacate the land he's tilled for more than 30 years. The County wants the farmland to build soccer fields, a move that will kill a thriving agricultural operation that produces organic grains and seed for consumers and area farmers.

Foodies, activists, and concerned Montgomery County citizens quickly organized to protect Nick's Organic Farm, with more than 1,500 Change.org members petitioning County Executive Isiah Leggett to let Maravell keep his lease. Now, Leggett has responded to our demands — and dismissed them.

Leggett is sending a form letter response to everyone who contacts his office about saving Nick's Organic Farm. Leggett defends the County's actions in destroying a farm to build soccer fields, claiming that we "must step forward in creative ways to advance positive youth development through the provision of sports opportunities." He added that he realizes that "some may prefer this private use of public land [Nick's Organic Farm]; this public asset [soccer fields] can better serve a broader public interest and clear unmet need in the county."

Nick Maravell has been tilling the soil in Maryland's Montgomery County for more than 30 years. His 20-acre operation, Nick's Organic Farm, provides a cornucopia of certified organic seed crops and vegetables, and countless local farmers and foodies rely on the agricultural operation. "What Nick's doing there is the hub that supports the spokes of a local food system that we're trying so hard to strengthen," says Kristina Bostick, Senior Conservation Associate with the Montgomery Countryside Alliance, a farmland conservation non-profit.

So you can imagine Maravell's surprise when Montgomery County officials slapped an expiration date on his local food mecca. The County plans to plow down the organic farm in 2012 to make way for — wait for it — soccer fields.

Choosing soccer fields over summer squash is obviously a controversial choice. But understanding just how egregious this decision really is requires a bit of back story.

Monsanto's genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa is going to Washington. Again.

Attorneys with the Center for Food Safety and Earthjustice recently filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). They contend that if fully deregulted, GE alfalfa, which is engineered to live through regular dousings of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, will contaminate non-GE alfalfa and bring down the organic alfalfa, dairy, and beef industries. This lawsuit aims to have the USDA rescind its decision to completely deregulate GE alfalfa.

Opponents of GE alfalfa claim that the new crop infringes on consumer and farmer rights. The USDA's latest stats show very little use of any herbicide on alfalfa. The decision to deregulate GE alfalfa would dramatically change that.