Welcome
Sustainable Food Summit
Jan 17-18, San Francisco
Summit Explores Sustainable Food Ingredients Potential
Organic, fair trade and other sustainable ingredients are becoming prominent in the food industry. However, how can such ingredients create positive ecological and social impacts? What is the business potential of organic, fair trade, UTZ Certified and such sustainable ingredients in the food industry?
The fifth edition of the Sustainable Foods Summit aims to address such questions. Taking place in San Francisco on 17-18 January 2012, sustainable ingredients is a major focus. Featured topics include de-commoditization case studies, sustainable sourcing, plant-based proteins, agricultural innovations and food security.
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Read the sustainable ingredients news article here
Welcome to Demeter® USA. We are the non-profit American chapter of Demeter International, the world’s only certifier of Biodynamic® farms and products. Biodynamic agriculture goes beyond organic, envisioning the farm as a self-contained and self-sustaining organism. In an effort to keep the farm, the farmer, the consumer, and the earth healthy, farmers avoid chemical pesticides and fertilizers, utilize compost and cover crops, and set aside a minimum of 10% of their total acreage for biodiversity. The entire farm, versus a particular crop, must be certified, and farms are inspected annually. In order for a product to bear the Demeter logo it must be made with certified Biodynamic® ingredients and meet strict processing standards to ensure the purest possible product.
History
This special body of knowledge is derived from Dr. Rudolf Steiner’s “Agricultural Course”, held in 1924, when a group of European farmers approached Steiner (noted scientist, philosopher, and founder of the Waldorf School) after noticing a rapid decline in seed fertility, crop vitality and animal health. In response, Steiner held a series of lectures that presented the farm as a living organism: self-contained and self-sustaining, responsible for creating and maintaining its individual health and vitality. This was in sharp contrast to the view of the farm as factory, boosting production by importing chemical pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, that was largely responsible for the observations of depleted vitality noted by the farmers who sought Steiner’s guidance. Steiner was one of the first public figures to question the long-term benefits of this manufacturing view of agriculture and to warn of its environmentally destructive practices.
In 1928, following Steiner’s lectures, Demeter was formed in Europe to codify his farming principles in the Demeter Biodynamic® Farm Standard, and commenced ensuring that it was uniformly applied and monitored through a strict certification process. The Farm Standard is historically significant because it dates back to the beginning of the modern sustainable agriculture movement and captures key agronomic principles not comprehensively addressed within any other agriculture certification system.
Demeter, the very first ecological label for organically produced foods, remains the only internationally recognized Biodynamic certifier and consists of a network of individual certification organizations in 45 countries around the world.
