Sustainable agriculture resources. You may also find more information of food related topics here

Missouri Farmers Union

Financing Ozarks Rural Growth & Economy (FORGE)

Missouri Organic Association

By supporting local, small family-operated farms, you become part of the solution to global food contamination, industrial agriculture and runaway energy and transportation costs. The food doesn't take two weeks to leave the field and arrive on your table, so nutrition is preserved. Locally grown food, much of it organic or naturally grown without petrochemical pesticides, fertilizers, hormones, antibiotics or modified genes can be found in various communities in the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks.

Anyone who has ever seen Oyster Mushrooms will probably recall their unique habit of growing in a cascade along a tree trunk, in a upward or downward direction, depending one one's point of view. One mass of them I observed for several consecutive years grew on a dead or dying sycamore tree.

This is one mushroom, according to experts, that is almost impossible to confuse with any poison variety, however, I still do not recommend anyone gathering or collecting them based on an online mention. Always be certain of what you collect before ingesting it/them.

The common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris, is one of the most common vegetables grown by the home gardener. There is quite a wide variety in beans, and this particular article is about "green beans", which is a rather general term itself. Almost any variety of common bean can be harvested while still small, tender, and green, or can be allowed to dry on the vine for later harvest as dry pods, containing dried bean seeds. If one wants seeds for the following year, then green beans are allowed to mature into dry pods full of dry beans.

Squash is one vegetable most people like, and which few people hate, presumably because it has no overly strong taste, and is easy to incorporate into just about any soup, rice dish, or stir fry.

Summer squash comes in many varieties: zucchini, crookneck, patty-pan, and more, plus many sub-varieties too numerous to mention here.

There is one vegetable that most people either love or hate. Or, maybe they've never eaten it. It is okra. Eaten more in the southern states, as well as in warmer climates of other countries, okra has one characteristic that seems to annoy many people, and that is the "slime factor". That seems to be the reason given most often as to why people don't like okra.

Milk. A lot can be said about it. This little story relates to goat milk from a small, family owned goat herd which includes a milking doe, a buck, and two still-nursing wethers. Aside from the milk itself, the star of this episode is Paris, a very good-natured milk goat.

Most people who educate themselves about good nutrition have heard of, or read about, quinoa, (pronounced "keen' - wah"). Quinoa, Chenopodium quinoa, is the ancient grain of the Andes Mountains, often grown at elevations of 8,000' or higher. There are many varieties of quinoa, including "Faro" which I'm growing this year, and which derives from Chile.

Many of us buy and eat "wild rice" which is not true rice, but certainly resembles it.

Zizania aquatica, or giant wild rice, can be grown if you have water that gets a regular new infusion of same, and if the water is approximately 1-3 feet deep.

Asparagus is a vegetable people either love or hate. I cannot imagine anyone hating it, especially if they have tried it fresh and steamed, with a hint of butter.
Asparagus is yet another of those "plant once--harvest for years" crops that could be a moneymaker if the grower had excess. But it is so delicious that no matter how much we grow, we eat it all. None of it even sees the freezer.