In this Substack, we continue to tell the forgotten story of Hightower and the Texas Department of Agriculture in the 1980s. One of the forgotten stories that should be remembered is the role Texas played in the Organic Food Industry. Texas was the first state to create a certifiable Organic label. A certifiable label was essential to the expansion of […]
Casey Hayden deserves a Statue at UT
Casey Hayden passed away on January 4 of this year. People’s History in Texas was honored to interview her in 2012 for our Stand-ins Documentary. NBC’s TODAY show with Willie Geist featured her as “A Life Well Lived” on January 22, 2023. Footage from PHIT’s Stand-Ins documentary was included in the tribute. Casey Hayden was a key figure in the Austin anti-racist activities […]
Organic Blog 5 Keith Jones
This is the fifth blog on the subject of Texas creating the first organic label. Please read the first 4 which explains the background of organics in Texas. Once the process of organic certification had been set up, someone needed to enforce it. In Texas, that someone was Keith Jones. “I was looking to get back into agriculture. I […]
Texas Organic Label part 4
Dennis Holbrook was appointed by Hightower to the Texas Organic Advisory Board that Dan Kelley was assembling that would craft a Texas Organic Label. We talked about that process in the previous blog. Holbrook has farmed organic in South Texas for over 40 years. Holbrook is a bit of a legend in Texas organic circles. He has a story to […]
Texas Organic Label part 3
Hightower, in his crusade to save the family farmer, focused on efforts to market higher value-added food products in niche markets, markets that wouldn’t interest the big commodity farmers and the big agribusinesses. Organic vegetables, organic grains, and organic meats were seen as one of those efforts. Growing food organically also just happens to aid the reduction of exposure to […]