Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
On October 6th, a group of young organic farmers boarded a brightly painted, veggie-oil powered school bus in La Farge, Wisconsin to kick off the first ever Generation Organic Tour. During a two and a half week road trip, they visited schools, colleges and grocery stores to promote the theme of the tour: “Who’s Your Farmer? Own Your Food, Drive Your Future!”
With the taste of success now in my mouth, I abandon all reservations about asking for what I need. We ask everyone we meet if they know where we can find wild apples to harvest.
On this episode of the podcast we are joined by Jill Richardson. Jill is a journalist, author and blogger who writes for the blog La Vida Locavore and also for the news site alternet.org. In this interview we discuss Cuba as an example of a post-peak agricultural society, the propaganda of the GMO seed companies, the corporate push to approve genetically modified salmon, the Green Revolution in Mexico, and how to fix our broken food system.
– Paraguayan Mennonites hit back at criticism of environmental record
– Food Security as If Women Mattered: A Story from Kerala
– Venezuela: From Agribusiness to Agroecology?
– Britain is growing greener at the expense of the rest of the world
But self-sufficiency, I realize, is a misnomer. What I am aiming for is local sufficiency. While I am marginally better at providing for myself, my gradually accumulating “locafficiency” is very much dependent upon people I see day-by-day.
More and more individuals, foundations, and other institutions are showing an interest in investing capital in food companies that address social and/or environmental issues, a phenomenon both mirrored and encouraged by a growing number of conferences, panels, workshops, and even entire organizations dedicated to the field. At first glance all this activity might seem like great news–but if we dig a little deeper, there are some hidden impacts that good food advocates would be wise to examine a little more closely.
– Wal-Mart’s Plan for Small Farmers Expands Private-Sector Climate Agenda
– UN Says Global Farm Methods ‘Recipe for Disaster’
– Big Food’s Blame Game
– Eating Less Meat Could Save 45,000 Lives a Year
The phrase “school lunch” may be more likely to bring to mind visions of artificial nacho cheese and processed foods than fresh vegetables. But in Washington D.C., D.C. Farm to School Network is trying to change that by connecting school cafeterias with local farms and educating students about gardening and cooking with fresh produce.
About a billion people or 1/6th of humanity goes to sleep hungry each day. Most assume it is because not enough food is there to go around. Though this may become true in future unless we have an urgent course correction, at the moment this abomination is the result of lack of access to food, not its absence.
-£669 ($1068 Canadian) worth of food grown on this patio, balcony and windowsill
-Sorry, New York Times: The Bee Die-Off Case is Not Closed
-Striking a blow for a softer, greener world
-NtP in Italy
-Wal-Mart To Boost Buying From Small And Local Farms
My sister Jenny went out to pick apples the other day and found a Cinderella pumpkin growing up in her Winesap tree… You can imagine how it happened. Turn your back on a pumpkin vine and it will run off down the road and join the army.
Will my food stay local in hard times? Will we feed our community? Or will the bind that farmers live in – the need to feed the more affluent – continue to constrict my community. This is something I simply do not know. I tend to think, however, that the degree to which the community can support and build a network of intertwined food systems, and intertwined people, will in some measure define this.
