Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
I was out of town when Zuska posted this piece about trying to feed a family on a food stamp budget, and I’ve been meaning to respond to her suggestion that I might have something to add for a while. The article she builds on is one in which chefs try and come up with food stamp budget menus that are also healthy and appealing.
When BP’s Deep Water Horizon well exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, it was difficult to imagine the scope of its impact on the delicate coastlines of Louisiana and adjacent states. Today, the former platform site continues to spill about 5,000 barrels a day – or 210,000 gallons – into the Gulf, with no containment strategy yet in sight.
Over the past month, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (the CFIA) has embarked on a concentrated effort in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia, threatening area businesses with fines unless they remove their ungraded farm-fresh eggs from store shelves. Close to a dozen businesses that Deconstructing Dinner is aware of have received such a visit. This episode hears from a number of those businesses including comments on the issue from the BC Egg Marketing Board, the CFIA and the regional health authority Interior Health.
My instructions, simple enough, were spelled out in permanent black marker on the cover of a brown pizza delivery box: Lay six chicken breasts down on one side of a parchment-covered baking sheet pan, lay four across, then fill all the spaces in between…If all went well, the final product, roasted teriyaki chicken, would be ready three days hence, to be served as lunch to some 3,000 children in all 16 of the public schools in Berkeley, California.
Okay, so I sound like a megalomaniac. But I’m not bragging. The bit of knowledge I’m referring to is something very few people need to know which is why you probably don’t. But just in case you ever happen to start a new woodlot from scratch, the following experience might come in handy.
I plant weeds sometimes. I just feel I should admit this upfront, and come out with it and accept your outrage. You see, my property isn’t exactly untouched – it was a sod farm at one point (although most of the actual sod harvesting was done across the road on a field that is not mine), which means that for about decade from the mid-70s to the mid-80s, people poured incredibly toxic chemicals on the ground to keep the grass uniform and then dug up the topsoil and sold it rich people who couldn’t wait long enough for grass to grow.
Take a tour, accompanied by curious sheep and geese, of Mark Cooper’s self-sufficient small farm. Over several years, he transformed a rundown house and hillsides of berry brambles into pasture and gardens where he produces and preserves most of his family’s food. Visit the Goose Grotto in a constructed pond, a heritage fruit tree orchard, logs producing shiitake mushrooms, and a cheap-and-easy container kitchen garden…This farmstead in Rough and Ready (CA) lives up to the town’s name — and is a testament to hard work, wide-ranging construction skills, and love.
South Asians are seeing more work on the ground and hearing more policy announcements about urban development than ever before. For many who live in and around towns and cities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India (where South Asia’s biggest cities lie) this could be a good thing. The trouble is: national governments and planning authorities in Dhaka, Islamabad and New Delhi are tending more and more to follow a single ideology – economic growth will drive down poverty – and a primary route to that misplaced objective, which is greater urbanisation.
We tend to settle into routines. But once in a while extraordinary events disrupt normalcy. We may question assumptions and be open to new information and change. A grief process is common in these times too. The accident in the Gulf of Mexico is a disruptive event. Here’s an essay that puts it into personal perspective for me.
In the UK and globally the future direction of food and farming is being driven almost entirely by two frequently quoted statistics. Experts such as the UN Secretary General, the UK Government’s Chief Scientist, the current Secretary of State for the Environment, Hilary Benn MP, the Conservative Party, the National Farmers’ Union and Monsanto, are all saying that we need to increase food production 50% by 2030 or that it needs to double by 2050.
-Organic farms ‘produce less than HALF as much food as conventional ones’
-Study shows low carbon credentials of local food
-Can U.S. farms produce food without relying heavily on fossil fuels?
-Farmers Cope With Roundup-Resistant Weeds
-Fears That a Lush Land May Lose a Foul Fertilizer
-Domestic blitz
-Pollan and Hurst Debate the Future of Agriculture
It’s called biochar, and if you believe its most ardent supporters, then this unassuming, fine black powder is a vital tool in the solutions to some of humanity’s most urgent ecological threats, including climate change, peak oil, soil degradation and water pollution due to agrochemicals. However, if you side with biochar’s staunch opponents, then it seems like a fledgling, poorly understood technology with real risks, including the displacement of entire communities and the serious jeopardizing of world food security and biodiversity. Which view is correct?
