Food

From milk to superfoods: Supping with the devil?

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I’d be surprised if many readers of this blog work for the fracking industry. Those charming people spend a lot on lobbying and public relations, sure – but their main aim in life is to remain obscure. But food and drink? The branding, the packaging, the communications, the stores, the promotions, the trade shows, the hotels, the restaurants? Would I be wrong to guess that 75% of us have worked for a global food enterprise, directly or indirectly, at some point? I know I have: an industry talk here, a futures workshop there, a couple of healthcare events…But two new publications this week have left me sick to the stomach. I just don’t think it’s defensible any more to turn a blind eye to the social and ecological crimes Big Food is committing, in other parts of the world, so that you and I can eat what we damn well feel like.

On Wendell Berry: As farms go, so go the cities

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Those who love Wendell Berry, from homesteaders and Greenhorns (that’s new farmers to you and me) to community gardeners, find inspiration in the plainspoken moral indignation of this latter-day Jeffersonian who won’t be budged from his conviction that the real America is farms and rural towns, not big cities and suburbs.

Wes Jackson: A perennial revolution in agriculture

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After study and reflection, Jackson devised the mission that has fueled his career ever since. He would work to mimic the systems of the natural prairie, with its wide variety of plants growing together. He would focus on developing perennial crops that produced edible seeds, and required far fewer inputs than most of modern agriculture. He would address what he calls “solving the problem of agriculture” by creating new ways to produce grain that drew inspiration from natural energy flows, and did not require annual disruption of the soil.

Any “Tidings of Great Joy” this sad Christmas?

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These refugees were doing what they did in their homeland, that is raise their own food. Their example was helping native Clevelanders understand that they too can gain food independence, even in the city. I think this is good news, good tidings of great joy this Christmas. All over our cities, vacant lots and deteriorating residential areas are being returned to food production and verdant landscapes.

Land Rights and the Rush For Land Report (excerpt)

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Originated by the rising concerns expressed by many International Land Coalition (ILC) members in 2008, the Commercial Pressures on Land research project is intended to go beyond the large-scale land acquisitions phenomenon, focussing on the wider set of converging drivers for investment interest in land, such as rising food consumption and predicted long-term food prices rises; demand for feedstock for agrofuels; increasing commodity prices; carbon-trading mechanisms such as REDD; and rent seeking and speculation practices on land by recontextualising them within longer term trends.

Policies for a shareable city #12: Food sharing

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Some foods are just too good not to share, which is one reason to think about policies for food sharing. A more sobering reason is that close to 15 percent of households in the U.S. have been identified as food insecure. Food sharing is a joy and a necessity, and it’s also just a practical and obvious thing to do. Growing and preparing food is labor- and resource-intensive, which means it makes sense to collaborate in the effort, and to share in the bounty. Cities should, thus, embrace citizen-led initiatives to share food, and should remove legal barriers to it.

Food & agriculture – Dec 16

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– New Survey of 1,000 Young and Beginning Farmers Reveals What the Next Generation Needs
– Fruit trees coming to an Unley street near you
– Wes Jackson: Can we restore the prairie — and still support ourselves?
– Farm Bill Hackathon