From NewScientist --Ewan Callaway explains why this new fascination with food miles is merely a drop in the bucket when it comes to the carbon footprint left by the food industry. His argument is that meat production is really at the center of the greenhouse gas overflow.
"If you have a certain type of diet that's indicative of the American average, you're not going to do that much for climate while eating locally," says Christopher Weber, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh who led a comprehensive audit of the greenhouse gas emissions of our meals. ”
Interesting - I think do both. Why not. Eat locally and less meat.
7/31/09
Mom gave this to me to read - I LOVE IT
This unique companion book explores the challenges raised by the movie in fascinating depth through 13 essays, most of them written especially for this book, and many by experts featured in the film. Highlights include: Eric Schlosser, Michael Pollan, Robert Kenner, Marion Nestle, Anna Lappé, Muhammad Yunus, Joel Salatin, and Gary Hirschberg. If daily headlines about food poisoning, pollution, labor abuse, and rampant hunger have left you worried or confused about the foods you eat, Food, Inc. provides the facts behind the problems—and shows what you can do to make a difference.
Growing Power - Will Allen
Joining us from Milwaukee is Will Allen, founder and CEO of Growing Power, an urban farm based in northwest Milwaukee. A 2008 MacArthur Fellow, he was recently profiled in The New York Times Magazine.
And from Berkeley, Calif., we’re joined by Novella Carpenter. She started Ghost Town Farm on an abandoned lot next to her home in Oakland. She writes about it in her new book, “Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer.” Read an excerpt here.
7/27/09
40 Farmers under 40
The following list features 40 American farmers under the age of 40, compiled with help from dozens of people in the farming industry
7/24/09
The Superbug in Your Supermarket
A potentially deadly new strain of anti-biotic-resistant microbes may be widespread in our food supply. From Prevention Magazine
CLICK HERE to read article
COOL Green Roof Chicken Coop
The garden-on-top design keeps your flock warmer in the winter, cooler in the summer, and even provides sound insulation in rainstorms. This coop is appropriate for two to three chickens, perfect for providing eggs for a small family.
7/23/09
Legalize BeeKeeping in NYC - Sign Petition
SIGN THIS PETITION
Question: What do cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Portland, Paris, San Francisco,
Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver have that NYC does not?
Answer: Legalized beekeeping.
Bee keeping is currently illegal in New York City. The New York City Health Code under
Section 161.01 prohibits the possession, keeping, harboring and selling of “wild animals.” This ban, in it’s listing of “all venomous insects” includes and in doing so outlaws bees.
Honeybees are garden heroes! Honeybees help gardens grow more fruit and vegetables and
produce sweet honey. They are nature’s best pollinators and contribute to productive harvests in community gardens, public parks and nature centers.
This fact sheet highlights the many benefits of honeybees, outlines legal beekeeping initiatives in other cities, addresses questions about the dangers of honeybees, and proposes that the New York City Department of Health amend its code, and thereby lifts its ban on beekeeping.
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy
Definition of Heritage Chicken
Purpose:
Chickens have been a part of the American diet since the arrival of the Spanish explorers. Since that time, different breeds have been developed to provide meat, eggs, and pleasure.
The American Poultry Association began defining breeds in 1873 and publishing the definitions in the Standard of Perfection. These Standard breeds were well adapted to outdoor production in various climatic regions. They were hearty, long-lived, and reproductively vital birds that provided an important source of protein to the growing population of the country until the mid-20th century. With the industrialization of chickens many breeds were sidelined in preference for a few rapidly growing hybrids. The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy now lists over three-dozen breeds of chickens in danger of extinction. Extinction of a breed would mean the irrevocable loss of the genetic resources and options it embodies.
Therefore, to draw attention to these endangered breeds, to support their long-term conservation, to support efforts to recover these breeds to historic levels of productivity, and to re-introduce these culinary and cultural treasures to the marketplace, the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy is defining Heritage Chicken.
MORE HERE
From my friend @JamButter - PRO FOOD
What if I told you that America's food system is broken? What would you say?
Would you defend it by pointing out the abundance of choices offered in today's average supermarket, estimated to be over 45,000 items? Would you cite that per capita spending on food has dropped significantly over the last 50 years, freeing up incomes to improve quality of life? Would you talk about how American innovation is not only feeding our citizens, but is also feeding the world? Or would you quietly ask what a food system is?
READ ENTIRE POST here
7/22/09
Three Wise Men
"Eating is an agricultural act," essayist Wendell Berry famously wrote. It's also a political one. Which is why last week Berry, geneticist Wes Jackson and sustainable-agriculture advocate Fred Kirschenmann made a pilgrimage to Washington to make a case for a new kind of food policy.
CLICK HERE for more
Will Allen, Street Farmer
Will Allen, a farmer of Bunyonesque proportions, ascended a berm of wood chips and brewer’s mash and gently probed it with a pitchfork. “Look at this,” he said, pleased with the treasure he unearthed. A writhing mass of red worms dangled from his tines. He bent over, raked another section with his fingers and palmed a few beauties.
It was one of those April days in Wisconsin when the weather shifts abruptly from hot to cold, and Allen, dressed in a sleeveless hoodie — his daily uniform down to 20 degrees, below which he adds another sweatshirt — was exactly where he wanted to be. Show Allen a pile of soil, fully composted or still slimy with banana peels, and he’s compelled to scoop some into his melon-size hands. “Creating soil from waste is what I enjoy most,” he said. “Anyone can grow food.”
Like others in the so-called good-food movement, Allen, who is 60, asserts that our industrial food system is depleting soil, poisoning water, gobbling fossil fuels and stuffing us with bad calories. Like others, he advocates eating locally grown food. But to Allen, local doesn’t mean a rolling pasture or even a suburban garden: it means 14 greenhouses crammed onto two acres in a working-class neighborhood on Milwaukee’s northwest side, less than half a mile from the city’s largest public-housing project.
CLICK HERE to read the rest
7/20/09
Feathering Her Nest
IN this story, it was the chicken that came first.
One afternoon in late March, three years ago, Hope Sandrow, a mixed-media artist, was looking for her cat in the woods near her house here. Rounding a tree, she ran smack into a large blond rooster. Nearly knee high, he was as tall as a young coyote and sported an eye-catching Warholian feather headdress.
Human and chicken goggled at each other, frozen for a moment. Ms. Sandrow recovered first and invited the chicken home. And the chicken, as Ulf Skogsbergh, Ms. Sandrow’s husband, put it the other day, “took one look at Hope and said, ‘That’s for me!’ ”
Their relationship — the rooster and Ms. Sandrow’s, that is — followed the usual fowl-meets-human trajectory.
CLICK HERE for rest of the story.
One afternoon in late March, three years ago, Hope Sandrow, a mixed-media artist, was looking for her cat in the woods near her house here. Rounding a tree, she ran smack into a large blond rooster. Nearly knee high, he was as tall as a young coyote and sported an eye-catching Warholian feather headdress.
Human and chicken goggled at each other, frozen for a moment. Ms. Sandrow recovered first and invited the chicken home. And the chicken, as Ulf Skogsbergh, Ms. Sandrow’s husband, put it the other day, “took one look at Hope and said, ‘That’s for me!’ ”
Their relationship — the rooster and Ms. Sandrow’s, that is — followed the usual fowl-meets-human trajectory.
CLICK HERE for rest of the story.
Covering Big Food - From On the Media
July 17, 2009
Robert Kenner set out to make a documentary about the food industry, thinking he'd hear from both activists and industry insiders. But he quickly realized that the insiders wouldn't talk, farmers who did suffered consequences and, by the way, he needs a lot more lawyers. Kenner says the process was "Orwellian."
From the interview:
BOB GARFIELD: Did you end up pulling some punches, you know, in anticipation of litigation?
ROBERT KENNER: There are things that I pulled out that I think were true. I'm used to working with high levels of factchecking. I've worked with National Geographic and worked with American Experience. But on this film we spent a lot of time and looked for multiple sources, and there were times where our lawyers would make us redo things.
One example was that we were dealing with chicken farmers who were involved with Tyson and Purdue, who I think are very big in the Southeast. And one chicken farmer said that she was giving arsenic to her chickens, and Purdue said, well, we've stopped that practice. But they had defended the practice of giving arsenic to chickens a few weeks prior to our filming with the chicken farmer. I ended up taking that out of the film, but the fact is they were like defending that just a mere few weeks before. But I felt, you know, we'll, we’ll take it out.
BOB GARFIELD: Why were they giving arsenic to chickens?
ROBERT KENNER: Because it kills the bacteria and it helps them grow quicker. But the fact that it’s getting into the water, into the land and into our - the food we're eating is besides the point. And if they can keep it off the label, they find customers were still buying it.
BOB GARFIELD: The chicken farmer who was giving her broilers arsenic, under contract with Purdue, having acknowledged that to your cameras, is she still a Purdue contractor?
WHAT THE HECK!!?? Arsenic in chicken!
More of the interview here.
Robert Kenner set out to make a documentary about the food industry, thinking he'd hear from both activists and industry insiders. But he quickly realized that the insiders wouldn't talk, farmers who did suffered consequences and, by the way, he needs a lot more lawyers. Kenner says the process was "Orwellian."
From the interview:
BOB GARFIELD: Did you end up pulling some punches, you know, in anticipation of litigation?
ROBERT KENNER: There are things that I pulled out that I think were true. I'm used to working with high levels of factchecking. I've worked with National Geographic and worked with American Experience. But on this film we spent a lot of time and looked for multiple sources, and there were times where our lawyers would make us redo things.
One example was that we were dealing with chicken farmers who were involved with Tyson and Purdue, who I think are very big in the Southeast. And one chicken farmer said that she was giving arsenic to her chickens, and Purdue said, well, we've stopped that practice. But they had defended the practice of giving arsenic to chickens a few weeks prior to our filming with the chicken farmer. I ended up taking that out of the film, but the fact is they were like defending that just a mere few weeks before. But I felt, you know, we'll, we’ll take it out.
BOB GARFIELD: Why were they giving arsenic to chickens?
ROBERT KENNER: Because it kills the bacteria and it helps them grow quicker. But the fact that it’s getting into the water, into the land and into our - the food we're eating is besides the point. And if they can keep it off the label, they find customers were still buying it.
BOB GARFIELD: The chicken farmer who was giving her broilers arsenic, under contract with Purdue, having acknowledged that to your cameras, is she still a Purdue contractor?
WHAT THE HECK!!?? Arsenic in chicken!
More of the interview here.
Five Farms: stories from American Farms
"Once, most Americans were farmers. Now, only about one in a hundred works the land. And yet, the work of farmers is as central to our lives as ever. We are what we eat. While providing our food, farmers and ranchers are the stewards of almost half of the nation's land --- a billion acres. And family farmers still produce most of the country's agricultural harvest."
CLICK HERE for more
CLICK HERE for more
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)