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Needless to say, I was excited to see a message in my inbox from Willie Nelson! Having met him and interviewed he and his wife last year (briefly), I was sure he was writing to tell me how great I am . . . but, while personally a little disappointing, I was glad to see that he was writing on behalf of Farm Aid Disaster Fund which is kicking into gear to help family farmers in the Midwest that have been by the disastrous floods.
I became involved in Farm Aid last year because I feel very strongly about the need to support family farms. I think regionally and responsibly produced food is perhaps the cornerstone of creating a healthier more sustainable existence. Farm Aid is doing some great work not only to help raise awareness about these issues, but in raising money to directly assist farmers as they grow and work to change the big agricultural system that is so dominant.
Americans drink 400 million cups of coffee each day, which contributes to the coffee bean’s status as the second most globally traded product after petroleum. Now, a recent report from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid has found that regular coffee intake can actually prevent heart disease in women. Coffee is a much needed cash crop in many countries with few other exports such as Ethiopia, Guatemala and Papua New Guinea, but the industry has also been plagued by reports of worker abuse and corporate rip offs. Rainforest and other endangered species habitat is often cleared for coffee plantation, making it an environmentally dicey purchase, as well.
So how do we get our morning cup without a side of guilt? How to decipher real world impact from a multitude of coffee labels after the jump.
Since I will not have the ability to do a serious vegetable garden or have chickens and/or goats and cows at my suburban New Jersey home . . . YET . . . I am very committed to finding locally produced food. For so many reasons I’m a local foodie. Here are a couple of them:
- the lower carbon impact of supporting food that isn’t ‘big Ag’ produced and shipped across the country
- I personally enjoy meeting the farmers (whenever possible) and supporting their efforts
- the food is so much fresher and tastes better to me
- I simply get great satisfaction in knowing that I’m helping to move towards a more sustainable agriculture system by eating/buying locally
The following list of various ways to find and buy local food is an excerpt from a story we did last May/June in Relevant Times, by Tamara Jean Scully, who is a freelance writer, specializing in agricultural issues. She is a local foods advocate, working with the Foodshed Alliance to support local, sustainable family farming. Tammy is also a part-time farmer, growing perennials, raspberries and minor fruits. tamarajeanscully.com
I’m relatively new to this crazy Farm Bill thing. I was invited last Summer to an event at Paul Newman and local food activist chef Michel Nischan’s restaurant, the Dressing Room in Wesport CT, to listen to an amazing panel of speakers and participate in a dialog about the 2007 Farm Bill. This incredibly informative and passionate panel included, US Representative Rose DeLauro (D-New Haven, CT); Gus Schumacher, the undersecretary of Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services during the Clinton Administration; Daniel Imhoff, author of Food Fight: A Citizen’s Guide to the Farm Bill; and Annie Farrell an advocate for sustainable and organic farming and manager of Millstone Farm in CT.
I was stunned by what I learned last year - more importantly, I was stunned by what I didn’t know, and I consider myself a sustainable agriculture supporter! I’ve been trying to track the progress of this Bill in its fits and starts and controversial moments, but still find myself quite ignorant and ever-more surprised when I hear or read another piece of this hulking bulk of legislation.Today is my ‘recipe’ day, not that I’ve kept up with the schedule lately AT ALL, but after reading the NY Times article about the latest on the Farm Bill, I just had to write something about this. Sorry. Look for some lighter fare (perhaps easier to digest than the Farm Bill) Monday!
At the Investors’ Circle Conference in San Francisco, the Plenary Session of the May 7th Education Day was titled, “Is Organic the Next Clean Tech?” Can organic foods (and other products) can attract major investment capital, in the way clean technology has in the past few years, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.
I am not sure whether the answer is a resounding yes, but panelist Walter Robb, Co-President and COO of Whole Foods Market announced that Whole Foods will be investing in small supplier companies, and all of the panelists were positive about the potential of investing in organics.
Kristen Groos Richmond, Co-founder/CEO of Revolution Foods, who has a wonderful if improbable company, which I wrote about before, can speak first-hand about the ways entrepreneurs can attract professional investors while pursuing goals such as connecting local farmers and consumers.
Whenever I read an online article about alternative energy and scroll down to the reader comments below, I’m already thinking, "Here come the hemp people." No news or feature story about biofuels or sustainable agriculture can go by without supporters of industrial hemp crawling out of the woodwork to tout their wonder crop. My reaction has generally been to say, "OK, we’ve made our obligatory hemp post. Let’s get on with the real debate
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Editor's note: In today's Red, Green and Blue, our political commentators Jimmy Hogan and Shirley Siluk Gregory weigh in on the U.S. Farm Bill and its related subsidies, due for reauthorization this year.
Shirley: If Congress is serious about solving the host of problems it claims it wants to fix — rising obesity and diet-related illnesses, polluted stormwater runoff and environmental degradation, food insecurity and overdependence on fossil fuels — it should
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