a zine investigating the sustainability of sustainable agriculture
wednesday, june 24 2009
immigrant nation: fair pay for farmworkers
Last week, more than two dozen leading writers, organizers, filmmakers and farmers from the sustainable food movement issued an open letter demanding that Chipotle, the fastest growing company in the fast-food industry, "work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers as a true partner in the protection of farmworkers' rights."
Eric Schlosser ("Fast Food Nation"), Frances Moore Lappe ("Diet for a Small Planet"), and Robert Kenner (director of the hard-hitting new documentary "Food, Inc.") joined colleagues in calling the burrito giant out for the grinding poverty and humiliating labor conditions faced by the workers who pick its tomatoes. The signers concluded the open letter by declaring that "we view the CIW’s struggle for dignity as a non-negotiable part of the struggle for a sustainable food system." For full story, visit http://www.ciw-online.org/
dig it: latest, greatest in sustainability
The Pesticide Action Network has launched a new online searchable database designed to make the public problem of pesticide exposure visible and more understandable. Whether you want to find out what's in your apple juice, milk, peanut butter, or bottled water, this innovative tool links pesticide food residue data with the toxicology for each chemical, making this information easily searchable for the first time.
herd the news? the sustainability of livestock
Gillibrand proposes milk price plans for farmers
Midhudsonnews.com
WASHINGTON – It costs dairy farmers $17.58 to produce a hundredweight of milk yet at the present time, the market is paying only $13.33 and Senator Kristen Gillibrand wants to do something to aid Hudson Valley dairy farmers and those around the rest of the state.
Gillibrand is proposing legislation that would double the amount of money farmers get from the MILC program retroactive to the low point of the crisis in March. She will also introduce legislation that would index the MILC rate of $16.94 to inflation.
bumper crop: our next generation
Slow Food USA (www.slowfoodusa.org) today launched Time for Lunch (www.slowfoodusa.org/timeforlunch), a national campaign to tell Congress to provide America’s children with real food at school. One of the major milestones for the campaign will be orchestrating more than 100 Eat-Ins in communities across the country on Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2009. The Eat-Ins will draw attention to the need for real, healthy food for the more than 30 million children who participate in the National School Lunch Program. The program is part of the Child Nutrition Act that Congress will reauthorize later this year.
immigrant nation
June 14, 2009 Inter Press Serviceby Peter Costantini
SEATTLE, Washington - Up the Pacific Coast from California to Washington, through the heartland in Texas and Illinois, and over to the Atlantic Seaboard in New Jersey and New York, local trade unions and mainly immigrant workers centres are experimenting with new modes of cooperation.
[photo from National Library of Australia]
the bad seed: the perils of gmos
“The Failure of Science”: New paper makes a damning case against genetically modified food crops
The Ethicurean
By Bonnie Azab Powell @ 12:19 pm on 3 June 2009
As with climate change, the longer American citizens refuse to learn about this issue, the hotter the water we frogs are sitting in gets. Writes technology reporter Denise Caruso in her excellent book, “Intervention: Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planet“: As long as scientists can justifiably “declare that we, the innumerate public, lack the mental capacity to understand what they, the experts, do…there can be no common ground for understanding between those who create risk and we who must bear it.” And if the current economic meltdown, caused by financial instruments too complex for any mere mortals other than hedge fund managers to understand, has taught us anything, it’s that an ignorant public is begging to get shafted.
cropping up: announcements
GLYNWOOD’S NATIONAL HARVEST AWARDS
Nominate an individual or group doing outstanding and innovative work supporting regional agriculture and sustainable food systems in the United States by July 20, 2009. Glynwood is calling for nominations for its seventh annual Harvest Awards. The Awards recognize farmers, organizations, and businesses across the United States that demonstrate innovation and leadership in support of regional agriculture and sustainable food systems.
Learn how to grow nut trees on your farm or in your backyard. Come to the 100th Annual Meeting of the Northern Nut Growers Association from July 19 – 23 at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. For details, call Jerry Henkin (914) 423 - 7458.
sowing seeds: news of inspiration
DTN Progressive Farmer by Marcia Zarley Taylor, june 11 2009
USDA is offering big benefits to beginning farmers: Who else can qualify for 1.5 percent, 20-year fixed interest rates on a big chunk of any farm mortgage? No, that's not a typo. The Farm Service Agency's Down Payment Program for beginning or limited resource farmers may be the best deal in decades for someone interested in buying land at the moment.
"That's the best rate I've ever seen for a USDA loan program, and I've worked in farm credit for 27 years," says Greg Beachy with Farm Credit Services of Mid-America in Louisville, serving Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky. Borrowers who've stumbled onto the offer are already backlogged, but he expects a surge of applicants as word spread. "USDA really is looking for ways to get young people into farming," he tells me.
film pick o' week: Vandana Shiva
Ken Meter: Building a Local Food Economy
Building a local food economy also depends upon retaining local farms, and encouraging the development of new ones. In part 2, Ken Meter outlines the problem with the diminishing availability of affordable farmland. He also shares a couple of stories about two enterprising community efforts: one that makes land more accessible for farming; the other, that helps farmers and local businesses benefit by partnering together.
organic matter: ups and downs of organic movement
USDA Deputy Secretary Pledges
Full Organic Integration Across Department
Merrigan Says: “Organic can no longer be stove-piped at USDA”
STEVENSON, Wash. -- In a message to attendees of the third annual Organic Summit on Thursday, Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan pledged that organic will be integrated across all agencies at USDA. Delivering pre-recorded comments, Merrigan stated that, “here is where I’d like to fulfill a promise I made to many of you…and that is, organic should be integrated across all the agencies, not just the NOP, but each and every agency at USDA should have some engagement with the organic sector.” In addition to the integration, Merrigan said, “Organic can no longer be stove-piped at USDA.”
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past issues of fertile ground usa....
wednesday, september 3, 2008
special edition: slow food nation '08
Slow Food Nation '08 reports that: "Over 60,000 people participated in Slow Food Nation last weekend and celebrated the birth of a broad and inclusive food movement to build an American food system that is sustainable, just, and delicious."
According to Anya Fernald, executive director of Slow Food Nation, a subsidiary of Slow Food U.S.A., 98 percent of the events sold out, and 20 percent of attendees were from outside of California.[NY TImes]
A Field Report From Slow Food Nation by Shepherd Bliss, Counterpunch
Yet while the throngs were reaping the rewards of the farm in San Fran, Sara Franklin writes in her Breaking Ground column why it's the end of the "sane farming season."
sowing seeds: news of inspiration
As Food Becomes a Cause, Meeting Puts Issues on the Table
By Jane Black
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 30, 2008; Page A01
This is how far some people will go these days to get locally grown food: In California, more than 40 residents volunteered their back yards to an aspiring young farmer who couldn't afford to buy land of his own. In exchange for a weekly supply of produce, they would let him till their all-American lawns into rows of lettuce, broccoli, squash and peas...
A Taste of the Future?
August 31, 2008, 2:16 pm
By Christine Muhlke
On Friday I was wondering whether Slow Food Nation, the four-day San Francisco event that aims to encourage Americans to come to the table, would turn out to be the Woodstock or the Lollapalooza of food. Today, I’m convinced that it’s the Davos (minus Bono).
muckraker: grass farmer joel salatin does slow food nation
Joel Salatin Grass Farmer-Author, Polyface Farm, Swope, Virginia -- Salatin’s “farm of many faces” is richly profiled in Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma as “one of the most productive and influential alternative farms in America.” Acclaimed author and pastoralist, Salatin’s passion for humanity’s ancient engagement with grass argues its current relevance to your health and our species’ continued success on the planet.
Michael Pollan once wrote:"I might never have found my way to Polyface Farm if Joel Salatin hadn't refused to FedEx me one of his chickens."
Watch Joel Salatin on YouTube
Magic Bus: The WHOFarm Project Bus [photo by Jill Richardson]
Across the plaza, Casey Gustowarow sat in a big yellow school bus that's known as TheWhoFarm: The White House Organic Farm Project. TheWhoFarm is gathering petition signatures to urge the next president to plant an organic farm on the grounds of the White House...."There's 17 acres at the White House," Gustowarow said. "At least some of that land could be turned into productive use. Food is an important issue, and we need to support supporting local agriculture in a big way." [AP by J.M. Hirsch]
Slow Food Soapbox: Daniel Bowman Simon of the WHO Project
Sign the petition to the 44th President of the United States!
More Photos of the WHOFarm Project Bus and other Slow Food Nation '08 activities by Jill Richardson
action alert: endorse "Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture"
On Thursday, they released their "Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture," a 12-point plan they hope can be used as a blueprint for remaking the federal farm bill, the $300 billion measure that influences virtually every aspect of the American food system...."The farm bill is making very, very few people successful. The vast majority are hurting," Michael Dimock, president of Roots of Change, said of small farmers. "The big commodity regions of the country are becoming poorer and poorer. We have to reverse that." [AP by J.M. Hirsch]
sidenote: The USDA Economic Research Service recently released a useful tool -- the 2008 Farm Bill Side-by-Side
http://www.ers.usda.gov/FarmBill/2008/video/FarmBillVideo.htmv
Slow Food Nation: Revolutionary diet
Slow foodies unveil declaration of sustainability
Posted by Russ Walker at 12:20 PM on 29 Aug 2008
First Issue of Fertile Ground USA
april 2008
in this issue: the launch of Fertile Ground USA! & SARE's 20th Anniversary!
Photo taken by Heidi Rader, West-Grand Prize Winner [Communities and Markets] of SARE's 2008 Photo Competition.)
What better way to launch a zine about sustainable farming than to devote the first issue to the folks at SARE, the Sustainable Agriculture Reseach and Education non-profit in Washington DC that has been helping advance environmentally sound, community-oriented and profitable farming systems nationwide. I had the pleasure of attending their 20th anniversary New American Farm Conference in Kansas City, Missouri recently and was greatly inspired. This issue represents a small fraction of the stories that I would like to tell. Small in number perhaps, but big in heart. I hope they inspire you too. Enjoy.
melissa waldron
editor & publisher, fertile ground usa
muckraker
challenging the status quo
Meet the movers and shakers at this 20th anniversary SARE conference. "We must create sustainable envy," says Karl Kupers of Shepherd's Grain in Reardon, Washington. These guys are doing it.
immigrant nation
people from far away lands, here to do it for themselves
"I'm the laziest farmer you will ever meet," says Pov Huns of Huns Garden in Kansas City, Kansas. And I believe him.
a philosopher's garden
moral and ethical questions on how and why we grow our food
The Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture: no cheating allowed.
herd the news?
sustainable livestock = profit
It's a sheer thing, say Jeanne and Dan Carver of Imperial Stock in Maupin, Oregon.
pioneer
Our inner cities are the new frontier
Troostwood Youth Garden, Kansas City, Missouri: the little engine that could, did and is.
MOO-ney
hitting the jackpot in sustainable ag
You just can’t bring a good Haemonchus contortus worm down. Unless you have really good weed.