Food and Agriculture

Paraguay: Woman At The Center Of Resistance

They begin to talk about the news in Los Bañados, in particular the construction of the dreaded Franja Costera [coastal strip] project that threatens to “urbanize” a barrio of 150,000 inhabitants. Thanks to the to the neighborhood’s hard work in land recovery, the area is now prized by real estate speculators. The last flood two months ago was the excuse used by the authorities to renew threats to evict thousands from their homes. Maria points to the street where she lives, which would be the boundary set by the government for families to be evicted and houses to be destroyed. These two organizations—one rural with campesinas and indigenous women and the other urban with members of Asunción’s working class—are very different. But they have several things in common: A vocation for community resistance to the advance of capital over their lives (soy and agrotoxins or real estate speculation, in these cases), most of the members are women, and they are open to working with young men.

How LI Food Not Bombs Alleviates Hunger

January 1, 2014 Jon Stepanian, www.lifnb.com Organize! Food and Agriculture, Human Rights

One by one, cars pull through the Hempstead train station parking lot in a massive caravan of free food; and one by one, our volunteers unload their contents and bring their donations to the appropriate distribution sections. It’s really an unbelievable site, seeing dozens of people moving back and forth with boxes of tomatoes or bags of pies dropping them off at the produce section or the bakery section and coming right back for more. Together we unloaded as quick as we could, but it still took us roughly 25 minutes to unload the 33 filled vehicles we had for the day. By the time the last box came out of the last car we had over 176 boxes of produce piled taller than the height of most of our volunteers; over 2,568 loaves of bread in our bakery section; over 27 garbage bags filled with bouquets ready to be given out in the back of our crowd; and so much more! At this point, our volunteers were just about ready to start, and the crowd coming for groceries had swelled to a little more than 500 people.

Book Review: Grass, Soil, Hope

January 1, 2014 Courtney White, www.carbonpilgrim.wordpress.com Create! Book Review, Climate Change, Environment, Food and Agriculture

Right now, the only possibility of large-scale removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere is through plant photosynthesis and related land-based carbon sequestration activities. They include: enriching soil carbon, no-till farming, climate-friendly livestock practices, conserving natural habitat, restoring degraded watersheds and rangelands, increasing biodiversity, and producing local food. As I know from personal experience, these strategies have been demonstrated individually to be both practical and profitable. In Grass, Soil, Hope, I bundle them into an economic and ecological whole with the aim of reducing atmospheric CO2 while producing substantial co-benefits for all living things. Soil is a huge natural sink for carbon dioxide.

Medellin’s Displaced Recreating Rural, Growing Organic

January 1, 2014 Maria Luna Mendoza, www.livingmaxwell.sharedby.co Create! Food and Agriculture

Students, teachers and the displaced peasants work together to plant vegetable gardens, native plants and fruit trees. Building gardens and raising poultry and rabbits has both increased the communities food security and created a stronger community that has made Pinares de Oriente an oasis of peace within a sometimes dangerous part of the city, explained Guisela Quintero, a community resident. “This project is key component in improving quality of life and environmental quality for an extremely vulnerable population,” explained professor Rafael Rueda Bedoya, the initiative leader. For the past five years, residents in Pinares de Oriente have actively participated in workshops offered by the team from the National University.

#WakeUp2014 is Theme of Occupy the Rose Parade

December 30, 2013 Lauren Steiner, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Finance and the Economy, Food and Agriculture, Fracking, Housing, Occupy, TPP

Occupy the Rose Bowl! In 2013 millions lost their homes to foreclosures, thousands suffered water and air pollution and other ill effects of fracking and more Americans are about to see their jobs outsourced, their wages reduced and their environmental and food safety regulations abolished by a secret trade deal poised to be fast tracked by Congress. The newly formed Awake Coalition plans to Occupy the Rose Parade with the theme #WakeUp2014. We don’t believe Americans can achieve the kind of change necessary to improve the live of the 99% by dreaming. We need awareness, strategy and action.

Crowd-Sourced Seed Banks: Can They Save Us?

December 29, 2013 Paromita Pain, www.occupy.com Create! Food and Agriculture

Worldwide, these banks operate on various scales, with distinct forms of operations and funding. SeedSavers.org, for instance, offers an alternative model to biotech-fueled agriculture through “participatory preservation of organic seeds" among its members to ensure the planet maintains a “genetically diverse food supply.” The group, headquartered in Decorah, Iowa, operates one of the largest seed banks in North America where it works with farmers and gardeners to secure heirloom varieties of seeds. Each year thousands of seed varieties are exchanged among "backyard preservationists" through the group's Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook, which helps members find varieties suited to their particular region and source material to use in localized breeding projects.

6 Crimes Against Nature Perpetrated By the Food Industry

December 27, 2013 Martha Rosenberg, www.alternet.org Resist! Animal Rights, Food and Agriculture, Video

The horrors of factory farming are multifold. Treating animals like heads of lettuce—"forget it's an animal" says one farming magazine—has created institutionalized ruthlessness toward animals, workers and the environment at the same time it harms humans who eat the products. Factory farming even damages the economy thanks to meat-related obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer, and greedy, short-sighted land-use policies. While many procedures on factory farms are cruel, some practices like breeding animals into mutant-like parodies of their original species and violating mother/offspring bonds are truly crimes against nature. . . "There is, unfortunately, no way to breed eggs that only produce female hens," said spokesman United Egg Producers Mitch Head to the Associated Press after release of video showing the newborns being fed into the blades. "If someone has a need for 200 million male chicks, we're happy to provide them to anyone who wants them. But we can find no market, no need." Other egg-related industry tactics, while not as cruel, are just as shocking. In 2008, USDA caught Tyson injecting antibiotics directly into the eggs of future laying hens, despite its "no antibiotics" advertising claim. Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said the vaccinations with the human antibiotic gentamicin are "standard practice," though the drug is far from harmless and comes with a rare black box FDA warning for renal, auditory and vestibular toxicity. Eggs with embryos are also sprayed with ammonia, phenolics and peroxides.

Italy’s “Slow Food” Pioneer: Love For Food Led To Life’s Work

December 27, 2013 Sarah van Gelder, www.yesmagazine.org Create! Food and Agriculture

One of the Piedmont traditions I still practice every year with the students from the University of Gastronomic Sciences is a ritual of welcoming the Spring, called Cante j'euv. We walk from winery to winery singing until the owners open their doors and feed us their products and wine while we continue to entertain them with singing and dancing. Another important Piedmont festival I go to every year is the Fair of the Bue Grasso di Carr, an ancient but still active fair dedicated to the Piedmont breed and to the tradition of having a fat ox for the Christmas festivities table. During this festival, the town is transformed into a community of joy, laughter, and smells. Visitors come to eat bollito, the traditional boiled meat dish associated with the event, which contains all the different parts of the ox. As I have traveled around the world, I have realized that all cultures have similar events that promote conviviality in relation to traditional foods and associated rituals. I mean, what would Thanksgiving be without a turkey? We have to realize that certain foods are deeply rooted in culture and tradition.

The Biggest Food Labeling Scam Of All Time

December 26, 2013 Stephanie Strom, www.organicconsumers.org Educate! Corporatism, Food and Agriculture, GMOs

The New York Times obtained the letter from the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization in Washington that favors labeling, and a spokesman for the grocery association confirmed its authenticity. But the spokesman, Brian Kennedy, said no one from the association was available to comment because of holiday travel. Scott Faber, vice president of the Environmental Working Group, called the association's request "audacious." He added, "It's like they're trying to get the government to say night is day and black is white." The association's request was sent just weeks before the end of the year, when the F.D.A. is expected to establish voluntary guidelines for the labeling of foods containing biotech ingredients, based on the priorities it has identified for itself.

‘Elves’ Set Up Frack Rig On Governor Quinn’s Lawn

December 26, 2013 Sparki, www.risingtidenorthamerica.org Resist! Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Fracking

Monday morning four concerned community members dressed as elves visited Governor Quinn’s Chicago residence and set up a hydraulic fracturing rig with a large red bow attached on the front lawn. The “elves” said they were delivering a present from Santa who has been nervously watching the dangerous practice of hydraulic fracturing or fracking inch closer and closer to becoming reality in Illinois during the past year. The elves delivered the frack rig because people that live far away from where fracking is planned are the ones making the decision to bring the dangerous practice here. “We are delivering this rig today because if Governor Quinn and the other people that have opened up our state to fracking had to live next to fracking and had to obtain their water from a well I think they would not bring fracking to our state,” said Mike Durshmid of Rising Tide Chicago.

Report: EPA Justified In Protecting Drinking Water From Fracking

December 25, 2013 Earthworks, www.ecowatch.com Educate! Food and Agriculture, Fracking, Government

“Regulators shouldn’t have to be pressured into doing their job to protect people like me from drilling impacts,” said Shelly Perdue, a Parker County resident with drilling-polluted drinking water. “If what has happened to me is happening to others, I completely understand why communities across the country are voting to ban fracking and drilling.” “Releasing this report at noon on Christmas Eve shows the Obama administration is obviously embarrassed by its findings,” said Earthworks energy program director Bruce Baizel. “As they should be. The withdrawal of Obama’s EPA is an abject failure of its mission to protect Americans’ health and environment.”

The Health Of Our Earth Is Waning

December 23, 2013 Duane "Chili" Yazzie, www.indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com Educate! Climate Change, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Human Rights

As keepers of knowledge of the original intent, the Native indigenous peoples are gravely concerned with the health of our Earth Mother. Mankind with his exploitative technology is giving her great disrespect and great hurt, physical and otherwise. These unfortunate realities that we live with are the reasons why the environmentalists, the grassroot advocates/activists do and say as we do. We want to live, we want our Earth to be healthy, we are in favor of a continuum of life on this Earth. After all we have children, grandchildren and expect that there will be generations to come after we are gone. We demand that there be a serious and deliberate change to slow down and hopefully avert these inevitabilities. It is our great dilemma that as Native Nations rich in natural resources, we participate in the exploiting of those resources for jobs and revenues. By our participation and allowing the unchecked exploitation of our lands, resources and people, we are willing contributors to this unfortunate condition of our world.

Congress Cuts Pensions, Food Stamps & Essentials Increases Israel Funding

December 21, 2013 Staff, www.jewishjournal.com Educate! Austerity, Food and Agriculture, Israel, Pensions

The final version of the congressional defense budget triples the Obama administration’s request for funding for joint U.S.-Israel defense cooperation. The $284 million in the budget released jointly on Dec. 10 by the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate budget committees — up from the $96 million requested by the Obama administration — includes funding for the Arrow long-range anti-missile system and the David’s Sling and Iron Dome missile defense systems. The full National Defense Authorization Act for 2014 is virtually assured passage. Defense cooperation fundin

Five Reasons Why ‘Food’ Is A Massive Global Health Issue

December 21, 2013 Alessandro Demaio, blogs.plos.org Educate! Food and Agriculture, Health Care

Food is an essential part of health and wellbeing – chosen, prepared, cooked and consumed correctly, food is medicine – it can and has been an enormous catalyst to gains in life expectancy and quality of life to populations around the globe. But – and this is an important ‘but’ – mismanaged, unregulated, recklessly advertised, poorly produced and over consumed, food can have dire public health consequences. And those consequences are currently playing out around the world. Food companies, governments, the medical community, the food supply, what we eat, how we eat, food policies and what we subsidise, how much we eat and what we waste will all dictate whether, in the next century, food can once again be a catalyst of health – or continues as a risk to it. One thing is clear – food is, and must be, a Global Health Issue.

UN Report: Small-Scale Organic Farming Only Way To Feed the World

December 19, 2013 Nick Meyer, www.althealthworks.com Create! Food and Agriculture

The United Nations is once against sounding the alarm about the urgent need to return to (and develop) a more sustainable, natural and organic system. That was the key point of a new publication from the UN Commission on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) titled“Trade and Environment Review 2013: Wake Up Before It’s Too Late,” which included contributions from more than 60 experts around the world. The cover of the report looks like that of a blockbuster documentary or Hollywood movie, and the dramatic nature of the title cannot be understated: The time is now to switch back to our natural farming roots. The findings on the report seem to echo those of a December 2010 UN Report in many ways, one that essentially said organic and small-scale farming is the answer for “feeding the world,” not GMOs and monocultures. According to the new UN report, major changes are needed in our food, agriculture and trade systems, with a shift toward local small-scale farmers and food systems recommended.

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