Food and Agriculture

10 Urban Farming Projects in New York City

November 11, 2013 Kaye Spector, www.ecowatch.com Create! Food and Agriculture, Video

Who would think that one of the world’s largest cities, New York City, would be a major hub for urban agriculture? Well, it is. Food Tank has compiled a list of 10 urban farming projects providing New Yorkers fresh, local produce. 1. Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, 44 Eagle St., New York, NY A 6,000-square-foot organic vegetable garden, the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm operates its own seasonal farmers market and provides produce to local restaurants, including Anella’s, Spritzenhaus and Marlow & Sons. Visitors can volunteer and learn about urban agriculture from the site’s Growing Chefs-trained education team. Co-created by Broadway Stages and Good Green, the garden overlooks Manhattan from across the East River. 2. Battery Urban Farm, Battery Park, Lower Manhattan, NY This one-acre educational farm inside Battery Park was founded in 2011 by the Battery Conservancy and students from Millennium High School.

Popular Resistance Newsletter – People Power Expressed In Elections

November 8, 2013 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Elections, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Fracking, Fukushima, GMOs, TPP

Sometimes it feels like elections are an exercise in futility. We live in a mirage democracy in which major party candidates are vetted by the corporate machine before they get on the ballot and third party candidates who represent the values of the movement are undercut by actions in which the major parties collude against them. History instructs that in this environment, it is important to build the movement and use what tools are available to shift power to the people. San Francisco-based lawyer-activist Randy Shaw writes in his new edition of The Activist’s Handbook “that neither politicians nor political parties are the prime movers for progressive change.”

Spiritual People Of The Earth Call For End To Destruction

November 7, 2013 Indigenous Elders and Medicine Peoples Council, www.wakingtimes.com Create! Environment, Food and Agriculture, Indigenous Rights

The Fukushima nuclear crisis alone is a threat to the future of humanity. Yet, our concern goes far beyond this single threat. Our concern is with the cumulative and compounding devastation that is being wrought by the actions of human beings around the world. It is the combination of resource extraction, genetically modified organisms, moral failures, pollution, introduction of invasive species and much much more that are threatening the future of life on Earth. The compounding of bad decisions and their corresponding actions are extremely short-sighted. They do not consider the future generations and they do not respect or honor the Creator’s Natural Law. We strongly urge for the governmental authorities to respond with an open invitation to work and consult with us to solve the world’s problems, without war. We must stop waging war against Mother Earth, and ourselves.

The Rule Of Money Shows Itself In Two Voter Intiatives

November 6, 2013 Jon Queally, www.commondreams.org Educate! Democracy, Energy, Finance and the Economy, Food and Agriculture, Fracking, Tar Sands

In two referendum battles that took place on opposite sides of the country on Tuesday, the power of big money campaigns funded by out-of-state corporate interests once again revealed itself by overwhelming grassroots campaigns trying to champion a local common good. From Maine, where a small town tried to thwart a pipeline company from building a tar sands export terminal, to Washington state, where a broad coalition of consumer advocates and food safety groups called for labeling of genetically modified foods—both campaigns won and maintained the support of the local population... until the corporate money started pouring in. Local backers of Washington's bid to pass the GMO labeling law, known as I-522, were defeated by corporate interests that spared no expense in the final weeks to overcome the strong support the measure had received since the campaign began.

Los Angeles Considering City-Wide Ban On GMO’s

November 4, 2013 Christina Sarich, www.naturalsociety.com Resist! Food and Agriculture, GMOs

Los Angeles, California is certainly doing their utmost to be one of the first, and largest non-GMO zones in the U.S. Following the lead of its neighbor across the border, Mexico and its recent ban on GMOs, L.A. is now considering a city-wide ban to curb the growth and proliferation of GMO seeds within its borders. While the ban would not include the sale of food containing GMO, it would protect local gardens and city-grown (local) food from being contaminated with GMO seed crops. Paul Koretz, L.A. City Councilman and Mitch O’Farrell introduced the motion last Friday, and there is wide spread support for its continuance. Most of the GMO seed that is in L.A. is in Big Ag farms, large-scale, multiple acre crops—not in small farms or local gardens. But L.A. people want to protect their gardens and family farms from GMO cross-pollinization.

Expect Food Riots If Food Stamps Are Cut

November 3, 2013 Josh Eidelson, www.salon.com Resist! Austerity, Food and Agriculture

Food stamp recipients face a massive benefit cut set to kick in when stimulus funds expire Friday. The nationwide cut “is equivalent to about 16 meals a month for a family of three,” according to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis using the USDA’s “Thrifty Food Plan.” CBPP called the roughly $5 billion annual cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program “unprecedented” in “depth and breadth.” “If you look across the world, riots always begin typically the same way: when people cannot afford to eat food,” Margarette Purvis, the president and CEO of the Food Bank for New York City, told Salon Monday. Purvis said that the looming cut would mean about 76 million meals “that will no longer be on the plates of the poorest families” in NYC alone – a figure that outstrips the total number of meals distributed each year by the Food Bank for New York City, the largest food bank in the country. “There will be an immediate impact,”

Climate Change Seen Posing Risk To Food Supplies

November 3, 2013 Justin Gillis, www.nytimes.com Educate! Climate Change, Environment, Food and Agriculture

Climate change will pose sharp risks to the world’s food supply in coming decades, potentially undermining crop production and driving up prices at a time when the demand for food is expected to soar, scientists have found. And, the scientists say, they are already seeing the harmful effects in some regions. The warnings come in a leaked draft of a report under development by a United Nations panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The document is not final and could change before it is released in March. The report also finds other sweeping impacts from climate change already occurring across the planet, and warns that these are likely to intensify as human emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise. The scientists describe a natural world in turmoil as plants and animals colonize new areas to escape rising temperatures, and warn that many could become extinct. The warning on the food supply is the sharpest in tone the panel has issued.

America’s Shame: Child Poverty Rises, Food Stamps Cut While Billionaires Boom

November 2, 2013 Les Leopold, www.alternet.org Educate! Finance and the Economy, Food and Agriculture, Poverty

There are 16.4 million American children living in poverty. That's nearly one quarter (22.6%) of all of our children. More alarming is that the percentage of poor children has climbed by 4.5 percent since the start of the Great Recession in 2007. And poor means poor. For a family of three with one child under 18, the poverty line is $18,400. Meanwhile, the stock market is booming. Banks, hedge funds andprivate equity firms are making tens of billions of dollars again, while the luxury housing and goods markets are skyrocketing. Most amazing of all is the fact that 95 percent of the so-called "recovery" has gone to the top 1 percent who have seen their incomes rise by 34%. For the 99 percent there's been an undeclared wage freeze: the average wage has climbed by only 0.4 percent. To add to the misery, Washington has decided that the best way to tackle childhood poverty is to have poor kids eat less.

How Economic Growth Has Become Anti-Life

November 2, 2013 Vandana Shiva, www.theguardian.com Educate! Finance and the Economy, Food and Agriculture

Gross domestic product (GDP), which is supposed to measure the wealth of nations, has emerged as both the most powerful number and dominant concept in our times. However, economic growth hides the poverty it creates through the destruction of nature, which in turn leads to communities lacking the capacity to provide for themselves. The concept of growth was put forward as a measure to mobilise resources during the second world war. GDP is based on creating an artificial and fictitious boundary, assuming that if you produce what you consume, you do not produce. In effect , “growth” measures the conversion of nature into cash, and commons into commodities. When every aspect of life is commercialised and commoditised, living becomes more costly, and people become poorer.

Food Stamp Cuts Create High Demand For Food Bank Supplies

November 2, 2013 Marisol Bello, www.usatoday.com Educate! Food and Agriculture

Food banks across the country, stretched thin in the aftermath of the recession, are bracing for more people coming through their doors in the wake of cuts to the federal food stamp program. Food stamp benefits to 47 million Americans were cut starting Friday as a temporary boost to the federal program comes to an end without new funding from a deadlocked Congress. Under the program, known formally as the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program, or SNAP, a family of four that gets $668 per month in benefits will find that amount cut by $36. "It may not sound like a lot but to a person like me, it is," says Annie Crisp, 30, a single mother of two girls in Lancaster, Ohio. "It's not just a number." She says she received a little less than $550 a month in food stamps and now will receive $497. Crisp, a babysitter who brings home about $830 a month, says the food stamps help her buy her family fresh fruits, vegetables and meat.

Millions Against Monsanto: Five Lessons From The Battle Against GMOs

November 1, 2013 Ronnie Cummins, www.greenshadowcabinet.us Strategize! Food and Agriculture, Monsanto

The rapidly growing anti-GMO Movement illustrates the powerful synergy that can develop from the combined use of social media, marketplace pressure and political action. Recent developments in this sector indicate that out-of-control corporations, media, politicians and the proverbial “one percent” can be outsmarted and outmaneuvered, and quite possibly defeated. In the wake of high-stakes multi-million dollar GMO labeling ballot initiatives in California in 2012, and Washington State in 2013, an army of organic food and natural health activists have put Corporate America and the political elite on the defensive. We’ve demonstrated that aggressive populist issue-framing; unconventional “inside-outside” coalition-building; marketplace pressure; and online list-building, mobilization and fundraising - strategically channeled into local and state-based political action - can begin to even up the odds between David and Goliath.

Democrats Protest $5 Billion Food Stamp Cut They Voted For

November 1, 2013 Arthur Delaney, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Finance and the Economy, Food and Agriculture, Government, Human Rights

A group of nine Democratic members of the House of Representatives held a press conference outside the Capitol on Tuesday to demand Congress avert an automatic food stamp cut scheduled to take effect on Friday. "The average family of four will see a $36 cut in their monthly benefits, bringing the average per-person benefit from $1.50 a meal to $1.40 a meal," Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said. "Shame on this Congress for allowing this to happen." But the cut, which will reduce monthly benefits for all 47 million Americans enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by roughly 7 percent, is happening thanks mainly to Democratic votes that hastened the demise of a benefit increase from the 2009 stimulus bill. Each of the representatives at Tuesday's presser voted with their party for a pair of 2010 spending bills that set the cuts in motion.

How Science Is Telling Us All To Revolt

October 30, 2013 Naomi Klein, www.newstatesman.com Strategize! Energy, Environment, Food and Agriculture

The bottom line was clear enough: global capitalism has made the depletion of resources so rapid, convenient and barrier-free that “earth-human systems” are becoming dangerously unstable in response. When pressed by a journalist for a clear answer on the “are we f**ked” question, Werner set the jargon aside and replied, “More or less." There was one dynamic in the model, however, that offered some hope. Werner termed it “resistance” – movements of “people or groups of people” who “adopt a certain set of dynamics that does not fit within the capitalist culture.” According to the abstract for his presentation, this includes “environmental direct action, resistance taken from outside the dominant culture, as in protests, blockades and sabotage by indigenous peoples, workers, anarchists and other activist groups”. Serious scientific gatherings don’t usually feature calls for mass political resistance, much less direct action and sabotage. But then again, Werner wasn’t exactly calling for those things. He was merely observing that mass uprisings of people – along the lines of the abolition movement, the civil rights movement or Occupy Wall Street – represent the likeliest source of “friction” to slow down an economic machine that is careening out of control.

Hemp Returns to U.S. Soil After 56 Years

October 30, 2013 April M. Short, www.alternet.org Create! Food and Agriculture, Marijuana

The first known harvest of hemp—the non psychoactive variety of marijuana—in more than half a century in the U.S. took place September 23 in Colorado, where in the spring the passage of the state’s Amendment 64 legalized the regulated cultivation, sale and adult use of marijuana. While the federal government has said it will not interfere with marijuana in states where it is now legal, it has yet to clarify where it stands on hemp cultivation. Hemp, though non-intoxicant, is considered illegal to cultivate under U.S. drug law. Dr. Bronner’s has used imported hemp seed oil in its soaps for more than a decade, and is a dedicated supporter of drug reform, focused on ending the war on drugs. In fact, the company donated more than $100,000 to the voter initiatives in both Colorado and Washington that eventually resulted in legalization of cannabis products in those states. Dr. Bronners will be one of the first to purchase some of Loflin’s hemp seed, once they have been pressed and made into oil.

Fast-Food Chains Costing Taxpayers the Most Money

October 28, 2013 Michael B. Sauter, Thomas C. Frohlich and Alexander E.M. Hess, www.247wallstreet.com Educate! Food and Agriculture, Worker Rights and Jobs

According to the National Employment Law Project’s (NELP) newest report, because the fast-food industry pays its workers less than a living wage, U.S. taxpayers must foot the bill in the form of the public assistance programs these workers must use to get by. McDonald’s alone, according to the group, cost taxpayers $1.2 billion last year. Based on NELP’s estimates, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the annual costs of providing public assistance to low wage employees working at the seven largest publicly traded fast-food companies.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources