2050 in America, Food and Farms of the Future
(excerpts, citations on website)
By John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri Columbia College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources
http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/papers/Joliet%20JC%20--%202050%20-%20Econ-Food-Farms.htm
Many more papers and books http://web.missouri.edu/~ikerdj/
A “food revolution” is erupting all across America. Last spring Jamie Oliver, an outspoken British chef turned activist, called for a “food revolution” in America.[1] The occasion was the premier of a six-episode reality show on ABC Television. The premise of the show was that our physical health is linked directly to the foods we eat. In the first episode, Oliver pointed out that today’s children are the first generation whose members are expected to live shorter lives than their parents. It’s not the kids’ fault; they eat what their parents and other adults choose to feed them, or at least allow them to eat. Too often, this means whatever is cheapest, quickest, and most convenient. In our pursuit of quick, convenient, cheap food we are destroying the health of our children and the future of our nation.
Best-selling books, such as Fast Food Nation[2] and Omnivore’s Dilemma,[3] have awakened mainstream society to the dramatic changes that have been taking place in our food system. Video documentaries such as Future of Food,[4] Broken Limbs,[5] Food Inc[6] and Fresh; the Movie[7] provide gripping images of the negative impacts of our industrial food system on nature, our society, and even the future of humanity. They all tell the same story of a food system that is lacking in ecological, social, and economic integrity. The tipping point may be growing public concerns about diet related health problems and the associated costs of healthcare. The HBO network has a new multi-documentary project underway linking the rise in obesity and other diet related health problems to the industrialization of the food system.
The various books and documentaries also tell a story of hope for the future through the voices and images of the farmers and consumers who together are creating a new, sustainable food system. The farmers may label themselves organic, biodynamic, ecological, natural, holistic, or choose no label at all. The foods may be natural, organic, free-range, cage-free, locally grown, or any number of other distinctions from conventional, industrial foods. These farmers and consumers are creating a permanent, sustainable agriculture and a healthful, sustainable food system. They are creating a food system that has ecological, social, and economic integrity. These farmers and their customers are leading the “good food revolution.”
The “local food movement” is the most prominent dimension of the good food revolution at present. People tend to underestimate the importance of local food because they associate it with farmers markets and community supported agricultural organizations or CSAs – and more recently, with home gardens and community gardens. While these are and will continue to be important, the local food movement is probably most accurately defined by the growing number of retail food stores, restaurants, and institutional food buyers who are committed to sourcing as much food as possible from local growers.
The transformation is being driven by questions of sustainability. Sustainability is not just a buzzword; it is the fundamental question confronting both the developed and developing worlds of today. It asks whether our current way of life is sustainable – ecologically, socially, and economically. It asks whether we can meet the needs of the present without diminishing opportunities for the future. Virtually every major U.S. corporation, government agency, and non-profit organization now feels compelled to have a major sustainability initiative. These initiatives deal with issues of environmental protection, social equity, and economic viability. When we ask the deeper questions of sustainability, we realize that we eventually must change virtually every aspect of our economy, our society, and our individual lives.
Most important, we must change our economy. Rates of economic growth that we have come to consider as “normal” quite simply are not sustainable. The economy of the industrial era, particularly of the past century, was an aberration in human history. For example, if economic growth rates of 3% to 4% had persisted over the past 2010 years, since the year one, a global Gross Domestic Product of one-dollar at that time would have grown into a global economy that would provide every person on earth, all six-and-one-half billion of us, with enough money to spend a million dollars every second of every day of the year. Furthermore, every 20-yrs people would have twice as much to spend as the 20-yrs before. The US economy of some $10-trillion obviously cannot sustain growth rates of 3%-4% for another 2000 or even 100 more years.
The economic growth of the industrial era was possible only because of abundant supplies of easily accessible energy. First it was the old-growth forests, then surface coal, and for the last century shallow deposits of oil and natural gas. But the days of cheap, abundant energy are over. The old forests are gone, tops of mountains are being blown off to get the remaining coal, and the remaining reserves of oil and gas are deep beneath the ocean floor or in remote corners of the earth hardly touched by civilization. In addition, continued reliance on fossil energy poses unacceptable environmental risks, such as global climate change, that threaten the future of human life on earth. The alternative that eventually will replace fossil energy – wind, water, photovoltaics, and direct solar – will be less plentiful and more costly than fossil energy. Denial and neglect cannot change the hard, cold facts: the industrial era of economic growth is over.
Americans simply must accept the fact that the economic growth rates of the past century are not sustainable. The new post-industrial era must be an era of slow growth, at times even no growth. Yet it will be a time of human progress, if we successfully weather the transition. If we choose wisely, the transformation could well be a major step forward in the betterment of human life on earth. The father of Keynesian economic theory, John Maynard Keynes, anticipated this new era back in the 1920s. He wrote, “the economic problem may be solved, or at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the economic problem is not… the permanent problem of the human race.”[10] Man’s permanent problem will be “how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares… to live wisely and agreeably and well.” The challenge for the vast majority of Americans, as well as the rest of the so called developed world, is not to restore unsustainable economic growth, but instead to learn to live “wisely, agreeably, and well.”
In a more enlightened world of 2050, the so called lesser-developed countries of the world will not have consumed all of the earth’s natural resources in achieving sustainable levels of economic development. They will have learned that beyond about $10,000-$15,000 per person in Gross Domestic Product, roughly equivalent to per capita income, there has been no relationship between economic growth and overall quality of life.[12] In addition countries where people are more equitable economically, where there is less disparity between the rich and poor, people tend to be happier, regardless of their absolute level of income. Thus developing countries of the future will balance their modest needs for economic growth with the need to build stronger and more equitable societies. Their quality of life also will be enhanced as they fulfill their ethical responsibility to future generations by being good stewards of their nations’ natural resources.
In a more enlightened world, peoples’ lives will be more socially connected and their old age will be more economically secure. Once these social and economic security incentives for larger families are no longer present, global population will level out and stabilize at a comfortable carrying capacity for the earth’s resources. Increasing population will occur only if and when increases in efficiency of resource use make a larger population sustainable. Otherwise, there will be no further need for economic growth. The economic problem will be solved for all.
The enlightened America of 2050 will be organized quite differently from the centralized, consolidated, hierarchal society and economy of today. Much of the centralized political power would have been devolved to state and local levels. The federal government will return to its historic constitutional purpose of ensuring equal access to things to which all Americans have equal rights. State governments will focus on those things that can be and need to be done differently in different geographic regions and cultures within the country. This will leave local governments with the other things that must be done for the common good of society but cannot or will not be done by individuals, families, or other informal groups within communities.
The American society and economy will also have devolved, decentralized, and re-localized to better meet the needs of the post-industrial, sustainable society. American communities of the future, both rural and urban, will not be economically self-sufficient, but locally owned and operated businesses will be capable of meeting most basic day-to-day needs of their local community. Local businesses will be sustained by the commitment of the community to support its local economy. Large corporate manufacturers and retailers will be supplemental or secondary providers of goods and services but will not dominate local economies. Local builders will provide affordable, energy-efficient housing. Energy-generating residences and locally-owned electric utilities will meet most energy needs of the community with wind, water, and solar generated electricity. Local farmers will provide sustainably-grown foods.
Returning to the food system, by the year 2050, fossil energy depletion and environmental degradation will have made today’s industrial, global food system economically obsolete. It’s not just a matter of rising transportation costs. The economic feasibility of the entire industrial food system – production, processing, packaging, refrigeration, cold storage, mass merchandizing – depends on an abundance of relatively cheap fossil energy. The American food system currently claims about 20% of total fossil energy use and accounts for an even larger percentage of emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.[13] Without cheap fossil energy for fertilizers and fuel, agriculture will be forced to return to organic and other regenerative, sustainable approaches to production that rely on green plants to capture and store solar energy in the healthy, organic soils. By the year 2050, the American food system will have been forced to devolve to production and distribution to accommodate local and regional markets. National and global food markets will be primarily high-value, non-perishable, minimally-processed foods, such as coffee and spices. Americans will be healthier and health care costs will be in decline.
The American farms of 2050 will be smaller because sustainable farms are inherently more management and labor intensive, meaning more farms and more opportunities for farmers. Such farms will fit the new paradigm for technology development by employing more people in the process of producing a given amount of food. It takes knowledge, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship to produce food sustainably. Human scale technologies, such as the microcomputer, will make knowledge more easily acquired and creativity and entrepreneurship more effectively used. Even today, organic and other sustainable systems of food production can produce as much or even more than industrial systems per acre of land or dollar of investment. They just require more thoughtful, insightful, caring farmers. Why not have more such farmers?
Farmers markets, CSAs, and home gardens will grow in importance and more locally grown foods will move through local supermarkets, restaurants, and institutions. However, the food systems of the future will more closely resemble today’s multi-farm CSAs or local food cooperatives. Grown Locally,[14] Idaho’s Bounty,[15] and the Oklahoma Food Cooperative,[16]for example, are cooperative organizations of farmers and consumers that offer a variety of vegetables, fruits, meats, eggs, cheese, baked goods, flowers, and herbs produced by local farmers. Many items are available as CSA shares, standing orders, or for week-by-week purchase. Customers have the option of on-farm pick-up, local delivery points, or delivery to the door. Websites allow producers to post what they have available each week, ensuring that products sold are available for delivery and allowing customers to place or revise their orders on the website. Such systems have the potential to be far more energy efficient and environmentally benign than are today’s systems of food production and distribution. In the world of 2050, with the next generations of the Internet and Fed-Ex, a global network of sustainable, community food systems will have replaced the industrial, global food system as the dominate source of food.
The most successful American communities in 2050, rural and urban, will be those learned from the “good food revolution” of the early 2000s. They will be communities that have preserved and restored the fertile farmlands that remained in the areas where most of the cities and towns in American were initially settled. They will be communities that understood that the local food movement was not just about restoring healthy diets and healthy bodies, although health is obviously essential to physical well-being. Local foods provide both the motivation and means of reconnecting people in meaningful personal and social relationships. Local foods also allow people to support their local farmers economically, and thus support their local economies. Through local farmers, people reconnect spiritually with the land and regain a sense of purpose and meaning in life through a commitment to stewardship of nature. The good food revolution is the precursor to the “good life revolution” – an ecological, social, and economic revolution.
However, none of these good things will be possible unless we abandon our pursuit of narrow, individual economic self-interest and return to the broader pursuit of happiness and quality of life. Obviously, we are physical beings, but the material needs are quite modest and well within the earth’s capacity to sustain a regenerative economy. We can’t sustain continual economic growth but we can sustain sufficient economic growth to meet the basic needs of all, if we choose to do so. We can sustain continuing prosperity even without economic growth, if we find the wisdom to focus our time and energy on relationships and ethics instead of economics. We can sustain prosperity through harmony and balance among the material, social, and spiritual dimensions of our lives. There are no limits to human betterment, if we cease our striving for wealth and focus on learning the true art of living.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Winona La Duke on Food, Energy and Sustainability, children on GMOs
A talk that just about covers all the themes of food/energy sustainability. Not to be missed.
Food, Energy and Sustainability
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kk_OPzOnME&NR=1
April 03, 2010
"The seeds remember the earth from which they came..."
Winona La Duke speaking in Vancouver Washington in February 2010. Winona speaks at length about the work she and her people are doing in the areas of food and sustainable energy production. (Winona is a Harvard grad who ran as Nader's VP candidate)
Seed Sovereignty Declaration
January 29, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Jx1iUGGuRI
This video features a reading of the Seed Sovereignty Declaration that was drafted by members of the New Mexico Acequia Association and the Traditional Native American Farmers' Association. (Interesting it included opposition to GMOs in 2006 before there was a YouTube. Beyond opposition to GMOs it focuses on the positive, food sovereignty)
Food, Energy and Sustainability
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kk_OPzOnME&NR=1
April 03, 2010
"The seeds remember the earth from which they came..."
Winona La Duke speaking in Vancouver Washington in February 2010. Winona speaks at length about the work she and her people are doing in the areas of food and sustainable energy production. (Winona is a Harvard grad who ran as Nader's VP candidate)
Seed Sovereignty Declaration
January 29, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Jx1iUGGuRI
This video features a reading of the Seed Sovereignty Declaration that was drafted by members of the New Mexico Acequia Association and the Traditional Native American Farmers' Association. (Interesting it included opposition to GMOs in 2006 before there was a YouTube. Beyond opposition to GMOs it focuses on the positive, food sovereignty)
Monday, January 31, 2011
Food news - prices, sustainability, scarcities
Three Challenges To Sustainabilty
By Arty Mangan on Jan 13, 2011
http://www.bioneers.org/campaigns/food-farming-1/blog/three-challenges-to-sustainabilty
The dominant systems in place today- energy, food, agriculture, economy, education etc.- are unsustainable, and so by definition will fail. What are some of the obstacles to designing long-term, truly sustainable systems and how do we overcome them?
Food Label Lies: How to Sort Truth From Hype
by Lisa Gosselin, Eating Well Magazine, via The Huffington Post,
http://organicconnectmag.com/wp/2010/10/food-label-lies-how-to-sort-truth-from-hype-2/
I live in Vermont. I have cows and goats as neighbors. I buy chickens from the farm a mile down my road. I’m the editor of EatingWell Magazine, for pete’s sake, which champions wholesome, local food and healthy eating. So you would think I’d know what terms like “all natural” mean. Especially when “All Natural” appears on a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, which is made exactly 10.3 miles away from my house.
Welcome to the food deserts of rural America
by Steph Larsen 22 Jan 2011 6:00 AM
http://www.grist.org/article/2011-01-21-welcome-to-the-food-deserts-of-rural-america
The paradox of our unhealthy food system is that many rural towns lack healthy food access, even as the food we eat is grown in rural places. To put it simply, our current food system is failing the very communities that grow our food... So how is it possible that people in farm country have a hard time finding food? In short, it's complicated.
There are lots of ideas out there, from the Rural Grocery Initiative at Kansas State University to federal resources laid out on the Center for Rural Affairs page on rural food access to news stories and inspiring videos about a 17-year-old who saved the grocery store in Truman, Minn.
Rural communities need entrepreneurial skills to start and run a successful business. They also need young and energetic farmers willing to grow food and teach others how to do the same.
Food-cost shocks ripple worldwide from Iowa
10:20 PM, Jan. 29, 2011
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110130/BUSINESS/101300340/Food-cost-shocks-ripple-worldwide-from-Iowa?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Frontpage
Shoppers who have seen hamburger prices increase as much as 10 percent in recent months will pay even more for burgers, steaks and other meat products as a result of a commodities boom that is putting money in Iowa farmers' pockets while it rocks the rest of the world.
One estimate has meat prices rising 4 percent this year. Food cost increases in 2011 are likely to jolt consumers because they follow a three-year period of flat or declining prices.
The higher prices are the result of decreased supply and increased demand. As U.S. cattle and hog herds have reached their smallest levels since 1958, export demand has risen by as much as 50 percent in recent months. Another factor is an 85 percent increase since last summer in the price of corn, a commodity that is economically and emotionally symbolic to Iowa because it is the prime feedstock for cattle and hogs.
[and... who's pushing this?]
USAID Administrator Highlights Private Sector Partnerships to Reduce Hunger and Poverty at the World Economic Forum
http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2011/pr110128.html
WASHINGTON, DC – At the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah gathered with the CEOs of Unilever and Monsanto to support the launch of WEF's global framework titled "Realizing a New Vision for Agriculture." The show of support emphasizes USAID's leadership in creating synergies between the public and private sectors to meet the global food security challenge.
Championed by 17 global companies and supported by key public and civil-society leaders, the New Vision framework outlines priorities and examples to illustrate the role businesses can play in meeting global food and nutrition needs through accelerated, sustainable agriculture-led growth. Through the U.S. Government's Feed the Future initiative, the New Vision for Agriculture will aim to leverage private-sector investment to scale up agricultural growth in food-insecure countries. The 17 global companies that champion the initiative are: Archer Daniels Midland, BASF, Bunge, Cargill, The Coca-Cola Company, DuPont, General Mills, Kraft Foods, Metro, Monsanto Company, Nestlé, PepsiCo, SABMiller, Syngenta, Unilever, Wal-Mart Stores and Yara International.
Water Is Life
By Arty Mangan on Jun 22, 2010
http://www.bioneers.org/campaigns/food-farming-1/blog/water-is-life
Ethics and economics compete for fair distribution of water among people, industry & ecosystems as rural New Mexico communities and Central Valley California farmers face serious challenges.
By Arty Mangan on Jan 13, 2011
http://www.bioneers.org/campaigns/food-farming-1/blog/three-challenges-to-sustainabilty
The dominant systems in place today- energy, food, agriculture, economy, education etc.- are unsustainable, and so by definition will fail. What are some of the obstacles to designing long-term, truly sustainable systems and how do we overcome them?
Food Label Lies: How to Sort Truth From Hype
by Lisa Gosselin, Eating Well Magazine, via The Huffington Post,
http://organicconnectmag.com/wp/2010/10/food-label-lies-how-to-sort-truth-from-hype-2/
I live in Vermont. I have cows and goats as neighbors. I buy chickens from the farm a mile down my road. I’m the editor of EatingWell Magazine, for pete’s sake, which champions wholesome, local food and healthy eating. So you would think I’d know what terms like “all natural” mean. Especially when “All Natural” appears on a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, which is made exactly 10.3 miles away from my house.
Welcome to the food deserts of rural America
by Steph Larsen 22 Jan 2011 6:00 AM
http://www.grist.org/article/2011-01-21-welcome-to-the-food-deserts-of-rural-america
The paradox of our unhealthy food system is that many rural towns lack healthy food access, even as the food we eat is grown in rural places. To put it simply, our current food system is failing the very communities that grow our food... So how is it possible that people in farm country have a hard time finding food? In short, it's complicated.
There are lots of ideas out there, from the Rural Grocery Initiative at Kansas State University to federal resources laid out on the Center for Rural Affairs page on rural food access to news stories and inspiring videos about a 17-year-old who saved the grocery store in Truman, Minn.
Rural communities need entrepreneurial skills to start and run a successful business. They also need young and energetic farmers willing to grow food and teach others how to do the same.
Food-cost shocks ripple worldwide from Iowa
10:20 PM, Jan. 29, 2011
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110130/BUSINESS/101300340/Food-cost-shocks-ripple-worldwide-from-Iowa?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Frontpage
Shoppers who have seen hamburger prices increase as much as 10 percent in recent months will pay even more for burgers, steaks and other meat products as a result of a commodities boom that is putting money in Iowa farmers' pockets while it rocks the rest of the world.
One estimate has meat prices rising 4 percent this year. Food cost increases in 2011 are likely to jolt consumers because they follow a three-year period of flat or declining prices.
The higher prices are the result of decreased supply and increased demand. As U.S. cattle and hog herds have reached their smallest levels since 1958, export demand has risen by as much as 50 percent in recent months. Another factor is an 85 percent increase since last summer in the price of corn, a commodity that is economically and emotionally symbolic to Iowa because it is the prime feedstock for cattle and hogs.
[and... who's pushing this?]
USAID Administrator Highlights Private Sector Partnerships to Reduce Hunger and Poverty at the World Economic Forum
http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2011/pr110128.html
WASHINGTON, DC – At the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah gathered with the CEOs of Unilever and Monsanto to support the launch of WEF's global framework titled "Realizing a New Vision for Agriculture." The show of support emphasizes USAID's leadership in creating synergies between the public and private sectors to meet the global food security challenge.
Championed by 17 global companies and supported by key public and civil-society leaders, the New Vision framework outlines priorities and examples to illustrate the role businesses can play in meeting global food and nutrition needs through accelerated, sustainable agriculture-led growth. Through the U.S. Government's Feed the Future initiative, the New Vision for Agriculture will aim to leverage private-sector investment to scale up agricultural growth in food-insecure countries. The 17 global companies that champion the initiative are: Archer Daniels Midland, BASF, Bunge, Cargill, The Coca-Cola Company, DuPont, General Mills, Kraft Foods, Metro, Monsanto Company, Nestlé, PepsiCo, SABMiller, Syngenta, Unilever, Wal-Mart Stores and Yara International.
Water Is Life
By Arty Mangan on Jun 22, 2010
http://www.bioneers.org/campaigns/food-farming-1/blog/water-is-life
Ethics and economics compete for fair distribution of water among people, industry & ecosystems as rural New Mexico communities and Central Valley California farmers face serious challenges.
Food Price Bubble? grow your own
An era of cheap food may be drawing to a close
Reuters poll: Higher grain prices will persist, spurring more global unrest
updated 1/30/2011 1:36:58 PM ET
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41311106/ns/business-retail/from/toolbar
U.S. grain prices should stay unrelentingly high this year, according to a Reuters poll, the latest sign that the era of cheap food has come to an end. U.S. corn, soybeans and wheat prices -- which surged by as much has 50 percent last year and hit their highest levels since mid-2008 -- will dip by at most 5 percent by the end of 2011, according to the poll of 16 analysts.
The forecasts suggest no quick relief for nations bedeviled by record high food costs that have stoked civil unrest. It means any extreme weather event in a grains-producing part of the world could send prices soaring further. The expectations may also strengthen importers' resolve to build bigger inventories after a year in which stocks of corn and soybeans in the United States -- the world's top exporter -- dwindled to their lowest level in decades.
Rampant Speculation Inflated Food Price Bubble
By Stephen Leahy
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54274
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jan 28, 2011 (IPS) - Billions of dollars are being made by investors in a speculative "food bubble" that's created record food prices, starving millions and destabilising countries, experts now conclude.
Wall Street investment firms and banks, along with their kin in London and Europe, were responsible for the technology dot-com bubble, the stock market bubble, and the recent U.S. and UK housing bubbles. They extracted enormous profits and their bonuses before the inevitable collapse of each.
Now they've turned to basic commodities. The result? At a time when there has been no significant change in the global food supply or in food demand, the average cost of buying food shot up 32 percent from June to December 2010, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Nothing but price speculation can explain wheat prices jumping 70 percent from June to December last year when global wheat stocks were stable, experts say.
"There is no food shortage in the world. Food is simply priced out of the reach of the world's poorest people," said Robert Fox of Oxfam Canada in reference to the estimated one billion people who go hungry. "Hunger is not a food production problem. It is an income problem," Fox told IPS.
The conditions that created the 2007-08 price hike and food riots have not changed, he said. It is no surprise to see record-high food prices and riots again in Egypt, Algeria, Jordan and elsewhere.
Weather used to be the big determinant of food prices, but not anymore. Trillions of dollars have been pumped into food commodities markets in the last few years thanks to deregulation of commodities trading in the U.S., reports Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
In an analysis of the food price crisis of 2007-08, De Schutter documents how the U.S. government passed legislation in 2000 deregulating the food commodity markets and for the first time permitted speculation on speculation.
Here's how it used to work. In January, Farmer Brown would sign a contract to sell his 2011 future crop to a grain trader like industry giant Cargill for 100 dollars a tonne. In the fall, Cargill would then sell Farmer Brown's grain at whatever price they could get to a bakery or feedlot company for cattle. These "futures" contracts insulated both the farmer and the grain trader from wild price fluctuations.
Now, after the passage of the U.S. Commodity Futures Modernisation Act in 2000, Cargill could sell Farmer's Brown "futures" contract to an investment bank on Wall Street for 120 dollars a tonne, who could in turn sell it to a European investment company for 150 dollars a tonne and then sell it to a U.S. public pension fund for 175 dollars a tonne and so on. Add in some complex financial instruments like 'derivatives', 'index funds', 'hedges', and 'swaps', and food become part of yet another highly-profitable speculative bubble.
Reuters poll: Higher grain prices will persist, spurring more global unrest
updated 1/30/2011 1:36:58 PM ET
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41311106/ns/business-retail/from/toolbar
U.S. grain prices should stay unrelentingly high this year, according to a Reuters poll, the latest sign that the era of cheap food has come to an end. U.S. corn, soybeans and wheat prices -- which surged by as much has 50 percent last year and hit their highest levels since mid-2008 -- will dip by at most 5 percent by the end of 2011, according to the poll of 16 analysts.
The forecasts suggest no quick relief for nations bedeviled by record high food costs that have stoked civil unrest. It means any extreme weather event in a grains-producing part of the world could send prices soaring further. The expectations may also strengthen importers' resolve to build bigger inventories after a year in which stocks of corn and soybeans in the United States -- the world's top exporter -- dwindled to their lowest level in decades.
Rampant Speculation Inflated Food Price Bubble
By Stephen Leahy
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54274
UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jan 28, 2011 (IPS) - Billions of dollars are being made by investors in a speculative "food bubble" that's created record food prices, starving millions and destabilising countries, experts now conclude.
Wall Street investment firms and banks, along with their kin in London and Europe, were responsible for the technology dot-com bubble, the stock market bubble, and the recent U.S. and UK housing bubbles. They extracted enormous profits and their bonuses before the inevitable collapse of each.
Now they've turned to basic commodities. The result? At a time when there has been no significant change in the global food supply or in food demand, the average cost of buying food shot up 32 percent from June to December 2010, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Nothing but price speculation can explain wheat prices jumping 70 percent from June to December last year when global wheat stocks were stable, experts say.
"There is no food shortage in the world. Food is simply priced out of the reach of the world's poorest people," said Robert Fox of Oxfam Canada in reference to the estimated one billion people who go hungry. "Hunger is not a food production problem. It is an income problem," Fox told IPS.
The conditions that created the 2007-08 price hike and food riots have not changed, he said. It is no surprise to see record-high food prices and riots again in Egypt, Algeria, Jordan and elsewhere.
Weather used to be the big determinant of food prices, but not anymore. Trillions of dollars have been pumped into food commodities markets in the last few years thanks to deregulation of commodities trading in the U.S., reports Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.
In an analysis of the food price crisis of 2007-08, De Schutter documents how the U.S. government passed legislation in 2000 deregulating the food commodity markets and for the first time permitted speculation on speculation.
Here's how it used to work. In January, Farmer Brown would sign a contract to sell his 2011 future crop to a grain trader like industry giant Cargill for 100 dollars a tonne. In the fall, Cargill would then sell Farmer Brown's grain at whatever price they could get to a bakery or feedlot company for cattle. These "futures" contracts insulated both the farmer and the grain trader from wild price fluctuations.
Now, after the passage of the U.S. Commodity Futures Modernisation Act in 2000, Cargill could sell Farmer's Brown "futures" contract to an investment bank on Wall Street for 120 dollars a tonne, who could in turn sell it to a European investment company for 150 dollars a tonne and then sell it to a U.S. public pension fund for 175 dollars a tonne and so on. Add in some complex financial instruments like 'derivatives', 'index funds', 'hedges', and 'swaps', and food become part of yet another highly-profitable speculative bubble.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Food and Farming Transition
Post Carbon Institute - Spring 2009
http://www.postcarbon.org/report/41306-the-food-and-farming-transition-toward
Summary
The American food system rests on an unstable foundation of massive fossil fuel inputs. It must be reinvented in the face of declining fuel stocks. The new food system will use less energy, and the energy it uses will come from renewable sources. We can begin the transition to the new system immediately through a process of planned, graduated, rapid change. The unplanned alternative-reconstruction from scratch after collapse-would be chaotic and tragic.The seeds of the new food system have already been planted. America's farmers have been reducing their energy use for decades. They are using less fertilizer and pesticide. The number of organic farms, farmers' markets, and CSA operations is growing rapidly. More people are thinking about where their food comes from.
These are important building blocks, but much remains to be done. Our new food system will require more farmers, smaller and more diversified farms, less processed and packaged food, and less long-distance hauling of food. Governments, communities, businesses, and families each have important parts to play in reinventing a food system that functions with limited renewable energy resources to feed our population for the long term.
books I can't do without
A few books stand out as practical how-to's in my walls of gardening books. Not theory or ideology, just indispensable. I hit used book stores, thrift stores, but to order online I use only http://www.bookfinder.com . These are the ones I can't do without for market growing. Some are more timely now than ever before.
Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. The Indispensable Green Resource for Every Gardener, Rodale Press
High-Yield Gardening: How to Get More from Your Garden Space and More from Your Gardening Season, Rodale Press
Getting the Most from Your Garden, Rodale Press
The Complete Book Of Composting, Rodale Press
How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine, by John Jeavons (& others by Jeavons)
Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long, by Eliot Coleman
The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener, by Eliot Coleman (& others by Eliot Coleman)
The Garden Primer, by Barbara Damrosch
The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times, by Carol Deppe
Start With The Soil, by Grace Gershuny
Stocking Up III: The All-New Edition of America's Classic Preserving Guide, Rodale Press
Keeping Food Fresh: Old World Techniques & Recipes: Old World Recipes and Techniques, Chelsea Green Publishing Co
Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. The Indispensable Green Resource for Every Gardener, Rodale Press
High-Yield Gardening: How to Get More from Your Garden Space and More from Your Gardening Season, Rodale Press
Getting the Most from Your Garden, Rodale Press
The Complete Book Of Composting, Rodale Press
How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine, by John Jeavons (& others by Jeavons)
Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long, by Eliot Coleman
The New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener, by Eliot Coleman (& others by Eliot Coleman)
The Garden Primer, by Barbara Damrosch
The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times, by Carol Deppe
Start With The Soil, by Grace Gershuny
Stocking Up III: The All-New Edition of America's Classic Preserving Guide, Rodale Press
Keeping Food Fresh: Old World Techniques & Recipes: Old World Recipes and Techniques, Chelsea Green Publishing Co
Saturday, January 29, 2011
LiveBlogging Edible Institute 2011 #EI2011
LiveBlogging Edible Institute 2011
Posted on January 29th, 2011 by Chef Kurt Michael Friese
http://networkedblogs.com/dD6WR
Hello from sunny Santa Barbara, CA and the 2011 edition of Edible Institute at the Hotel Mar Monte. Today and tomorrow I’ll be liveblogging the goings on here for those of you who couldn’t make it and for those who did but mighta missed something. Since it’s live please forgive typos and so on – I’ll put on my editors hat at the end of the day.
Follow the goings on on the Twitter machine via the hashtag #EI2011
We’ve a heckuva lineup today, including a keynote from no less than Dr. Joan Dye Gussow, who is a serious food producer, a writer, and officially a retiree from Teachers College, Columbia University where she is Mary Swartz Rose Professor Emerita, former chair of the Nutrition Education Program, and where she still teaches her course on nutritional ecology every fall. Her latest book is called (I adore this title) “Growing, Older.”
Things are scheduled to start rolling here in about 20 minutes, so the first update from here will happen in about an hour or so. Take a look at the schedule of events, and please check back throughout the day (and again tomorrow).
But first, a word from our sponsors – a quick shoutout to the folks that helped make this thing happen:
St. Germaine
Green Project Consultants
and Verterra.
OK, we’re getting underway here with a welcome from Edible Communities co-founder Tracey Ryder. Shoutouts to the above sponsors, staff, and the instigator of all of this, Edible San Francisco publisher Bruce Cole.
Dr. Gussow has taken the stage, and is saying a few nice things about our humble publications, and says she’s going to start with her “Cassandra role.” Says she’s “spent several years depressing college students.”
“I feel the need to confess that I don’t feel as if I belong here,” Gussow says, on account of feeling not as up-to-date on all the foodie-goings-on these days. She then reveals that she’s an Iowa girl, originally – she grew up in Orange City – way up in the northwest corner of the state, and named not for the fruits – somewhat obviously – but for William of Orange.
Dr. Gussow is concerned about what she calls the “Frivolity of the US food supply.”
“Whenever you don’t understand something I’m saying, simply assume I’m trying to be funny.”
She’s touching now on her first book, The Feeding Web, which came out in 1978 – a true harbinger of the coming food movement which told of the absurdity of the food supply. “People need to ask where all those marshmallow-enriched purple cereals in their technicolor food supply were coming from.”
Rodale Press, she tells us, did the first study of how much of our food might possibly be produced locally in light of the first energy crisis in the late 70s. At the time she had a student at the time who did an independent project on her native Haiti about how the only US aid going on there was that we had taken their hogs, sent them Iowa hogs, which they were to raise and send to the US. This while Haitians were starving under Papa Doc.
her first attempts to get people to eat seasonally and locally “sank like a stone” because people thought that for example people who live in the northeast would starve and “what would the people of Iowa do for vitamin C?” Check in on my own Edible Iowa for some answers to that question.
She’s not trying to urge everyone to grow their own food and recognizes that that’s not realistic, but says its vital to link their life to nature – and food’s a great way to do that. “If we win our war with nature, we lose.”
“We have just elected – or the corporations have, or whoever’s in charge now – a strange group of people who don’t believe in climate change to add to the people who don’t intend to do anything about it.”
“Business as usual is no longer an option, but we’re doing business as usual.”
She highly recommends (as do I) Bill McKibben’s brlliant book Eaarth.
She’s optimistic about the growing availability of local foods. “People who used to admit embarassingly that they lived in Brooklyn now brag about it.”
But, “Those with an investment in the status quo will not give up without a fight.”
Fear is an obstacle, she says. But it’s being addressed by films like Food, Inc, and Foer’s book “Eating Animals.”
Those that say organic can’t feed the world fail to realize that they had their chance and haven’t succeeded, so maybe we should try it. GMO’s have failed thus far to broadly increase yields, says Gussow.
“We have an sustainble food supply, and Michael Pollan said that what unsustainable means is that it will end.” And that, she says, gives her hope.
Ooo, a nice shoutout too to the Slow Money Movement.
“I believe the local food movement is building a model for supporting us when the end of the current scene comes, and it will come” She urges us to take a stand too for economic and social justice.
“Living as if our food is infinite on a finite planet.”
“We know that we are all a guilty party,” she tells us, “including those who grow their own food in New York and then FLY to California to talk about it”
Quoted Jim Hightower quoting his father “Everybody does better when everybody does better.”
“Hope is the lesson nature keeps teaching me”
“We need to pay more for local food from local farmers and that’s going to have to be OK.”
And with that, a big standing O for Dr. Gussow.
Question time: and the first asks what DOES she eat in January? Answer briefly is that she does a lot of puttin’ up (need to know more about how? Check out Sherri Vinton’s book Put’em Up).
Another asks her to comment on state and federal budget cuts resulting in universities funding and being funded by big ag and chemical companies, etc. She blames some of it on California passing Prop 13. Reminds me of the famous Oliver Wendall Holmes quotation “Taxes are the fee I pay to live in a civilized society.”
Break time, and then our first panel on “Will Urban Ag Change the Way we Eat”, with:
Annie Novak: Founder and director of Growing Chefs, field-to-fork food?education program; the children gardening program coordinator for?the New York Botanical Gardens, and co-founder and farmer of Eagle?Street Rooftop Farm in Greenpoint. Annie has worked with the CENYC?Greenmarket, Slow Food, and Just Food advocating and growing urban?agriculture throughout NYC. Her work in agriculture has been featured?in New York Magazine, Edible Brooklyn and the Martha Stewart Show?among other press.
David Cleveland: Professor, Environmental Studies Program University?of California Santa Barbara. Recent work: Trade offs between ?Agriculture, Open Space, and Urbanization. The ?value of land: Agriculture, food and urbanization in the Goleta?Valley, California.
Ashley Atkinson: Director of Project Development and Urban Agriculture?- Greening of Detroit Ashley gardens with passion and is?growing a new economy in her community that could change the way? Detroit uses its open spaces. As the Director of Project Development?and Urban Agriculture for the Greening of Detroit, Atkinson is?developing Detroit’s premier market farm from a 30-acre city park?filled with sewer pipes; all on a budget of $40 per week.
And moderated by:
Kerry Trueman is the co-founder of EatingLiberally.org, a netroots website & organization that advocates sustainable agriculture, progressive politics and a less-consumption driven way of life. She blogs regularly at Eating Liberally, right here on Huffington Post, and Civil Eats.
OK, a few Pixie tangerines and we’re back with the aforementioned panel
Deborah Kane of Edible Portland (among a lot of other fantastic exploits, like FoodHub) is handling introductions.
Annie’s talking about all the benefits of green roofs (rooves?) and showing some pictures of her work in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Novak: “Beekeeping seemed like a great idea because it was illegal at the time and that was stupid.”
And a shout out from Novak to the great work of Growing Power
David Cleveland is talking about “What does localizing mean? – changing the way we eat or greenwashing?”
The question is, is localization the answer to the problems in our dominant agrifood system?
Part of the problem is we don’t truly know if localizing is helping because there are no solid statistics on it. So he set out to get some.
It doesn’t help on greenhouse gasses because of transportation, because a farmer’s pickup is less efficient than 18 wheelers. But most of the fossil fuels in industrial ag are used in things like nitrogen fixing and pesticides.
Pushback coming from the likes of Walmart because local food is starting to eat into their bottom line “The L word is beginning to replace the O word”
Cleveland urges us to keep labor in mind – is the local food raised by local hands? California relies on noncompetitive labor for producing it’s 50% share of the fruit, vegetables and nuts America eats.
He points out that the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt began in no small measure because of food prices.
Ashley Atkinson is now talking about her work in Detroit. mentions she doesn’t like the term “food desert.” Thinks it’s inaccurate
“There are 50K vacant lots in Detroit that are ready to be farmed.”
The growers with Grown in Detroit have agreed not to sell their food outside Detroit until their food access problems inside Detroit are lessened.
Everything she has shown – gardening, beekeeping, chickens, etc. is illegal in Detroit but “we do it anyway” – big applause.
And a shoutout to the fine work of Brother Nature
Question about dealing with municipalities and all the illegal stuff they just mentioned. Ashley says Just Do It – ask for forgiveness rather than permission. “If we’d asked for permission we’d have never done what we did”
Gary Nabhan asks if the food miles issue is dead. David Cleveland says yes and we should recast the issues around local and sustainable food.
Another break, and then we return with panel #2:
Activists and Advocacy: SOLE Food’s Message for Change.
Tom Philpott moderator. Grist food editor, Tom Philpott farms and cooks at Maverick Farms, a sustainable-agriculture nonprofit and small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
PANELISTS:
Ralph Loglisci: Project Director for the Johns Hopkins Healthy Monday ?Project. Before joining the Center for a Livable Future, Ralph served?as the Communications Director for the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute?of Bioethics. However, it was his work as the Communications Director?for the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production that Ralph?became aware of the intricate connections between food systems, the?environment and public health.
Debra Eschmeyer: Marketing & Media Manager of the National Farm to? School Network and the Center for Food & Justice. She works from a ?fifth-generation family farm in Ohio, where she continues her passion?for organic farming raising heirloom fruits and vegetables. Prior to ?joining CFJ, Debra was the Project Director at the National Family ?Farm Coalition in Washington, DC where she focused on U.S.?agricultural policy and food sovereignty initiatives among grass roots? domestic and international rural advocacy and other social justice ?networks.?? She also blogs right here at HuffPo.
Dan Imhoff: Co-founder of Watershed Media, a researcher, author, and ?independent publisher who has concentrated for nearly 20 years on?issues related to farming, the environment, and design. He is the ?author of numerous articles, essays, and books including Food Fight:?The Citizen’s Guide to a Food and Farm Bill, Paper or Plastic:? Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World; Farming with the? Wild: Enhancing Biodiversity on Farms and Ranches; and Building with? Vision: Optimizing and Finding Alternatives to Wood.
Philpott:
The rise and fall of the American industrial machine has lead to local food systems in these communities like Detroit, need to move beyond the 3-5 percent
Federal policy perpetuates the current dominant food system
Why aren’t policy makers learning from detroit and other local food systems? Need to push policy in these directions.
Last two admins were abysmal, then Michele Obama using soft power to effect change, but President Obama is still putting agribiz based people in his administration.
Eschmeyer
She helped make farm-to-school competitive grant program possible
Points out that Republic budget cutters do not have direct subsidies on their hit list, but to have Americorps, NEA, Organic Certification, and ObamaCare.
Urges people to help collect data that support these ideas, for example: $1 spent on local food circulates $3 in the community – that’s a low estimate.
Collaborate with people smarter than you. And join the Community Food Security Coalition, among many others.
Highlight your heroes – like Ashley (above)
“Every ingredient has a lobbyist,” but Eschmeyer believes Edible Communities could be the “lobbyist” for the good food movement.
Ralph Loglisci:
Is studying the effect of the Meatless Monday thing, seeing if their is science behind how well it works.
A shoutout to the Center for a Liveable Future blog
Points ou that this is not an elitist thing – we want good healthy food for EVERYONE. Reminds me of Josh Viertel’s recent video question to President Obama: “Why do Fruit Loops cost less than fruit?”
Dan Imhoff describes himself as a “reluctant wonk”
A Manure lagoon is now eligible to be part of a farm environment protection plan
Talks about how industrial ag says “you don’t understand agriculture”
The Tea Party could actually be an ally to the real food movement – cutting $5billion in subsidies, and how good food can be an economic engine
The map of the disaster relief farms and the non subsidized farms are the same
Says he is rewriting Food Fight:?The Citizen’s Guide to a Food and Farm Bill, for the new 2012 Food & Farm Bill
References the issue brought up by Mission Readiness. (See my essay on the subject called Why Johnny Can’t March)
New Food & Farm bill should include:
Delink nutrition title from land and farm title
No subsidation without social obligation
“Getting perennial by the next centennial” – taking a much longer view of agriculture
A Suburban and Urban Ag title
One size doesn’t fit all: Regs are currently made only for big ag.
MUST get urban people involved in the Food & Farm bill
Now LUNCH! Back in an hour or so.
Posted on January 29th, 2011 by Chef Kurt Michael Friese
http://networkedblogs.com/dD6WR
Hello from sunny Santa Barbara, CA and the 2011 edition of Edible Institute at the Hotel Mar Monte. Today and tomorrow I’ll be liveblogging the goings on here for those of you who couldn’t make it and for those who did but mighta missed something. Since it’s live please forgive typos and so on – I’ll put on my editors hat at the end of the day.
Follow the goings on on the Twitter machine via the hashtag #EI2011
We’ve a heckuva lineup today, including a keynote from no less than Dr. Joan Dye Gussow, who is a serious food producer, a writer, and officially a retiree from Teachers College, Columbia University where she is Mary Swartz Rose Professor Emerita, former chair of the Nutrition Education Program, and where she still teaches her course on nutritional ecology every fall. Her latest book is called (I adore this title) “Growing, Older.”
Things are scheduled to start rolling here in about 20 minutes, so the first update from here will happen in about an hour or so. Take a look at the schedule of events, and please check back throughout the day (and again tomorrow).
But first, a word from our sponsors – a quick shoutout to the folks that helped make this thing happen:
St. Germaine
Green Project Consultants
and Verterra.
OK, we’re getting underway here with a welcome from Edible Communities co-founder Tracey Ryder. Shoutouts to the above sponsors, staff, and the instigator of all of this, Edible San Francisco publisher Bruce Cole.
Dr. Gussow has taken the stage, and is saying a few nice things about our humble publications, and says she’s going to start with her “Cassandra role.” Says she’s “spent several years depressing college students.”
“I feel the need to confess that I don’t feel as if I belong here,” Gussow says, on account of feeling not as up-to-date on all the foodie-goings-on these days. She then reveals that she’s an Iowa girl, originally – she grew up in Orange City – way up in the northwest corner of the state, and named not for the fruits – somewhat obviously – but for William of Orange.
Dr. Gussow is concerned about what she calls the “Frivolity of the US food supply.”
“Whenever you don’t understand something I’m saying, simply assume I’m trying to be funny.”
She’s touching now on her first book, The Feeding Web, which came out in 1978 – a true harbinger of the coming food movement which told of the absurdity of the food supply. “People need to ask where all those marshmallow-enriched purple cereals in their technicolor food supply were coming from.”
Rodale Press, she tells us, did the first study of how much of our food might possibly be produced locally in light of the first energy crisis in the late 70s. At the time she had a student at the time who did an independent project on her native Haiti about how the only US aid going on there was that we had taken their hogs, sent them Iowa hogs, which they were to raise and send to the US. This while Haitians were starving under Papa Doc.
her first attempts to get people to eat seasonally and locally “sank like a stone” because people thought that for example people who live in the northeast would starve and “what would the people of Iowa do for vitamin C?” Check in on my own Edible Iowa for some answers to that question.
She’s not trying to urge everyone to grow their own food and recognizes that that’s not realistic, but says its vital to link their life to nature – and food’s a great way to do that. “If we win our war with nature, we lose.”
“We have just elected – or the corporations have, or whoever’s in charge now – a strange group of people who don’t believe in climate change to add to the people who don’t intend to do anything about it.”
“Business as usual is no longer an option, but we’re doing business as usual.”
She highly recommends (as do I) Bill McKibben’s brlliant book Eaarth.
She’s optimistic about the growing availability of local foods. “People who used to admit embarassingly that they lived in Brooklyn now brag about it.”
But, “Those with an investment in the status quo will not give up without a fight.”
Fear is an obstacle, she says. But it’s being addressed by films like Food, Inc, and Foer’s book “Eating Animals.”
Those that say organic can’t feed the world fail to realize that they had their chance and haven’t succeeded, so maybe we should try it. GMO’s have failed thus far to broadly increase yields, says Gussow.
“We have an sustainble food supply, and Michael Pollan said that what unsustainable means is that it will end.” And that, she says, gives her hope.
Ooo, a nice shoutout too to the Slow Money Movement.
“I believe the local food movement is building a model for supporting us when the end of the current scene comes, and it will come” She urges us to take a stand too for economic and social justice.
“Living as if our food is infinite on a finite planet.”
“We know that we are all a guilty party,” she tells us, “including those who grow their own food in New York and then FLY to California to talk about it”
Quoted Jim Hightower quoting his father “Everybody does better when everybody does better.”
“Hope is the lesson nature keeps teaching me”
“We need to pay more for local food from local farmers and that’s going to have to be OK.”
And with that, a big standing O for Dr. Gussow.
Question time: and the first asks what DOES she eat in January? Answer briefly is that she does a lot of puttin’ up (need to know more about how? Check out Sherri Vinton’s book Put’em Up).
Another asks her to comment on state and federal budget cuts resulting in universities funding and being funded by big ag and chemical companies, etc. She blames some of it on California passing Prop 13. Reminds me of the famous Oliver Wendall Holmes quotation “Taxes are the fee I pay to live in a civilized society.”
Break time, and then our first panel on “Will Urban Ag Change the Way we Eat”, with:
Annie Novak: Founder and director of Growing Chefs, field-to-fork food?education program; the children gardening program coordinator for?the New York Botanical Gardens, and co-founder and farmer of Eagle?Street Rooftop Farm in Greenpoint. Annie has worked with the CENYC?Greenmarket, Slow Food, and Just Food advocating and growing urban?agriculture throughout NYC. Her work in agriculture has been featured?in New York Magazine, Edible Brooklyn and the Martha Stewart Show?among other press.
David Cleveland: Professor, Environmental Studies Program University?of California Santa Barbara. Recent work: Trade offs between ?Agriculture, Open Space, and Urbanization. The ?value of land: Agriculture, food and urbanization in the Goleta?Valley, California.
Ashley Atkinson: Director of Project Development and Urban Agriculture?- Greening of Detroit Ashley gardens with passion and is?growing a new economy in her community that could change the way? Detroit uses its open spaces. As the Director of Project Development?and Urban Agriculture for the Greening of Detroit, Atkinson is?developing Detroit’s premier market farm from a 30-acre city park?filled with sewer pipes; all on a budget of $40 per week.
And moderated by:
Kerry Trueman is the co-founder of EatingLiberally.org, a netroots website & organization that advocates sustainable agriculture, progressive politics and a less-consumption driven way of life. She blogs regularly at Eating Liberally, right here on Huffington Post, and Civil Eats.
OK, a few Pixie tangerines and we’re back with the aforementioned panel
Deborah Kane of Edible Portland (among a lot of other fantastic exploits, like FoodHub) is handling introductions.
Annie’s talking about all the benefits of green roofs (rooves?) and showing some pictures of her work in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Novak: “Beekeeping seemed like a great idea because it was illegal at the time and that was stupid.”
And a shout out from Novak to the great work of Growing Power
David Cleveland is talking about “What does localizing mean? – changing the way we eat or greenwashing?”
The question is, is localization the answer to the problems in our dominant agrifood system?
Part of the problem is we don’t truly know if localizing is helping because there are no solid statistics on it. So he set out to get some.
It doesn’t help on greenhouse gasses because of transportation, because a farmer’s pickup is less efficient than 18 wheelers. But most of the fossil fuels in industrial ag are used in things like nitrogen fixing and pesticides.
Pushback coming from the likes of Walmart because local food is starting to eat into their bottom line “The L word is beginning to replace the O word”
Cleveland urges us to keep labor in mind – is the local food raised by local hands? California relies on noncompetitive labor for producing it’s 50% share of the fruit, vegetables and nuts America eats.
He points out that the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt began in no small measure because of food prices.
Ashley Atkinson is now talking about her work in Detroit. mentions she doesn’t like the term “food desert.” Thinks it’s inaccurate
“There are 50K vacant lots in Detroit that are ready to be farmed.”
The growers with Grown in Detroit have agreed not to sell their food outside Detroit until their food access problems inside Detroit are lessened.
Everything she has shown – gardening, beekeeping, chickens, etc. is illegal in Detroit but “we do it anyway” – big applause.
And a shoutout to the fine work of Brother Nature
Question about dealing with municipalities and all the illegal stuff they just mentioned. Ashley says Just Do It – ask for forgiveness rather than permission. “If we’d asked for permission we’d have never done what we did”
Gary Nabhan asks if the food miles issue is dead. David Cleveland says yes and we should recast the issues around local and sustainable food.
Another break, and then we return with panel #2:
Activists and Advocacy: SOLE Food’s Message for Change.
Tom Philpott moderator. Grist food editor, Tom Philpott farms and cooks at Maverick Farms, a sustainable-agriculture nonprofit and small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
PANELISTS:
Ralph Loglisci: Project Director for the Johns Hopkins Healthy Monday ?Project. Before joining the Center for a Livable Future, Ralph served?as the Communications Director for the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute?of Bioethics. However, it was his work as the Communications Director?for the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production that Ralph?became aware of the intricate connections between food systems, the?environment and public health.
Debra Eschmeyer: Marketing & Media Manager of the National Farm to? School Network and the Center for Food & Justice. She works from a ?fifth-generation family farm in Ohio, where she continues her passion?for organic farming raising heirloom fruits and vegetables. Prior to ?joining CFJ, Debra was the Project Director at the National Family ?Farm Coalition in Washington, DC where she focused on U.S.?agricultural policy and food sovereignty initiatives among grass roots? domestic and international rural advocacy and other social justice ?networks.?? She also blogs right here at HuffPo.
Dan Imhoff: Co-founder of Watershed Media, a researcher, author, and ?independent publisher who has concentrated for nearly 20 years on?issues related to farming, the environment, and design. He is the ?author of numerous articles, essays, and books including Food Fight:?The Citizen’s Guide to a Food and Farm Bill, Paper or Plastic:? Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World; Farming with the? Wild: Enhancing Biodiversity on Farms and Ranches; and Building with? Vision: Optimizing and Finding Alternatives to Wood.
Philpott:
The rise and fall of the American industrial machine has lead to local food systems in these communities like Detroit, need to move beyond the 3-5 percent
Federal policy perpetuates the current dominant food system
Why aren’t policy makers learning from detroit and other local food systems? Need to push policy in these directions.
Last two admins were abysmal, then Michele Obama using soft power to effect change, but President Obama is still putting agribiz based people in his administration.
Eschmeyer
She helped make farm-to-school competitive grant program possible
Points out that Republic budget cutters do not have direct subsidies on their hit list, but to have Americorps, NEA, Organic Certification, and ObamaCare.
Urges people to help collect data that support these ideas, for example: $1 spent on local food circulates $3 in the community – that’s a low estimate.
Collaborate with people smarter than you. And join the Community Food Security Coalition, among many others.
Highlight your heroes – like Ashley (above)
“Every ingredient has a lobbyist,” but Eschmeyer believes Edible Communities could be the “lobbyist” for the good food movement.
Ralph Loglisci:
Is studying the effect of the Meatless Monday thing, seeing if their is science behind how well it works.
A shoutout to the Center for a Liveable Future blog
Points ou that this is not an elitist thing – we want good healthy food for EVERYONE. Reminds me of Josh Viertel’s recent video question to President Obama: “Why do Fruit Loops cost less than fruit?”
Dan Imhoff describes himself as a “reluctant wonk”
A Manure lagoon is now eligible to be part of a farm environment protection plan
Talks about how industrial ag says “you don’t understand agriculture”
The Tea Party could actually be an ally to the real food movement – cutting $5billion in subsidies, and how good food can be an economic engine
The map of the disaster relief farms and the non subsidized farms are the same
Says he is rewriting Food Fight:?The Citizen’s Guide to a Food and Farm Bill, for the new 2012 Food & Farm Bill
References the issue brought up by Mission Readiness. (See my essay on the subject called Why Johnny Can’t March)
New Food & Farm bill should include:
Delink nutrition title from land and farm title
No subsidation without social obligation
“Getting perennial by the next centennial” – taking a much longer view of agriculture
A Suburban and Urban Ag title
One size doesn’t fit all: Regs are currently made only for big ag.
MUST get urban people involved in the Food & Farm bill
Now LUNCH! Back in an hour or so.
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