The world’s largest independent product-testing organization revealed last week that 22% of the seafood it tested at supermarkets, restaurants, fish markets, gourmet stores and big-box stores in three states was either mislabeled, incompletely labeled or misidentified by store or restaurant employees.
I would assume that this research does not include producer-only farmers markets that have seafood.
So its another example of how criteria at farmers markets helps consumers.
As a market organizer that created and ran a fair trade market in New Orleans for 5 years, I researched the idea heavily, many times while sitting at my neighborhood fair trade coffeehouse, Fair Grinds. I did find the fair trade argument thin in places, as it seemed to be more about a fuzzy mostly environmental rating on a bag and less about the part that a market organizer would focus on: that it offers more direct relationships with farmers and allows for a fairer accounting of labor and resource use. The painstaking knowledge of what it takes to farm and to survive in colonial regions is often reduced to a sepia toned photo of a farmer and a name on a sign. What is also interesting is that fair trade has not spread past commodities such as coffee and chocolate. Where is the fair trade wheat or sugar for example? And as more and more distributors enter the game, everyone it seems has at least 1 fair trade coffee on the shelf, often with very little paperwork or knowledge to support it. So, it seems to me to be have developed as more of a brand for consumers than a new values-based set of relationships. I will say, I continue to support my fair trade coffeehouse and purchase it when I can find it.
This article explains some of the weaknesses that it has as a movement, but I will say, their argument that it lacks a “single issue” focus is, in my mind not one of them. In any case, I appreciate the article and the magazine that published it.
Briarpatch
Disasters have a way of leaving spectators’ daily memory bank to make room for new ideas and sometimes, for trials that are closer to home. Unfortunately, those that experienced the issues firsthand stay there once everyone has moved on.
The Gulf Coast oil spill tragedy is really still in its early days. The impact of the water quality on the region is mostly unknown but the Exxon Valdez spill gave some hints as to the potential long term danger to the seafood system.
What’s causing these dramatic shrimp declines is still unknown, government officials say. Some blame the floods last spring for pushing high levels of water into traditional fishing grounds. But many fishermen don’t buy it; they blame the oil. Fish and shrimp can move, and they can survive inflows of fresh water. Fishermen say if they’re out there, they know how to catch them. But so far, most haven’t been able to.
Mississippi fishermen
Food hero Gary Paul Nabhan surely deserves this award since his “place-based” food research has been groundbreaking for decades. “Coming Home To Eat” was the first short mile diet I read and it is quite different from the rest (still), with the cultural reclamation context he shares in it. His Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) work was immensely useful for me and my fellow organizers; the RAFT map (see below) is a wonderful representation of how America should be seen. Gary’s books range from a leisurely walk through a Franciscan walk in Italy to why peppers are heaven to some to his essays on desert life. Treat yourself:
Book list
Another worthy person that Utne picked for 2011. Those of us involved in the conversation around living economies are lucky enough to listen in on this. What is money but a proxy for labor and resources? And how should we define wealth generation in our world? David Korten et al are bravely following these threads:
“Imagine an economy in which life is valued more than money and power resides with ordinary people who care about one another, their community, and their natural environment. It is possible. It is happening. Millions of people are living it into being. Our common future hangs in the balance”
The latest newsletter from the Farmers Market Coalition (FMC) came out last Wednesday and it strikes a whole bunch of the same notes as the orchestration being played by hundreds of thousands of individuals in Zuccotti Park and many other public spaces around the world these days.
FMC points out that economy of scale arguments (“Get Big or Get out” for those who know their post WW agriculture history) and words like efficiency and scale have (for years) been used against those of us who prefer to work towards diversity, shared wealth, sufficiency and innovation in our movement. And that human-scaled movements that work are messy and hard to quantify or even to see, but there they are, in booking places to stay or quietly sharing knowledge…
FMC inspired me and probably lots of you too while they reminded us to take the time to measure success in our world in accordance with the values we fight for and, as importantly, to keep at it. Sometimes those words are necessary even for zealots like food organizers…
FMC Newsletter
In case you forget, food system organizers live and work in a parallel universe of food sovereignty . That other world is held in trust for the corporations who get to feed off our innovations and human-scaled ideas.
How nice to see the alternative food system innovation spread to other cultural institutions.
Then Altheimer had her breakthrough. On an otherwise ordinary day, she rose from her cubicle. Racing across the office, Altheimer found her boss and blurted: “We should just do a CSA!” – only this time the “a” would stand for “art.”
Springboard partnered with advocacy group mnartists.org, and just months later, in May 2010, offered shares to Twin Cities collectors in the world’s first-ever arts CSA. Since then, the model has been reproduced in Chicago and Cambridge, Massachusetts. It’s headed for arts organizations in Detroit, Miami, and Philadelphia this year; next year it’s slated for Akron, Ohio; San Jose, California; and Charlotte, North Carolina.
CSA
Floods, drought and other nasty weather have made all of Louisiana — and 27 adjacent counties in Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas — an agricultural disaster area for 2011. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says its declaration is based on combined effects of severe storms, tornadoes, severe spring flooding, Tropical Storm Lee, widespread drought and excessive heat since Jan. 1.
“Mr. Kim, who witnessed mass starvation in Cambodia, losing a brother, refers to his two-acre plot as “my plenty.” His fellow farmer Sinikiwe Makarutsa grew up in Zimbabwe and now grows maize on land rented from a local church. She made enough money to buy a tractor and rototiller.”
Watch the video and sign up to support the project:
Sign petition
(For subscribers of the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development and/or as a member of AgDevONLINE):
The local food movement is growing dramatically, and with it is emerging new lingo and jargon. The Food System Wiki — a collaboration of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Wisconsin Madison and the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development — is designed as a user-friendly and evolving repository of food system lexicon. This is a place where you can contribute new words and definitions, show how the terms are used, and fine-tune those of existing words.
There are several dozen agripedians contributing currently to the Food System Wiki. We would like to see greater participation from nutritionists, community development professionals, Extension agents, faculty, students, public officials, agency representatives, and, of course, farmers and food entrepreneurs.
Please join in the project! SIGNING UP to use the Food System Wiki is easy. After approval, follow the simple instructions to get started. Start by being a member of JAFSCD:
agdevjournal
The Smart Set: Things Aren’t Grrrrreat! – June 16, 2011.
HMMM, breakfast cereals (or RTE Ready To Eat cereals in industry parlance) are fading. Is this because there are alternatives or because they are more expensive? In any case, consumer behavior takes a slow turn…
Helping Farmers Markets Grow 