“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a previous ruling that found organic growers had no reason to try to block Monsanto from suing them as the company had pledged it would not take them to court if biotech crops accidentally mix in with organics.”
sure a “pledge” should be fine; why worry?
Organic growers lose decision in suit versus Monsanto over seeds | Reuters.
Well done critique of the food politics that we currently live and die with. Yes instead of encouraging “fencerow to fencerow” agriculture (even for seemingly well meaning reasons), we need to assess our true needs and grow the proper food accordingly and grow it well with less inputs and environmental destruction in every succeeding generation. And instead of running into each other over middling legislative issues, we need a movement of big ideas like food sovereignty and human rights to push fairness for all that allows everyone to chime in as needed and to allow us to move past crisis campaigning. When, for example, will the US food organizers work side by side with the rest of the world’s organizers? When will we embrace true import-replacement strategies? When will all pieces of the food chain be valued?
Farm Bill Fiasco: What is Next for the Food Movement?”, a Food First Spring Backgrounder
By Christopher Cook
Deciding how America will nourish itself and sustain its farms would seem a top policy priority— yet as the US Farm Bill demonstrates, sustainably grown, healthy food and livable incomes for farmers and workers remain an afterthought in a process controlled almost entirely by agribusiness and a handful of farm-state legislators. Despite strong public opinion supporting local food, farmer’s markets, organic agriculture, food workers’ rights and access to fresh produce, agribusiness and commodity interests continue to dominate food and farming policy.
That’s largely due to their prodigious lobbying clout: agribusiness spent $137 million last year muscling Congress to do its bidding and another $46.6 million on federal candidates (about 60 percent Republican) in 2010. This phalanx of power includes commodity producer groups like the American Corn Growers Association; corporate food processors and purveyors such as Kraft and Dean Foods; the Farm Bureau; dairy and meat industry giants; and seed and petrochemical corporations like Monsanto.
On the other side, armed with ideas and passion but little money, stand hundreds of groups from across the US pressing Congress on an array of policies—including commodity subsidy reform, fair prices for farmers, public monies for local foods and small farmers, and conservation and nutrition funding. With a handful of lobbyists and diverse interests, they fight doggedly for small wedges of the Farm Bill pie.
But is the Farm Bill a productive venue for food movements to make meaningful change in food and farming policy?
By Judith Scherr and Doug Oakley
ALBANY — About 50 Occupy the Farm activists returned to a piece of land Monday evening to replant vegetables plowed under earlier in the day after UC Berkeley police arrested four protesters.
At the same time, a group of Albany residents opposed to the Occupy group brought a contingent of their own to the parcel along San Pablo Avenue.
“We want a grocery store here,” said Sylvia Paull, one of the anti-Occupy protesters. “We spent five years working with UC and Albany trying to get one here.”
The Occupy group said it would return next weekend to tend to the most recent crop it planted Monday evening.
“We’re not giving up on this land,” said Occupy spokeswoman and UC Berkeley student Lesley Haddock. “It’s one of the best pieces of farmland in the East Bay and UC wants to make it a corporate development. We don’t want development.”
http://m.ktvu.com/news/news/crime-law/police-raid-albany-occupy-farm-compound/nXpxj/
Accounting For Social Value
When organizations use social accounting practices, they are able to measure their performance in terms of benefits accrued to key stakeholders such as their communities, human resources, and those investing in the organization. This innovative change in accounting can lead to a fundamentally different perspective on the value of an organization. Through case studies of organizations that have implemented social accounting in the United States, Canada, India, and Scotland, Accounting for Social Value provides a unique perspective for understanding key issues in this growing field.
Jenga is the founder of Backyard Gardeners Network in Lower 9th Ward, raw food entrepreneur and in this video, is talking about her excellent work in the lower 9th ward section of New Orleans. Jenga’s garden will be on my Slow Food tour May 18th. If you believe in community food systems at their most collective and grassroots level, you may want to check her work out more and support her efforts:
This is one of my favorite pieces about New Orleans, written by Jenga as a response to a unworthy story by NYT about lower 9:
Jenga’s response to NYT
From BALLE, one of my favorite local economy organizations:
And The Pioneers That are Leading the Way – Part 1
As we are preparing for our annual 2013 BALLE conference in June, I am reminded of one of the main reasons people are drawn to BALLE: to learn how to create a strong and vibrant local economy in their own communities. Knowing that not all of you will make it to Buffalo in June, and as I reviewed our incredible list of speakers and conference agenda, I was inspired to share this list of key ingredients in hopes that it will inspire you, even in some small way, towards action in your community.
Because there are SO many juicy things to share with you – and because we know your free reading time is precious – we’re breaking this down into two parts. And for those that will be joining us for #2013BALLE Conference in Buffalo, we’ve highlighted some of the incredible pioneers who will be speaking on these subjects at our upcoming conference.
Here are five ingredients of thriving local economies. (Hint: the next five might arrive on Monday for you…)
To grow, process and distribute healthy nutritious and affordable food:
We need to know the people that grow and make our food and to have systems in place to get fresh, affordable food into underserved areas. When we support a localized food system, we keep our dollars in the local economy and lessen our dependency on external food sources that can be damaging to both people and our environment.
James Johnson-Piett, Urbane Development: Vision speaker
Nikki Henderson, People’s Grocery: Vision speaker
Sarita Role Schaffer, Viva Farms: Rethinking Investment
To unleash the talents and creativity of the whole community:
We’re not okay unless we’re all okay. Job access, skills training, business ownership and cooperative models serve so many purposes. They build community wealth and keep money circulating locally; they empower people through personal ownership; and they harness the collective energy of the entire community and channel it towards a greater good.
Mark Brand, Save on Meats: Vision speaker
India Pierce Lee, Cleveland Foundation and the Evergreen Cooperatives: Vision speaker
Gar Alperovitz, The Democracy Collaborative: Community Ownership Revolution
To make things again:
We need to bring back local manufacturing and to be able to meet some of our needs locally. If we start using regional resources – local people, local businesses, local products – to meet our regional needs, we support all the people that contribute to our vibrant, local economy.
Kate Sofis, SFMade: Local is the New Global
Mike Pearson, Union Packaging: Vision speaker
Michael Peck, Mondragon: Local is the New Global
To use new technologies to connect people:
Central to a vibrant local economy is having strong relationships with each other, and new technologies are creating more opportunities to get connected. We can connect makers and growers with buyers and with each other. People can now share spare bedrooms, services and yard tools at the click of a button. Technology will never replace personal relationships, but it’s a wonderful way to get introduced.
Matt Stinchcomb, Etsy: Pardon the Disruption
Benzi Ronen, Farmigo: Pardon the Disruption
To foster an ethos of generosity:
At the center of everything, we need to create communities that want the best for each other. Developing personal relationships and establishing trust is one of the most important elements of a vibrant, local economy, and leading with generosity can be powerful way to start.
Otto Scharmer, Presencing Institute: Integrated Capital & Connections
Judy Wicks, Author, White Dog Café: Vision speaker & Entrepreneurs in Love
Nipun Mehta, Service Space: Vision speaker
In the words of our Executive Director, Michelle Long, “There is a new economy emerging – one that will gradually displace our destructive and failing economy with a system that supports the health, prosperity and happiness of all people, and that regenerates the vital ecosystem upon which our economy depends. The Annual BALLE Conference is the place where we stitch together the pioneering leaders, ideas and local economies. Together, remarkably creative entrepreneurs are building real prosperity from the ground up.”
– Jill Epner, BALLE
Register for their 2013 conference here:
BALLE
(this was a post I ran about 7 years ago, but I wanted to highlight it again as I am having more conversations with food system folks about larger outcomes around food and civic system. I find this promising, as it may mean that we are finally maturing our work to become true system changers…)
I ran across this Nicholas Lemann article (linked at the end) about how the 1970s grassroots environmental movement just about sputtered to a standstill by the 1990s. I appreciated this article, since as a 1980s/1990s community organizer I saw that rise and fall and also saw other movements, such as the women’s movement and the peace movement go through it as well.
In retrospect, many of those efforts were designed and based on Alinsky’s organizing methods, seizing on issues such as nearby toxic spills or hulking nuclear power plants being built downstream to gain support from regular folks. Those issues are excellent for devising and winning neighborhood or local campaigns but maybe not the best strategy for achieving national and international long-term social change.
In other words, crisis politics can’t keep the attention of regular people for long, and on the policy level those goals can seem abstract or too controversial for regular folks to be able to support. Anti-nukes, landfills, corporate pollution (protest movements in other words) can just seemed complicated and time-consuming for people to grasp completely or even enough so that they felt they could take a stand when needed.
In their defense, those movements were full of good campaigns, like the early Earth Day events on which the author bases his article. Many may also remember the anti-littering campaign that did a lot of good with a television commercial that ran for a few years with a sorrowful, crying Indian looking at the camera (actually an Italian actor originally from Louisiana); that campaign ran in the early 1970s and is still remembered well. It was successful in educating on a big issue but at the same time, clear as how individuals could make a difference; just don’t litter.
Back then, I did appreciate those movements hard won campaigns and sweeping goals but had a hard time with the lack of diversity in their people and goals. Also, the lack of federated structure mentioned in the article is an important one: most of the NGOs I worked with had local chapters, but all had to drop what they were doing and work on national work (which was almost always legislation with very little chance for passing since we did not have money or enough people organized) whenever the national team decided it was time.
When I joined the community food system movement in 1999/2000, I saw that there was potential for much more effective social change, since a) it struck at the very core of everyone’s lives: what we eat, how we own our own health and how we remain connected to our neighbors and b) it could be effective on many levels. The campaign part of this movement can be seen within the SNAP and incentive work done at markets, with the Real Food Challenge on campuses and guerrilla gardening movements across the world among others. The long-term effect can be seen in the growing awareness of food deserts, as well as fair trade, farmland protection, food sovereignty, worker rights, racial equity, industrial versus alternative agriculture and so on. So, both localized campaigns and important national work happen in this movement which may be one of our greatest assets. (However, we do have to think about how we can better communicate the Farm Bill and other policy needs to our shoppers, neighbors and producers.)
And no question that the community food work is much more decentralized and active at the local and state level than any other movement I’ve ever seen, besides, possibly, the Community Land Trust movement, a movement from which we can learn a lot.
So, while I tip my hat to my fellow enviros from the Billy Bragg days and use daily what I learned from those savvy street organizers, I’m glad that I also get to organize in these food system days…
A quote from Lemann’s article:
To turn concern into action requires politics.
and another:
It defined Earth Day as educational, school-based, widely distributed, locally controlled, and mass-participatory. He draws a contrast with Earth Day 1990, a far better planned, better funded, more elaborately orchestrated anniversary event, which turned out more than a million people in Central Park and two hundred thousand on the Mall in Washington but had far fewer lasting effects. That was because Earth Day 1990 was, Rome says, “more top-down and more directive” than Earth Day 1970, and more attuned to advertising and marketing than to organizing. Earth Day 1990 kept its message simple, because its organizers “sought to ‘enlist’ people in a well-defined movement….
and this, most importantly:
‘The public’ is seen as a kind of background chorus that, hopefully, will sing on key,” as the insiders try to manipulate people with focus-grouped phrases. Instead, she argues, “reformers will have to build organizational networks across the country, and they will need to orchestrate sustained political efforts that stretch far beyond friendly Congressional offices, comfy board rooms, and posh retreats.”
Maybe the national farmers market movement needs to do a top 10 food items list. That side-by-side comparison with this one would show once again how the industrial food system is obsessed with caloric count and additives versus alternative food’s obsession with taste and healthy foods.
Vision is necessary for change.
TED
Food Atlas by Darin Jensen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I love maps. When I travel, I study maps online to have some sense of the geography underfoot, as much to understand who the people might be as not to get lost. It’s amazing how people appreciate that bit of homework when you go to their place.
I have maps of my city (New Orleans) and of my river (Mississippi) on the wall of my house and the Slow Food RAFT map (see below) on my business card.
Slow Food RAFT map
When I came across the Kickstarter campaign for this Food Atlas, I jumped at the chance to support it. It arrived last week and I have read it while sipping my morning coffee (while reading about Strong Coffee traditions in the Middle East and “Bird Friendly” coffee origins), referred to it while writing about farmers markets (the one on SNAP and farmers markets) and studied the Texas Seafood Landings map after making flounder tacos just north of Lake Pontchartrain, home of most of the seafood catch for my bioregion. It’s a very new book and so won’t be found everywhere yet, but you can buy it from them now at
http://www.guerrillacartography.net/home
It is a wealth of maps on food production, distribution, security, exploration, identities and to pick out my favorites is to shortchange the breadth of this book.
It’s not just for activists, or “foodies” but for everyone and I think it could affect (and galvanize) people just as M. Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemna” did. I grow tired of long text articles about food (Yes, I do include myself in that finger pointing!) and would hope that this sort of map project could become a new way to educate and illuminate the small world that we live on.
I can’t wait for the editors to follow up on their promise to expand the reach of this series including to add more Asian and African food maps and to get this Atlas in hands everywhere. Its a bit heavy on maps of the West Coast and of the US, so much so that it occurs to me that having a set of food maps that show the lopsided view we have of ourselves in the US versus how others see us or experience us might be a good edition. In any case, hurrah.
..
Great points from Meter at the Illinois Farmers Market Association Thursday:
Community food systems build health, wealth, connection and capacity
Local food may be the best path toward economic recovery in U.S.
If we can’t grow an economy around food, how do we expect to grow it around windmills or technology?
Counting food miles matter less than banding business together to work for a social value.
Farmers often create systems that are often more efficient by reducing energy costs and using “waste” products to do value-added. Snowville Creamery in Pomeroy Ohio sells their skim to Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream for a high quality ice cream product. Both businesses are innovating waste reduction and distribution systems that shorten the chain.
Community food systems don’t just measure the multiplier-they build the multiplier.
Southern Illinois farmers (Meter’s study) show that from 1969 to 2010 commodity farmers sold 1.1 billion worth of products and spent 1.1 billion in production costs during the same time.
1.8 billion amount of food bought in Southern Illinois region; 1.7 billion of it was produced outside of the region.
If every person in that region bought 5.00 of local food directly from local farms each week, farms would earn 191 million of new farm income (why not have a 5.00 campaign at farmers markets?)
The promise of permanent markets abroad in the 1970s drove farmers into the “Get big or get out” mindset and into more debt. Those permanent markets disappeared within the generation.
The link between the oil crisis of 1973 can most likely be directly linked to the obesity crisis: the oil crisis in the U.S. led to the rise of the corn economy which added high fructose corn syrup to production.
Viroqua, Wisconsin is a model of an economic development recovery after their national company that had supplied 85 jobs left town. The city government convinced the owner to sell their building for a small amount (explaining to the company that the investment that the county had made for 30 years maybe should be repaid before leaving).
Viroqua used 100,000 square foot building to start to build an entire local food system and expect to replace those 85 jobs within the next 2 years.
Black, White, and Green: Farmers Markets, Race, and the Green Economy by Alison Hope Alkon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Very well done snapshot of a piece of the Northern California local food system, especially its history. As much as I thought I knew, I learned some more about how it began from this book. I appreciated that this book was centered around these two farmers markets and their environmental and social justice leanings, which is a great lens to view multiple types of organizing, intentions and sets of outcomes.
I especially like the time she takes to link the work in each market to their larger community goals AND to the economic goals of the green economy.
here are some wonderful passages on the tensions and values of this emerging alternative system:
“One becomes an environmentalist, for example, through the consumption of green products such as organic food rather than the traditional means of voting, lobbying or attending protests. While this strategy allows supporters to inscribe their social movement goals into their everyday life practices. it also creates individuals who infuse the logic of the market into both their ordinary behavior and their desires for social change (Larner and Craig 1999)”
“The promise of the green economy is that the market can be made to value, and therefore to protect, humans and the environment.”
“In these markets, actors choose from among competing narratives to envision and emphasize the spaces where buying and selling green products leads to environmental protection and social justice.”
“Furthermore, proponents of the social change potential of the green economy attempt to redefine capitalism not as an exploitative system that must be overcome or restricted in order to protect people and the environment but as a tool to create a more just and sustainable world.”
“…Working towards these goals (environmental sustainability and social justice) becomes possible, in part, because participants in each farmers markets define environment and justice in ways that render them compatible with one another.”
“The compatibility between sustainability and justice achieved at these farmers markets is not inherent. Farmers market managers, as well as some vendors and regular customers, actively work to conceptualize strategies that speak to both goals.”
>As a community food system organizer, I believe this book is a necessary whistle stop on anyone’s travels to successful organizing around food.
Take the time to read this thoughtful book and then pass it along to your friends and comrades.
Standing in front of an estimated crowd of 50,000 people gathered for the Forward on Climate rally yesterday on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. he said, “All I ever wanted to see was a movement of people to stop climate change, and now I’ve seen it.”
Certainly, anyone involved in shortening the food chain and shifting the power structure of wealth and health in this world should have Bill McKibben as one of their bookmarked writers. What I really like about this story is the excitement he has in the movement itself. I look forward to this day with our sub-sect of community food system community.
When asked what he thought winning would require, McKibben said, “I’ve got no idea. It will take more than any of us can imagine.” That might be surprising coming from a man so concerned with numbers and so good at making them compelling. But right now, the only math that seems to matter to him is how long it has taken to get to this point. And for that reason, he’s savoring the moment.
Read more: http://www.utne.com/environment/bill-mckibbens-math-starts-adding-up.aspx#ixzz2MVdRmHwy
Helping Farmers Markets Grow 