August 31, 2010
United Food and Commercial Workers Union

Executive Summary

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Donate to rural reconstruction and forest restoration in Haiti:
https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/199/donate.asp?formid=haiti

Photo of Rosnel Jean Baptiste, exec sec of Tet Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen at pilot seedbank.

“EVEN IF WE’RE PEASANTS, WE DESERVE TO LIVE, TOO.”
By Beverly Bell
September 1, 2010

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8/28/10 – New York Times
Anna’s Letter to the Editor in response to Math Lessons for Locavores

August 27, 2010, Fort Collins, Colo. – Today the USDA and the Department of Justice hold the fourth in a series of historic workshops on corporate concentration and lack of competition in agriculture. This workshop will examine the livestock industry.

A coalition of organizations that represent independent ranchers, workers and consumers is asking the agencies for new regulations and enforcement efforts to clarify and strengthen protections provided in the Packers and Stockyards Act to mitigate unfair practices that put farmers and ranchers, workers, and consumers at a disadvantage.

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8/26/10 – Foreign Policy Association
Five Questions for…Anna Lappé

Check out this video from Nourish, a multi-year media and education initiative aimed at getting people to think and learn more about the food system – and to get involved in the food revolution.

In April 2010 SEIU mounted a labor protest against Sodexo that gained considerable press coverage with celebrities including Holly Near and Danny Glover involved in the protest. Fast forward to August and Sodexo was clearly not interested in more bad press.

Coalition of Immokalee Workers--August 23, 2010

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Katherine Leiner’s new book Growing Roots: The New Generation of Sustainable Farmers, Cooks and Food Activists is a beautiful profile of the young people who are working to make our food system more healthy and nutritious for all!

Growing Roots from Wheelhouse Creative on Vimeo.

David Kirby (Animal Factories) turns your stomach with tales of arsenic in chickens. Patty Lovera (Food & Watch Watch) tells it like it is about consolidation in ag. And Anuradha Mittal (Oakland Institute) talks about the new global land grab and what it means for food security.

All on Democracy Now! this morning.

The MST comes to the cities this week to ask for support from all workers, once again, in defense of Agrarian Reform. We want to present a proposal for a new model for Brazilian agriculture, one that actually distributes the land, helps to generate jobs, and produces quality foods at prices affordable to Brazilians.

Natasha Singer takes on our toxic food environment in The New York Times. In “Fixing a World That Fosters Fat,” she argues that we’re bombarded every day by advertising and other toxic environmental factors that make it next to impossible to be a healthy nation. I’m reading David Kessler’s The End of Overeating, in which he makes the same case.

All of this should come as no surprise when we learn that Kellogg’s spends $15 million in just one year advertising Cap’n Crunch, while the past annual budget for USDA’s 5-A-Day fruit and vegetable promotion program is only $5 million. Sigh.

With food companies and agribusiness stepping up their “green” marketing, how can we tell real climate-friendly food from fake? In my new piece for YES! magazine, I argue we can use a values-based approach to guide our decisions. Ecology, community and fairness are three that guide me–what guides you?

Self-proclaimed “liberal curmudgeon” Stephen Budiansky’s takes a jab at the locavore movement in “Locavores Need a Math Lesson” in The New York Times. (His simplistic read on what locavores stand for reminded me of the attack on the local food movement three years ago in the Grey Lady’s pages.

How’s our math, really? Check out my take, along with that from other colleagues on Grist.org. It’s part of a new series, Grist Talks: Food Fight, in which experts debate hot-button food topics, via a “virtual roundtable.”

One of the most inspiring books I read while working on Diet for a Hot Planet
was Masanobu Fukuoka’s classic The One-Straw Revolution.

I had been hearing about the book for ages from farmer friends who were influenced by it and I was mesmerized by page one. It’s part-practical farming advice, part-musing on the meaning of meaning of life.

So imagine my surprise to find a mention of the just-published new edition (with a foreword by my mom) in The Financial Times. Feels about as likely as Lady Gaga praising L.L. Bean footwear!