Home » Posts tagged 'food' (Page 19)
Tag Archives: food
The Real Need for GMO and Industrial-Scale Food
The Real Need for GMO and Industrial-Scale Food
I’d like to start off with a story about a woman I know who works full time, takes home a below-median income, and raises two kids in Silicon Valley. This woman also has an organic garden in her tiny back yard, partially for her own enjoyment, and partially so she can afford to eat good food.
Every year, her tiny part time garden produces far more than she needs. She shares the excess, and I mean huge excess. She shares peppers and lettuce and lemons and cucumbers and spinach and beets and all else with dozens of people. This full-time worker, part time farmer produces more food than her and her friends know what to do with.
And her story is not unique.
Let’s pause here to think about what this means for a moment, about this woman, her part time passion, and how much she and those around her receive from it.
Now, think about this single instance of plentiful food, and multiply it across your block. How many people could all the empty yards in a suburban block feed if they were put to use growing food?
Now multiply that across your neighborhood, all the empty yards, lawns, abandoned lots. How much of a bounty in food could you have?
Now think further, across your entire city, your entire region. Imagine yards and blocks and rivers and valleys filled perennials, fruits, berries, filled with lush vegetable gardens.
A silly agrarian dream? The United Nations Doesn’t Think So, nor does its Food and Agriculture Organization, or decades of research by Rodale Institute, or the millions of Regenerative Farmers, Natural Farmers, and Permaculturists who are working today to feed most of the world.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Food scarcity is fanning flames of ‘war on terror’
Food scarcity is fanning flames of ‘war on terror’
Every country experiencing civil unrest due to rising militant Islamist violence is facing resource shortages directly linked to food insecurity, according to new research by British scientists.
Of the 17 countries identified as being most at risk of food riots, 14 are Muslim-majority countries, and at least 10 are subject to ongoing US-led counterterrorism operations. This includes the countries where extremists linked to the “Islamic State,” al-Qaeda and Boko Haram are operating, namely Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya and Nigeria.
Link between food shortages and violence
The peer-reviewed study, published last month in the journal Sustainability, builds on growing evidence that a lack of “access to critical resources, including food, energy and water, can, in certain circumstances, lead to violent demonstrations”.
The team led by researchers at the Global Sustainability Institute (GSI) at Anglia Ruskin University compares a range of indices of governance to determine how well they can be used to predict rioting and domestic conflict in fragile countries across the world. The most accurate, the research found, is the “political instability” score of the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators.
The study concluded that when the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) food price index goes above 148, countries with the highest levels of fragility as defined by the World Bank’s indicators have a 36.7 percent risk of experiencing food riots. Because an upsurge in food prices can mean food is less affordable for the poor, price spikes often translate into effective scarcity for large numbers of economically marginalised people.
While food prices and state fragility are therefore critical indicators of the risk of social unrest, as study co-author Dr Aled Jones said, “other factors will play out in whether riots are seen and importantly what the impacts of those riots are – mainly government responses to those food price shocks”.
– See more at: http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/food-scarcity-fanning-flames-war-terror-2032225303#sthash.7RYVa0OR.dpuf
Food Supply Interruptions: The Biggest Gamble
FOOD SUPPLY INTERRUPTIONS: THE BIGGEST GAMBLE
Nowhere have I witnessed a normalcy bias so strong as when it pertains to food. It has always been available at the grocery stores and in restaurants; at least that is the view of most people alive today. And if one falls on hard times, then the government in this country (the US) will probably supply you with an Electronic Benefit Transfer allowance (food stamps) and perhaps direct you to local food banks and/or co-ops to supplement your cupboards.
We take for granted that these operations are a given, for this is the way it has always worked…..or so we believe. But this is far from accurate, as many hungry Americans already know. While I welcome more and more of my fellow Westerners becoming aware of food reality, I cringe to think it will hit them where it hurts the hardest. It is not in the wallet, but in their bellies.
Currently, the global food chains are taking enormous hits. Many of these revelations are under reported in the mainstream media, who seem to rarely dig far into themes which require out of the box thinking. These events, which are decimating parts of the world’s food supply, will in my opinion continue to escalate for the foreseeable future.
There are steps we can each take to hedge against the worst, and I discuss some of them below. But first let’s look at some of the growing threats. While any one situation taken alone might be easily compensated for, when looked at in the aggregate, a stark picture begins to form.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Cash Value of Home Gardens
The Cash Value of Home Gardens
The ROI (return on investment) of a home garden can be $1,000 a year and $30/hour.
The benefits of a vegetable garden extend beyond the food being grown and the superiority of that food in nutritional value and quality over agribusiness-grown vegetables. I listed some of these intangible benefits in The Hidden Value of Gardens(September 13, 2014).
But we shouldn’t overlook the actual cash value of gardening. The ROI (return on investment) of a productive home garden can be $1,000 a year and $30/hour.
Longtime correspondent Bart D. (Australia) recently shared a spreadsheet of his garden’s yields, the cash value of these harvests and his cash/labor costs. Rather surprisingly (at least to me), his garden produced over $1,000 in cash value and netted him over $30/hour.
“This economic summary excludes my fruit growing and poultry enterprises.
A major point of value that this overview doesn’t show is the huge improvement in the ‘quality’ of the product being consumed as prices are only for ‘supermarket grade’ product. I believe that the real value amount should be raised by somewhere between 50% and 100% of the amount shown to reflect the improved quality.
The quantities are metric. Conversion is 1 square metre is about 10.7 square feet. There are 2.2Lbs to the Kg.
I feel the $33.30 per hour of time invested is a return worth pursuing for anyone in a low to medium income household. Beats the $9.00 per hour being offered by Walmart!
One hour in your own garden means 4 hours you don’t have to spend shifting stock at Walmart to earn money to buy food.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Joel Salatin: How food can restore America’s integrity
Joel Salatin: How food can restore America’s integrity
While I was in Australia in February, imported Chinese raspberries carrying Hepatitis A (from human sewage) hospitalized a dozen people and heightened interest in my seminars to a fever pitch. The news media and individuals fell over themselves trying to learn about local food systems and integrity food.
Here at Polyface Farms, our business always thrives when recalls and food illness outbreaks hit the news. Why? Breaches in food safety continue to be our best advertisement. While these acute issues make headlines and instill panic, the most egregious food safety issues remain imbedded as a part of our cultural orthodoxy.
If it kills you or sickens you fast, the issue dominates discussions. But if it kills you or sickens you slow, it’s buried as a non-news item. Such is the current state of the industrial food system. Isn’t it amazing what gets people excited and creates societal movement?
To be sure, nobody wants people killed with tainted food. But isn’t it amazing that a couple of deaths and hospitalizations from an E. coli or salmonella outbreak creates hysteria while rocketing autism and childhood leukemia receive scant attention. The U.S. leads the world in the five chronic causes of death.
While our hospitals fill with leaky gut syndrome and bowel problems and our wealth goes from farms to pharmaceutical companies, collectively we just assume these societal changes follow capitalism’s success. If we really loved our children and really loved our neighbors, we’d be staying up at night trying to solve this terrifying trajectory.
– See more at: http://transitionvoice.com/2015/05/joel-salatin-how-food-can-restore-americas-integrity/#sthash.gqv4Sd1D.dpuf
Global Soil Week: A catalyst for change
Global Soil Week: A catalyst for change
As many of you already know, 2015 has been named the International Year of Soils by the UN, so never has there been a better time to get soil into the conversation. The question of ‘how do we make soil sexy?’ is something that has been troubling soil scientists, farmers and NGOs for a number of years, and quite rightly so – we should be worried about the state of our soil.
Issues surrounding soil are yet to enter the mainstream of public concern. But if current rates of land degradation continue, quite soon they will have to. There are many challenges involved in driving the change towards agricultural practices that preserve and build soil fertility, but the gathering at the Global Soil Week (GSW) conference in Berlin last week certainly made me more hopeful. The event brought together young and old, experts and newcomers, all with the overarching aim to raise awareness about the vital need to look after our soils better and to get the issue onto the political agenda.
No one can deny the fundamental importance of soil and its fertility – in fact, you could say that, along with water, it is one of the most important natural resources on earth. It stores approximately 2,000 billion tonnes of carbon globally – three times as much as the atmosphere. And one tenth of the carbon in the atmosphere has come from soil degradation. Our first and most urgent goal must be to stop any more soil carbon being released, helping to warm the planet.
In addition to being the source of 95% of our food, soil is also a key part of global nutrient cycles, and an important sink for atmospheric methane. It’s also essential for maintaining biodiversity above ground, while providing an underground home for 25% of all life on the planet.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Law of the Land
The Law of the Land
Land is—or should be—invaluable, perhaps even sacred. It is not only a place to live, but also a source for food, for water, for fuel, and for sustenance of almost every kind. Land management choices have profound impacts on our ecosystems and environment, and thus on our health, well-being and collective future.
Hence the politics of land access, and the laws that emerge from it, fundamentally shape our lives, our world and our legacy. Yet in Britain, something is radically wrong. As Simon Fairlie bluntly describes in The Land magazine, “nearly half the country is owned by 40,000 land millionaires, or 0.06% of the population, while most of the rest of us spend half our working lives paying off the debt on a patch of land barely large enough to accommodate a dwelling and a washing line.”
Such consolidated land ownership also engenders the uniform, large-scale, mechanised agriculture that is gradually becoming our mental image of “a farm.” Yet with the UK population having swelled by four million over the past decade, it becomes ever more pertinent that this model has long been known to produce far less food per acre than traditional smaller holdings—quite apart from its oil dependence and wider environmental impacts.
Meanwhile, many dream of using land truly sustainably by developing small-scale agroecological smallholdings that provide satisfying livelihoods, healthier ecosystems and not just more food, but healthier food. Some even purchase land and start planning to build their home before being blocked and frustrated at every turn as they engage with the legal intricacies and often perverse rulings of the planning permission system; the same system that is all too happy to give land over to a proliferation of supermarkets and identikit housing estates.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Tossing and Turning: Our Disturbed Soils and Troubled Sleep
Tossing and Turning: Our Disturbed Soils and Troubled Sleep
I’m sitting under a halogen light right now and staying up late to write about soil.
That probably doesn’t sound ironic to you. I think it should.
How I came to reflect on soil and sleep as functionally related and analogous in their processes is something of a mystery, though the sequence of events that led to the idea is clear enough. I recently spent a weekend learning about soil in a workshop that outlined some of the basic science. Weeks later, a person I spent time with at the workshop emailed me late one day wanting to connect about a soil-related project we’re working on together, but informing me that, at the moment, sleep was a higher priority. My response upon reading the email was that no person who is seriously interested in soil would dismiss the importance of sleep.
At first my response puzzled even me. As I thought about it, though, I realized that the work of the body in sleep and what I’d recently learned about the life activity of the soil are very much connected. Shrouded in layer upon layer of darkness and opacity, both the body in sleep and the soil beneath the surface teem with important goings-on. Interestingly, much of this activity has to do with the movement of nutrients through their respective systems, and the regenerative and growth processes that require these nutrients.
As we fall asleep at night, if everything is working correctly, we shift focus, our eyes and somatic sensibilities adjust to new surroundings, and we engage with these. We move in a different world. We awaken to our dreams. And these dreams, whether we acknowledge it or not, are absolutely essential to the functioning of our daily waking consciousness. Certain processes of the body wake up in sleep, and the body needs sleep the way the mind needs dreams.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Peak oil, ten or so years on
Peak oil, ten or so years on
This blog began seven years and almost a thousand posts ago, and I thought it a good time to take stock. Since the blog itself was inspired by the “peak oil” movement, and since it’s been ten years, by some measures, since the peak, I wanted to assess the state of that community as well.
First the personal notes: Many of my posts are reprints of my columns for our local newspaper, or for Grit and Mother Earth News magazines, short and focused on gardening and crafts. I’d like to write longer articles about broader subjects as well, however, as I have for American Conservative or Low-Tech Magazine, so I’m cutting back to twice a week – one new article every weekend, and one reprint or photo mid-week.
There’s a great deal to write about, you see, and too little time. We have three generations of family living in this house, and I spend nine hours a day at my job in Dublin and three hours on the bus there and back. When I get home my daughter and I go through our home-school (or after-school) lessons, and as she gets older our evenings stretch later. Weekends are filled with the chores that go with having gardens and animals, and writing must come in irregular bursts.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Ten Wonderful Things I’m Grateful For (Irony Alert)
Ten Wonderful Things I’m Grateful For (Irony Alert)
Being grateful boosts your happiness. Ten wonderful things I’m grateful for.
Since every volume on the nearly endless shelf of pop psychology self-help books recommends working up some gratitude as the key to happiness, I’ve conjured up a list of what I’m grateful for. (Please turn your irony setting on.)
1. I’m grateful that our choice of president has been reduced to two equally detestable dynasties or their proxies. This greatly simplifies the process of selecting a warmongering figurehead for the Empire and its bankers.
3. I’m grateful that there are so many opportunities to borrow money, because if I couldn’t borrow more, I might miss an astounding opportunity to consume more of something I don’t really need.
4. I’m grateful that every food item in the store now contains sugar in one form or another, or a sugar substitute. This simplifies the process of maintaining my addiction to sugar, as all I need to do is eat anything produced by Corporate America’s food sector.
5. I’m grateful I live in a country where the government can trample on the rights of its citizens behind a thin veil of legitimacy. After all, what terrible thing might happen if the government couldn’t arrest those horrible people tearing up their front yard lawn to plant a vegetable garden?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
“Surviving Or Thriving” – What Canada’s 40% Surge In Meat Prices Means For Ordinary People
“Surviving Or Thriving” – What Canada’s 40% Surge In Meat Prices Means For Ordinary People
On the surface, Canada’s 1.2% inflation is negligible, and barely enough to keep up with the pace of overall growth as mandated by a few central bank academics. It is below the surface, however, that one finds the scary truth. Because when stripping away the sliding energy prices (which at the recent pace of short covering among oil speculators are about to surge) some scary numbers emerge, such as a 3.8% monthly jump in food prices, primarily as a result of a whopping 30-40% increase in select meat prices in the last 8 months.
How do ordinary people – which excludes those who work in central banks and have taxpayers fund their everyday purchases, which allows them to fully ignore soaring food and rent costs – survive in an environment of soaring food prices?
As the following brief documentary by CBC’s The National reveals, food inflation means people have no choice but to eat “far less beef” than they used to, “or chicken.” Others are ok with the runaway food inflation: “it doesn’t matter to me, I buy the meat at the price it is and that’s fine with me” say a gentleman who likely works for a hedge fund and BTFD for a living.
It is not just meat: prices of Canadian fruits and vegetables have also surged, driven almost entirely by the plunge and the loss of purchasing power of the Canadian dollar.
And, as a vendor of meat observes: “there doesn’t seem to be an end to it.”
So soaring food prices, flat wages, tumbling currency, and a generally deteriorating standard of living. In short: something Japan’s prime minister Abe would call a smashing success.
Full CBC documentary below:
…click on the above link to view the video…
Permaculture: The Design Arm of a Paradigm Shift
Permaculture: The Design Arm of a Paradigm Shift
Here’s how it happened to me: Back in 1990 I was playing hooky from my unsatisfying biotech job in Seattle by browsing the homesteading shelves in the public library. I pulled down a thick black book I hadn’t seen before calledPermaculture: A Designers’ Manual. As I perused the pages, suddenly my previously fragmented life made sense. I had been fascinated for years with ecology, appropriate technology, economics, gardening, evolution, construction, energy systems, social justice, and a raft of other seemingly disconnected fields. But I didn’t want to specialize in any one of them, and I had been watching with some envy as my friends dropped into successful careers in various niches. Now, finally I knew what was going on. What a relief to find that a whole-systems approach could tie together the many disparate pieces of my life. This is, I know, a familiar and exalting experience for many when they first encounter permaculture.
Another familiar and not-so exalting experience for most of us is trying to explain permaculture to our friends and families, and receiving blank, confused, or condescending looks in response. I’ve explored this problem in the past, as have others. I’ve continued that journey, and want to share some of my latest thoughts on how we can explain permaculture to others and where it fits into a larger picture.
Just as permaculture helps umbrella many seemingly unrelated disciplines and places them into a larger context, we can understand permaculture better by seeing where it lies, in turn, in its own larger context. Much of the difficulty and confusion around permaculture stems from its protean nature: It can be many things to many people. It’s been called a philosophy, a movement, a design approach, a set of techniques, a practice, a worldview, a land use ethic, a science, a pseudoscience, and even a religion.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Value of Learning To Cook
The Value of Learning To Cook
The potential of food to add beauty/pleasure to everyday life should not be under-estimated.
I have been discussing job skills for the past five days, but life skills are equally valuable. For example, knowing how to cook. Knowing how to cook offers benefits beyond just saving money (though that is important); when you know how to cook:
1. You and your household will eat healthier, better-tasting food
2. You can create joy by sharing what you make with friends/neighbors/roommates
3. You gain the power and confidence that comes with having useful skills
4. You can add beauty and pleasure to your life and the lives of others
5. You can dramatically improve your health
6. Your value as a spouse, roommate, friend, colleague etc. rises
7. You can save money for investing or spending on higher-priority items/experiences
8. You have a daily creative outlet
The joys of cooking are varied and flexible. Once you gain the basic skills of prep (chopping, slicing, etc.), stir-frying, sauteeing, baking, etc., then just about any recipe is open to you.
It takes a lot of practice to create beautiful food (presentation), but this is a bonus. I am not adept enough to fashion such perfect spring rolls as the lady of the household; these were her first spring rolls, made a week or so ago (the dipping sauce is from Charles Pham’s cookbook Vietnamese Home Cooking):
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Food Not Lawns!
Food Not Lawns!
The mission of Food Not Lawns is just what you’d think from its title—grow gardens instead of a useless beds of monocropped grass. The organization is actually about much more than that though. Perhaps most importantly, it’s about having communities come together with a common purpose to transform wasted lawn space into a productive food source for families and the local community.
The organization helps people get started in the local food movement by hosting events that allow neighbors to share tools, seeds,land and skills with each other. They also advocate for communities that want to have control over where their food comes from and be less reliant on industrialized farming.
Food Not Lawns is also becoming a more networked movement by having local chapters across the world. Like-minded individuals can come together in their local areas and create a network of change in order to bring fresh, local food and yardfarms to their city. You can take a look at the local chapters section of the website to see if there is one in your area, and if not you can even start your own!
One of the co-founders also wrote a book with the same title, Food Not Lawns, which describes how you can create a sustainable local community where you live. The book has practical knowledge to share on both farming (yards or larger lots) and urban gardening (if you have less space). It discusses the reasons behind the push to grow food instead lawns and offers tips on how to get your community involved. There are also ideas on projects like organizing shared meals or building garden play areas for children.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
California drought to squeeze produce prices, but so will other factors
Price of lettuce has gone up 40 cents, but some of that is due to low Canadian dollar
Drought may have gripped California’s agricultural heartland for a fourth consecutive year, but it’s not the only factor putting pressure on imported produce prices at the supermarket.
More than 93 per cent of the state is currently experiencing “severe” to “exceptional” drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, and the governor recently implemented new rationing measures for cities and towns to cut water use by 25 per cent.
Farmers have so far been exempt from those restrictions — even though they use 80 per cent of the state’s developed water supply. Still, many have had their usual federal allocations of water reduced to zero for the second year in a row and have had to draw more heavily on groundwater sources or purchase water from contractors and other farmers — for as much as 10 times the usual rates. Others are switching to more efficient irrigation methods and less water-intensive crops or letting some land go fallow.
John Bishop, a produce buyer for distributor Fresh Start Foods in Milton, Ont. says his Californian tomato suppliers are planning for a smaller crop this June.
- California imposes water restrictions
- Cost of fruit and veg rising due to drought
- PHOTOS: California’s drought hits livestock
“They have told me that they are reducing their acreage by 20 per cent because they don’t have enough water to be able to continue to grow the way they’ve grown in the past,” he said.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
