Latest News on Recipe for America 
Susan G Reviews Recipe for America on DailyKos
posted by Jill Richardson 2009-09-07 23:26:43Susan G posted a review of Recipe for America on DailyKos. Here's an excerpt of what she had to say:
"Richardson, who first discovered her talent for writing about food issues here at Daily Kos as OrangeClouds115, has turned in a terrific book in Recipe for America, managing to organize into one smooth narrative information as disparate as employing undocumented workers and the lobbying that goes into the Farm Bill. Under her educated eye, the pieces of the enormous puzzle of legislation, policy, science and environmentalism are woven together in a book that can serve as an introduction to those unfamiliar with the sustainable food movement, while expanding the base of knowledge of those who've been reading on the topic for years.
"This is no small feat. Juggling the needs of newcomers to a topic without losing the interest of the already informed is a problem that many writers with many more books under their belt than Richardson have failed to solve."
permalink
Book Tour Dates + Buying Autographed Copies
posted by Jill Richardson 2009-06-15 10:28:01
If you want to catch me on tour, here are the plans so far:
December 1 - Chicago, IL at Hull House's re-Thinking Soup at 12-1:30pm
December 1 - Oak Park, IL at Borders Books at 7pm
Past events:
San Diego
Philadelphia
Lancaster, PA
New York City
Pittsburgh
Morrisville, VT
Rutland, VT
Bellows Falls, VT
Boston
Shelburne Falls, MA
Northampton, MA
Seattle
Tacoma
Duvall, WA
Portland, OR
Madison, WI
Des Moines, IA
Los Angeles
Austin, TX
Orange County, CA
If your city isn't on this list and you want me to visit, please contact me at OrangeClouds115 at gmail.
permalink
My Book is Available For Pre-Order
posted by Jill Richardson 2009-04-04 22:37:47Great news! My book, Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It, is ready for pre-order. You can buy it on Amazon, Powells, or Barnes & Noble.
permalink
A New Blog on Food
posted by Jill Richardson 2008-07-05 23:28:28There's a new blog about food! Check out La Vida Locavore - a blog for anyone whose crazy life includes planting, growing, weeding, fertilizing, raising, picking, harvesting, processing, cooking, baking, making, serving, buying, selling, distributing, transporting, composting, organizing around, lobbying about, writing about, thinking about, talking about, playing with, and eating food!
permalink
The Dirt on Our Farms
posted by marrael 2006-12-26 10:03:44Check out The Dirt on Our Farms at Tompaine.com.
More news from our favorite news sources!
La Vida Locavore
Coca-Cola Will Help YOU Invest in "Sustainable" Ag
I'd like to share one of the more entertaining emails I've gotten with you. For the low, low price of $795.00, Coca-Cola will tell ME how to invest in sustainable agriculture. Wow, I could make a killing off of skyscrapers that grow food vertically! I'm sure that's how we'll all grow food in the future.
And did you know that Coca-Cola has a Senior Manager of Sustainable Agriculture. His name is Ernesto Brovelli and he is "an active player in [Coca-Cola's] global partnership with World Wildlife Fund." Wow. That makes me think even LESS of the World Wildlife Fund.
And if that ain't enough, there are a few speakers from Wall Street banks! Ooh, just the people I trust for good advice. Tell me, J.P. Morgan, how can we sustainably grow food to feed the world and make a huge profit off of it at the same time?
The email's below, for your amusement. Also, if you check out the agenda, you'll notice that Anna Lappe is among the speakers. Hopefully that means that we won't have to fork over $795 to find out what goes on at the event. Cuz honestly, I am DYING to hear what Coca-Cola has to say about sustainability.
On Tuesday, September 14 in New York City, the Agriculture 2.0 Global Investments conference will bring investors from around the world together with entrepreneurs actively seeking investment.Eight such entrepreneurs have been hand-selected to present their investment thesis to attendees. They are working to solve some of the greatest problems facing the world's food system, from drought to contamination to rural agrarian poverty. Joining them will be dozens of management teams with proprietary technologies seeking investor partners with the common goal of steering funds in the proper direction to facilitate sweeping changes to the system.
In addition to early-stage companies, major international corporations including John Deere and The Coca-Cola Company will frame the need for new technologies and new solutions. Speakers from JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, the USDA, Root Capital, Acumen Fund and the International Finance Corporation will present valuable information for investors new to the sector.
Current participants include: North Bridge Capital, RockPort Capital Partners, General Atlantic, DuPont Agricultural Biotechnology, Rabobank, KPMG Corporate Finance and many more.
Join them now for the discounted rate of $795!
WHAT
Agriculture 2.0 Global Investments Conference
Hosted by NewSeed Advisors
Sponsored by The Financial Times and The Coca-Cola CompanyWHEN
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
8:00am-6:00pm
Pot Luck
Pot Luck is an open thread...
Hey Pesticide Lovers: SUCK IT!
Science says: organic strawberries are better!!!! And not just better for the environment, and better for the workers (who don't have to be exposed to toxic chemicals on the job). The berries tested higher in vitamin C and antioxidants, lasted longer without rotting, and tasted better.
I think a big fat "I TOLD YOU SO" is in order here.
Oh - and, no shock - the soil is better too. Here's what the article's abstract says:
We also found the organically farmed soils to have more total carbon and nitrogen, greater microbial biomass and activity, and higher concentrations of micronutrients. Organically farmed soils also exhibited greater numbers of endemic genes and greater functional gene abundance and diversity for several biogeochemical processes, such as nitrogen fixation and pesticide degradation.
Overall conclusion?
Our findings show that the organic strawberry farms produced higher quality fruit and that their higher quality soils may have greater microbial functional capability and resilience to stress.
Salad Bars in EVERY School
A Salad Bar in Every School!
The smells of back-to-school: freshly sharpened pencils, old leather seats of yellow busses, chalk dust, and lettuce? This fall, Whole Foods and Chef Ann Cooper, "The Renegade Lunch Lady," in conjunction with her Food Family Farming Foundation's premier project, The Lunch Box, have implemented a remarkable new program, which will change school lunch-rooms across the nation - The Great American Salad Bar Project. With rates of nutrition-related disease and childhood obesity on the rise, now is the time to start making positive change in the way we feed our children.
The initial phase of the Great American Salad Bar Project will raise enough money, via local Whole Foods Markets, thru in-store and online donations, to grant at least one salad bar a school within fifty miles of the store. That's almost 300 salad bars! Schools that meet the requirements are encouraged to apply on the Great American Salad Bar Project website for review and will be chosen by a simple set of criteria.
A salad bar in a school cafeteria provides a healthy option for students on a daily basis. A typical salad bar will include: fresh multi-colored lettuce, a variety of vegetable "toppings" such as beets, carrots, and jicama, proteins such as chicken, beans, cottage cheese or tofu, whole grains, fresh fruit and healthy salad dressings. One requirement for schools who wish to apply is that they participate in the National School Lunch Program. The National School Lunch Program is a federally funded program that provides low-cost or free meals to children across the country. Children who participate in the National School Lunch Program are often most at-risk for the effects of a poor diet.
School is a sacred space for learning, so why shouldn't this extend into the cafeteria? School meals should not only provide the nourishment children need to excel throughout the school day, but should also serve as a lesson in making life-long wellness choices. Offering salad at lunch helps to provide this lesson and teaches children to include a variety of fresh vegetables, fruit, whole grains and healthy proteins in their diet. The salad bar provides an array of options and allows students to try new items on their own. Often students will make choices from the salad bar and create delicious and colorful dishes to suit their taste.
The facts are simple: this could quite possibly be the first generation of children in our country's history to die at a younger age than their parents.
Government statistics show that 4.3 million children aged 10-14 will become overweight or obese in the next 24 months. In addition, it is predicted by the Center for Disease Control that of all children born in the year 2000, one-third will contract diabetes. These outrageous statistics can only be stopped by a massive overhaul of the way our children eat and the Great American Salad Bar Project is one giant step in the right direction.
Take this wonderful opportunity to do something good for yourself and your community. Take a trip to your local Whole Foods, purchase some of the healthy food they offer for yourself and your family, and then donate what you can to the Great American Salad Bar project. Know that with your donation you are participating in an effort to change the future health of our country.
Eat well, use your dollar to vote for healthy food, and help us change the way kids eat across the country for the better.
To donate online or to find out more about the Great American Salad Bar Project please visit our website at: http://www.saladbarproject.org/
Staying Tuned for More Innovations
Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet
Listen to Radio Fanaka Fana and Radio Jigiya, in the Fana and Z?goua regions of Mali, and you are much more likely to hear tips for improving compost piles and soil quality than you are pop music hits or current events. That's because the station is participating in Farm Radio International's Africa Farm Radio Research Initiative (AFRRI), a project to test the viability of using radio as a tool for spreading agricultural information to farmers throughout Africa.
Farm Radio International is a Canadian-based, non-profit organization with partner broadcasters from over 300 radio stations in over 39 sub-Saharan African countries. Its programs reach an audience of over 600 million people speaking more than 300 languages, providing listeners with valuable information that is increasing harvest yields and improving livelihoods.
Though cell phones, computers, and televisions might seem like more obvious-and increasingly popular-forms of mass communication, the radio is still the least expensive and most widespread communications technology in Africa. In Mali, where the soil is often dry and eroded, AFRRI is taking advantage of radio's popularity by working with local leaders and extension officers to present radio programs that can help farmers improve soil quality. Radio Fanaka Fana and Radio Jigiya-which have a combined audience of over 170,000 people- present regular shows promoting the use of compost pits to create organic fertilizer.
A case study for this particular campaign shows that farmers in the two radio stations' regions were listening and responding to the programs in overwhelming numbers. In one region households practicing improved composting increased from just over 25 percent to over 89 percent. Farmers reported feeling more comfortable with local extension officers after hearing them on the radio, and-based on word of mouth- other communities outside the reach of the radio stations started requesting programs of their own. One outside community even built a homemade antenna so they could hear the programs being broadcast in the next region over.
To read more about innovations that use communication technology to improve farmer livelihoods, see: Makutano Junction Soap Opera, Using Digital Technology to Empower and Connect Young Farmers, and A Sustainable Calling Plan.
Pot Luck
Pot Luck is an open thread...
Last Week's Livestock Hearing on Competition
Friday, some 2000 farmers, ranchers, and people who are otherwise involved in agriculture showed up in Colorado at a hearing held by the Department of Justice. The Obama administration sent its bigwigs (Secretary Vilsack and Attorney General Eric Holder), and many who attended were able to give public comments. At the core of the hearing was the so-called "GIPSA rule" - a proposed rule from the USDA that would ensure more fair competition in the livestock industry. (A lot of the details here are very "inside baseball" to the industry, but it seems that the basic gist of the GIPSA rule is that many anti-competitive practices that are now legal will no longer be.) Obviously those who are benefiting from the system as is do not WANT the system to be more fair. (I wrote about some of the dirty tactics used by beefpackers to screw individual producers at the link.)
Predictably, the American Meat Institute (AMI) came out with a statement after the hearing, claiming that economies of scale calls for larger (and thus, fewer) slaughterhouses and that the concentration in the beef industry has not increased since 1995 (which is patently false... the top 4 firms had 76% of the market in '95 compared ton 83.5% in 2005, and there have been more mergers and consolidation since then.).
On the other side of the spectrum, R-CALF USA came out with a statement today saying "independent beef producers who want some refereeing in the marketing game... No one in my circles wants a handout - just a chance to market their cattle in an open and transparent market." and "That is all these many hard-working people, the foundation of Rural America, desire: Enforce the rules."
I watched some of the hearing, when attendees were given 2 minutes apiece to make public comments. There was some support for the GIPSA rule, and some were opposed. Many seemed to come from Republican backgrounds and they just wanted the government to keep its hands out of their business, whether or not that is in their own best interest. It seems like, while some have pragmatic business reasons for opposing the GIPSA rule, others are ideologues who want the government uninvolved on principle, even if that means the big beefpackers can swindle them until they lose their family farms. Some said the solution is more free trade agreements (Colombia and Panama) and rigging up the Food Pyramid to tell Americans to eat more red meat.
I enjoyed the title used by the Center for Rural Affairs in their write-up of the event: "Cowboys vs. Packers in Colorado... But Not Football."
You can see a few more articles here:
Greeley Tribune: Ranchers differ on proposed meat industry regulations
The Coloradoan: Farmers seek fairness at ag workshop
Denver Post: Polar-opposite views on cattle rules rounded up at ag meeting at CSU
I think an important part of the workshop to review will be what was said by the panels, and that will be available online at some point. Also, I hope someone kept a tally on the comments - how many were for the GIPSA rule, how many opposed, and was the split down the line between Cowboys vs. Packers, or not?
Transcripts and video of Friday's hearing will be available at the link, although they are not up yet.
Aha! Got It! Dirty Details About the Egg Operations That Sold the Tainted Eggs!!!
THIS is what I've been waiting for. The dirty details on the egg operations that sold the tainted eggs. Bill Marler got to it first, in case you want to check out what he had to say. I've got excepts below on what - exactly - the feds found when they checked out the egg factories that sold the tainted eggs.
In short, at Wright County Egg, they found holes in the buildings where other animals could get in, wild birds, standing water, rodents (a MAJOR risk factor for salmonella), escaped chickens, live and dead flies, live and dead maggots, and lots of poop (piles of manure 8 feet high!).
There were also some problems in the feed mill, which makes sense if the salmonella came from the feed. Birds were all over the place in there, and there were holes in several food containers. Plus some "avian like feces." No surprise, the FDA tested for salmonella and found plenty of it in there.
The report for the Hillandale, the other farm (the one not owned by DeCoster), was much less exciting. There's still a bit of manure, rodents, open holes in the structures, standing water, and lack of record keeping, but it's clearly not as bad as the DeCoster operation.
Non chicken feathers were observed inside Layer 3 - House 3. One live wild bird was observed flying above chicken cages inside Layer I - House 9. Wild birds were observed flying inside and outside of Layer 1 - Houses 11 and l2. Pigeons were observed roosting in an air vent where the screening was damaged on south side of the Layer l - House 14.Two birds' nests were observed on the outside structure of Layer 3 - between Houses 1 and 2 approximately 7 - 12 feet from the manure pit doors. Layer 3 - House 8 had a bird's nest and birds were observed under the edges of metal siding on the south wall.
Chicken manure located in the manure pits below the egg laying operation was observed to be approximately 4 feet high to 8 feet high at the following locations: Layer 1 - House 1; Layer 3 - Houses 2, 7, 17, and 18. The outside access doors to the manure pits at these locations had been pushed out by the weight of the manure, leaving open access to wildlife or domesticated animals.
Exterior structural damage allowing entrance to the interior of the laying houses was observed in Layer 1 - Houses 1,3,4,7, 8, 11 and 12; Layer 2 - Houses 7 and 11; Layer 3 - Houses 1,2, 11,13, 14,15 and 18; Layer 4 - House 3. Observations include: holes in exterior siding, missing siding, holes and/or gaps in the concrete foundation and air vent screens either missing or damaged
The east and west doors located on the second floor egg laying areas of Layer 1 - Houses 1- 14; Layer 2 - Houses 7 and 11; Layer 3 - Houses 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 15, 16, 17, and 18; Layer 4 - House 3 were observed to have gaps at the bottom and sides ranging from a 1/2 inch to 2 inches.
Un-baited, unsealed holes appearing to be rodent burrows located along the second floor baseboards were observed inside Layer 1 - Houses 1 - 9 and 11 - 13; Layer 2 - Houses 7 and 11; Layer 3 - Houses 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6; Layer 4 - House 3.
Dark liquid which appeared to be manure was observed seeping through the concrete foundation to the outside of the laying houses at the following locations: Layer 1 - Houses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, and 14; and Layer 3 ?- Houses 1, 8, 13 and 17.
Standing water approximately 3 inches deep was observed in the southeast corner of the manure pit located inside Layer 1 - House 13.
Employees workng within the houses did not wear or change protective clothing wben moving from house to house. An employee at Layer 6 - House 3 was observed walking out of House 3 with a metal scraper and into House 2 without changing protective clothing and without cleaning/sanitizing equipment between the houses.
Un-caged birds (chickens having escaped) were observed in the egg laying operation in contact with the egg lay;ng birds at Layer 3 - Houses 9 and 16. The un~caged birds were using the manure, which was approximately 8 feet high, to access the egg laying area.
d) Layer 3 - House 11, the house entrance door to access both House 11 and 12 was blocked with excessive amounts of manure in the manure pits.
Live and dead f1ies too numerous to count were observed at the following locations inside the egg laying houses: Layer 1 - Houses 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, ll and 12; Layer 2 - Houses 7 and 11; Layer 3 - Houses 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, I5, 16, 17 and 18. The live flies were on and around egg belts, feed, shell eggs and walkways in different sections of each egg laying area. In addition, live and dead maggots too numerous to count were observed on the manure pit floor located in Layer 2 - House 7.
[all emphasis mine]
The report then gives a list of how many live rodents (between 2 and 5) were found at each house. And there were plenty of missing logs of rodent inspections and cleaning equipment.
Then there's the feed mill:
Birds were observed roosting and flying, chicks heard chirping in the storage and milling facility. In addition, nesting material was observed in the feed mill closed mixing system, ingredient storage and truck filling areas.Raw ingredient bins and feed sensors accessible from roof of facility had rusted holes and feed grain level sensors ajar to the outdoor environment These included:
- Ingredient storage bin 12, containing salt, had a rusted gap about a l/2 inch wide the length of the lid of the roof level covered ingredient bin chute.
- Ingredient storage bin 21 containing ground corn had a hole approximately 3 inches by 1/2 inch wide at the base of the roof level covered ingredient bin chute.
- At the base of the feed grain level sensor leading into ingredient storage bill 21, containing ground corn, there was an open hole.
- Feed grain level sensor leading into ingredient storage bin 7, containing meat and bone meal, was off to the side with approximately a 2 inch gap. Avian like feces was observed on top of this feed sensor.
- Finished feed tanks 4 and 18 did not have covers on top of the finished feed tank chutes.
Outdoor whole kernel corn grain bins 4 and 6 observed to have 1he topside doors/lids open to the environment and pigeons were observed emerging and leaving these openings. Birds were also observed sitting/flying around and over the openings.