Book Review: Farmer Jane

Women increasingly own their own farms and businesses, are active in their communities and government—and as shown in the book Farmer Jane—are strong advocates for sustainable food. This inspiring book profiles female farmers, chefs, activists, and educators working to change the way we eat and farm.

Click here to read my review of Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat.

Support Organics in California

California Assembly Bill 1401, the Transition To Organics Act, will create a fund to provide financial assistance to California farmers who want to transition from conventional farming to organic farming. Assembly Bill 1401 will promote more organic farming! This bell is on Governor Schwarzenegger's desk right now. If you are a California resident, let him know how important organic farmers are. Ask Governor Schwarzenegger to sign AB 1401 into law!

Here's a link that will send your email.

Cuba--a model for organic, sustainable farming

Since 1990, Cuba has carried out the world's most comprehensive and successful organic food and farming revolution, including the ongoing cultivation of over 60,000 organic urban gardens that supply 50-80% of its urban food needs. Cutting off trade with Cuba forced the population to live by their own means. Over time, urban areas in place like Havana have overtaken wasted space with a vast tapestry of medicinal and food gardens. The current Cuban urban agriculture model has become one of the most sophisticated and sustainable organic farming operations in the world. Watch this clip from the BBC's "Around the World in 80 Gardens" (2008)showing some of this innovative urban food gardening. For more info about what Cuba is doing, visit the Organic Consumers Association.

Study shows that organic farming can combat global warming

Data from the Rodale Institute’s long-running comparison of organic and conventional cropping systems confirms that organic methods are far more effective at removing the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, from the atmosphere and fixing it as beneficial organic matter in the soil. In fact, if organic farming methods were practiced on all the planet's food-growing land, it would be like taking more than 1.5 billion cars off the road. Even if we just converted the U.S.’s 160 million corn and soybean acres to organic production, it would sequester enough carbon to satisfy 73 percent of the Kyoto targets for CO2 reduction in the U.S. See the full story here: http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20080425/gw6.

Need more reasons to buy organic? According to the Organic Consumers Association:

- You can increase your antioxidant intake by 30 percent by choosing organic.
- The average child in America is exposed to five pesticides daily in their food and drinking water.
- The U.S. water system is regularly contaminated above safe limits immediately following chemical fertilizer applications to farm fields.
- Farms in developing countries that use organic techniques produce an average of 79% more than farms that don't.

What can you do?

Let your grocer know you want organically grown foods and buy organic products as much as possible. Visit local farms and farmers' markets and talk to the farmers. Even if they are not certified organic, they may be growing using organic practices.

Food Politics in the New York Times

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense Of Food, has a great article in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 ).

In the form of a letter to the president-elect, Pollan outlines why the president should be working on food policies, since it directly affects global warming (farming is the second largest user of fossil fuels after cars), the economy (food is not so cheap anymore), and health care (1 of 3 children born in 2000 are expected to develop type 2 diabetes).

Pollan explains how we got to where we are today and gives some excellent detailed advice for how a new food system could work, where the government:

- encourages and reward those that do "sun farming" rather than farms relying on fossil fuels
- builds an infrastructure that supports diversified farming rather than monocrops
- allows foods stamps and issues WIC coupons to be used at farmers markets which woulds also help attract farmers markets to urban areas
- makes sure all schools have gardens, kitchens and workers trained to cook real food
- sets an example by hiring a white house chef active in the local and organic food movement

Farmers and Restaurants Collaborate

This is so cool--a union of 42,000 North Dakota farmers have pooled their resources and invested more than $6 million to build green restaurants in Washington D.C. to showcase food from family farms. One of the "farm-to-table" establishments is walking distance from the Capitol and the White House, maybe it will serve as a reminder to U.S. policy-makers that this nation was built on the backbone of the family farmer.

Get the full story here: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/09/29-6

Help protect farmers from Monsanto harassment

AB 541 is close to becoming California's first state law protecting farmers from the hazards of genetically engineered crops. Having already passed the Assembly, it has since cleared the Senate Agriculture and Judiciary committees and will be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee on August 4th and then the full Senate. It has the support of Community Alliance with Family Farmers, the California Farmers Union, California Certified Organic Farmers, the California Farm Bureau, and many food safety and environmental organizations.

AB 541:

- Establishes the right of farmers and landowners to compensation for economic losses due to genetic contamination of their crops
- Protects farmers from being sued by a GE manufacturer if their crop is contaminated by that company's GE product.
- Establishes a county-level GE crop notification process so that farmers can trace contamination to the GE manufacturer.
- Protects the food supply by prohibiting the open-field cultivation of genetically engineered food crops used to produce drugs and biologics such as hormones and antibiotics.

AB 541 will enact protections for California farmers against frivolous lawsuits that intimidate and harass those who have not been able to prevent the inevitable - the drift of GE pollen or seed. It will level the playing field for farmers accused by agricultural biotechnology companies and other patent holders of contract violations, and discourage the practice of biotech companies sampling crops without explicit permission from farmers and prosecuting based on unverifiable testing results.

If you want to let legislators know you support this, go to this link: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25229

Tainted tomatoes

The recent outbreak of salmonella-infected tomatoes has put more than 25 people in the hospital and sickened hundreds, but really it is just the latest in a long line of sickness and recalls. In just the last few years we've had salmonella in tomatoes, spinach, and lettuce, eColi in peanut butter, beef from downer cows. Whether it's because of staffing and budget cuts, factory and giant agribusiness farms or a combination - something is seriously wrong with our food growing and distribution system.

The CDC reports that food-borne illnesses increased more than tenfold between 1970 and 1999 and 76 million people have been infected annually. While the FDA simultaneously insists that our food supply is the "safest in the world", it daily struggles to handle fundamental food safety in the face of a crippling lack of resources. Two weeks ago salmonella-infected tomatoes quickly made their way to more than 16 states with documented outbreaks. Last week, with 28 states reporting cases, the magnitude of the problem became quickly evident: the FDA had failed us yet again.

This type of contamination is well understood and avoidable. Salmonella- and eColi-poisoned produce is created indirectly by our nation's "animal factories," where inhumane and overly crowded conditions produce tainted manure that can contaminate agricultural water sources and make its way to farm fields as fertilizer.

You can still eat tomatoes however - locally grown tomatoes can be a safe alternative. Go to the farmers market this weekend, talk to the farmer that grew the tomatoes and buy a few pounds without a worry in the world. Unlike the salmonella tomatoes which have been shipped all over the country and grown on large, industrial, mechanized farms, small-scale local farms are run by farmers who know their land, what they put in it, and what comes out of it.

An entire village growing its own food!

This is so cool - the people in Martin (a village in England) have come up with a project for "weaning" villagers off of supermarkets. They're working together to grow their own food and raise their own livestock for meat and eggs. Of the 164 families who live in Martin, 101 have signed up as members of Future Farms for an annual fee. Read the article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=559580&in_page_id=1770

slave labor in U.S. fields

I just read the book Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy by John Bowe. I had no idea slave labor could be happening the in US - the land of the FREE! Many tomato and citrus pickers are are paid poverty wages that have barely changed in 30 years; forced to work long hours without overtime; subjected to physical abuse by supervisors, denied benefits such as sick days, paid leave, and health insurance, and are punished for organizing. Some of these workers are also forced to endure modern-day slavery. There have been six successful federal prosecutions of farm labor operations for servitude in Florida over the past decade, and a seventh was just initiated.

Some food companaies like Yum!Brands, Taco Bell, and McDonalds have been working with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to improve farm labor conditions -- but Burger King and others still have not signed on. If they would agree to pay just 1 cent more per pound, they could make a huge difference in the lives of these workers.

To sign a petition, go to: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=947

Demand for raw milk on the rise

There's an interesting article in the Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/02/23/more_dairies_go_raw/) about more dairies selling raw milk.

It says that demand for raw milk is growing in the United States. In Massachusetts, the number of dairies licensed to sell raw milk has grown from 12 to 23 in the past two years. Also, according to the Northeast Organic Farming Association, dairies are selling more raw milk than they were just five years ago, and consumers call in every week looking for advice on where to find it.

Raw milk advocates say raw milk is healthy because it contains good bacteria, enzymes and raw fats that help to boost your immune system and aid digestion. Anecdotal and scientific reports support the health benefits. For instance, a study by researchers at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Basel in Switzerland found that children who drank raw milk had a lower risk of asthma and allergies.

The FDA warns that raw milk can carry disease-causing bacteria and says that drinking it is "like playing Russian roulette with your health." That's probably true if you drank raw milk from factory farmed cows living in filthy dry lots, but milk from pasture-fed cows on clean, well-run farms is full of things that your body will thrive on, like good bacteria, raw fat, cancer-fighting conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), and much more.

Raw milk can be sold for human consumption in 28 states, but only eight states allow it to be sold in stores. As a result, many people have begun to form buying clubs that buy raw milk directly from the dairy.

To find a source for raw dairy in your area, go to http://realmilk.com/where.html

New pesticide known to cause tumors

Farmers are supposed to be phasing out methyl bromide, a fumigant used on strawberries and other crops, because of it's ozone depleting chemicals - though the government keeps pushing for exemptions so that the US can continue to use it because they hadn't found a replacement.

Rather than helping farmers shift to growing methods that don't require toxic and harmful chemicals, the EPA has approved methyl iodide for widespread use in the U.S., putting farmworkers, families and rural communities at risk. Methyl iodide vaporizes quickly, causing it to drift far distances. The state of California has categorized it as cancer causing, and the EPA admits it causes thyroid tumors. In a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson on September 25, 2007, the nation's leading chemists asked EPA not to approve methyl iodide without further scientific review. The chemical has been used to induce cancer in laboratory experiments and causes neurological and thyroid problems, as well as miscarriages in studies with laboratory animals.

Strawberries and other crops can be grown successfully without toxic chemicals - farmers all around the world are doing it. Go to this link to send an email to the EPA asking them to revoke this decision:
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/oca/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=15898