July 4, 2012
Regular readers of this blog will know of my work around and passion about food systems. Food, as Growing Power founder Will Allen once put it, is “the great connector.” So much comes together in what we eat, including: chains (more ideally cycles) of producers, processors, distributors, retailers, consumers, and composters; global and local providers; considerations of environment, economy, and equity/access; cultural traditions; and of course community when we bake and break bread together. On this July 4th holiday, as conversations heat up around the region, country, and world, about the importance of remembering what literally sustains us, I want to celebrate the food movement and share 10 of the more inspiring and instructive articles, reports and videos I have come across in the past year or so. Enjoy and Happy Interdependence Day! Read More
June 29, 2012
“Agriculture can serve life only if it is regarded as a culture of healthy relationships, both in the field—among soil organisms, insects, animals, plants, water, sun—and in the human communities it supports.”
-France Moore Lappe
Reporting in from the Food Solutions New England convening in Burlington, Vermont. Exciting and challenging conversation happening here about how to knit individual state food planning efforts into a robust regional network that ensures greater availability of and access to “local” food. As part of the proceedings, we have heard a very informative and inspiring presentation by Rich Pirog, now of Michigan State University and previously of the Leopold Center in Iowa. Rich has been part of very impressive work nurturing regional food networks, profiled in a report that served as pre-reading for the gathering.
Some of the highlights from the report worth mentioning here are the implications raised for other regional food networks, including: Read More
December 1, 2011
|Photo by lydiashiningbrightly|http://www.flickr.com/photos/lydiashiningbrightly/3016016887|
One principle of living systems is that one person’s waste is someone else’s food. This is how nature works, which is wonderful, and . . . unfortunately many of us are eating our own unhealthy waste in the form of industrial chemicals and other toxins, precisely because we seem to lack an overview of the cyclical nature of things. On the upside, there are many ways that we could be much more efficient and even generate better health and greater wealth if we could think and act upon this notion of recycling and reusing waste.
This can include looking at how what is generally cast off as by-product might be used for creating additional value. Read More