This week, it’s been all about labor and chemicals. Vanden Heuvel AND Foner call out the plight of the farmworker (reminding me that the human element should never, ever be left out of food), and the Castros make news as Cuba figures out how to update its agricultural sector, which is even more old-fashioned than the rest of the world’s. We’re also worried that chemicals kill and we use a lot of them to produce food. The articles may be depressing, but I’m glad to see the messages getting out. The challenge is to find the transformative solutions, which a few of the postings start to do.
“Modern Slavery” – Katrina Vanden Heuvel, The Nation Blog, March 28, 2010
“Cuba’s food shortages: Hungry for change” – The Economist, March 25, 2010
“Let’s hear it for urban agriculture” – Sara Franklin, Global Post, March 29, 2010
“Pesticide Lobbyist Gets Posted as Chief Agricultural Negotiator” – Paula Crossfield, Civil Eats, March 29, 2010
"When Commodities Traders See Tomato Pickers in Action” – Vera Chang, www.triplepundit.com, March 22, 2010
“Mid-size dairies win consumers with less-processed milk” – Jane Black, Washington Post, April 7, 2010
“North Dakota Natural Beef and North American Bison Cooperative recall 25,000 pounds of beef heads over mad cow disease concerns” – Jim Hammerand, Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, April 6, 2010
“Farmers, Consumers Take Advantage of Online Farmers Market” – Kate Roy, Hartford Courant, April 8, 2010
“Is This Factory Farming’s Tobacco Moment?” – Will Allen and Ronnie Cummins, www.commondreams.org, April 10, 2010 – This call to arms is lengthy, but I particularly like this part: “Instead of asking: Why does organic food cost more than ‘conventional’ food? We should be asking: How cheap would poisoned (‘conventional’) food have to be to be a good deal?”
No comments:
Post a Comment