One congregation spends 25% less for as much as 20 times more food. Is that possible? Yup.
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December 18, 2009
Posts By: Andrew Kang Bartlett
December 14, 2009
Maps galore
Food Stamp Usage Across the Country The number of food stamp recipients has climbed by about 10 million over the past two years, resulting in a program that now feeds 1 in 8 Americans and nearly 1 in 4 children. Slide your cursor over this interactive map to find food stamp information in your county. Hunger at Home in the U.S. How does hunger affect your community? Roll over a state to find out the state of childhood hunger, poverty and other facts.
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December 11, 2009
Food justice on the side
* Guatemala update from the December global food crisis fast * WARC/Global Dialogue on the Accra Confession * “Farmworkers, Low-wage Jobs, and Living into a New Economy” – Online Workshop Session and Liturgical Materials on Farm Worker Justice
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December 11, 2009
People declare what?
642 persons from 93 countries representing 450 organizations of peasant and family farmers, small-scale fisher folk, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, youth, women, the urban people, agricultural workers, local and international NGOs, faith groups and other social actors, and hold a parallel gathering to the United Nations World Food Security Summit in Rome in November, 2009 and declare that food sovereignty is the real solution to the tragedy of hunger in our world.
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December 1, 2009
Hoodwinked
In Hoodwinked, John Perkins exposes the rotten core of a system that we here on this blog have been chipping away at around the edges. The manifestations of the problem come in our lack of a health care system, our unjust, pollution-based food system and its failure to nourish us… Not for the faint of heart! For equally good education on another topic related to the food industry, see Annie Leonard’s new stick figure animation, this time about Cap & Trade, the proposed solution to global warming. And if you missed The Story of Stuff, you are in for a treat.
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November 27, 2009
One straw revolutionary lives on
Just over a year after his death, FUKUOKA Masanobu was the main topic of conversation at our Thanksgiving meal table today. Fukuoka was an amazing man who I had the chance to meet at his farm on Shikoku Island back in 1985, when I was living in Japan. His contributions to agriculture, permaculture and profound philosophies undergirding farming, nature and life are innumerable.
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November 24, 2009
Monks, mushrooms and the sacramental nature of everyday eating
Thanksgiving isn’t just a rote exercise over turkey and stuffing one time a year. Truly giving thanks means making the connection between our daily bread and the Bread of Life, writes Fred Bahnson.
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November 16, 2009
Good farms capture carbon!
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. Consider this fact: If only 10,000 medium sized farms in the U.S. converted to organic production, they would store so much carbon in the soil that it would be equivalent to taking 1,174,400 cars off the road, or reducing car miles driven by 14.62 billion miles. Right now, I’m on an initial conference call of the ad hoc Interfaith Food and Agriculture group, which is convened by Rodale. We are sorting through who else should be part of the conversation and what we might do together…
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November 13, 2009
Dry and important? Yes.
Days ahead of the Summit, the negotiations on the Draft Declaration of the Summit are entering their final stage. What is at stake is our ability to take the necessary steps towards a global food system that will make decisive progress towards realizing the human right to adequate food and building our resilience against the risk of future economic shocks and increasing volatility of food prices. The Declaration coming out of the Summit should be coherent, ambitious and unambiguous on five issues: the right to food, governance, sustainability, trade, and the strengthening of international cooperation.
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October 22, 2009
Got food? Check for bees
Whilst The Co-operative and others are investigating what could be causing the disappearance of bees, here are some simple (and fun) things you can do to learn more and help save the bee. 1) Call for pesticides research Help secure funds for a systematic review of the impact of pesticides on our most important pollinators.Learn more… 2) Bee-friendly gardening Each and every one of us can make a difference, by encouraging bees into our own back gardens, patio pots and even window boxes. Learn more… 3) Take up beekeeping There’s an estimated 40,000 beekeepers in the UK. The majority of these keep bees as a hobby – it’s much easier to do than you’d think! So, if you’re really interested in helping bees, why not think about becoming an amateur beekeeper Learn more… 4) Sign up to Plan Bee There’s so much going on with The Co-operative’s Plan Bee campaign. Register to be the first to hear about campaign news and how to get more involved. Learn more… 5) Become a Co-operative Member There are lots of other ways to get involved with The Co-operative. Find out more about what we do and how you can become a Member. Learn more…
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