Green Eats

Exciting news! I’ve been working with the organizers of FoodCorps over the last few months to help get a new national FoodCorps Americorps program up and running. Specifically I am helping with the Site Selection committee, and today FoodCorps has released a call for letters of inquiry from groups interested in becoming a FoodCorps site. Letters are due in by 5pm on Friday, September 17th. Click here for information on FoodCorps and the guidelines on submitting a letter of inquiry.

Please forward this information to any organizations you know of that might be interested!

This is a very intriguing concept – any thoughts?

Look who’s on Twitter! Food Safety News has a great list of food and agriculture agencies who are using social media – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and more. Its nice to see the head honchos catching up on trends, however late to the game they may be.

This bit of news just flashed across my phone via Tom Philpott’s Twitter page and courtesy of the Green Inc. blog at the New York Times:

The board of directors of McDonald’s has recommended that the company’s shareholders vote against a proposal to require that 5 percent of the eggs purchased for the chain’s restaurants in the United States be the cage-free variety.

The proposal was advanced by the Humane Society of the United States.

Some major fast food companies, including Burger King, Subway and Wendy’s, and the retailers Wal-Mart and Trader Joe’s, have already made some level of commitment to purchasing or selling cage-free eggs.

But the McDonald’s board said on Friday that the science was not there to support a switch.

“As we have examined this issue over the years, we have deter­mined that there is no agreement in the global scientific com­munity about how to balance the advantages and disadvantages of laying hen housing systems,” it said in a proxy statement.

I must say that while I’m not entirely suprised, I am disappointed that McDonald’s has consistently refused to acknowledge what other corporate giants (Wal-Mart, Subway, etc.) have already come to realize – that battery eggs are just plain wrong, and that the American consumer won’t stand for them anymore. Hopefully this announcement will garner enough negative press to make the McDonald’s Board reconsider, but I honestly doubt that will be the case.

Roland McReynolds, executive director of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, recently wrote a guest post over on Sustainable Grub concerning Senate Bill 510, otherwise known as the Food Safety Modernization Act:

Congress is debating legislation that would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wide-ranging new authority over farming practices and food production. In its current form, the bill’s requirements would be impossible for many small-scale farmers and food processors to fulfill.

In other words, small farms committed to producing healthy food are the ones that could be driven out of business by initiatives designed to ensure food “safety.”

Please head over to Sustainable Grub to read the rest of the post, and check out CFSA’s Action Alert on S.510 to find out what you can do to ensure the continued viability of our nations small-scale, sustainable farms.

Please take a moment and fill out the survey for the Piedmont Local Food Community Visioning Process – at stake is upwards of $30,000 to invest in our local food community and the greater sustainable agriculture movement in the area! You have until March 10th to take the survey, and I’ll be sure to post the results when they are published.

Catch a free screening of the acclaimed, Oscar-nominated documentary Food, Inc. this coming Wednesday, March 10th, 7pm,  at American Tobacco Campus in Durham. The screening is sponsored by the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. (Who knows – by Wednesday Food, Inc. could be an Oscar winner!)

Check here for more details and directions to American Tobacco Campus

(The following is a press release from the NC Department of Agriculture)

RALEIGH — A statewide council focused on growing the local food economy in North Carolina will hold its first meeting Tuesday, Feb. 2, at the State Fairgrounds.

The N.C. Sustainable Local Food Advisory Council will meet at 2 p.m. in the Martin Building. The meeting is open to the public.

The General Assembly adopted legislation creating the council last summer. Its diverse membership includes Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler, State Health Director Jeff Engel and Commerce Secretary Keith Crisco or their designees, plus farmers, educators, food industry executives, community activists and local-food advocates. Members were appointed by Troxler, Gov. Beverly Perdue, Senate leader Marc Basnight and House Speaker Joe Hackney.

“North Carolina agriculture makes many positive contributions to the state’s economy and environmental quality,” Troxler said. “Agriculture creates jobs, preserves open space and provides our citizens with nutritious food. I’m looking forward to this council going to work to benefit North Carolina by expanding our local food economy.”

The General Assembly charged the council to focus its work on four subjects: health and wellness, hunger and food access, economic development, and preservation of farmlands and water resources. By law, the group will meet at least four times a year.

The N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has created a Web site to share information about the council and its work. Log on to www.ncagr.gov/localfood.

(One of my good friends, fairy godmother, and all around kind-hearted/hilarious human being, Aldra, left a very well-thought-out comment on the previous post about Obama’s first year in office and his approach to food policy. I loved her comment so much I’ve decided to post it here in its entirety. Please feel free to add your two cents in the comments, I’d love to get a discussion going! While you’re at it, check out Demandra’s AMAZING blog, Consciously Frugal. The name is the topic, and her advice is always spot-on.)

As a progressive, I’m mightily disappointed in Obama across the board, but not surprised. We old farts knew this would be the game. I think his food policy is much like the rest of his presidency at this point–one step forward, two steps back, all in an effort to reinstate the status quo while making minor, gradual changes in a vain attempt to calm folks like me.

I’m a bit concerned about the First Lady’s focus on fat kids. Instead of embracing a the Health at Every Size platform, she’s further stigmatizing a segment of the population. Research indicates that the stigma further harms fat folks, but that doesn’t seem to stop anyone. It’s maddening.

I’d love to see the First Lady focus less on making kids thin (dream on!) and instead on making a Farm Bill and food system that works for the benefit of the people, not 5 major corporations. But the money made from that approach will impact local communities and not major corporations. As long as the focus of the federal government continues to be Wall Street, I don’t think we’re going to see any significant changes to the current food system structure. – Aldra of Consciously Frugal