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Last summer, a twelve year old approached me at a farmers’ market. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to a vegetable I was cutting up. “That?? That’s a tomato.” I answered, astounded that someone could not recognize such a common vegetable. Don’t know what a rutabaga looks like? Fine, not everyone does, but a tomato? It really hit me just how distant many people are from their food and where it comes from.
I got up one morning not too long ago and put on my lucky green pants (my mom got them as part of an entire polyester green suit in the 70’s) and a nice button down Food Project shirt, and headed to the Massachusetts State House to support testimony on school nutrition. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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Hello all. I have been receiving a biweekly e-newsletter for the past few years that I love, and thought I would pass along a link to it. It is put out by FamilyFarmer.org, and is a very good source of information about pending agriculture policies and other issues that will effect small farms. If you want to check it out, their archived newsletters can be found at:
http://www.familyfarmer.org/sections/ruralupdates.html
If you like it, you can sign up at:
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At 9:00, the kitchen bursts into a flurry of activity. Joan has been putting things away, helping us find knives and cutting boards, and setting up the 3-sink dish-washing station. Cammy has been plugging in 2 griddles, I’ve been setting out cutting boards and knives, and Kathleen and Dylan have been setting out cups and deftly saving half of the gallon of apple cider for later. There is an air of hurried anticipation and then a call of “They’re here” comes from the front of the office. We hurry to the front door to see a crowd of 16 eager faces bundled in winter coats jockeying for position. 16 kids are soon gathered around my waist, clamoring “I always get to work with Dylan. I’m working with Dylan today, right??” while a shy girl takes my hand to claim me as their group leader. We lay out the ground rules: no one touches a knife until we hand it to you. Knives don’t leave the table. Kathleen leads the first group back to the kitchen to wash their hands, and to start grating carrots and cheese. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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I met a young black couple that hadn’t seen such a crowd on the Mall since the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington.
I met an older white woman who had walked across the Golden Gate bridge once. That crowd of people was stronger, the fear of being crushed a reality. Here 30,000 people were ambling. We were singing.
I met a Capitol Police officer who asked me to turn off my cell phone. We’d been in line for six hours. It was 3:30 am. Not a time that I usually get calls. He said my buddies might see me on C-SPAN and call me up. This would have been a first.
I met four young white women in a cluster, in the midst of deciding whether to go in to work early rather than go home at all. We can get in at 5, one was saying, which is an hour from now. Another protested that those college days of all-nighters were gone forever. Two hours, she said, I can get by on two hours. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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A series of posts highlighting blogs in some way related to our work.
U.S. Food Policy, in it’s own words, covers “U.S. food policy and economics from a public interest perspective.” And the most recent entry is about an event that happened right here in the Boston, when USDA Under Secretary Eric Bost spoke at the 2007 Farm Bill Forum on October 28th.
Thanks to Rebecca Nemec for the tip!
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For those of you who are so inclined, there’s a neat looking new academic journal out called Food Culture & Society. The first issue is available for free online. The articles are interesting and seem accessible even to those of us outside of academia. Some of the article titles are:
–The Politics of Building Alternative Agro-food Networks in the Belly of Agro-industry
–”The Right Thing to Do”: Taking a closer look at Quaker Oats
–Seeing Beyond the Package: Teaching About the Food System Through Food Product Analysis
–Food Studies in the Curriculum: A Model for Interdisciplinary Pedagogy
Started in on the “Food Product Analysis” article, and it looked like an interesting way to approach teaching food systems.
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First in a series of posts highlighting blogs in some way related to our work.
Rural Populist is Cadre member Brian Depew’s blog. It’s focused on rural issues; check out the agriculture category for farm-specific postings. This one in particular is thought-provoking.
Kick-AAS stands for Kick All Agricultural Subsidies, and was inspired by this editorial in the Guardian Unlimited.
Farmpolicy is a fellow named Keith Good who sends out a daily update on farm policy. Maybe he’d be interested in doing a weekly one for young folks?
