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This a conference that a former TFP farmer is holding on his farm outside Halifax, Nova Scotia. If you are at all interested in farming and will be in the area, you should make a plan to go to this gathering.
This fun-filled weekend features good learning, good food and great people.
Check out this website or e-mail for more information.
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Kick the spring season off with The Food Project’s annual City Farm Fest!
When: Saturday, May 2, 2009, 11:00 am – 3:00 pm
Location: West Cottage Farm, at intersection of West Cottage & Brook Ave, Dorchester
Highlights at this year’s event include:
- Great food and music
- A plant and seed sale
- A 12:30pm Workshop: How to plant your raised bed garden
- Compost giveaway (delivery within 1-mile only and advanced sign up required)
- A demonstration on composting
- Information on planting and caring for fruit trees (by Earthworks)
Please contact Kathleen with questions: 617-442-1322 ext 12 or
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Immokalee, FL – On Wednesday, March 4th, a dozen prominent authors, sustainable food advocates, and small farmers participated in a day-long delegation to Immokalee, Florida witnessing firsthand the miserable living and working conditions of migrant farmworkers. Delegates spent the day with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a nationally recognized farmworker organization at the forefront of fighting to improve farmworkers’ sub-poverty wages; combating forced labor in the Florida agricultural industry; and demanding that corporate food retailers use their market power to ensure more humane labor standards from their Florida tomato suppliers.
Who was there? Anim Steel, Director of National Programs, The Food Project
Frances Moore Lappé, Author, Diet for a Small Planet; Raj Patel, Author, Stuffed and Starved; Josh Viertel, President, Slow Food USA; Bill Ayres, Executive Director, World Hunger Year; Ben Burkett, President, National Family Farm Coalition; Mike Moon, Family Farm Defenders;
Eric Holt-Gimenez, Executive Director, Food First/Institute for Development Policy;
LaDonna Redmond, President & CEO, Institute for Community Resource Development;
Tom Philpott, Food Editor and Columnist, Grist.org; Jim Goodman, Organic Farmer;
Farmworkers who pick tomatoes for the corporate food industry are among the country’s least paid,
least protected workers. They earn about 45 cents for every 32-lb. bucket of tomatoes they pick – a rate that has not changed significantly in 30 years – working from dusk to dawn without the right to overtime pay. They receive no benefits and are excluded from the right to organize. In the most extreme cases, captive workers are held against their will by their employers through threats or violence – including beatings, shootings, and pistol-whippings.
There have been seven federal prosecutions by the Department of Justice for forced labor in the Florida agricultural industry in the past ten years, involving well over one thousand farmworkers.
This is the first-ever delegation of sustainable food advocates to Immokalee. The delegation is hosted by Just Harvest USA, a national organization that aims to build a more just and sustainable food system with a focus on establishing fair wages, humane working conditions, and fundamental rights for farmworkers. They achieve this through broad public education about the conditions in which our food is produced and mobilizing support for farmworker-led and other grassroots campaigns.
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There is a great lineup of speakers including Frederick L. Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Hon George McGovern himself who tomorrow receives the 2008 World Food Prize together with Hon Robert Dole.
The conference is being organized by the McGovern Center for Leadership and Public Service – Dakota Wesleyan University – on Nov 10 and 11. Conference participation is FREE. (Deadline for Registration is October
31st). More information is available here:
http://www.mcgoverncenter.com/conference/schedule.htm
Even if you cannot attend, the organizers have set up a blog where you can discuss the conference themes and suggest topics to be addressed by the speakers…(“What is on your mind related to hunger and sustainable agriculture”) Click here to participate: http://mcgovernconference.blogspot.com/
The conference will also be broadcast live via the Internet in its entirety on Tuesday, Nov. 11.
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Enroll Now for the 2009 Garden Student Program and Whole Farm Workshop Series!
Build your farming career that combines study and practicum through workshops, lectures, and on-farm experience. Learn through farmer-to-farmer based education and from leading experts in the field. Advance production skills and knowledge within the educational opportunities at Michael Fields. Please visit our website www.michaelfieldsaginst.org for ways to participate or contact us directly at (262) 642-3303.
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When: World Food Day, Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 7 PM
Where: Great Hall of Cooper Union, 7 E. 7th Street (at 3rd Ave.), New York City
Cost: Free (suggested donation at the door)
RSVP (encouraged): . Seating is first come, first served.
As U.S. food pantries face long lines and empty shelves while food protests rock the globe, it is clear that we are in the midst of a food crisis at home and abroad. The crisis is long in the making, yet even as it hits both headlines and wallets, it has been largely ignored by the current administration and the presidential candidates. In response, food, farm, labor, and justice organizations from across the US are joining together to call on our leaders to address the roots of the problem.
Join World Hunger Year (WHY) and our partners at the historic Great Hall of Cooper Union for the national launch of an urgent Call to Action to end the food crisis. Learn about the real causes and solutions to the crisis from special guests including:
- Alice Waters of Chez Panisse and founder of Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, CA
- Frances Moore Lappé, best-selling author of Diet for a Small Planet
- Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System
- Ben Burkett, president of the National Family Farm Coalition
- LaDonna Redmond, president of the Institute for Community Resource Development
- Pat Purcell of the United Food and Commercial Workers union
- Leader of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Musical guest Toby Lightman.
Be part of the solution! Join us in sending a strong message to the presidential candidates and our current political leaders that they need to step up to the plate to end the food crisis.
If your organization would like to support this event, please email .
Sponsored by: WHY (World Hunger Year), in partnership with Food First, National Family Farm Coalition, Grassroots International, Pesticide Action Network of North America, Agricultural Missions, Food & Water Watch, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Small Planet Institute, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1500, Rainforest Action Network and others.
Supporters: Just Food, Food Systems Network NYC, Community Food Security Coalition, New York Citizens Trade Coalition, World Neighbors, Global Policy Forum, Anna Lappé, Take a Bite Out of Climate Change, Edible Manhattan, Hunger Action Network of New York State, Sustainable Table, New York City Nutrition Education Network, Sustainable Connections, Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of NY, The FGE Food & Nutrition Team, Cornell Global Labor Institute, Mazon, Council on the Environment NYC/Greenmarket, New York City Coalition Against Hunger, GreenThumb, East New York Farms!, I.N.T.A.C.T. Community Development Corporation, Kalabash Food Cooperative, the Food Bank of New York City, and others.
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Energize your Life! Join other youth organizations in the BLAST network for a great day of learning and sharing. Experience the union of local agriculture and renewable energy at Seeds of Solidarity Farm and Education Center, which runs on solar electricity, uses bio-diesel in vehicles and employs no-till methods and solar greenhouses to ‘grow food everywhere’ and reduce fossil fuels. Seeds of Solidarity staff and youth in their SOL (Seeds of Leadership) Garden project will co-host this BLAST gathering with The Food Project staff and youth leaders.
The day will include:
- Engaging activities to get to know other individuals and organizations, including:
- A “Food Footprint” activity
- An “Open Space” dialogue
- A collaborative work project where you’ll learn how to transform cardboard into fertile soil
- An interactive tour of Seeds of Solidarity
- A delicious, local, trash-free lunch
Registration fee: $4.00
To register for this event or more information, please contact Maggie Mathew at , or (781) 259-8621 x22.
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Saturday, October 4, 2008, 9:30 am – 4:30 pm
Kimmel Center Rosenthal Pavilion at New York University
60 Washington Square South
SPEAKERS:
Kate Adamick, JD, Food Systems Solutions
Peter Anderson, Head of School, Future Leaders Institute Charter School
David Berkowitz, Executive Director, NYC DOE, SchoolFood Services
Mark Bittman, NYT’s columnist, “The Minimalist” and the
“How to Cook Everything” book series (moderator)
Jayni Chase, Founder, Center for Environmental Education (moderator)
Ann Cooper, Director of Nutrition Services, Berkeley Unified School District
Milton Mills, MD, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and
Public Health, New York University, Author, Food Politics
Michele Simon, JD, MPH, Research and Policy Director, Marin Institute,
Author, Appetite for Profit
Margo Wootan, DSc Director, Nutrition Policy, Center for Science in the Public Interest
ADMISSION: $35.00
Includes lunch featuring healthy organic and local foods
NYU Students: Free, must show student ID at door, and RSVP via email
All other students: $15.00, must show student ID at door, and send check or reserve online.
Limited scholarships available, inquire soon
RESERVATIONS DUE NO LATER THAN FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26
TO RESERVE SEND A CHECK OR RESERVE ONLINE:
By Check: Write check to “NYCHSF” and mail to
NYCHSF, Food Politics Conference, POB 737, Mamaroneck, NY 10543 or
Online: Reserve at www.healthyschoolfood.org
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The first annual Massachusetts Harvest for Students Week took place last year during September. Schools and colleges across the state purchased, served, and highlighted fresh locally grown food on their menus. The goal for the Week is to spur new buying relationships between schools and farms, as well as increase existing purchasing in schools around the state. Schools are also encouraged to focus on the benefits of locally grown foods in other ways, such as creating school gardens, taking trips to farms, and integrating agricultural themes in the classroom. Participating schools receive an introductory package with resources on how to buy locally, and free technical assistance from the Mass. Farm to School Project on finding farm vendors.
29 public school districts preferentially purchased locally grown food for the first time during Harvest Week last year. Plans are underway to do it again this year. Contact Mass. Farm to School Project if you’d like to join us.
For more information, contact Kelly Erwin at kelerwin@localnet.com.
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The Convergence will be an awesome opportunity to meet and strategize with producers from various countries, learn organizing skills in dozens of workshops facilitated by experienced organizers in the U.S. and abroad, and network with over 200 students and youth movement leaders from around the world. The Convergence is open to anyone and everyone with an interest in fair trade or social justice, and we want to see you there!
Students are continuously creating new goals and new interpretations of what Fair Trade is and should be: taking it beyond the limits of consumerism, to critiquing and imagining alternative food systems, to making fair trade more accessible, to exploring participants’ visions of trade justice internationally and in the US. The Convergence is a place to share experiences, ideas, and skills in a collaborative learning environment, rather than sitting and listening to lecture after lecture.
This year, the convergence will explore various topics such as the relationship between the Fair Trade model and domestic farmworker rights; organizing around Fair Trade products; cooperative structures and functioning; how students can create more close-knit relationships with producers; how students can work together to build regional campaigns and leadership in the student Fair Trade movement; integrating anti-oppression into our organizing; connecting students with newer Fair Trade certified products such as nuts and olive oil; and much more.
We want you and your friends to join us! Please visit www.usft.org/convergence to register.
