Archive for May, 2009
Bay Area hunting club shoots and shares wild game
Full-boar assault: The Bull Moose Hunting Society, a hunting club and wild game cooperative based in San Francisco, connects "city folk eager to gain intimacy with the capture and slaughter of the animals they eat." The society helps soft-fingered newbies through the hunting license process, advises on equipment purchases (including a rifle), and teaches
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In DC, farmers market vouchers will soon aid families on assistance
A few dollars can add up: Needy families are flocking to farmers markets in Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut thanks to an innovative program that doubles the value of food stamps and fruit and vegetable coupons for low-income mothers and senior citizens. The Wholesome Wave Foundation provides
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USDA cancels successful school nutrition program for poor kids in Philly
Trays terrible: As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported the USDA might last week, the agency has just gone through with plans to end a well-regarded Philadelphia school breakfast and lunch program,
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Depression-era food essay collection shows similar problems with how “America Eats”
"It’s always twilight...when it comes to American food": In 1939, the Federal Writers’ Project editor Katherine Kellock "hatched a new idea: a book, to be entitled “America Eats,” about “American cookery and the part it has played in the national life.” Writers hit the road to document foodways,
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What the finance meltdown has in common with the industrial food system
Toxic assets: Tom Philpott uses the New Yorker's recent chronicle of the world financial collapse as a mirror for the global food system. But "whereas Wall Street’s leverage was financial, the food industry’s is mostly ecological and social," writes Philpott, before going on to detail all the dire
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Bush regulations for farm workers suspended
A labor department that works for labor? Shocking!: Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis has suspended for 9 months the regulations adopted by the Bush administration to govern wages and recruitment of immigrant guest workers for agriculture. Farm worker organizations had criticized the Bush regulations, saying
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Organic milk producers hit hard by economy
Someone needs to play dairy godmother: A NY Times "Most Emailed" (and heavily Tweeted) article about how organic dairy producers are in crisis makes some assumptions that could use some more explanation. The article refers several times to the "crushing debt resulting from the cost of turning organic,
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Bill Marler re-Pollanizes Washington State U
E. coli can bear sweet fruit: When Washington State University decided to cancel a program requiring all freshmen to read the same book — this year's pick was Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore’s Dilemma” — claiming budget constraints, many saw agribusiness pressure instead. One distinguished WSU
Learning by killing: Rainy-day musings on straw-bale coldframes
Vermont is finally getting a good dose of rain today, so I took the opportunity to come inside from the garden I'm responsible for as the kitchen/garden intern at Yestermorrow Design/Build School. It's time to get caught up on all of the things
Golden State’s blueberry production up, prices in the red
Singing the blues: Through years of hard work, California farmers have dramatically increased their blueberry production, and the state is on track to become the third largest U.S. producer. Success took new, heat-tolerant varieties based on old tropical breeds, understanding the plants' soil and irrigation
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Preserving the season
Bottling the magic of the bounty: It's time to start thinking about how to preserve some of the bounty of spring and summer. A feature article by Julia Moskin in the New York Times has advice and opinion from several prominent practitioners, a brief overview of food safety issues, and more. Moskin points
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Meeting Louis Bromfield – and Wendell Berry! – at Malabar Farm
Here in northeastern Ohio, not only are we surrounded by acres of rich agricultural land, on which depend a mixture of big and small farms, but in every county there are hidden pockets of little-known historical significance. And in almost-neighboring Richland County, one historical attraction has appeal
College students are going Greenhorn
Don't know much 'bout ecology: A wave of liberal arts students who see food is the political movement of their time are heading to farms as interns this summer. “I’m not sure that I can affect how messed up poverty is in Africa or change politics in Washington,” says one, “but on the farm I can
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USDA hearings on NAIS
Will they really listen? The Rural Blog reminds us that the USDA is holding "listening sessions" about the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). The last two will be in Storrs, Connecticut on May 27 and Loveland, Colorado on June 1 (location information and a link to the NAIS comment page at
Asia could teach U.S. some new corn tricks
Thanks to fertile Midwestern plains, commodity-focused agricultural policy, a foreign policy that makes cheap petroleum a high priority, and an innovative agricultural industry, Americans are truly the 'people of the corn.' As the film "King Corn" and the book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" have well documented,
