Cuba Cracks Down on Capitalist Farmers Markets
Published October 30, 2009 @ 09:56AM PT
Cuban leaders aren't embracing farmers markets, free market "agros" where vendors control prices rather than national authorities. The communist authorities are ending that capitalistic experiment and cracking down on those profiting from the enterprise. At a market where state workers appeared for an inspection, police had to be called when customers began a shouting match with them, the AP reports.
Farmers markets take control of food supplies out of government hands, but at least it allows a variety of food to reach those who need it. After an outcry by citizens, changes to farmers markets were pushed back to the new year. It's in the interest of farmers to sell directly to sellers rather than the government because they make more money. Cuban leaders aren't happy about farmers or sellers becoming rich, so the markets are closing.
This news comes despite Raul Castro's minor reforms towards so called 'socialism lite.' Castro is restructuring parts of the country's agricultural system, allowing farmers to own land previously left idle, hoping to make the country's agricultural system more efficient. Not permitting farmers to profit from their work is no way to encourage efficiency. At the farmers markets that have been scrutinized, many sellers stay away — it simply doesn't make sense to sell produce at a loss.
A UN project aims to increase food security through decentralization initiatives, production stimulation, and increasing the involvement of the private sector, but I imagine this will become unhinged should the Cuban government remained opposed to farmers markets.
GM Food Fight
Published October 30, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
In the debate over genetically modified food, one thing is clear: we can't agree. And not only do we disagree but we disagree passionately and intransigently. Statistics are hurled back and forth, each one seemingly contradicting the last, until everyone has pie in their face and no one knows what's fact and what's fallacy.
Change.org member Dawn Gifford noted the intensity of the debate in a recent comment: "this issue is more divisive than almost any other international issue, barring war."
So what's a thinking person to do? Many people I talk to feel a sense of unease with GM foods, but don’t have a clearly defined opinion and don’t know which information to trust.
Brouhaha Over Meat’s Impact on Climate
Published October 29, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
The discussion of reducing meat consumption as a means of fighting climate change is ruffling some high-profile feathers in several places. This attention is good news for those of us concerned with sustainable food: clearly the message is gaining widespread traction if people in positions of power are up in arms.
UK’s Times newspaper reported a couple days ago that Lord Stern of Brentford, I. G. Patel Professor of Economics and Chair of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, recommended cutting back on meat intake as an effective method of mitigating climate change.
“Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases,” he told the Times. “It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”
Not surprisingly, industry leaders and their allies were outraged.
Mistrust of Science Won’t Help Create Sustainable Agriculture
Published October 28, 2009 @ 06:47AM PT
When it comes to food and farming there is no 'natural' ideal to which we can possibly strive. Though organic food and sustainability helps us reacquaint ourselves with where our food comes from, are we fetishizing the idea of 'natural' and 'real' food? We've never agreed what these words mean, leading us to oppose and mistrust science, to the detriment of a growing population that we'll need to feed. That's the argument of a recent piece in Seed Magazine, asking us to rethink broad and vague terms that have little scientific merit.
Political scientist Robert Paarlberg explained in his 2008 book, Starved for Science, that whilst the productivity of our farms has risen through the application of science, we don't need any more of it; “This turn against new agricultural science is an affordable attitude in rich countries, but it becomes dangerous if exported to science-starved poor countries,” he explained.
It isn't enough to assume organic food is a universal good for the world. If it's shipped half way across the country or planet, conventionally grown local food is better. Similarly, the article speaks favorable of biotech firms and makes the compelling point that shouldn't we mustn't automatically distrust science in the name of 'natural food' — especially when it comes to feeding a growing population.
In Ohio, Local Food Is In Business
Published October 28, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
In an abandoned building in Wooster, Ohio, the future of local food is taking shape. Thirteen intrepid souls have formed a board to direct the Wooster Local Foods Cooperative, which will operate Local Roots Market and Café in what used to be, appropriately, a CorningWare store, according to Farm and Dairy.
The idea is to create a year-round onsite and Internet farmers market based on a cooperative model. “Our goals,” the Local Roots blog states, “are to encourage healthy eating, expand local economic development, promote community involvement, and sustainable living.” Hurrah!
With a $60,000 Specialty Crop Promotion grant from the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, the venture is slowly taking shape — the organizers are busily procuring refrigerators, cash registers and sorting bins, and plan to start opening on Saturdays in November.
Will customers knock down the door?
Bill Gates Enchanted by the GMO Idol
Published October 27, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
I wrote last week about the Gates Foundation's efforts to help improve agricultural systems in the developing world. Gates's conclusion: the Foundation's investment should empower poor farmers to grow more crops and get them to market, which will help them pull themselves out of poverty.
Sounds like a plan, right? Not so fast, says alert reader and fellow blogger Greg Plotkin, who pointed out an important thread underlying the story: "Gates is hoping to prompt a second Green Revolution and has shown very little concern about the potential negative impacts that [genetically modified (GM)] crops could bring."
This is a crucial point to bring to light, not least because the architect of the Gates Foundation's plans, Rajiv Shah, is now a part of the Obama Adminstration. In April, he became Under Secretary of Research, Education and Economics and Chief Scientist at the USDA, a position in which he can work to entrench this particular "green revolution" agenda into national policy priorities.
Trouble Down At the Food Co-op: Sustainability Isn't Easy!
Published October 26, 2009 @ 06:48PM PT
The story of being suspended from the Park Slope Food Co-Op in Brooklyn, exiled from the borough's hub of environmentally friendly groceries where members get up-to 40 percent off is featured in today's Times. But of course, such a saving comes at a price — every member must work one or two shift a month, along with 15,000 other members. Alana Joblin Ain missed one too many shifts, and told her story — one of slipping away from the store, but not from sustainability altogether. Alana isn't bitter, explaining that the co-op is "a place that raises aspirations for society, makes us raise aspirations for ourselves."
She notes that not everyone is enamored by the cost cutting community atmosphere, with one ex-member explaining the co-op is "something between an earthy-crunchy health food haven and a Soviet-style re-education camp." Many of the exiles, cast out, end up shopping at a grocery store two blocks down from the co-op's HQ.
Sustainability, of course, is no drive-through. You've got to makes sacrifices — whether it's making the extra effort to get to a market, or searching out farmers box scheme. Making a positive change requires an active contribution.
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