Showing posts with label agribusiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label agribusiness. Show all posts
6/28/2010
5/19/2010
Berkeley schools serve Epic Chicken | Cafeteria Confidential: Behind the scenes in school kitchens | Grist
No more nuggets: Berkeley schools serve Epic Chicken Cafeteria Confidential: Behind the scenes in school kitchens Grist: "The Tyson nuggets are really extrusions and amalgamations of all sorts of chicken scraps, seasoned with a dose of salt and chemical additives. Factory machines shape the mix into kid-size mouthfuls that are breaded and baked assembly-line style, then frozen and shipped hundreds of miles to school kitchens. Low-skilled workers pour the frozen nuggets out of plastic bags onto sheet pans and quickly reheat them. A few minutes in a 350-degree oven is all it takes before the factory nuggets are ready to be displayed on the food service line where hungry kids scoop them up."
[How do we dare to feed much stuff to children?]
[How do we dare to feed much stuff to children?]
5/09/2010
Sustainable Sandhills Film, SCC, July 22
Thursday, July 22, 2010 6:30pm - 8:00pm Location: Sandhills Community College, Dempsey Student Center, Clement Dining Room
Two Angry Moms
Amy Kalafa was stewing for years, packing her kids lunches from home and trying to get her community to pay attention to what kids are eating in school. When news of a national child health crisis began making headlines, Amy, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, decided to take the fight to film. Two Angry Moms is Amy's quest to learn what she and other parents need to know and do to get better food in their kids' schools.
Susan Rubin had been trying for a decade to work with her district on improving school food, earning herself a reputation as a rabble-rouser with a "macrobiotic agenda" (NOT!). She's even been banned from her children's' school cafeteria! In the meantime, legions of kids continue to make a daily lunch out of neon green slushies, greasy fries and supersize cookies, imperiling not only their long-term health but also their ability to learn. Exasperated, Susan decided to reach beyond her school district, and founded Better School Food, her own grassroots organization.
Part exposé, part "how-to", Amy chronicles the efforts of Susan and other leaders in the fledgling better school food movement as they take on the system nationwide. From Chefs Alice Waters and Ann Cooper reinventing school food in Berkley California to Chef Tony Geraci's student designed meals in New Hampshire, Amy discovers programs that connect the cafeteria with the classroom and connect our kids with the earth. Over the course of a school year, we see Susan's coalition drive dramatic changes in one Westchester, NY school district.
Two Angry Moms shows not only on what is wrong with school food; it offers strategies for overcoming roadblocks and getting healthy, good tasting, real food into school cafeterias. The movie explores the roles the federal government, corporate interests, school administration and parents play in feeding our country's school kids.
See what happens when fed-up moms start a grass-roots revolution!
Two Angry Moms
Amy Kalafa was stewing for years, packing her kids lunches from home and trying to get her community to pay attention to what kids are eating in school. When news of a national child health crisis began making headlines, Amy, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, decided to take the fight to film. Two Angry Moms is Amy's quest to learn what she and other parents need to know and do to get better food in their kids' schools.
Susan Rubin had been trying for a decade to work with her district on improving school food, earning herself a reputation as a rabble-rouser with a "macrobiotic agenda" (NOT!). She's even been banned from her children's' school cafeteria! In the meantime, legions of kids continue to make a daily lunch out of neon green slushies, greasy fries and supersize cookies, imperiling not only their long-term health but also their ability to learn. Exasperated, Susan decided to reach beyond her school district, and founded Better School Food, her own grassroots organization.
Part exposé, part "how-to", Amy chronicles the efforts of Susan and other leaders in the fledgling better school food movement as they take on the system nationwide. From Chefs Alice Waters and Ann Cooper reinventing school food in Berkley California to Chef Tony Geraci's student designed meals in New Hampshire, Amy discovers programs that connect the cafeteria with the classroom and connect our kids with the earth. Over the course of a school year, we see Susan's coalition drive dramatic changes in one Westchester, NY school district.
Two Angry Moms shows not only on what is wrong with school food; it offers strategies for overcoming roadblocks and getting healthy, good tasting, real food into school cafeterias. The movie explores the roles the federal government, corporate interests, school administration and parents play in feeding our country's school kids.
See what happens when fed-up moms start a grass-roots revolution!
5/06/2010
It's the Dirt, Y'all!
Moore County Sustainable Film Series
Join us for "Dirt! The Movie"
May 13th, 2010 6:30-8:00 PM
Clement Dining Room, Dempsey Student Center
Sandhills Community College
3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst, NC
Join us for a FREE screening of Dirt! The Movie.
DIRT! The Movie--directed and produced by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow--takes you inside the wonders of the soil. It tells the story of Earth's most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility--from its miraculous beginning to its crippling degradation.
Join us for "Dirt! The Movie"
May 13th, 2010 6:30-8:00 PM
Clement Dining Room, Dempsey Student Center
Sandhills Community College
3395 Airport Road, Pinehurst, NC
Join us for a FREE screening of Dirt! The Movie.
DIRT! The Movie--directed and produced by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow--takes you inside the wonders of the soil. It tells the story of Earth's most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility--from its miraculous beginning to its crippling degradation.
4/19/2010
UNC-TV, Food, Inc, the movie, with discussion, Apr 21
UNC-TV Will Broadcast Views on Food, Inc. at 10:35 PM on April 21
On Wednesday, April 21 at 9:00 p.m. UNC-TV will broadcast Food, Inc., a provocative documentary film about the food industry in the United States. Food, Inc. is being offered as an episode of the PBS series P.O.V. Immediately following the documentary at 10:35 p.m. UNC-TV will broadcast Views on Food, Inc., a thoughtful conversation with representatives of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, the North Carolina Poultry Federation and the North Carolina Pork Council moderated by UNC-TV's Rob Holliday.
On Wednesday, April 21 at 9:00 p.m. UNC-TV will broadcast Food, Inc., a provocative documentary film about the food industry in the United States. Food, Inc. is being offered as an episode of the PBS series P.O.V. Immediately following the documentary at 10:35 p.m. UNC-TV will broadcast Views on Food, Inc., a thoughtful conversation with representatives of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, the North Carolina Poultry Federation and the North Carolina Pork Council moderated by UNC-TV's Rob Holliday.
3/17/2010
3/07/2010
2/17/2010
2/13/2010
Celeb Chef to Fight Obesity Gets TED Prize
TED Prize to fight obesity and to educate about food!
http://www.tonic.com/article/jamie-oliver-ted-prize-wish-movement-fight-obesity/
http://www.tonic.com/article/jamie-oliver-ted-prize-wish-movement-fight-obesity/
2/12/2010
Soda and Diabetes Connection, with Maps
http://allalongtheedge.blogspot.com/2010/02/soda-and-diabetes.html
2/08/2010
1/22/2010
1/21/2010
Monsanto's Corn Link to Organ Failure
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/12/monsantos-gmo-corn-linked_n_420365.html
1/20/2010
1/09/2010
12/20/2009
Dismantle Agribusiness to Save Rainforests
Environmental and Indigenous Activists Criticize Proposed Deal to Save Rainforests
On Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the Obama administration would commit $1 billion over the next three years toward a proposed global scheme to preserve tropical forests. It's called REDD, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. As countries attempt to hammer out a final deal before the end of the summit, Anjali Kamat files a report featuring a range of concerns over what this UN-backed proposal could mean for the future of the world’s rainforests and forest dwellers.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/18/environmental_and_indigenous_activists_criticize_proposed
On Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the Obama administration would commit $1 billion over the next three years toward a proposed global scheme to preserve tropical forests. It's called REDD, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. As countries attempt to hammer out a final deal before the end of the summit, Anjali Kamat files a report featuring a range of concerns over what this UN-backed proposal could mean for the future of the world’s rainforests and forest dwellers.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/18/environmental_and_indigenous_activists_criticize_proposed
12/19/2009
Death to Your Garden
Contaminated Compost: Coming Soon to a Store Near You
9/4/2009
By Barbara Pleasant
In Santa Rosa, Calif., the folks at Grab n’ Grow have been making compost and planting mixes for 25 years, using organic materials generated in Sonoma County. In 2002, the company detected residues of a potent herbicide called clopyralid in a batch of compost. The next year, Grab n’ Grow manager Don Liepold and his wife saw the herbicide’s trail of destruction in their raised bed organic garden — lettuce that refused to grow, curled and wilted peas, and stunted, gnarled tomato leaves.
As we reported in July 2009, clopyralid and its close cousin, aminopyralid, easily persist, sometimes for YEARS!, in hay, manure and compost. When contaminated materials are used in food gardens, tomatoes, beans and other sensitive crops develop curled foliage that looks like a disease, if they grow at all.
Both herbicides are manufactured by DowAgrosciences, which seems to have no moral or ethical problem selling products which clearly are polluting the public compost stream. Meanwhile, aminopyralid pesticides have been pulled from shelves in the United Kingdom. Liepold, the Rachel Carson Council and MOTHER EARTH NEWS think the U.S. EPA should take the same action here.
“I have been testing and detecting herbicide residues and thus rejecting cow manure, horse manure, turkey mulch, rice hulls, mushroom compost and yard trimmings,” says Grab n’ Grow manager Don Liepold. “I spent $20,000 in lab fees in 2008, and am on the same track for 2009,” he says.
It is extremely difficult to keep contaminated materials out of commercial compost. “One load of contaminated grass clipplings can ruin a batch of compost,” says Eric Philip of Anatek Labs in Moscow, Idaho. Philip has seen so many positive tests for clopyralid residues in compost that he would not use untested compost in his own garden.
“When folks have plants die in their home gardens, their first assumption is that they did something wrong,” Philip says. But with pyralid-laced commercial compost becoming more common, contaminated soil amendments are often to blame.
The source of pyralid pollution can be impossible to trace. For example, a horse stable may use hay brought in from a neighboring state, without knowing that it is laced with pyralid herbicides. If the horse’s manure or stable litter ends up in a garden, disaster is ready to strike. It’s better to be safe than sorry. Liepold stopped making one of Grab n’ Grow’s most popular products, Mango Mulch, for more than a year because he could not find an uncontaminated manure supply. Now he’s getting it from two local organic dairies.
Testing for contamination is a slow, painstaking process that comes at a steep price of $350 (or more) per sample, so most commercially-made compost is not tested.
Both of these herbicides were approved by the EPA before their persistence in compost was known, and before lab tests existed that could detect residues at damaging levels. We think approval of these pesticides should be revoked before the damage gets worse.
To express your concern about this hidden danger to your garden, write to your senators and congressional representatives to make your voice heard. You can also contact Rick Keigwin, director of the EPA’s pesticide review division.
See our earlier report: Milestone Herbicide Creates Killer Compost for lots more background on this issue. [Mother Earth News]
9/4/2009
By Barbara Pleasant
In Santa Rosa, Calif., the folks at Grab n’ Grow have been making compost and planting mixes for 25 years, using organic materials generated in Sonoma County. In 2002, the company detected residues of a potent herbicide called clopyralid in a batch of compost. The next year, Grab n’ Grow manager Don Liepold and his wife saw the herbicide’s trail of destruction in their raised bed organic garden — lettuce that refused to grow, curled and wilted peas, and stunted, gnarled tomato leaves.
As we reported in July 2009, clopyralid and its close cousin, aminopyralid, easily persist, sometimes for YEARS!, in hay, manure and compost. When contaminated materials are used in food gardens, tomatoes, beans and other sensitive crops develop curled foliage that looks like a disease, if they grow at all.
Both herbicides are manufactured by DowAgrosciences, which seems to have no moral or ethical problem selling products which clearly are polluting the public compost stream. Meanwhile, aminopyralid pesticides have been pulled from shelves in the United Kingdom. Liepold, the Rachel Carson Council and MOTHER EARTH NEWS think the U.S. EPA should take the same action here.
“I have been testing and detecting herbicide residues and thus rejecting cow manure, horse manure, turkey mulch, rice hulls, mushroom compost and yard trimmings,” says Grab n’ Grow manager Don Liepold. “I spent $20,000 in lab fees in 2008, and am on the same track for 2009,” he says.
It is extremely difficult to keep contaminated materials out of commercial compost. “One load of contaminated grass clipplings can ruin a batch of compost,” says Eric Philip of Anatek Labs in Moscow, Idaho. Philip has seen so many positive tests for clopyralid residues in compost that he would not use untested compost in his own garden.
“When folks have plants die in their home gardens, their first assumption is that they did something wrong,” Philip says. But with pyralid-laced commercial compost becoming more common, contaminated soil amendments are often to blame.
The source of pyralid pollution can be impossible to trace. For example, a horse stable may use hay brought in from a neighboring state, without knowing that it is laced with pyralid herbicides. If the horse’s manure or stable litter ends up in a garden, disaster is ready to strike. It’s better to be safe than sorry. Liepold stopped making one of Grab n’ Grow’s most popular products, Mango Mulch, for more than a year because he could not find an uncontaminated manure supply. Now he’s getting it from two local organic dairies.
Testing for contamination is a slow, painstaking process that comes at a steep price of $350 (or more) per sample, so most commercially-made compost is not tested.
Both of these herbicides were approved by the EPA before their persistence in compost was known, and before lab tests existed that could detect residues at damaging levels. We think approval of these pesticides should be revoked before the damage gets worse.
To express your concern about this hidden danger to your garden, write to your senators and congressional representatives to make your voice heard. You can also contact Rick Keigwin, director of the EPA’s pesticide review division.
See our earlier report: Milestone Herbicide Creates Killer Compost for lots more background on this issue. [Mother Earth News]
12/18/2009
Long but Excellent Article on Maltreatment of Soil
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010127yeomansIII/010127ch14.html
11/29/2009
Real Health, Real Nutrition
http://www.acresusa.com/magazines/archives/0904AndersenInt.htm [interview with Arden Andersen]
11/27/2009
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