Category Archives: Uncategorized

Bees & Neonicotinoids: An Organic Farmer’s Perspective

Posted on May 5, 2013 | Leave a comment

If you have been reading all the news regarding the bee crisis recently, here is an excellent analysis of issues straight from the farmer.

rob's avatarThe Fanning Mill

The Debate

The past several months have seen a lot of coverage of the alleged links between neonicotinoid insecticides (neonics) and widespread, puzzling, and distressing bee deaths. This week saw the European Commission ban the use of neonics for two years, starting in January of 2014. Many groups are calling for similar action on this side of the pond, while others, both here and in Europe, are more hesitant to declare that we’ve found the smoking gun. The stakes are very high on both sides, of course: everyone has heard about the importance of bees for pollinating food crops, and farmers and farm groups like to point out that seed treatments are essential for crop production and that the alternatives to neonics may prove to be more harmful in the long run.

Forbes published a comprehensive article on the debate and its background on Tuesday which is definitely worth reading…

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IPM, Antibiotics, and Fire Blight- is there a happy medium?

Posted on May 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

fairfoodfieldnotes’s(http://fairfoodfieldnotes.wordpress.com/) excellent post on pest management and organic farming!

fairfoodfieldnotes's avatarfair food field notes

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Applpy over at Thought + Food recently published an interesting article talking about increased antibiotic use in organic pear and apple orchards.  These antibiotics—Streptomycin and Oxytetracycline—are used to combat fire blight, a contagious disease that can destroy an entire orchard in a season.  It’s spread primarily by pollen-bearing insects such as bees, and although it’s indigenous to North America it has since spread to the rest of the world.[1]  It’s extraordinarily damaging, especially to organic farmers whose orchards tend to contain more pollen-bearing insects thanks to decreased pesticide use.  That’s why organic farmers received an exemption to allow them to use these antibiotics on their fruit—but applpy pointed out that organic labels don’t require disclosure of antibiotic use anyway.

So where do we draw the line between antibiotic use and orchard health?  Fire blight is devastating, but antibiotic use in food has proven to be problematic;[2]

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Feeding The Soul

Posted on April 30, 2013 | Leave a comment

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Earlier today, I was almost giving up on my plan to write a food and poetry post in honor of National Poetry Month. April is almost over, after all. And then, a friend sent over an article on slaughterhouses (yes, friends sometimes do that!) and instead of reading it ,I clicked on the link to this beautiful piece by the poet Tony Hoagland. He makes the case that poetry is essential for improving  public discourse and recommends twenty poems that would change the way we analyze, discuss and debate national issues.

Mr. Hoagland invites us to imagine members of Congress debating the merits of subsidies to corn growers for producing ethanol as an alternative to gasoline. Perhaps, he suggests, the members might recall  “Traveling Through the Dark” by William Stafford as they debate this dilemma.

“To swerve might make more dead”, they might reflect.

Food policy and poetry on the same page, who would have thought it was possible? There are also life lessons to be learnt from the tasks necessary for providing food:

“You have to carry your own corn far….

You have to hunt without profit.”

Sometimes you have to be ready to take a step in a new direction, adopt a new technology that might make you uneasy because it will help ensure children do not go hungry, half the world away.

Yes, it would certainly be a better world if the harshness of our daily conflicts over food were softened by words that feed the soul.

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Appropriate technology to feed the planet

Posted on April 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

canwefeedtheworld's avatarOne Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World?

ID-100143278As we know the world faces the challenge of feeding a growing population in the context of a changing climate. Weather events currently impacting crop production are only expected to get more frequent and more severe. As a new report published by The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation and the London School of Economics, entitled Feeding the planet in a warming world. Building resilient agriculture through innovation, argues this challenge will require an agricultural system as well as individual crops that are more resilient to future shocks and stresses.

The report also argues that current policies to achieve a more resilient agricultural sector fail to recognise the inadequacy of relying only on existing technologies. While overcoming global socio-economic barriers to accessing and disseminating such appropriate technologies should be a priority this in itself is not enough. Authors claim that we will also require “critical, game-changing solutions for building…

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Liebster Award for Thought+Food

Posted on April 15, 2013 | Leave a comment

I was delighted to be nominated for the Liebster Blog Award by Janina at Food (Policy) For Thought .Thank you, it means a lot to know that my blog is being read with interest! I always enjoy the posts at Food (Policy) for Thought and would urge my readers to visit as well.

So, apart from celebrating with extra ice cream and putting up the Liebster button on my blog, I also get to nominate 5 awesome bloggers for the Liebster Award.

1. Feeding 7 billion

2. Food Governance

3. The Botanist in the  Kitchen

4. Fancy Beans

5. Cami Ryan


The rules for the award are:

  • Thank your Liebster Award presenter on your blog
  • Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you
  • Copy and paste the blog award on your blog
  • Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed
  • Inform them that they have been chosen by leaving a comment on their blog

The Liebster Award is a great way to bring attention to blogs that make for absorbing reading and I have nominated the ones I like a lot. It is hard to determine the number of followers (not all blogs have counters) but I hope no one will mind! Happy Blogging and reading , everyone!

 

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Do Food Deserts Matter?

Posted on April 10, 2013 | 1 comment

 

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There is a new study out which questions the relationship between food deserts and obesity as a basis for formulating public health policy. It finds a weak correlation between obesity and the distance traveled to the nearest grocery store. The authors of this study used a variable of 1 mile as a variable. They note that the lack of a strong relation might arise from the way our cities are laid out. Few people shop at neighborhood stores and in many areas (small towns, exurbs) the stores (think Walmart or Target) would be on the outskirts of the residential areas because they are usually huge and need plenty of space. Consumers would have to drive or take a bus there which might explain the lack of strong relationship between food sources and obesity. The study did find  a much stronger relationship between health and the existence of fast food outlets.

This study caught my attention for two reasons: first, hearing so much about food deserts in the media, I had accepted the validity of the term without thinking much about it. But if we stop to think about  we do need to ask: why the big emphasis on distance? Its not like people walk to their grocery store everyday to buy fresh supplies. Most people reserve it as a weekend chore with occasional week day dashes in case the milk runs out. Even if grocery stores are close by, what matters is the shopping list. If people are pressed for time, they will rely on processed foods rather than on fresh produce, a situation familiar to most of us . As a parent, a couple of evenings a week may be spent shuttling between different classes/ practice venues and dinner is eaten on the road so groceries and cooking are not even factors here.

The second thing that struck me was how little of the discussion on food actually  focuses on the research. There is always a lot of discussion based on the reporting and interpretation of studies in the media, blogs but how many of us ever take the time to read the original work? It is important that we do so and be able to interpret it , otherwise we are merely relying on what someone else has understood from it. It would also bring an appreciation for facts and a distancing from judgments based on second hand information or emotions alone. So, here is the link to this study, and I first read about it here.

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The Story of a Woman Farmer in the US

Posted on April 5, 2013 | Leave a comment

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In general, stories on women farmers are mostly accompanied by pictures of women in colorful native wear in a distant sunlight corner of the world. Here is a piece on an extraordinary woman farming in the US and is a role model for other women and young girls.

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Posted on April 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

Thanks to Grist.org for this informative post

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Honoring Women Farmers

Posted on March 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

women-planterToday is International Women’s Day, time to honor women farmers around the world. From the hog farmer in Michigan to farmers in India using traditional ,

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The Real Price of Food

Posted on March 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

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Looking back on grocery budgets for a few years , you might notice that almost all the items cost more today. Sure, prices rise with time and the weird weather impacting harvests everywhere also has a role to play, but there is another underlying factor which is at work here.  While commodities like corn or soy have historically been traded on exchanges, today the market is being changed by the entry of financial institutions and people that have no connection with the actual growing or selling of food. This type of trader deals in derivatives which are not positions on actual crops grown but some financial version of them. This means that the price of wheat, for example will not be influenced by the actual yield but speculation based on artificially created numbers. This creates much more volatility in the price of food grains than would normally be the case. The food system is already going to face the pressure of climate change, now we need to add to that an artificial and unnecessary pressure created by trading in commodity derivatives. It is precisely this type of speculation that fueled the disastrous housing bubble. That it should be permitted to function in the domain of food when nations and people are all struggling with food security is troubling.  The chances of such speculation being stopped entirely are slim but some effort for regulation and oversight is crucial. For more reading:

http://www.iatp.org/blog/201302/five-questions-for-frederick-kaufman-author-of-bet-the-farm-how-food-stopped-being-food

Click to access presspb2012d1_en.pdf

And just as I was getting ready to post , news on futures trading in turmeric! It seems that in a time of continuing global economic crisis, speculators have decided to put their bets on food and that is an ominous development.

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Posted in Food Justice, Food Security, Hunger, Living, Price Rise, Uncategorized

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