Good Food is Everybody's Business
The problem of agriculture is as old as civilization. Throughout history, great societies that abused their land withered into poverty or disappeared entirely. Now we risk repeating this ancient story on a global scale due to ongoing soil degradation, a changing climate, and a rising population.
But there is reason for hope.
Grass, Soil, Hope is a compendium of sites and associated behaviors all pointing to some aspect of stewardship. The scope is worldly including farmers and ranchers in Australia but also very domestic describing the trials and tribulations of a rooftop vegetable grower in New York City.
Collaboration as opposed to division is expressed throughout.
Big Food, Big Ag, Big Org(anic), and Big Business have all convinced us that the “American Food System” is a wonderful thing to be maintained at all costs.
Maintained on the backs of farmworkers, meat processing workers, food service workers, and other “invisible” workers, our food system delivers cheap strawberries from California, Mexico, and Chile year ‘round, and chicken nuggets and hamburgers by the barrel full.
Traveling in a campervan – The Rainbow – for 10 months across South America with two kids and a dog; what could go wrong? Nico Parco, our contributor, explains…
2019 ApplePalooza: 1720 pounds of apples, 43 cartons to share, and 60-some of your closest friends: a do-it-yourself buying club. Here’s how Sarah Oien Page did it.
On a drizzly Saturday, Dave Scott (a livestock specialist with the National Center for Appropriate Technology, NCAT) and Brent Roeder (Montana State University, MSU, sheep specialist), lead a workshop on grazing, practices, integrated parasite management, FAMACHA© scoring, and new sheep identification and handling methods. It could have been titled, “All Things Sheep, Kids (the 2-legged kind), Barber Pole Worms, and Mud… and Community.”
The sanctuary was full, pews were packed, and we were there to hear Bob Quinn talk about his journey from conventional wheat farmer in north central Montana to organic farmer and marketer of an ancient grain sold around the world.Like the traveling preacher of old, Bob took the podium and started talking. The more he talked, the faster he talked. It was exhilarating, educational, and… exhausting!
Supermarkets and big box stores offer nearly 50,000 – or more – products for us to choose from to feed ourselves and our families. A nation-wide analysis of U.S. grocery purchases revealed that highly processed foods make up more than 60 percent of the calories in food we buy, and these items tend to have more fat, sugar and salt than less-processed foods.
If we don’t understand the high cost of bad food – to ourselves, our families, our communities, and our economy – we will see life expectancy shorten, chronic diseases increase, and healthcare costs continue to spiral. Selecting locally grown and minimally processed food items – good food – can mean more healthful and nutritious food on your plate.
