Good Food is Everybody's Business
We no longer know why we eat the way we eat — our eating habits have grown entirely eclectic. We’re as often as not focused on novelty, whimsy — a reflection of our personal identities, all clowns in a gigantic world trade circus. All our cultural connections to food are being lost — as are our natural connections to each other and the earth.
Have you noticed how conflicting news reports about water have been lately? Everybody wants it, we all need it, but no one seems to agree either on the relative availability of water into the future or how to manage it. One thing for sure, our food security depends on it.
I predict that retailers that use computer technology for background information, ordering, and direct communication and supplement it with one-on-one in-store personal contact – rather than flashing digital signs or packages that talk – will come out on top.
Dutch dairy farmer, Willy van Bakel, lived the American dream by buying and growing a successful 3,000-cow dairy farm in Michigan. Over the last 13 years he has helped 70 Dutch dairy farmers to immigrate to Ohio to set up their own farms. Was van Bakel helping his countrymen live the same dream or was he simply fleecing them out of millions of dollars?
In nearly back-to-back announcements, the USDA has cleared both genetically engineered alfalfa and “Roundup Ready” sugar beets in time for spring planting.
The 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee spent almost 2 years researching and writing a 453-page document, Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010, which was provided to the USDA and to the public as well as food industry for comment. Michael Pollan said it first.
Food and Water Watch has published a new report that examines how speculation on the commodity markets – which include agriculture – drove up prices. In the spring of 2008, huge jumps in food prices – up nearly double in the previous two years – triggered food riots around the world.
In a decision that has the “good food world” scratching its head, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack made a quick u-turn to give big ag a free lunch when it comes to GMOs. Here are just a few of the comments from a wide range of publications.
