Locavore news – world by Elbert van Donkersgoed
Posted: January 18, 2010
Categories: Food in the News / News from Sustain Ontario
Perspectives on good food and farming
January 18, 2010
Government to lead on food purchasing
The UK government plans to “lead by example†on sustainable food procurement to boost domestic production.
The public sector will aim to buy more local and sustainable produce in a bid to encourage other consumers to do the same. It is hoped this will help to secure the UK’s future food supplies as the population grows and climate change adversely affects agriculture.
Unveiling the Food 2030 strategy at the Oxford Farming Conference yesterday, environment secretary Hilary Benn said: “Food security is as important to this country’s future well-being – and the world’s – as energy security. We need to produce more food. We need to do it sustainably. And we need to make sure that what we eat safeguards our health.â€SupplyManagment.com story.
Chef’s Think Local is Hot in 2010 (again!)
The results are in from the annual National Restaurant Association survey of American Culinary Federation member chefs. The results are a comprehensive culinary forecast including a menu trends prediction report. More than 1,800 professional chefs ranked nearly 215 culinary items as a “hot trend,” “yesterday’s news,” or “perennial favorite” on restaurant menus in 2010. Ranking in the Top 20 Trends are: #1 Locally Grown Produce, #2 Locally Sourced Meats and Seafood, #3 Sustainability, #10 Sustainable Seafood, #12 Organic Produce and #20 Fruit/Vegetable Children’s Side Items. 2010 ChefSurvey (3MB PDF). YouTube video.
Can farming save Detroit?
Then one day about a year and a half ago, Hantz had a revelation. “We need scarcity,” he thought to himself as he drove past block after unoccupied block. “We can’t create opportunities, but we can create scarcity.” And that, he says one afternoon in his living room between puffs on an expensive cigar, “is how I got onto this idea of the farm.” Yes, a farm. A large-scale, for-profit agricultural enterprise, wholly contained within the city limits of Detroit. CNNMONEY.COM/DETROIT story.
Is Local Food More Expensive?
Interest in local food systems has increased dramatically as has the number of farmers’ markets in Iowa and nationwide. This growing popularity has sparked a common question: Is local food more expensive than its non-local counterpart? A research scan finds a dearth of studies showing the prices consumers pay for locally grown food products. Given these developments, the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture’s Marketing and Food Systems Initiative conducted consumer market research in June, July, and August 2009 to examine what Iowa consumers pay for locally grown products and how these prices compare to non-local market channel prices. Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture report.
MO Farmers Feed us launches Website
​A new branding campaign from the Center for Food Integrity hopes to increase consumer confidence in the food production system by introducing people to local farmers in five states. At the Web site, Farmers Feed Us, you can learn about farm families from Missouri, as well as Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Ohio. The site launched yesterday and looks like an attempt to tap into the locavore movement — putting a smaller face on the world of agribusiness. This feels like a high-tech version of the old wooden billboard on I-70 — one Kansas farmer feeds 128 people and you. There is also a contest to win free groceries for a year. The Pitch Kansas City blog.
London could significantly increase its food production
A report issued this month by the London Assembly suggests that London could significantly increase its food production, particularly on underutilized agricultural land in the city’s Green Belt, if current planning obstacles were lifted. The report calls on Mayor Boris Johnson to make the following key changes to the London Plan, and local planning policies, to encourage the growth of urban food production: •       Ensure that London’s Green Belt Policy explicitly encourages food growing as one of the most beneficial land uses in the Green Belt. Research by the Assembly found that commercial farmers faced pressure from housing development and were often hindered in their efforts to expand their farming infrastructure or to diversify through the construction of on-farm retail facilities by planning policies designed to minimize development in the Green Belt. Report: Cultivating the Capital: Food growing and the planning system in London (.5MB PDF).
Local food fights climate change?
As agricultural experts met in Copenhagen last weekend to gingerly build consensus on agriculture’s role in climate change, some agriculture producers in Canada offered another solution to farming’s cost on the environment — change the way farming is practised. “We clearly need to reverse directions,” says Darrin Qualman, the director of research for the National Farmers Union. “We need to move towards lower emission agriculture and that means changing direction away from industrialized agriculture and globalization of the food system, but farmers need not fear that,” he says. Canadian Press story on Farm Credit Canada Express.
Community in Crisis Looks to Its Agricultural Roots
Renowned for its historic Native American pueblo, cultural ties to Spain, bohemian artists, and world-class ski resort, Taos is also one of the many communities in the U.S. facing food insecurity. But the region was once the breadbasket of northern New Mexico, and a grassroots movement is seeking to position it as a model for sustainable agriculture. One recent cold Saturday in January, board members of a small non-profit gathered in a greenhouse heated with bio-fuel and bursting with ripe lettuces and spinach. Tierra Lucero’s mission, according to their website, is “to support food and energy sovereignty for our community”. Inter Press Service story.
Is this the end of food as we know it?
A new film paints an apocalyptic picture of a world reduced to tinned goods. But could it ever happen here, asks Bee Wilson on the Telegraph.co.uk website.
Nine Recommendations for Legislation to Protect Our Community Gardens
1. Strengthening language from the State Attorney General’s agreement to protect the rights of community gardens. 2. All remaining Housing Preservation Department which can be developed as community gardens or housing to become permanent GreenThumb Parks Department gardens. Complete list on the website of the New York City Community Gardens Coalition.
AND if You Have Time
Even real farmers play Facebook game FarmVille — 74 Million Users per Day
A social media game about farming has skyrocketed to popularity on Facebook, attracting more than 73.8 million daily users worldwide just six months after it was launched. FarmVille, developed by the California gaming firm Zynga, is the most popular game among Facebook’s 350 million users. It allows the ordinary city person to become a virtual farmer. You can get up at virtual dawn, plant virtual crops and raise virtual animals, even buy virtual little red tractors. Users say it is addictive, thanks to the satisfaction of seeing your harvest grow in size.
But what do real farmers think? CBC.ca story.