Locavore News – World

Author: Kyle L. McGregor

Posted: April 27, 2010

Categories: News from Sustain Ontario

• Buy, Buy American Pie
• Cleveland adopts local food incentives
• Selected Food Policy Council Success Stories
• St. Joe’s Plows Ahead with Local Food
• Vertical Farming
• The Ohio State University Public Policy Capstone: Local Food Group
• Ferrum College hopes to use 50 percent of local foods
• General Election 2010: UK to be 100% organic in 50 years, pledges Green Party
• Food, Inc. premieres on PBS Wed., April 21st
• Chef redefines “locavore” by making cheese out of his wife’s breast milk

Perspectives on good food and farming by Elbert van Donkersgoed
April 26, 2010

Buy, Buy American Pie

Uncle Sam points out the problems we have when we buy cheap products from China. “Buy, Buy American Pie” was written and performed by the Capitol Steps. Visit them at www.CapSteps.com.  This is a parody and involves exaggeration. Music Video on YouTube.

Cleveland adopts local food incentives

Today’s Cleveland-Cuyahoga Food Policy Coalition meeting shed light on Cleveland’s new policy to attract and create local, sustainable business. New legislation allows the city to offer a 5% discount to local food businesses bidding for city contracts. Since most bids are decided by 5% or less, a discount for being a certified Local Sustainable Business—a process that will be determined by the Cleveland Office of Sustainability—will offer a ‘huge’ advantage. “This is the springboard for Mayor Jackson’s self-help economy,” said Jermaine Brooks of Cleveland’s Office of Equal Opportunity, which will monitor the bids and contracts along with its Minority and Female-owned bid incentive programs. “We will be known by purchasing locally.” Sustainable Cities Collective story.

Selected Food Policy Council Success Stories

The Knoxville Food Policy Council has helped build support for a dedicated School Nutrition Education Supervisor position with Knox County Schools, developed a food monitoring system, improved access to full-service grocery via public transit, and worked with the city government to incorporate food impact assessments into planning and zoning decisions. Massachusetts Food Policy Alliancewebsite.

St. Joe’s Plows Ahead with Local Food

Head north on Hewitt Road from Washtenaw Avenue, past Eastern Michigan’s Rynearson Stadium to the edge of the St. Joseph Mercy Hospital campus. Off to the right is a plot of land that the health provider is now returning to a previous use – farming. The centerpiece of the current effort is a 30 x 96-foot hoop house, which began construction on Monday. It will be joined by a second hoop house later in the summer, and plans call for a dozen of the structures to be built in the coming years. The vegetables grown on the plot will be used in the hospital cafeteria and patient meals, and sold at a farmers market, with excess donated to Food Gatherers. The Ann Arbor Chronicle story.

Vertical Farming

Dickson Despommier became the guru of vertical farming because his students were bummed out. A professor of environmental health at Columbia University in New York City, Despommier teaches about parasitism, environmental disruption and other assorted happy topics. Eventually his students complained; they wanted to work on something optimistic. So the class began studying the idea of rooftop gardening for cities. They quickly discarded that approach–too small-scale–in favor of something more ambitious: a 30-story urban farm with a greenhouse on every floor. “I think vertical farming is an idea that can work in a big way,” says Despommier. Time Magazine story.

The Ohio State University Public Policy Capstone: Local Food Group

The purpose of this report is to provide the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) with an overview of local food systems in several cities across North America. Specifically, this research seeks to codify and analyze local food plan parameters, problems and policy solutions from cities and regions with local food systems and to provide a comparison for Central Ohio. In conjunction with larger MORPC efforts, this report will help to illuminate the successes and setbacks of other cities’ local food production, processing, distribution and consumption. This comparative analysis of the five benchmark cities will help to establish an effective Central Ohio plan: Flint, MI; Philadelphia, PA; Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN; Toronto, Canada; and San Francisco, CA. Executive Summary for Local Food Initiatives

Ferrum College hopes to use 50 percent of local foods

Offerings at the Panther’s Den cafeteria on Ferrum College’s campus Tuesday included milk and ice cream from local dairy Homestead Creamery, ground beef from a Floyd farm and lettuce from the college’s own 80-acre farm. The local menu, an everyday occurrence at the college, was on display Tuesday for U.S. Sen. Mark Warner D-Va., and U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Albemarle County, as students and school officials touted their efforts to “go green.” The school’s local food procurement and farm-to-cafeteria programs make up about 30 percent of the food used in the cafeteria, said Michael Martin, director of dining services. It’s his goal to partner with more local farms and businesses to increase the amount of local foods and services used to 50 percent in the fall. The Roanoke (Virginia) Times story.

General Election 2010: UK to be 100% organic in 50 years, pledges Green Party

UK farming could be completely organic within fifty years under Green Party plans to protect the environment and make food production more sustainable. Unveiling its manifesto on Thursday (15 April), the party said it would set targets to convert a minimum 10% of the country’s food production to organic every five years if it won the general election. Farmers Weekly Interactive story.

Food, Inc. premieres on PBS Wed., April 21st

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli — the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults. Synopsis.

Chef redefines “locavore” by making cheese out of his wife’s breast milk

A popular New York chef has managed to push the boundaries of the culinary world and the locavore movement at the same time.Daniel Angereris now making cheese made from his wife’s breast milk at his NYC restaurant Klee Brasserie. The idea came eight weeks ago, when his wife began producing excess milk after giving birth. Since he went public with this invention, Angerer has discovered two things: human breast milk produces a surprisingly palatable cheese—like cow’s milk, only sweeter—and that media outlets can feed on this kind of story for weeks. Since Angerer posted his cheese story on his blog last month, it has gained attention from NBC, the Toronto Star and even the Big Money. Toronto Life story.

AND if You Have Time

New food play called “Feast” serves up tasty food memories and stirring views on food policy

Let’s face it, food policy can be pretty boring. But not in the hands of the teenagers at the Albany Park Theater Project, who opened their new show “Feast” last Friday at Eugene Field Park. The show, based on interviews and personal experiences Albany Park residents, offers three views of kids on food stamps as well as a diverse buffet of immigrant food memories. I walked in as a curious local foodie but walked out as an astonished food policy journalist with a new perspective on her beat. Chicago Tribune story.