Published on May 25th, 2008
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Who Feeds Us? is my attempt to investigate the lives of our farm workers. Who picks our crops and packages our meals and how are they treated in our name? What do we implicitly sanction as we swipe our debit cards through the checkout line?
The accompanying picture is of a migrant farm worker, much like Olivia Tamayo, who made history last week when she became the first female migrant worker to successfully bring a sexual harrassment suit against her employer to a federal jury. Ms. Tamayo was awarded over one million dollars in 2005 when a district court found Harris Farms guilty of sexual harrassment and descrimination. Last week, a federal court upheld that decision, finding that Harris Farms inappropriately responding after Ms. Tamayo was raped three times by her direct supervisor. Harris’ only action was to move Ms. Tamayo to an empty field that was closer to her rapist’s house.
Following the verdict, an alarming op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times described Ms. Tamayo’s plight as unique only in the attention it garnered. Sexual harrassment and assault of female farm workers is so prevalent, that a study conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) found that 90% of surveyed female farm workers considered it a “serious problem.” Read the rest of this entry »
Published on May 21st, 2008
I talked last week about how something that I struggle with as the cook/kitchen manager/stocker of our household is food waste–buying things with the good intentions of using them, only to find them two weeks later covered in mold or past the expiration date: food waste. Interestingly enough, the New York Times ran an article this weekend on the excessive food waste that happens in American households. With the cost of food skyrocketing, they’re not the only ones.
To be honest, the idea that we as a nation waste more food than some countries consume in a year is nothing new. Freegans have made a point of living off others’ perfectly-good “waste” for quite some time now.
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Published on May 15th, 2008
After a brief hiatus, Urban Agriculturalist is back! Urban Agriculturalist is a series on the ways city and suburb dwellers use their land as a food resource.
Last week, the New York Times featured a few part-time professional urban farmers in areas of New York City where a high demand and low supply of produce cause dietary and health problems. Increasingly, residents are seeing their abundance of abandoned lots as a new kind of food wealth.
In places like East New York, Brooklyn and the South Bronx, neighbors are getting together to create community gardens. But instead of toiling away on shared crops, each group grows and tends to his or her own plot. This allows more autonomy in deciding what to do with those hard-earned veggies. While some groups eat or give away their crops, many others decide to bring the fruits of their labor to market as a secondary source of income. One couple featured in the article, Denniston and Marlene Wilks, made over $3,000 dollars last year from four allotments. But the farmers insist it is not about the money: a South Bronx farmer, Karen Washington told the New York Times: “We’re selling so that people in our neighborhood have good quality. There’s no Whole Foods in my neighborhood.” Read the rest of this entry »
Published on May 14th, 2008
A good friend sent me Daniel Gross’ post on Slate.com, “The Agony of the Food Snob.” The article is a bit self-deprecating, a bit of humor, and a bit of a poke to food snobs’ plight as food prices rise for all of us. At times the article points out the more stupid purchases that defy reason, and at others, it shows that none of us — save the very wealthy — is immune to the price increase.
The last line of the piece is truly a challenge to all food snobs, “We’re spending obscene amounts on food we don’t need at a time when so many others are genuinely struggling to pay for enough basic sustenance to get them through the day.”
I am not a food snob. I am also on a budget these days. Even so, I certainly enjoy the best foods of every season, and the relative abundance and the fact that I can afford to eat when so many can’t has been weighing on me. I needed to do something to help.
So, here’s how I answered the challenge. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on May 11th, 2008
When the World Food Program (WFP) introduced free breakfasts to public schools in impoverished communities around the world, teachers immediately noticed a difference in their classrooms. Not only were students more alert and focused, they attended more regularly and were never late so as not to miss breakfast time. The quality of the students changed, but so did the quantity. The percentage of female students - most likely to be forced to stay behind to help earn income - sky-rocketed and the age of attendance fell. Four year olds began to attend school with their older siblings, sitting obediently in classes just for a free bowl of rice in the morning. In many impoverished families, children are forced to earn their keep in place of going to school. In addition to eradicating hunger, WFP made school attendance a central part of their goal for the breakfast program.
The WFP school feeding program has become a touchstone aspect of both the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the G8 action pact of 2002. Between the program’s inception in 1999 and its last data recorded in 2005, the number of children served has grown by 82%, which amounts to 21.7 million schoolchildren in 74 countries.
Now, despite its success and widespread acclaim, the International Herald is reporting that the WFP program will not continue in Cambodia - the first of many predicted shut-downs as rising food costs threaten the profoundly poor. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on April 29th, 2008
For people who don’t regularly read Vanity Fair, one might think it’s not much more than a fashion magazine, but VF is known not only for high-fashion photo spreads, but for in-depth exposés as well. This month, Vanity Fair is taking on agribusiness giant Monsanto in Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele’s article “Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear”.
We’ve written about Monsanto’s attempts to control both agribusiness and the public perception of agribusiness. Shirley wrote about Monsanto’s attempts to keep dairies from labeling their own milk “rbGH-free” and Beth wrote about Monsanto’s genetically-engineered sugar beets. Barlett and Steele focus on Monsanto’s tactics of attacking farmers for alleged patent violations and their impact on rural communities, and their article is a must-read for those interested in where their food comes from.
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Published on April 18th, 2008
As the prices of basic food staples like corn and wheat have risen 45% since the end of 2006 and food inflation has reached 80% in some countries, the world’s hungry are increasing in number and desperation. A poignant article on the front page of today’s New York Times shows a young girl standing on a garbage heap, interrupting her food foraging to pose for the photographer. The rising costs of food are causing not only desperation in Haiti, but a bread crisis in Egypt, riots in Burkina Faso and inflation-spurred government upheaval in Malaysia. The World Bank now lists 33 countries that are on the verge of large-scale upheaval due directly to inflated food costs. You can understand why I am finding it hard to post the Passover recipes I had planned for the weekend. Who can care about matzo candy when children featured in the Haiti article survive on two spoonfuls of rice each day?
But I didn’t just come here to bring you down. A new agricultural economics paper has given us some reason to hope, if we can organize our food industry to action.
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Published on April 14th, 2008
Urban Agriculturalist is a series on the ways city and suburb dwellers use their land as a food resource.
It is a truth well documented that community gardens foster unity among neighbors, but Germany’s Stiftung Interkultur has taken this logic a step further in the creation of its Intercultural Gardens. Communities in Berlin, Gottingen, Hamburg, and Munich (among others) are home to large and diverse immigrant populations, often living in close proximity. To encourage interaction and community spirit between German residents of all extractions, the Stiftung Interkultur has built a series of community gardens in which residents can share their gardening skills and horticultural knowledge with one another. The idea was born out of recognition that social exclusion plagued many new immigrants to Germany. Further, members of the discussions at Stiftung Interkultur felt that environmental and sustainable eating considerations were directed at the middle class, causing a secondary level of isolation that affected the health and eating practices of urban immigrants. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on April 9th, 2008
Bryant Terry is described as an “eco-chef” is the co-author of Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen, He has appeared on television as guest chef on three episodes of the BET series “My Two Cents,” and the Sundance Channel’s original series “Big Ideas for a Small Planet.” Bryant is also a host on “The Endless Feast,” a 13-episode PBS series that explores the connection between the earth and the food on our plates. Online, Terry contributes blog posts on Eco-Soul Food on TheRoot.com where he pairs locally-sourced soul food recipes with soundtracks.
While Terry’s eco-chef work is impressive, his role as an activist for “Food Justice” is truly compelling. Terry founded b-healthy! (Build Healthy Eating and Lifestyles to Help Youth) in 2001. The program is a five-year initiative created to raise awareness about food justice issues. It aims to empower youth to be active in creating a more just and sustainable food system.
Terry also initiated the Black and Green Food Justice Fund. Terry, along with three other activists, seeks out community-based projects that promote food justice and offers grants and support.
This year, Terry has started a third effort, the Southern Organic Kitchen Project. With the help of a Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellowship, Terry’s program will educate primarily African-Americans living in the Southern United States about the connections between diet and health. The goal is to empower them to make educated choices about healthy foods and community food sources, as well as help participants understand their ability to influence local and state food policies. The project serves an important need as this specific population experiences a high proportion of hypertension, diabetes, and other obesity-related illnesses.
Bryant Terry managed to make some time to do an interview for Eat. Drink. Better. on his current projects just as he started major work on his next book due out in 2009, Organic Soul. Interview after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
