Northwestern University to Host NU Food Talks

****** CHANGE OF LOCATION ********

This event will NOT be held in Parkes Hall. Stay posted for new location.

 Calling all Foodies! Yes, you, the person who wants to know their food. 

You know that organic banana you’re munching come from Costa Rica, but do you know how it was produced?  Do you know how it was transported to your grocery? How about the cost breakdown of the 98 cents a pound you paid?

Join the Northwestern University Sustainable Food Talks (NU Food Talks).  The program’s mission is to strengthen our sustainable food systems network, our knowledge base, and find ways together to maximize our outreach.

They will host a pot-luck talking group the first Tuesday of each month made up of students, faculty, staff, community members, food advocates and experts.  Each meeting features an expert from part of our food system who will speak on their work, the issues they face, and how it affects our foodshed. From these conversations they will develop action points for individuals and initiatives to be implemented by partnering organizations.

The first official kick-off pot-luck is:

Tuesday, March 6 from 6:30-8:00pm

Evanston, IL Campus. 

If you are a student, faculty, staff, or community member and would like to join their planning committee please e-mail them at nusustainablefoodtalks@gmail.com 

For more information visit their blog at http://www.nusustainablefoodtalks.blogspot.com/

Follow them on Twitter @NUFoodTalks

Like them on Facebook NU Food Talks

Panel on Institutional Food Buying, AUA

Yesterday, Wednesday February 1, 2012, the Chicago Advocates for Urban Agriculture hosted their winter meeting at the Garfield Park Conservatory.  There were two important ideas brought up concerning the challenges Institutions face when purchasing local, whole produce.

• Changing Institutional buying to purchase local and organic requires kitchens to re-skill their staff for new menus (cutting veggies instead of using pre-cut veggies).
• Changing Institutional buying requires working across department silos to cost cuts in energy, water and time management (etc) in order to move money to purchasing for the true cost of local food and the labor costs for skilled cooks.

Facilitator:

Kathy Nyquist, New Venture Advisors

Panelists:

Greg Christian, Beyond Green: Sustainable Food Partners

Kyle Schafter, UNITE HERE

Joan Hopkins, Coordinator of Chicago Botanic Garden, Windy City Harvest, Cook County Boot Camp

Ben Perkins, Purchasing Buyer for Goodness Greeness

Senate Ag Committee Farm Bill Hearing Schedule Announced

Senator Debbie Stabenow, Chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, today announced the Committee’s Farm Bill hearing schedule for February and March, noting that the Committee will continue examining Farm Bill principles and evaluating policy solutions to develop a 2012 Farm Bill.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Senator Debbie Stabenow, Chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, today announced the Committee’s Farm Bill hearing schedule for February and March, noting that the Committee will continue examining Farm Bill principles and evaluating policy solutions to develop a 2012 Farm Bill. Below are the details of the next series of hearings (dates and topics are subject to change).

Wednesday, February 15
Title: Energy and Economic Growth for Rural America
A hearing to evaluate policies that make investments in jobs and opportunities for farmers and rural businesses through new markets, entrepreneurship, regional strategies and energy innovation.

Wednesday, February 29
Title: Strengthening Conservation through the 2012 Farm Bill
A hearing to explore the Conservation title’s important investment in America – the nation’s fundamental resources of our water, soils and other natural resource infrastructure – through policies that help farmers maintain soil health, keep our water clean and available, our food abundant and safe and our wildlife plentiful so as to protect the basic principles of farming and our way of life for future generations.

Wednesday, March 14
Title: Healthy Food Initiatives, Local Production and Nutrition
A hearing to explore innovative opportunities in agriculture through policies that assist the development of local markets for farmers – connecting them to the growing consumer demand for locally-produced, healthy food options.

Wednesday, March 21
Title: Risk Management and Commodities in the 2012 Farm Bill
A hearing to evaluate the need for and cost effectiveness of risk management tools available to farmers who continue to face increasingly volatile crop prices, input costs and the threat of natural disasters; and how the federal government can provide appropriate risk-management tools while making the best use of limited resources.
Witnesses, times and other specific hearing details to be announced. Senate Agriculture Committee hearings are available for viewing on the Committee website at http://ag.senate.gov.

 Click here to see the schedule (note that details are subject to change).

Expanding My Mind with a Book, Expanding Our Knowledge with Action

Have you read a book where all the ideas you've been thinking and mulling over are boiled down into one ah-ha moment? In the last few days I've been reading from John E. Ikerd's book Crisis and Opportunity Sustainability in American Agriculture.  You might think, "I know this idea of sustainable agriculture can solve the problems in today's food system, but how do I prove that?  I don't have the argument or the years of research."

Problem solved.  Read this book.  Then buy this book.  Read it again next year.

John E. Ikerd's book Crisis and Opportunity Sustainability in American Agriculture

"Many "low-input" farmers are already achieving yields equal to or greater than conventional high-yield with low input systems of farming.  The knowledge and expertise required to achieve high yields with low inputs are not nearly as common among farmers as are commercial agriculture technologies.  However, many others are capable of acquiring this ability, if they realized it was possible and had an incentive to do so.  In addition, sustainable agriculture today is in its infancy; sustainable farmers are but the early explorers on a new frontier.  As they accumulate increased understanding and know-how, their productive abilities will undoubtedly increase as well.  If we invest a fraction of the research and development efforts on regenerative farming methods in the future that we have invested in industrial methods in the past, our overall ability to produce by sustainable methods in the future may easily surpass our ability to produce by conventional methods." p17

Do you want to learn more about these methods? Visit the following organizations:

Michael Fields Agricultural Institute

Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association

The Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES)

Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program

The Horse Slaugher Debate: Is Anyone Debating?

My family and I are horse lovers, we view horses as workers and friends just like ourselves.  I volunteer at a horse theater in Chicago, IL; my husband's cousins own thoroughbreds in Louisville, KY; and my mother's cousins run a horse farm that retires thoroughbreds and working horses in New York state. There's a great deal of care that goes into our horses and their welfare, so when a ban on the slaughter of horse is lifted in the United States we have reason to pause.  The following article as posted on The Atlantic, shows one view of many.

 

The Empathy Test: Why Nobody Cares About Horse Slaughter

By James McWilliams Dec 7 2011, as posted on The Atlantic

Early last week Congress voted to lift the ban on horse slaughter in the United States. The act has surely sent legions of horse lovers into deep depression. But the message I'm hearing from many advocates in the animal welfare world is that this decision will benefit domestic horses.

As it turns out, the most common destination for U.S. horses deemed ready for slaughter was Mexico, where slaughterhouse regulation is weak. Horses killed in the United States, I'm told, will assuredly be better off than if they'd been killed in Mexico. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), partially in deference to this logic, agrees. And as the matter is now framed, so do I.

But what I find especially disturbing is the frame. As a culture that's becoming increasingly serious about the ethics of eating, why are we more concerned with discussing where an animal should be slaughtered than whether it should be slaughtered at all? Such an ethical bypass is a stark reminder of how impoverished our thinking about the place of animals in our diet remains. The goal of this essay is thus not so much to elaborate on Congress' decision per se, but to expand the framework in which it was made and, in turn, see how the picture changes.

To do so, we might consider ducks. A significant number of ethically concerned consumers deem foie gras nothing short of a diabolical slice of suffering. Famous chefs have sworn off the stuff, and I wish I had a dime for every omnivore I know who opposes foie gras on ethical grounds. This opinion prevails despite humanity's remote relationship with the duck -- we've never worked or lived closely with these creatures, nor do we care for them as companion animals. Nonetheless, we're somehow vehement about protecting one of their internal organs.

This position stands in obvious contrast to the collective yawn we just let out upon hearing the big news that the domestically-slaughtered horse -- an animal with whom we've plowed fields, colonized continents, waged war, rode to victory, and (with thankful rarity) buggered --may be coming to a meat counter near you.

So, the question: Why do so many people consider duck liver bad but horse meat OK? The most common response to this disparity will likely be that it's the the way an animal is raised that matters when it comes to the ethical consumption of animal products. Ducks suffer when tubes are shoved down their throats to swell their livers, but horses can lead a good life and die peacefully in an abattoir. This argument is flawed.

To continue reading, visit The Atlantic here: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/the-empathy-test-why-nobody-cares-about-horse-slaughter/249559/