Ecotopia

Date: July 10, 2012

Tonight we’ll be talking with Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, the Executive Director and co-founder of MomsRising, We’ll hear the mission and work of MomsRising, a million-strong grassroots nonprofit focusing on critical issues facing women, mothers and families. We’ll then talk about one of the current efforts of MomsRising to convince Trader Joe’s to source their meat only from animals raised without antibiotics.

Listen to the Program

Our Questions for Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner.

Part I:

1. What does MomsRising do? What’s its mission?

2. What makes MomsRising unique?

3. How did MomsRising began? How old is it?

4. I get MomsRising emails on various actions you propose and support. The list is amazing—everything from opposing Gymboree’s sexist t-shirts to legislation on family leave for taking care of babies, access to health care, maintaining support for WIC, maintaining clean air. Can you tell us what your criteria are for choosing the issues you want to pursue?

5. How do you go about achieving your goals? How do you work? Do you work primarily at the national level?

6. What have been some of your biggest successes?

7. Tell us about your MomsRising blog.

Part II:

We want to turn now to one of their current efforts, convincing Trader Joes to source their meat only from animals raised without antibiotics.

1. First of all, can you tell us why antibiotics in meat is an issue MomsRising decided to undertake?

2. What are important elements of antibiotics in meat that you want people to understand?

3. Why did you decide to make Trader Joes the target of this campaign?

4. Did you approach them before you began the campaign to try to convince them that this is an action the company should take?

5. I know you are asking people to sign an open letter to Trader Joes. How is that going? Are there other aspects of this action? Is there an “ending time” for the action? How will you know when you’re done?

6. What are some of the other work MomsRising is currently engaged in?

7. How can people become involved in MomsRising? What can they do? How do the contact you?

We’ve been talking with Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, co-founder and executive directorof MomsRising. Thank you so much for coming on the show. www.momsrising.org

Play list:

1. Your Mother Should Know 2:30 The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour

2. Mother of My Soul 6:27 Shimshai maui live at mandala World

3. Mother And Child 3:41 Dezarie Gracious Mama Africa Reggae

4. Mother Stands For Comfort 3:08 Kate Bush Hounds Of Love Alternative & Punk

5. Weave Me the Sunshine 4:28 Peter, Paul And Mary The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary Folk 100 7/6/12 3:57 PM

6. Mother And Child Reunion 2:49 Paul Simon Negotiations And Love Songs 1971-1986 General Pop

 

 

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July 3, 2012

This week we will be taking a look at the Rio+20 conference which finished up ten days ago in Rio de Janeiro. 1000 delegates and heads of state from around the world met on the 20th anniversary of the first Rio environment conference on the environment to talk about progress (if any) and to reach new agreements on controlling climate change. (Our head of state, by the way, did not attend the conference.)

Tonight we’ll be playing an interview we recorded this morning with two people who attended Rio+20 as observers and activists in their own right. From San Francisco, we’ll hear from Heather Box, who will talk about her Million Person Project creating community around the globe through storytelling.  And from Uganda, we will be hearing from Kaganga John, a remarkable farmer, environmentalist, and activist who has been working with his neighbors for twenty years to improve the quality of life and sustainability in his rural village.

Listen to the program.

Background on Rio+20

This is Ecotopia on KZFR, and tonight we are looking at the recent Rio+20 international conference and at the whole problem of getting nations to agree on climate change resolutions through conferences such as Rio, Copenhangen and its followup in Durbin, South Africa. There are dozens of reviews of the outcomes of Rio in newspapers and blogs around the world, and virtually none of these is positive. (The official UN Rio+20 website lists a number of gains and agreements, but it is alone in being upbeat

U.N. Report from Rio on Environment a ‘Suicide Note’
By MARK MCDONALD

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development has wrapped up in Rio de Janeiro — contentiously so — marking two decades since the first Earth Summit was held, also in Rio, in 1992.

The recent three-day meeting was more easily known as Rio+20, but so few specifics, so few targets, so few tangible decisions came out of the gathering that some participants were derisively calling it “Rio Minus 20,” or “Rio Plus 20 Minus 40.”

A failure of epic proportions” was the verdict from Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International.

More than a year of “sophisticated U.N. diplomacy has given us nothing more than more poverty, more conflict and more environmental destruction,” said Lasse Gustavsson, executive director for conservation at the World Wildlife Fund.

“An outcome that makes nobody happy,” was how Sha Zukang of China put it — and he was the Rio+20 secretary-general.

The final statement from Rio, “The Future We Want,” is 283 paragraphs of kumbaya that “affirm,” “recognize,” “underscore,” “urge” and “acknowledge” seemingly every green initiative and environmental problem from water crises and creeping deserts to climate change and overfishing. Women’s rights, indigenous peoples, children, mining, tourism, trade unions and the elderly also get shout-outs in the document.

The word “reaffirm” is used 60 times.

As the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote in an editorial:

“To be sure, all of the great questions facing humanity make an appearance in the document, but without any attempt at a binding agreement. The Rio+20 conference, which really should have provided a new spark, has instead shined the spotlight on global timidity. Postpone, consider, examine: Even the conference motto — ‘The Future We Want’ — sounds like an insult. If this is the future we want, then good night.” [Read the report at http://www.un.org/en/sustainablefuture/]

“If all countries are satisfied with the lowest common denominator, if they no longer want to discuss what needs to be discussed . . . then the dikes are open. There is no need anymore for a conference of 50,000 attendees. Resolutions that are so wishy-washy can be interpreted by every member state as they wish. No one needs Rio.”

[Greenpeace Executive Director] Mr. Naidoo called the final report the “longest suicide note in history.” Jim Leape, director general of the World Wildlife Fund, said it was “a colossal failure of leadership and vision from diplomats.”

http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/u-n-report-from-rio-on-environment-a-suicide-note/

Our Questions for Kaganga John and Heather Box

This is Ecotopia on KZFR and we are delighted to have two guests on the phone to tell us about the Rio+20 conference and about their own efforts to expand the global community and make our planet a sustainable place to live.

Kaganga John is talking to us from Uganda. He is a farmer, activist, and environmentalist who lives in the village of Kikandwa. He has been working there for over twenty years helping the community become sustainable, and his accomplishments and commitment are legendary around the world. He attended and spoke out at Rio +20 arguing for support for local sustainability programs. Welcome Kaganga John.
And talking to us from San Francisco is an activist Heather Box, who also attended Rio +20. In addition to being an environmentalist she is one of the founders of the Million Person Project, which helps connect people worldwide through storytelling. Thanks for being with us, Heather.

Part I: Rio+20

–Let’s start with the Rio+20 conference. Why did you decide to attend? What were your hopes and expectations for the conference?

–Rio+20 had about 1000 official delegates, while about 45,000 activists and environmentalists were in the streets of Rio. Please give us your impressions of the conference. Tell us about some of the people you met and your own experiences at the conference.

–The international press has been scathing in its review of Rio+20, saying that it failed to accomplish even very modest objectives. There has been considerable criticism of the conference final statement, “The Future We Want,” as being a vague confirmation of past agreements and offering no significant new commitments. What is your assessment of the outcome?
…What were the disappointments?
…What encouragement or successes did you percieve?

What we have to learn from the Ocean
My poetic thinking on Rio+20
by Kaganga John

When I look out at the ocean water
I reflect and wish that we people were like that
Each wave, going up and down, mixing, unifying
Going here and there
Sharing, flowing into each other
Ever busy
Finding balance
Looking for one another
Interacting
You look out here at the ocean
And you know all over the world
Even on the other end of the Indian Ocean
It is the same
All the waves moving in one basin
How can we people achieve this type of justice, peace, love and sustainability
Let us start here at Rio +20

–A number of people we have interviewed on this program have said, in effect, “Don’t count on governments.” Is there any hope for global conferences and agreements? Should we bother having a Rio+30 or a Copenhagen+10?

–Can local and regional initiatives possibly accomplish what governments cannot?

Seque to:

Part II: Kaganga John’s Story

–Kaganga John: Heather has recently written your story on Huffington Post (and we’ll post that link on our website). Your mother died when you were 2; you were raised by your grandmother and aunt; you left Kikandwa at age 17. Then you came back. Please tell us your story.

–Please tell us about the projects that have been initiated during the past 20 years. What steps has Kikandwa taken toward sustainability. economic? agricultural? educational?

–What kind of support did you receive for these projects? Or did you do it mostly with local resources?

–Two of your maxims are “local to global” and “small to large.” What lessons can we learn from your experiences? What are your hopes for a sustainable Kikwanda? Uganda? Africa? World?

–How can our listeners learn more about your work and become involved with it?

Part III: Million Person Project

–Heather Box, you met Kaganga John through a program you initiated, the Million Person Project. Please tell us about its mission.

–Much of your work centers on storytelling. Please tell us how that works. [Our station, KZFR, hosted the NPR StoryCorps project last year, so most of our listeners are already on board with the value of storytelling.]

–What’s the Global Pen Pal Project?

–You’ve done workshops all over the world. Please give us an example or several of places you’ve visited, people you’ve met (including Kaganga John).

–Help us reconnect the Million Person Project with Rio+20. What do you see as the connection between storytelling and a more sustainable world?

–How can listeners learn more about your project and become involved?

We want to thank our guests for being with us, Kaganga John in Uganda, Heather Box in San Francisco. Your work is amazing and inspirational. Thank you for all you’re doing to help create a more sustainable, more humane world.

We will post links to the websites, facebook sites, Hpost, Utube, and others on our website, ecotopiakzfr.net.

Connect with the Million Person Project at http://www.millionpersonproject.org/mpp/

http://www.un.org/en/sustainablefuture/

Playlist:

1. Death Of Mother Nature Suite (Album Version) 7:54 Kansas Kansas
2. Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth 2:14 Neko Case Middle Cyclone
3. Global Warming Blues 3:42 Lenny Solomon Armando's Pie
4. Slower Than Guns (LP Version) 3:50 Iron Butterfly Metamorphosis
5. Supernova 4:42 Liquid Blue Supernova
6. Waiting for the Worms 3:58 Pink Floyd The Wall
7. Will There Be Enough Water? 6:20 The Dead Weather Horehound
8. The Rape Of The World 7:08 Tracy Chapman New Beginning Folk
9. Weave Me the Sunshine 4:28 Peter, Paul And Mary The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary

 

 

 

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June 12, 2012

This week on Ecotopia will be addressing two environmental topics.  In the first half hour, we’ll talk with Harvey Wasserman, who is an anti-nuclear power activist, about his research into world wide reaction to the Fukushima-Daichii disaster a year ago.  It seems that a number of nuclear power programs are now on hold or even being abandoned as the world recognizes the catastrophic consequences of unsafe nuclear plants.

Then in the second part of the show, we will talk with Case Western University law professor Jonathan Adler.  He has some interesting ideas about how we might be able to use property rights–the right to protect our own property–as a way of taking on larger issues of environmental degradation.|

Our Questions for Harvey Wasserman

Our guest in this segment, Harvey Wasserman, is a world renown expert on utility deregulation, atomic power and  renewable alternatives. He is Editor of www.nukefree.org website and his frequent commentaries are widely circulated on the internet.    We spoke with Harvey about a year ago following the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.  He has recently written two articles  about how reactions to Fukishima have slowed the development of nuclear power worldwide.  Welcome, Harvey.

–Your most recent article carries the title, “Hot Sushi.”  Please tell us what has happened.  [Cesium 137 in tuna off the coast of California, NPR reassurance that it is safe to eat.]

–You have also researched and documented a number of slowdowns and protests around the globe.  Please tell us what is happening in:

… Japan [total shutdown of nuclear plants, note that GE and Westinghouse are Japanese owned]
…China [30 reactors on hold]
…India [hunger strikes outside Koodankulam nuclear facility]
…France [election of François Hollande reduces pro-nuke pressure]
…Germany [focus on green energy policy]

–When we spoke a year ago, you were concerned about the U.S. plans to provide $37 billion in loan guarantees to the nuclear industry.  Please tell us about that and other roadblocks to the nuclear industry.  What is happening in:
… Georgia [Vogtle loan $8.33 billion on hold]
… California [San Onofre shutdowns]
… Nebraska [flooded Calhoun]
… Vermont, New York, Ohio, Texas.  [pressure to forever close Vermont Yankee, New York’s Indian Point, Ohio’s Davis-Besse, South Texas and more continues to escalate]

–Where do things stand with the Yucca Mountain project for nuclear waste storage?  If Yucca is delayed or canceled, wouldn’t this also slow down nuclear power development?

–What can our listeners do to be more involved and to register their concerns?  [Sign the petition, visit www.nukefree.org]

Our Questions for Jonathan Adler

Jonathan Adler is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, where he teaches several environmental law courses. He is currently a contributing editor to National Review Online and regular contributor to the legal blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. We were intrigued by a blog he recently posted on atlantic.com entitled “How Property Rights Could Help Save the Environment.”  Welcome Professor Adler.

–You begin your essay on atlantic.com by referring to something called “the tragedy of the commons.”  What is that concept, and how does that relate to your idea of “approaching environmental problems from a property rights perspective”?  How can “the creative extension of property rights to ecological resources … help address many environmental problems”?

–You discuss the fishing industry as an example, writing that  “Fisheries are in trouble the world over, but property-based management regimes are a demonstrated way to prevent overfishing and fishery collapse.”  Please explain.

–You also discuss the Endangered Species Act as a complex example of how property rights and the environment could work toward a common goal, but you also note that the ESA, “in effect, punishes private landowners for having maintained their land in a way that is beneficial for listed species.” Could you tell us a little more about this, especially from a legal perspective?

–Susan take this one > Monsanto/Morton. You argue that “In principle, a commitment to property rights should entail a commitment to protecting people and their property from unprivileged or unconsented to invasions.”  You also note, “In practice, however, this can be difficult to do.”

[On this program, we have frequently discussed the problem of pollen from genetically modified plants (particularly corn and beets) drifting onto an organic farmer’s or seedgrower’s land and polluting the crops.  Yet the organic farmer is held liable for patent infringement. How might this be addressed from a property rights perspective?]

–Are there test cases concerning the environment and property rights that are going on presently?  Could you give us an example or two?

–What kinds of cases would you like to see introduced in the future to put the theory into action?  What is the longer range potential of this approach to be systematically a part of environmental actions and protection? [“Though I believe in property-based solutions to many (if not most) environmental problems, the viability of such approaches should not be oversold….The question is not which approach is perfect, but which approach is better (or not as bad) as the others.”]

–Where can our listeners learn more about this approach and even become involved in the movement?   [http://home.earthlink.net/~jhadler/ ]

Playlist:

1. Nuclear Infected (Album Version)     2:16    Alice Cooper    Flush The Fashion       Rock            5       7/19/11 7:54 AM
2. Nuclear      3:25    Ryan Adams      Demolition      Rock
3. The Rape Of The World        7:08    Tracy Chapman   New Beginning   Folk            5       12/12/11 8:41 AM
4. Lake Funt Property   3:54    Sukpatch        Honky-Tonk Operation E.P.       Rock
5. Weave Me the Sunshine        4:28    Peter, Paul And Mary    The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary   Folk            99      5/22/12 8:05 AM
6. The Invention of Nuclear Power       2:46    Peter Adams     The Spiral Eyes Rock            7       7/19/11 7:53 AM
7. This Land Is Your Land       2:27    Peter, Paul And Mary    The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary   Folk            22      5/9/11 1:47 PM

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Date: June 5, 2012

Tonight on Ecotopia we’ll be bringing you another of the series we call “EcoLit”, reading from works we think are powerful not only because of their Ecotopian content, but because of the quality of the writing. We receive a number of examination copies of environmental books here at the station, and we aren’t always able to interview the authors. So we have gone through the bookshelves to find passages that are just plain good reading, literary reading in the sense of materials where the words and the content mesh in ways that are, well, Ecotopian.

Listen to the Program

The Readings

(The introduction to each reading is provided, not the text itself.)

We’ll start with reading from a book by a local author and KZFR programmer, Chris Nelson, who’s written a wonderful travel book called THE VEGGIE VOYAGERS; AN ECO-FRIENDLY, LOW BUDGET LOOP OF NORTH AMERICA’S WILD PLACES POWERED BY USED COOKING OIL. The title pretty well sums up the story: Chris and Michael Pike fitted their camper out to burn vegetable oil, not the biodiesel that requires a good deal of chemical processing, but veggie oil that Michael filtered and then centrifuged with a modified Acme Juicer.Chris writes in the introduction: “This book is naturally dedicated to the people we love and care about, but deeper than that, to our poor planet. Humans have no right to overwhelm the earth or to harm one another. Nor do we humans have the right to destroy the habitats of other species. We individuallyand collectively must learn sustainability. We must take responsibility for what we do minute to minute and implement the collective actions that will save the future for the health and survival of all we know and love. There is no alternative.  In the passage we’ll read now, Chris and Michael have traveled across the U.S. and Canada to Maine, and what Chris calls “the crisp shine of the Atlantic,” to a refuge honoring one of the pioneers of the current ecological movement:  Veggie Voyagers: p. 62 You can also follow her writings on environmental and peace issues at www.veggievoyagers.blogspot.com.

Appreciation of and respect for the land and its beauty comes in many ways. Our next reading is from an autobiography by Canadian writer Sharon Butala and her book, Perfection of Morning. Here she writes about the differences in perceptions of the land between her husband, Peter, and herself, a city kid moved to the ranch.  Subtlety of the Land 166-167.  Sharon Butala, Perfection of Morning, Published by HarperCollins in 1994.

In their book, Edges of Bounty: Adventures in the Edible Valley, William Emery, writer, and Scott Squire, photographer, describe their learning quest about food and its production in the Central Valley, including the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. In this passage, they described what they learned from Stuart and Emily Rowe, who are dairy farmers near Dixon.  William Emery and Scott Squire, Edges of Bounty, Heyday Books, 2008.

And speaking of visiting the farm, here’s a passage from a book by Catherine Friend called Sheepish: Two Women, Fifty Sheep & Enough Wool to Save the Planet. It’s a collection of anecdotes about hers and her partner’s fifteen years of sheep farming, often comic, but with deep underlying appreciation of the ways of people and animals.  Sheepish, by Catherine Friend, DaCapo Press, 2011

An issue that we have explored frequently on this program centers on the apparent assumption–especially here in the New World–that whatever is out there in nature, whether it be trees, minerals, or animals, is free for the taking, the more the better. For example, much of the exploration of the United States, from East to increasingly West, was driven by the fur trade, fueled by the passion for beaver-skin men’s hats in London. In Fur, Fortune, and Empire, Eric Jay Dolin explores what he calls “The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America.” Here’s a passage that traces the fur trade all the way back to the Plymouth Colony, though in this case a naïve and unsuccessful venture by a man named Thomas Weston.  Fur, Fortune, and Empire, Eric Jay Dolin, Norton 2010, and Dolin goes on to describe how the beaver was nearly hunted to extinction, saved, in no small measure, because beaver skin hats went out of fashion.

Mark Kurlansky has written a book for younger readers about another kind of extraction, one going on today that could lead to a World Without Fish. Mark Kurlansky, Workman Publishing, 2011.|

Nor is extraction-to-extinction limited to fish and animals. In this next segment from her book A Doubtful River, writer Mary Webb describes how the Truckee River, which starts at Lake Tahoe and ends at Pyramid Lake in the Nevada desert northwest of Reno, was dammed, sluiced, canaled and channeled, almost to extinction. A Doubtful River, by Mary Webb, with photographs by Peter Goin and Robert Dawson. University of Nevada Press, 2000.

Channeling the water also leads to chaneling people, mostly toward the water. In his book, Bird on Fire, Andrew Ross describes lessons that could or should be learned from what he calls “the world’s least sustainable city,” Phoenix, Arizona. In this excerpt, Ross discusses the voracious appetite of Phoenix for new land, new subdivisions, and speculates about possible results, comparing modern-day Phoenix to the prehistoric Hohokam (hÉ™-hō’kÉ™m) people who occupied the same territory and constructed an elaborate system of canals and drainages. Bird on Fire. Andrew Ross. Oxford, 2011.

OK, we’re done with the apocalyptic warnings and stories of overextraction. Here are few description of wilderness and wildness, places where, to quote Sierra Club pioneer David Brower, “the hand of man has not set foot.” (Kenneth Brower, The Wildness Within, Heyday Books, 2012).

Here’s a selection that focuses on the planet rather than people. Here, from his book Cold, is a description by Bill Streever of the planet during the Pleistocene era, the last ice age.  Cold, Bill Streever, Back Bay Books, 2009.

And in our own time, here is John Hanson Mitchell, lying on his back in the meadow on a Sunday afternoon, just . . . looking up:.  “Sundays in the Sky.” John Hanson Mitchell in Soul of the Sky. Mt Washington Observatory, 1999,

Thank you for listening to Ecotopia this evening as we’ve explored some recent environmental writing, from observations of the world to catastrophic predictions about our common future.

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 April 24, 2012

About the Program: This week we’ll be talking with activist Daniel Imhoff, who has written a book called Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill, published by Watershed Media.

The Farm Bill is up for renewal in September of this year–it is generally renewed and revised every four years–and in his book, Dan explores its myriad complexities and the issues that will likely be coming up.

Farmer/writer Wendell Barry says:

The United States government’s agricultural policy, or non-policy, since 1952 has merely consented to the farmers’ predicament of high costs and low prices; it has never envisioned or advocated in particular the prosperity of farmers or farmland, but has only promised “cheap food” to consumers and “survival” to the “larger and more efficient” farmers who supposedly could adapt to and endure the attrition of high costs and low prices.  And after each inevitable wave of farm failures and the inevitable enlargement of the destitution and degradation of the countryside, there have been the inevitable reassurances from government propagandists and university experts that American agriculture was no more efficient and that everybody would be better off in the future.

Listen to the Program

Our Discussion with Daniel Imhoff

About a year ago, we spoke with Daniel Imhoff about his book CAFO: Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, which described in graphic detail the cruelty and health problems associated with factory meat farming. He has recently released another richly detailed and illustrated book called Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill. Dan is the president and co-founder of Watershed Media in Healdsburg and he speaks and conducts workshops on a wide range of food, farming, and environmental issues.

–Your book is a collage of essays, photographs, charts, and quotes on about the Farm Bill that will come before congress in the fall. Why did you write the book and why did you present it in this form?

–In the Foreword to your book, Michael Pollan says, “Don’t Call it the ‘Farm Bill,’ call it the ‘Food Bill’,” and one of your aims in writing the book is to educate people about this huge piece of legislation. To begin, then, what is the Food/Farm bill, and could you tell us about its history? When was it created? for what purposes? How has it evolved over the years?

–What is the authorization and funding process that will be happening starting in September and carrying on throughout the life of the bill? [Authorization, Funding, CHIMPING, reconciliation, etc.]

–You write, “Delving into the Farm Bill can seem like visiting another country (if not another planet),…” (p. 12). You have a very helpful chart that shows the major components of the bill, and perhaps we could talk about each. What have been the promises, successes, and complications in the areas of:

…Commodity Support (22%) ~$89.9 billion. What’s a “commodity” crop as opposed to a “specialty” crop? What are the major commodity support programs? Are farmers really paid not to farm? Who gets the lion’s share of the support? How do small farmers make out under the commodities appropriations? What has commodity support achieved? What problems has it created?

…Nutrition (72%) ~$470 billion. What are the elements of this program? When and why did “Food Stamps” begin? How has the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) progressed over the years? How does it help its target audience of the hungry? How does it fail? Is ketchup a vegetable? Why does the Department of Defense participate in school nutrition programs? How does the commodities support program conflict with the stated aims of the nutrition program?

…Conservation and Energy (6%) ~$38 billion. What does the conservation element of the Food and Farm Bill include? What kinds of programs have been established? How has the conservation aspect fared under budget cuts? What have been its major accomplishments? Is it making a genuine contribution to global efforts to reduce pollution and increase sustainability?

–You point out that the agricultural lobby is strong and well funded. Who will be lobbying in Washington this fall? What will they be trying to accomplish? Do you see the ag bill being a major issue in the presidential campaign?

–In your book, Food Fight, you say, “It would be naive to imagine that the Farm Bill could be radically overhauled in any single negotiation cycle” (105). In this segment, we’d like to discuss some of your recommendations. [We know we can’t possibly cover all of these, but we’d like to spend about fifteen minutes discussing your choice of topics]. How can the Farm Bill catalyze See chart 22-23]:

–Beginning Farm Programs–Good eating habits and the food pyramid
–Organic agriculture
–Know Your Farmer programs
–SNAP good food incentives ( Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)
–Ethanol from noncorn sources, biobased energy
–Energy efficient farming (National policy on renewable energy and climate change, p. 147)
–Land conservation.
–Perennial farming
–Many models in existence that are “ignored, marginalized or largely underfunded.”

–You write, “The time has arrived for a food fight,” (187) and your book includes an “activist toolkit” (p. 193. also described online at foodfight2012.org). What are the steps, and in particular, what can our concerned listeners do to get involved?
…Learn about the bill (as in tonight’s program)
…Adopt a local food charter
…Bring officials up to speed
…Communicate with representatives (Do you have recommendations for Northern California reps?)
…Be clear about connections [benefits]
…Create outreach/education
…Build coalitions
…Think beyond Washington
..Take the long view

–What will you and your various organizations be doing to promote a better Food and Farm Bill over the coming months?

Learn more at http://foodfight2012.org/.

Playlist

1. Poor Old Dirt Farmer 3:53    Levon Helm      Dirt Farmer     Classic Rock
2. On This Old Farm     2:54    Si Kahn Courage Country & Folk
3. Factory Farms        3:40    Trouser Factory Farm Songs      Rock
4. Down on Penny’s Farm 3:44    Natalie Merchant        The House Carpenter’s Daughter  Folk
5. Weave Me the Sunshine        4:28    Peter, Paul And Mary    The Very Best of Peter, Paul and Mary   Folk
6. Maggie's Farm        3:58    Bob Dylan       Bringing It All Back Home       Folk
7. Farmer's Delight     3:38    Busy Kid        Barbecue Beets  Electronica 

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