Localwashing in Pictures at Grist

We’re always on the alert for ‘greenwashing’, but what about ‘localwashing’? It turns out, big corporations are just as eager to make money off your dedication to buying local as they are off what they see as “the green trend”. From Walmart to Citgo, huge companies are trying to lure our dollars out of our pockets using misleading and often downright deceptive ads claiming that they’re “local”.

Grist put together an amazing collection of the 12 of the most outrageous examples. Check out these three (images are at Grist):

Citgo: “Local. Loyal. Like it should be.” The crop of new billboards from the petroleum company owned by Hugo Chavez’s Venezuelan government makes sense only if the rather undemocratic president lives around the corner from you. Which he doesn’t.

Barnes & Noble: Maybe you’ve heard of this cute little bookstore around the corner. It’s got a DIY-looking video blog with the tagline, “All bookselling is local.” Except when it isn’t.

“Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, a U.S.-based subsidiary of European processed-food behemoth Unilever, has seen fit to subject Canada (Canada?) to an eat-local campaign,” reports Grist Food Editor Tom Philpott. He’s dumbfounded. Here are those locally sourced ingredients of which Hellmann’s is so proud:

WATER, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, SOYBEAN OIL, VINEGAR, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, EGG WHITES, SALT, SUGAR, XANTHAN GUM, LEMON AND LIME PEEL FIBERS, COLORS ADDED, LACTIC ACID, (SODIUM BENZOATE, CALCIUM DISODIUM EDTA) USED TO PROTECT QUALITY, PHOSPHORIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS.

It’s absurd, but the sad thing is, a lot of people will fall for it. Head to Grist for the rest of the list, which includes Starbucks and Lay’s.

Link [Grist]

Michael Pollan: Don’t Buy Food You’ve Seen Advertised

What’s the best way to come home from the grocery store with food that’s actually good for you? Don’t buy any food you’ve ever seen advertised. That’s the advice offered by Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Pollan was interviewed last week by Democracy Now, where he covered this issue along with Michelle Obama’s organic garden, Frito Lays’ claim that they’re local food, school lunch programs and more. Watch the 2-part video below:

Via [MNN.com]
Photo credit: Edible Portland

Who’s Who in Green: Sara Snow

You probably already know Sara Snow’s face from her Discovery Health television show, Get Fresh with Sara Snow. But Snow is far from just a television host – she’s a green living expert and passionate advocate for sustainable food and she has made it her life goal to share her knowledge about healthy and natural living.

Snow grew up in a progressive household in the country outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan, with parents who immersed her and her siblings into the world of food and natural living early on.  Her father, Tim Redmond, is co-founder of Eden Foods. Snow spent many of her days communing with nature, helping her parents cook healthy meals and taking part in local theatrical productions. Snow went on to get her degrees in theater performance and telecommunications, and worked briefly as a television producer and later as a reporter.

In 2005, Snow came up with the idea for a lifestyle television series that focuses on the things she learned growing up – composting, recycling, gardening, natural cleaning and eating organically. Soon after, she struck a deal with Discovery Communications and began work on “Living Fresh”, her first show, which is credited as being the first series about natural living on the air. In 2006, Snow got her second show, “Get Fresh with Sara Snow”, in which she travels the country in search of companies that offer green, natural products and services and helps people find ways to go green in their own lives.

Snow visited her fellow ‘Who’s Who in Green’ honorees, the Dervaes Family, at the Path to Freedom Urban Homestead on an episode of Get Fresh with Sara Snow.

Sara Snow is also an advisory board member at Planet Green and is on the board of directors for the Organic Center, a non-profit organization that advocates for organic products. Snow appears regularly on CNN in a segment called “Living Green with Sara Snow” and has a column at Treehugger entitled “Green Eyes On…”. Snow released a DVD with Gaiam called “Growing Green Babies” and her first book, Fresh Living: The Essential Room-by-Room Guide to a Greener, Healthier Family and Home was released just last week.

In a 2008 article at Treehugger, Snow discussed her pleasure at gaining a reputation as an ‘eco warrior’ and what it means to her to be honored with an award by the Natural Products Leadership Gathering:

These men and women have been working day and night since their awakening (some describe it as a smack to the head, though the yogis of the bunch call it their third-eye opening) to improve our planet and our food supply for future generations. And it’s because of the things that they chose to do that I have something to do!

So it was with emotion beyond my imagination that I accepted an award from this very group at the Leadership Gathering, which honors four individuals or companies each year. Most times, the awards go to people who have been fighting the fight with decided dedication and focus for years. One award goes to someone from the so-called second generation, and this year, it was me. I was honored as the Rising Star of the current generation, working diligently to crescendo the message of green and natural living.

Check out Eco Chick’s write-up of Sara Snow’s new book and grab yourself a copy at Amazon.com.

The Future of Sustainable Food: Are we on the Edge of a New Era?

Following a huge grassroots effort to get a victory garden reestablished on the White House lawn, Michelle Obama made it official last week: an organic kitchen garden is now in progress near the fountain on the South Lawn. As we had hoped, Mrs. Obama is helping to elevate awareness of healthy, locally and sustainably grown food. So, does that mean that sustainable food revolution is about to sweep the country?

During World War II, victory gardens became a necessity as the government rationed foods like sugar, cheese and meats and labor and transportation shortages affected the ability to harvest and transport fruits and vegetables to markets. The government asked citizens to shoulder some of the burden of food production, and what resulted was a nation where nearly every yard supplied fresh produce. But, it didn’t last. Once the war was over, we went back to our lawns.

The importance of sustainable food can’t be overstated. Our food system is a mess. The vast majority of the foods we consume are grown thousands of miles away from our homes with liberal use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, processed heavily and then shipped to our local supermarkets. It’s hard to even tell where the foods we eat come from anymore. We’re so far removed from the source of our food, it’s really kind of disturbing. Children hardly even realize that food comes from nature, as opposed to the store down the street.

Food recalls are becoming more and more commonplace as farms and processing centers cut corners and fail to properly oversee operations. Contamination is widespread and has reached stomach-turning heights in recent years. Most of what’s found in grocery stores is loaded with empty calories, preservatives, sodium and fat. Conventional farming practices are robbing our soil and our food of nutrients, polluting our waterways and causing vast oxygen-deprived ‘dead zones’ in our oceans.

People are beginning to realize the value of authentic food – thanks in large part to a receptive First Lady and skyrocketing interest in the green, eco-friendly lifestyle – but making the dream of a sustainable food revolution into reality on a nationwide scale is a gargantuan task, and one that may still take many years to be fully realized.

Advocates of conventional agriculture – including, naturally, the powerful National Corn Growers Association – are pushing back, arguing that organic farming can’t provide enough food because yields tend to be lower.

From The New York Times:

“We think there’s a place for organic, but don’t think we can feed ourselves and the world with organic,” says Rick Tolman, chief executive of the National Corn Growers Association. “It’s not as productive, more labor-intensive and tends to be more expensive.”

Although some people argue that there are hidden costs to cheap food, from environmental damage caused by factory farms and fertilizer runoff to the health costs associated with eating highly processed, calorie-laden food, the fact remains that commercially produced food is relatively inexpensive.

As the Obama administration took over in January, many advocates of organic, sustainable food had hoped to see an ally appointed as secretary of agriculture and were angry at the appointment of Tom Vilsack, who has been called a Monsanto shill. Obama’s choice to put Vilsack in charge of the USDA was seen as a devastating blow to the movement.

From Counterpunch:

“Vilsack’s nomination sends the message that dangerous, untested, unlabeled genetically engineered crops will be the norm in the Obama Administration,” said Ronnie Cummins, Executive Director of Organic Consumers Association. “Our nation’s future depends on crafting a forward-thinking strategy to promote organic and sustainable food and farming, and address the related crises of climate change, diminishing energy supplies, deteriorating public health, and economic depression.”

Vilsack has taken to fighting that perception, turning a patch of pavement outside his headquarters into a “people’s garden” and claiming sustainable food as one of his main priorities. Among his stated goals are improving the quality of children’s school lunches, helping small farms develop regional distribution networks and overhauling agriculture and food policy to place an emphasis on nutrition and fighting climate change.

Sustainable food activists are wary, and take Vilsack’s statements with a grain of salt given his past, but they’re still hopeful that sweeping changes in the way things are done could push local and sustainable food into the mainstream.

Still, even the most ardent of sustainable food advocates warn that the movement isn’t ready for its closeup. Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and supporter of diversified, regional food networks, told The New York Times “The movement is not ready for prime time. It’s not like we have an infrastructure with legislation ready to go.”

But, momentum is building all the same, and across the country, thousands of people are turning back to that World War II-era tradition of growing their own food. This time, there’s even more at stake – so we’ve got to make sustainable food a reality. Luckily, our fortunes have changed dramatically since the Bush administration left office with its collective tail between its legs. We’ve got friends in powerful places – even Oprah is speaking out for sustainable food.

So, what can you do to help? For starters, consider following Michelle Obama’s example and plant a kitchen garden, start some potted herbs and veggies on your balcony or even take over an abandoned lot. Learn more about growing your own food no matter where you live with our guide to urban gardening, and get more info about the sustainable food movement at SustainableTable.org.

Link [The New York Times] + [CounterPunch]

Photo credit: Slow Food Nation & The Huffington Post

Britain Attempts to Give Cauliflower an Eco-Friendly Makeover

Cauliflower: it’s bland, has a less-than-appetizing appearance and doesn’t pack quite the same nutritional punch as its cousin broccoli. But, British farmers hope to help bring this vegetable into vogue in the UK by branding it as a homegrown, eco-friendly alternative to imported veggies. Vegetable production has fallen by almost a third in Britain over the last decade as consumers have turned to more ‘fashionable’ vegetables.

From The Telegraph:

The Brassica Growers Association point out that cauliflower grows all year round in Britain and is therefore a constant source of locally-produced, low carbon food.

The organisation are hoping to take advantage of recent campaigns led by celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver to get people eating less processed food and more fresh fruit and vegetables. Cauliflower is not only good in traditional dishes like cauliflower cheese but works well in more modern food like stir fries and curries.

Phillip Effingham, chairman of the BGA, said it was time to reinstate cauliflower to its rightful place in British cuisine.

He said: “Britain seems to have fallen out of love with the cauliflower over the last 10 years and sales have been declining steadily. We want to encourage people to rediscover this hugely versatile and healthy vegetable and help stop its decline.”

Poor, overlooked cauliflower. Will this campaign work? Maybe, if it’s marketed to consumers as a way to save money during the global recession. It probably won’t become the star of Britain’s best culinary dishes (do they even have any of those?) but perhaps the allure of eating local and fresh will give it a bit of a boost.

Link [The Telegraph]
Photo credit: Slash Food

Obama’s Eating Sustainable & Local at the White House

Okay, so there might not be a White House victory garden in place yet – though we hope it will happen, eventually – but Obama is already eating sustainably and locally thanks to new White House assistant chef Sam Kass. Kass has a background in eco-conscious food and previously ran a home cooking service that was built around using food from local farms. He also worked at Avec in Chicago.

From Ecorazzi:

From Avec he went on to Inevitable Table which serves to promote ”a healthy lifestyle that focuses on the quality and flavor of food to encourage good eating habits.” And last year headed up the kitchen at Chicago’s Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. Chicago chef and food historian Barbara Kuck, a member of the American Culinary Federation recalls:

“It was amazing how you could just have this one bowl of soup and it was like nothing you had ever eaten. Sam would buy the ingredients from the farmers’ market. He is very accessible and down to earth, very enthusiastic about organic food and all the food issues that we are facing.”

This is a great start, but we’re still hoping Obama will drop some of his less-than-eco-friendly habits and go greener in his own life – by quitting smoking, becoming vegetarian and turning his damn thermostat down. One big change at a time, huh? He is still getting settled in.

Link [Ecorazzi]
Photo credit: Vegetarian Organic

Japanese Government Urges Citizens to Eat Locally

Did you know that Japan only produces 40% of the food it consumes? That is the lowest percentage among developed nations and puts the island nation at considerable risk amid a global food shortage. That’s why Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is getting serious about encouraging citizens to buy and grow their food locally. And as far as government messaging goes, this video is pretty darn cool:

Real Food Challenge: Uniting Students for Just and Sustainable Food

College students across the nation are coming together to demand ‘real food’ – local, organic, fair trade food via college farms, farm-to-cafeteria programs and other initiatives.  The Real Food Challenge loosely defines ‘real food’ as a holistic term they’re using to bring together a lot of different ideas people have about just and sustainable food. Since colleges and universities spend more than $4 billion on food every year, college students have the ability to directly influence a significant portion of the national food system.

From Real Food Challenge:

People are increasingly waking up to the need for change. The situation is dire, as environmental degradation, corporate consolidation, homogenization, and alienation become the hallmarks of our food system. The momentum for change is growing; consumers are demanding more real food, activists from across the country are linking up, and the buzz is growing all around. On hundreds of college campuses all around the country, the momentum has become a budding movement.

This movement, however, lacks common goals, a common framework, and a collective voice. Nor is this movement as diverse and widespread as it should be. If we move strategically and effectively, we can capitalize on the growing energy and bring the many elements of the campus food movement into collaboration, working towards a unified goal of more socially and environmentally conscious food.

We have shown that we have the passion, drive and wherewithal to make real change. Thousands of students are already working to create a more just and sustainable food system, and have demonstrated a commitment to the highest ideals of environmental sustainability and social justice.

Dozens of schools are already participating, including sustainability leaders like College of the Atlantic, Dartmouth College, Evergreen State College, Middlebury College, NYU and Warren Wilson College. Check out the list, and if your school isn’t on it, the Real Food Challenge website has all the details on how you can get involved.  The website also includes resources like a 10-step ‘Guide to Launch’, action ideas and downloadable posters.

This is a fantastic way for college students to exercise their power to make the world the way they want it to be. Why settle for pesticide-laden, mass-produced junk when you can demand better, and get it? This is a really well-organized campaign, and it’ll undoubtedly do a world of good in changing the way college students think of food.

Link [Real Food Challenge]

Is Food Still ‘Local’ if it’s Grown by a Nationwide Brand?

If you live in Florida, is a Tropicana orange ‘locally grown’? That’s what Environmental Economics is wondering after a recent USA Today article questioned what the term ‘local food’ really means. While retailers have been quick to jump on the consumer desire for food grown closer to home, some of them seem to be stretching the boundaries of what’s really considered local, like – surprise – Wal-Mart.

From USA Today:

• Wal-Mart, the nation’s biggest retailer, considers anything local if it’s grown in the same state as it’s sold, even if that’s a state as big as Texas and the food comes from a farm half the size of Manhattan, as in the case of the 7,000-acre Ham Produce in North Carolina.

• Whole Foods, the biggest retailer of natural and organic foods, considers local to be anything produced within seven hours of one of its stores. The retailer says most local producers are within 200 miles of a store.

• Seattle’s PCC Natural Markets considers local to be anything from Washington, Oregon and southern British Columbia.

Jim Prevor, editor of Produce Business and author of the blog Perishable Pundit, disputes Wal-Mart’s characterization of citrus grown in Florida but sold nationwide as a local product, saying that counting a product that is nationally shipped as local doesn’t seem to fit the meaning of ‘locally grown’.

It’s definitely a good thing to be on the lookout for greenwashing, but being on high alert all the time can perhaps lead us into a sticky quagmire of questions with no real answer. Many people equate ‘local’ with ‘small business’, and would simply rather give their business to the little guy instead of the huge corporation, while others would accept those large companies as local brands.

But, people often don’t consider the fact that some varieties of food simply don’t grow well in their area, and farms looking to take advantage of the local food movement could use environmentally unsound practices in an attempt to, say, grow bananas in Arkansas (and then market said bananas to Arkansans as local). So, in some cases, unless you’re willing to give up food that doesn’t grow well in your area (which, of course, would be the greenest choice), it can make less of an impact to import food from its native region. The mind spins. What’s your take?

Link [USA Today] via [Environmental Economics]
Photo credit: Flickr user jonny.hunter

Will Allen is officially a GENIUS

This year, urban farmer Will Allen was named a MacArthur Fellow. Informally known as the “genius award”, the Fellowship is a $500,000, no-strings-attached grant for individuals who have shown exceptional creativity in their work and promise to do more. As the CEO of Growing Power, Will Allen has been working  to support community food systems from the local to international level.

From their website:

Growing Power transforms communities by supporting people from diverse backgrounds and the environments in which they live through the development of Community Food Systems.  These systems provide high-quality, safe, healthy, affordable food for all residents in the community.

Keep up the great work Will!

San Francisco Scrambling to Prevent Victory Garden from Becoming One Big Toilet

The victory garden currently growing in San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza was meant as a celebration of local food, planted over the summer as part of the privately sponsored “Slow Food Nation” festival. The garden, which is home to a variety of herbs and veggies, is prized enough by Mayor Gavin Newsom that he decided to pay thousands of dollars a week for security to keep vagrants and drunks from using it as a toilet. Unfortunately, that’s not working out too well.

From SF Gate:

Once the food fest ended in late August, however, the mayor decided to keep the garden going. His office contracted with Jeff Gutierrez Security, a local outfit, to keep an eye on the pea patch from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 a.m.

“If they don’t have security, it will become a toilet,” said one city gardener who was planting a fresh bed of marigolds in the plaza the other day.

Newsom initially planned to keep the garden as part of his drive to turn the Civic Center into a model of green sustainability. But Ballard said it soon became apparent that it “was imprudent to sustain security at that level.”

Now, the garden is set to come out in December. And three weeks ago – after trimming back the level of protection – the security price dropped to about $2,200 a week.

Who wants some tomatoes that smell and taste vaguely of human waste? Yum, yum. It’s a shame that they can’t keep this going, because we’d really love to see more examples of victory gardens in cities across the nation. Call me crazy, but it sounds like some public restrooms are in order. Although I suppose that still wouldn’t stop the dude who just drank seven Jack & Cokes from deciding to unload his burden in the basil.

Link [SF Gate]
Photo credit: Ads of the World

Skyscraper Farms Could Feed Millions by 2050

As the years have marched on and technology has progressed, one very important aspect of life has suffered: food quality.  Instead of using space wisely and growing food as locally as possible, we’ve come to rely on factory farms and produce shipped from hundreds – sometimes thousands – of miles away.  But, just because there isn’t space on the ground for traditional farms doesn’t mean urban areas can’t have fresh, local food.  Skyscraper farms have the potential to not only bring food production back to the local level – they could divert a major worldwide food shortage.

Scientist Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, came up with the concept and hopes to see it implemented on a worldwide scale as soon as possible.

From Mail Online:

The revolutionary scientist proposes gleaming 21 storey skyscrapers that could potentially be as productive as 588 acres of land and grow up to 12 million lettuces a year.

He said the farms, projected to cost £45m to build and £2.7m a year to run, would be both environmentally friendly and economically profitable.

Dr Despommier created his concept in 1999 with graduate students during a class on medical ecology.

With the world’s population expected to increase to 3 billion by 2050 and almost 80 per cent of farming land in use, the idea has never been more relevant.

City planners and developers across the world have regarded Despommier’s idea with suspicion, but we can’t see why.  It seems so basic, so obvious, that we can’t believe people haven’t already begun doing it.  What’s the hold up?  We want to see these things built ASAP!

Link [Mail Online]

Eating Pigeons as Part of a Local Food Diet

Here in America especially, people have pretty narrow ideas of what is acceptable to eat. We’ve cut back our produce variety to a very small percentage of what’s actually out there, and there are only a handful of animals that are considered standard fare. So, it’s not surprising that people might balk at the idea of eating pigeons – those little waste-scavenging creatures commonly known as ‘rats with wings’.

From Wired:

You see, city pigeons are the feral descendants of birds that were domesticated by humans thousands of years ago so that we could eat them and use their guano as fertilizer, we read in Der Spiegel. They’re still doing their part, i.e. eating and breeding, but we humans have stopped doing ours, i.e. eating them.

Numbering in the hundreds of millions, they could be a new source of guilt-free protein for locavores in urban centers. Instead, we’re still trying to kill off our species’ former pet birds, which (as any city-dweller can attest) doesn’t work.

“Killing makes no sense at all,” Daniel Haag-Wackernagel, a biologist at the University of Basel, told Der Spiegel. “The birds have an enormous reproduction capacity and they’ll just come back. There is a linear relationship between the bird population and the amount of food available.”

Our own wasteful practices are what has encouraged these birds to be fruitful and multiply. Our culture has gotten so prosperous, we routinely throw insane amounts of food away. Wired declares that eating pigeons is ‘green tech at its finest’, given that the birds live off our trash – we don’t have to spend money to feed them. The author of this piece attempted to get information about the safety of eating pigeons, but wasn’t successful. Still, he says he’s ‘65% not kidding’.

Would you be open to eating things not commonly considered appropriate as food? Pigeons? Squirrels?

Link [Wired]
Photo credit: Flickr user weaponofchoice

Edible Landscaping Advocates Wait a Week in Line for iPhone 3G

If you’re wondering what edible landscaping has to do with the iPhone, you’re not alone. Undoubtedly, people who were waiting in line for the iPhone 3G were wondering the same thing about the group of five activists who were first in line when the phones went on sale last Friday. They had been there for seven days and seven nights, seeking the Guinness World Record for “longest time waiting in line” and also a little publicity for their cause.

From Fortune:

Who’s crazy enough to camp out for a week on the streets of New York City for a chance to be first to buy an iPhone 3G?

TheWhoFarm, that’s who, a newly minted publicity-seeking environmental collective with an agrico-political mission: to persuade the 44th President of the U.S. — whoever that turns out to be — to transform the White House’s 17-acre lawn into an organic farm.

“We’re here to restore the edible landscape,” says Daniel Bowman Simon, 28, the group’s organizer and spokesperson and a young man given to making grand pronouncements. “We want to bring seeds of change back to the White House.”

Nice green activism publicity hack. In an open letter to several leaders including Sen. Hillary Clinton and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, TheWhoFarm listed the tasks it wished to accomplish during their week waiting on line, which included using mobile solar power, drinking NYC’s tap water, eating local food delivered by NYC community gardeners and talking to anyone who would listen about local organic farming. And, they got iPhones out of it as well. Not bad, not bad.

Link [Fortune]

The Meanest Chef on TV, Gordon Ramsay, Fights for Local Food (Sort of)

I heart Gordon Ramsay. I don’t know why, because he’s a total asshole, and I’m not the kind of girl that goes for that – it’s inexplicable. But this latest tidbit makes him lose his shine a bit for me: he’s an outspoken advocate of local food, and even wants to go so far as to fine restaurants that use out-of-season produce, but his own chefs don’t practice what he preaches.

Ecorazzi has it:

Ramsay told the BBC News: ” I don’t want to see asparagus on in the middle of December. I don’t want to see strawberries from Kenya in the middle of March. I want to see it home grown.” However, a surge of bloggers have begun to attack Ramsay’s own restaurants (he has 20 in the UK) for menu items like “tropical fruit desserts” and “ravioli of Italian winter squash.”

In response, Ramsay’s people say (and remember they’re British so ignore the strange spellings): “Gordon Ramsay Holdings recognises the importance of sourcing ingredients which are both local and within season. Nevertheless, the overriding concern for all our chefs is they use the highest quality produce, and therefore in some cases, they source ingredients from further afield.”

If the quality of an ingredient you want to use sucks, don’t order it from far away – change your menu temporarily (aren’t these places all about constantly changing menus?). And to Gordon Ramsay, I say – if you’re going to talk smack about restaurants using out-of-season produce, make damn sure your own restaurants always use local food, 100% of the time. Set an example. Show how you can create a great menu with items grown in your area. It’s ridiculous to talk about fines when you’d be the recipient of many of them yourself.

Link [Ecorazzi]
Photo credit: Fox

President Bush Claims to be a Green Local Food Proponent in Latest Speech

Ha ha, President Bush. You’re such a joker. Amidst depressing news of starving children, celebrities flying personal chefs across oceans to prepare a plate of pasta and farmers salivating over the prospect of cutting down trees in the rainforest, your hilarious comments in your most recent speech really gave us a much-needed laugh. What’s that? You weren’t joking? But in your speech the other day, you said something really funny about food prices and your own take on the situation.

From the White House:

In terms of the international situation, we are deeply concerned about food prices here at home and we’re deeply concerned about people who don’t have food abroad. In other words, scarcity is of concern to us. Last year we were very generous in our food donations, and this year we’ll be generous as well. As a matter of fact, we just released about $200 million out of the Emerson Trust as part of a ongoing effort to address scarcity.

One thing I think that would be — I know would be very creative policy is if we — is if we would buy food from local farmers as a way to help deal with scarcity, but also as a way to put in place an infrastructure so that nations can be self-sustaining and self-supporting. It’s a proposal I put forth that Congress hasn’t responded to yet, and I sincerely hope they do.

Since you said this with a straight face and seeming sincerity, you may be surprised to hear that many of us are shaking our heads in disbelief, looking at each other for answers – what proposals? Did we miss something? Did you sneak something in to Congress under a pseudonym? Hello? [Silence]

Link [EnviroWonk]

Photo credit: Flickr user azrainman

When Kenyan Greenbeans Are Better: Why Local Food Isn’t Always The Best Choice

For Mike Small’s family in Fife, Scotland, it’s all about the local ingredients. For the past six months, the Smalls have been dining only on foods and beverages that come from within their home district. That means that on any given evening, the Smalls sit down to a combination of meats like fish, pork and lamb and local veggies such as parsnips, beetroots, kale, potatoes, leeks and other root vegetables. As long as it’s local, the Smalls are down with it.

While it sounds like the Smalls are making big leaps towards reducing their own carbon fooprints, turns out it just ain’t that easy. There are so many factors involved in the production and distribution of produce that it does not suffice to simply “eat what’s local” and assume that the impact that you are making is significant. Here are some reasons why:

• Food grown in areas where fertilizers and tractors are used is hardly carbon-friendly
• Many developing countries that export produce don’t use machinery and use cow crap for fertilizer, which means that even after air-freighting occurs, the carbon impact is less than it may be on a local, diesel-driven farm
• Purchasing local ingredients that are naturally dried instead of cooked and ready (chickpeas, for example) doesn’t mean you’re saving energy – you’ve still got to take them home and cook them, something that emits more carbon when done in small batches than when done in large ones
• Storing locally grown products that are not available year-round requires refrigeration, which emits carbon. Importing seasonal produce from where it is grown, even when done so via air-freight, is often more environmentally friendly than storage.

“The concept of food miles is unhelpful and stupid. It doesn’t inform about anything except the distance travelled.” — Dr Adrian Williams, of the National Resources Management Centre at Cranfield University.

Link [The Guardian]