Looking Forward: The Future of Agriculture

For The Future
by Wendell Berry

Planting trees early in spring,
we make a place for birds to sing
in time to come. How do we know?
They are singing here now.
There is no other guarantee
that singing will ever be.

That Wendell Berry, always keeping an eye forward, asking: are we doing now what we need to do to assure there will be a tomorrow?  In yesterday’s NY Times, Berry teamed up with The Land Institute’s Wes Jackson to talk about soil, and investing in it long-term.  They point out that soil has no technological substitute and that more of it cannot be purchased it with money.  It seems like basic stuff. Right?

Yet, meanwhile, over at the Chicago Tribune they’re also talking agriculture on their opinions page.  In what seems like a rebuttal, former Senator George McGovern and Marshall Matz express doubts about sustainable agriculture’s ability to be all things to all people, with sustainable ag and commerical ag each having their place in the world.  It ends with:

“We need to get beyond ideology and depend more on science. We need to develop a new understanding of agriculture based on our larger goals if we are to craft a long-term food and farm policy that works. Agriculture has a responsibility to adjust and contribute to improving the environment. But let’s stick to science and avoid an ideological debate about agricultural practices.”

Growing Project Sprout

by Sam Levin, one of three coordinators of Project Sprout. Project Sprout is a student led and inspired onsite garden that supplements food served in the Monument Mountain High School (in Great Barrington, MA).

The best part of the beginning of a new year is when everyone makes their resolution. Every New Year’s Eve, sitting around the table, my family and I set our goals for the coming year. Tasting roast leg of lamb and swallowing bites of chocolate cake, we throw out suggestions like trying to do something that scares us once a month or doing something special for one of our neighbors every two weeks. Most of the time one of my brothers suggests something that cripples us with laughter, and someone else tosses out a hallmark card suggestion that gets dismissed with a little disgust. Usually after dinner, in honor of an old Latin American tradition, each of us eats twelve grapes to bring good luck to every month of the coming year. However, it’s not just that I love setting goals for myself, or hearing Will tell me with a grin that his goal is to cover his clothes with duct tape every day. That piece of it is great, but this year, I discovered something even better. That piece of it is great, but this year, I discovered something even better.

On New Year’s Eve I decided that I would resolve to get garden projects initiated in six other high schools. And as I thought about what that meant, I have to admit, I started to get a little excited. As I sat at the table listening to my family members laugh and eat and talk, I began to think about all of the other people in the world sitting at their own tables, counting down to 2009, and resolving to accomplish their own goals.

More after the jump

All American Cocktail

by Allen Katz

Hail to the Chief we have chosen for the nation,
Hail to the Chief! We salute him, one and all.
Hail to the Chief, as we pledge cooperation
In proud fulfillment of a great, noble call.
 
Now that the election is finally over us there is one thing we can all truly celebrate. We will soon have a President who enjoys a tasty tipple. Hallelujah!

And in that Presidential vein there is no better time to hail Rye Whiskey, America’s true native spirit, the source of pleasure and profit of our very first Commander in Chief, George Washington. For all of Washington’s accolades in military and political accomplishment, he spent his final years at Mount Vernon adept in a multitude of businesses, among them the distilling of rye whiskey. So successful, in fact, was Washington that from 1797 – 1799 (when he passed away) he sold in excess of 11,000 gallons of rye whiskey each year – an extraordinary quantity.

After the Revolutionary War rye whiskey was the likely beverage of choice as it was both plentiful and cheap, rye being the chief grain of the mid-Atlantic states, principally Maryland and Pennsylvania where the distillation of rye was most prevalent. As the cocktail renaissance in United States continues, rye whiskey has regained more than a cult following among bartenders and whiskey devotees. And to our great fortune the distilleries (now primarily in Kentucky), which preserved the tradition of producing rye during the lean years post-Prohibition, have begun to release greater quantities and variety of aged marks as well.

If you have never tried a rye whiskey Manhattan, there is probably no finer cocktail. Savory, silky and refreshing, the addition of rye (rather than bourbon) adds a rather smooth finish that is even more noticeable on the second round.

Here’s hoping your candidate was victorious. Either way, celebrate our heritage and enjoy a tipple grand American rye whiskey.

MANHATTAN
2 oz Rye Whiskey
1 oz Sweet Vermouth
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
 
Stir ingredients over ice until exceedingly well-chilled. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon twist.
 
By profession, Allen Katz is the Director of Mixology & Spirits Education for Southern Wine & Spirits of New York. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Slow Food USA.

2008 Highlights

We thought we’d get in on the year-end roundup action by posting our Top Ten 2008 highlights.

If it helps, please insert
a) a drumroll
b) a celebrity reading the list straight to camera
c) a lot of enthusiasm, as indicated by the proliferation of exclamation points (!)

10) A New Office: The SFUSA staff enjoyed a move down two flights into a space double the size of our old one.  Although we miss tripping over each other, we’re sure happy about having more room. Stop by and say hello if you’re ever in Brooklyn.

9) A New Baby: Finance Manager Kehinde Yeku welcomed the birth of her baby girl Ebu last May!

8) New States in the Union: Our first ever chapter in West Virginia.

7) Two Staff Weddings: Deena Goldman in June and Erika Lesser in November!

6) A New National Statute: This year, with the help of chapter leaders from around the country, we revised our national statute.  It’s leaner, cleaner, and clearer.

5) Terra Madre: For the third biennial small-scale sustainable food producers conference, we brought over 700 US delegates with us, including a huge number under the age of 30.

4) A New Book: The publication of Renewing America’s Food Traditions: Savoring and Saving the Continent’s Most Endangered Foods.  Click here for an article about in in the New York Times.

3) Can’t stop growing: 8,000 new members!

2) A New President: Nope, we’re not talking about Obama, we’re talking about Josh Viertel, Slow Food USA’s first ever President!

and the number 1 highlight of 2008......

1) Slow Food Nation: Slow Food’s first US-based national scale event.  With everything from sustainable street food to a victory garden on San Francisco’s Civic Center steps to star-studded discussion panels, Slow Food Nation brought San Franciscans--and the country--together in a conversation about the future of our food system.  The event, our first annual, attracted over 85,000 people over the course of three days.

Last Minute Holiday Gifts

It’s a little late in the game for buying holiday gifts, but hey, you’re slowwwwww and slow’s a good thing, right? 

If you left your shopping for the last minute, and are feeling a little bit nervous and a lot uninspired, we’re here to offer some delicious, nutritious, (not that ambitious) sustainable gifts for you.  Most of them won’t arrive in time, but you can give your loved ones an IOU that promises good things to come.

• Slow Food USA membership: How about a membership for that friend who keeps meaning to join but never gets around to it? Or a donation to the organization?


• T-shirts: our friends at Just Food have three that are simply adorable--"Beet the System,” anyone?


• Renewing America’s Food Traditions: Know someone interested in saving and savoring the endangered foods of North America? Check out the book!


• Feed the Hungry: Donate money to your local Food Bank in somebody’s name


• Slow Food in the Heartland: Slow Food USA Board Member Kurt Friese has written a beautiful book that explores the culinary traditions of the Midwest
  
• Pleasures of Slow Food: Check out the new softcover edition of Slow Food USA Advisory Board member Corby Kummer’s classic.


• Save Endangered Breeds: Make a donation to the Endangered Hog Foundation (in support of rebuilding Arie McFarlane’s farm and stock)


• Take back the tap! Bottled water is soooo 2008. Buy a SIGG bottle and take your tap water with you every day.


• Like it sweet? Try the unusual Guajillo Honey--newly boarded to Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste.


• Like it spicy? How about the crazily spicy Chiltepin Pepper, also an SFUSA Ark food? It’s pictured above...

Happy and Healthy Holidays from your friends at Slow Food USA!

Vilsack Chosen as Ag Secretary

Alack and alas, despite a petition that garnered over 50,000 signatures in less than 2 weeks, Obama yesterday named former Iowa Governor and ethanol proponent Tom Vilsack as the new Secretary of Agriculture. This was a blow for the sustainable agriculture community, who had hoped for someone a little less, well, corn-y.  But, as Time magazine noted, we “could have done a lot worse than Vilsack.” Which is what happens when you’re already at rock bottom: there isn’t much farther down to go.  As The Nation said: “Obama could have done better.  Much better.”

Michael Pollan weighed in on NPR, saying that “the incoming administration’s focus should be on food and the people who eat it,” meaning not on growing food just to turn it into fuel.

Raj Patel laid it on with some amusing-with-a-wallop-of sadness-&-disappointment commentary on his blog.

[Late addition: Kerry Trueman--from Eating Liberally--weighs in on Huffington Post with “Maybe Vilsack Won’t Suck?”]

So what to do with these feelings of sadness and disappointment? Still have an itch in your finger to poke poke poke poke the new administration to make good on its promise for change? Then please sign this new petition, a letter to Vilsack reminding him what’s what.

And in other news, the USDA announced a new office of ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND MARKETS.

Remembering Diane Joy Goodman

This text originally appeared in the CUESA newsletter

Slow Food mourns the November passing of Diane Joy Goodman, a passionate and effective hands on sustainability activist and moving force within the California food world. Diane was a key figure in the sustainable food movement, a committed advocate for organic farmers and a friend to many  chefs.

She ran a consulting business that helped clients (everyone from rice to vegetable growers) understand organic standards and regulatory compliance, navigate the certification process, and communicate organic practices through their marketing. She was also the two-time chair of the California Organic Foods Advisory Board, a member of the National Organic Standards Board (where she helped craft and pass the current standards), and an active member of many committees and task forces for organizations such as the Organic Trade Association (OTA).  

Diane’s daughter Allyson and Son in Law Larry Jossell carry  on her legacy of culinary integrity in San Francisco’s Nopa restaurant, for which Diane hand picked produce from farmer’s trucks as they came to the market. 

More after the jump

Fair Trade Holiday Caroling

This holiday season, you can make merry and have fun while informing neighbors about ethical food!

Global Exchange is inviting individuals, nonprofits, schools, congregations, and youth groups all over the country to participate in Fair Trade Holiday Caroling.

What is Fair Trade Holiday Caroling?  Carolers walk door to door or perform in any public place…congregation, school play, holiday party, subway station, etc, etc.  Carolers first sing a few carols, then read a brief Fair Trade Public Education Script to their audience, and finally ask their audiences to make a Fair Trade New Year’s Resolution or pledge to buy Fair Trade holiday gifts…together, the thousands of Resolutions we collect in the US and around the world will make a big impact on expanding the market for Fair Trade farmers and artisans.

Carolers sing both traditional carols and the clever, amusing, fabulous Fair Trade carols submitted to Global Exchange’s Fair Trade Holiday Song Contest during the Summer of 2008.  (Even if you don’t go caroling, take a peek at the songbook for a little chuckle.)

Check out the Holiday Caroling Toolkit, which includes the Songbook, information on how to carol, and all the materials you need.

The Global Exchange Fair Trade Campaign also encourages you to consider taking a pledge to buy some or all holiday gifts Fair Trade this year!

More after the jump

Whopper Virgins

by Jerusha Klemperer

I am not a Whopper virgin, but I like to think that I have, “Sex and the City” style, re-virginized myself by abstaining for the past 15 years, although the documentary team behind Burger King’s latest ad campaign might disagree.  This technical glitch, along with my status as an American with a TV and the internet, and close access to many of their 11,000 restaurants around the world makes me ineligible for this latest project--Whopper Virgins.

The blogosphere is abuzz about these spots (and the longer “documentary” found online), which feature people in remote Greenland, remote Thailand, and remote Transylvania--people who have never (ohmygoshcanyoubelieveit!) tasted the subtle beauty and strange arrangement of an American fast food burger--being offered Big Macs and Whoppers and then asked to pick which one they prefer. Like any good ad campaign, these spots are in poor taste, pretty misleading, and--in my humble opinion--most likely staged.  Call me a cynic, but I don’t believe most things I see on the teevee. Plus, when was the last time you looked to ad campaigns as paragons of cultural sensitivity and good taste?

More after the jump

60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Today, December 10th, is the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948--a declaration that, in its own words, establishes a “common standard of achievement” when it comes to the rights and freedoms of all people, all over the world.  One especially important right, as highlighted by Frances Moore Lappé on Huffington Post, is the right to food.  Do check out her post for a thoughtful exploration of how many people in the world no longer are thinking of food in this way, and in fact may be hostile to the idea of governments protecting and ensuring that right.

She assures “ In imagining food as a right of citizenship, please note: No change in human nature is required! Through most of human evolution—except for the last few thousand of roughly 200,000 years—Homo sapiens lived in societies where pervasive sharing of food was the norm. As food sharers, “especially among unrelated individuals,” humans are unique, writes authority on hunter-gatherer food transfers, Michael Gurven. Except in times of extreme privation, when some eat, all eat.”

An important day then for Lappé and for us to bring your attention to the recent victory achieved by recent Terra Madre delegates, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group we have featured here on the blog several times before, highlighting their efforts (and successes!) in getting fast food companies to raise their payment per pound of tomatoes by one penny in order to improve working conditions for tomato pickers in Florida. Last week, on December 3rd, in the midst of CIW’s national tour to protest Subway’s refusal to sign an agreement with them, Subway signed!  And not just for tomatoes; they have agreed to apply the price increase to their entire supply chain. 

To honor the incredible work that the Coalition of Immokalee Workers is doing, CIW’s Lucas Benitez will be the honored guest at the Small Planet Fund’s fundraiser in NYC this evening.