In the spotlight

Dear Friends:

We in the “Network of Black Farm Groups and Advocates” have an urgent request. We are writing to ask for your organization to sign-on to our letter to Congress. The letter, which is below, regards funding for the recent and historic settlement of the Pigford lawsuit. The timing of this is urgent as it must pass Congress by March 31.

If your organization will sign-on to the letter please have them email Heather Gray at heathergray@federation.coop.

By Siena Chrisman, WhyHunger

There are 2 million farmers and 300 million consumers in the U.S. Standing in the middle are a handful of corporations who control just about everything that happens to our food between the farm and our plate ... how much it costs, how it's grown, where it comes from, what's in it, and who sells it. Most of what probably matters to you about why food isn’t healthier, safer, tastier, or all around better is affected by that narrow bottleneck of power standing between producers and consumers.

Why are 1/3 of America's children overweight? And what are your suggestions for how to improve the health of our nation's children?

Do we want our children to die at an earlier age than we do?

Your input is important to shaping national policy and regulations on food.

Go here and leave a comment by March 26.

http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#documentDetail?R=090000...

By Janet Poppendieck, professor of sociology at Hunter College, City University of New York. She is the author of Sweet Charity? Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement and Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat: Food Assistance in the Great Depression.
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Every successive decade has left its mark on school food.

They 'stood fixated on the flat screens, drinks in hand' as real time images of Chilean destruction were quickly followed by an official tsunami warning and a barrage of historic Hawaiian newsreel footage documenting the devastating tidal wave that hit Hilo back in 1947. After ordering an evacuation of coastal areas, the government advised people to stock up on a weeks worth of food.

Biotech technicians neither have the knowledge of gene ecology nor the expertise in multiple disciplines.

After the minister of environment Jairam Ramesh announced a moratorium on Bt brinjal, article after article in the media has denounced the decision, saying such decisions should be left to ‘scientists.’ The issue is however not science vs anti-science. It is reductionist science vs systems science. The moratorium took into account the best of science.