Musings on sustainable food systems, agriculture vs. agroecology, and more!
Whenever we think about food security, we think about grain crops, yields, and whatever ends up on your plate. However, as I already discussed in this post about efficient cooking stoves, we tend to forget that most food (specifically grains) has to be cooked before it can be consumed, so that cooking fuel becomes part … Continue reading Can A Bamboo Revolution Increase Food Security in Ethiopia?
Cuba is such a funny case: according to this article, agroecological farming principles are the norm, more than half of its farms use organic production methods, and it is a leader in urban agriculture – but yet, most of these developments are less the result of a coordinated policy shift than a survival mechanism that … Continue reading Cuba At The Crossroads
The challenge with large governments (such as the USA’s) is that they produce huge packages of legislature that only few individuals can understand in its entirety. Thus, everybody focuses on what they are interested or specialized in, and there is the potential to slip things in that legislators aren’t aware of or don’t understand the … Continue reading What Is The "Monsanto Rider"?
Recently, I discovered (via my friend Tereza’s blogpost) an awesome Czech invention that supports self-sufficiency, community and bread-baking in the form of a sourdough map! In order to make sourdough bread, you need to make a pre-ferment (also called starter or lévain), basically a mix of flour and water, which you then expose to the air … Continue reading Sourdough mapping
Recently, whenever you hear about land grabbing, it’s almost automatically linked to foreign direct investment of either big companies or foreign government enterprises that want to secure their own food security. Over the condemnation of the “neo-colonial” foreigners, it’s easy to forget that land grabbing can happen just as easily within countries, setting up urban … Continue reading Vietnam: Where Land-Grabbing goes Local
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U5e2NB6U9dw] This is a really enjoyable clip describing how successful development work can work: these women in The Gambia traditionally only had access to unproductive, degraded land, since the men were working in the more fertile areas. Yet, the women are the ones that bear the responsibility to feed their families and provide extra income … Continue reading Reclaiming the Land in The Gambia
Remember when I posted about the upcoming European Parliament’s vote on its position on the Common Agricultural Policy reform 2014 – 2020? Well, the voting happened yesterday and the results are in – it seems like the Parliament walked a middle way between the proposals of its Agricultural Committee and environmentalists’ demands.
Yesterday, a New York State Supreme Court Judge struck down the first attempt in the U.S. to fight against obesity by legally regulating portion sizes. A day before a law was due to take effect that would limit the allowed size of sugary drinks sold in restaurants, food courts and movie theatres to 16 ounces, … Continue reading New York's Soda Ban Overruled – Defeat of the "Nanny State" or Public Health Setback?
In preparation for my Ethics in Food Production exam today, I went over the ‘Shared Value Approach‘, a new concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) pioneered in 2011. It has been hugely successful with multinational companies, since it highlights the business perspective while acknowledging the linkages between corporate practices, social conditions and environmental concerns. According … Continue reading 'Shared Value' in Cocoa – The Way Forward?
You know that day before you go on an extended vacation and stand in front of a half-full fridge due to poor planning, heave a heavy sigh and take out the garbage bag? Well, if you were living in Cologne, Koblenz or Berlin, instead you would log onto foodsharing.de, would create a food basket with … Continue reading Foodsharing – Reducing Food Waste the German Way