This is from the "who knew?" department. It's International Compost Awareness Week. I realized that cruising around a site in Australia of all places, then found a link here about events in the United States running this week.
I get asked a lot of questions about compost, since I have a bin in my yard and we compost all plant waste from the kitchen.
At the Kellogg Conference, I've heard anecdotally that conventional farmers are turning to organic fertilizers, because of the shortage and spike in prices in conventional fertilizers made with fossil fuel. If anyone knows more about this please let me know or post a comment.
- Samuel Fromartz
I’m attending the Kellogg Food and Society Conference outside of Phoenix, which is notable in a couple of ways. The meeting gathers about 550 leaders from the non-profit world - everybody from policy wonks working on the Farm Bill to those working with farmworkers, in urban community gardens, on immigration or with inner city healthy food initiatives.
Secondly, it’s being held at the luxurious Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort, a complex in the middle of the Gila River Indian Community which is actually owned by Indian tribes. The upscale nature of the place is certainly jarring for non-profits more accustomed to pinching pennies (Kellogg is picking up the expenses). But notably, the entire place was designed with Indian themes - artwork, bedspreads, even the architecture - and it provides a lot of jobs at all levels to the local Pima and Maricopa tribes.
Unlike the focus of much of my past work, the people at the conference are coming at things from the not-for-profit angle. Curiously, though, I’ve been engaged workshops where the overt theme was business - how do you grow local food? How do you bring more food to people? What’s needed in distribution? What type of ventures can make this happen? There’s a recognition that business can do this, but it’s business incubated or formed by non-profits for clear social goals.
Given the discussion, it’s clear these people would benefit from engaged business people on their boards, as advisers, if they’re not there already. In the food world, at least the organic wing of it, there are many people who have dealt with the same issues, who have gone from small to big, who have done so with clear missions. While those businesses might not always have a social component, the veterans of those paths could offer tools and strategies to get the business right -- so that it provides a solid foundation for the social goals these non-profits want to pursue.
It’s also clear from the discussions I’m having that the food movement is out-growing the farmer direct models that have been extolled for so long (farmers’ markets, CSAs). The new emphasis is on wholesale models that are necessary to bring more food to places where people actually shop - like supermarkets. That’s the next wave. But I will be interested to see how non-profits play a role in tackling this scaling issue, or whether they will be a footnote among the efforts of profit-minded entrepreneurs.
I would also note that the profit-based companies involved in the food world have largely sidestepped social justice issues. Environment, animal rights (to a degree), worker participation (to a degree), fair prices for farmers (to a degree) find a place, but social justice and affordability don’t hold an equal place at the table. That is, for people on the bottom income rungs. What businesses are starting grocery stores in inner city low-income areas - those food deserts we hear about so often? Can it be done? Or is the food bank, or government-led effort the only solution? I mean, the model exists for the unhealthy kind of store in these neighborhoods - liquor and convenience stores. Why can’t there be a healthy store model? Or maybe I just don’t know about ones that exist.
Maybe that would be a source of non-profit/for-profit partnerships going ahead, much like my impression of the economic development provided by this resort. It’s transforming the community (as one of several economic ventures) creating a social outcome but with the tools and methods of business.
We won recognition from food fit for the blog. Thanks!
By now you've probably seen the news that Costco and Sam's Club are limiting sales of rice, seemingly to discourage hording now that prices are skyrocketing and Vietnam and India are placing bans on some rice exports due to shortages.
"There is no rice," said Rita Patel of San Jose, a native of India who couldn't find any at Costco on Hostetter Road in northeast San Jose on Tuesday night, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
This applies to Jasmine and Basmati rice, though there is no shortage of US-grown rice. Costco is also limiting soybean oil sales, according to the Wall Street Journal:
Food hoarding appears to be driven as much by budget worries as concern of shortages. Consumers, feeling pinched by inflation, are loading up before prices rise again. A Queens, N.Y., Costco limited sales of soybean oil several weeks ago. The store had noticed customers buying up flour and placed a brief limit on purchases. The oil limit is still in effect.
Meanwhile, a freeze on Monday and Tuesday in California has damaged organic crops. Organic Partners reports:
Heavy hit are: Prunes, peaches, apricots, walnuts and other tree crops. Vegetable crops will not show the full extent of the damage until there is some hot weather to accelerate the decay in the plants.
Wal-Mart's tracking adoption of certain "green" products among its customer base, showing which ones are leading and which states are further ahead. The adoption rate is the percentage sales of these products in the overall category.
Among the findings:
- CFLs (compact flourescent lightbulbs) are at a 19.7 percent adoption rate.
- Organic milk, 1.58 percent.
- Eco-friendly cleaning products, 4.77 percent. Product launched in January.
- Organic baby food, 4.12 percent
- Extended-life paper products, 67.5 percent
- Sustainable coffee (fair trade certified, USDA organic, or rainforest alliance certified), 0.35 percent. Product launched in April.
The figures on CFLs were encouraging. Remember when Al Gore implored people to swap out their light bulbs at the end of "An Inconvenient Truth?" But other figures left me scratching my head.
I wondered what "extended life paper products" actually were. As it turns out, this does not mean they have recycled paper content. All it means is the roll is four-times larger than average. Why does that qualify as a green product? Because it saves on driving trips to the grocery store to pick up toilet paper and on packaging. By this logic, any supersize offering would qualify as green.
The figures, while up, also show how modest they are for categories like organic milk.
- Samuel Fromartz
So, Whaddya think of the new look? ChewsWise got a banner, thanks to my sister Lisa Fromartz, an artist and sculptor whose work (let me brag for a minute) is in the Museum of Modern Art, among other places. OK, so she was slummin' and did this logo for me in her spare time, with her able assistant Meghan Joseph. Thanks!
Carl Safina: Song for the Blue Ocean: Encounters Along the World's Coasts and Beneath the Seas
Charles Clover: The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat
Daniel Charles: Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food
Joan Dye Gussow: This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader
Michael Pollan: Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
