by Slow Food USA staffer Julia DeMartini Day

While the United Nations discusses desertification in drought-plagued areas of the developing world, an article in Monday’s NY Times brought our attention to deserts that exist right here in our fertile, developed nation: food deserts.

Food deserts are neighborhoods with inadequate access to fresh food; in many neighborhoods with a large population of people living on low incomes, it is extremely difficult to buy fruits and vegetables – many people end up taking buses to stores, cabs home, or buying what is nearby, often fast food and non perishable items from corner stores or liquor stores.

Websites like foodmapper visually show the prohibitions to eating not just local food, but also fresh food in general, and illustrate how lack of access is tied to increased health problems, like diabetes and obesity.

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by Slow Food USA staffer Jerusha Klemperer

Again and again at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development sessions on Agriculture, representatives from other countries reported that U.S. agriculture policies, such as subsidies, are negatively impacting poor farmers around the world.

And so–where stands this U.S. (Food and) Farm Bill of ours?

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday that “the President has been to the left of the Speaker [Pelosi].” This surprising reality is well explained in this overview, which also points out that “as the commodities boom accelerated over the winter, boosting farm income to new records, the disconnect between the farm bill and economic reality grew more bizarre.”

An opinion piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls the state of affairs “topsy-turvy,” offering that “Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which opposes large-scale corporate farming, estimates that a married farm couple could earn $2.9 million before getting kicked off the federal dole,” calling on GW to veto the whole darn “massive, bloated [GW’s words]” thing.

But that would mean starting from scratch with a brand new President, of course.

by Slow Food USA staffer Jerusha Klemperer

As this article from last Friday’s Wall Street Journal reports, the U.S. has proposed 770 million additional dollars of food aid to address the growing food crisis.  The U.S. delegate to the U.N. reported this in his remarks on Monday to the Commission on Sustainable Development, although he (as well as many other delegates) also emphasized that while giving aid is a nice thing, we, as a global community, need to address food security in a more long term way.

The U.S. delegate also stressed the need for “science-based” approaches to food security, and he was not alone.  A British Ag Professor who presented on a panel on Tuesday made the case for the positive potential of biotech, i.e.: GMOs as the solution to many nutritional deficiencies in the developing world and GMOs as a way to increase production.  He spoke out VERY harshly again the anti-GMOers, saying that Africa cannot feed itself without GMOs.

Interestingly, one thing everyone there can agree on: climate change is real, and is having real effects on agriculture, especially in Sub Saharan Africa.  For better or for worse, climate changes’ effects have become so incontrovertible that gone are the days when anyone could get away with challenging its veracity.

by Slow Food USA staffer Jerusha Klemperer

Greetings from inside the United Nations where I am observing sessions of the Commission on Sustainable Development; this particular two-year cycle of the CSD is focusing on some important issues for Slow Food including Land, Agriculture, Rural Development, Biodiversity, Drought and Desertification.

I am here on behalf of Slow Food USA in order to understand how it is that global policy recommendations are determined for being responsible stewards of the land while also addressing the increasingly important issue of food (in)security.  This year the conversation feels especially pressing and energized given everyone’s concerns about the global food crisis.
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You may recall that last week we were musing about what happens when good small business sell themselves to big ones, and when fast food adheres to slow principles.  We just came across this article in the L.A. Times from last month, which explores the inherent contradictions in a store that promotes sustainable food and green living being gigantically big and using a massive amount of electricity.  Isn’t there a place, even in Pasadena– the land of urban sprawl– for something slower? Smaller?

by SFUSA Program Director Makalé Faber Cullen

The names alone can bring a smile to your face. In today’s New York Times, Kim Severson rolls out descriptions of RAFT, and our country’s food heritage, like little pearls of food wisdom.

Industrial farming, which selects for shipability, is the cause of the loss of 93% of our food diversity. In contrast, over 500 RAFT market farmers in over 40 states took on our Grow Out Challenge and returned endangered varieties to their fields, sharing their bounties with chefs and neighbors, and with us.

For three years, small-scale farmers have been the backbone of RAFT.

With our encouragement and without it, farmers across the US have taken on the task of preserving our country’s agricultural biodiversity. We celebrate the delicious successes of our country’s forward-thinking farmers and chefs.

Editor’s note: Nice coverage of the RAFT book also found on Ethicurean.  Also, make sure to check out the comments section of the NY Times online version, directly following the article.  Good stuff! 

While network television is rarely a topic of discussion here, Sunday night’s episode of “The Simpsons” proves that awareness of industrial agriculture practices might be growing in the minds of Americans. When Bart joins 4-H (it’s slogan on the show: “4-H: it’s still a thing”) in order to drive a combine, he finds himself caring for Lou, a runt calf, for a competition at the county fair. What Bart learns when Lou wins the blue ribbon, though, is that first prize means a first-class trip to the feedlot and the killing floor.

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It’s happening all over the country, faster than we can keep track: farmland is being eradicated in favor of housing developments, malls, and highways.  A week or so ago the Skagit Valley Herald, in Northern Washington state, reported that the city of Mount Vernon is eyeing the 1,500 acres of farmland in the riverbend area in order to accommodate its population growth.One person who’s not taking this news quiely is Slow Food Skagit Valley convivium leader Carol Havens, who wrote in to the editor and pointed out thatAs agricultural land and oil resources diminish, our future will be very different from our immediate past. The most important aspects of a community will not be the size of its houses or the dollar value of its industry. Most valuable will be the quality and proximity of food-producing farmland.Read the whole letter here.

The UN has scheduled a 2-day meeting in Bern, Switzerland, to discuss solutions to the  escalating global food crisis.  It will surely also be a hot topic of conversation when the Commission on Sustainable Development begins meeting at the UN next week; the main topics up for discussion include rural development, land, biodiversity, and desertification (more on this meeting in the coming weeks, since one of our staffers will be attending).

And over at The Nation, an interesting take on it all, with this sentiment from Wisconsin dairy farmer Jim Goodman:

“So,they finally figured out, after all these years of pushing globalization and genetically modified [GM] seeds, that instead of feeding the world we’ve created a food system that leaves more people hungry. If they’d listened to farmers instead of corporations, they would’ve known this was going to happen.”

And, over at Grist, some interesting quotes and ensuing comments on the origins of the crisis–origins about which, at this point, we can only educatedly speculate.

The New York Times has been running an excellent series of articles called “The Food Chain: A Moveable Feast,” the latest of which ran this past Saturday.  In the paper edition it was called “Would You Like Some Carbon with your Kiwi?” (um, no thank you), and it discusses the EU’s plan to tax fuel for international freight. And so, the EU continues to be ahead of the curve (er, ahead of the US) in its commitment to reducing greenhouse gases.

Reading about the transfer of foodstuffs back and forth across the globe, we were reminded of a passage from Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food Nation, called “Peppers and Tulips.” He describes going to a favorite restaurant in Asti, in 1996, and being saddened to discover that his usual dish–peperonata made with the local peppers of Asti–no longer had its wonderful flavor.  When he asked the chef about this difference, the chef reported that nobody in Asti was growing these peppers anymore because it was cheaper to import them from Holland.

Driving home, despondent, Carlo passed some greenhouses, the very greenhouses that likely used to grow peppers.  Going inside to talk to the farmer, he asked what was now growing there.  The answer?

“‘Tulip bulbs! And after we’ve grown the bulbs, we send them to Holland where they bring them into bloom!’”