Good Food is Everybody's Business
Fatou Batta, Co-Coordinator for West Africa from Groundswell International, spoke recently in Seattle about the causes of food insecurity in Africa, particularly in Burkina Faso; the role of rural women in agricultural production and food security; the challenges rural women face; and some of the solutions they have developed.
The San Francisco Public Library is launching a pilot program at the Potrero Branch where residents can “check out” seeds, borrow books, tap into databases, and find other information sources about urban gardening. The process is simple: residents choose from a list of vegetable seeds available in the Seed Library collection, borrow them, and plant their seeds. After they have harvested their crops, they save the seeds from the heartiest and healthiest of their harvest and return the seeds to the same branch.
If you garden in the northern US or southern Canada, there is still time to grow your own garden “starts” from seed. The folks at …
Marra Farm in Seattle’s South Park, an urban farm that grows food for the hungry, is caught in a moral dilemma. Should they use seeds donated from companies who also sell Monsanto varieties? Martha Baskin, Green Acre Radio, visits the farm and explores the issue.
We put money in banks to keep it safe, so it will be there when we need it. In the same way, seeds are put in special facilities, called seed banks, which keep them safe and extend their viability, so they will be available for many years.
Reporter and author, Jonathan Bloom, figures America throws away half of its food. He traces waste through the food chain, from farm to store to home, and suggests how we can be less profligate.
Listen to public radio’s Tavis Smiley as he talks with Will Allen, a former NBA player and the founder/CEO of Growing Power, an urban agriculture and food system that provides fresh fruits and vegetables in urban food deserts.
For those unable to join the Worldwatch Institute’s 15th Annual State of the World Symposium, hosted at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC on January 19th, 2011, we have the full live stream coverage.
