News & Views

Growing Food and Justice for All - First Annual Gathering
Dates: September 19-21, 2008
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
www.growingpower.org

This comprehensive network views dismantling racism as a core principal which brings together social change agents from diverse sectors working to bring about new, healthy and sustainable food systems and supporting and building multicultural leadership in impoverished communities throughout the world. The vision for this initiative is to establish a powerful network of individuals, organizations and community-based entities all working toward a food-secure and just world.

This gathering will include:

• Intensive anti-racism trainings for individuals and organizations interested in becoming trainers
• Workshops and facilitated discussions on social justice, community food systems, dismantling racism 101
• Affinity sessions offered by GFJI members
• Networking and discussions
• Committee meetings and GFJI strategy sessions
• Tours to the Black Holocaust museum, Growing Power and other Milwaukee area community food system projects
• Delicious, local and culturally appropriate food
• Variety of lodging options, that are low cost including local home stays
• And much more to be planned!

United Nations Visits New York City Farms

In New York City, the non-profit Just Food is working to establish a just and sustainable food system. The City Farms project is one of the group’s efforts at achieving that goal, and works with the city’s community gardeners to increase the production, marketing, and distribution of produce to provide local food security. For the past four years, Just Food has been training groups from the Americorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) program to combat poverty through community self-reliance.

The positive impact resulting from this synergistic partnership was recently on display to visiting UN delegates. VISTA’s Shari Rose participated in the tour of Bed-Stuy Farm (one of more than thirty urban farms and gardens participating in the City Farms project) given to Kenyan UN Delegates, where she shared the value of companion planting. The visitors came as part of a tour of Brooklyn agricultural sites for delegates to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), which recently gathered in New York.

The CSD is responsible for effective follow up on decisions reached at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, widely known as the Earth Summit. The group meets annually in New York in two-year cycles, with each cycle addressing different themes of sustainability, including energy, water, and sanitation. 2008 is the first of a two-year cycle focusing on agriculture and land. Food, by extension, has also been a major subject.

For more information, visit www.justfood.org and www.un.org.

Germany Bans Pesticides to Prevent Bee Deaths

In late May, the German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety announced a ban on several pesticides implicated in the massive deaths of honeybees in the southern state of Baden Württemberg.

The ban affects eight neonicotinoid pesticides used in rapeseed and corn production that are alleged to be highly toxic to insects even at very low concentrations. This class of pesticides mimics the natural effects of nicotine and works as a neurotoxin to insects, causing paralysis that leads to death. Tests on dead bees from the affected region showed a buildup of the pesticide clothianidin (produced by Bayer Crop Science and manufactured under the trade names Poncho and Prosper) in 99 percent of the animals. The poison had been applied as a seed treatment, and according to Walter Haefeker, president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association, “Beekeepers in the region started finding piles of dead bees at the entrance of hives in early May, right around the time corn seeding takes place.”

The link between poison and bee death was so obvious that it prompted Germany’s federal agricultural research agency, the Julius Kuehn Institute, to issue a press release with the statement, “It can unequivocally be concluded that a poisoning of the bees is due to the rub-off of the pesticide ingredient clothianidin from the corn seeds.”

Bayer Crop Science attributes the deaths to an application error, blaming a seed company that neglected to use a substance to bind the pesticide to the treated seed, causing airborne dispersal of the chemical.

Across the Atlantic, Bayer faces a lawsuit from North Dakota beekeepers who blame the corporation for the death of thousands of bee colonies in 1995, when imidacloprid (trade named Gaucho), perhaps the most widely used neonicotinoid pesticide, was applied to the local rapeseed crop.  In 1999 France banned Gaucho for use on sunflowers following the death of one third of the nation’s bees following the widespread use of the chemical, and has subsequently banned its use on sweetcorn and rejected Bayer’s application for clothianidin.

Joseph Cummins, a scientist for the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS), a non-profit group directed at “providing critical and accessible scientific information to the public and to promoting social accountability and ecological sustainability in science” (according to the group’s website), has pointed to the ability of neonicotinoid pesticides to be damaging even when introduced to bees at sub-lethal levels. If the animals don’t die, the poison impairs the ability to navigate to the hive, and compromises immune systems, making bees susceptible to parasitic fungi and other disease agents implicated in Colony Collapse Disorder.

For more information, visit www.i-sis.org.uk

Permaculture Events with Bill Mollison

Permaculture luminary Bill Mollison, founder of The Permaculture Institute and veteran designer, teacher, and writer, will step forward to lead two courses later this year. The chance to attend a Mollison-taught course is a rare and valuable experience, given that he retired from a heavy teaching and traveling schedule some years ago.

The first, a Permaculture Design Course, will find Mollison joining forces with Geoff Lawton, founding director of the Permaculture Research Institute, and Greg Knibbs, founding director of International Permaculture Services, for a two-week class in Melbourne, Australia, from September 22nd to October 4th, 2008.
The second is a course of Permaculture Design for Islands and Shorelines, and calls upon Mollison’s considerable experience with seaside communities, from his birthplace of Tasmania to Hawaii, the Sechelles, the Canaries, and Palau. The class will take place in Bocas Del Toro, Panama, from July 16–19, 2008. Heavy emphasis will be placed upon tropical and sub-tropical climates, and topics will include:

• Energy Systems
• Water handling
• Padi culture
• Sealing of sands and corals
• Palm Polyculture
• Appropriate Building Strategies for the tropics
• Aquaculture
• Lagoon Culture
• Mariculture

For more information on both courses visit www.tagari.com.
To read our two part interview with Bill Mollison, see eNewsletter #25 and eNewsletter #26.

Switzerland Extends Ban on Genetically Modified Plants to 2012

The Swiss government recently voted to extend its embargo on genetically modified (GM) plants to 2012. The moratorium originated in 2005 and had been set to expire in November 2010, but the country’s Federal Council has postponed that date to allow time for a national research program to assess the benefits and risks posed by GM crops. Research will address safety concerns and the possible coexistences of GM, conventional, and organic crops. The program’s researchers have been active since the introduction of the ban, and expect to conclude their studies in mid-2012.

To read a longer report, click here.

USDA Eliminates Pesticide Reporting Program

The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) has provided information on national pesticide use for years, but the program was drastically reduced in 2007, and it was announced on May 21st that the program will now be eliminated by the USDA, who cites budget cuts as the reason for the discontinuation.

Public interest groups are joining with industry organizations in expressing concern over the move. The Secretary of Agriculture, Ed Schafer, has received letters signed from the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Organic Center, World Wildlife Fund, the American Soybean Association, and Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. The NASS data has been relied upon by public interest groups who monitor the use and safety of pesticides as one of the only reliable and searchable databases of its kind. Agriculture industry and commodity organizations have depended upon the reporting data to safeguard them from claims about the use of specific pesticide, as well as see whether certain pest issues exist within a specified crop.

The Organic Consumers Association has mounted a campaign to deliver letters of concern and opposition to the Secretary of Agriculture and members of Congress. To participate, click here.

To read more about the issue, click here.

Housing Market Crash Brings Silver Lining of Urban Agriculture to Detroit

In 2005, the non-profit group Urban Farming was born to fight hunger in cities by turning unused land into farms and gardens. They now claim over 50 gardens in cities from coast to coast, as well as on the islands of Jamaica and Hawaii, and the support of many large sponsors such as Starbucks, Home Depot, the National Wildlife Fund, and the NBA. 

In their home city of Detroit, where the mortgage crisis has resulted in record numbers of foreclosures, the group has mounted a pilot program to use abandoned house lots for growing fruits and vegetables to provide for the disadvantaged. The city will provide the water, and Urban Farming volunteers will provide the labor to prepare the soil, plant the seeds, and cultivate the produce. The gardens are open to the public, and all are welcome to gather the food that they need. Unharvested produce is donated to local food banks.

Apart from the benefit of food production, the program also offers the benefits of reduced urban blight, and community building. Gail Carr is a city manager for Detroit, and has seen the effect that Urban Farming’s efforts have had upon neighborhoods: “People are coming out of their homes who wouldn't come out under other circumstances because they didn't think there was still a community or a neighbor or a friendly person nearby.”

The pilot program is being monitored in the hopes of expanding the success to other locations in Michigan’s Wayne County, where Detroit is located. Taja Seville, the founder of Urban Farming, already has plans to bring this manner of program to several other cities this year.

To read more about Urban Farming, click here.

To listen to National Public Radio's recent coverage of this story, click here.