Jenny Huston is a chef and food activist working on food systems issues in Oakland, California. Every week she painstakingly compiles a published list of issues related to food, nutrition and agriculture for our collective food community. We are proud to support her efforts by featuring her weekly update here at FarmersMarket.com!
· Farmers Wanted for Monsanto Expose http://bit.ly/t0kZXD
· The Cornucopia Institute: Action Alert: Say No to Dow Chemical’s GE Corn Petition (resistant to 2,4-D active ingredient in Agent Orange) http://bit.ly/vDZoAO
· NYT: Looking past the Potato (North Fork, Long Island) http://nyti.ms/ucsoo8
· NPR: Farmers Markets Flourish In Winter’s Snows http://n.pr/uvtrhQ
· How we can change the game with corporate food: Follow English Commoners' Lead: Band Together to Force Corporate Reform http://t.co/LCDgBnNi
· Big Ag’s Gifts for 2011 http://huff.to/sX0zQZ
· Farming becoming more appealing to young workers http://bit.ly/uQAVsC
· Lobbying in action: PepsiCo vs. kids’ marking guidelines http://bit.ly/uKY1sN
· Civileats: 2012: The Year to Stop Playing Nice http://bit.ly/vIiwkD
· High Peanut Prices Encourage More Farmers to Consider the Crop http://huff.to/uBv7Aw
· Japan: Mothers Rise Against Nuclear Power (contaminated rice, vegetables and baby food production near Fukushima Daiichi) http://bit.ly/t2AGT2
· Fair trade: Farmers begin to fight back http://bit.ly/vkZEMp Corporations blaming farmers… Value of farmland greater than its price, ODA report finds http://bit.ly/sWt1iS … The report, available on the ODA website, shows that converting farmland for short-term economic gains "may not always be in the best interest of the community or the surrounding environment."
Agricultural land provides many economic, ecological and cultural benefits in perpetuity, including many not immediately apparent, the report states, including wildlife habitat, viewscape, tourist attraction and carbon sequestration…
· MF Global Collapse: Fallout Fueling Calls for Cash Grain Trading Reforms http://huff.to/tTdQOX this is where unregulated food commodities markets and trading gets us… $1.2 billion of customer’s money missing, probably used to purchase EU sovereign debt…
· Revive Farming, Revive Haiti http://bit.ly/sBXomr
· Grist: The good food news of 2011 http://bit.ly/txgk4U and The band food news 2011 http://bit.ly/vGlDMp
· Grist: Foot-long shrimp take over Gulf of Mexico http://bit.ly/ruRT8A
· Beef producers see America losing its appetite http://on.msnbc.com/uioX1P
· Scientific America: What Is ‘Slow Money’? http://bit.ly/vi1L4j
· NPR: In China, Finding A New Way To Eat In Times Of Plenty http://n.pr/uhIdt1
· Eco-labels on fish: Sustainable farming tricky http://bit.ly/rEAE0l and Farmed fish eco-labels fall short of protecting environment, says report http://bit.ly/vtZCZB
· California’s young farmers break traditional mold http://bit.ly/v7G3hB
· SF Chron: Hyper-local market provide big economic boost http://bit.ly/vscJDB and Wallace Center Report: Community Food Enterprise (downloadable) http://bit.ly/7cupms
· Confronting climate change and poverty, a new crop of city farmers comes of age in Africa http://bit.ly/rIxlyd
· Grist: The invisibility of modern hunger http://bit.ly/rTPkvg
· Conglomer-ATE: The Consolidation of American Food (Infographic) http://bit.ly/taDWd6
· Clapperton: Soil fauna alive with no-till farming http://bit.ly/tCuqyI
· Farmers market project takes root at OHS, Newman, CA http://bit.ly/vwI9bb
A grant-funded project which allows students to grow their own fruits and vegetables for a school-sponsored farmer’s market is taking root at
Orestimba High School.
· NPR: A Year That Was Good To Beets http://n.pr/rMa9D2 OK, I love beets, and beet greens…
· Foodservice distributors still concentrating power, report says By Dani Friedland on 12/30/2011
The largest U.S. foodservice distribution companies have continued to grow and solidify their positions, according to a recent report by Chicago-based food consultancy Technomic.
The report defines “power distributors” as those with annual calendar-year sales of $150 million or more, and says that these distribution companies control almost half of all distributor sales.
Houston-based Sysco Corp. leads the list of the top 15 distributors, with 2010 sales of $38,430,000,000, up 7.4 percent from 2009. Rosemont, Ill.-based U.S. Foodservice follows with 2010 sales of 18,900,000,000, down slightly from 2009’s figures.
“Most of the top 35 companies are broadline distributors, and their growth has come at the expense of other broadliners and specialists,” Gary Karp, Technomic executive vice president, said in a statement.
The top 15 power distributors, according to Technomic’s 2011 Power Distributor Report, are as follows:
Rank | Company | 2010 Sales (000,000) | 2009 Sales (000,000) | Percent change |
1 | Sysco Corp. | $38,430 | $35,776 | 7.4% |
2 | U.S. Foodservice | 18,900 | 19,000 | -0.5% |
3 | Performance Food Group | 10,300 | 9,720 | 6% |
4 | Gordon Food Service | 7,700 | 7,200 | 6.9% |
5 | Reinhart Foodservice | 4,547 | 4,205 | 8.1% |
6 | Maines Paper & Food Service | 3,050 | 3,000 | 1.7% |
7 | Services Group of America | 2,600 | 2,600 | 0% |
8 | Ben E. Keith Foods | 2,100 | 1,979 | 6.1% |
9 | Shamrock Foods Co. | 1,800 | 1,650 | 9.1% |
10 | Labatt Food Service | 922 | 909 | 1.4% |
11 | Cheney Brothers Inc. | 921 | 811 | 13.6% |
12 | IFH (Institution Food House) | 575 | 608 | -5.4% |
13 | Agar Supply Co. Inc | 569 | 553 | 2.9% |
14 | Glazier Foods | 541 | 531 | 1.9% |
15 | Merchants Foodservice | 450 | 409 | 1% |
Source: http://bit.ly/bY77iS
· McDonald’s Closes All Their Restaurants in Bolivia http://bit.ly/rUgqeU
· 1,500 Employees Skip Holiday Party to Transform Local Farm http://bit.ly/s1uDTy
· Community Supported Brewery Ratchets Up Ravenswood Plans (Chicago) http://bit.ly/t7H1jk and here is the Breweries website http://bit.ly/vrvjpt
· NYT: Organic Ag May Be Outgrowing Its Ideals http://nyti.ms/scvVVL this is what I have been calling Industrial Organic for the last seven years… Monoculture is monoculture…
· 365 Pounds of Caviar Found in Russian Hospital Morgue http://huff.to/u4IKSN
· “Our Struggle is for the Permanence of Agriculture”: Interview with Alberto Gomez of La Via Campesina, Durban South Africa http://bit.ly/ugup6K
Occupy & ANONYMOUS
· Christmas Cookies http://bit.ly/snUlXi
· Utah Doctors Join “Occupy” Movement http://bit.ly/tOhy7j
· Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Occupy Vancouver’s Enlightened Cost/Benefit Analysis http://bit.ly/vQF1gI
Government & Regulation
· Six Billion Dollar Subsidy for Dirty Corn Ethanol Defeated http://bit.ly/vcl6Vx
· Iso Rabins, San Francisco’s Famed Forager, Targeted y Department of Health http://huff.to/rIePUS
· Top Six Food Politics Lessons Learned in 2011 http://huff.to/ub9x4V
· American farmlands to be carpet-bombed with Vietnam-era Agent Orange chemical if Dow Chemical gets their way http://bit.ly/sSMnHm, and Beyond Pesticides archives on 2,4-D http://bit.ly/sFKXWs
· San Francisco Becomes First US City to Top $10 Minimum Wage http://bit.ly/v3WJfE
· Sorry Mrs. O, But Jumping Jacks Won’t Cut It http://bit.ly/rylrSi
· BP Oil Spill: Prosecutors Reportedly Preparing Criminal Charges http://huff.to/vOx7zc At long last those that cause the devastation to the Gulf of Mexico and the seafood there in http://bit.ly/v4rdVp
· Butterball Turkey Raid: Factory Farm Hit By County Sheriffs After Undercover Video Reveal Cruelty http://huff.to/vOYz3C and Will the Butterball raid yield any results? http://bit.ly/uvbQch
· Scrooged: FDA gives up on antibiotic restrictions in livestock http://bit.ly/sCmUdv
· EPA Slashes Cellulosic Biofuel Mandate. Again. http://bit.ly/tyjalH
· NYT: As Supply Dwindles, Organic Milk Gets Popular http://nyti.ms/tZShb0
· Rural California Report: 2011: Securer Communities, Safer Neighborhoods? http://bit.ly/vnO3Lr
GMOs/Cloning
· USDA Deregulates Two Monsanto Genetically Engineered Seeds http://bit.ly/s5MYqg
· How You Can Stand Up Against GMOs http://bit.ly/hFbyKY
· New Consumer Lawsuit Over Not So Natural GMO Food http://bit.ly/rtDIYn
· GM and non-GM crops cannot coexist http://bit.ly/cbfzJA
· Time: Farming Practices Threaten Widely Grown Corn Crop (Bt) http://ti.me/tFp1FR
· Study concludes GM food safe! http://bit.ly/ugF29V, dig a bit deeper, not really…
· Monsanto: Extinction http://bit.ly/i5Shai, how Monsanto actually produces GM products, dangerous, scary, and it should be illegal…
· Lawsuit Alleges Frito-Lay’s GMO Snacks Aren’t ‘Natural’ http://huff.to/t9fuBl and here http://bit.ly/vakKcy
· Farmers Guardian: GM crops banned (income and production) in Peru for 10 years http://bit.ly/rF9fZM President Ollanta Humala said the decision was made after hearing ‘the cries of agricultural organizations and civil society to take this important step in the defense of our biodiversity’.
· FBI tracking (factory farm) videotapers as terrorists? http://lat.ms/tpRblw
· Monsanto (Still) Denies Superinsect Problem, Despite Evidence http://bit.ly/ugsV6m
· Monsanto’s Toxic Milk – Banned in Europe http://bit.ly/fQDEon
Healthy/Safe Food?
· China Tainted Milk: Mengniu Dairy Group Destroys Milk with Canter Causing Toxin http://huff.to/rVMcnp China Tainted Milk: Mildewed Feed Behind Canter Causing Toxin in Milk http://huff.to/thWYet
· NYT: Bacteria 1, FDA 0 http://nyti.ms/tcLHcg
· Innovation stumbles; perception prompts burger chains to ditch food safety product pink slime http://bit.ly/ufhNeA and Grist: Fast food chains give up ‘pink slime’ meat product http://bit.ly/rL7x1x
· Denny’s Worst Menu Items http://huff.to/tYT4bE If this doesn’t make you sick, I don’t know what will…
· Fast food may damage brain: study http://bit.ly/tOv8U9
· Zombie cheeseburger? McDonald’s patty, bun, cheese unchanged after one year sitting on kitchen counter http://natpo.st/vhZFGr
· Food safety: it’s déjà vu all over again http://bit.ly/vNnZxo
· Misreading Olive Oil In America http://huff.to/vhpO58
· There’s A 25% Chance Your Ground Meat Has A Potentially Fatal Bacteria http://huff.to/uiT7C1
Events
· La Cocina, San Francisco
Workshop: How to Start Selling at a Farmers Market
January 11th, 6pm – 9pm
· Future Harvest - A Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture
2012 Conference
Farm to Institution: Making Local Food Economies a Reality
January 13th, 9:30am – 9pm
January 14th 8:30am – 5pm
Location: National Conference
18980 Upper Belmont Place
Leesburg, VA 20176
Phone: 703.729.8000
or contact:
Deborah L. Blood, RD, LDN
Certified Diabetes Educator
The Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology at Shore Health System
219 South Washington Street
Easton, Maryland 21601
Tel. 410-822-1000 x 5195
Fax 410-822-5117
email: dblood@shorehealth.org
· Northern Michigan Small Farm Conference
Saturday, January 28, 2012, 8am – 5pm
Grayling High School, Grayling, MI
· EcoFarm Conference
February 1 – 4, 2012, Pacific Grove, CA
· Just Food Conference 2012, NYC,
February 24, Friday: 8:30am -7pm & Saturday: 8am – 6pm
Food and Finance High School, 525 W 50th St., NY, NY
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Comments for Jenny's Update January 2, 2012