The Genuine Faux Farm was given an opportunity to host representatives of Bread for the World, the Northeast Iowa Food Bank and the Vinyard Church's community dinner program for a discussion about issues relating to supporting food systems that will work to feed everyone, including those who are less privileged. Our thanks to Todd Post and Monica Mills for traveling from Washington, DC to visit with us. Thanks also to Sheri Huber-Otting, Barb Prather (NEI Food Bank) and Nancy Magnall (Vinyard Church).
Rather than report what we discussed at this time - we want to ask you:
What should we be doing to be sure everyone is fed?
Apply the "we" at whatever levels you wish. governmental, social, personal, even with respect to our farm - your choice. Reply on the blog - or send an email to us and we'll post anonymously for you.
Rob and Tammy
There is so much money to be made in processing food that it will never be done away with.
ReplyDeleteDeveloping countries, where most food is direct from farmer to mouth without a factory in between is in need of better distribution to eliminate the waste.
Developed countries, where most food is processed, need to cut out that factory and go directly from farm to mouth and increase the calorie per $.
thanks for the response Ryan.
ReplyDeleteTopic is either too deep to elicit response from most OR we need to encourage more people to read the blog.
I suspect a little of both.
Others - feel free to respond to this. New blog post in the works for Wednesday.
Hiya,
ReplyDeleteI'm answering a bit late, but do have a couple things to mention. Both items are very much influenced by stuff I read recently.
1. Eat local, or as local as possible. I love quinoa. But when I read in a New York Times article that now Bolivians can't afford their own traditional food because it's become popular in Europe and the US, I feel guilty for buying it. I don't even know what my traditional food is!
2. Stop putting food in the gas tank. I unfortunately can't remember where I read this one, but there were some statistics about how much corn that people used to eat now is made into fuel. And in my opinion, we've destroyed the nutritional value of corn because of that type of use. It's odd that corn used to be a really nutritious food, and now we use it for fuel and sweetener.
And I agree with Ryan about just eating the food and cutting out the factory!
More great points!
ReplyDeleteRyan - one issue with developing countries is that big seed companies are pushing to get hybrid seed into those markets. If farmers are no longer allowed to maintain their own varieties, they become dependent on an outside input. That, and they become dependent on commercial farming methods and techniques. I'll be the first to admit that every farmer could learn to do things better. But, I'm pretty sure this trend is NOT better.
Pamela,
Ken Meter (ISU) performed research that determined *IF* everyone in Iowa bought local food during our normal growing season *AND* we had enough growers producing that food. It would create more positive economic impact for our state than ethanol. On top of your concerns for use of "food grade" corn for energy - consider the huge amounts of water needed to create ethanol. We've had wet years recently - but signs are pointing to some dry weather coming up.