Foundation Journal

Votes on key amendments to the Food Safety Modernization Act (S510) continue today, November 30, 2010 in the Senate, as legislators take up measures on the Tester Amendment and the controversial earmarks amendment. Several groups advocating for small farmers have taken stands on the bill, like Food Democracy Now : Now Big Ag is trying to kill these provisions, which exempt farmers that have sales of less than $500,000 and sell within 275 miles of their farm, and others are hoping to kill the bill outright. We can't let that happen, tell your Senators to vote YES on the Manager's amendment and pass the food safety bill to protect family farmers and consumers. For a re-cap of the bill and update on the latest votes see this from Food Safety News , which mentions a final vote on the Senate vote should occur today, too. The Senate food safety bill, which has been inching towards passage the past few weeks, cleared a key procedural hurdle Monday, but Senate leaders put off t

Following the important food safety legislation (Senate S.510 bill) has been difficult because of the shifting positions by small food growers and multinational corporations. Amendments increased the complexity of the bill, such as the Tester Amendment. However, a key Senate vote appears likely on Monday, November 29 as reported by SFGate.com. Looking past dire warnings was not difficult, such as statements like how the bill "would outlaw gardening and saving seeds" and how "food safety is a Trojan horse for Monsanto" to dominate more of food production. A November 4 food safety roundtable on Grist.org clarified the positions of some: The Senate is expected to vote tomorrow [11/17/10] on the Food Safety Modernization Act -- and possibly pass it by this weekend. Yesterday, we posted our Food Fight participants' heated -- and lengthy -- debate over whether S. 510's provisions will harm small farms or producers. They also discussed whether the Tester-Ha

The USDA released it's annual report on food security on November 15, 2010. "The food security of U.S. households, when measured over the entire year, remained essentially unchanged from 2008 to 2009, with the prevalence of food insecurity at each level of severity remaining at the highest percentage observed since nationally representative food security surveys began in 1995."

One of the most shocking messages of the film "Waiting for Superman" is that poorly-performing schools cause poverty in inner-city neighborhoods, and not the other way around. This stands on end the idea promoted by most social service and government agencies that poverty in inner-city (and rural areas) leads to poor performance at schools. By extension, if  bad schools cause poverty, then "Waiting for Superman" suggests that bad schools are also the cause of high levels of violence, increased levels of hunger and homelessness, and sending jobs overseas. The film concludes that declining performance by students in math and science leads  firms like Microsoft to fill vacant jobs with overseas workers. In other words, US companies have no choice because there are not enough qualified candidates here. US firms apply to fill job openings here in the states through the H1B program. However, a much larger pool of non-US workers are employed through offshore service cont

The US Department of Agriculture will release a report on hunger on Monday, November 15. The report will feature statistics on 2009, a normal lag in reporting statistics, and will likely show an increase in food insecurity throughout the U.S. Last year's report covering 2008 showed 49 million people living at risk of hunger, a huge 11% increase from the previous reporting year. Chart on food insecurity from last year's USDA report.

Harvest of Loneliness: The Bracero Program was screened at the new Student Union at University of Missouri--Kansas City (UMKC) on Thursday, November 4. The film documents the history of the program through the personal stories of families that participated in the temporary farmworker effort between 1942 and 1964. If the program is remembered in US history it is portrayed as an innocuous employment campaign to fill jobs left by individuals that fought in World War II and Korean War. The film depicts the program using inhumane treatment of the workers, mainly recruited from Mexican rural areas. From the overcrowded staging areas to processing facilities, Mexican workers were scrutinized and fumigated before being assigned to work in produce farms in California and the Southwest. Then they were forced to work long hours without proper food, water, shelter, or medical care. The promise of receiving higher wages than paid in Mexico was largely unfilled. After the screening at UMKC,

Shanta Bailey, the new SNAP Outreach Coordinator with Harvesters food bank , presented to area food pantries on the benefits and elgibility of Food Stamps for area residents at a "Feeding More, Feeding Better" conference in downtown Kansas City. She will be working with food assistance agencies to increase applications for SNAP benefits, which was renamed to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from Food Stamps in 2008 to reflect focus on nutrition. Shanta Bailey, new SNAP Outreach Coordinator with Harvesters food bank in Kansas City, Missouri. Shanta's energy and enthusiasm captivated the 50 food pantry representatives and volunteers in the audience, especially when she shared her passion for "empowering our clients" as the principle motivation for her work. She added, "this is about empowerment, this is about knowledge" after discussing myths of SNAP held by eligible residents. She provided an update to the newly emphasized effort led by

The Kansas City Food Policy coalition met today to discuss distribution and production policy as a committee of the group. As meeting facilitator Katherine Kelly with the KC Center for Urban Agriculture indicated in her email announcement, the meeting focused "on policy issues that affect the production, distribution, and access of healthy, local food...which will be taking the lead on figuring out what city/state/federal policy initiatives we could create or get involved in that would help strengthen the local farming and distribution community." As a newcomer to the group interested in their direction and progress, I noted there was a good collection of representatives from many different types of organizations: local growers, CSA distributors, government health educators, financial foundation sponsors, environmental groups, and university agriculture programs. Several individuals addressed jobs for urban core youth and economic development for the same area. The food