Food and Faith
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Food and Faith is a blog of the Presbyterian Hunger Program.
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- What's on the Table: Growing and Cooking in Louisville
- Food Fighter Feature: Goodness Grows
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April 4, 2012VISTAs Help Bring Justice to the Food System
Laura Stricklen Jonathan Krigger
Rachel Brunner Arianna King
National Anti-Hunger and Empowerment
Corps Year Two Takes Off
AmeriCorps VISTA Team to Work in around the U.S. including Louisville
Four full-time national service participants, Arianna King, Jonathan Krigger, Laura Stricklen, and Rachel Brunner started work this week for the Presbyterian Hunger Program (PCUSA) as part of a nationwide program to fight hunger, the National Anti-Hunger and Empowerment Corps.
Their service began on February 13 after top federal and local officials joined with nonprofit groups in Boston to swear-in the 31 members of the new national team, an AmeriCorps VISTA project which will help nonprofit organizations in 18 states, at nearly 30 sites, fight hunger, increase the amount of healthy, locally-grown food, and help to empower more low-income individuals and families to achieve long-term financial security.
For the next eleven months, Brunner, King, Krigger and Stricklen will assist congregations and organizations in Louisville and around the country more effectively connect low-income individuals and communities to government nutrition programs, such as SNAP and WIC, and to healthy, locally sourced foods.
The program is being led by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH) and is funded by the USDA and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) with additional support from non-governmental sources. This unique public-private partnership is aimed at reducing the hunger and food insecurity faced by 50 million Americans.
“In this nation of plenty, it is unacceptable that millions of children still go to bed not knowing if there will be food for their next meal,” said Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds AmeriCorps and a senior member of the subcommittee that funds the USDA. “The Anti-Hunger and Opportunity Corps is a win-win - it will play an important role in the fight against hunger, while helping young people build leadership skills and pay off school debt.”
“Increasing access to nutrition assistance for our most vulnerable populations is a top priority of the Obama Administration,” said USDA Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Concannon. “We are committed to working with our partners at the federal, state and local level, as together we help millions of families in need.”
“For more than 46 years, VISTA has been in communities working to improve the lives of millions of the most vulnerable Americans,” said Paul Davis, Acting Director of AmeriCorps VISTA. “This cross-agency collaboration with USDA will prove instrumental in helping individuals and families get on the path to economic stability and build stronger communities.”
“We are excited to host Arianna, Jonathan, Laura and Rachel, who will be working with congregations and communities to strengthen their witness of Christ in the world,” says Presbyterian Hunger Program staffer, Andrew Kang Bartlett. “Over decades, the Presbyterian Church USA has carried out ministries of compassion, helping to alleviate hunger, as well as ministries of justice to help Presbyterians understand and address the root causes of hunger. The VISTA workers extend the work of the Presbyterian Hunger Program to help build the capacity of local churches and groups to create healthy, just food systems in the U.S.”
“The AmeriCorps VISTA program is a perfect tool to fight hunger and improve nutrition,” said NYCCAH’s Joel Berg. “We are grateful that this new public-private partnership will cost-effectively aid the ability of grassroots nonprofit groups in 18 states to increase their capacity to enable eligible families to access the federal nutrition assistance benefits that they need to avoid hunger and improve their diets. We are extraordinarily grateful to the Obama Administration and to local officials around the country for this tremendous federal and local support.”
The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through its Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America programs, and leads President Obama's national call to service initiative, United We Serve. For more information, visit NationalService.gov. AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) taps the skills, talents, and passion of more than 7,000 Americans annually to support community efforts to overcome poverty. AmeriCorps VISTA members are assigned full-time for one year at nonprofit community organizations with the goal of building the organizational, administrative, and financial capacity of programs that provide low-income Americans with the skills and resources needed to break the cycle of poverty.
April 2, 2012
Food Justice Fellows ~ Deadline Extended for new Class: APRIL 15
New and Final Deadline for Food Justice Fellows is the 15th of April
February 27, 2012
Nathan aka 'Man in Overalls' featured in new interfaith documentary
Take a look at this clip featuring PHP's Food Justice Fellow, Nathan Ballentine (aka Man in Overalls), and his efforts to help folks grow food throughout Tallahassee.
February 8, 2012
Taking the Time to Make Food Sacred
TRY this: place a forkful of food in your mouth. It doesn’t matter what the food is, but make it something you love — let’s say it’s that first nibble from three hot, fragrant, perfectly cooked ravioli.Now comes the hard part. Put the fork down. This could be a lot more challenging than you imagine, because that first bite was very good and another immediately beckons. You’re hungry.
So begins an article called "Mindful Eating as Food for Thought," which challenges us to not eat like the Cookie Monster.
And in case you haven't yet done the Just Eating? curriculum, one of the sessions is all about food as a sacred gift from God. You can download it for free here. Look for Unit 1 on Food Sharing as Sacramental...
And if you've never tried a food meditation, here are the simple instructions for a Raisin Meditation!
January 13, 2012
Farm Bill Debate Renews!
Photo credit: Shawn Poynter
Steph Larsen is on staff at the Center for Rural Affairs. Here she is leading a workshop at the National Rural Assembly in St. Paul, MN
"Under current law, if one big corporation farmed the entire country, the U.S. Department of Agriculture would pay 60 percent of its insurance premiums on every acre."
Sounds crazy, right? Yet this is reality and illustrates the way our food and farm policies give a hand up to the largest farms, while small-scale family farmers are largely neglected. The article below (excerpted) from our partner, Center for Rural Affairs, points to the kinds of changes needed in the 2012 Farm Bill (yes, it should be called the Food and Farm Bill). Read what is important to our neighbors in rural areas of the country.
December 27, 2011
Power on our Plates
When my daughter was in kindergarten, she would inspect her friends' strawberries at lunchtime. “No no, you don’t want to eat that,” she would solemnly inform them. “It’s not organic. It might have yucky chemicals on it.”
Yucky chemicals indeed. Studies continue to pile up showing how pesticides on food can be harmful, especially to children's health. As we head into the home stretch of the holiday feast season, I've been thinking hard about the powerful ripple effects of our food choices. Turns out, what we eat matters. A lot. (from Pesticides Action Network's "Power on our plates")
It does matter because "you are what you eat" is not an allegory; it is literally true. The substances that pass between your lips become your very own skin, muscle, cartilage, ligaments, nails, bones, blood, lymph and cerebral spinal fluid. Not to mention your organs, nerve cells and the two dozen digestive enzymes that break down food.
Take, for example, my daughter's now-favorite veggie, spinach: USDA found residues of 48 pesticides on their official samples. Of these, 25 are suspected to interfere with human hormones, eight are linked to cancer, eight are neurotoxins and 23 are toxic to honeybees. Yucky. Knowing all this makes the organic spinach from our local farm taste especially good.
Unlike pre-WWII food, today's food typically delivers one or more poisons to our cells because industrial farming, and its chemical dealers -- Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, Dow, Dupont and others -- are at war with weeds and pests. But many pests keep winning as they develop resistence. Ever more toxins are needed. Children are most effected because they eat more fruits and vegetables and are more sensitive. But it is often when we are adults that the long-term effects hit us.
What to do?
1) First, educate yourself by finding out what's on your food (you can search by food item or pesticide)2) Second. Consider joining Pesticides Action Network; becoming a PCUSA Earth Care Congregation and joining Presbyterians for Earth Care.3) Third. Thank the next farmer you meet who is engaging in sustainable and organic practices and buy their last bunch of kale!
November 21, 2011
Addressing the root causes of hunger
The Presbyterian Hunger Program has provided more than $100 million in financial support to effective groups in the U.S. and overseas since it was established in 1969. The five below are just a few of these initiatives, which are alleviating and striving to address the underlying causes of hunger.
Alabama Arise
Arise members speak out on income tax threshold
In response to a new report citing Alabama's high income tax on the poor, a Huntsville TV station turned to Arise members for comment. Dale Clem, pastor of Monte Sano United Methodist Church and an ACPP board member, and Dick Hiatt, executive director of the North Alabama Food Bank, an ACPP member group, voice their concerns about Alabama's upside-down tax system in this news clip. View news video here. Read ARISE news release here.
Alabama Arise is helping low-income families build a future with individual development accounts (IDAs). Under guidelines set forth by federal Assets for Independence Act of 1998, participants can get a “double match” for up to $2000 they save in an IDA. For $2000 put into the IDA they can get $6000 for a downpayment on a home, college education or starting a small business. What a great way to help others help themselves out of poverty. Alabama Arise motto says it all “A hand UP, not a hand out”.
Boston Faith and Justice Network
Fair Trade Boston was designed to connect church teams, businesses and student groups to broader community engagement of Fair Trade. They hold events for Christians to raise consciousness about how these issues relate to their faith such as film screenings, a national webinar on fair trade and faith, and a bike ride and a benefit concert for a local safe house for survivors of human trafficking. They provide information to Boston-area residents so they are able to understand the ways workers are abused and how fair trade can address this.
The picture to the right is from BFJN director's recent trip to India. Read Ryan's India blog posts on their website.
Corporate Accountability International
Corporate Accountability International is “Thinking Outside the Bottle.” They have convinced schools, businesses, mayors and governors to support and create Bottled Water Free Zones. We definitely need to come together and get various corporations to stop draining watersheds and aquifers for profits. We can work together and all be “Bottle Free”!
PHP has supported CAI's water campaign in past years and is now supporting their work to combat unhealthy food advertising. Read about their campaigns.
First Presbyterian Church St Joseph
First Presbyterian Church St. Joseph will celebrate its 27th anniversary in June of 2012. The church provides sack lunches every Sunday with the help of many volunteers. While folks are there to pick up their food, nurses give flu and hepatitis shots, AIDS screenings and other health services. There is a “Health Express” mobile clinic that parks in front of Open Door Food Kitchen twice a month to offer blood pressure checks, diabetes sugar level sticks, hygiene kits and referral services. They also have Para Medic and a nurse practitioner on board.
And check out their Food for Kids program as well.
Idaho Community Action Network
Due to so many Americans struggling in todays time ICAN got together and came to legislature to increase Food Stamp Asset test from $2,000 to $5,000. This bill is now a law! They are also trying to reverse Medicaid cuts after $35 million was cut from the state budget. Started in 1999, ICAN has over 2,000 members statewide and they educate and mobilize people to advocate on issues of social, racial, and economic justice and to eliminate poverty in Idaho. Learn about their great food justice programs and read their new report:
Families or Corporations?
SUPER COMMITTEE CHOICE: NEED VERSUS GREED
New Report Shows Staggering Hunger and Food Insecurity Nationwide While Federal Funds Feed “Big Ag” Profits.
All this great work is made possible by the generous gifts of Presbyterians to the One Great Hour of Sharing. Thank you!
October 28, 2011
Job announcement! Anti-Hunger Empowerment Corps VISTA positions
Presbyterian Hunger Program (PCUSA) will host 3-4 full-time Anti-Hunger Empowerment Corps AmeriCorps*VISTA members for 12 months. They will be based in the national denominational offices in Louisville, Kentucky. Deadline for cover letter and applications is November 18. (See full post for details)
September 30, 2011
Hunger Program partner highlights labor rights for World Food Day
World Food Day!
World Food Day happens on October 16. The US Food Sovereignty Alliance, of which the FCWA is a member, is joining with La Via Campesina and food sovereignty movements to call on people and organizations to fashion the food and farming future we need—a future of communities, regions and nations revitalized with local food, democracy, sustainability and justice.
September 27, 2011
PCUSA congregation plans for World Food Day
Ashley Goff, the associate pastor at the PCUSA Church of the Pilgrims in Washington, D.C. sent us their plans for World Food Day (October 16) and the Food Week of Action.
Here is how she explained it ~~
"We are honoring the Food Week of Action starting October 9th and wanted to share our current plan. At Church of the Pilgrims, we are honoring Food Week in this way:
During our education hour prior to worship, we are having one of our members, Erin LittleStar who is active in sustainable food practices and local food/faith advocacy lead us in an hour of learning more about the food cycle and systems. This is an intergenerational event.
At the end of the hour, we are going to invite people to make 4 choices to honor the week in a practical way:
Compost for a week: We have two standing composts at Pilgrims along with worm composting. People will be invited to compost for a week and bring the compost to church the following Sunday.
SNAP Challenge: One of our members works for the Dept of Agriculture, specifically around SNAP, and recently did a SNAP Challenge with her colleagues. The challenge is to eat for a week on your amount you would receive for food stamps. (See how it works below)
Local Food: Eat one meal a day with locally grown food.
Intentional Prayer: Set an intention before each meal, snack, drink for the week. Setting an intention and honoring where the food has come from and naming if the food with be healthy or destructive to your body (and in turn to the planet).
Each session will be led by a church member who has been doing this practice and can explain the nitty-gritty.
After church, we are having a beekeeping 101 session and a farmer's market group shopping experience. We have 5 beehives at Pilgrims which pollinate our urban garden (plus areas around us) and our beekeeper is coming to give us more information on our hives, feed the bees, etc.
Erin will be taking another group to our local farmers market to meet some farmer's, shop for the SNAP challenge and have hands on learning around local food, seeing food as more than fuel but a faith experience.
Worship will be part of Food Week in some way. Yet to be determined!"
You can find all the resources you need for World Food Day and the Food Week of Action on the PCUSA's Food and Faith website.
STEP 1 - Eat on $4/day for a week, a month or longer if you so choose.
STEP 2 - Experience hunger for yourself and the difficulties faced by hungry people everywhere.
STEP 3 - Engage others by sharing your experience. We encourage you to keep a journal, post to our Facebook page, email us your story or simply share your feelings with with friends, family and coworkers.
And you? Consider getting your congregation to do something for Sunday, World Food Day ~ October 16. How about organizing a group meal? Just email us at php@pcusa.org and we will send you free placemats. No cost. Table discussion questions and other downloadable resources can be found here.
May 26, 2011
Food Justice for All Webinar Resources, including The Handbook
The updated Food Sovereignty for All Handbook: Overhauling the Food System with Faith-Based Initiatives is available free of charge! Cover-small Download PDF of Food Sovereignty for All Handbook Thanks to the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon for their work writing and publishing this valuable guide. This is a slightly updated version. The first Food Justice for All Webinar was recorded and can be found here. It is 67MB and can be viewed with Windows Media Player (WMP can also be downloaded onto a Mac). Join or invite others to one of remaining "Food Justice for All" webinars These webinars explore ways that congregations around the country are growing community by alleviating hunger and connecting healthy local food to people and communities with little access. The webinars will detail proven faith-based initiatives like summer-feeding programs, community gardens, farmers markets, tactics for getting local produce in food pantries and kitchens, and other models for linking people with healthy and local food. Sign up by clicking on the registration link below: 1. May 5th 2:00-3:00pm (EDT) - Food Justice for All Webinar: Growing community through local food 2. May 12th 2:00-3:00pm (EDT) - Food Justice for All Webinar: What congregations are doing to build just and sustainable food economies 3. May 19th 2:00-3:00pm (EDT) - Food Justice for All Webinar: SNAP outreach and Summer Feeding Programs 4. May 26th 2:00-3:00pm (EDT) - Food Justice for All Webinar: What congregations are doing to build just and sustainable food economies See also the US Dept. of Agriculture's Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships website for various resources.
May 25, 2011
Farm Subsidies, Price Floors & Daryll Ray
If you remember back to the last farm bill reform activities, you may even remember Daryll Ray and his analysis around subsidies. Well, myths around subsidies being the root of all evil in the farming system persist even among groups such as Bread for the World. Granted the issue can seem complex and it's easier to mimic what others say (I certainly confess to this sin), but Professor Ray has done a great job of explaining the real story. Thanks to Presbyterian farmer and advisor, Brad Wilson, we have resources on this topic below at the tip of your fingers. Thank you Brad! And if you wish to learn from and join with Presbyterians discussing (and acting on!) similar topics, such as how folks are overhauling the food system with local and regional faith-based initiatives, you are welcome to join the PCUSA Food and Faith Groupsite. Just sign-up to join and you'll soon be part of this growing group of Agrarian Allies! Daryll Ray of the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center at the University of Tennessee has written many excellent materials on the farm bill, price floors, (“price supports,”) farm subsidies, supply management, and related topics. Ray’s best summary of the topic is probably the Executive Summary to his (et al) 2003 report: “ Rethinking US Agricultural Policy: Changing Course to Secure Farmer Livelihoods Worldwide.” Read more...
May 13, 2011
God's Earth: Too Big to Fail?
2011 National PEC Faith & Environment Conference "God's Earth: Too Big to Fail? An Eco-Justice Conversation Among Faith, Science and Culture" August 31 - September 3, 2011, at Highlands Presbyterian Camp and Retreat Center in the mountains of Colorado. Keynote speakers include Dr. William Brown, author of The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science and the Ecology of Wonder; Dr. Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, senior scientist and director of sustainable foods at the Pesticide Action Network; Carol Raffenspurger, Executive Director of the Science and Environmental Health Network; Dr. Hayes, Professor with expertise in amphibian biology at the University of California Berkley; Dr. Holmes Rolston III, environmental ethics scholar; Dr. John E. Ikerd, professor emeritus of agricultural economics at the University of Missouri Columbia. Special thanks to our conference sponsors, including Environmental Ministries, the Presbytery of Olympia, the Presbytery of the Inland Northwest, Second Presbyterian of Little Rock, and Second Presbyterian Church Indianapolis. Registration is now open at $125.00 and can be completed online here. List of workshops here. Get all the latest info on the conference on the "Too Big to Fail" blog here
May 6, 2011
Announcing "Land and Food Sovereignty" Study Session
The “Land and Food Sovereignty” Study Session, sponsored by Agricultural Missions, Inc., is part of a National Rural Gathering on Land, Water, Energy and Food, together with the Rural Coalition and other allies. Dates: June 22-26, 2011 (Wednesday through a...
May 5, 2011
Food Sovereignty Explained
All people have the right to decide what they eat and to ensure that food in their community is healthy and accessible for everyone. This is the basic principle behind food sovereignty. If you want to support domestic food security through the production of healthy food at a fair price, and you believe that family farmers and fishers should have the first right to local and regional markets, then food sovereignty is for you. via www.grassrootsonline.org FS-Booklet-Cover-2010 This excellent booklet is now available in Spanish (plus English and Portuguese!). Share it with your friends and family. Put it on your bulletin board at work. Read it to your children for a bedtime story... What are the connections to our faith values? To our commitment to end hunger? Read Turning the Tables: People First and The Daily Bread by two theologians from Brazil for their reflections on these questions. Learn more about food sovereignty and consider organizational membership in the US Food Sovereignty Alliance. Congregations may join too! Click here to go the USFSA website.
February 2, 2011
We live in a beautiful world: let's CELEBRATE!
A colleague Roger Doiron and Kitchen Gardeners International produced this video about the beautiful food we can choose. Roger found it ironic that "one day after the government issues its strongest recommendation to date to eat less and better foods, the snack food industry lobby launches "National Snack Food Month" to get Americans to eat more and worse." So they launched 28ate.org . . . for fun, and to bring attention to the billions of dollars spent on advertising unhealthy, processed foods.
January 8, 2011
We are all children of the bayou
The video gives a glimpse into the lives of shrimp fishers post-BP disaster. The fisherfolk of the bayou provide shrimp, oysters and crabs for the entire country. We are what we eat, and so to some extent we are all offspring of the bayou. The chart below gives a picture of the troubled industry. The Son of the Bayou, Torn over the shrimping life is the story of Aaron Greco and the shaky existence of wild shrimp "farmers" in southern Louisiana. The photo is of Aaron with his girlfriend, Melanie Fink, 17, after a long day of shrimping. They lean against his prized yellow Mustang last fall outside their favorite ice cream shop in Chalmette, La. ---------- Unfortunately, like almost every resource-rich place and country in the world from Cameroon to Guatemala, systematic extraction of resources has been Louisiana’s sorry history. The riches are exploited using local labor and profits depart for distant corporate headquarters. When people and resources are exhausted, impoverished communities and destroyed ecosystems are what remain. Capital says sayonara to search out new resources and new profits.
December 7, 2010
Climate and social justice (Cancún #1)
Blain Snipstal, HEART Road Trip alumnus, is currently in Cancun during the UN COP-16 Climate Talks on a Rural Coalition delegation and sponsored by the Presbyterian Hunger Program. Along with thousands of people from civil society, many coming by caravan through Mexico, he is participating in the Alternative Global Forum on Climate Change and Social Justice (see news report about small farmer participation). Here are some of his thoughts prior to going to Cancun on Dec. 3rd, while finishing up his college studies. I write this to you as I am experiencing the final days of my academic experiment (well, at least for now). Academia, for me, was a microcosm for experiencing the dualities, tri-alities, and quasi-alities that our collective amalgamation of life, which we call the world, can offer. In my final days; the world is shrinking; its once enormity is now no more than an infinitesimal dot or splash in a sea of consciousness. Perhaps, nothing is what it seems.
December 6, 2010
Happy birthday to EAA!
How can an acronym be born and have a birthday?! When it was born 10 years ago and stands for Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance! Okay, that was dumb. But we do celebrate these 10 years of collaborative action and the Presbyterian Church USA's past seven years of involvement! The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA), one of the most diverse international Christian organizations existing today, celebrates its tenth anniversary on 9 December. Over 70 churches and Christian organizations are currently members of the Alliance, from Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox and Protestant traditions. These members, representing a combined constituency of tens of millions of people around the world, are committed to working together in public witness and action for justice on defined issues of common concern. The need for an alliance to strengthen campaigning efforts for peace, justice and human dignity was identified in meetings between the World Council of Churches and heads of Christian development agencies in the late 1990s. The EAA was created to focus advocacy by churches and related organizations on a few selected topics, and provide a space where diverse churches, organizations and Christian groups could collaborate. The founding assembly of the EAA was held in Geneva, 7-9 December 2000. Trade and HIV and AIDS were the first two issues selected for joint action. Members of the EAA currently collaborate in ongoing campaigns on Food ('Food for Life') and HIV and AIDS ('Live the Promise'). "I have seen the EAA grow from an idea to a solid and effective, internationally recognized agent for change," stated Rev. Dr Richard Fee, General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church in Canada and Chairperson of the EAA's Board of Directors. "We've marked many successes over these past ten years but there is no doubt that the need for churches and Christians to continue to speak and act together is as urgent as ever." "The Global Week of Action has become a dynamic way for congregations in the United States to educate and act around critical trade and food justice issues that affect our partners overseas as well as people in our own communities," says Andrew Kang Bartlett of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, who serves on EAA's Food for Life Campaign strategy group. While you may not make the anniversary celebration at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on 9 December (you knew that was coming with the 'Centre' spelling, right?), but you can get engaged by downloading the Week of Action on Food Guide to use as an educational tool with your congregation! Download the beautiful PDF Food Week guide right here The list of current EAA members is available here And you can view a timeline of highlights over the past ten years here (PDF)
November 29, 2010
The Earth is coming alive
"The Earth is coming alive," or as Dr. Ellen Davis phrases it: The earth is a living creature, with its own integrity in the sight of its Creator. Dr. Davis has been providing the Hunger Program, the Agrarian Road Trippers, and many in the United States who have read her work (such as The Manna Economy), a biblical basis for understanding the power dynamics and theological interpretation of the industrial food and farming system. This highly technified, energy-intensive system has all but replaced family-scale and organic farming, which of course had been the dominant food system not a century ago. In this new essay called, A Living Creature: A Biblical Perspective on Land Care and Use*, Dr. Davis says that when it comes to food, ...I have been surprised to find that even those who do not habitually read the Bible care what it says. Perhaps there is a kind of practical theism that informs the thinking of those who deal daily with the essential means of life. Especially they care when they realize (often with surprise) how much the Bible has to say about maintaining adequate food and water supplies, about protecting the fertile soil and at the same time the economic viability of farming communities – all matters of vulnerability, urgency and indeed danger in our current era of industrialized agriculture. In A Living Creature, which you should download right now and savor, Davis reflects on the relationship between how we eat and the horrific oil disaster the planet just experienced. The modern food system, which hungers for and consumes 10% of our petroleum, is practically connected to this tragedy, but also theologically -- The wound in the ocean floor and our dominant food production practices are also connected ideologically, in that both reflect a profound misunderstanding of the created order and the human place in it. That misunderstanding is in the first instance not scientific but theological. Without setting off the spoiler alert, here is one more image from the essay that sets the context for her insightful perspective: Having watched it bleed for months, we are better able to see that the earth is not a machine, nor is it a convenient repository of useful goods. Journalist Naomi Klein comments: 'After 400 years of being declared dead, and in the middle of so much death, the Earth is coming alive.' The wound in the ocean floor and our dominant food production practices are also connected ideologically, in that both reflect a profound misunderstanding of the created order and the human place in it. That misunderstanding is in the first instance not scientific but theological. "The Earth is coming alive," or as Dr. Ellen Davis phrases it: The earth is a living creature, with its own integrity in the sight of its Creator. Dr. Davis has been providing the Hunger Program, the Agrarian Road Trippers, and many in the United States who have read her work (such as The Manna Economy), a biblical basis for understanding the power dynamics and theological interpretation of the industrial food and farming system. This highly technified, energy-intensive system has all but replaced family-scale and organic farming, which of course had been the dominant food system not a century ago. In this new essay called, A Living Creature: A Biblical Perspective on Land Care and Use*, Dr. Davis says that when it comes to food, ...I have been surprised to find that even those who do not habitually read the Bible care what it says. Perhaps there is a kind of practical theism that informs the thinking of those who deal daily with the essential means of life. Especially they care when they realize (often with surprise) how much the Bible has to say about maintaining adequate food and water supplies, about protecting the fertile soil and at the same time the economic viability of farming communities – all matters of vulnerability, urgency and indeed danger in our current era of industrialized agriculture.
October 25, 2010
Food Sovereignty movement brings call for solidarity and systemic change to Community Food Security Coalition Conference
The Food Sovereignty track of activities during the 3-day Community Food Security Coalition gathering in New Orleans looked like the program of a gathering of Via Campesina, the worldwide peasant and family farm movement that first popularized this comprehensive and transformative concept decades ago. Here is a listing of workshops led by or featuring US Food Sovereignty Alliance participants: Credit and Capital for a Just and Sustainable Food System, featuring Ben Burkett, Bob St. Peter and Lisa Griffith of the National Family Farm Coalition and Niaz Dorry of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance. Food Movements Unite! Led by Eric Holt-Gimenez of Food First and featuring Joann Lo of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, Rosalinda Guillen of Community to Community Development.
October 8, 2010
monsanto
After asking a class of college kids whether they had heard of Monsanto and none of them had, I asked the same question on the PHP Facebook page and many do know about Monsanto. But, there seems to be a generation gap on this. Many had heard about Monsanto years or decades ago. Like these three FB comments -- "DDT and Agent Orange in the 60's. Monsanto is a poison dealer." "From early childhood. Monsanto had a chemical plant in our town. My father was a Chemical Engineer for Union Carbide and made, among other things, MIC the stuff that was being made in Bhopal." And (sarcasm alert) -- "back in the 70's for dirty dealing and toxic pollution ....great company !!!!" But not all were elders... "Years. But in 90's heard more about ADM - and late 90's early 00's when "supermarket to the world" was sponsoring NPR, it was shocking. Well, not shocking... (It doesn't suprise me about RoundUp; not as many kids are getting their hands dirty in the fields) (for the record, I'm a Gen Xer)" And one commented that it would be "worth doing research into the issue." Indeed. Some articles on Monsanto have just come my way today, and below those are several earlier posts on Monsanto - in case you missed those. To be clear here, the Presbyterian Church USA has nothing against the company. But we do have clear policy supporting family farmers and sustainable farming approaches, and your reading of the following may raise questions about whether Monsanto is always considering these. It's a hodge-podge, but hopefully something for everyone. "...Monsanto finally admitted recently that superbugs, or pests that have evolved to be able to eat the Bt crops, are a real and growing concern." ~from the Grist article below.
September 2, 2010
Gearing up for the next Farm Bill
Here are some great ways to stay abreast of this critical legislative work -- Farm Policy, a daily newsletter about food and farm policy. Sign up for the email service and you’ll receive everything you need to know about what’s going on in D.C. It’s a ton of information, but worth skimming each morning. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition’s blog. The Presbyterian Hunger Program has been supporting this excellent coalition for over a decade. The Farm Bill and Beyond, an outstanding and very comprehensive report about how the 2008 Farm Bill came to be. It’s a little long, but definitely worth reading if you want some insight on how the next fight will play out. The blogs and twitter feeds of healthy farm advocates like @FoodDeclaration, Environmental Working Group, Food Democracy Now and Grist. And the soon-to-be launched US Food Sovereignty Alliance will have great analysis and ways to engage. Contact Andrew to learn how you can get involved in the Alliance. Thanks to Slow Food USA +++++++++++++ So, what are everyday people and farmers saying what they want from our food and farm policy?
August 25, 2010
Holy land or a commodity?
Since the food crisis of 2008, food justice activists have warned that governments in concert with multinational corporations have accelerated a worldwide "land grab" to buy up vast swaths of arable land in poor countries. According to The Economist magazine, between 37 to 49 million acres of farmland were put up for sale in deals involving foreign nationals between 2006 and mid-2009. A friend pointed out how the land grabbing going on now is nothing new to what Native American, Hispanic and Black farmers and communities have faced for centuries. The current scale of the land grabs is tremendous. Take a look at what is happening in this good interview of Anuradha Mittal -- executive director of the Oakland Institute and keynote speaker at past PC(USA) conferences -- by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!
August 19, 2010
Flooding Pakistan
Crops have been hit hard, so international aid is needed desperately. People can give through the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance http://gamc.pcusa.org/give/DR000038/
August 13, 2010
Your guide to the Week of Action on Food
start preparing for activities for the Churches Week of Action on Food from 10-17 October. During the Week you will be connected to thousands of people, churches and communities around the world in a movement calling for change in the way food is grown, sold, distributed and shared. It is a time to lift up the voices of small-scale food producers, particularly women, to have choices on what crops to grow and how they can grow these crops.
June 16, 2010
Road Trippers meet with Louisville farmer
HEART visited Oxmoor Farm and learned about the farmer-owned Grasshoppers local food distributer in Louisville and the history of the farm. Then we weeded between the Brussel Sprouts and harvested garlic for putting in 400 CSA shares for distribution the...
June 14, 2010
Ellen Davis and Wendell Berry Speaking of Faith
Land, Life, and the Poetry of Creatures, is adorned with a photo of dirt-covered bare feet. Biblical scholar Ellen Davis is helping to shape a new approach to thinking about human domination of the Earth and its creatures. With her friend, the farmer poet Wendell Berry, they speak to our collective grief at destruction of the natural world and nourish a "chastened" yet "tenacious" hope.
May 16, 2010
face-off over Africa
Post-war industrialized, chemical-based agriculture and food production is coming to an end – it has to if we are to reach the millennium goals and keep the planet in a livable condition. Food (including water) and the environment are issues of global peace and justice – no more and no less.
April 24, 2010
No meat for you on Monday!
who needs meat? Remember, though, it is not simply enough to eat less meat. You should make sure what you substitute is produced in a sustainable way and doesn't fly around the world to get to you! See these articles to begin exploring the gray areas! - Tofu can harm environment more than meat, finds WWF study and Eating less meat could cut climate costs and Less meat 'means a longer life'
April 16, 2010
An Agrarian Vision: When Work and Place Jive
From an agrarian point of view, the Exodus was a movement from the flat, easily tillable land of Egypt to "the narrow and precariously balanced ecological niche that is the hill country of ancient Judah and Samaria." The people of Israel had to re-make their economic life to conform to a landscape that allowed "only the slightest margin for negligence, ignorance, or error."
April 15, 2010
Who started the local food revolution? Cuba or Jamie Oliver?
"The organic and urgan agriculture revolution that is under way there is nothing short of amazing, but what a lot of people don't know is the amount of hardship Cubans have been through to get to where they are. Unlike with most people in the US and other wealthy countries, growing their own and doing it organically were not really choices for Cubans: they did it to survive. Or to put it more flippantly, when life gave the Cubans limes (mint and rum), they decided to make mojitos."
April 6, 2010
ecotone
Carol Howard Merritt, who recently wrote about Michelle Obama's healthy food initiatives and her visit to Western Presbyterian Church's Miriam Kitchen, just turned me on to this ECOTONE blog - subtitle, "Experiments in Agriculture and Industry" by C.J. from Joelton, Tenn.
March 16, 2010
It's One Great Hour of Sharing time!
Give to One Great Hour of Sharing