Mexico Diaries: Day 9 - "Sometimes We Eat, Sometimes We Don't"

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Jul 30, 2010 at 16:05:07 PM PDT

If reading about the people I've visited inspires you to help, you can donate to the Center for Farmworker Families. Every penny given goes directly to these families for clothes, shoes, food, school supplies, and more.

Day 1: Guadalajara
Day 2 Part 1: Breakfast and the EcoStore
Day 2 Part 2: Jalisco Ecological Collective
Day 3: The Flea Market
Day 4: The Drive to Cuquio
Day 5: Delivering Aid to a Village
Day 6: The Second Aid Trip to a Village
Day 7: Conversation with a Corn Expert
Day 8, Part 1: Visit to a Rich Man's Land and an Explanation of Ejidos
Day 8, Part 2: Tour of the Local Employer, a Shoe Factory
Day 8, Part 3: The Third Aid Trip to a Village

Mexico Diaries: Day 8, Part 3 - Trip to the Edge of the World

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Jul 30, 2010 at 14:05:42 PM PDT

The view from the rancho

If reading about the people I've visited inspires you to help, you can donate to the Center for Farmworker Families. Every penny given goes directly to these families for clothes, shoes, food, school supplies, and more.

Day 1: Guadalajara
Day 2 Part 1: Breakfast and the EcoStore
Day 2 Part 2: Jalisco Ecological Collective
Day 3: The Flea Market
Day 4: The Drive to Cuquio
Day 5: Delivering Aid to a Village
Day 6: The Second Aid Trip to a Village
Day 7: Conversation with a Corn Expert
Day 8, Part 1: Visit to a Rich Man's Land and an Explanation of Ejidos
Day 8, Part 2: Tour of the Local Employer, a Shoe Factory

Halving Hunger Through "Business as Unusual"

by: NourishingthePlanet

Fri Jul 30, 2010 at 09:37:09 AM PDT

This interview with Shenggen Fan, Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is part of a regular interview series with agriculture and food security experts.

Name: Shenggen Fan
Affiliation : Director General, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Location : Washington, DC

Bio: Shenggen Fan is Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).  He has over 20 years of experience in the field of Agricultural Economics. He is currently an Executive Committee member of the International Association of Agricultural Economists. He has worked in academic and independent research institutions, including Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology at the University of Arkansas and the National Agricultural Research in the Netherlands.   Fan received his Ph.D. in applied economics from the University of Minnesota and his bachelor's and master's degrees from Nanjing Agricultural University in China.

Mexico Diaries: Day 7 - Visit with a Corn Expert

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Jul 29, 2010 at 14:56:15 PM PDT

Ann Lopez talks to Juan Alba

If reading about the people I've visited inspires you to help, you can donate to the Center for Farmworker Families. Every penny given goes directly to these families for clothes, shoes, food, school supplies, and more.

Previous diaries:
Day 1: Guadalajara
Day 2 Part 1: Breakfast and the EcoStore
Day 2 Part 2: Jalisco Ecological Collective
Day 3: The Flea Market
Day 4: The Drive to Cuquio
Day 5: Delivering Aid to a Village
Day 6: The Second Aid Trip to a Village

Mexico Diaries: Day 6 - A Village with Agrochemicals

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Jul 28, 2010 at 20:21:55 PM PDT

If reading about the people I've visited inspires you to help, you can donate to the Center for Farmworker Families. Every penny given goes directly to these families for clothes, shoes, food, school supplies, and more.

Day 1: Guadalajara
Day 2 Part 1: Breakfast and the EcoStore
Day 2 Part 2: Jalisco Ecological Collective
Day 3: The Flea Market
Day 4: The Drive to Cuquio
Day 5: Delivering Aid

Mexico Diaries: Day 5 - To the Rancho with Ana Claus

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 12:11:48 PM PDT

If reading about the people I've visited inspires you to help, you can donate to the Center for Farmworker Families. Every penny given goes directly to these families for clothes, shoes, food, school supplies, and more.

Previous diaries:
Day 1: Guadalajara
Day 2 Part 1: Breakfast and the EcoStore
Day 2 Part 2: Jalisco Ecological Collective
Day 3: The Flea Market
Day 4: The Drive to Cuquio

Getting the Most of Out of Groundnuts in Senegal

by: NourishingthePlanet

Mon Jul 26, 2010 at 14:25:23 PM PDT

This is the first blog in a series about Action Aid's work in Senegal.

They are found on nearly every street corner in Western Africa-freshly roasted groundnuts are sold in small plastic bags or by the handful as a quick, protein-rich snack. These small nuts-which are technically legumes-have had a big influence on Africa. "Groundnuts," says Moussa Faye, of Action Aid Senegal, "have made the wealth of this country." But he explained that they've also created "poverty because of a crisis in groundnut sector after it was liberalized" by the government. One of Action Aid's priorities in Senegal is to help groundnut farmers collectives find better ways to grow, process, and sell groundnuts and groundnut products.

New Cassava Varieties Save Zanzibar's Food Security

by: NourishingthePlanet

Fri Jul 23, 2010 at 15:05:03 PM PDT

Millions of cassava farmers in eastern and central Africa are in distress from viral cassava diseases that are sweeping across the region and ravaging their crops. But their counterparts on the popular tourist island of Zanzibar are undergoing a quiet revolution using new disease-resistant and high-yielding varieties that were introduced three years ago.

Native African Vegetables Could Help Solve Food Crises

by: NourishingthePlanet

Tue Jul 20, 2010 at 12:29:29 PM PDT

Ever heard of the Bambara Bean? How about Nyimo or Vignea Subterranea or the African Groundnut? No matter what you call it, this little bean, which is indigenous to tropical Africa, is highly overlooked by scientists, development agencies, and humanitarian programs, even though it packs a lot of nutrition. The bean may have originated in Mali, but it's also popular in Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon. It is now widely distributed and grown in Asia, parts of Northern Australia, and South and Central America and is often found for sale on street corners in Johannesburg.

Rush Limbaugh Shares His Diet Strategy With Kids

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Jun 18, 2010 at 11:51:22 AM PDT

Below, I've included the entire transcript of Rush's remarks (telling hungry children to try dumpster diving and fast food) as well as the hunger advocacy group FRAC's response and - for fun - a song about Rush Limbaugh.

USAID's Feed the Future Frankenfoods Initiative

by: Jill Richardson

Wed May 05, 2010 at 08:32:52 AM PDT

KFC Thinks Hunger is Funny

by: Jill Richardson

Mon May 03, 2010 at 11:39:02 AM PDT

When introducing a bunless sandwich, the obvious question is: what happens to all the buns? To celebrate the launch of the Double Down, KFC will do some good by donating the "unneeded" sandwich buns to feed the hungry....it's great to find a good home for some of those 'unneeded' KFC buns at food banks around the country.

Great. Hungry people serve as a prop to promote their new ultra-bad-for-you sandwich, and the buns - which are not good enough for their paying customers - will go to the needy. All at a time when economic conditions force large numbers of Americans to subsist on low cost fast food (like KFC) and whatever they can get from food banks.

What sick, inconsiderate, conscienceless marketing exec came up with this idea at KFC? And which other sick people at KFC gave it the thumbs up? I am writing this in light of a recent post on this blog, "The Stress of Food Bank Food," which describes in detail what it is like to live on food from a food bank. And that was written by somebody who knew that his several days of lousy, meager, unhealthy foods were short term as they were part of an experiment.

Imagine being a child whose introduction to the world is a household so unstable that meals are never a given because your parents - try their might - cannot always provide for you? Or the shame of being that parent, who wants to give his or her child everything a child needs but still cannot. Think about the fear as the days of the month tick by and your salary and food stamps run low, knowing that at some point the money - and the food - will run out and your only hope of eating comes from a food bank. Is that funny to KFC? And will those people who line up at food banks be better off thanks to KFC's donation of refined, nutrient-devoid bread spiked with high fructose corn syrup?

A more caring entity would use the money spent on these buns and instead provide food banks with nutritious, high quality food that will benefit those who rely on food banks. But, of course, the budget for these buns no doubt came out of KFC's marketing budget, not their "social responsibility" budget. Thus, the recipients of the buns are no more than a prop to KFC. The hungry people are only there as a joke to portray how unnecessary the buns are for the new sandwich that substitutes two patties of fried chicken for bread. The Double Down itself is sick, but this stunt is sicker. And sadder still is that American food banks rely on this kind of "generosity," where corporations give them whatever they cannot sell (or in this case, whatever serves their latest marketing campaign) and then pat themselves on the back for their generosity. I would like to see the execs of KFC - all of them - try living a week on food bank rations and then reconsider their donations.

The Stress of Food Bank Food

by: Jill Richardson

Mon May 03, 2010 at 11:25:52 AM PDT

But to our surprise, meager and nutrient-free rations, growling stomachs and low-grade headaches weren't as hard on us as the psychological strain.

Please read this, as Wayne is sharing some insights that may be brand new to those of us lucky enough to never rely on food banks.

Can X Feed the World? Wrong Question.

by: Brad Wilson

Sun Jan 10, 2010 at 06:49:15 AM PST

It's easy to want to compete on these questions when small farms produce more per acre, (as Andrew Kimbell argued in Fresh) and organic farms produce more bushels (as the Rodale Institute has found in their long term studies).

Surely though, this is the wrong question.

I'm posting this as a separate diary, (rather than on Jill's diary here http://www.lavidalocavore.org/... since it is fundamental, a change of paradigm, and longer than most comments.  I make other specific comments over there on Jill's article.

Woman In Labor Won't Leave Food Line

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Fri Nov 27, 2009 at 16:03:54 PM PST

Anchorage -  On a day when hundreds of people flocked to Central Lutheran Church in Anchorage for all the Thanksgiving fixings, one woman in line stood out: She was pregnant, in labor and wasn't leaving without her turkey.

[...]

Budahl told him to bring the pregnant woman inside. She was breathing through contractions, he said.

"Shouldn't you be in the hospital?" Budahl asked.

"She said, 'I need this Thanksgiving basket. I do. I do. I do. If you don't get it today, you don't get it.'"

There's really nothing else to add, is there?