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FROM Bangor Daily News FULL ARTICLE HERE by Caitlin Andrews AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted on Tuesday for a proposed amendment to the state Constitution providing “a natural, inherent and unalienable right to food” in a move that could lead to a referendum on the question. The bipartisan bill from Rep. […]

If you are one of the many people worrying about our food and where it comes from, you’re not alone! And now there’s a new reason to worry. A silent earthquake is fracturing our food systems. These new cracks are spreading all the way from digital giants in Silicon Valley and Seattle and shadowy asset […]

WEBINAR: strategizing to achieve racial justice, curb corporate capture, diversify farming, and steward land & water by updating supply management & fair prices. The divisions between rich and poor, rural and urban, Black and White, landed and landless, Main Street and Wall Street look as wide today in the U.S. as they have ever been. To understand […]

Join Greenhorn's project, Seaweed Commons, at Slow Fish 2021!  Severine v T Fleming will speak about protecting wild seaweed ecosystems amidst a growing industrial aquaculture industry, concerns around the over harvest of Rockweed in Maine, and coalition building within the wild-harvest community alongside other active and thoughtful leaders in the marine sector including our friend […]

Our food system is not sustainable. The current global crisis draws attention to this fact more than ever. The Food System Change Online Congress will highlight solutions to this problem by presenting decentralized, bottom-up initiatives from all over Europe, which push for a sustainable transformation of the food system. Taking place via live online transmission […]

Applications for the MIT / Rabobank Food & Agribusiness Innovation Prize are due on January 31st by 11:59PM. MORE INFORMATION HERE ! Now in its 6th year, the Rabobank - MIT Food and Agribusiness Innovation Prize, sponsored by Rabobank and supported by MIT J-WAFS and the MIT Food and Agriculture Club, is the premier business […]

From Marion Nestle's remarkable blog Food Politics, three articles not to miss out on this weekend: "Three exceptionally thoughtful and interesting pieces by people who have been writing about food and food systems for a long time".... Jane Ziegelman in the New York Times: America’s Obsession With Cheap Meat Eric Schlosser in The Atlantic:  America’s Slaughterhouses Aren’t […]

Huge gratitude to the National Family Farm Coalition, Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, WhyHunger, FarmAid, the HEAL Food Alliance and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy for putting together these policy recommendations responding to the $2 trillion Senate stimulus bill. These coalitions are concerned that the stimulus bill "and other existing proposals have too few […]

ReGroup.Farm is the tale and reality of a group of Boomers, Gen X-er's and Millennials found themselves on a farm in the Midwest. They recognized that something very interesting was happening in society at large, that in spite of all the division and decay of rural towns, that these phenomena can be reversed. In fact this […]

Elise Wach from the Indie Farmer wrote an article published last week that explores the necessary trajectory of the future of farming. At a time when industrial agricultural systems are depleting our soil and placing quantity of produce and profit before quality and ecological health, this discussion is crucial. She also addresses the myths and […]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT6A3kWTsNM&w=560&h=315] Learn more and take action at the Sustainable Economies Law Center!

The latest episode of our land is live. Good for thinking, dreaming, and getting a little teary-eyed.

Move over Lamb Chop: a market for mutton could be a huge boon for New England farmers.

Inspire food activists around the country: submit your film now!

Maine submits a request for a barge route to New York City. Now where have we heard that idea before...?

"The future we've been sold doesn't work."

Growing Food, Building Community AMI Fellowship Program: 2017 Applications Available Allegheny Mountain Institute (AMI) is seeking inspiring individuals to participate in the sixth cohort of our AMI Fellowship program. The 18-month Fellowship prepares and empowers individuals to become teachers and ambassadors for a more vibrant and accessible local food system.  The Fellowship is a program […]

NPR's The Salt on why dogfish, a shark that is plentiful off the coast of New England, is primarily exported to Europe for consumption while Americans import 90% of the fish they consume.

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and food justice, food sovereignty, and veganism are your bag, check out the People's Harvest Forum. Tickets are still available to this four-day event in San Francisco's Mission District starting this Friday, December 9th. The conference is organized by Seed the Commons and includes a diverse group […]

You may have missed this in the swamp of election news last week: In These Times published this excellent run-down of Agrarian Trust, the recent symposium, and the land use problems that challenge regional food systems. “Increasingly, communities recognize that a regional farm economy is more responsive, adaptive, resilient and culturally satisfying,” says von Tscharner Fleming. “We want more […]

Oh man, we just love this: Seven Lessons for Leaders in Systems Change. Great for educators, activists, community leaders, farmers, and-- generally-- everyone who gives a damn. Here's a taste, but please click-through to read the full piece at at the Center for Ecoliteracy. Lesson #1:  To promote systems change, foster community and cultivate networks. […]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYPAGC2m2lc] Seriously, we really want to know, and so do these film makers. Specifically, they're focussing on the chicken industry, asking, if chicken is America’s favorite meat, generating more than $30 billion a year in revenue, but who benefits from this multi-billion dollar industry? Spoiler alert! It's not the farmers. This is a story […]

Slow Money is hosting the world’s first Decelerator on October 21st, bringing together all who care about Colorado food systems and want to find new ways to invest in them! The day-long event will take place at beautiful Lone Hawk Farm, just north of Boulder. Learn more and register at www.decelerator.org.

We can't more strongly encourage you to view and share George Steinmetz's New York Times Magazine's piece "Super Size: the Dizzying Grandeur of 21st Century Agriculture." It, in no small way, puts things in perspective.

Earlybird registration for NESAWG's 2016 It Takes a Region Conference is now open. The Conference, now in its 23rd year, brings together practitioners and professionals from across the Northeast to explore ideas that move us towards a more sustainable and just farm and food system. This year's conference theme is Tackling Wicked Problems in Food […]

[vimeo 52870881 w=640 h=360] The Hand That Feeds trailer from Robin Blotnick, a film on reforming the food system by organizing from the ground up for fair wages, fair working conditions, and collective bargaining rights. This is a rare story in which workers, with tenacity beyond imagination, are actually able to defeat the giant. It is […]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWl-Rp7XjaY] Donate at the indigogo page here! In the creators' own words, "A Growing Culture (AGC) is a global coalition that connects farmers to each other and to the resources they need to create an ecologically sound food system and prosperous planet. We are building the world’s first digital, open-access platform powered by farmers, for farmers. The Library […]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdY2jAJfARI] Read our blog post from yesterday for more info! Today the walkers are walking from Garrison to Wappingers Falls.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StygQm6YlwQ] A beautiful walk around Soul Fire Farm with the thoughtful, insightful, and fiercely passionate Leah Penniman. This film was produced by The Next System Project and the Laura Flanders Show, as part of their series on gender, race, and the next system. I'd write more about the farm, but my paraphrasing would never be as powerful […]

Yellow Seed, a nonprofit organization that facilitates connections between farmers and fair markets, recently partnered with Impact Hub Berkley, a social impact working hub out of the Bay Area, to host six curated working groups to focus on Collaborative Trade. The project was called From the Ground Up: Change Accelerator and aimed to "design healthy, global food supply chains […]

Pat Mooney from the ETC Group Canada talks about the rise and influence of agribusiness and asserts that it is peasant farmers who will feed the world’s growing population, provided they have control over their own seeds and food systems.