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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUk3KBRtisw
Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter on how broken farm policy leads to deterioration of our rural farms and the need to ban fracking. Get involved in working for clean, safe, affordable food and water: www.foodandwaterwatch.org.
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Food & Water Watch now proudly unveils the latest version of our Factory Farm Map, which charts the concentration of factory-farmed animals across the country.
It’s called the food “industry” for a reason. If you’ve seen Food Inc., you understand why. In that film, and here at Food & Water Watch, some careful analysis reveals the massive network of production and distribution that has become our food system. Thanks to advertising, marketing and fancy packaging, the images we create for ourselves of the places where our food comes from are often in direct contrast to the reality of where most of it is produced. Much of the time, we may be thinking farm, but we’re really getting factory. Read more…
Maybe we haven’t learned anything from the Great Egg Recall of 2010; at least not enough–not yet. The egg farm mentioned in William Neuman’s New York Times article, and many farms like it, try to adjust their large-scale models of production to address unhygienic conditions and other problems that arise from being so big.
The factory farm model confines thousands of animals into a closed environment that is condusive to the spread of diseases like E. coli and salmonella.
500 independent ranchers, farmers, meatpacking workers, consumers, urban farmers and food justice activists gather at a public forum in Colorado on the eve of the DOJ and USDA joint hearing on fair competition in the meat industry.
The American Meat Institute (AMI) thinks that everything is just fine in the meat industry. They represent the biggest meat packers and processors—the ones who have consolidated the meatpacking industry into a market dominated by four firms that exercise tremendous leverage over independent cattle producers. The few companies in control of the market insist that there is nothing wrong.
But, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder were in Fort Collins, Colorado last week, listening to the testimonies of independent ranchers who have been struggling to get fair prices for their cattle from the meat packer monopolies. If nothing is wrong in the meat industry, why would these top U.S. officials travel to the Mountain State to listen to the concerns of ranchers and small farmers at a joint hearing about restoring competition? And why would the groups like the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) and Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF), who represent independent cattle producers, rally thousands of people to attend the hearings? Read more…
CNN's Brian Todd interviews our own Patty Lovera, food director, about how food contamination—like the Wright Egg salmonella outbreak—can spread so quickly. None of the eggs in the background were affected by the recall.
The Wright County Egg recall has continued to raise interesting questions about food safety issues across our industrial food system. Various news stations have been contacting our offices for the past week to ask how food contamination can spread so quickly across the country. CNN’s Brian Todd asked our food director, Patty Lovera, to meet him at a grocery store just outside of downtown Washington, D.C., to discuss the recall (we’ll provide the link as soon as the story airs), so I tagged along. Read more…
Investigations into a multi-state outbreak of salmonella have triggered a major recall of eggs involving 17 states and 380 million eggs—that's one bad egg per person in the United States.
By now, many of us have developed an unnatural but necessary fear of French toast, cake, omelets, egg salad sandwiches and more. Investigations into a multi-state outbreak of salmonella have triggered a major recall of eggs involving 17 states and 380 million eggs (one egg per person in the United States, plus several omelets), and those numbers could continue to grow. The affected eggs were packaged as far back as mid-May—an entire season ago. Read more…
We’ve finally reached the end of the road, and it’s been a blast! But before we sign off, there are a few more updates to give—starting with the Iowa State Fair last Thursday. With a herd of cow-suited groupies in tow I bought a $10 ticket for “Non-Stop Fun” (the appropriately-chosen theme of the Iowa State Fair this year). Although The Iowa State Fair is not the largest in the U.S. (that honor goes to Texas or Minnesota depending on whether you are talking about over all attendance or daily attendance, respectively) it is the largest state fair I have ever been to. It was also the hottest day of my life. We received a lot of support when we stopped by the milking barn where the dairy cows reside. The people there were very supportive and listened intently about the Department of Justice hearings. These hearings could really improve the way dairy farmers are able to do business. It’s so important to demonstrate public support for fair markets for farmers, so thanks to everyone who has signed our petition along the way. Read more…
Food & Water Watch asking for directions to the milking demonstration in Wisconsin.
Our day started off with an early interview at WORT radio in Madison. WORT is a community-sponsored radio station—the perfect venue to share our story with those listening in Madison about what we’ve been seeing and doing along our trip. Even more importantly, it was an opportunity to educate listeners in the area about the Department of Justice and USDA hearings that are happening this summer, for which we’ve been collecting petition signatures. If you haven’t yet, be sure to sign our petition! Read more…
My first trip to Chicago! People are pretty food smart around here. (Fun fact: the largest public library in the world is Chicago’s Harold Washington Library Center. It contains over 2 million books.) Saturday was a day packed with locally grown food and community activities in the Chicago area. We started up north at the Downtown Evanston Farmers’ Market, where we set up bright and early for a series of cooking demonstrations that were scheduled throughout the morning. They definitely had one of the largest selections of the freshest and ripest produce I have ever seen at a farmer’s market. One farmer had 36 different varieties of European potatoes!
The cow has landed! The Chef Rocky Road Tour hits Chicago for a weekend of food activism.
Who's that guy with the carrot in his mouth?
We had an early start on Friday morning. Thankfully, local food activists Jeff McCabe and Lisa Gottlieb invited us to stay at their home in Ann Arbor the night before their regular Friday morning community breakfast. FridayMorningsAtSELMA is a local food breakfast salon, where neighbors and activists gather and eat delicious local food and initiate action on community food issues. It was an incredible event to be a part of. Over 60 people came through to share food and ideas. I was up and cooking at 6am, when the crowd started pouring in. With the help of the SELMA volunteers, I helped to prepare whole grain waffles with herb-roasted chicken and grilled apricots for the breakfast guests. Read more…
