In truth, the title of this article isn’t entirely true. There are lots of pre-packaged ice cream vendors, supermarkets selling bananas, and yes, McDonald’s in every major town. But for the two days I spent in the seaside town of Peniche, Portugal, it was pretty hard not to eat local.

The funny thing was that nobody even talked about the food being local or seasonal or fresh. It was assumed to be. But when my girlfriend and I started raving about how orange-y the oranges were, how plump and succulent the strawberries were, and how shockingly orange the egg yolks were, our hosts felt obliged to explain to us poor deprived Americans where these wonders had come from.

Excerpted from Cold Cereal & Toast
Jump to the Original »
This past Sunday marked the second week I volunteered at the Skippack Farmers’ Market, collecting email addresses for the weekly newsletter and handing out …

During an agency briefing on the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative, the USDA revealed a preliminary study mapping the gaps in the current local meat processing infrastructure.  You can read the full report …

Another great collection of fun and interesting links on developments in the food and farming world, for you to enjoy this weekend.

Recently, I was focusing on industrial food’s claim of needing to “feed the world.” Noble idea. Pitiful performance. After all, over a billion people go hungry every day. The problem is that the world’s hungry can’t afford to do business with the agribusiness giants, e.g., Monsanto, Dupont, Kraft, Unilever and many others.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—April 13, 2010 (Pittsboro, North Carolina) Congressional efforts to increase federal control over food and agriculture could have dramatic and dangerous consequences for the region’s local food systems and small farmers, according to a report issued today by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association.

This week’s Friday Link Roundup includes a story on the innovative way Baltimore is getting groceries to residents in ‘food deserts’ via libraries; an interesting article by a University of California student arguing against locavorism …

In Recipe for America, Jill offers a quick and accessible overview of the numerous problems that plague our food system. She touches on the existence of food desserts across the US, the rise of the American chemical industry and its connections to the Green Revolution, as well as the effects of heavy agricultural chemical inputs on the environment and our bodies. She also explores the variety of solutions emerging around the creation of a sustainable food system, including new organic farming techniques, farmers markets, CSAs, and food policy councils.

The American government has a long and proud history of playing into the hands of various large interests, whether it be the railroads, the pharmaceutical companies, the automakers, or Big Ag. Despite its pledge to uphold the rights of the American people, it tends to spend more of its time and effort upholding the right of lobbyists to fleece the American people of their wealth and, in the case of the food companies, their health.

Here’s Friday’s links roundup, a bit belated due to some editorial confusion. Some really interesting articles on government actions to support local agriculture and small farmers.