Most Recent Campaign Headlines
From wasted food, to the exploitation of farmworkers, the Covid-19 pandemic has made it painfully clear that this country’s food system must be changed. Politicians must pass further stimulus legislation that includes policy to reform our inflexible, consolidated food system to prepare for future crises.
Big Meat wants Congress to bail it out, even though the COVID-19 crisis has exposed how the industrial meat model—with its disease-ridden slaughterhouses and its unjust and monopolistic practices—is a total failure.
If you’d rather see Congress fund local meat processors who help build food security for your community, please ask Congress to support the Small Packer Overtime and Holiday Fee Relief for COVID-19 Act.
TAKE ACTION: Ask Congress to fund local meat processing, not Big Meat bailouts!
Transitioning to organic farming can be a major challenge for farmers. The three-year transition period presents a big hurdle that requires adopting a completely new farming system without chemical inputs, purchasing new equipment for organic farming, and finding markets for transitional and certified organic crops.
While some American farmers have been forced to dump milk or plow under crops due to loss of markets during the COVID-19 pandemic, farmers of community supported agriculture (CSA) programs are thriving.
I find that lots of people are surprised to learn that, by overwhelming margins, the two groups of Americans who care most about climate change are Latinx Americans and African-Americans. But, of course, those communities tend to be disproportionately exposed to the effects of global warming: working jobs that keep you outdoors, or on the move, on an increasingly hot planet, and living in densely populated and polluted areas.
Following the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, people around the United States are protesting racism, police brutality, inequality, and violence in their own communities. No matter your political affiliation, the violence by multiple police departments in this country is unacceptable.
As the pandemic smolders and the economy plunges into an abyss, Americans have reverted to the venerable World War II–era tradition of organized disaster gardening. According to headline writers, that is.
We need to value nature’s biodiversity, clean water, and seeds. For this, nature is the best teacher.
“I’m trying to connect our network with the people who would like to have that food in their home,” she said on Michael Dimock’s podcast, Flipping the Table, on March 26. “We can sort of skip the restaurant for now. … We could help people do the cooking in their own kitchen.”
Could America’s small- to mid-sized meat processors pick up the lost capacity when large packers have to close? They might. But federal meat-inspection laws and regulations are standing in the way.