Tag Archives: food

Solar cookers at Lowndes County Courthouse?

John Charles Griffin sent me this:

Mexico’s Solar Energy Taco Stands:



In Oaxaca, Mexico taco street
vendors are using the solar energy from the sun to cook their tacos.
This is being done as part of a project run by Michael Gotz who is
trying to find to what degree they can transform the use of solar
energy.

This would be great at stalls at Downtown Valdosta Farm Days
at the historic Courthouse:
practical cooking and marketing for solar Valdosta and Lowndes County!



More about

Michael Götz.

-jsq

Farmers complain about labor shortage due to Georgia immigration law

Jeremy Redmon wrote in the AJC 26 May 2011,

Farmers tie labor shortage to state’s new immigration law, ask for help

Migrant farmworkers are bypassing Georgia because of the state’s tough
new immigration enforcement law, creating a severe labor shortage among
fruit and vegetable growers here and potentially putting hundreds of
millions of dollars in crops in jeopardy, agricultural industry leaders
said this week.

Who could have predicted such a thing?

Anyway, how is it going?

Continue reading →

Neither wind nor solar power “need to be purchased by Halliburton”

Continuing to see what “the indigenous” think about solar power:

Today, a number of Native tribes, from the Lakota in the Dakotas to
the Iroquois Confederacy in New York to the Anishinaabeg in Wisconsin,
battle to preserve the environment for those who are yet to come. The
next seven generations, the Lakota say, depend upon it.

“Traditionally, we’re told that as we live in this world, we have
to be careful for the next seven generations,” says Loretta Cook. “I
don’t want my grandkids to be glowing and say, ‘We have all these
bad things happening to us because you didn’t say something about it.’

Part of this family and spiritual obligation to preserve

Continue reading →

Local foods, local economy, local community

Local food is more than healthier, it’s even more than tasty.
It’s also local economy and local community.

In the U.K., small local shops are being replaced by big-box supermarkets.
A widespread argument for this conversion is that consumers get
more choice.
Peter Wilby wrote in the Guardian 3 May 2011 about

why that’s not good enough:



Even the “good for consumers” defence of the big stores requires
scrutiny. Supermarkets may offer mangoes and kiwi fruit as a blessed
relief to generations who recall the surly greengrocer grunting “no
demand for it” when asked for anything out of the ordinary. But the
option to buy locally grown produce is increasingly closed off; many
varieties of English fruit disappeared long ago. Supermarkets stock food
not for its taste, but for its longevity and appearance. Conventional
economists count numbers, assuming that a huge increase in toilet roll
colours represents an unqualified gain to the consumer. They neglect
more subtle dimensions of choice.

The central issue, however, is whether “what the consumer wants” should
close down the argument. What people want as consumers may not be what
they want as householders, community members, producers, employees or
entrepreneurs. The loss of small shops drains a locality’s economic and
social capital. Money spent in independent retail outlets tends to stay
in the community, providing work for local lawyers and accountants,
plumbers and decorators, window cleaners and builders.

He then cites

U.S. research that shows local stores promote the local economy.
Are we just consumers?
Maybe we do other things than just buy stuff?
Especially, do we do other things together?

Continue reading →

May 7: Downtown Valdosta Farm Days




Downtown Valdosta Farm Days begin two weeks from tomorrow:

Bringing the best of the country to the heart of the City!

Downtown Valdosta Farm Days is a bi-weekly farmers’ market featuring
local farmers and artisans and also serves to educate the community
about eating local, nutrition and food choices.

Downtown Farmers Market

First and Third Saturdays from May to September

9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.

Lowndes County Courthouse Square, Downtown Valdosta

There’s a calendar on their

website,
along with how to become a vendor.

And everybody is purring now.
Agriculture, economy, and a festival!
And, it costs the county nothing.

More on this story as it develops.

-jsq

Earth Day 2011 Tomorrow





When:
Friday, April 22, 2011, 5:00pm to 9:00pm


Where:
Drexel Park, Patterson St. and Brookwood Drive, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia

Who:
Hosted by S.A.V.E., Students Against Violating the Environment


Why:

Come out and enjoy your evening to celebrate the Earth! There will be
food, games, live bands, speakers, and fun! Bring your friends and family
and enjoy an evening in the park!

We are also collecting canned for to donate to those in need!

The usual LAKE photographers can’t make it, so please take pictures
and videos and post them to the Internet.
Send links to information@l-a-k-e.org and we’ll post some on the blog,
or you can post them directly on the

LAKE facebook page.

-jsq

Valdosta Downtown Farm Days —Mara Register



Mara Register came to the Lowndes County Commission regular meeting
to talk about Downtown Valdosta Farm Days,
following up from the

Farm Days organizational meeting Monday.

I think her main points were:

  1. Provide additional information about healthy eating
    with food from local farmers,
    thus helping solve the epidemic of childhood obesity in Georgia.
  2. Economic development opportunity for small farmers.
  3. Promote downtown district.

When?
The Saturday after First Friday and the Saturday after Art After Dark.

Where?
The parking spaces around the historic courthouse.

No livestock.
Local produce.
Here’s

video of the first part of what she said.




Regular Meeting, Lowndes County Commission, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 April 2011

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Logistics, such as no cooking, because

Continue reading →

Master Gardeners Graduate


Grand Bay Master Gardeners (GBMG) has been holding a class to become
master gardeners, and they just graduated yesterday!


I’m not going to attempt to name all of them, because the ones I missed
would be miffed.
I will say that’s Gretchen Quarterman on the right.
And that these are people from all over the area, city and country,
Democrat and Republican.
Growing food is the universal community builder.

GBMG is “organized as a cohesive working group in Lowndes, Brooks,
Echols, and Lanier Counties”.
They’ll be holding more classes, so you, too, can become a master gardener.

-jsq

Organic food market booming

What continued to grow right through the recession?
Local and organic foods, especially sold through farmers’ markets
and traditional supermarkets.



Carol Hazard wrote in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 21, 2011,

Organic, natural food catching on:

U.S. sales of organic foods and beverages grew from $1 billion in 1990
to $24.8 billion in 2009,
according to the Organic Trade Association.

The sector saw double-digit growth — often more than 20 percent —
every year over the past decade except 2009, at the tail-end of the
recession. Even then, organic sales rose 5.9 percent from the previous
year while total food sales increased only 1.6 percent.

The article didn’t link to the study, but here it is:

Industry Statistics and Projected Growth.

Further from the Times-Dispatch article:

National grocers are pumping up their organic and natural food
selections. Even Wal-Mart and its Sam’s Club warehouse division are
paying attention.

Continue reading →

The politics of climate change denial

Why do some people deny the overwhelming science of climate
change in a time when the evidence and analysis is so thorough
and so conclusive that no reputable scientific organization
in the world doubts any longer that humans are changing the climate
of the whole planet for the worse:
because it threatens their political and economic beliefs.

Naomi Klein: Why Climate Change Is So Threatening to Right-Wing Ideologues:



And the reason is that climate change is now seen as an identity issue
on the right. People are defining themselves, like they’re against
abortion, they don’t believe in climate change. It’s part of who
they are.

It’s like denying the earth goes around the sun.
Why would they identify with such a silly thing?
Because of what actually dealing with climate change would mean:

Continue reading →