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!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.
More about
Michael Götz.
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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
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.Continue reading“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
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:
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 readingEven 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.
Downtown Valdosta Farm Days begin two weeks from tomorrow:
Bringing the best of the country to the heart of the City!There’s a calendar on their website, along with how to become a vendor.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
More on this story as it develops.
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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!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.We are also collecting canned for to donate to those in need!
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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:
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
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.
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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 article didn’t link to the study, but here it is: Industry Statistics and Projected Growth.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.
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
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 readingAnd 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.