News & Events
Food News Headlines & Local Food Events
Skim our headlines below for interesting food news and events. Click on the orange links for the full stories.
- MONDAY, MARCH 29, 10:00 AM - 2:30 PM. Join us for a day of celebrating the legacy of Cesar Chavez. This child-friendly event will include face painting, mural painting, live music, and a surprise musical guest! Festivities will take place at 5328 Brann Street
- MARCH 10, 2010, 7:30 PM. RECIPES FOR AMERICA. Join us for a conversation with Jill Richardson, author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It and Bonnie Powell, cofounder, editor, and writer for the food-politics blog The Ethicurean. Marion Nestle hails Jill Richardson as “a fresh voice in the movement to create a healthier and sustainable food system. This book will be part of the burgeoning food social movement, as it provides a guide to the most important issues and how to work on them” and Civil Eats calls Recipe for America "a handbook for the sustainable advocate in training." The dynamic conversation will run the gamut of food issues - the Farm Bill, community food projects and councils, food labeling, school lunches, food safety, and animal agriculture. Be part of the conversation to learn how you can take action from voting with your fork and beyond. This event will take place at 101 Morgan Hall, UC Berkeley.
- MARCH 9, 12:30 PM. SPUR: LUNCHTIME FORUM Vacant Lots: ideas for temporary use. How can we activate some of San Francisco’s stalled construction sites into spaces of beauty, inspiration and public use? What policy incentives are being used to make this idea attractive to landowners? Inspired by a series by the Chronicle’s urban design critic, John King, a handful of local artists and designers have developed innovative proposals for an urban farm, sculptural bird habitat and pop-up stores (to only name a few). Join us for a discussion with John Bela of Rebar, Douglas Burnham of envelope A+D,Sarah Kuehlof Peter Walker + Partners and Michael Yarne of the Mayor’s Office of Workforce and Economic Development. Moderated by John King. Location: 654 Mission Street; San Francisco/ $5 for non-members; free to members
- MARCH 2, Join us for a conversation with Jill Richardson, author of Recipe for America and Bonnie Powell, co-founder, editor, and writer for the food-politics blogThe Ethicurean. The dynamic conversation will run the gamut of food issues - the Farm Bill, community food projects and councils, food labeling, school lunches, food safety, and animal agriculture. Be part of the conversation to learn how you can take action from voting with your fork and beyond.
Jill Richardson got involved in food policy activism after working for several years in health care and observing the high rate of diet-related chronic illness among the American patient population. She blogs at La Vida Locavore. Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It is Jill’s first book. Marion Nestle hails Richardson as “a fresh voice in the movement to create a healthier and sustainable food system. This book will be part of the burgeoning food social movement, as it provides a guide to the most important issues and hoiw to work on them” and Civil Eats calls Recipe for America "a handbook for the sustainable advocate in training."Click here to learn more about this lecture series, which is a partnership between18 Reasons and Civil Eats.
Join CUESA and Kitchen Table Talks for a lively conversation about inspiring models for getting fresh, local food to more Bay Area residents. The event will take place Tuesday, March 2 at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. The panel discussion will take place in the Port Commission Hearing Room on the 2nd floor. This event is free and open to the public.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - ONGOING: FREE Urban Permaculture Design Workshop, beginning Feb. 10! Gavin Rades, the co-founder of Planting Justice, is offereing free urban permaculture design workshops at the Berkeley Sustainability Institute in Berkeley beginning Wednesday, February 10, 2010. The classes meet from 7:00- 9:15 pm at 2130 Center Street in downtown Berkeley. Please follow this link to learn more about Planting Justice's work.
- The Oakland Food Policy Council has been seated! Meet the members here.
- OFPC Coordinator Alethea Harper joined Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums in a call for greater food security in Oakland at the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service on July 9 hosted by Roots of Change.
- Battle over Oakland Public School's Food
- Food Processing Plants make comeback in Oakland.
- Forage Oakland-Why We Harvest: An Urban Fruit Gleaning Manifesto
- The Mandela Foods Cooperative opens in West Oakland.
- OaklandSeen, a new blog and weekly raido show all about Oakland, has been launched. Tune into their weekly radio show with live call-ins – Tuesdays 11-noon on KPFA-FM beginning November 3rd.
- The food justice movement in Oakland connects the dots between poverty, rising obesity rates and limited access to healthy food among Oakland residents.
- Forage Oakland, the neighborhood fruit exchange project started by OFPC intern Asiya Wadud, is featured in Kim Severson's New York Times article on the locavore movement.
- Govenor's "Million Meals Intiative"
- Urban Agriculture under Fire in Los Angeles
- West Oakland's City Slicker Farms inspires San Francisco Mayor to mandate healtier diet for all San Franciscans.
- Should the California Department of Food and Agriculture be on the budgetary chopping block?
- San Francisco closes the loop with the nation's most comprehensive composting program.
- Phone Interviews now standard for food stamp enrollement
- The USDA has launched a fantastic new tool: the U.S. Food Environment Atlas, which provides maps and statistics on food environment indicators, and gives "a spatial overview of a community’s ability to access healthy food and its success in doing so." You can see some sample maps drawn from this tool on La Vida Locavore; one example illustrates the correlation between soda consumption and diabetes rates.
- First Lady Michelle Obama has just launched her "Let's Move" campaign, aimed at ending childhood obesity. Two major components of the campaign focus on school food, and access to healthy and affordable food in our communities.
- New Jersey grocer who builds supermarkets in poor neighborhoods to be a guest for President Obama's State of the Union Address on Jan 27
- Copenhagen and Agriculture: Peasant farmers can save the planet!
- World Food Summit 2009 Wraps Up
- Bello Horizonte, Brasil awarded Future Policy Award 2009 for Food Security Policy
- Toronto includes Youth in Food Policy
- Sidewalk and parking strip farms in Seattle.
- Obama Administration officials visit Philadelphia to learn more about the Fresh Farm Initiative.
- Nashville Davidson County Council approves a bill that will expand the zoning designations for community gardening and urban agriculture.
- G8 pledges $20 Billion in Agricultural Aid to confront global food insecurity.
- Federal Courts uphold ban on genetically engineered Roundup Ready Alfalfa.
- Is the importance of nutritious food finally finding its way into federal health care policy?
- Bancroft Elementary students havest peas, lettuce and a bit of nutritional wisdom in the First Lady's Garden.
