Civil Eats

On Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, farmer, poet and food movement hero Wendell Berry, physicist and seed-saving advocate Vandana Shiva, nutritionist and professor Marion Nestle, and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales were among the speakers at The Future of Food, a conference put on by the Washington Post at Georgetown University.

The media was quick to focus on the comments by Prince Charles, who has been farming land on his Highgrove Estate for 26 years and selling produce under the name Duchy Originals, the profits of which are given to charities. But though the Prince gave a thorough and informed 45-minute speech about soil loss, the importance of biodiversity, and a critique of U.S. agriculture policy (you can read the whole speech here), some media and online comments focused on the perceived hypocrisy of the Prince as an environmentalist with a huge carbon footprint, and the old fall-back of detractors of the food movement: Elitism. Read More

At the Sustainable Foods Institute, part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s annual Cooking for Solutions festival, one of the panel discussions was called “Communicating Environmental Messages: How Journalists are Telling Stories of Sustainability.” Read More

The stimulus package has passed – and despite whether you are pushing tax cuts or waving the flag of infrastructure spending, perhaps its worth reconsidering the underlying goal either version looks to achieve: growth.   I’m not the first to propose that our entire economic system is in need of an overhaul, but thinking back even further, I think we could take a leaf from Helen and Scott Nearing. Read More