A great blog on environmental and food justice

So a UW professor who teaches a class on food justice has a blog, which my friend (who is taking the class) recommended to me. I checked it out, and it has some great posts! I have only read some of his more recent ones, but they include a great post (Jan 14) outlining some of the basics of food justice and, important for many Americans, urban food justice. It discusses everything from the capitalist structure of the current food production and distribution system to locavorism and food deserts. When I was in Rome, there were many more farmer's markets (most of them at least 6 days a week) selling fresh produce all around the huge city. Most people think Seattle does well with only one daily farmer's market--and that's Pike Place Market, which no longer has large numbers of produce suppliers. There were also lots more small neighborhood grocery stores with standard grocery fare (as opposed to convenience stores that don't have produce and carry mostly junk/highly processed unhealthy food). Healthy food was much more easily available than it is here, the health-conscious city of Seattle. In Seattle's case, some of it can be blamed on (lack of) density, but I think it tends to hold true for much of the U.S., which is confirmed by findings around the prevalence of "food deserts," or areas where access to healthy food is highly limited, in poor urban areas.

It also has a great post that gives more information about the water crisis and the commodification of water (which hopefully helps explain why Ethos water bothers me so much), and a series on Hispano farmers and myths around them. The series reminds me a lot of the way that traditional Western medicine has viewed medical traditions in other cultures: primitive and ineffective, despite evidence that the other traditions are not primitive and may in fact be more effective! For example, Peña writes about how Hispano (his term) farming methods are seen by many researchers and analysts as inefficient in large part because their plots of land are sometimes smaller and they grow more things on the land. But increasing scientific evidence shows that the large, efficient monocultures praised by these same researchers and analysts are actually less efficient over time because they deplete the land without replenishing it, leading to far greater need for fertilizers and reducing the land's output, contain no natural pest control, increasing need for pesticides, etc. I was excited today to see that he has begun posting a series on Obama's policies in several areas! Overall, a very cool blog. :) I linked to it in the title, but there is another link below.

http://ejfood.blogspot.com/