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Big Powers Missing in Action on Food Price Crisis but New Leaders Emerge
July 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
How government food policy got in your face but not in your heart
June 14, 2011 By 1 Comment
Cuts to Government Services, But not to Double Standards By Wayne Roberts Politicians at all levels are promising more cuts to government expenses without any cut to services. For politicians, this is better than a gift that keeps on giving. It’s a promise they can keep on promising. For most of the past 40 years, [...]
Thoroughly Modern Dorothy: Why I Remember Mealtime on Mother’s Day
May 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment
My Mom and Dad came of age in Toronto during the “Dirty Thirties,” but even by the standards of that era, they had more than their share of bad breaks. Mom was given up for adoption as a baby, lost her adoptive mom at 14, and was rescued from the streets by a warm and [...]
Foods of Locality: Food With a Place in Your Heart
April 19, 2011 By 1 Comment
Food is a many-splendored thing, so the more we learn about it, the more we discover new ways to look for it, and come to appreciate why the centre of gravity for food thinking keeps lurching in different directions. This year’s Earth Day is time to name and celebrate a signpost on the latest lurch [...]
The Pillars of Cheap Food are Cracking
March 7, 2011 By 5 Comments
The worldwide price level of food is taking a great leap upward for the second time in less than five years. My bet is that this food price hike will match a rise in oil prices for wrenching impact on geopolitics, especially as the two are intimately connected. Food cannot be fertilized and shipped without [...]
The First and Most Important Thing to Know About Food
March 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Check out my lead-in to a special issue of Alternatives magazine on food; I give away the first and most important thing to know about food. Read More…
Wayne Roberts at Alberta Pathways 2 Sustainability Conference
March 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Wayne’s spoke in Red Deer, Alberta, at their exciting Pathways2Sustainability conference; a reporter’s preview of the talk is available here: http://permaculturebc.com/Wayne-Roberts-Food-Security-Organic Watch Wayne’s Keynote:
Are We Seeing the End of Supermarkets?
February 21, 2011 By 4 Comments
I grew up with the habit of Thursday nights as the time when family shopped together at the local supermarket, and I always assumed, for good or ill, that supermarkets were permanent. It’s now clear that old style super-markets are on their way out. Beginning this month, Wal-Mart Canada kicks off its one-year agenda to [...]
Is being vegan the only green option?
January 18, 2011 By 2 Comments
Join the discussion on how green and vegan issues relate; see my intro to the issues in this debate with PETA member Bruce Friedrich: http://www.newint.org/argument/2011/01/01/vegan-green-debate/
RESPECTING VOLUNTEERS OF THE GAIA CITY
October 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Politics has changed so much since I grew up that I still have trouble coping with modern conservatives who are usually outraged by the way things are going and are very militant and venomous about the need for abrupt changes. I find today’s radicals equally out of character with my memories. Many old-time Toronto activists [...]
It’s An Ill Wind That Shows Local Food Is No Longer Debatable
September 21, 2010 By 3 Comments
Driving from Toronto to Halifax last week to help move my daughter Anika into King’s College, I had a lot of quiet time to rehearse a rant against a recent flurry of attacks against local food systems by right-wing extremists across North America. I was pretty happy with some of my vitriolic lines until we [...]
Northwest Territories Gardeners and Farmers Work Together For Local Food
August 26, 2010 By 3 Comments
Yellowknife and Hay River “We’re so far behind up here that we’re ahead,” Evellyn Coleman told me, explaining why her Territorial Farmers Association, the first in North America to consider accepting backyard and community gardeners as full members, was inviting me up to speak in the Northwest Territories. Just south of the Arctic tundra, where [...]
Agro-Ecology Is the Oldest and Newest Form of Bio-Mimicry: Count the F Words
August 23, 2010 By 1 Comment
Imitation is the highest form of flattery, and the intricate form of food production practiced by peasants through much of Asia and South America still express that flattery in relation to Nature. In the Global North, all food production except hunting and gathering is commonly referred to as agriculture. But in the Global South, the [...]
The Stress of Food Bank Food
April 22, 2010 By 2 Comments
Governments Continue Tax Breaks for Junk Foods and Over-packaging
April 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Most people think of food as tax-free, but it’s not. The issue is not so much the absence of taxes on food, but the lack of purpose behind them. The general public calls such levies tax grabs. Among fans of smart public policy, they’re called dumb taxes. The federal government, with which most provinces will [...]