Angie Koch Farmer with Fertile Ground CSA/Market Garden.
Waterloo Food Issues Group (WatFIG) A community of students and faculty researching food issues
Waterloo Hen Association Promoting small-scale urban henkeeping in the City of Waterloo
Suzanne Armstrong graduate student interested in agricultural stewardship
WRFoodNews January 28, 2011
Below are a number of recent news items concerning the health of Waterloo Region's food system. You can read this issue of Waterloo Region Food News and all previous issues on our website at http://www.wrfoodsystem.ca/wrfoodnews. Upcoming events are listed at the bottom and on the Waterloo Region Food System Roundtable's website at www.wrfoodsystem.ca/events.
1. Exchange with Waterloo MP over GM Foods and Bill C-474
Grand River Environmental Network member Louisette Lanteigne had a recent email exchange with Kitchener-Waterloo MP Peter Braid over the Private Members’ bill currently before Parliament on genetically-modified foods, C-474. In response to her plea to vote for the Opposition bill, Braid replied that the country’s “strong trading position” would be hindered by the bill’s “extra layer of red tape”. Lanteigne responded with a story of a local beekeeper whose bees would not touch a field of GM barley crops in full bloom. Read the exchange and offer your responses on the Roundtable’s Discussion Forum.
2. British report calls for political reform to address worsening food crisis
World leaders need to begin laying the tracks for an industrial-revolution-like transformation if they want to stop the overstressed global food system from spiraling further out of control, a report commissioned by the British government says. The report, which is called The Future of Farming and Food and is published by a science department think tank called Foresight, calls for more stringent political and economic governance in the food sector and beyond. See article in the Globe & Mail here. See link to actual report summary here and full report here.
3. Questioning Walmart’s Commitment to Healthy Foods
Just a few months after announcing a commitment to source more local foods, Walmart announced on January 20th that it will reduce salts and sugars in many processed foods, and lower prices on fruits and vegetables. But some, like Huffington Post’s Anna Lappé, are questioning the depth of the claims. Reducing salt by 25% seems a lot less significant on products that already exceed the maximum daily tolerable consumption of salt, she says. And try getting any independent body to verify the claims of the largest retailer of food in the world when the announced changes are “voluntary”, not regulated. See full story here. See a similar perspective on the Walmart announcement by Grist columnist and author Michele Simon here.
4. Free Food Policy Webinars
The California-based organization Public Health Law & Policy is offering a monthly series of webinars on how to change city policies to encourage a healthier food system. Topics include how to get healthier food into corner stores, policies to address obesity, and stopping junk food marketing to kids. For more information, and to sign up, see http://www.phlpnet.org/phlp/webinars.
5. Is Being Vegan the only green option?
Read the debate in New Internationalist magazine between PETA official Bruce Fiedrich and food policy guru Wayne Roberts, as they struggle with the question of whether the planet can sustain meat-eating humans over the long term. See http://www.newint.org/argument/2011/01/01/vegan-green-debate/.
6. Big Changes coming to Roundtable Website
The Waterloo Region Food System Roundtable has invested in a number of upgrades to its website, which will enhance its ability to connect you to the people, organizations, events, and news related to the health of Waterloo Region’s food system. We’ll be introducing a new “Foodie Finder”, new ways to add your comments on news items like the ones in WRFoodNews, and a new facility to track the progress on ongoing food projects in the region. Watch for special emails in the coming weeks!
7. Upcoming Food Events
Full details on upcoming food-related events in Waterloo Region can be viewed under Upcoming Events on the Roundtable's website. To share news of your event, email details to the Roundtable's Site Administrator, who will post it to the website. Some upcoming highlights include:
Farming for Foodies – Saturday, February 5, 10am-3:30pm, Fiddleheads, Kitchener
Forum on GM Foods – Monday, February 7, 7pm, University of Guelph
Wheatgrass and Sprouting workshop – Saturday, February 12, 1-3pm, Little City Farm, Kitchener
Farm Marketing workshop – Tuesday, February 15, 1-4pm, Trinity United Church, Elmira
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