A conversation with Paul Shapiro of the Humane Society of the United States. Paul Shapiro is the senior director of the Factory Farming Campaign.

Paul Shapiro has spearheaded numerous successful campaigns to improve the plight of farm animals, most notably several campaigns to persuade retailers to stop selling battery cage eggs.

Shapiro is also the founder and former campaigns director for Compassion Over Killing, where he helped lead campaigns such as the successful effort to end the use of the misleading “Animal Care Certified” logo on battery cage egg cartons nationwide. At Compassion Over Killing, he worked also as a farm animal cruelty investigator, primarily documenting conditions on egg and broiler factory farms, livestock auctions and slaughter plants.

If you do continue to eat animal products, know that not all animal products are equal when it comes to animal welfare. Each industry has its own abusive practices, and some are much more cruel than others. For example, the chicken, egg, turkey, and pork industries tend to be far more abusive to animals than the beef industry. And a growing number of producers are raising animals without intensive confinement. Refining your diet by choosing cage-free animal products, instead of the conventional factory farm products that fill most supermarket shelves, will help to reduce animal suffering.

Each year in the United States, nearly 10 billion land animals are raised and killed for food. Just like the dogs and cats we welcome into our homes, chickens, pigs, turkeys, and cows have their own personalities, inquisitive natures, likes and dislikes, and—most importantly—the ability to feel pain, suffer from boredom and frustration, and experience joy.

More on Factory Farming
More on the Beef Recall
More on the Humane Society

WARNING: This video contains very graphic images.

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The Problem
By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster?

 

A Potential Solution: Farm Vertically
The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3 billion people. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world’s urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.

Press
February 8th, 2008 – Vertical Farm was featured on Science Magazine (Feb 2008)
December 12th, 2007 – Vertical Farm was featured on Wired Science
September 13th, 2007 – Vertical Farm was featured on CNN Money
September 3rd, 2007 – Vertical Farm was featured in Popular Science (July 2007)
June 19th, 2007 – Vertical Farm featured on BBC News – Vertical Farming in the Big Apple

Visit VerticleFarm.com
More on Vertical Farming
More on Dr. Dickson Despommier

Brad Lancaster has taught, designed, and consulted on the sustainable design system of permaculture and integrated rainwater harvesting systems since 1993. He lives on the thriving 1/8th-acre urban permaculture site he created in downtown Tucson, Arizona.

He plants edible landscapes of both native and dryland-adapted exotic plants, and they are full of medicinals, wildlife habitat, sources of fiber and natural dyes. They feed his family, friends, chickens, and bees.

He has written a trilogy of rainwater harvesting books that help you turn water scarcity into water abundance. Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands, Volume 1- Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain Into Your Life and Landscape is availablenow. Volume 2 will be available in May 2008. See www.HarvestingRainwater.com for more.

Brad is also Co-coordinator of Desert Harvesters – a grassroots organization promoting the sustainable growing, harvesting, processing, and eating of native foods. See
http://www.desertharvesters.greenbicycle.net for more info.

More on Brad Lancaster

In Closing the Food Gap, food activist and journalist Mark Winne poses questions too often overlooked in our current conversations around food: What about those people who are not financially able to make conscientious choices about where and how to get food? And in a time of rising rates of both diabetes and obesity, what can we do to make healthier foods available for everyone?

To address these questions, Winne tells the story of how America’s food gap has widened since the 1960s, when domestic poverty was “rediscovered,” and how communities have responded with a slew of strategies and methods to narrow the gap, including community gardens, food banks, and farmers’ markets. The story, however, is not only about hunger in the land of plenty and the organized efforts to reduce it; it is also about doing that work against a backdrop of ever-growing American food affluence and gastronomical expectations. With the popularity of Whole Foods and increasingly common community-supported agriculture (CSA), wherein subscribers pay a farm so they can have fresh produce regularly, the demand for fresh food is rising in one population as fast as rates of obesity and diabetes are rising in another.

Over the last three decades, Winne has found a way to connect impoverished communities experiencing these health problems with the benefits of CSAs and farmers’ markets; in Closing the Food Gap, he explains how he came to his conclusions. With tragically comic stories from his many years running a model food organization, the Hartford Food System in Connecticut, alongside fascinating profiles of activists and organizations in communities across the country, Winne addresses head-on the struggles to improve food access for all of us, regardless of income level.

Using anecdotal evidence and a smart look at both local and national policies, Winne offers a realistic vision for getting locally produced, healthy food onto everyone’s table.

Mark Winne was the Executive Director of the Hartford Food System from 1979 to 2003 during which time he led this non-profit organization’s efforts to develop farmers’ markets, community gardens, neighborhood food stores, a community supported agriculture farm, nutrition education programs, and a food bank. Over the past several years, Winne’s involvement with food and agriculture policy led to the development of the Working Lands Alliance and the Connecticut Farmland Trust, two organizations working to preserve farmland in Connecticut. His policy work also resulted in the creation of the City of Hartford Food Policy Commission and the State of Connecticut Food Policy Council, two groups that he has served on and provided staff services to.

Winne was a co-founder of the national Community Food Security Coalition, a 400-member non-profit organization that conducts training and policy work designed to promote community-based solutions to food insecurity and the decline of local agriculture. He is a past-President of CFSC and is currently a member of its board of directors.

Winne provides consulting services to the New Mexico Task Force to End Hunger and the New Mexico Food and Agriculture Policy Council. He currently writes and speaks nationally on issues related to community food systems, food insecurity and hunger, local agriculture, and food and agriculture public policy. He is a member of the Hartford Courant Place board of contributors and writes regular articles for this newspaper on subjects related to farming and farmland. In addition to his consulting work in New Mexico, Winne has been providing assistance to groups in Chicago, New York City, Boston, Seattle, and California in the development of food policy councils.

Click here to get Closing the Food Gap from Amazon.

Click here to visit www.MarkWinne.com

Dean Cycon is the founder and owner of Dean’s Beans, an organic coffee roaster based in Orange, MA (www.deansbeans.com).

The company supports indigenous growers and cooperatives around the world through a combination of strict fair-trade principles, profit sharing, and development assistance. He has been involved in coffee and fair trade since the early 80’s, and was a co-founder of Coffee Kids ( www.coffeekids.org) – a non-profit devoted to helping coffee-farming families improve the quality of their lives. He is the author of the just released “Javatrekker: Dispatches From the World of Fair Trade Coffee” published by Chelsea Green ( www.chelseagreen.com). Take a look at Dean’s videos on You Tube to get a glimpse of where your morning cuppa joe really comes from:

Zippy White is the Executive Chef at Doc Martin’s in Taos, NM part of the historic Taos Inn.

I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon on the farm where Zippy is involved in a CSA, and talking to him about his philosophy of food. The menu at Doc Martins is largely New Mexican fare and changes to reflect the seasons. Zippy is one of the growing number of chefs across the country who are committed to using more local, seasonal ingredients to reflect not just the demands of today’s educated consumer but to reflect their own values and commitment to supporting local agriculture by eating local, fresh food.

Matthew Amster-Burton (mamster) is a Seattle food writer who contributes frequently to the Seattle Times and MSN. His work was featured in Best Food Writing 2003, 2004, and 2006. His favorite food is phad thai. He lives in Seattle with his wife Laurie and daughter Iris. Published in: The Seattle Times (since 2001), MSN, The Oregonian, and Seattle Magazine.

Matthew’s Blog is called Roots and Grubs.com, he is the recipient of Honors for Best Food Writing Anthology, 2003, 2004, and 2006, a Member of the Association of Food Journalists. Matthew also writes for Culinate.com, and SeriousEats.com .

Here’s that recipe for you, and thanks! I had a great time. -Matthew

ANTS ON A TREE
Serves about 3
Adapted from Noodle, by Terry Durack

8 ounces ground pork
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon hot bean paste
1 teaspoon cornstarch
7 to 8 ounces cellophane noodles
2 tablespoons peanut oil
2 scallions, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced
1 red jalapeno or Fresno chile, seeded and minced
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1/4 tsp ground Sichuan peppercorns (optional)

1. In a medium bowl, combine pork with soy sauce, sugar, hot bean
paste, and cornstarch. Refrigerate 20 minutes.

2. Place noodles in a large bowl and pour boiling water over to cover.
Soak 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, and drain in a colander.

3. Heat oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet or a wok over medium-high
heat. Add the scallions and jalapeno and cook 30 seconds, stirring
frequently. Add the pork and stir-fry until no longer pink, breaking
up any chunks, about 3 minutes.

4. Add the noodles, chicken stock, dark soy sauce, and Sichuan pepper.
Cook, tossing the noodles with two wooden spoons, until the sauce is
absorbed and pork is well distributed throughout the noodles. Transfer
to a large platter and serve immediately.

*Notes on ingredients:*

**Hot bean paste:** This is the stuff Chen was always reaching for on
Iron Chef. Available at Asian groceries and some supermarkets, it’s
sometimes called hot bean sauce, or spicy bean paste, or similar.

**Cellophane noodles:** Also called bean threads. Look for mung bean
starch in the ingredients. Available at supermarkets.

**Dark soy sauce:** Also called Superior Soy Sauce or Soy Superior
Sauce. I usually buy Pearl River Bridge Mushroom Soy Sauce, which is
also the same thing.

Crestfallen cakes? Slumped soufflés? Do you have an altitude problem?

When Susan G. Purdy began traveling across the country to teach baking, she soon discovered that the recipes she perfected at home in Connecticut (altitude 540 feet) wouldn’t fly in high-altitude venues.

The more she asked for advice, the more she realized how little information existed for adapting recipes to suit kitchens in higher elevations. So she packed a suitcase with her favorite recipes, enlisted the help of a few engineers, and began testing variations in home kitchens across the country, from North Carolina to Colorado. We’ll talk with Susan about the chemistry of baking, what goes wrong, and how to adjust for altitude.

Click here to get the book.

Today we are talking with Peter Holter of Holistic Management International.

HMI is an Albuquerque-based, international nonprofit organization that provides training, courses and consulting services to stewards of large landscapes, including ranchers, farmers, pastoral communities, government agencies, NGOs, environmental advocacy groups and other non-profits.

HMI’s proven holistic practices yield a triple bottom line of sustainable economic, environmental and social benefits by:

Improving soil health and biodiversity of rangelands and pastures.
Increasing grazing and wildlife capacity.
Increasing annual profits and enhancing livelihoods.
Optimally using rainfall and conserving water.
Growing healthier crops and achieving higher yields.
Reversing desertification in brittle environments.
Breaking the cycle of food and water insecurity.
Enhancing family relationships.
Resisting and positively affecting global climate change.

HMI also trains Certified Educators to educate others about Holistic Management, which replaces fragmentary decision-making and short-term solutions with a system that encompasses a whole, long-term process of restoring damaged land and managing healthy land.

30 million acres of land worldwide currently benefit from Holistic Management practices.
Visit www.holisticmanagement.org

Steve Warshawer has lived and worked in New Mexico since 1976. Throughout the past 31 years Steve has worked in agricultural product development and marketing. He has founded and still operates a small farm/ranch in Santa Fe County utilizing the latest techniques for soil and water conservation, green energy production, and direct marketing.

Steve has also founded a collaborative and pooled marketing and distribution system of premium eggs and vegetables under the name Beneficial. Steve has recently been trained in Enterprise Facilitation and currently manages the Enterprise Development Office of La Montanita Cooperative’s newly formed Cooperative Distribution Center. As a volunteer, Steve has served on the board of directors of several New Mexico organizations devoted to land preservation and working land issues.

Real Eggs from a Real Farm