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Berkeley Farmers’ Market String Band Contest
Come join the Ecology Center on Saturday, September 11 for the Berkeley Farmers’ Market String Band Contest! The Contest will start with a Youth Showcase followed by 20 bands playing two tunes each. Fiddles, banjos, and fun for the whole family. Contest winners get handfuls of “wooden nickels” redeemable for fresh organic produce at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market. For more information on the event, click here. To enter the contest, visit the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention website.
Egg Safety and the Berkeley Farmers’ Market
Ben Feldman, Program Manager of the Berkeley Farmers’ Markets, discusses the reasons why buying eggs at the farmers’ market is safer that buying eggs at a grocery store: “Salmonella enteritidis, the strain of the bacteria responsible for the current recall, has become the single most common type of food poisoning in the US. Chickens act as a host for the bacteria without developing symptoms, and infected feces can spread rapidly in flocks. Poor hygiene and close proximity compound the problem. As you might expect, industrial scale production of eggs creates ideal conditions for the spread of disease, including Salmonella enteritidis.”
Ecology Center Youth Attend Rooted in Community Conference
Taking a weekend out of their summer schedules, four Farm Fresh Choice youth represented the Ecology Center at the Rooted in Community conference in Portland, Maine. Nakia Dillard, Christian Ramirez, Kad Smith, and Shawn Stewart presented skits, toured gardens, and networked with youth from around the country over the first weekend in August. Rooted in Community is a national grassroots network that empowers young people to work for food justice in their own communities, offering a space for youth from excluded communities to have a voice and influence on their own futures.
New York Times Op Ed: Locavores Need Math Lessons
Stephen Budiansky, author of the blog liberalcurmudgeon.com, wrote an op ed piece in the New York Times blasting the local food movement as having devolved into “another one of those self-indulgent — and self-defeating — do-gooder dogmas.” He accuses locavores of perpetuating “arbitrary rules, without any real scientific basis.” His argument focuses on quantifying energy use, to the exclusion of nearly all other compelling reasons to eat local. Grist’s food editor, Tom Philpott, has assembled a great cast of food writers and thinkers to rebut Budianky’s claims and deepen the discussion. Read it at Grist. [Photo by Jen Russo]