One example of the incredible journey we’ve witnessed is that of the Internet and attendant technologies.  As recently as 1992 there were only 50 websites.

Our policies on farming,  food production, distribution, and health systems need to focus on the future.

FoodDeclaration.org is working toward doing just that.

.”………a healthy food system is necessary to meet the urgent challenges of our time. Behind us stands a half-century of industrial food production, underwritten by cheap fossil fuels, abundant land and water resources, and a drive to maximize the global harvest of cheap calories. Ahead lie rising energy and food costs, a changing climate, declining water supplies, a growing population, and the paradox of widespread hunger and obesity.”

Here is their state of origin:

Origins

The concept for the declaration began with Michael R. Dimock, the President of Roots of Change (ROC). He was the primary author of Slow Food USA’s first national statute and the founding Chairman of Slow Food USA. Mr. Dimock believed that it would serve the good food movement to collaborate with others on a declaration that could be used to spark the public’s action on national policy. In late 2007, he proposed to Anya Fernald, Executive Director of Slow Food Nation, that ROC could spawn a national effort to develop a declaration related to the farm bill and other food policies that would provide policy content for the Slow Food Nation event. He then proposed the project to ROC’s governing body, the Stewardship Council, in February 2008. With approval from both entities, the project began.

You can read more and endorse the effort here.

A bit further down on the same page you will find Food Democracy Now.

Their efforts toward sustainability are summed up below.  Please take the time to think about this.

Four specific problems to overcome

1. Current policy is mired in a 20th century industrial paradigm, where the primary goals are limited to production volume, efficiency of feeding, and ensured profits for commodity producers and those they supply, thereby, benefiting too few.
2. People, ecosystems, and rural economies are becoming less healthy as a direct result of current American policy.
3. The efforts to solve food and agriculture challenges are not being addressed to the degree required by the scale of the problems.
4. The last farm bill cycle confirmed that too few control the debate and they are focused on protecting the status quo rather than aiding the broader population of the nation.
   
5. 
   

The Profile Smart is a hand sink mounted atop a toilet to reuse hand washing water.  The benefits are obvious.  Though I’ve never counted the number of times I wash my hands throughout the day, as a Chef,  it’s certainly frequent enough to make this unit pay for itself.

For the rest of the room there are commodious tips for environmentally friendly materials at Planet Green .  The bathroom is the second most “wasteful” home environment. The home laundry is said to be the most egregious offender.

Green paper towels and bath tissues are reviewed here by the Natural Rescources Defense Council.  They also have a link to wildlands issues.  Their blog, Switchboard, can be seen here.

The Ecologist produced this white paper on recycled toilet tissue airing the issues comprehensively.

When you’re done with the paper on the rolls visit DLTK-kids for great ways to use the left over tubes.

Over the last four years photographer Paul Mobley traveled the United States and met more than 300 farmers.  You can see a few of them here.  Paging through the book,  American Farmer,  one feels the warm, gritty soil and the sun, hard on your neck.

The book shows us the heart of the U. S. of A.

‘Nuff said.

photograph© 2008 Paul Mobley