PUENTES

Groups target businesses with carrot mobs

jterhune — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:39:50 +0000

By Michael Fitzgerald

In 2006, I joined a boycott of Kentucky Fried Chicken to protest the gruesome chicken-factory methods of the company’s suppliers. It hasn’t done a bit of good.

This week, I bumped into a young San Francisco entrepreneur who has invented a better way of persuading businesses to change: the carrot mob.

A carrot mob is a large group (the “mob”) which constructively uses its buying power (the “carrot,”) to persuade businesses to adopt better practices.

You could just hear the wheels turning in the head of Jeremy Terhune, founder of Friends of the Lower Calaveras River and community gardens.

“To me, off the cuff, it seems like a very effective tool,” said Terhune. “If you got people signed up on a listserv, you could just tweet out ‘OK, everybody, go shop at this store this week.’ You could get it so refined. It’s an ingenious idea.”

Click here to read more at Recordnet.com

Why Gardening Makes You Happy and Cures Depression

jterhune — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:51:53 +0000

Getting down and dirty is the best ‘upper’

Robyn Francis

While mental health experts warn about depression as a global epidemic, other researchers are discovering ways we trigger our natural production of happy chemicals that keep depression at bay, with surprising results. All you need to do is get your fingers dirty and harvest your own food.

In recent years I’ve come across two completely independent bits of research that identified key environmental triggers for two important chemicals that boost our immune system and keep us happy – serotonin and dopamine. What fascinated me as a permaculturist and gardener were that the environmental triggers happen in the garden when you handle the soil and harvest your crops.

Click here to read more at Permaculture.com

Goggio Family Foundation Endorses Boggs Tract Community Farm!

jterhune — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:24:17 +0000

PUENTES just received a $10,000 grant from the Goggio Family Foundation to build a much needed greenhouse, buy organic seeds and fertilizers, and help pay for irrigation equipment for Boggs Tract Community Farm!

In early 2011 PUENTES submitted a grant proposal to the Goggio Family Foundation’s Community Development and Social Change Program to help develop the Farm.

The mission of the Goggio Family Foundation is to transform lives and strengthen communities by fostering innovation, creating knowledge, and promoting social progress.

PUENTES’ Board, Staff, and our families at Boggs Tract Community Farm send a BIG THANK YOU to the Goggio Familiy Foundation for INVESTING in Boggs Tract Community Farm and we look forward to our collaboration in 2012 to CHANGE THE FACE OF BOGGS TRACT ONE FAMILY AT A TIME!

Eat More Greens in the New Year

jterhune — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:18:47 +0000

It turns out that while some people may eat above and beyond their daily caloric intake, they may be suffering from “hidden hunger”.

Click here to read more: http://www.organicgardening.com/marias-blog-source/eat-more-greens-new-year

Frito-Lay Sued for Labeling GMO Ingredients as All Natural

jterhune — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:19:30 +0000

It’s no secret that large scale manufacturers have been vigilantly responding to consumers that are becoming more and more interested in natural food products. But in the case of Frito-Lay, they may be making more marketing changes than changes to actual food products.

A law suit was recently filed against Frito-Lay for claiming that its products were all natural with no synthetic ingredients, when genetically modified soy and corn are both ingredients, according to Food Freedom.

Julie Gengo of Richmond, California is thus far the only plaintiff in a lawsuit that claims that Frito-Lay’s “Seed-to-Shelf” program and new natural labeling falsely represents some of their products as using completely natural ingredients.

Click here to read more ar Treehugger.com

What We Learned From A Year Without Food From A Grocery Store

jterhune — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:08:49 +0000

I can’t believe it’s been a year now since we started our year without groceries. We learned a lot in that year. We are definitely healthier, but also we’re happier. Our relationship with each other is stronger as we’ve had to learn how to really work well together.

When we first decided to do a year without buying food from the grocery store, convenience stores, box stores or restaurants we thought the challenge was going to be really difficult. And it kind of started out that way. We had difficulties getting local milk, even though we live near a lot of dairies, and our goats hadn’t been bred yet so we had to wait for them to start producing. We had an order on part of a steer that almost didn’t come in, and our first monthly co-op order was missed.

Click here to read more at Wakeupworld.com

VIDEO: Family Workday at Boggs Tract Community Farm

jterhune — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:51:17 +0000

The bugs that ate Monsanto

jterhune — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:32:40 +0000

Now that 94 percent of the soy and 70 percent of the corn grown in the U.S. are genetically modified, Monsanto — one of the companies that dominates the GMO seed market – might look to some like it’s winning. But if we look a little closer, I’d say they’re holding on by a thread.

Their current success is due in large part to brilliant marketing. The company’s approach was both compelling — their products were sold as the key to making large-scale farming far simpler and more predictable — and aggressive: Monsanto made it virtually impossible for most farmers to find conventional seeds for sale in most parts of the country.

Click here to read more at Grist.org

Who Are The Young Farmers Of ‘Generation Organic’?

jterhune — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:29:04 +0000

For decades, as young people have been leaving farms behind, the average age of the American farmer has been rising. The last time the government counted farmers, in 2002, the average farmer was 55-years-old.

But there’s a new surge of youthful vigor into American agriculture — at least in the corner of it devoted to organic, local food. Thousands of young people who’ve never farmed before are trying it out.

Some 250 of them gathered recently at a gorgeous estate in the Hudson River valley of New York: the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Tarrytown.

Click here to read more at NPR.org

Black (fly) magic

jterhune — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:16:38 +0000

Black soldier fly larvae are all the rage in composting, and the star performer in a new kind of “ultimate vermicomposting” system. These critters will devour anything biological that you can throw at them, including items that normally cannot be composted and instead end up in the trash, so called ‘putrescent’ wastes like meat scraps and dairy. And what you wind up with is big fat delicious grubs, perfect food for chickens or fish in a charming and tasty backyard closed loop system. And on a larger scale, their culture could help towns and cities deal with the mountains of putrescents that now go to landfills.

Click here to read more at Grist.org

Click here for to learn how to make a homemade Black Soldier Fly Composter!