Seafood Progress? 

October 1, 2019
In July they released year two updates for Seafood Progress – Canada’s online resource for tracking major food retailers’ sustainable seafood commitments and procurement. A year after SeaChoice first launched Seafood Progress and retailers claim they have progressed in several ways, but important work remains to ensure their purchasing power is leveraging healthy oceans.
 They produced a series of news pieces that looks at each of the six steps that make up Seafood Progress in detail – highlighting trends, shortcomings and leaders in action: Commitments, Data Collection policies, Responsible Sourcing practices, Transparency, Education, and Supporting Improvements of the most unsustainable commodities sold in high volumes across Canada. Visit Seafood Progress to see how different retailer scored.         Read the newsletter

Ask Health Canada to disallow glyphosate...

June 20, 2019
Glyphosate is the active chemical in Roundup and other herbicides commonly used in agriculture to kill weeds. It has long been suspected of being damaging to human health, and the health of soil, but in 2019 the evidence is staggering, and mounting. At this point, the United Nations has declared it a probable carcinogen, and for the first time in US history, Bayer, which now owns Monsanto, the 
manufacturer of glyphosate, has been ordered to pay damages for glyphosate's contribution to a case of lymphoma. Bayer/Monsanto currently faces over 13,400 more similar cases.
                                       READ MORE AND SIGN THE PETITION

Your questions about food and climate changed are answered

May 1, 2019 -- The New York Times

How to shop, eat and cook in a warming world.
Can your diet have an effect on climate change? (Yes.)
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Food processors like Saputo and McCains are responsible for the most food waste in Canada

February 16, 2019 - SumOfUs
Canada wastes so much food that you might as well throw a quarter of your groceries away when you leave the supermarket. By far the worst culprits aren’t ordinary shoppers like us, but huge food processors like McCain’s and Saputo,  the dairy giant behind Cracker Barrel and Neilson milk. 

Food waste isn’t just about tossing perfectly good food. It wastes a huge amount of water and energy which we just can’t afford to waste. It pumps eye-watering levels of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere: the equivalent generated by 41 million cars driven on the road continuously for a year.
Photo: ​http://all-united-against-food-waste.e-monsite.com/
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​Pastor’s surprising solution for food poverty leads to a boost in his congregation

February 10, 2019 - Aleteia
When Pastor Heber Brown III saw an increased number of his congregation with health issues as a direct result of their diet, he decided to take matters into his own hands — literally. The pastor of the Pleasant Hope Baptist Church in Baltimore came up with the idea of using the 1,500 square-foot piece of land surrounding the church to grow fresh produce, such as kale and summer squash…. The church-grown vegetables were then sold to members of his church at more affordable prices than in the local shops. Although the crops produce an impressive 1,100 pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables, Brown came up with the idea of also including local farmers markets into his healthy eating incentive.
…“We saw attendance bump up in our worship, we saw a great energy … and it went so [well] here, that I wondered what would happen if we could spread it through other churches and create a network of churches that do the same thing.”       READ MORE

​Fighting to end food waste in Canada

October 21, 2018 - Change.org
Read his story here.

Costco, Loblaw's, Safeway and Sobey's mislabel fish

September 30, 2018 - SumOfUs
When you buy white tuna or butterfish in the grocery store, you could actually be purchasing a fish dubbed “the laxative of the sea” for its devastating effects on the digestive system including diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. Escolar could make you sick for days -- and you'd have absolutely no way of knowing which fish you'd actually bought. 
Almost a quarter of all fish in from Costco, Loblaw's, Safeway and Sobey's and all other stores in Canada are mislabelled according to a just-released study. But that's not the worst of it: 100% of all snapper, butterfish and yellowtail was mislabelled and fraudulent. 

Protect consumers' health and ensure boat-to-source traceability for all seafood products in Canada.
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                             READ MORE and tell CFIA to stop seafood fraud.

CBC - Canadians get creative in solving food waste problem

September 3, 2018
BC News spoke to several businesses to see how they're developing creative solutions and technology to reduce the tons of food that end up in landfills.

Chalice work around the world
​Chalice‏ @ChaliceCanada Aug 23

MoreOlha's #mom was having trouble providing for her children due to the unstable local economy. Our kind supporters donated a #cow to Olha's family through our Gift Catalogue! Cow's #milk is an excellent source of income, and provides protein for #growing children.
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This could easily be a topic for a fraternity meeting encouraging discussion. DOWNLOAD pdf file

​The Dizzying Grandeur of 21st-Century Agriculture

New Your Times
Our industrialized food system nourishes more people, at lower cost, than any comparable system in history. It also exerts a terrifyingly massive influence on our health and our environment. Photographer George Steinmetz spent nearly a year traveling the country to capture that system, in all its scope, grandeur and dizzying scale. His photographs are all the more remarkable for the fact that so few large food producers are willing to open themselves to this sort of public view.
                                                   SEE THE PHOTO STORY

This Quebec Small Farmer is proving that it's possible!

​My mission is to inspire, educate and empower people to work together towards multiplying the number of small ecological farms all over the world. This I believe, is how we can replace the poison and destruction of industrial agriculture with a food system based in nature and community. Food grown with care, by and for people who care.  — JM Fortier
               Also see their short 2:15 min video - ​http://www.themarketgardener.com/film

​Creation care through food

A Rocha began its foray into sustainable agriculture over ten years ago through our Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) project in Surrey, BC. Building on our success in organic farming, we’re equipping community gardeners across Canada to grow food for their less-fortunate neighbours through our Community Garden Network. We’re turning schoolyards into farmyards in inner-city neighbourhoods through our Farm to Families project. And we’re bringing hope and health to newcomers to Canada through our Earth to Table project in Hamilton, ON. ...LEARN MORE

​French Food Waste Law Changing How Grocery Stores Approach Excess Food

April 2, 2018 - NPR
(In France)... giving leftover food to charity is no longer just an act of goodwill. It's a requirement under a 2016 law that bans grocery stores from throwing away edible food.
Stores can be fined $4,500 for each infraction.

Djerbrani checks food donations from a French grocery store before driving it across town to a church, which will distribute it to poor families.

        Read More...
Food waste is a global problem. In developing countries, food spoils at the production stage. Well-off nations throw it away at the consumption stage. Grocery stores are responsible for a lot of that waste. France is trying to change that with its 2-year-old law.

Comment - FVC: Canada could benefit from a similar law. Make this idea a topic of discussion in your fraternity and community; tell your government representative. 

​Wasted! The Story of Food Waste

March 19, 2018 - CBC - The Passionate Eye
What if every time you opened your wallet, a third of your cash fell out – and you did nothing about it? Consider the fact that one-third of the food grown annually for human consumption is never eaten – for one reason or another, it ends up in the garbage. In the U.S., that’s $218 billion – or 1.3 billion tons – of food annually. Yet at the same time, 800 million people around the globe are starving. It’s a problem – but one with no shortage of solutions.
Watch any of 3 short videos about 1 minute long or the full documentary. It will change your attitude about our food and its wastage. We can spread this important message to our families, friends, communities, towns, cities.... - it's a powerful message and worth the time to watch.- FVC

Confronting the perfect storm - how to feed the future

Nov. 16, 2017 - CBC - Ideas
Douglas Rasugu farms French beans in Kenya. Up to 60 per cent of his crop goes to waste because it doesn't meet aesthetic standards for the international market. Footage gathered by Joseph Mwihia, edited by Sinisa Jolic
We're facing what could be a devastating crisis—how to feed ourselves without destroying the ecosystems we depend on. We already produce enough food to feed everyone on the planet. Yet 800 million people are undernourished, while another 2 billion are overweight or obese. And at the same time, almost one third of the food we produce goes to waste. In partnership with the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph we seek out creative solutions to a looming disaster.
This is worthwhile listen. Learn what we in the west can do to help. - George Guimond, editor 

Argentina's vegan Monday

​Some countries are considering ways to get people to stop eating meat
Nov. 1, 2017 - The Economist
The introduction of meatless Mondays to the Casa Rosada adds Argentina to the list of countries investigating ways to limit meat consumption. The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are in the middle of an obesity crisis. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that a majority of people are overweight in all but three countries of the region. Argentina has particular grounds for 
concern. The rate of obesity among its boys is the highest in Latin America, and among girls it is the third-highest. This has been linked to various causes, including excessive eating of beef. Daily consumption per person in Argentina—150g—is over double the recommended amount.
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And health concerns are not the only ones cited by those looking to reduce meat consumption. The livestock sector accounts for 15% of the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions–the equivalent of all the vehicles in the world. Animal pastures have been blamed for 90% of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Beef is a particularly voracious user of water, with 15,000 litres of water needed to produce a kilogram of the meat.   READ MORE

Food Insecurity and Agribusiness - there's a better way

What we need is a profound and radical transformation, or dare we say, conversion of the world food system. Around the world, people are migrating within and across borders, and for many of them, hunger and food insecurity are driving them. We know that climate change, conflict, and political instability are adversely affecting food security, but if communities are still facing hunger today it is because of the flawed and damaging way in which we produce and distribute food around the world. Indeed, at the heart of the problem, and perhaps the solution, is our very relationship to food and the land it grows on.
Food insecurity is largely driven by a food system that is highly controlled by agribusiness, believed to be the only model capable of producing large volumes of food – and waste. But more food is not the same as less hunger!  
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      READ MORE & Take Action 

Wangari Maathai & The Green Belt Movement

October 18, 2017
Wangari Maathai is a Kenyan environmentalist and political activist. In the 1970s, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental NGO focused on environmental conservation and women's rights. In 2004, she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her contributions to sustainable development, democracy, and peace.

​The Green Belt Movement (http://greenbeltmovement.org) organizes rural women in Kenya to plant trees, an effort that combats deforestation while generating income for the community and promoting empowerment for women. Since Maathai founded the Movement, over 40 million trees have been planted and over 30,000 women have been trained in forestry, food processing, beekeeping, and other sustainable, income-generating activities.
September 26, 2017 - Yes! Magazine

How to Feed Ourselves in a Time of Climate Crisis

Here are 13 of the best ideas for a just and sustainable food system, from saving seeds to curbing food waste.
Changing the food system is the most important thing humans can do to fix our broken carbon cycles. Meanwhile, food security is all about adaptation when you’re dealing with crazy weather and shifting growing zones. How can a world of 7 billion—and growing—feed itself? Here are 13 of the best ideas for a just and sustainable food system.   Learn More
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