Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

The Incoming Food Crisis
by: Asinus Asinum Fricat
Sat Feb 05, 2011 at 08:05:01 AM PST
http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/4471/the-incoming-food-crisis

   The international events of this past few days have distracted from 
financial news on the destructive nature of our current capitalistic 
religion: now that most finance companies and international speculators have 
ruined the property market and can no longer leverage their profits from the 
burst bubble, they are turning to food commodities.


The ‘food desert’ in the heart of California’s farming region 4
http://www.grist.org/article/food-2011-02-01-the-food-desert-in-the-heart-of-californias-farming-region
by Beth Hoffman  1 Feb 2011 9:00 AM

The produce stand looks like a typical farmers market booth, with a few women 
and men milling around looking at fresh-picked limes and rosy red tomatoes. 
But this market is also full of kids, lined up at a neighboring tent waiting 
for smoothies, and carrying off fruit cups as big as their heads.

"The first few weeks I forgot my money, and couldn't get anything," confides 
one excited elementary-school girl. "Now I get a smoothie after school every 
week.  My mom makes me them at home for me now, too."

Produce signRuiz Produce sign.Photo: Beth HoffmanEach Thursday, Ruiz Produce 
sets up this market outside Hildahl Elementary School to bring fresh food 
into the heart of Ceres, Calif., a heavily Hispanic community south of 
Modesto with little access to quality fruits and vegetables. One of three 
stands of its kind in the town, the Ceres Partnership for Healthy Children 
(CPHC) began the market this fall in an attempt to create a healthier 
environment for the area's residents.

The Central Valley of California is said to produce half the fruits and 
vegetables grown in the United States, and yet it's far easier to get a 
hamburger than a peach in most of the valley. Low-income residents have 
little access to fresh food as it is quickly and efficiently trucked off to 
cities and processing plants, returning back only as packaged, processed, 
and/or fast food.

Residents say the town of Ceres has many neighborhoods without a single shop 
in which to buy fruits and vegetables. Often the only place for those on 
tight budgets and limited transportation to shop are the fast food and 
convenience stores that dot the roadside, stocked with brightly colored chips 
and soda.

(Read "Welcome to the Food Deserts of Rural America" for more.)
http://www.grist.org/article/2011-01-21-welcome-to-the-food-deserts-of-rural-america