Farm-to-Fork Dinner Fiasco

Monday, 31 October 2011 11:26 Bob Banner

Farm-to-Fork Dinner Fiasco
By Laura Bledsoe | October 24, 2011

When an over-zealous regulator shows up at a farm dinner demanding that food be destroyed as hungry guests await, who do you call? Here's Laura's account written as a letter to her guests who had come to Quail Hollow Farm expecting a meal of foods harvested from local small family farms.

This incident shows the value of the 24/7 legal hotline for farmers like Laura who need help...even on a Friday night! A member benefit like the hotline is available thanks to the financial support of the many FTCLDF members and donors.

Dearest Guests, (You have all become dear to us!)

What an evening we had this last Friday night! It had all the makings of a really great novel: drama, suspense, anticipation, crisis, heroic efforts, villains and victors, resolution and a happy ending.

Last Updated ( Monday, 31 October 2011 11:34 ) Read more...

Urban homesteaders plant seeds of change in KC

Wednesday, 19 October 2011 02:19 Bob Banner

THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE

Urban homesteaders plant seeds of change in KC

By JILL WENDHOLT SILVA

The Kansas City Star

Jason and Candy Fields’ backyard in the Lykins neighborhood — one of the most blighted areas in Kansas City — is a patchwork quilt of urban farming ventures.

There are a vegetable garden fertilized with nutrient-rich fish waste and a lush swath of bamboo stalks waiting to be dried and used to stake tomato plants or to build a tree house or a lightweight bicycle.

Towering sunflowers wear paper grocery sacks draped over their heads, an effort to keep the birds away so the mature seeds can be roasted, then eaten as a snack. There’s a playhouse-turned-chicken coop for heritage breed hens.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 19 October 2011 02:30 ) Read more...

Occupying, Protesting, Investing

Monday, 10 October 2011 18:10 Bob Banner

Occupying, Protesting, Investing

by Woody Tasch

First, let's admire this fist:

The Economist put this on its cover earlier this year to celebrate the Arab Spring.

Let's use it, today, for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

People raising their fists, peacefully, against "greed is good," against wildly inequitable distribution of wealth, against fortunes made on derivatives and bail outs and what Warren Buffett called "financial weapons of mass destruction." Fists raised against not just fast money, you know, the stuff of 1,000 pt. drops in the Dow in 20 minutes and the stuff of Goldman Sachs 2010 bonuses "trimmed to $16 billion."

Last Updated ( Monday, 10 October 2011 18:13 ) Read more...

More Articles...