Rebecca T of HonestMeat’s Recent Comments

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  better food infrastructure = economic development

  A few ideas:
  

  1. Use some of the stimulus money to fully fund the Beginning Farmer & Rancher program of the USDA, which includes a myriad of programs aimed at strengthening and recruiting new farmers, including Individual Savings Accounts which encourages savings.
     
  2.  Increase funding for the USDA Community Food Program, which usually gets about 80-85% more proposals submitted than there is funding.  CFPs inspire innovative food security projects and businesses in both urban and rural areas, providing healthier food options and economic development at the same time.
     
  3.  Either through USDA Rural Development or through the Economic Development Administration, create a grant & loan program to build food and agricultural incubators in cities and in the country.  Business incubators have proven to create more sustainable businesses and employment opportunities.
     
  4.  Dramatically expand the USDA Value-Added Producer Program to include more capital cost funding and include building needed food infrastructure such as abattoirs, butcher shops, cold-storage facilities, and the like.
  On Think locally, act infrastructurally posted 10 months ago 15 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  better food infrastructure = economic development

  A few ideas:
  

  1. Use some of the stimulus money to fully fund the Beginning Farmer & Rancher program of the USDA, which includes a myriad of programs aimed at strengthening and recruiting new farmers, including Individual Savings Accounts which encourages savings.
     
  2.  Increase funding for the USDA Community Food Program, which usually gets about 80-85% more proposals submitted than there is funding.  CFPs inspire innovative food security projects and businesses in both urban and rural areas, providing healthier food options and economic development at the same time.
     
  3.  Either through USDA Rural Development or through the Economic Development Administration, create a grant & loan program to build food and agricultural incubators in cities and in the country.  Business incubators have proven to create more sustainable businesses and employment opportunities.
     
  4.  Dramatically expand the USDA Value-Added Producer Program to include more capital cost funding and include building needed food infrastructure such as abattoirs, butcher shops, cold-storage facilities, and the like.
  On Think Locally, Act Infrastructurally posted 10 months ago 14 Responses

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  analysis of the event please

  Tom- I am really looking forward to your critical analysis of Terra Madre.  I gave you a list of things to ponder before you left, based on impressions by my family's experience two years ago, and several other farmer friends who felt the whole experience lacked any real substance or even purpose.  Will your insightful critique be coming soon?On Where Slow Food Nation rejected bottled water, Terra Madre embraced it posted 1 year ago 3 Responses

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  Questions to look at

  A few things to be on the look out at Terra Madre (based on my family's experience of it two years ago).

  1. Do you think they focus more on style and marketing materials than substance?
     
  2. How do they facilitate producers to meet and learn from each other, if at all?
     
  3. Does it feel a tad colonial with all of the delegates from the developing nations hawking their wares and with very few opportunities for them to speak, lead workshops, or interact with other delegates in a non-commercial way?
     
  4. How well are the workshops organized?  Apart from these workshops, how else do delegates meet and learn from each other?
     
  5. Do the chefs get their own special dinners in which the farmers are not invited to?
     
  6. Does Carlo Petrini get center stage in nearly every plenary session they hold?
     
  7. Ask some delegates, what good has befallen them since getting involved with Slow Food?  For example, has Slow Food helped them commercialize their products?  Helped them identify sources of funding?  Paired them with an exporter or distributor?  Identify where to locate a rare type of seed or animal?  Anything concrete??
     
  8. How are children and youth (not just college students) concretely involved in Terra Madre?  If not, how will this movement spread to younger generations?

  I was much more impressed by the Salon de Gusto than Terra Madre when we attended in 2006.  Hope you can spend some quality time in the Salon as well.....it provided the only opportunity for us to meet other producers, which was our main purpose in attending.On I'll be reporting from Slow Food's Terra Madre conference in Turin, Italy posted 1 year ago 3 Responses

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  We can do it without them

  What's interesting is that this story illustrates that government does NOT need to be involved to spur innovation, local lending, and job creation.  I have seen too many good ideas hindered by government grants because they build their foundation on free money that ultimately disappears.  Instead, when you pull together vision, might, and community investment, you avoid starting with an unsustainable model.  I don't want the government throwing money at our rural communities.  It would be better if they just stopped subsidizing the businesses that are destroying them (i.e. prisons, mountain-top removal mines, nuclear waste depositories, pig CAFOs, etc.)On While global markets crater, a Vermont town unites around food posted 1 year ago 2 Responses