Cultivating the right to food in Johannesburg’s community gardens

Posted by Guest Author  |  June 12, 2015

community garden Alexandra townshipby Brittany Kesselman

The right to food is enshrined in the South African constitution (section 27(1)b). At a national level, South Africa is food secure, insofar as the country produces and/or imports enough food for the entire population. Despite this, an estimated 26% of South Africans experience hunger, with an additional 28.3% at risk of hunger. In Johannesburg, the economic heart of South Africa, figures for food insecurity range from over 50% in poor areas to as high as 90% in the most deprived wards. Clearly, a large number of South Africans are not enjoying their right to food.

Food security in South Africa, and specifically in Johannesburg, is not about the availability of food as much as about access to food, and especially about the ability to purchase food. With an unemployment rate of 24.7% in Johannesburg, and food prices rising, many residents can’t afford to buy food. Another obstacle to accessing food is the legacy of Apartheid spatial planning, which located poor households far from the city centre in areas not well served by public transportation or the formal retail sector. Continue reading →

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A week on the farm: Trellising, tractors and runner beans

Posted by Guest Author  |  June 5, 2015

by Molly Leebove, UVM Farmer Training Program Staff

Fridays throughout the growing season, we will post a few photos from the past week at UVM’s Catamount Educational Farm and the UVM Farmer Training Program. From these you will get a glimpse of the farm season as it unfolds and witness the evolution of these aspiring farmers as they grow into bonafide farmers.tomatohouse plastic beans

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Food pantry policy: Are regulations needed to ensure food safety?

Posted by Guest Author  |  June 4, 2015

by Ashley Chaifetz

Chaifetz headshot UNCEvery year, an estimated 48 million Americans contract a foodborne illness. Those illnesses have come from pretty much every place where there’s food: grocery stores, hospitals, church dinners, county fairs, schools, restaurants, prisons, private homes, and even emergency food providers. I wish I could say that foodborne illness prevention was simple, that everyone knew how to reduce risk, that access to institution-specific food safety materials is readily-available, or that our food is always safe and we didn’t need to worry. Unfortunately, that’s not the case; although some food distributors are more closely regulated than others, it’s incredibly difficult to trace an illness to its source. Continue reading →

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The Environmental Imagination: Applying the Lessons of Environmental Humanities

Posted by Darryl Benjamin  |  June 1, 2015

Environmental Humanities Public Domain ImageAs Spring washes over the landscape here in Vermont, I find myself staring at the greening through the tiny squares of the mesh screen of my window. The screen has a job to do, I realize, and that is to keep the bugs out. If I remove it I will see the loveliness of the lush forest unfettered, but black flies, mosquitoes, spiders, and countless others will find access to my living space.

This strikes me as an apt metaphor for the Environmental Humanities, a field that strives to integrate the specialization and compartmentalization of the sciences and humanities to provide a more holistic view of the environmental issues we face today. Embracing the bigger picture, however, invites critical accusations of ‘softer’ reasoning against the ‘harder’ sciences, which leads to the question: Can the humanities and arts create a more accurate vision that enable more livable and sustainable places and more effective and equitable environmental practices?

Continue reading →

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Hard cider production: what does the research say?

Posted by Guest Author  |  May 27, 2015

By Terry Bradshaw

P1010335Hard cider production in the U.S. has increased an average of 73 percent annually since 2008. That’s a lot of apples, and Vermont fruit growers and cideries (businesses that make hard cider) are capitalizing on this market expansion. Sales of cider nationally topped 54 million gallons in 2014, which required 18 million bushels of fruit, or the equivalent of 7 percent. of the nation’s total apple production.

However, the supply of fruit available to cideries is getting tight.

Growers in Vermont have traditionally sold their apples to the fresh market, where prices are significantly greater than for cider apples. This has created a disconnect between the cider and apple industries in terms of fruit supply, and has opened up an exciting field of research and outreach. Continue reading →

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