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Ethical Consumer: the alternative consumer organisation

Ethical Consumer: the alternative consumer organisation
Related:  Food (in)security, consumption, health & sustainability

this. | What urban sprawl means for Melbourne’s food supply As the world’s most livable city, it’s no wonder Melbourne’s population continues to grow at a rapid rate. With more people comes the need for more housing and, as such, our city fringe is constantly expanding. But findings from Foodprint Melbourne – a collaborative research project between Deakin University and the University of Melbourne looking at food production on Melbourne’s city fringe – has uncovered some alarming statistics about the extent to which this population growth is threatening our food and vegetable supply. So how can we facilitate a growing population and ensure there’s enough local food? What are the main findings from the Foodprint Melbourne research? ‘Melbourne’s city fringe foodbowl produces a lot of food – it currently has the capacity to meet just over 40 per cent of Greater Melbourne’s food needs, including over 80 per cent of the city’s vegetable needs. What are the implications of losing Melbourne’s foodbowl to urban sprawl?

Is Eating Organic Really Better for You and the Environment? On average, organic food items are 47 percent more expensive than standard supermarket fare—but thanks to their purported health and environmental benefits, many shoppers still splurge on them. In fact, the total retail market for organic products in the United States was valued at over $39 billion in 2016. But while the organic industry means big business for farmers and food companies, the question still remains: Are organic foods actually better for both you and the environment? In the video below, AsapSCIENCE co-creator and host Mitchell Moffit explains why eating organic may not be the panacea most people think it is. Contrary to popular belief, an organic diet isn't chemical-free. In fact, Moffit explains, organic farmers can still use natural pesticides and fungicides to keep crop-destroying insects at bay—and studies show that they aren’t necessarily better for you or the soil than synthetic ones. Labels tend to be misleading, too. [h/t Science Alert]

A Map Of Where Your Food Originated May Surprise You Some people may be dimly aware that Thailand's chilies and Italy's tomatoes — despite being central to their respective local cuisines — originated in South America. Now, for the first time, a new study reveals the full extent of globalization in our food supply. More than two-thirds of the crops that underpin national diets originally came from somewhere else — often far away. Colin Khoury, a plant scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (known by its Spanish acronym CIAT) and the U.S. Previous work by the same authors had shown that national diets have adopted new crops and become more and more globally alike in recent decades. The idea that crop plants have centers of origin, where they were originally domesticated, goes back to the 1920s and the great Russian plant explorer Nikolai Vavilov. The Fertile Crescent, with its profusion of wild grasses related to wheat and barley, is the primary center of diversity for those cereals. toggle caption The Royal Society

The Sustainability Secret Director’s Note: The science and research done on the true impacts of animal agriculture is always growing. The statistics used in the film were based on the best information we had available while producing the film. We will continually update this list with further resources as they become available Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation. [i] "Livestock's Long Shadow: environmental issues and options". Transportation exhaust is responsible for 13% of all greenhouse gas emissions. [.i] Greenhouse gas emissions from this sector primarily involve fossil fuels burned for road, rail, air, and marine transportation. "Livestock's Long Shadow: environmental issues and options". Environmental Protection Agency. Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Goodland, R Anhang, J. Hickman, Martin.

Food waste: harvesting Spain's unwanted crops to feed the hungry | Environment Under a blazing Catalan sun, Abdelouahid wipes the sweat from his brow in a cabbage patch full with clouds of white butterflies. “It’s really not warm today,” he says. “It’s only hot if you stop working.” Around him, unemployed workers and environmentalists squat in green bibs, black gloves and hats, plucking cabbages that would otherwise be threshed, to distribute at food banks around Barcelona. A 39-year-old Moroccan emigré with two small children, Abdelouahid began “gleaning” – harvesting farmers’ unwanted crops – with the Espigoladors (gleaners) after losing his job in the construction industry four years ago. It is Ramadan and he is fasting but still smiling as he cuts at the green jewels. “I don’t like to spend my days at home, sending CVs to employers, waiting for their rejection letters, or going around the restaurants trying to find food,” he says. Europe wastes some 88m tonnes of food each year - around 173 kg per person - with costs estimated at €143bn (£113bn). Harrison Jones

Food Sensitive Planning and Urban Design (FSPUD) Report Released - Victorian Ecoinnovation Lab (VEIL) Food sensitive planning and urban design (FSPUD) recognises that access to healthy, sustainable and equitable food is an essential part of achieving liveable communities. VEIL and David Locke Associates were commissioned by the National Heart Foundation of Australia (Victorian Division) to develop a resource further articulating the idea of ‘Food Sensitive Planning and Urban Design’ (first articulated by VEIL in 2008 as Food Sensitive Urban Design). This new resource – Food Sensitive Planning and Urban Design: A conceptual framework for achieving a sustainable and just food system – is intended to raise the awareness of planners, architects, urban designers, engineers, policy makers, community members and elected representatives of the need to integrate food considerations into urban land use and development. It outlines:

3000 Acres The Shocking Amount Nestlé Makes From This Natural Resource in Your Backyard – REALfarmacy.com Nestlé Corporation is known for selling chocolate, advocating the privatization of clean water (should not be a human right), child slave labor in Africa, controlling a large portion of the food supply and multiple bottled water brands (which they are making a shocking killing off of). They acquired rights from the Department of Natural Resources in Michigan to pump water out of Michigan for 99 years for just under $70,000. That’s right, for under $70,000 US dollars they have rights to pump hundreds of thousands of gallons of water out of Michigan as well as many other states each and every single day. According to the documentary film “Flow: For Love Of Water” the company profits approximately 1.8 Million dollars per day from its water bottling plants. The citizens of Michigan are outraged, me being one of them. According to the film they are profiting approximately 1.8 Million dollars per day from bottled water. Arrowhead Aqua Spring Calistoga Deer Park Deep Spring Ice Mountain Glaciar S.

Rare Footage Shows George Bush’s 1987 Visit to Monsanto, Uttering Seven Infamous Words That Would Change Everything George Bush Sr., seen here at Monsanto’s HQ in 1987, had a lax attitude toward the “bureaucratic and safety hurdles” facing the company’s GMO crops. Proponents of genetically engineered crops would have you believe that we’ve been “modifying” foods for “thousands of years.” But the truth is that these lab-created GMOs are far different from traditional hybrid crops and have only been around for a few decades. And if not for intense lobbying on the part of St. Louis agrochemical giant Monsanto, GMOs might have never even seen the light of day in the United States. In 1986, with countless millions at stake, four executives from the Monsanto Company paid a White House visit to a then-Vice President named George H.W. Monsanto wanted to secure its spot on the “deregulation” bandwagon being driven by the Reagan administration at the time. Monsanto’s reps wanted Bush to help them get their dangerously untested GMOs to market, and pleaded with him (see the video below) to help make it happen.

Social and Environmental Records of Companies by raviii Jun 9

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