Vandana Shiva

Economic and Political Weekly
Vol. 23, No. 18 (Apr. 30, 1988), pp. 881-882 

 

Control over world food has been as strategic an objective of US policy as military systems. The world food system is being restructured artificially through sacrificing the survivalinterest of third world and American farmers not only through the US Farm Policy but also through the GATT and the World Bank and the IMF.

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BY Twilight Greenaway

Originally posted on Grist.com

Say you’re a college student ready to eschew the standard pizza-burrito-pretzels-beer diet and start eating more whole, sustainably produced foods. Say you want to take it a step further and work to make healthy and ethical food widely available on your campus — without having to pay gourmet grocery store prices. Well, you might consider starting a co-op.

“There are so many students learning the theory behind food systems who are itching to put it into practice, and co-ops are the way to do it,” says Enosh Baker, a recent UC Davis ecology graduate and a regional organizer with the Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive (CoFed). Baker and his cohort of mainly unpaid organizers see campus co-ops as the answer for a few convincing reasons. By cutting out the middleman, using volunteer or member labor, and hooking into university resources such as subsidized rent and student entrepreneurial funds, co-ops can radically reduce overhead and offer sustainable foods at prices even students won’t scoff at. Co-ops also serve as working classrooms and events spaces, and, as the CoFed team sees it, introduce concepts of food sovereignty and food access to an audience whose adult lives are still taking shape.

CoFed started after a group of students at the University of California, Berkeley successfully organized to channel funds from a UC fee referendum into the creation of the Berkeley Student Food Collective, a new store at the edge of campus. The two groups are no longer affiliated, but the process of forming the collective spurred CoFed founder Yoni Landau to start working toward a national support network and resource-sharing model for students looking to start co-ops on campuses all around the country.

Around a year later, a team of student leaders are creating organizing hubs in six key areas — Northern California (Baker’s jurisdiction), Southern California, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, and Maryland. Each leader is working with students from 10-20 schools.

When students contact CoFed organizers about organizing a co-op on their campus, they’re given a concrete list of tasks to undertake. “We tell people the first step is to organize a core team of students. From there we provide them with a lot of resources,” says Baker. CoFed also gathers students together for workshops and strategy-sharing. In June they’re planning to host six simultaneous retreats, intensive experiences that will arm dozens of students with the ability to write a business plan, do bookkeeping, organize other students, and build a power map of their own campus.

Why exactly is the idea of the cooperative business, a conceptual centerpiece of an earlier time, making such a comeback? Baker believes the stakes have been upped. “When the co-ops in the early ’70s were getting started,” he says, “There was some knowledge about the early impacts of the green revolution, but [industrial food] was still relatively young. Our generation has born witness to what’s happened since, and the situation is much more dire.”

Although they’ve been peripherally involved in the recent formation of a co-op at the University of Washington, CoFed hasn’t been directly responsible for the launch of any new project yet. But the June training is likely to lead to a number of successful new student co-ops in the 2011/12 school year.

At UC Davis, students like Kase Wheatley are hoping to be part of this first round. Wheatley and a handful of others are envisioning a cafe and store that also has a community supported kitchen element, which will offer pre-made prepared foods like soups and cooked grains in a box for the week. “It’d be targeted at freshmen as an alternative to the Sodexo-run dining services on campus,” says Wheatley. So far they’ve recruited around 40 people and they’re in the process of tapping into a new fund set up to provide seed money for young businesses on campus.

“UC Davis is in the center of California agriculture and we source less than 25 percent real food,” he adds. “We can do so much better.”  Like many of the groups aspiring to start co-ops, the Davis collective relies on the Real Food Challenge definition of real food: “Food which truly nourishes producers, consumers, communities, and the earth.”

As Wheatley sees it, a co-op at UC Davis has the potential to become a source of pride for the school — this might be what sets today’s co-ops apart from their ’70s counterparts. “Sustainability is such a big issue on campus right now; it’s something students are starting to look at when they consider which college they’re going to.”

Enosh Baker is optimistic about the possibilities of the student co-op movement, but he says the challenges are not insignificant. Students, by nature, are a transient population, so it’s tricky to build any kind of organizational structure around their fluctuating commitment levels. “They’re also starting businesses in the food sector,” he says, “Which has the highest rate of failure of any sector.” And, because the co-op model is designed not to make a profit, attracting investors requires clear messaging about the larger purpose at hand.

The real challenge, says Baker, “Is to broaden people’s horizons and prove that co-ops are worth it — that businesses that will provide community wealth and have a role in changing the face of the food system are worth it.”

Learn more about the CoFed effort on their website.

A version of this post first appeared on Civil Eats.

Check out coverage of the UW Student Co-op and our friends at CoFed in Food Safety News!

The original article is available at: Food Safety News

CoFed Crusades for Campus Food Co-ops

BY CORY MINDERHOUT | FEB 22, 2011After working to block a fast-food franchise from opening on the University of California Berkeley campus, students opened their own cooperative market-cafe last year.
The Berkeley Student Food Collective has in turn spawned the Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive, or CoFed, which now is working to train student leaders nationwide to set up similar cooperatively run markets at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, City College San Francisco, Humboldt State University, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, and the University of Washington.
The group’s five-year goal is 35 co-ops and 1,000 trained student leaders serving 700,000 students. In Berkeley, the Student Food Collective operates out of a storefront owned by UC.  Open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, it’s a grocery market and coffee shop where students can get freshly brewed fair-trade coffee along with sandwiches, eggs, produce, and other grocery items. Students who volunteer a few hours of work each week get discounts and help keep prices affordable.
Berkeley graduate Yoni Landau, CoFed’s director and cofounder, is training students to start co-op cafes on their own campuses that more or less follow the UC Berkeley model. 
The campus co-ops will not only serve local, healthy and sustainably grown food but can create a sense of community, said Landau, who believes communities are strengthened when people know where their food comes from and come together to be involved in the food chain from farm to plate. ”In a way it’s a little bigger than food,” Landau said. “It’s not just changing the content of the food system, it’s actually restructuring the food system so we can have community-driven institutions.” 
CoFed gives student leaders autonomy in deciding what food standards their co-ops will adopt, leaving it up to them to debate and define concepts like sustainability. The Berkeley collective follows the standards of www.realfoodchallenge.org, evaluations based on who produces the food and how it is produced, whether it is local, fair, ecologically sound and humane.
Anna Banchik is studying economics and international studies at the University of Washington and also is the director of the UW Student Food Cooperative. Banchik thinks most college campuses aren’t meeting students’ dietary needs. ”Food access for vegetarians, vegans, the gluten-free, and other individuals limited by food allergies or restrictions, is usually minimal and non-diverse, entailing that same, disappointing, cabbage wrap or pricey salad every day,” Banchik said. In planning the UW’s co-op, which is scheduled to open this fall, her group holds biweekly meetings where student members discuss food issues and help make decisions about what the market will offer. Banchik shares Landau’s belief that food can bring a community together. 
“Everyone from foodies to people interested in social justice issues come to the meetings,” Banchik said. “Food is an issue a lot of people can see eye to eye on.” The UW students have agreed to label food to show how many miles it has been transported, Banchik said. They’ve also debated the moral and ethical implications of serving meat and non-local coffee, she said. Once the founding leaders graduate, the co-op members will vote to determine who the new leaders will be. The UW has already agreed to provide space, rent free, in the health sciences building, and will pick up the cost of utilities. Prices will also be kept affordble because the co-op will be run entirely by volunteers, use produce from UW’s own farm, and collaborate with other nearby co-ops to buy local food in bulk, Banchik said. 
Banchik sees the co-op as a way for students to learn valuable life skills, ranging from eating responsibly to bookkeeping and accounting. 
“It’s a great opportunity to learn on your own instead of just going to a class,” Banchik said. “It’s valuable to start a grassroots movement on campus.”   It’s Landau’s hope that students will live out the values co-ops teach for their rest of their lives. ”If we can show them an example of a community,” he said, “then after they graduate they can create the world they want to see.”

We’re getting ready and riled up to sell sandwiches on Red Square by the end of Winter Quarter! If you are interested in helping prepare or sell these scrumptious delights to the campus masses, let us know by contacting lacomida@uwsfc.com or cafe@uwsfc.com. 

Side note: there will be a vegan and gluten-free options.

Spread the word!

 Monsanto has cleared almost every necessary hurdle toward getting its genetically engineered alfalfa (commonly sold as hay) on the market –– this is a potentially devastating development for farmers, livestock, and the environment.
The alfalfa in question is one of Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” crops: That means that the crop has been genetically engineered to be resistant to one of Monsanto’s most popular herbicides, Roundup. In theory, that means farmers could grow this alfalfa, blanket their crops with chemicals, and kill weeds without killing the alfalfa, thus saving money.
Here’s what happens in reality: Roundup kills the first batch of weeds, but the weeds adapt, growing into super weeds which in turn must be sprayed with – you guessed it – even more chemicals from Monsanto.

This isn’t just a problem for the farmers who must spend their dwindling profits on more herbicides, or for the livestock who must eat alfalfa that’s been treated with a double dose of noxious chemicals. As an added treat for the environment, runoffs from all of these chemicals pollute waterways and poison nearby wildlife.
To make matters even worse, the effects of genetically engineered alfalfa aren’t restricted to the farmers who grow it –– through pollen transfer, “Roundup Ready” crops can change the genetics of nearby organic alfalfa. This could be devastating to organic alfalfa farmers whose livelihoods depend on an all-natural product. Eventually, this could also have a ruinous impact on organic meat and dairy, since those livestock need to eat organic alfalfa. As extreme as it sounds, genetically engineered alfalfa could literally reap disaster on the entire organic farming industry.
There’s no time to waste –– Monsanto’s genetically engineered alfalfa could get the green light from the USDA as early as this week. We can and must take meaningful action: Change.org has joined with Food & Water Watch to ask Secretary Vilsack to reject this potentially disastrous product.
Tell Secretary Vilsack to reject “Roundup Ready” alfalfa for the sake of our farmers, our livestock, and our environment with the link:

http://food.change.org/petitions/view/ask_president_obama_to_protect_organic_and_stop_monsantos_ge_alfalfa

Thanks for taking ACTION!

I am working as a Regional Organizer in the Mid-Atlantic region. I am helping build a movement and a network among existing and potential co-ops at local universities. Many people have applied for Regional Organizer positions here in the Mid-Atlantic, as well as in the North East, Norcal and SoCal. But to date no one from the NW has applied. This is partly because the posting for this position hasn’t been circulated enough.

The NW is home to a high concentration of co-ops, especially student food co-ops and it is a key place to develop a cooperative regional network. Indeed the foundation for one has already been created as student food co-ops are currently talking to each-other. But to bring the network into being, a phenomenal organizer needs to step in to foment relationships and bring to bear all of the benefits that organizing at this scale can bring. 

The cooperative regional networks will:

• Allow regions to achieve economies of scale in their sourcing and organizing. 
• Build off of each-other’s knowledge
• Create a professional network of the graduated students
• Solidify and push the status quo with regards to autonomy and sustainability that food co-ops pursue. 
• Provide an incubating structures for start-up efforts 
• Provide external support to existing cooperatives
• Share resources (contacts, professional consulting, training, technology)
• Provide more compelling weight in applying to grants
• Build and develop a large subsection of the economy
• Create external peer to peer fiscal and social accountability

This is a wonderful opportunity to develop key skills and to be exposed to what national organizing can look like. The position will tie you into foodie and social justice networks and allow you to cite your involvement in the transformation of university food systems across the country. If you are interested in food systems issues, sustainability, social entrepreneurship, business incubation, leadership development and changing the world, then this position is for you. 

This isn’t a huge commitment and you will have a lot of flexibility in where you want to focus. But regardless of your approach, You will have a lot of support in your endeavors and will learn mad skills :-)

If you are graduated and currently looking for something to do, do this. Plus I will get to communicate with you regularly and see you at conferences :-). So consider this position and please forward the following job posting to as many people as you can. 

See below for the posting from the CoFED central staff in Berkeley. 

————

Regional Organizers

We’re looking to build a small army of regional organizers to reproduce the successes we’ve had this past summer at in launching our efforts on six campuses. You’ll be responsible for creating a self-supporting network of revolutionary hubs for campus food movement organizing in your region.  We’re looking for excellent communicators comfortable with quick decision-making, passion for sustainable food and/or cooperatives and some campus organizing experience. You will play an essential role in the next wave of the CoFed revolution!

Hours/weekly:

15-20 January – April;  40 April – June;  15-20 June – September.

Job Duties (in chronological order):

• Trainers retreat: Attend regional organizer training in Northern California January 2011
• Outreach: Identify and communicate with interested campus leaders in your region
• Road Trip: Give inspiregizing workshops on CoFed and garner commitments from campus teams
• Summer training: Plan and execute a week-long training and summer support program with help from CoFed staff

Opportunities:

• Build confidence and experience as an organizer and leadership coach
• Catalyze the real food movement

Qualifications:

• Excellent people skills and awareness of group dynamics
• Passion and experience doing food systems or cooperative work
• Ability to learn quickly and take initiative
• Some community/campus organizing, public speaking, or facilitation experience
• 2 year commitment working with CoFed preferred

Job Begins:  January 2011Job Duration: Through September 2011

Compensation: Possibility of stipend depending on experience and commitment and potential for future pay.  CoFed staff will commit time to supporting professional development and connecting to opportunities.

Interested? Please submit a cover letter in the body and a resume attached to info@cofed.org

Saturday December 4th - 7pm

@ Enlighten Cafe in Historic Ballard (5424 Ballard Ave) 

Join the UW Student Food Cooperative for a swanky winter solstice soiree! Guests will enjoy a sampling of washington wines paired with tasty treats from some of the area’s most celebrated creameries & artisan producers. Invite your lover, friends or colleagues to join you for a night out in Ballard to support a fantastic cause! Help fulfill our holiday wishes by joining together to raise necessary seed money for this developing student-run sustainable cafe! 

$35 door tickets, or purchase in advance through Brown Paper Tickets for $30!

Many thanks to our sponsor at Beechers, Theo Chocolates, Jonboy Caramels, Vivir Living Foods, Thrive, and wine vendors from across the state!  

Since moving to Philadelphia, I have become increasingly serious about an urban

farming project in my neighborhood. Not more than a few feet from my house is the abandoned lot of what used to be a building until it burned down many many years ago. Someone used to tend a portion of the green land even though he didn’t

necessarily know a lot about agriculture, his wife says. Since he died 3 years ago, it has basically just sat there. I am developing a proposal to present to the caretaker of the space (his super sweet wife who doesn’t speak English and is very patient with my Spanish). She and her two daughters are super excited about the idea and willing to give me a key to the space. I had to actually push back and say that I want it to be as much a part of the neighborhood as possible. I told her that we should name it after her late husband.

There is also no composting in this city, but some individuals in West Philly have created a composting biking service for a fee that is now so popular that it can’t reach the capacity of demand. That means if we get a composting project going on here, it will be a source of unskilled jobs for individuals here who are painfully and chronically unemployed. The only stable and well paying source of employment here is trafficking drugs. Actually much of my time is spent hanging out with drug dealers. I am going to try and get them to tend to the urban farming project in order to develop better relations with those who don’t deal. Right now they sweep and do odd jobs in front of the houses that they deal in front of. Unfortunately, rodents in the neighborhood have been an ongoing public health concern as they overrun all of the houses, so figuring out effective and convincing techniques of keeping away rodents will be difficult.

I am really excited about where I am living. The dynamic of doing community-based work is so different when you are willing to live in a neighborhood and participate in the community and culture that exists there. Both Fernando, my partner, and I have become integral parts of the neighborhood, enriching it, rather than simply being catalysts of gentrification. It is awkward and difficult to cross the cultural lines that are put up at first, but after a while the relationships can be quite strong. Everyone hangs on the stoops of their very densely situated housing. The space-based community here is stronger and more visible than anywhere I have ever seen, ever. The community is largely Puerto Rican, which is a unique population in that they are at the same time Latino, Black, urban yet rural, migrants and immigrants.

What is strange to me is how rare the dynamic of living and building community with the people you are intending to work with is. With the exception of a group of Christian anarchists, all work to develop the area is done by outsiders. Granted, the corrupt police enforce apartheid. Simply being white in this neighborhood can warrant you being thrown against the wall and harassed (they think you are a dopefiend), if not planted with drugs like the professor Fernando is working with was just this last year. This creates distinct white and black spaces. Unfortunately sometimes I must put aside my anti-patriarchal values, many of my identities as well as my aesthetic concerns, in order to be able to receive buy in and garner support for many of the projects I am hoping to help facilitate here. But it is a healthy process and in many ways allows you to transcend superficial and ideological restraints in order to see what is really important.

I hope that you are all doing well, and invite you all to come to Philadelphia. In my neighborhood of West Kensington the vacancy rate is the highest at 44% (just imagine, 44% of all spaces are abandoned), it also has the highest rates of hunger and poverty in the country – so much potential/need for food systems projects.

I am also working with the both newly forming Kensington Community Food Co-op as well as the Greensgrow Urban Farm on a program to be funded by the recently available community food project federal funds. The program is intended to outreach to marginalized folks in the area to involve them with the community food projects already underway. I am also spending much of my time developing a proposal for a community learning center that will operate as an anchor for the area that I am living. It will be an anchor to connect isolated populations to available public services. Overall I am really excited about living in Philadelphia, and can’t wait to tell all you more about my projects once they are underway. 

Help the UW Student Food Cooperative raise seed money for our food cart and cafe by joining this street race in Seattle!

October 2nd - Race Starts at 2pm

@ Recycled Cycles on Boat St.

Arrive early to register (1-2pm)

$10 Registration fee - cash only! 

What’s the heck is an Alleycat?… It’s an informal bicycle race with checkpoints throughout the city. Speed helps, but most importantly you’ve got to know your way around Seattle! If you’re smart and think fast, your course will only be about 15 miles long… Win bragging rights and prizes from our sponsors atCHROME, HUB and BESPOKE, GREGG’S CYCLES, BELLTOWN PULLAPART & DUTCH BICYCLE COMPANY!!!

Invite your biker buddies and let us know you’re coming!

The following is a response to the recent NYT article criticizing Locavours -  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/opinion/20budiansky.html

By Matthew Steele

Of course, as with anything, flexibility is key. But the author fails to recognize that local is simply an easily consumable manifestation of its underlying principles. Foremost of those being the contextualization and associated scopes of identity and responsibility. If you consume locally you are more obliged to consider the associated environmental and social costs of that decision. Furthermore, the effects of those decisions may in fact affect you more directly the more contextualized the activity. If you support your local farmer, his wellbeing and subsequent use of that support can reach back to you before it would if that support, or lack there of, were given to a farmer in South America. Granted, that South American may deserve that support more, but a consumer can easily distance themselves from the effects that arise in communities so displaced from their own. Of course context doesn’t always involve a spatial element, but for the grand majority of people it does.  

It is always important to note that relativist arguments hold little weight. His analyses are in financial terms that only derive value relative to the copious consumption of the average American. Additionally his comparisons of calories used in traveling to farmer’s market assumes that a) you would drive there even though in the other developing countries that is far from the norm because cities are not entirely auto-oriented, and b) that oil is a legitimate and comparable source of energy even though it is a nonrenewable resource that spurs global conflict.

His title captures the error in his own article. Focusing on quantitative analysis necessitates general thinking. Critical thinking involves breaking down the numbers to understand the significance that isn’t obvious from a sweeping and uninsightful perspective.

He also fails to productively differentiate between sustainable agriculture and industrial agriculture, with the former having the potential to operate within our very own cities.

His shallow perspective reconstitutes old myths, covers up endemic problems in our food system and stiffens innovation.