And just WHAT are genetically modified foods good for?

Bigger crop yields, right?  And resistance to weeds?

Genetic engineering has failed to increase the yield of any food crop but has vastly increased the use of chemicals and the growth of "superweeds", according to a report by 20 Indian, south-east Asian, African and Latin American food and conservation groups representing millions of people.  The Guardian.

I already wrote about how Monsanto's RoundUp weed killer was creating superweeds..   (Wonder if they're edible?)

GM foods require more weedkiller and seem to be attracting more insect pests as well, and apparently for no good at all except to make Monsanto shareholders rich.  For the case against Monsanto, and what people are doing to organize, see the organic Consumer's Millions Against Monsanto page.

Graphic from Alphachimp's photostream at Flickr.

26 and a half hours without electricity: who will pay the price?

The sun is out, the power is on, and the twenty-six and a half hours without electricity that we Springfield, Massachusetts residents endured until 6 pm. yesterday seem almost unreal. Of course, I still have to go through my refrigerator and throw out everything in it-- I just haven't had the energy or the heart to tackle that particular job just yet.

So this time the outage probably wasn't Western Mass Electric's fault, but the fault of a subcontractor, Turner Underground Installation, of Henrietta, N.Y. laying fiber optic cable along Route 91. This subcontractor worked for Adesta LLC of Omaha, Neb., the same company who had another subcontractor who caused a huge water main break a couple of months ago that made passing through the Main and Carew St. intersection impossible for weeks.

My particular area of the city seems plagued with outages which occur about every other month. On Wednesday, the power flickered for just the few seconds required to shut off my computer. On Thursday morning, it happened again. My fan hadn't even stopped rotating by the time the power came back on, but I lost a few paragraphs of what I was writing on my computer, and this time I called WMECO to tell the company about both outages. The woman who took my call gave a rote answer about all the lightening storms we were having. I told her no, that wasn't the problem. Possibly she was working in a windowless room; most likely, she wasn't even in Massachusetts.

So maybe I should take it back when I say it wasn't WMECO's fault, because they were certainly warned that something was wrong. A few hours later, at 3:30 pm., the power went out for good and stayed out until 6 pm. yesterday. And I do blame WMECO for not giving us an accurate estimate of how long it would take to restore power, instead doling out restoration in six hour chunks of time. If we'd known that the sun would set, rise and nearly set again before the problem was fixed, at least some people could have gotten the food in their freezers to a friend on the far side of town.

The Republican had a good article yesterday describing some of the impact the outage had on area businesses; more than 100 were affected. In terms of dollar amounts, obviously the bigger businesses were hit the worst. But in terms of just plain survival, I think the smaller businesses will pay an even higher price. Some won't survive.

As I prepare to toss at least $150 worth of food (and I don't even buy meat!) I can't help but run some numbers in my mind.

12,000 customers-- that is, households-- suffered the outage. That's 20% of Springfield's population.

25% of Springfield's residents live below the federal poverty level-- so that's about 4,000 households. Of course you don't have to live below the poverty level to be negative affected by the power outage, not with a median family income in this city of less than $37,000.

Some unknowable percentage of people in those 4,000 households will be hungry in the weeks to come. They will not be able to go out and replace the food that they lost.

Another unknowable percentage will not be able to pay utility bills or will ultimately wind up being evicted from their homes because of lost wages. A thirty-seven hour a week worker at a fast food restaurant, earning $8 an hour, takes home only $296 a week. That weekly income will be cut by 20 to 30% next paycheck, because that worker is paid by the hour, not salaried, and if the restaurant isn't open, nobody works. That same person will have the extra burden of replacing spoiled food.

This is what so many people don't understand about people who are living in poverty. The poor have absolutely no safety margin when faced with an unexpected financial calamity.

Rep. Cheryl Coakley-Rivera wants Gov. Deval Patrick to have the state reimburse every resident and restaurant for the food they had to throw away. I doubt it will happen, but I do think somebody other than the beleaguered resident of this city should pay the price. We've had enough.

Is this capitalism, or what?

Walk into the SAME (So All May Eat) Cafe in Denver, order what you want, and then pay what you like! Recipe for disaster? Well, the non-profit cafe seems to be doing OK. Organic, made-from scratch soup, pizza, cookies and more are served to the cafe's customers, who then put whatever they think is fair (or can afford) into an envelope. Read more at the Denver Westword.

Are Carrotmobs on their way to your community?

Instead of boycotting a store, Carrotmobbers promise to spend lots of money in a particular store in return for a commitment from the owner to install green lighting, do better recycling or take some other negotiated green idea. Mobbers use carrots, not sticks, to accomplish their goals. Check out their website.

Three proofs: you can solve all the world's problems with greenery

Everything is connected, even if we don't always understand how and why.

1. A recent study held by two Scottish universities showed that even a little bit of greenery near our homes improves our health. Green space reduces health inequities between rich and poor, maybe by encouraging exercise or reducing stress. This is especially true for heart disease and stroke, two conditions much higher among the poor.

A Columbia University study found that asthma rates among four and five year olds fell by 25% for every 343 trees per square kilometer! Given that asthma rates have gone up 50% in the last 20 years, and no one knows why for sure, this astoundingly simple preventative needs to built into urban planning. Again, the researchers aren't sure if the effect is because trees clean the air of pollution, or because trees encourage children to go outside, where they are exposed to the microbes necessary to build their immune system.

2. Not all greenery is created equal, however-- when it comes to the vegetables we eat, your mother's cauliflower is not the same as the cauliflower you eat-- it has 40% less vitamin C than it did in 1975, broccoli has 50% less calcium and watercress has lost 88% of its iron-- and this is as was measured in 2001. You can read about the discovery in the 2001 Le Magazine. And the larger the vegetable, the lower the nutritional value overall. A 2007 Organic Center report shows that

The more a tomato weighs, the lower its concentration of lycopene, a natural anti-cancer chemical that makes tomatoes red. There is also less vitamin C and beta carotene, a nutrient linked to vitamin A.

Milk from high-production dairy cows has lower concentrations of fat, protein and other nutrition-enhancing components than the milk from dairy operations of 20 years ago or more.

Sweet corn, potatoes and whole-wheat bread show double-digit declines in iron, zinc and calcium. The time span of the decline varies depending on the product studied but generally ranges from 20 to 100 years.

Vegetables pumped full of water from fertilizers and then grown in nutritionally depleted soil are nowhere near as good for you as vegetables grown in your backyard in a raised bed filled with your own compost from backyard greenery.

3. Finally, while we are all becoming more familiar with the necessity of greenery for the survival of the planet in terms of global warming, consider the number of wars caused by scarcity of resources, in particular water and food. Geoff Lawton at the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia has been developing permaculture projects across the globe. This short video will give you a sense of what's possible if we are wiling.

Image from Inspired Economies.

Food shortages not in the news but scarcely over

The Guardian's Jayoti Ghosh has an excellent article about the increasingly low media profile the food shortage is receiving. Remember the riots in Haiti? The famine in Liberia? Rice hoarding in the Midwest of America? Is it over?

"No, the "silent tsunami" has simply been overwhelmed in public awareness by the much noisier tsunami in the world of international finance, with the giant sucking sounds of possible bank collapses and enormous bail-outs grabbing all the attention. Yet the global food crisis is far from over, and is even likely to intensify in the near future," Ghosh writes.

Falling crop prices this year after two years of massive increases may have led policy makers to believe they could pay less attention to the issue. The U.S. had a bumper crop of grain this year; crop prices fell 40% in Australia. Somehow, though, those bumper crops and cheaper prices are not putting any more food in people's bellies.

Weather and insect plagues can cause food shortages. Extremely cold temperatures and gasoline shortages in Bosnia have completely cut some villages off from food. Floods have washed out roads in the Philippines have prevented food from being delivered. Be glad you're not a Liberian farmer, having to flee your lands because of an invasion of Army worms-- fierce caterpillars that eat anything in sight. News24.

Climate and poor soil can reduce crop yields. Much of Kenya's soil is nutritionally depleted and the severe drought is pushing the people toward famine. Drought in Burundi has caused thousands of families to flee to neighboring countries in search of food.

Ghosh points to three main causes of of the food crisis:

• A crisis in cultivation. Policy neglect and lack of investment in agriculture's infrastructure, lack of credit for the farmers and trade liberalization have made farming an unprofitable venture.
• Depression of wages in developing countries. The food is there, but people just can't afford it.
• Fewer agribusinesses exercising more control. Government subsidies encourage taking land meant for food to production of ethanol. Thus, consumer prices remain the same or higher.

All of these forces are less obvious in the United States but still have their role to play. Over the last three years, one in nine Americans has experienced food insecurity. That means that 13 million households went hungry some time during each year. Oddly, though, poverty in America tends to equal obesity. In 2004, Jefferson County, one of the poorest counties in the country, also had the dubious honor of being the most obese. You get more calories from a dollar's worth of carbohydrates than a dollar's worth of fruit.

In the capitalist global economy, corporations have to make a profit to survive. But where do we draw the line? This month Monsanto, the world's largest seed corporation, boasted its quarterly earnings have doubled over last quarter. To understand Monsanto's stranglehold on agriculture, see Vanity Fair's May, 2008 article.

We are unlikely to be able to change agricultural policy until we can make sense of it.

Sculpture from Frankie Roberto's photostream on Flickr.

Alabama sheriff jailed for starving prisoners

It's only for one night, but Sheriff Greg Bartlett will be going to jail for pocketing more than $200,000 over the last three years of money that was supposed to go to feed prisoners.

Oddly enough, though, what the sheriff has done is not illegal, as an old state law allows the sheriff to pocket any funds "left over" from the food budget.

One man has lost 15 pounds since October, another, 30 pounds. Prisoners have to supplement their diet from the jail store, where items are over-priced, so of course the poor prisoners suffer the most. Read more at the New York Times.

Who is worthy? Poverty & the price of shrimp

Community forums where anonymity prevails are a great if sometimes painful way to find out what people really think about poor people.

Yesterday, New Year's Day, someone commented on Springfield MA's s forum that he or she had seen someone on food stamps buy $40 worth of crab legs.

One poster (I am not allowed to quote directly) asserted that some poor working joe who's trying to support a family on a $10 an hour wage would never be eating shrimp or crab legs and that what a person is allowed to buy on food stamps should be circumscribed. My query as to the possibly apocryphal nature of this observation-- was this something the poster had observed first-hand or had heard about from someone else?-- went unanswered.

The next thirty posts were about how 85% of food stamp users sold their food stamps for money or drugs, or bought shrimp platters or other expensive food items with them.

Now, the truth is, the days when food stamp recipients had to fumble with tearing $1, $5 and $10 coupons out of a book while others in the checkout line waited impatiently are long gone. The user swipes a card pretty indistinguishable from a regular debit card, so you really have to be right on top of someone and really trying in their business to know exactly how they're paying.

So let's do a reality check about our poor working slob who earns $10 an hour to support his family, and whether or not a shrimp platter would ever be in his budget.

First of all, our friend Joe is almost certainly eligible for food stamps himself-- and so are at least some of the forum posters.

Let's say Joe has a wife and two kids, works fulltime at $10 an hour, and lives in a $750 a month apartment in which he pays his own utilities.

Luckily for Joe, according to MassResources, his family is eligible for some fuel assistance.

Then, if I go over to the Food Stamp Calculator, and keep it simple by assuming Joe has no other income or major expenses such as childcare, Joe and his family should get about $380 a month in food stamps.

Joe's family's in trouble, of course. Let's take away 25% of $1,600 for taxes, leaving $1,200, and then deduct his $750 rent. He's got $450 a month left to live on, and of course he has other expenses.

But it's New Year's Eve. He goes to Shop and Stop after work to pick up a few things, and his eye is caught by a shrimp platter in the seafood section. It's only $26. He stops for a minute and then thinks, "What the hell."

The woman behind him in the check-out line seems not in the holiday spirit; she frowns at his tentative smile. But that's OK. It's New Year's Eve and he's headed home. Home to his family.

Take political action for working people!

Now that my inbox has been emptied of all those "Last chance to give" messages, I'm able to pick out some opportunities to make a difference for working people. Join me!

Under Bush, OSHA Mired in Inaction ~ http://www.truthout.org/122908HA ~ R. Jeffrey Smith in The Washington Post:

"Current and former career officials at OSHA say that [deregulation was] a recurrent feature during the Bush administration, as political appointees ordered the withdrawal of dozens of workplace health regulations, slow-rolled others, and altered the reach of its warnings and rules in response to industry pressure. The result is a legacy of unregulation common to several health-protection agencies under Bush: From 2001 to the end of 2007, OSHA officials issued 86 percent fewer rules or regulations termed economically significant by the Office of Management and Budget than their counterparts did during a similar period in President Bill Clinton's tenure, according to White House lists."

To get involved in the workplace safety & health movement, contact Western Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety & Health, 731-0760, nancywrites@verizon.net, 640 Page Blvd #104, Springfield 01104, http://www.westernmasscosh.org. WMassCOSH brings together workers, unions, community groups, and health, safety and environmental activists to organize and advocate, provide training and technical assistance, for safe, secure jobs and healthy communities throughout Western Massachusetts. Its Alliance for Injured Workers provides support, assistance and advocacy to persons with work-related injuries and illnesses; to help injured workers navigate the existing workers compensation system and to change that system.

And save the date: Thursday January 15

DEPRAVED INDIFFERENCE: THE WORKER’S COMPENSATION SYSTEM

7pm, Odyssey Bookshop, 9 College St (Routes 116 at 47), in the Village Commons, S Hadley, 534-7307 or 800-540-7307; odysseybks@aol.com; www.odysseybks.com (www.odysseybks.com/directions.html). Patrice Woeppel will read from and sign her new book, Depraved Indifference: the Worker’s Compensation System.

Every eight minutes in America, someone dies from a work injury or illness - more deaths than from most diseases. Depraved Indifference: the Workers’ Compensation System dissects a system that destroys the health and life of workers without fear of prosecution, or even public outcry, while throwing the preponderance of costs onto families and taxpayers. The stories in Depraved Indifference are the stories of ordinary people. Discarded and forgotten by their employers, denied medical coverage by the workers’ compensation insurer; many have been left to die, slowly and agonizingly, unnoticed by all but their grieving families. Depraved Indifference represents over five years of research and interviews. The final chapter lays out recommendations and strategies for action to bring justice and fairness, corporate accountability, and public disclosure to this system. Info: www.patricewoeppel.us. (Thanks, WMJWJ!)

Tell Congress: HUNGER HURTS Hard-Working Families!

Target: U.S. House of Representatives
Sponsored by: Feeding America (formerly known as Second Harvest)

In today's troubled economic climate, it isn't surprising that many Americans are struggling with hunger. What may be a surprise is exactly who is suffering. Many believe hunger is a problem only for the homeless. Unfortunately, statistics prove that 40 percent of those seeking food assistance are employed. More and more it is America's working poor who are at risk of hunger.

Please let your representative know that you want a comprehensive strategy to fight hunger written into law today. Together, we can work to eliminate hunger in America.
SIGN THIS PETITION!

Good report from The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (MassBudget):
The State of Working Massachusetts 2008

Entering a Recession After a Recovery That Missed Many

See the report at: MassBudget.

The Law

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. Anatole France

Court rules OK to feed hungry people

It may have taken more than a year for a decision, but The 13th Juror reported this week that according to the U.S. District Court, Orlando FL Division, sharing food with the hungry and homeless is a form of expression protected by the First Amendment.

The decision came about because of a lawsuit filed by Food Not Bombs and several other plaintiffs last September after groups were diened a permit by the City of Orlando to feed people in a public park.

To establish that their conduct is expressive and protected by the First Amendment, the members of Food Not Bombs had to prove that they are conveying a message that is likely to be understood by the public. The city tried to argue that their message – that society can and should provide food for all of its members, regardless of wealth – wasn’t likely to be understood. But Mayor Buddy Dyer testified that he believes that Food Not Bombs provides food to the homeless only to convey its political message – not necessarily to help the homeless. 13th Juror.

How sad that Mayor Dyer thought that people wouldn't understand the message that we all need to take care of each other. I know that much of selfishness comes from fear but it is not each other we need to be afraid of.

Open Pantry: One chance left to override Governor's veto

Why do some people hate poor people so much?

Yesterday there were folks posting on Springfield's forum MassLive who were rubbing their cyberhands with glee over Governor Patrick's veto of funds for Open Pantry Community Service. You can read more about it here:

Today an apartment building in the South End caught fire and thirteen families were displaced. As one MassLive Poster says, "One less low income ghetto the tax payers have to keep funding."

Sometimes it's hard not to hope that these people get a chance to find out firsthand what poverty is like, not only to be poor, in fact, but to have to put up with the slurs and assumptions that others will make about them.

If the Open Pantry has to cut back services, it will cut holes in our already tattered safety net.

Last year the Legislature overrode many of the governor's vetoes; this year, with everyone tightening their belts, it won't be as easy But poor people can't go without much more and still survive.

Readers of this blog who have been following the Open Pantry's saga remember the struggle to preserve shelter for homeless people. Now, its trying to keep the Food Pantry open its current four days a week and the Loaves & Fishes Soup Kitchen still serving twelve meals a week.

You may have called on behalf of the Open Pantry before, but please-- one more time. If you live in Massachusetts, please call your legislator, senators and representatives alike, and ask them to restore funding for the Open Pantry. You can find out who your legislator is and his or her contact information here:

Stand up for poor people.

How well would you understand food if you were paid to know?

USDA Secretary of Agriculture Edward Schafer was wrong by more than 90% when he told a U.N. emergency food that biofuels were only responsible for 2-3% of the increase in food prices. According to the International Monetary Fund, the real figure is nearly 30%.

This is from a good fact sheet from the Organic Consumers Association on biofuels:

THE BAD NEWS

• The amount of grain it takes to fill an average gas tank with ethanol would be enough to feed a person for a year.
• If the US stopped growing food and converted its entire grain harvest into ethanol, it would satisfy less than 16% of its auto­motive needs.
• The majority of US biofuels are produced from pesticide intensive genetically engineered crops (soy, corn).
• Increasing portions of biofuels are now produced by mon­ocultures of soy and sugar cane in Latin America and palm oil in Indonesia and Malaysia, which have led to massive deforestation, the loss of invaluable biodiversity, and mas­sive outputs of Greenhouse Gases

THE GOOD NEWS

• Increasing fuel efficiency by just 3% would reduce US dependence on foreign oil more than all of the agrofuels combined, yet more than 500% more taxpayer money is spent on subsidizing ethanol than energy conservation, mass transit, solar, wind, and fuel-efficient technologies combined.

Are biofuels innately bad? No way! But why are we subsidizing big agribiz instead of developing non-food sources of biofuel production?

10 Million Millionaires equals 2.8 billion in poverty

It's an old joke poor people tell ourselves:
Why are people poor?
Because we don't have money! Do away with sociological and psychological reasons for poverty; stop confusing the symptoms with the causes, and in the end, it all boils down to money, which is about distribution of wealth, which is about control of resources.

Merrill Lynch & Co reported yesterday that the world now has 10 million millionaires, with an average wealth of about $4 million. Their wealth grew 9 percent last year, some $41 trillion dollars. Those 10 million make up one fifth of 1 percent of the world population. Meanwhile, some 2.8 billion people live on less than $2 a day.

The super-rich are doing particularly well. Those with incomes of $30 million or more saw their incomes go up by 15% last year. There are about 103,000 of the super-rich.

Very few people in the U.S. earn less than $2 a day, Yet more than 20% of us earn less than $20,000 a year; another 23% of us earn under $40,000. And in this country, almost nothing is free: we pay for housing, food, utilities, water, clothes, medicine; most of us have no land to cultivate, no community well, no cotton to spin into cloth. And half of the country is cold half of the time.

The value of a house has gone down 15% since last year-- bad time to sell if you're a senior, or want to relocate, or can't handle the burden of homeownership anymore and you want to get out.

Heating oil is projected to be $479 for a hundred gallons this winter. That's my take-home pay for a week! I hear the utility companies are at their wits' end, paying nearly the same high coal and oil prices as we do. But pity the poor consumer-- we'll pay that price at least twice.

It's dangerous for people to go without utilities. Fires get started by candles and space heaters. People get hypothermia. Landlords can evict you, child protection services can take your children. All of that will happen more this year.

I worry that the margin for disaster seems so large for so many. We can be creative, we can be act collectively,
but not everybody is going to make it though this winter.

Control Board Monday: Save Open Pantry/Loaves & Fishes

I heard from Kevin Noonan, Director of Open Pantry Community Services, yesterday. I knew the funding situation for two of the OPCS most important programs, the Food Pantry and the Loaves and Fishes Soup Kitchen, had not improved. Money was not allocated by the House of Representatives and although it's technically still possible, the odds are very much against it. I wrote some about what a catastrophe for Springfield's poor that loss or reduction of these programs would be this last April. Nothing has improved since then.

Kevin has been trying for a month to follow up with a presentation to the Springfield Finance Control Board and thought he had succeeded for this Monday but it turns out that that presentation must be made at the public speak-out-- three minutes only, thank you.

If you care about the well-being of poor people in Springfield, please come to Monday's Control Board meeting at 10:30 at City Hall. Let the Control Board know how important it is to maintain these services.

I know things are getting worse for almost everybody but when you get right down to the basics-- being able to eat, keep a roof over your head, and keep your place heated and lighted-- many poor people are already going without. One hundred gallons of heating oil is almost $450. Food prices are still going up, and the cost of rental housing certainly isn't going down. I wrote this before, but think again: last year more than 27,000 people-- in a city of less than 150,000!-- came to the Open Pantry Food Pantry for help. People ate a meal at the Loaves & Fishes Soup Kitchen more than 100,000 times.

I'd hate to think we'll need to rely on Food Not Bombs to feed our city's hungry.

The cupboard is bare: one half a loaf for each of us

Worldwide grain production is up 4% from last year, some 2.3 billion tons worldwide, but, it won't be enough to build up countries' grain reserves, already at their lowest point in 30 years.
According to World Watch Institute, "Despite the record harvest, low stocks and strong demand combined to push prices of all cereals to new highs.At harvest time, U.S. corn export price was up about 70% from the previous year, while the American hard wheat5 price averaged 65$ more than a year earlier." The same is true in grain- producing countries around the globe.

Here at home, if you think that a significant portion of those amber waves of grain are in the stocks of the U.S. grain reserves, well, that's not exactly correct. Right now the U.S. has about 27 billion bushels of wheat in reserve. But we are about to sell more than eleven-twelths of that reserve, leaving the U.S. with only 2.7 million bushels. That's half a loaf for every person living in the U.S.

"Our concern is not that we are using the remainder of our strategic grain reserves for humanitarian relief," Larry Matlack, President of the American Agricultural Movement said last week. "AAM fully supports the action and all humanitarian aid relief. Our concern is that the U.S. has nothing else in our emergency food pantry. There is no cheese, no butter, no dried milk powder, no grains or anything else left in reserve." FourWinds10.

Funny how many different ways wealth can be defined. When my younger daughter's father and I lived in Maine, we had four 55 gallon tin barrels lined with plastic and filled with rice, wheat and buckwheat. I used to thrust my arms up to the elbow in a barrel and feel incredibly wealthy.

Corn now sells for over $5 a bushel, up from under $2 in 2006. That means that any food product that uses corn as an ingredient will continue to climb in price, especially now that 20% of the Midwest's corn crop has been damaged by flooding. If you want to save money on food, avoid those that use corn. Make your own granola. And learn to love a variety of grains.

Planted your tomatoes yet? Food prices going up 9%

As reported by Reuters, Advanced Economic Solutions says food prices are going to go up 9% a year at least through 2012. If I've done my math right, that means that if a pound of tomatoes cost $1.79 in 2007, the same pound will cost $2.79 in 2012.

Check out the Helpful Gardener for some great tips on growing tomatoes.

Photo by Dockingman at Flickr.

Not everyone can walk their way out of hunger

For every mile you walk, you burn about 250 calories. How much do North Koreans take that into account as they attempt to walk into South Korea and China? Surely they are aware of the shoot-to-kill orders issued to North Korean border guards. On the Chinese side of the border, Chinese border guards invade the homes of ethnic Koreans living in China who may be harboring refugees from starvation.

Biofuels, increased food demand in developing countries and the high cost of fuel are taking the blame for the current world crisis but there are many reasons more people are hungry right now.

Global warming may very well bear the blame for the cyclone that destroyed 65% of Myanmar's rice fields. That same area is responsible for 50% of its poultry and pork production and 85% of its aquaculture.

Global warming is definitely one of the factors responsible for the salmon shortage that is leaving the Stellat'en people in British Columbia with only one salmon for every twenty-five people, not enough to meet their caloric needs. Warmer waters mean fewer salmon spawn. The salmon shortage has involved the region in difficult discussions over catch-sharing and fishing practices. The Tyee.

The 1,100 inhabitants of Christmas island shouldn't be hungry, but the company the island contracts with to deliver food hasn't made a delivery since January. Planes fly over from Australia once a week with small amounts of fresh produce; lettuce is selling for $11 a head.

While the U.S. may be coming to think of the typical Indian as working in a call center, India still has more poor people-- some 600 million-- than any country on earth. Yet farmers are abandoning their farmland and rice fields because they cannot recoup the cost of seeds, fertilizer and pesticides, much of it a result of patented seeds from multinationals like Monsanto, which forbids farmers saving seeds from one harvest to the next. More than 36,000 farmers have committed suicide in the years from 1997 to 2006, the last year for which statistics are available.

Other people around the world are still (and increasingly) dealing with the shortage of rice and the cost of food, exacerbated in many places by poverty and unstable governments. Boarding schools in Zimbabwe are so short of food they are asking students to bring their own groceries. The Ugandan government said this week that increasing competition for scarce food supplies in Kenya and Sudan are leading to shortages in Uganda, also.

Finally, a full belly is one of the first casualties of war. 130,000 Iraqi refugees in Syria received subsidized food aid last month, but the U.N. agency that provides the food is running out of money.

Solutions to hunger exist, but the longer we wait, the more difficult it will become.

No soup kitchen? They'll never know what hit them

Four of us from Arise-- Lamont, Liz, Don James and I-- went down to the Loaves and Fishes Soup Kitchen during supper tonight to talk to folks about the possible scaling back or maybe even closing of the soup kitchen. Liz had flyered at the noontime meal so folks knew we were coming, and that we were encouraging anyone who wanted to speak out about why the soup kitchen (and the food pantry) are so important to them to do so.

Some time this week-- maybe even tomorrow-- the Massachusetts Legislature will vote on an amendment to provide funding for the parent organization, Open Pantry Community Services. The amendment will be bundled in with dozens of others, and what will actually happen feels more like a crap shoot. I wrote about the amendment numbers and who to call here, and if you live in Massachusetts, haven't done so already, please call.

Open Pantry is broke and the city of Springfield isn't making any appreciable effort to help them. I know many agencies that help the poor are hurting. But no one can replace the role the OP plays among the community of the poor.

I saw a lot of people I know at the soup kitchen and at least one of them had good news-- he'd gotten an apartment through the city's Housing First program. Three years ago he'd been living at our six-month tent city. I saw my old friend Patrick, though, and he didn't look so good-- lost weight. I almost didn't recognize him.

The tables at the soup kitchen are not segregated, of course, but folks do tend to sort themselves out. Most of the elder Puerto Ricans sit near the kitchen and are very quiet. Single guys and women tend to sit at the tables down the middle. I saw one man I'd never seen before-- quite elderly, quite thin, in a wheelchair. I saw another guy who I'd paid to help me paint my apartment and we made arrangements for him to pick up the CDs he'd left at my house. A half dozen children sat with their parents.

The young people, those 25 or younger, sit at the tables on the sides. I don't think most people realize how very young and how very the old people who eat at soup kitchens can be. I was admiring some of the art work on the walls that is the product of Tuesday and Thursday art classes where another one of our members, Linda, is one of the teachers.

"I've been thinking of going," a blonde girl surely no more than 20 said.
"Yeah, do it," I said.

Some people who eat at soup kitchens have absolutely no food at home-- if they have a home. They might be camping or stopping for supper on their way to the shelter. Or they have a home but it's just empty. Some people who eat at the soup kitchen actually do have a little food in the cupboard. Sure, they could eat that can of creamed corn they're so sick of looking at, or the fruit cocktail. But they'd rather go down to Loaves and Fishes where they are less alone, where they can be among friends.

Maybe I just haven't been hanging out with homeless people often enough recently to see the strengths and endurance I can usually see in the community, but I must say tonight's people looked fragile and shell-shocked. Still friendly (or not), still smiling (or not) , the outlines of their bodies seemed less distinct, almost smudged. Maybe that's just me. But I'm afraid.

Wasted no more: Florida restaurants can give away food

We've all thought of this: why do restaurants have to throw out all their prepared food at the end of the day? Why can't they just give it away to shelters and meal programs? Then we answer our own question: because they don't want to get sued. (Guess food taken from dumpsters is lawsuit-proof because it was thrown away.)

These same thoughts went through the mind of 12 year old Jack Davis after eating out at a Tallahassee restaurant last year. His dad is a lawyer and they drafted a bill exempting restaurants and other eateries from any liability associated with their food. There's more at the Miami Herald.

Colleges also throw out a tremendous amount of good food from dining halls. Sounds like a good project for a campus student group. Tip from the 13th Juror.

By the way, the London Mail reports that families in the UK throw away about a third of the food they buy. I'm sure it's not different in the U.S. "Buy one, get two" sales take some of the blame-- the food goes bad before it can be eaten.

Springfield's Open Pantry needs help now

To be blunt: Open Pantry Community Services is in trouble and may not be able to avoid deep cuts in essential services. It's not hopeless but it's pretty bad, and what's bad for the Open Pantry is bad for the poor and homeless people in this city.

Last year the Loaves and Fishes soup kitchen prepared over a hundred thousand meals for people in need of food and friendship, lunch and supper, seven days a week. When staff and guests were discussing which of the two meals should be cut if it came to that, the answer was the lunch meal-- because a lot of children eat supper there with their parents.

Last year the Open Pantry provided groceries for more than 27,000 people, half of them children. Now the pantry may have to cut back days they're open from four to two.

Last year 1,200 homeless people went to caseworkers at the Open Door with help ranging from getting I.D. and applying for veteran's benefits to looking for an apartment.

Last year the Commonwealth of Massachusetts cut more than 400,000 from OPCS's budget after its Warming Place shelter for single homeless was forced to close. Three area legislators have introduced amendments restoring that funding, but success is far from automatic.

If you're in the district of
Rep. Puppolo - amendment # 304 Tel. (413) 596-4333/(617) 722-2011
Rep. Swan - amendment # 936 Tel. (413) 739-8547/(617) 722-2680
Rep. Coakley-Rivera - amendment # 1034 Tel. (413) 739-1503/(617) 722-2011
Call them and thank them for sponsoring these amendments.

If you live anywhere in Massachusetts, call your legislator! Ask them to sign on to these amendments and to vote for them if/when they get to the floor. Calls to members of the the House Ways and Means Committee will help, also. The main number for the State Representatives is: (617-722-2000) or you can follow this link: http://www.mass.gov/legis/memmenuh.htm for a complete list of State Representatives with their contact information.

I try to picture Springfield without the Open Pantry and it's a pretty grim picture. Don't let it happen.

PS-- Forgot to say, money is totally welcome! You can send a contribution to Open Pantry Community Services, P.O. Box 5127, Springfield, MA 01101-5127.