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The Provender Journal September-October, 2007 2007 Conference Arrives The Provender Alliance 31st Annual Educational Conference is around the corner and will be held October 4 and 5, 2007 at the Red Lion at the Quay in Vancouver, Washington. The conference theme is Growing With Integrity. Jeffrey Smith, author of Seeds of Deception, will be one of our keynote speakers. We hope to have copies of that classic as well as those of his new book, Genetic Roulette, available for him to sign and for you to purchase. Steve Jones, of Washington State University, will be our other keynote speaker. The format for the 2007 conference will mirror the same schedule as the 2006 conference, with the opening keynote on Thursday morning and the conference ending on Friday night after the dance. We will be offering a day-long produce intensive on Wednesday, October 3 as an extra enticement to arrive early and enjoy the camaraderie of fellow conference attendees. Conference announcements were mailed in August and all the information is available on our web site at www.provender.org. If you have any questions, please contact us by phone at 888.352.7431 or by e-mail at info@provender.org. Fred Meyer Milk is Now rBGH-Free —from Oregon PSR Campaign for Safe Food, www.oregonpsr.org Late in the day on June 26,2007, Rick North, program director for Campaign for Safe Food, talked with the manager of the Portland Fred Meyer fluid milk processing plant, the only one left in Oregon that did not formally require their farmers to be rBGH-free. Without fanfare, they had obtained written agreements and gone rBGH-free. The labeling has started and they are in the process of converting all their packaging to indicate rBGHfree status. This also covers QFC brand milk in the northwest, which is processed at the Portland plant. This means that all Oregon-based fluid milk –100%–is now processed rBGH-free! That is not quite the case yet with cheese, butter and ice cream, but what started as a dream and goal four years ago— all Oregon dairy production rBGH-free—is almost a reality. Thanks go out to everyone who signed a post card or filled out a comment card inside the store asking Fred Meyer/Kroger to become rBGH-free. A total of 734 postcards were sent from the Oregon office to the Kroger headquarters in Cincinnati. This doesn’t include the hundreds that have been sent by people who took post cards at various events and programs and sent them on their own. And a special thanks to volunteers whom served on a committee or took a stack of post cards and had your friends and relatives fill them out. If you ever think your individual and group actions don’t make a difference, think again. Provender Now Accepting Credit Cards As of August of this year, Provender will now be accepting VISA or MasterCard for many services. You can pay your conference registration with a credir card. You can pay for youe annual member dues with a credit card. You can pay for advertising with a credit card. While enjoying yourself at the conference you can purchase Provender logo items or Jeffrey Smith’s books with a credit card (sorry but raffle tickets and beer and wine donations don’t count). We hope you take advantage of this new service we are offering as we inch work our way into the 21st century! Portland Co-ops Sponsor Contest —from Sarah Magrish Cline, Marketing & Membership Coordinator, People’s Food Co-op, www.peoples.coop The three food co-ops in Portland, Oregon are hosting an essay contest about local sustainable food heroes with great prizes! Alberta Cooperative Grocery, Food Front Cooperative Grocery and People’s Food Co-op are all, well, cooperating together with the National Cooperative Grocers Association (NCGA) to celebrate local and national sustainable food heroes. The essay contest ends September 14th, 2007. Interested Oregonians should visit www.portland.coop to learn more about the contest and to download an entry form. Portland’s food co-ops are excited to join food co-ops nationwide to host the first-ever “Cooperate for Community!” essay contest to honor local community members who are working together for sustainable food systems. Three local and three national winners will receive great prizes for their favorite non-profit. It is easy to enter! 1. Choose a local sustainable food hero, a person or a group. 2. Pick up an entry form at any of the three food co-ops in town or download one on-line by visiting www.portland.coop 3. Write a 500 word essay and turn it in along with the entry form to any of the food co-ops in Portland - Alberta, Food Front or People’s. One local winner will receive a $200 food co-op gift card for their favorite non-profit and the two finalists will receive a $100 food co-op gift card for their favorite non-profits. The local winner will automatically advance to a national contest, sponsored by National Cooperative Grocers Association (NCGA) and Frontier Natural Products Co-op, a wholesale cooperative specializing in natural and organic products, for a chance to win $7,500 toward the non-profit of his or her choice. Two national finalists will also receive $2,500 for their favorite non-profit. National finalists and winners will be announced on or around Oct. 8, 2007. Good luck! —from American Farmland Trust, www.farmland.org Sandy and Rossie Fisher of Brookview Farm in Manakin-Sabot, Virginia have received AFT’s 2007 Steward of the Land Award for their leadership in farmland protection and environmental stewardship. By selling grass-fed beef and organic eggs to local chefs and at their on-farm store, Brookview Farm combines innovation with respect for the land and leadership in the community. To learn more about the Fishers or about the annual award, visit www.farmland.org. —from Food Trade Sustanability Leadership Initiative, Natalie Reitman-White, Project Manager, nwhite@uoregon.edu In May the Advisory Group for the Food Trade Sustainability Leadership (FTSL) initiative held its first meeting in Chicago. The goal of the group is to build the capacity of the organic and natural food trade to transition toward sustainable business models by providing a hub for leading businesses to network, learn best practices, and increasingly gain consensus toward shared sustainability benchmarking criteria. The FTSL Advisory group will develop strategies to move the sustainability agenda forward at the trade-level in a formal and coordinated way. Advisory Group Members include: David Lively, Organically Grown Company; Trudy Bialic, PCC Natural Markets; Todd Linsky, Cal Organic; Jason Freeman, Farmer Direct Co-op; Cecil Wright, Organic Valley; Maureen Royal, CF Fresh; Bu Nygrens, Veritable Vegetable; Philip Ostrom, New Harvest; Gunta Vitins, SunOpta; Joyti Stephens, Nature’s Path; Prudence Ferreira, Amy’s Kitchen; Patrick Stewart, Earl’s Organic; Greg Steltenpohl, Adina World; Melody Meyer, Albert’s Organic; Tom Dziki, United Natural Foods Inc. The group’s chief action item for next year will be to further develop the Declaration of Sustainability into sustainability benchmarking criteria. Participating companies commit to a certain amount of transparency around their practices, agree to continual improvement year after year, participate in a recognition system, and receive tools/advice to support their change internal efforts. To this end the group will be holding a workshop on Friday October 5th at the Provender Alliance Annual Educational Conference in Vancouver, Washington. Come help to draft this starting-point for a dynamic participatory statement of the industry’s vision of and commitment to sustainability. Supervision: It’s Tougher Than You Think —by Carolee Colter Accountability—it’s one of a manager’s main responsibilities. In fact, it’s the whole point of even having supervisors in a workplace. Supervisors set expectations, give employees training and resources to achieve them, and then ensure consequences, positive and negative, based on whether those expectations are met. And in turn someone is supposed to be holding those supervisors accountable for meeting their expectations. It sounds simple enough but there are so many pitfalls along the way, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised if we find many workplaces with employees resentful at having to pick up the slack for underperforming coworkers or with slipshod customer service and merchandising or with financial indicators that never seems to improve. What are the challenges that make it hard for managers to hold their work groups accountable, despite their good intentions? First, how clear are the expectations in the first place? Are they communicated to new staff clearly and consistently through the interview, the orientation and on-the-job training? Does the new employee know what criteria will be used to evaluate his performance? Or is it assumed that he will pick this all up through reading the employee handbook? How good is the training the new employee receives? Is there a plan with a sequence to follow with the help of a trainer who has time and attention to give? Does the trainee get the chance to review what she’s learned before she starts working regular shifts? Or is she thrown out on the floor to “sink or swim” because the department is short-handed? Does the supervisor give feedback along the way to help the employee improve his performance? Does he hear that his efforts are noticed? If problems arise such tardiness or excessive conversations, are they brought promptly to his attention? Or does his supervisor avoid conflict and turn a blind eye? Does the new employee see everyone around her striving to meet the expectations spelled out in the orientation and the employee handbook? Or does she see others putting in substandard work and seemingly getting away with it? Do employees get opportunities to develop their skills over time and take on more responsibility? Or do they fall into a rut and get bored with their jobs? By now, if you’re a manager, you’re probably thinking, “And when am I going to find the time to do all this?” In our industry many managers are promoted from within. That’s a good thing in itself. Outsiders are not necessarily going to have the passion and commitment to organics, health and sustainable agriculture. But how can you learn to be a manager if you’ve never been one before? And as your company grows and your job grows, how can you increase your skill set to rise to the increasing demands? It was to address all these questions that my colleagues and I decided to design a training program specifically for managers in the natural foods industry. “Polish Your Rising Stars” is an intensive three-day interactive seminar with small group discussions, role plays, videos, real-life stories, networking with peers and plenty of opportunity to reflect on how it all applies to your job back home. Allen Seidner, Mark Mulcahy and I have spent our entire working lives in the natural foods movement. Allen and Mark started out with independent natural retailers in food service and produce respectively, while my first jobs were all in consumer and worker co-ops. Eventually we each became independent consultants. A couple times a year we come together to put on the Rising Stars seminar. For all of us it is one of the most fun and rewarding parts of our work. This fall we offer Rising Stars October 24- 26 in San Francisco. Visit our web site at www.risingstarsseminar.com to find out more and to register. —from Western Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, www.westernsawg.org Annie’s Homegrown, maker of natural and organic mac & cheese, and dedicated sustainability supporter, is now accepting applications for its new Sustainable Agriculture Scholarship Program. The new program will award $50,000 to undergraduate and graduate students pursuing studies in sustainable and organic agriculture, including three $10,000 scholarships and eight $2,500 scholarships. Annie’s believes healthy farms are the foundation for healthy foods (which help make healthy people!), so it is proud to support the next generation of sustainability stewards. You are encouraged to apply online at www.annies.com/programs/ sustainable_agriculture_scholarship.htm. Applications will be accepted now through September 30, 2007. Final decisions will be made and winners announced by January 2008. —from People’s Food Co-op, www.peoples.coop Every fall People’s shuts down 21st Avenue and has a big party in the street with a pie eating contest, homemade preserve swap, pumpkin carving, a craft fair, live music, a beer garden, a square dance called by Caroline Oakley, and lots of local and organic farmers selling ripe fruit and fresh vegetables. Don’t miss free grilled, locally grown, sweet corn-on-the-cob. As always, People’s Harvest Festival is free and open to all. The Food Co-op Boycotts Coca-Cola Products —by Cindy Wolpin and Julie Jaman, Co-op owner members, www.foodcoop.coop The Food Co-op, Port Townsend, Washington has made the decision to boycott Odwalla, a subsidiary of the Coca-Cola Corporation. In doing so, the Co-op joins the largest anticorporate movement since the campaign against Nike for sweatshop abuses. The pressure on Coke is coming from the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, boycotts at over 130 colleges and universities worldwide, and action from the International Teamsters. At the June Board of Directors meeting the Product Selection Guideline Committee (PSGC), a board committee, brought the boycott request up for consideration. Within weeks, the Odwalla cooler with juices and smoothies, and the rack of Odwalla snack bars were gone. The Coke connection comes as a surprise to most consumers. Nowhere on its packaging, merchandising, or web site does Odwalla identify Coca-Cola as its parent company. Odwalla and 300 other products reap profits for a corporation with such an egregious record of human rights abuses and environmental degradation that in 2004 the Multinational Monitor named Coke one of the world’s “Worst Corporations.” The charges against the corporation include: • contaminating local ecosystems worldwide through the dumping of toxic waste from its plants, pollution of agricultural land, rivers and groundwater; • exhausting community water reserves in India and other third-world countries by drilling deep into underground reservoirs, drying up local wells and leaving farmers unable to irrigate their crops; • using paramilitaries to crush union organizing at Coca- Cola bottling plants in Colombia. Eight union leaders have been murdered and at least 100 others have been detained and beaten; • adopting union-busting tactics in Pakistan, Turkey, Russia, Indonesia, Peru, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua and other countries; • poisoning workers through exposure to toxic waste and pesticides; • poisoning consumers by allowing unsafe levels of pesticide residues such as Lindane, Heptachlor (carcinogens), Malathion, Chlorpyrifos & DDT (neurotoxins) in their products. Odwalla’s slogan “soil to soul, people to planet” stands in stark contrast to its parent company’s mounting offenses around the globe. Coke’s 2006 revenues of $24 billion and $5 billion in profits came at a considerable cost to soil and soul, people and planet. On August 3, the PSGC committee members set up in the Co-op alcove to provide information about the Odwalla/Coke boycott. They also had Teamsters’ “Tell Coke to Clean Up Its Act” petitions to sign and free samples of Columbia Gorge Organic Juice. For information and links concerning other boycott actions visit The Co-op’s web site at www.foodcoop.coop. —from Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), www.sare.org In celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, we are excited to announce SARE’s first-ever national photo competition. We’re looking for photos from all corners of the nation that depict groundbreaking innovations, people and partnerships advancing the frontier of sustainable agriculture in America. The theme is Groundbreaking Innovations, People and Partnerships in Sustainable Agriculture. The top four photos, one from each of SARE’s regions in the United States, will receive grand prizes of free attendance and accommodations at SARE’s 20th Anniversary conference, to be held March 25-27, 2008 in Kansas City, Missouri. We are looking for imaginative, striking photos related to groundbreaking innovations, people, and partnerships in sustainable agriculture. While our top four regional winners will be chosen based on how compelling and clearly they depict this general theme, honorable mentions will be chosen as well. The competition is open to everyone except for SARE/SAN staff. We particularly encourage young people, women and minority farmers and ranchers to enter. The deadline for entries is October 31, 2007. Judging will be in early December 2007. The panel of judges will consist of a photography/communications expert from each of SARE’s regions, and will also include SARE technical experts to ensure photos depict sustainable innovations. The judges will choose, from all the categories, a total of four overall grand prize winning photographs, one from each of SARE’s regions. Honorable mentions will be given to up to three photos per category. The four grand-prize photos will be announced in January 2008, and will be featured on conference banners and other conference materials. Honorable mentions will be announced at the conference. In addition to the winners, selected photos will be displayed at the conference. For complete details and categories, visit www.sare.org. Biodiesel Demand Destroying Communities —from Pesticide Action Network of North America, www.panna.org The developed world’s increasing call for plant fuel to manufacture biodiesel is destroying some farming communities and contaminating water and land with toxic pesticides in the developing world. In These Times describes one soy bean production situation: “Rural eastern Paraguay was once flush with jungles, small farms, schools, and wildlife. Now it is a sea of soybeans. The families, trees, and birds are gone. The schools are empty. The air is filled with the toxic stench of pesticides.” To read the full story visit www.inthesetimes.com/article/3093/ the_multinational_beanfield_war/. Organic Farming Can Feed the World —from ATTRA–National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, Weekly Harvest Newsletter, July 18, 2007, http:// ncat.attra.org Organic farming can yield up to three times as much food on individual farms in developing countries as low-intensive methods on the same land, say the findings of a University of Michigan study. The results refute the long-standing claim that organic farming methods cannot produce enough food to feed the global population. Details on the study, as well as podcasts in English and Spanish, are available online from the university at www.ns.umich.edu/ htdocs/releases/story.php?id=5936. —from National Gardening Association, www.garden.org For more than 20 years, the National Gardening Association’s Youth Garden Grants program has helped more than 1.3 million youngsters reap rewards and vital life lessons from working in gardens and habitats. The NGA and program sponsor Home Depot offer the Youth Garden Grants Program, which awards grants to schools and community organizations with child-centered garden programs. Applicants must plan to garden in 2008 with at least 15 children between the ages of three and 18 years. In evaluating grant applications, priority will be given to programs that emphasize one or more of these elements: • educational focus and/or curricular ties (if applicant is a formal education program) • nutrition or plant-to-food connections • environmental awareness/education • entrepreneurship • social aspects of gardening such as leadership development, team building, community support, or servicelearning. In 2008, 150 programs will receive gift cards to The Home Depot for the purchase of gardening materials and supplies particular to the needs of their program, and an activity package from NGA. The top 50 programs will receive gift cards valued at $500, and 100 will receive $250 gift cards. Grants are available for both start-up and established programs. Proposals are due November 1, 2007. For more information visit the NGA’s web site at www.garden.org, —from Pesticide Action Network Updates, July 21, 2007, www.panna.org “The Truth About Cats, Dogs, and Lawn Chemicals” is a new webbased video series that could star your very own beloved Fido or Boots. The premier episode appeared in late July on iTunes, YouTube and on the project’s home page, www.catsdogslawns.org. Film producers Sanford Lewis and Jody Shapiro of Amherst, Massachusetts are using the power of the internet to produce an audience- participatory documentary video. The story line revolves around “Dr. Dobetter,” a well-informed veterinarian concerned about toxic exposure that has a call-in radio show. The callers include people who love and care for their animals, and in a twist of magical realism, the animals themselves speak their minds, presenting their uniquely perceptive and humorous vantagepoint. Find out more about how to participate with your own stories, videos and photos at www.participate.catsdogslawns.org/. —from Food & Water Watch, www.democracyinaction.org Food and Water Watch has developed a new interactive map showing the location of animal factories by county in the United States. Animal factories are now found all over the country. These operations barely resemble traditional farms where healthy animals are allowed to roam on pasture. Instead, they keep thousands of animals closely confined in unsanitary conditions in order to maximize output. These systems pollute the surrounding environment and adversely affect human and animal health, leading to problems like antibiotic resistance. Visit Food and Water Watch to explore the map and learn about factory farm pollution in your state. Visit www.factoryfarmmap.org to find a factory farm near you!
Provender Alliance
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