For the last few days I've been at The Organic Farming Conference in LaCrosse, WI. This is my second year attending and I'm just as impressed as last year.
I'm also pleasantly surprised to reflect on my past frustrations about the absence of food in the political debates and find that things are a bit different this year. Sure- there's no garden on the White House lawn yet. But there are some new folks in charge and they care about high quality, sustainable food.
This little spark of hope helps me not get too worked up about the sad state of our food system. Perhaps next year at this time we won't be in the middle of the biggest food recall in America's history or watching commercials about how good high fructose corn syrup is.
Okay- back to the conference.
The keynote speakers this year were AMAZING! I'm a huge fan of Dr. Vandana Shiva. She is ridiculously intelligent, totally radical, and can get her point across like nobody's business. She's my hero!
Here's a little clip from her talk. The quality is not great, but I couldn't resist capturing a bit of this lecture comparing pesticide companies to drug pushers!
Our next speaker was Dr. Alan Greene. I think this man could convince Monsanto executives themselves to eat organic. I've got a whole list of research articles I need to look up since his talk!
Other highlights: Checking out People's Food Co-op (and eating their portobello burger!), browsing through hundreds of organic agriculture/gardening, sustainable living, and food books, and surviving a treacherous drive through a snowstorm.
3 comments:
I have been in love with Dr. Vandana Shiva since seeing her on a PBS documentary. She is such a bright shining star in an otherwise dark sky. How cool you got to see her in person.
Interesting!!
What a fun and interesting weekend! A great opportunity, indeed!
Post a Comment