Posts Tagged: diversity

Cooperatives rock!

In Nepal, people are reviving traditional farming. Producer cooperatives help farmers retain more profits on traditional and local food crops, while also protecting biodiversity and the health of their families. I was thinking how cooperatives are the wave of the future in farming, so plugged in that phrase and sure enough – Value-added cooperatives: Wave of the Future? was at the top of the list. Here in the United States, Organic Valley Cooperative is a example of a large, successful producer cooperative that continues to grow and diversity. Then of course, there is the worker-owned cooperative of Equal Exchange, our partner in the Presbyterian Coffee Project. Co-ops rock.

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Who started the local food revolution? Cuba or Jamie Oliver?

“The organic and urgan agriculture revolution that is under way there is nothing short of amazing, but what a lot of people don’t know is the amount of hardship Cubans have been through to get to where they are. Unlike with most people in the US and other wealthy countries, growing their own and doing it organically were not really choices for Cubans: they did it to survive. Or to put it more flippantly, when life gave the Cubans limes (mint and rum), they decided to make mojitos.”

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