Lansing Considers A Break for “Hand Made” Foods

When the Michigan Municipal League announced the winners of its “Let’s Save Michigan” poster contest, it’s not surprising that many, including four of the top six, included green economy images, like farm fields and wind towers. My favorite is the runner up poster made by Benzie County’s own Joseph Cissell, titled “Hand Made.” It points [...]

New Study: Local Food Means Lots of Michigan Jobs

What if Michigan farms supplied all of the fruits and vegetables that Michiganders eat during the growing season? A new study puts this what-if scenario into numbers. It’s a handy set of data for all those trying to get a grasp of what buying local in season can do for the economy.
And it reveals what [...]

Food Safety Legislation to U.S. Senate for Vote

Calling everyone interested in local foods! Please direct your attention to Washington D.C. this week and next.
A major package of food safety legislation is coming to a vote very soon on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It will have significant ramifications for farms you buy from at farmers markets, through Community Supported Agriculture arrangements, [...]

Summit Sprouts Fresh Food and Farm Ideas

Talk about entrepreneurial spirit! Northwest Michigan’s great creativity and resourcefulness around healthy food and profitable farming shone brightly last Friday at the second annual Farm Route to Prosperity summit.
Sponsored by USDA-Rural Development, the gathering brought together a broad range of people and organizations involved in the region’s Food and Farming Network, which launched after last [...]

Chomp into these Good Food Ideas!

This year Michigan will elect a new governor and dozens of new state lawmakers; term limits are putting the governor’s seat, 29 Senate seats (out of 38), and 34 House seats (out of 110) in the running.
Now is the time to put local food and farming priorities in front of these candidates. They need to [...]

Handshakes on the Road to Local Food

Sometimes it just takes a handshake to bring our economy back to the people and places that matter.
On Wednesday, Feb. 3, nearly 70 growers and commercial food buyers from northwest Lower Michigan demonstrated that by packing a meeting room and making it buzz with business. The Planning for Local Foods workshop, organized by the Michigan [...]

State Reps’ ‘Animal Welfare’ Bills Miss Mark

As the market for locally grown, sustainably raised “good food” continues to boom, Michigan farms have a great opportunity to boost their profits by providing shoppers with the tastier, healthier, more trustworthy products they are demanding.
But so-called “animal welfare” legislation on its way to the floor of Michigan’s House of Representatives works against this free-market [...]

I’m Headed to D.C., White House Garden!

Well, I’m off to our nation’s political center, Washington D.C., to represent the Michigan Land Use Institute and all of you who support our work.
Here’s a quick review of my action-packed itinerary for this trip, which comes thanks to my
Food and Society Policy Fellowship. This group of 20 writers, filmmakers, activist farmers and more [...]

Patty Cantrell: Winners and Stinkers

Here are two good reminders that what you eat has a lot to do with who has their feet on the ground in the state Capitol.
The issue in both cases is the power and privilege of industrial agriculture, which has a lot of feet on the ground in Lansing and money to keep them there.
And [...]

Patty Cantrell: All the Way to the White House Lawn!

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