What We Do

Sustainable Agriculture

Our corporate agriculture system is polluting our air, land and water, and poisoning people. Alternative and traditional agricultural systems can heal the damage that has been done, and help restore the earth.

Who We Are

The Sustainable Agriculture Circle is an education circle within WDN. Our interest areas include food security, food and health, and the environmental, human, and economic ramifications of corporate agriculture. We are learning more about these issues in order to fund strategically, and become personally more active.

What We Do

Our circle has studied the 2007 Farm Bill.  It is the single most significant land use legislation enacted in the United States, yet many citizens remain unaware of its power and scope both locally and globally. With subsidies ballooning toward $25 billion dollars per year, the Farm Bill largely dictates who grows what crops, on what acreage, and under what conditions—all with major impacts on the country's rural economies, health and nutrition, national security, and biodiversity.

Funding Action

Education Action

• Audio conferences with Virginia Clarke-Laskin, coordinator of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders (SAFSF). Circle members discussed farm to school lunch programs, marketing sustainably-grown organic produce, Community Supported Agriculture programs (CSAs), and opportunities for funders.
• Audio conference with Allen Hance, senior agricultural policy analyst at the Northeast-Midwest Institute. Members heard from Hance about opportunities to support small and family farmers in the fight for Farm Bill reform.
• Member-led delegations of this circle have attended the W.K. Kellogg Food & Society Conference.
• Audio conference with Daniel Imhoff, author of Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill. As debate and wrangling over the 2007 Farm Bill intensified, members heard from Imhoff about how this critical piece of legislation literally shapes our food system, our bodies, and our future.

Resources

Food Fight by Daniel Imoff

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

Appetite for Profit by Michele Simon

Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health by Marion Nestle

Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

The Sustainable Agriculture Education Circle reflects WDN’s key issue area of Environment and Food Justice: Fighting for the right for all communities and people to a decent, safe quality of life regardless of race, income or culture in the environments where we all live, work, play, and learn. This is one of our seven key areas of work and study.