{"id":909,"date":"2011-09-19T21:33:08","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T02:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/realfoodhouston.com\/?p=909"},"modified":"2011-09-19T21:33:08","modified_gmt":"2011-09-20T02:33:08","slug":"5th-annual-farm-and-food-leadership-conference-san-antonio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/2011\/09\/19\/5th-annual-farm-and-food-leadership-conference-san-antonio\/","title":{"rendered":"5th Annual Farm and Food Leadership Conference, San Antonio"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Farm<\/a>We really enjoyed the two days at the conference in San Antonio’s Pearl Stable\u00a0September 12-13–the presentations, panel discussions, wonderful lunches, and of course, the movie Farmageddon<\/strong><\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Monday’s keynote speaker was Dr. John Ikerd, author of Sustainable Capitalism,\u00a0A Return to Common Sense<\/em> and Small Farms are Real Farms: Sustaining People through Agriculture<\/em>.\u00a0 Dr. Ikerd was raised on a small dairy farm in Missouri and received his degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Missouri.\u00a0 He worked in private industry and then spent 30 years in professorial positions at several universities before retiring in 2000.\u00a0 He spoke about the need to reform farm policy to encourage\u00a0sustainable farming.\u00a0 Although Dr. Ikerd was very concerned about conventional farm practices in the US, he expressed hope that\u00a0change is possible.\u00a0 He\u00a0said that our current conventional agriculture system is not sustainable and will collapse eventually.\u00a0 More about Dr. Ikerd . . .<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>Dr. Ikerd was also on a panel with Patty Lovera discussing the consolidation of our food supply.\u00a0 Patty Lovera is the assistant director of Food & Water Watch <\/a>where she coordinates the work of the food team and focuses especially on meat inspection, labeling, and dairy issues.\u00a0 Dr. Ikerd and Patty Lovera talked about the huge problems resulting from the\u00a0consolidation of manufacturers and processors in our food supply which has limited competition and\u00a0reduced the freedom of entry and exit into the food market.\u00a0 The monopolized food supply system\u00a0has also hindered making information available to the consumer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Farm<\/a>After lunch on Monday, there was a panel discussion of how to help the hungry to have access to\u00a0afforable, healthy food.\u00a0 Brad Stufflebeam of Home Sweet Farm<\/a>, Matt Hess of World Hunger Relief<\/a>, and Jeremy Everett, of Texas Hunger Initiative <\/a>were panel members.\u00a0 Often local and government regulations make it difficult to provide healthy food to those who need it.\u00a0 Another problem is that many people\u00a0no longer\u00a0know how to cook foods from scratch using home-grown produce.<\/p>\n

The last panel on Monday discussed Food Safety and Local Foods.\u00a0 Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, was unable to attend because the Texas wildfires were too close to his home.\u00a0 Other panelists included Mickey Morales of Houston’s Highland Village and City Central Farmers markets and Erin Flynn of Green Gate Farms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Monday evening the movie Farmageddon<\/a><\/em> was presented in the Pearl Stable conference room.\u00a0 It is a powerful film which\u00a0shows the devastating effects of the FDA’s raids on family farms and private food co-ops.<\/p>\n

Tuesday morning Patty Lovera and Leslie Provence of Community Food Security Coalition <\/a>discussed the farm bill process and how it might be influenced.\u00a0 Judith McGeary–attorney, farmer, food activist, and founder of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance <\/a>which sponsored the conference–spoke about the USDA’s proposed rule on Animal ID.\u00a0 Howard Vlieger of Verity Farms<\/a>\u00a0whose motto is “Premium Natural; Nothing Else” presented the latest news about the dangers of GMOs and how far they have penetrated the US food supply.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Tuesday afternoon a panel discussed What Can Farmers and Consumers Do to Fight Back Against GMOs?\u00a0<\/em> Panel members included Cameron Molberg of Coyote Creek Organic Feed Mill<\/a>; Howard Vlieger of Verity Farms; and Dan Ravicher, attorney and Executive Director of the Public Patent Foundation<\/a>.\u00a0 Panel members discussed the poison we eat, stating that 70-80% of grocery store products in the US contain GMOs.\u00a0 Dan Ravicher’s organization PubPat\u00a0“filed suit on behalf of 60 family farmers, seed businesses and organic agricultural organizations against Monsanto Company to challenge the chemical giant’s patents on genetically modified seed.”<\/p>\n

Raw Milk: The Truth and How to Communicate It<\/em> was the last topic discussed on Tuesday afternoon.\u00a0 Panel members were Brian Cummings, Cummings & Co., operator of EatGreenDFW.com<\/a>; Ramy Jisha, DVM, Texas Daily Harvest<\/a>; and Mark Shannan, DC, an Austin chiropractor.\u00a0 Dr. Shannon presented a detailed review of the safety and health value\u00a0of raw milk.\u00a0 Ramy Jisha and her husband own an organic dairy and produce and deliver low temperature pasturized, non-homogenized dairy to homes and stores. They sell raw milk on the farm.\u00a0 She gave a good overview of what it means to own and run a certified organic\u00a0raw milk dairy.\u00a0 She thinks about 100\u00a0cows, the size of their herd now, is about right.\u00a0 Too many cows cause the process to become too impersonal.,\u00a0knowing the cows personally one-on-one\u00a0allows the farmer to notice problems before they become serious.<\/p>\n

The delicious buffet lunches were prepared by Dai Due\u00a0using local, donated sustainably produced foods.\u00a0 Monday’s main course was meatloaf made with grass-fed beef ,while\u00a0Tuesday’s lunch was Mexican food\u00a0based.\u00a0 I regret not getting photos of the\u00a0buffet tables.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We really enjoyed the two days at the conference in San Antonio’s Pearl Stable\u00a0September 12-13–the presentations, panel discussions, wonderful lunches, and of course, the movie Farmageddon.\u00a0 Monday’s keynote speaker was Dr. John Ikerd, author of Sustainable Capitalism,\u00a0A Return to Common …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,16,11,63,59,17,18,21,6,19,9],"tags":[48,60,27,26,25,64,41,38,40,36,24,31,62],"class_list":["post-909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-access-to-real-food","category-food-freedom","category-food-rights","category-food-safety","category-gmos","category-local-farming","category-organic-food","category-pastured-eggs","category-raw-milk","category-real-food","category-traditional-food","tag-farfa","tag-farmageddon","tag-fda","tag-food-freedom-2","tag-food-rights-2","tag-food-safety-2","tag-grassfed-beef","tag-local-food","tag-organic","tag-pastured-eggs-2","tag-raw-milk-2","tag-sustainable-farming","tag-texas-food-laws"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p70SEj-eF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":938,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909\/revisions\/938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}