Great Lakes Bioneers

Our local cherry farmers - including our own Food Committee Chair, Todd Springer - have been working long hours gathering the nearly 200 million pounds of these delectable fruits that Michigan produces. Whoa.

July isn’t just busy in the orchards…it’s a busy time for Bioneers organizers as well. Our workshop slots are now filled and I am sure many of you will comment that there was not enough time to get to every workshop you were interested in. In 2007, you can look forward to learning about medicines in your backyard, incorporating activism into family life, green roofing and so much more!

We have also invited folks to become Organizational Partners and Business Sponsors; if you didn’t get a letter in the mail and wish you had, we’re sorry! We’re happy to remedy that situation. You can also download detailed letters from our website. We need to hear from you by July 25 to get your name and advertisement in the registration booklet going out to thousands in early August. When is that deadline again? July 25. And, hey, anyone can advertise to give a shout out to people or ideas you love. Just get us a check and the ad copy by July 25.

If you aren’t a business or an organization and want to help, it’s easy!

1. Buy an advertisement for an idea, a quote, or to say happy birthday.
2. We accept donations at any time of year.
3. You can join the national Bioneers and mention our name - we get a portion of their income.
4. Give goods and gift certificates for our Silent Auction. info@glbconference.org
5. Convince your friends, family and neighbors to register & attend the conference October 19-21.

Registration will open in early August. Until then!

What do school lunches, renewable energy, and clean water all have in common?

The Farm Bill– an often overlooked piece of legislation that profoundly affects rural communities, the environment, health, and hunger. Bioneers speaker in ‘06, Michael Pollan, gave us a call to action, reminding us that the Farm Bill is really a Food Bill:

“Let your senators and representatives know you’re paying attention and you care. Let them know that you understand that the Farm Bill is really a food bill. It is our fight. Unless we take it to them, they’re going to do the same thing again and we’re going to have more corn, and more soybeans, more Smithfields and Cargills and fewer farmers markets. So please follow this fight and help to wage it.”

Congress is reworking the Farm Bill this year, and a strong coalition of organizations is calling for a new direction in farm and food policy. Michigan’s Senator Stabenow sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee and has strong influence on farm bill direction. Let her know how you want to eat!

For an easy start, go to www.healthyfarmbill.org. For every 100 messages sent from our state, the Farm and Food Policy Project will hand deliver a package of healthy, local food to your Senators and Representatives – a strong message of what we really need from our farm bill.

For more background on the Farm Bill, try these sites:

1. American Farmland Trust
2. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
3. Food & Water Watch

Thank you, Marty Heller, for putting this entry together for us…

Recently, Great Lakes Bioneers, both Traverse City and Detroit, were given a nice shout out in the TC Business News. The article also features our favorite bakers…Pleasanton Brick Oven Bakery and Avalon International Breads.

Read it here: Michigan bakeries share social model for success

American Public Media’s Market Place, is asking for suggestions for its Let’s do the numbers segment!” On a daily basis, the show makes economics interesting and the let’s do the numbers is a look at the standard financial markets. But, the show now wants to know how you evaluate the state of the economy.  What number or statistic would you cite to illustrate the environmental and human effects of consumerism?

Some examples they give are: The Happy Planet Index , the decreasing number of (insert your favorite fruit here) species in the U.S., the growing acreage dedicated to shopping malls and landfills…How about the rate of return for a community using local currency.

Each year speakers at Bioneers give us numbers to think about, so be creative. Think of what Paul Stamets, or Van Jones, would suggest.
Oh, and if you think of it, let us know what you suggested.

Now here is something to BLOG about, One Local Summer, is a running BLOG, with many contributors, documenting a weekly meal made from totally local ingredients. Yum! Scoll down and you’ll see catergoies of past recipes, and delicous photos, from each region with particpants.

“One Local Summer is a project through Pocket Farm, where you are challenged to prepare one entirely local meal each week of the summer.” So, are you cooking local? Drop them a line with ingredients and images.

We had some folks from the Great Lakes Bioneers planning committee representing at 2007 The Water Festival, did you see them? Did you attend the conference in Grand Rapids? You can catch a glimpse of the cool event that is in its second year, and being put together by the groovy kids at the Earthwork Music Collective and the Grand Rapids based Clean Water Fund, by watching this video piece on YouTube .