Davis Food Co-op Food Issues
Cork Wine Closures | Pending national legislation on Food Safety
Help Save the Davis Student Co-op From Being Shut Down After This Academic Year!
Thanks to Derek Downey (DFC member and former Front End employee, current Sunwise Co-op resident, Davis Student Co-op resident 2005-2009) for this:
The Davis Student Co-op (DSC) was established in 1964, making it the oldest housing co-op in Davis. Student Housing at UC Davis has scheduled DSC to be shut-down by next August, due to financial problems within Student Housing and their need for administrative staff office space.
Davis Student Co-op is part of the 40-member On Campus Tri-Cooperatives, whose members in the 1970s helped start the Davis Food Co-op. The Tri-Co-ops are a low-cost, cooperative housing alternative that has provided housing and garden space for the education and growth of its members, and continues to be the only low-cost housing option other than the Domes that the University offers. Considered by Student Housing as pioneers of sustainable practices on campus, they have also been a center of student involvement and campus growth. Some of the programs initiated by Tri-Co-op residents are:
• Project Compost,
• Campus Center for the Environment,
• California Students for Sustainability Coalition,
• The Market Garden,
• Students for Sustainable Agriculture,
• Davis Peoples Free School, and
• the Whole Earth Festival.
The Tri-Coops have contributed to the creation of various organizations in the city of Davis including: Davis Food Co-op, Davis Farmers Market, Good Humus Farm, and Solar Community Housing Association. Tri-Co-op alumni are empowered and active, including Ann Evans, former Food Co-op president and mayor of Davis.
Housing co-ops in Davis have presented a successful model of sustainable living, not only ecologically, but economically and socially as well. DSC residents of the late 1970s wanted to continue living in the same co-op model after graduating and went on to start Sunwise Co-op and the Solar Community Housing Association (SCHA), a Davis non-profit dedicated to creating community and respect for the environment through affordable, cooperative housing. SCHA now provides housing through Sunwise Co-op and J St. Co-op, and is presently developing a third co-op in old East Davis.
Current residents of DSC have repeatedly attempted to initiate a collaboration with the Student Housing to present financially sustainable alternatives to shutting down DSC; however, the Student Housing Director has indicated an unwillingness to discuss alternative solutions.
Students are now asking you, our fellow food co-op members, to get involved and show your support for the student residents of DSC and for the continued existence of this valuable community asset. Affordable student housing is needed more than ever with tuition hikes on the horizon. Nothing Student Housing does with this house could be more valuable than keeping Davis Student Co-op open for the current and future students of UC Davis.
Ways you can help:
• Find details and updates on the Davis Wiki and to sign an online petition that will be presented to the UC Davis Administration.
• Call, write, or email Chancellor Katehi and/or Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Fred Wood showing your support for keeping DSC open:
Chanellor Katehi – (530) 752-2065; Mail: Fifth Floor, Mrak Hall, One Shields Avenue, Davis CA 95616
Vice Chancellor Fred Wood – (530) 752-2416; Mail: Student Affairs, One Shields Avenue, Davis CA 95616
Thanks for your support!
Why Pick Cork for Wine Closures?
By Doug Walter
Many vintners take positive steps that improve local soil fertility. But did you know that the choice of bottle closure can make a big difference for the environment? Cork, which can be harvested sustainably, helps maintains an ecosystem that guards soils against erosion, preserves fertility and some diversity, and supports wildlife. Natural cork closures are fully biodegradable, and can be recycled into useful products.
But a vintner might use another closure for valid reasons. I wouldn't uniformly disdain wines — such as those from Yolo County's Berryessa Gap — that use screwcaps to preserve the “just as bottled” taste. Plastic “corks” aren't my favorites, but they're a means of cutting packaging costs. However, a wine with potential to improve with age will benefit from a natural cork closure.
Skilled harvesters produce quality cork by sustainable cutting, in which the entire bark layer is stripped from the cork oak trees. If it's done well, it all grows back! Cork can only be harvested from the oaks about once a decade, but the benefits of the forest landscape are continuous. Several endangered species are dependent on cork oak forests, which “support one of the highest levels of biodiversity among forest habitats” according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Wine stoppers are the most important product of cork oak forests. When you buy wines with natural cork stoppers, you’re helping trees, wildlife and people.
Sources
http://assets.panda.org/downloads/cork_rev12_print.pdf (p. 4)
http://environment.about.com/od/greenlivingdesign/a/wine_stopper.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7623912.stm
http://thegreenpages.ca/portal/on/2007/12/cork_the_latest_renewable_reso/
Comments on pending national food safety legislation
Focus shifts to the Senate
November, 2009
Industrial-scale agriculture, product contamination and recalls, very small-scale farms, and "change we can believe in" have combined, to lead to legislative proposals for new Federal food safety regulation. Some proposals appear to have benefits for our cooperative and members, while others might lead to "collateral damage" to sustainable agriculture.
The current (Fall/Winter 2009) focus is on S.510, a bill that incorporates most of the language of H.R. 2749. Advocates for small and organic producers believe that these bills incorporate safeguards that are inappropriate to local producers, and would reduce the number of such operations without preventing the causes of recent major foodborne illness outbreaks. Below is a link to and text of an "action alert" from The Cornucopia Institute:
Senate Bill 510: FDA Food Safety Modernization Act
Tell the Senate committee not to threaten quality organic and local food production.
Act now! Contact your senator before November 18.
Our food safety system is broken. Industrialized food production gives rise to serious food safety problems, and our government's ability to regulate corporate agribusiness must be strengthened -- without harming small-scale and organic family farmers.
Bills in Congress propose to give more authority to the Food and Drug Administration to regulate for food safety, inspect food processing facilities, and order mandatory recalls. The House passed its own food safety bill in July. The Senate's bill is in committee and scheduled for a mark-up (committee vote) this coming Wednesday, November 18.
Allowing the FDA to crack down on corporate food producers that threaten our citizenry's health is a step in the right direction -- as long as legislation contains protections for small-scale, organic and local food systems. Small farms could be forced out of business by increasing costs for record-keeping, testing and other measures they will not be able to comply with. These are our country's safest farms -- part of the solution, not part of the problem!
Now is the time to contact Senate committee members [neither of California's Senators serve on this committee] that will make changes to the bill on November 18. Our message is: Senate Bill 510 must contain protections for small-scale and organic family farms.
Messages for Committee Members:
1. Regulate farms and food processors based on risk -- with organic and local systems as the lowest-risk.
While no farm and processing plant can be completely safe and completely eliminate food safety risks, different production systems carry different levels of risk. Small and medium-sized organic farms are low-risk farms from a food safety point of view, and local food systems are low-risk systems. This fact speaks to a risk-based regulatory approach, particularly given limited federal dollars available for system-wide regulation and the need to prudently target the use of those funds.
Organic farms are already controlling pathogens and improving food safety in various ways that conventional, industrial-scale farms do not. Specifically, food safety regulation for organic and small-scale producers should focus on education and training, not one-size-fits-all food safety standards.
2. Protect organic farmers from conflicting food safety regulations.
Tell your Senator to ensure that the bill directs the FDA to integrate any food safety standards with the existing federal organic standards. No farmer should be forced to choose between organic certification and food safety rules, and the two should be streamlined to avoid unnecessary additional burdens and incompatibilities.
3. Protect wildlife, biodiversity and habitat from misguided food safety regulation.
Likewise, the food safety bill should ensure that FDA food safety standards do not conflict with existing federal conservation, environmental and wildlife standards. Farmers should be encouraged to adopt conservation practices on their farms -- in fact, many conservation practices such as vegetated buffer zones and wetland preservation have been shown to reduce the presence of foodborne pathogens on farms.
Here is a link to another "action alert," from the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, urging defeat of S.510.
Here are some links (from summer) you can use to learn more:
Food Safety — Different views of the world (Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association)
Food Safety Enhancement Act Should Support and Strengthen Local Food Systems, NCGA Advocates (National Cooperative Grocers Association)