Late last month, a varied group of writers, scholars, and labor activists gathered in Portland for a panel discussion on labor, food, and immigration policy. Among the panelists were Larry Kleinman, Secretary-Treasurer for PCUN; Mary Mendez, Deputy Director of Enlace; and Paul Apostolidis and Aaron Bobrow-Strain, both authors and professors at Whitman College. While the [...]

Read more

Photo: Adelante Mujeres
This week, The Oregonian ran a short article about an exciting pilot program taking off in Forest Grove. The new program - which is run by the Hispanic women’s development group Adelante Mujeres -  provides and farm land and training to Latinos who’d like to practice organic agriculture. While Latinos make up an [...]

Read more

Photo shared under a Creative Commons license by cafemama
James McWilliams, food movement skeptic and author of the new book, Just Food: Where Locavores Get it Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly, recently took his argument to the New York Times, where he blogged about his feeling that local eating might be elitist. In [...]

Read more

Bar Tender | San Antonio, TX | 1-Person Household | Goes to sleep at 8AM and wakes up at 4PM daily. | 2008
This Wednesday, join Slow Food Portland and Ampersand Vintage Gallery for the first of our upcoming food-and-art events. Photographer Mark Menjivar has traveled across America, taking pictures of the insides of people’s [...]

Read more

In last week’s Oregonian FOODday section, writer Leslie Cole ran an even-handed article entitled, “Which price is right?” The piece ran a simple price comparison between the same set of groceries purchased from a farmer’s market, through a CSA, at the progressive Portland-area grocer New Seasons, and at the employee-owned discount chain Costco. Her results? [...]

Read more

If you weren’t able to catch the sneak preview screening of Food, Inc. in late April, now is your chance to see the film and to make your ticket price work towards real, local change! On Tuesday, June 23 at 7:00 pm, Cinema 21 will host a special “pack the theater” fundraiser for Slow Food [...]

Read more

Recently, as I’ve been searching for soil and amendments for planter pots, I’ve heard a similar refrain from feed stores and garden centers: we just ran out. More people, it seems, are starting home gardens this season than any other year in recent memory. Perhaps it’s the economy. Perhaps it’s the Obama’s influence. Whatever the [...]

Read more

Ricky Hass, one of the Slow Food Portland coordinators of the recent Farmworker Housing Development Corporation tour, recently wrote about his experience for Culinate.com. His account hits right at the difficult question that remains after witnessing present-day farmworker conditions: where do we go from here? He writes,
“Many of us know that the ways in which [...]

Read more

Everyone has their own reasons for choosing a good, clean, and fair diet; worker’s rights, morality, ethics, health concerns, local economies, taste, and traditions are all among the commonly-invoked refrains. One motivation that doesn’t get much attention, however, is religion. And yet, it’s not a new phenomenon to find religious imperatives behind agriculture or eating. [...]

Read more

After only his first month in the Obama administration, newly-appointed Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack delivered some unexpected words before a group from the Federation of Southern Cooperatives (FSC) and the Land Assistance Fund:
“Some folks refer to USDA as the last plantation, and it has a pretty poor history of taking care of people of [...]

Read more