Over the past two years, we’ve tried to keep you up-to-date on the Urban and Rural Reserves process for the Metro region, which will determine how rural lands are protected at the edges of our Urban Growth Boundary. As the final votes on Washington County Reserves quickly approach, we share this message from our partners [...]

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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 [...]

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Peanuts. Pistachios. Popcorn seasoning. Cookie Dough. Greens. Beef. Beef. Beef. Wide-scale outbreaks of foodborne illness of slammed our country this year, leaving legislators scrambling to come up with an appropriate response. Over the last month or so, we’ve begun to see the first steps towards new regulations and laws, but real change has yet to [...]

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Today, Slow Food USA launches it’s first-ever national policy campaign for school lunch reform. With chapters across the country, we will join together to declare that it’s Time for Lunch, and time for our country to prioritize the overhaul of the Childhood Nutrition Act. Revitalized legislation will address low-income food insecurity and childhood obesity, but [...]

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Not to be outdone by her husband’s remarks to the American Medical Association, the First Lady held her very own press conference from the White House Kitchen Garden, just a few days after the President spoke about the connection between healthy eating and healthcare. Her speech - ostensibly a thank-you-and-stick-with-it message to the Bancroft students [...]

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Just prior to last year’s presidential elections, Michael Pollan penned his now-famous open letter to the next President or, as Pollan would have it, our next “Farmer in Chief.” In the letter, Pollan neatly laid out the interconnectedness of food issues with all of the key campaign topics of the major candidates. He wrote:
[This] brings [...]

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Guest post by Katherine Deumling, Slow Food Regional Governor for Oregon and a member of the Slow Food USA Board of Directors
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What is at stake in this year’s critical, long-term planning for urban and rural space in our tri-county region?

Yesterday, I testified on behalf of Slow Food Portland before the Reserves Steering Committee at Metro. [...]

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This urgent call-to-action comes from Deborah Kane and our partners at Ecotrust Food & Farms
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There is a bill pending in the Oregon legislature that would make is possible for us to get better food into public schools across the state - HB 2800. You can read all about the bill and on-going advocacy efforts here: [...]

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Image courtesy of Flickr user GeoFX
After watching last night’s preview screening of Food, Inc, the pressing question from those in attendance was, “How can we affect policy change that will help small farmers?” In response, Steve Cohen, of Portland’s Food Policy Council, implored the audience to get involved in setting the city’s urban growth boundary. [...]

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If you follow along with updates from COMFOOD or any similar food policy listservs, you’ve probably been understandably shocked to find an email in your inbox screaming: “OUTLAW ORGANIC FARMING!”  The panicky claims have been so widespread as to earn them an entry on the Snopes rumor database. HR 875 - the bill in question [...]

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