Report on Agriculture in Hudson Valley

From the Columbia Urban Design Lab, on NYC regional agriculture

Glynwood Center new report: The State of Agriculture in the Hudson Valley Region
The UDL mapped and analyzed land-use and agricultural parcel distribution in the Hudson Valley Region for a report released recently by the Glynwood Center, a longtime partner of the Urban Design Lab.  This work is part of the UDL focus on agriculture and food systems in the New York City Region and their relationship to urbanization, environmental protection and restoration. Read the report The State of Agriculture in the Hudson Valley Region

The One Percent Actually Benefits from Tax Increases on the Wealthy

By Jay Walljasper

Here is some straight talk about the need for increasing taxes on the wealthy from the great-grandson of Oscar Meyer (yes, that Oscar Meyer), who admits he was born into the one percent.

On the Commons Fellow Chuck Collins—Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and director of the IPS program on Inequality and the Common Good—offers compelling reasons, spiced with humor and common sense, on why it’s good for 100 percent of us to raise taxes for the most fortunate Americans. He vividly describes how wealthy entrepreneurs and investors benefit from a host of public services paid for by tax dollars, in other words the commons.

See the video of his talk at the TEDx conference at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Meet the Movement for a New Economy by Gar Alperovitz

Meet the Movement for a New Economy by Gar Alperovitz

good essay on need for "new economy"

The idea that we need a “new economy”—that the entire economic system must be radically restructured if critical social and environmental goals are to be met—runs directly counter to the American creed that capitalism as we know it is the best, and only possible, option. Over the past few decades, however, a deepening sense of the profound ecological challenges facing the planet and growing despair at the inability of traditional politics to address economic failings have fueled an extraordinary amount of experimentation by activists, economists and socially minded business leaders. Most of the projects, ideas and research efforts have gained traction slowly and with little notice. But in the wake of the financial crisis, they have proliferated and earned a surprising amount of support—and not only among the usual suspects on the left. As the threat of a global climate crisis grows increasingly dire and the nation sinks deeper into an economic slump for which conventional wisdom offers no adequate remedies, more and more Americans are coming to realize that it is time to begin defining, demanding and organizing to build a new-economy movement.

SUNY New Paltz Sets Local Food on Plates

i have heard that Metropolitan at BC is purchsing food from Long Island farms, wonder how much etc.  mm

As with many institutions, feeding a population of thousands of customers is a big production, often requiring the dining service to be run and supplied by large corporations. How can an institution integrate local and organic food when so much of the food is tied to a wholesaler that is not necessarily connected to local farms, and is likely more concerned with quantity and price than with quality and sustainability? SUNY New Paltz’s story involves many different constituents: farmers, students, staff, corporate-run dining service representatives, the USDA, and more. In a collaborative effort, fueled by persistence, the stakeholders worked to bring more local food to the tables of SUNY New Paltz’s dining halls.

How It All Began

SUNY New Paltz’s Environmental Task Force was convened in 2005 under the leadership of long time Environmental Consortium member and professor of sociology, Brian Obach. Along with several colleagues and students, the Task Force brings together many constituents from campus to address environmental concerns. Members of Students for Sustainable Agriculture, as well as the New Paltz Recycling Club, overlap with the Task Force members, creating a wealth of connections and synergies that make the interest and pursuit of sustainable measures possible at New Paltz.

New Paltz students Marigo Farr, Katy Kondrat, and John Wilson co-founded Students for Sustainable Agriculture that same year with a mission to promote a sustainable food system that is healthy for consumers, farm-workers, and the environment. The group has worked tirelessly ever since to bring changes to their campus. Co-founder Marigo Farr remarks, "After approximately 5 years of educating the campus, rounding up support from the student body for a change in food policy, and numerous meetings with Campus Auxiliary Services and Sodexo Corporation, Sodexo approved a new vendor that was capable of providing the university with local food.."