WEEKLY GLEANING 12/16

Two recent pieces of interest from Savage Minds: (1) Kristina Lyons explores the productive frictions that emerge when STS and multi-species ethnography (including her own work on soil practices in Colombia) interface with decolonial approaches, and (2) Sally Applin reflects on supermarket sociality in light of Amazon’s new grocery stores.

In the world of plant breeding, open source principles inspired by Jack Kloppenberg and the Open Source Seed Initiative are also finding traction in Europe. A working group associated with Agrecol and GFAR has recently published an open source license in a working paper that can be downloaded here. Also, support is building for a moratorium on gene drives at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity this week in Cancun, Mexico.

The USDA has announced new Farmer Fair Practices Rules. Check out some analysis from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, who seem hopeful that the new rules will bring changes to the much maligned ‘tournament’ system.

From the Kid’s Safe and Healthful Foods Project comes a quite comprehensive report on the implementation and impact of 2010’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Download the report here.

Three post-election reverberations: (1) CUNY’s Urban Food Policy Institute has assembled a set of priorities for New York City food justice advocates in the ‘Trump Age’, (2) Kay McDonald at Big Picture Agriculture takes on ‘fake news’ blaming cattle for increases in methane emissions, and (3) US-China relations take a bizarre turn as plans go forth to construct a Sino American Friendship Model Farm in China, modeled on a farm in Musctatine, Iowa that President Xi Jinping visited in 2012. Chinese officials are also considering to ‘recreate a Midwestern community’ as a tourist area.