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Food

Democracy Now! stories, posts and pages that relate to Food

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  • Oxfam

    Behind the Brands: On Food Justice, Oxfam Gives Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, Nestlé & Pepsi Failing Grades

    Oxfam has released a comprehensive report that measures how the world’s 10 largest food companies perform on food justice issues. No company emerges with passing grades. The 10 companies Oxfam scores are Associated British Foods, Coca-Cola, Danone, General Mills, Kellogg, Mars, Mondelez, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever. Collectively, these companies make $1 billion a day. Oxfam based its report on seven criteria: small-scale farmers, farm...
    Feb 27, 2013 | Story
  • Soybean

    Bowman v. Monsanto: Indiana Farmer's Supreme Court Challenge to Corporate Control of Food Supply

    A David-versus-Goliath case heard by the Supreme Court this week pits a 75-year-old farmer from Indiana against Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company. The dispute began when soybean farmer Vernon Bowman bought and planted a mix of unmarked grain typically used for animal feed. The plants that grew turned out to contain the popular herbicide-resistant genetic trait known as Roundup Ready that Monsanto guards closely with patents. Monsanto...
    Feb 21, 2013 | Story
  • Fastfoodworkers

    Hundreds of Fast-Food Workers Strike for Living Wage, Inspired by Wal-Mart Strike

    Fast-food workers walked off the job in New York City Thursday to hold a series of rallies and picket lines in what has been called the largest series of worker actions ever to hit the country’s fast-food industry. Hundreds of workers at dozens of restaurants owned by McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and others went on strike and rallied in a bid for fair pay and union recognition. Organizers with the Fast Food Forward campaign are...
    Nov 30, 2012 | Story
  • Amys_column_default

    California’s Food Fight: To Label or Not to Label GMOs

    Of the 11 initiatives before the 2012 California electorate, one drawing perhaps the most attention is Proposition 37, on the labeling of food containing genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Whether or not this ballot passes could have a significant impact on how our food system is organized, favoring small, local organic-food producers (if it passes), or allowing for the increased expansion of large, corporate agribusiness (if it fails).
    Oct 25, 2012 | Columns & Articles
  • Prop_37_yes_no

    Food Fight: Debating Prop 37, California's Landmark Initiative to Label GMO Food

    On Election Day, California voters will decide on Proposition 37, which would make their state the first in the nation to require the labeling of food products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The California Department of Public Health would be responsible for labeling everything from baby formula and instant coffee, to granola, canned soups and soy milk. Many major corporations, including Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Pepsi and Coke,...
    Oct 24, 2012 | Story
  • Prop_37_protests

    Michael Pollan: California's Prop 37 Fight to Label GMOs Could Galvanize Growing U.S. Food Movement

    As California voters prepare to vote on whether to label GMOs in food, we go to Berkeley to discuss Prop 37 and its implications for the broader food system with journalist and best-selling author Michael Pollan. Among the nation’s leading writers and thinkers on food and food policy, Pollan is the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Journalism. He’s written...
    Oct 24, 2012 | Story
  • Michael_pollen1

    Michael Pollan: From GMOs to NYC's Soda Ban, Local Efforts Challenge Agri-Giants' National Control

    From California’s Proposition 37 initiative to New York City’s soda ban, journalist and best-selling author Michael Pollan argues that local efforts hold the key to challenging the agricultural industry’s stranglehold over national food policy. With companies like Monsanto influencing Congress and state legislatures, Pollan warns the United States risks falling into a "two-class food system," where only those who can...
    Oct 24, 2012 | Story
  • Button-g8

    Occupy G8: Peoples' Summit Confronts World Leaders at Camp David, Urging Action on Poverty, Hunger

    World leaders are convening at the heavily guarded Camp David in Maryland today for the G8 summit. Leading nonprofits such as Save the Children and Oxfam are urging G8 leaders to live up to a 2009 pledge of $22 billion towards food security in developing nations of which only a quarter has been met. Activists are also urging G8 leaders to build on their previous commitments and partner with developing countries to urgently tackle hunger. We’re...
    May 18, 2012 | Story
  • Raj-patel

    Raj Patel: In Attacks on Obama, Food Stamps, Newt Gingrich is "Racially Coding Poverty"

    The new documentary "Finding North" premiering here at the Sundance Film Festival exposes how one in every four American children suffers from hunger, despite living in the wealthiest nation in the world, and nearly 30 percent of American families, more than 49 million people, often go without meals. While Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich decries President Obama as "the food stamp president," author Raj Patel...
    Jan 23, 2012 | Story
  • Cargill_turkey_button

    Cargill Meat Recall Heightens Fears Budgets Cuts Will Weaken Oversight, Threaten Public Health

    In one of the largest meat recalls in U.S. history, this week the food giant Cargill ordered the recall of 36 million pounds of ground turkey. The recall came after at least one person died from Salmonella, and another 76 people fell ill, from turkey products traced to Cargill’s processing plant in Springdale, Arkansas. According to the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Salmonella outbreak involves a strain of the bacteria...
    Aug 05, 2011 | Story