Farmers

Amelia’s Magazine | Fair Trade Fortnight

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Clear your calendars for the next few weeks, abortion about it because the good people at Fair Trade have put together a fortnight that you wont want to miss. In fact, diagnosis I would go one step further and say that you need to be there. The ethics of Fair Trade are never more pertinent than in this current economic climate. While we are all feeling the pinch, pilule there are two billion people – a third of the planets inhabitants who are surviving on less than $2 a day. And while we have all noticed (and complained) that the price of our cupboard staples are going up in our local supermarket, there are farmers on the other side of the world producing these essentials who are being squeezed out of the market and struggling to stay afloat. Fair Trade is aiming to change this, and is constantly working to tip the balance of trade in favour of poor producers.

fairtradebananas-1final.jpg

The aim is to galvanise everyone – from every age and back round – into action. So for the next few weeks, Fair Trade will be everywhere; town halls, markets stands, cinemas, schools and universities all around Britain. And a lot of it is going to be fun! Seriously, this s*** is bananas (there is a little bit of a banana theme to the Fair Trade activities). How often to you get to have bananas in sandwiches, cake and even deep-fried for afternoon tea? Well, Fair Trade are providing this for you in London’s Lancaster Hotel on March 6th and 7th. (Check www.fairtrade.org.uk and venue details for more information)

fairtrade%20school%20kids%20artfinal.jpg

It is worth noting that Whole Foods are playing host to many of the talks and activites that Fair Trade have organized. This is an interesting choice given that this large scale organic market is an organization that has divided opinion since it came to Britain, and has weathered much criticism over its brand and size. On Wednesday 25th February, Fair Trade and Whole Foods will be screening Black Gold at their Kensington Branch.

black%20gold%20largestfinal.jpg

The documentary was made by Nick Francis, and guarantees that you will never look at your latte or cappuccino in the same way again. There will also be a Q&A session with the director afterwoods. The tickets cost £5.00 and you can be reassured to know that the money will go to the Farmers Cooperative in Ethiopia. (Film screening starts at 7.00pm) Contact tastefair@cafedirect.co.uk for more details.

A key event for budding businessmen/women takes place on Thursday 5th March at the Museum of London Docklands. If you have ever wanted to set up your own social enterprise then this workshop could be invaluable . It will work in the format of a training day with the onus on how to use an active global citizenship framework. There will be plenty of businesses, co-ops and corporations present to network with as well. Contact www.museumindocklands.org.uk for further details.

There is just too many events to list here, so remember to check out all the Fair Trade fortnight details at www.fairtrade.org.uk. Here you will find all the venue details and information about all of the activities and events planned. The next few weeks promise to be informative, enjoyable and educational – we simply can’t afford to miss it.

Written by Cari Steel on Wednesday February 25th, 2009 12:02 pm

Categories ,Black Gold, ,Earth, ,Fairtrade, ,Farmers, ,Nick Francis

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Amelia’s Magazine | ‘Local Food’: Rob Hopkins returns

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Cat Morley

If you had asked me in high school what I wanted to be when I was older, prescription I wouldn’t have been able to give you a straight answer. Today, prescription I’m 24, no rx living in London (my favourite city in the whole wide world) and somehow I’ve ended up with my dream job.

While I was at university in Scotland, I started a blog called Cut Out + keep where I would post tutorials for the crafts I was making. After posting over 250 projects, the site had become really popular, so with the help of my web designer boyfriend Tom, we turned the site in to a community where everyone could make and share step-by-step tutorials.  By the time I graduated, CO+K had become a full-time job and today, the site hosts over 15,000 projects for making every imaginable type of craft – cooking, sewing, paper craft, jewelery, fashion… you name it! Every morning I wake up to discover all the amazing new projects that have been added over night and I’m still amazed by how unique and creative they are.

I have always love being crafty and creative. When I was young, I used to help my Mum sew my Halloween costumes and loved cooking up a storm in the kitchen and feeding my family. When I went to university, I studied computer art and got really in to film making. I also started working as a journalist and photographer for a couple of music magazines. When I started CO+K, I wanted to combine all of my passions, so with the help of a bunch of super creative writers I had found online, we started Snippets, an online entertainment magazine to accompany the site. Snippets has allowed me to meet some amazing people and interview my heros, including bands like Placebo, Chicks On Speed and Ladytron, comedians Adam & Joe, and even my favourite comic book character, Emily Strange.

Our members tend to be young, hip and love to show off their individual style. We get a lot of tutorials for revamping and customising clothes, making personalised gifts and recycling and re purposing junk and unwanted items. The most popular projects have been a recipe for baking rainbow coloured cupcakes , turning a jumper in to a skirt , a tutorial for sewing a guitar shaped bag and melting a vinyl record in to a bowl. The nice thing about the site is there is a project that everyone can make, from really complex sculpting to simply applying homemade designs to t-shirts, shoes and accessories to personalise their wardrobe. We also have a section called Crafty Superstars, where creative celebrities and the big names of craft share some of their expert projects.

I really love living in London, it’s so vibrant and exciting and there’s always something going on. I like to hunt through the event listings in Time Out and head to all the free events. I also love walking and seeing where I end up and what new places I discover. I live in Maida Vale, which is so pretty with the canal running through it and there’s lots of good brunch spots (check out Plan 9 – an American run cafe that does tasty pancakes on a Tuesday). I also love hanging out in Soho, the South Bank and shopping in Camden and Brick Lane.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what 2010 will bring for the site – hopefully thousands of amazing projects, interviews with exciting celebrities and maybe a couple of adventures overseas. I have never been or wanted to be a businesswoman and never thought that I would end up working for myself. I would encourage anyone and everyone to peruse their dream job, because if I can do it anyone can!

What Cat likes:

Art: There’s an amazing Parisian artist called Nathalie Lecroc who is painting women handbags and their contents. She plans to paint 1001 and then publish a book of them all.

Music: Bright Eyes, Ben Kweller, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Martha Wainwright and the Manic Street Preachers.

Blog: 1000 Awesome Things

Website: Stumbleupon.com – it leads to so many wonderful finds (I have mine set to show crafts and recipes).

Shop: Muiji – it always has such awesome stuff and it has made me really organised.

Food: Sushi.

Drink: Absinthe, root beer or alcoholic hazelnut milkshakes.

Papers or printed magazines: Bust, Venus & Amelia’s Magazine of course.

What I would like for Christmas is: A Vivienne Westwood tiara, which is a pair of horns encrusted with crystals.
If you had asked me in high school what I wanted to be when I was older, side effects I wouldn’t have been able to give you a straight answer. Today, medicine I’m 24, more about living in London (my favourite city in the whole wide world) and somehow I’ve ended up with my dream job.

While I was at university in Scotland, I started a blog called Cut Out + keep where I would post tutorials for the crafts I was making. After posting over 250 projects, the site had become really popular, so with the help of my webdesigner boyfriend Tom, we turned the site in to a community where everyone could make and share step-by-step tutorials.  By the time I graduated, CO+K had become a full-time job and today, the site hosts over 15,000 projects for making every imaginable type of craft – cooking, sewing, papercraft, jewellery, fashion… you name it! Every morning I wake up to discover all the amazing new projects that have been added over night and I’m still amazed by how unique and creative they are.

I have always love being crafty and creative. When I was young, I used to help my Mum sew my Halloween costumes and loved cooking up a storm in the kitchen and feeding my family. When I went to university, I studied computer art and got really in to filmmaking. I also started working as a journalist and photographer for a couple of music magazines. When I started CO+K, I wanted to combine all of my passions, so with the help of a bunch of super creative writers I had found online, we started Snippets, an online entertainment magazine to accompany the site. Snippets has allowed me to meet some amazing people and interview my heros, including bands like Placebo, Chicks On Speed and Ladytron, comedians Adam & Joe, and even my favourite comic book character, Emily Strange.

Our members tend to be young, hip and love to show off their individual style. We get a lot of tutorials for revamping and customising clothes, making personalised gifts and recycling and repurposing junk and unwanted items. The most popular projects have been a recipe for baking rainbow coloured cupcakes (http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/rainbow_cupcakes), turning a jumper in to a skirt (http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/jumper_skirt_out_of_a_tshirt), a tutorial for sewing a guitar shaped bag (http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/guitar_shaped_bag_2) and melting a vinyl record in to a bowl (http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/vinyl_record_bowl). The nice thing about the site is there is a project that everyone can make, from really complex sculpting to simply applying homemade designs to t-shirts, shoes and accessories to personalise their wardrobe. We also have a section called Crafty Superstars, where creative celebrities and the big names of craft share some of their expert projects.

I really love living in London, it’s so vibrant and exciting and there’s always something going on. I like to hunt through the event listings in Time Out and head to all the free events. I also love walking and seeing where I end up and what new places I discover. I live in Maida Vale, which is so pretty with the canal running through it and there’s lots of good brunch spots (check out Plan 9 – an American run cafe that does tasty pancakes on a Tuesday). I also love hanging out in Soho, the South Bank and shopping in Camden and Brick Lane.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what 2010 will bring for the site – hopefully thousands of amazing projects, interviews with exciting celebrities and maybe a couple of adventures overseas. I have never been or wanted to be a businesswoman and never thought that I would end up working for myself. I would encourage anyone and everyone to peruse their dream job, because if I can do it anyone can!

Art: There’s an amazing Parisian artist called Nathalie Lecroc who is painting women’s handbags and their contents. She plans to paint 1001 and then publish a book of them all.

Music: Bright Eyes, Ben Kweller, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Martha Wainwright and the Manic Street Preachers.

Blog: 1000 Awesome Things – http://1000awesomethings.com

Website: Stumbleupon.com – it leads to so many wonderful finds (I have mine set to show crafts and recipes).

Shop: Muiji – it always has such awesome stuff and it has made me really organised.

Food: Sushi.

Drink: Absinthe, root beer or alcoholic hazelnut milkshakes.

Papers or printed magazines: Bust, Venus & Amelia’s Magazine of course.

What I would like for Christmas is: A Vivienne Westwood tiara, which is a pair of horns encrusted with crystals.
Rob-Hopkins
Illustration courtesy of Valerie Pezeron

Nothing satiates a foodie quite like the first forkful of their best-loved grub, treat but reading about it comes close. For those gastronomes who believe that food’s role reaches far beyond basically fuelling our existence – that it’s integral to community bonds, economies of every scale and our relationships with our environment, as well as our physical wellbeing – the new book from Tamzin Pinkerton and Rob Hopkins (yes, he of Transition Culture fame) will have you salivating over the nosh-related possibilities that a little ambition, curiosity and organisation can create close to home.‘Local Food: How to Make it Happen in Your Community’ (Transition Books) shadows Hopkins’ inspiring ‘Transition Handbook’, training the spotlight on the integral subject of our food and what we can do to go back to the literal roots of the good life – and stay there. While written against the unnerving but inescapable global backdrop of peak oil, food security and climate change crises, ‘Local Food’ incites excitement about the potential of a carefully considered future, both long and short term, rather than fear of a hopeless one. With the onus on the ‘local’ part of its title, the book encourages a proactive, fun approach to sustainability by profiling a huge and diverse range of CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) initiatives based all over the world.

 

LOCAL_FOOD_cover 
Image courtesy of Transition Culture

“The kind of community engagement facilitated by CSAs generates and harnesses passionate enthusiasm among the people who participate in it,” write Pinkerton and Hopkins, “and this is due, in no small part, to the sheer thrill that comes from being able to shape and engage with the food system that feeds us.” From legitimate legume growers to dig-by-night guerrilla gardeners, the teams and organisations featured in ‘Local Food’ not only explain their motivations for picking up tools, but reveal the thrills, difficulties, surprises and benefits that they have faced since they did.

 Hopkinspic
Image courtesy of Stephen Prior

Unsurprisingly, the majority of these people are driven by a passion for good food, and a respect for and desire to greater understand the environment that provides it. However deeply they’re involved in the food production within their community – be it founding community gardens or filling their fridges with farmers’ market fodder – the individuals highlighted in ‘Local Food’ prove how attainable a sustainable lifestyle is, whether you want to get muddy or not. And, if you do want to have direct involvement in and influence over what ends up on your plate, there’s even a contacts section to introduce you to your nearest initiatives. As the authors put so succinctly, “We can have our affordable, local, organic cake, and eat it too”.

Written by Amy Hughes on Tuesday December 1st, 2009 1:38 pm

Categories ,books, ,community, ,CSA, ,farmers, ,Food, ,Rob Hopkins, ,Tamzin Pinkerton

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Amelia’s Magazine | Dairy Milk Gets A Conscience

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In case you missed it, healing visit web everyones favourite nostalgic treat – Cadbury’s Dairy Milk – is moving with the times and going Fairtrade. Last week, cost Cadbury’s announced that from the end of Summer 2009, nurse it will receive Fairtrade certification, a move which will triple the amount of Fairtrade cocoa sold in Ghana (where Cadbury sources its cacao beans). Cadbury’s believes that this will also open up new opportunities for farmers to benefit from the Fairtrade system. It is a worthy – and savvy- move for a food item which, at least in my mind, is so rooted in the past. In recent years the general public have moved away from the old-school confectionaries and embraced the more ethically produced chocolates; Green and Blacks, Fairtrade’s own Divine chocolate to name a few. While Dairy Milk always maintained a strong foothold in the market – with 300 million bars sold annually in Britain and Ireland – Cadbury’s clearly see that the current zeitgeist is ethical, ethical, ethical and wants a piece of this pie too.

dairy%20milkresized.jpg

Am I a dissenting voice here? Is it bad form to rise a cynical eyebrow over what appears to be a good deed? At the end of the day, whether this is a PR exercise or not becomes irrelevant because there are thousands of farmers who will be better off regardless of Cadbury’s motivations. Still, while the response has been generally warm, some issues have been raised. The publics general idea of a Fairtrade business is a co-operation or small business – which Cadbury certainly is not. And while we would be forgiven for thinking that when an food item is bestowed the coveted Fairtrade status, it must be 100% Fairtrade. Not quite. Especially when it comes to something with as many ingredients as a choccie bar.

farmer%20resized.jpg

The key components of a humble square of chocolate are cocoa beans, sugar and milk. So the cacao is covered, what about the other ingredients? Wanting to do a bit of journalistic digging, I went onto Cadbury’s blog and was reassured to see that the general public remain an inquisitive and suspicious bunch. There were enough people asking about the origins of the other ingredients to warrant a response from Cadbury’s PR in the form of a written explanation and a live web Q+A. So here’s facts. The sugar is also Fairtrade certified, but the milk is not. The milk comes from British farmers, who Cadbury’s are keen to continue a relationship with. So there is a little bit of a percentage issue arising here. Barbara Crowther from Fairtrade defended this slightly tricky situation, saying

“For ingredients like cocoa and sugar which primarily grow in developing countries, our rules say that anything that can be Fairtrade, should be – 100%. Also, if a product (like chocolate or cakes) has lots of different ingredients, there must be at least one that makes up 20% of the product. Ideally, the total combination should be 50% or more (this isn’t always possible if only one ingredient can be Fairtrade. Otherwise we agree, there’s not enough Fairtrade content there to justify the FAIRTRADE Mark.”

So there you have it; some might say that Cadbury have slipped through the net with this one. The concept of what constitutes a product being Fairtrade was always fixed in my mind; perhaps I need to adapt my pre-conceived notions a touch. Still, once it gets its certification, I look forward to picking up a Dairy Milk for old times sake.

Written by Cari Steel on Wednesday March 11th, 2009 5:25 pm

Categories ,Chocolate, ,Dairy Milk, ,Fairtrade, ,Farmers, ,Ghana

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Amelia’s Magazine | Dairy Milk Gets A Conscience

by

In case you missed it, healing visit web everyones favourite nostalgic treat – Cadbury’s Dairy Milk – is moving with the times and going Fairtrade. Last week, cost Cadbury’s announced that from the end of Summer 2009, nurse it will receive Fairtrade certification, a move which will triple the amount of Fairtrade cocoa sold in Ghana (where Cadbury sources its cacao beans). Cadbury’s believes that this will also open up new opportunities for farmers to benefit from the Fairtrade system. It is a worthy – and savvy- move for a food item which, at least in my mind, is so rooted in the past. In recent years the general public have moved away from the old-school confectionaries and embraced the more ethically produced chocolates; Green and Blacks, Fairtrade’s own Divine chocolate to name a few. While Dairy Milk always maintained a strong foothold in the market – with 300 million bars sold annually in Britain and Ireland – Cadbury’s clearly see that the current zeitgeist is ethical, ethical, ethical and wants a piece of this pie too.

dairy%20milkresized.jpg

Am I a dissenting voice here? Is it bad form to rise a cynical eyebrow over what appears to be a good deed? At the end of the day, whether this is a PR exercise or not becomes irrelevant because there are thousands of farmers who will be better off regardless of Cadbury’s motivations. Still, while the response has been generally warm, some issues have been raised. The publics general idea of a Fairtrade business is a co-operation or small business – which Cadbury certainly is not. And while we would be forgiven for thinking that when an food item is bestowed the coveted Fairtrade status, it must be 100% Fairtrade. Not quite. Especially when it comes to something with as many ingredients as a choccie bar.

farmer%20resized.jpg

The key components of a humble square of chocolate are cocoa beans, sugar and milk. So the cacao is covered, what about the other ingredients? Wanting to do a bit of journalistic digging, I went onto Cadbury’s blog and was reassured to see that the general public remain an inquisitive and suspicious bunch. There were enough people asking about the origins of the other ingredients to warrant a response from Cadbury’s PR in the form of a written explanation and a live web Q+A. So here’s facts. The sugar is also Fairtrade certified, but the milk is not. The milk comes from British farmers, who Cadbury’s are keen to continue a relationship with. So there is a little bit of a percentage issue arising here. Barbara Crowther from Fairtrade defended this slightly tricky situation, saying

“For ingredients like cocoa and sugar which primarily grow in developing countries, our rules say that anything that can be Fairtrade, should be – 100%. Also, if a product (like chocolate or cakes) has lots of different ingredients, there must be at least one that makes up 20% of the product. Ideally, the total combination should be 50% or more (this isn’t always possible if only one ingredient can be Fairtrade. Otherwise we agree, there’s not enough Fairtrade content there to justify the FAIRTRADE Mark.”

So there you have it; some might say that Cadbury have slipped through the net with this one. The concept of what constitutes a product being Fairtrade was always fixed in my mind; perhaps I need to adapt my pre-conceived notions a touch. Still, once it gets its certification, I look forward to picking up a Dairy Milk for old times sake.

Written by Cari Steel on Wednesday March 11th, 2009 5:25 pm

Categories ,Chocolate, ,Dairy Milk, ,Fairtrade, ,Farmers, ,Ghana

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