Slow Food® Utah

TAKE ACTION !

Suggestions on how you CAN individually make a difference!

SECTIONS:  Slow Food  |  Other Organizations

Slow Food Take Action! Suggestions.

• In the now current Take Action! — Read about Genetically Modified Foods in "On Food, Big Business Continues to Lower the Standard."  Then, decide what action you want to take. You can make a difference.

   

  Take Action on the Farm Bill!  "You may have heard the buzz lately about the upcoming reauthorization of the Farm Bill—the nation’s most important food and farming policy.  As an organization, we advocate for a food system that is good, clean, and fair, and we hope that you, our 14,000 voices, can get that message across to our government!  Slow Food USA has signed onto "Seeking Balance in US Farm and Food Policy," published and distributed by the Farm and Food Project, a W.K. Kellogg Foundation initiative.  "Seeking Balance" is a statement of values and principles that encourage more balanced food and farm policies, including:

• Increasing opportunities for new and beginning farmers,
• Expanding new agricultural markets and value-added enterprises,
• Encouraging local food production and access to healthy food choices,
• Promoting entrepreneurship and economic development in rural communities;
• Providing incentives for more environmentally-friendly farming systems;
• Providing increased support for socially disadvantaged farmers and farmworkers.
• Slow Food USA believes that our government’s policies on the farm and food system can be improved to address critical issues. What can you do to make your voice heard about food and farm issues in the U.S.? Here are a few ideas:
• Write your local representative! Sample Letter
• Review Slow Food USA’s Plan of Action on the Farm Bill.
• Learn more about the Farm Bill by checking out Slow Food USA’s List of Resources.
• Read "Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to a Food and Farm Bill" by Dan Imhoff, Foreword by Michael Pollan. A new book that explains the importance of the Farm Bill. Slow Food members will receive a 20% discount Food Fight.
• And don’t forget: policy and legislation aren’t the only places to make a difference. When you make choices as a consumer–such as buying what the USDA calls "specialty crops," like carrots and broccoli from your local farmer— you are also effecting change!

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  The Slow Food USA Take Action! issue is updated regularly.

  Take Action! includes an Archive of Take Action Links that you can refer to for past Take Action! items, from which a variety of ideas are possible upon which you may take your own action.

• Suggestions from Slow Food Utah on how YOU Can Take Action and make a difference.

   

• Explore the various issues, become informed. Gather information. (Information, and knowledge, are powerful resources.) Take the information you gather and turn it into knowledge. Use your knowledge to make informed choices. Discuss and share information and knowledge with others. Ask questions. Seek answers. the powers that be want you to feel powerless. Don’t give them that. Take your power and work it. Over time, you CAN make a positive difference!

   

• The Slow Food Utah Website is a good place to start. It is chock–full of books, movies, organizational resources and other information that you may use to explore what issues there are involving food. (There is much more to it than what simply shows up at the local market, be it local and small or large and multi–national.) If you take the time to explore our Website, you WILL find lots of good ideas, information, and lots of clues to the vast wealth of people and organizations in the world working for food that is clean, safe and fair.

   

• Decide what issues or issues are important to you. Then, focus on that small set of issues. Start small and build upon your successes.

   

• Make a stand. Take action. Do it in a way that fits your life–style, ethics and comfort level. Perhaps the easiest and quickest means to effect change is to make conscious choices when you buy food.

Take Action! pages offered by various organizations.

• Seeds of Deception Take Action Page

  

   

  "Take Action – A few of the many effective actions you can take to help raise awareness of the GMO issue, and to inspire change."

   

   

  "Stay informed, Inform and inspire other individuals, Inform and inspire Opinion Leaders, Write Your Senators and Congressperson, Inspire Food Manufacturers to Remove GMOs, Local Action, Restaurants, Non–GMO School Meals, Other Organizations."