Follow-Up File: Cal Poly tells the story of sustainability

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• Viewpoint: Grant will reveal hunger realities in SLO County

  Viewpoint: Grant will reveal hunger realities in SLO County

  You may have seen on the front page of The Tribune (Nov. 2) a story about the Hunger Free Communities Planning Grant the Food Bank Coalition received from the USDA. The grant was $99,561. That’s a lot of money for a study of our county.

  I knew when I read the article that people would have the same reaction I had when we applied for it: “That would feed a lot of people. I’d rather have the money for a program than a survey.” However, this grant is far more precious to our county than $100,000 spent on a one-time food giveaway could ever be.

  There is a story behind our little county getting the attention of the USDA. Originally, we applied for money to feed hungry people. We wanted to also help sustain our local farmers, and with less freight be friendlier to our environment.

• Times Past: Seed for New Year's resolutions found in early farming practices

  Times Past: Seed for New Year's resolutions found in early farming practices

  The custom of making New Year’s resolutions may have begun with the Akitu festivals of early Mesopotamia, which is in modern day Iraq. “Akitu,” which literally means barley, was celebrated in springtime in hopes of ensuring the arrival of rain, which brought the renewal of nature and community.

  The people believed that they could strengthen their god Marduk and his son Nabu in the struggle with Tiamat (evil forces) by resolving to return their neighbor’s farm tools without which new crops could not be planted. For many of us, New Year’s resolutions are still linked to food and diet.

  Some of us have very serious motivation for seeking a new way of feeding ourselves. When Ethan Schaffer was growing up in the Pacific Northwest, he was told by his physicians that he had lymphoma. He underwent a five-month-long treatment of intense chemotherapy.

• For GleanSLO, no food is left behind

  For GleanSLO, no food is left behind

  Last year, the program contributed more than 22,000 pounds to the local food bank

• Goodwill never tasted so good

  Goodwill never tasted so good

  Tom Neuhaus calls the Bûche de Noël his “resurrection cake.” Selling them saved him from bankruptcy years ago, when he owned a bakery in Austin, Texas.

  Now the Cal Poly professor of food science and nutrition is turning again to the French dessert to raise money to build a cocoa study center in Ebolowa, Cameroon.

  The proposed $500,000 center is meant to be a place where international and African university students can learn from and work with cocoa farmers to enhance economic and environmental sustainability and the lives of the workers there.

• Capps asks local ranchers, growers for input on farm bill at Jan. 30 event

  Capps asks local ranchers, growers for input on farm bill at Jan. 30 event

  Central Coast ranchers and growers have been invited to Cal Poly on Jan. 30 to tell U.S. Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, what their priorities are in the upcoming federal farm bill, which Congress expects to consider this year.

  The bill will set farm and food policy for the country, and will have a significant impact on the local agriculture industry, Capps wrote in a news release.

  Capps also will speak with representatives from the San Luis Obispo County Farm Bureau and County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office.