Milk and Jails, what’s the connection? If jails don’t serve milk to their inmates, how do these two things go together? The organization Milk NOT Jails provides this link, and is in the process of changing rural New York.

Upstate New York used to be affluent in agriculture and animal produce in the late 1820′s, until the infamous car boom. After the transition from boats and railways turned to cars, farmland became abandoned for various reasons, like highways. This is where prisons come in. The government needed space to implement the prison system and the abandoned land of Upstate New York provided it at the time. Now, nearly 100 years later, the American government values the penitentiary system more than much needed agriculture systems, or at least it seems so. I mean, if during the 1990′s a prison was built in rural New York every fifteen days, what does that say about America’s priorities?

The Milk NOT Jails organization strives to change the fact that Upstate New York’s economic success rides on a penal system and they need your help to do so. Join the Milk NOT Jails Campaign by signing up here. Spread the word, email all your friends about them. Fill out their survey that asks about grocery dairy choices by clicking here. For more information on this much needed project please visit their website.

Their main goal is to test theories about farming cities. One of the toughest things about urban farming is irrigation, so the Seeing Green project measures storm water management at two farms in New York City in order to obtain concrete data. There are many benefits to urban roof farming that cities do not acknowledge, simply due to lack of research and concrete data. Tyler and Eric are trying to change this by creating an experiment that can be replicated in cities around America. Part of Tyler and Eric’s research is geared toward making it more feasible for landlords and building owners to host farming on their roofs. There are many rules and regulations regarding this, and Tyler and Eric are trying to convince cities to make it easier for rooftop farming to happen. Tyler and Eric’s goals not only help cities create farms on rooftops, but also help promote food security and economic opportunities are only beginning their

Tyler and Eric, the people behind this research prospect need to raise $12,000 by June 12^th, 2011, in order to pay for the equipment necessary to complete their research. If you are interested in contributing to this innovative cause, please….With a donation of $2,000 or more, Tyler and Eric will even visit your home town and host a workshop in your community to talk about their mission.

Filmmaker Bio:

After watching a Christmas commercial about the new release of a kid’s toy, for the next month, my mother never had to ask me to do my chores or clean my room, my sister and I never got into an argument, and all my homework was finished on time. The commercial displayed a girly commercial about the size of two fists put together and made out of pink sparkly plastic. At eight years old, after Santa blessed me with this Barbie accessory, I fell in love with the art of filmmaking.

Years later I asked for a real digital camcorder. As time passed, my desires morphed into something deeper. I not only enjoyed using the camera, but got interested the art of editing what has been recorded, which, now that I am older, I know is called cinematography.

Fortunately, my school helps me to build on my aspirations of landing a vocation that has something to do with cinematography. It offers modules every semester that require exit projects where film is always an option. As a freshman I was able to create a Public Service Announcement with my group, in which we shed light on issues in Zimbabwe. My sophomore year, I created with my group a documentary that focused on individual’s personal experiences on the day of September 11^th, 2001. This year, my junior year, I recently finished a project where I read a novel, then interpreted it into a trailer. Link here. Currently I am in a Module called “Sixteen”. My class and I are in the process of creating a documentary that talks about what it is like to be sixteen around the world.

I now spend my Wednesdays interning at Aubin Pictures, witnessing and blogging about the different fields that film can touch. This experience is essential for me to know what I want to be when I grow up because it teaches me how to critically and objectively write about different films, articles and announcements. I feel like this site has helped me to realize that all types of films require bucket loads of writing, whether it be a screenplay, interpreting a movie into  a novel, blogging about themes that relate to a film, or spreading the word about a certain film.

Recently a few Red Hook beekeepers began noticing that their bees, and their honey, were an usual color. Instead of their natural golden browns, theses bees were bright red. Bright, marishino cherry red — kind of like the color of the huge outdoor vats of syrupy cherry juice at the Dell’s Maraschino Cherries Company in Red Hook.

The beekeepers discovered that yes, the bees were cruising over to factory and drinking the cherry juice, rather then feeding on the nectar of flowers found closer to their hives. But why would they go to all this effort?

According to Dominus, the unhealthy but extremely sweet nectar is just that appealing to the bees. They will go to a lot of extra effort to consume the cherry syrup, which is not only sweet, but also readily available in huge quanitites.

Sound familiar? Just like the bees, we are bombarded with images and advertisements for sugar-filled processed foods. They are everywhere — cheap and in large quantities.

When you hear about the bees and their sugar-addiction, don’t you just want to say: “Hey Bees! That’s not healthy. Look,  you are literally turning another color from that stuff!” So can we say the same things to ourselves when we gravitate towards the nearest processed and HFCS filled food? After all, unlike bees we have the power of rational decision making. We don’t have to drink the marishino cherry juice.

To get a beekeepers opinion on all this, I spoke with Matt Deprizio, who runs Matt’s Honey House at the Columbus Circle Holiday Market in New York City. Matt sells Golden Rule Honey — which is raw, unheated, unfiltered, natural honey. According to Matt, when bees don’t have enough forage in their environments, they seek out fructose from other sources, like soda spilled on the street, or in the case of the Red Hook bees, vats of cherry juice. This is why bees do so well in more rural and natural setting — there are tons wildflowers to feed from. In New York City there just aren’t that many flowers and plants for bees.

Matt also told me some unfortunate things about commercial beekeeping and honey. Here are 3 things I learned:

1. Most generic honey is heated to 160 degrees F and then cooled rapidly. This kills all the enzymes in honey that are good for you! Raw honey is not heated, treated, or tampered with — so it keeps all it’s healthy compounds.

2. Many large-scale commercial beekeepers make their money not from honey production, but from contracts with large agriculture corporations. They bring their bees to massive mono-crop farms and let the bees pollinate. This isn’t the best environment for the bee — they do better with a more diverse environment. But it is good for business.

3. Big honey producers also intentionally feed their bees high fructose corn syrup! It’s cheaper and easier than letting them pollinate naturally, but ultimately affects the quality of the honey, and diminishes its positive health benefits.

Raw, natural honey doesn’t do any of this. It’s made by bees who forage on wildflowers, and left untreated. It’s delicious, and good for you. (Raw honey has been used for centuries for digestion, curing colds, and many, many other uses.)

Go visit Matt at the Columbus Circle Holiday Fair to learn more and get some good, natural honey.

*Thanks to Bria for helping out with this article.

I saw a glimpse of what farming is actually like and it looks like a rigorous job. Children are the narrators in this film, creating an accessible experience for the viewer. What’s on Your Plate? and Plan Nicaragua are similar in that aspect. Their use of children enables viewers to really understand what is going on, no matter how complicated the issue is.

Jill Richardson, at La Vida Locavore, is writing a series of diary posts that focuses on the agricultural problems in Bolivia due to pesticides and fertilizer. Apparently after these products were introduced to Bolivia, citizens began t0 get cancer and other types of illnesses. We look forward to seeing more posts about the issues in Bolivia concerning food.