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I've spent too much time determining who would be on my basketball dream team, but haven't given enough thought to who are my top picks for commencement speakers. Thankfully, TakePart has done the hard work and announced it's Commencement Speaker Dream Team. Coming in at #4 is AnnaLappé!

"Anna Lappé, renowned author and founding principal of The Small Planet Institute, is a
terrific role model for graduates who are looking to get involved in the
food movement. Anna is committed to finding sustainable,
climate-friendly solutions to our industrial food system, particularly
in her latest book Diet
for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What
You Can Do about It."

And it won't be a commencement speech, but those of you in the vicinity of the Twin Cities have an opportunity to hear Anna, as well as her renowned mother Francis Moore Lappé, speak in Minneapolis on June 16.  Billed as "From Small Planet to...

Nicole Betancourt spends a lot of time thinking about children and food. Not only does she have two young children, she started a company called Parent Earth, which provides information to parents that supports their efforts to create a world full of healthy, thriving children.

And surely like millions of other parents, Nicole read the May 24 Time Magazine story "Cancer, Cancer Everywhere" with a growing sense of exasperation. The article summarizes the President's Cancer Panel's report on the risks of cancer from toxics in the environment.

The reports authors recommend more research and regulation of carcinogens. Of the more than 80,000 chemicals on the U.S. market, only a few hundred have been proven safe. The report provides some common-sense recommendations, such as choosing pesticide-free fruits and vegetables, antibiotic and growth hormone-free meats, and avoiding containers with BPA or phthalate plastics.

For parents with adequate means, knowledge and time, they can effectively minimize their children's exposure to toxics in the home. But as Nicole points out in her letter to the editor in this...

By Mark Muller

Originally published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Say the federal government used federal dollars to take development opportunities away from Minnesota and instead create jobs in other countries.

Most of us would be fuming. Market forces working against Minnesota is one thing; the federal government facilitating foreign investment over local job creation is simply unacceptable.

Yet this scenario is just what's happening through the subsidized export of Minnesota's agricultural products. The federal government spends an estimated $100 million a year maintaining navigation on the Mississippi River system, which is primarily used to get crops such as corn and soybeans out to international ports. This funding maintains the series of locks and dams from Minneapolis to southern Illinois that create pools of water deep enough to support a 9-foot channel for the navigation industry.

How does this create investment elsewhere? The production of an agricultural commodity is just the first step in the processing that eventually produces food, materials and energy. It isn't too exciting to think of Minnesota crops becoming the low-cost feed supplier of a Taiwan poultry operation. Why then should we encourage that processing to take place in other...

There's been a lot of talk on this blog about the Good Food movement and the visions and achievements of the revolutionaries who are a part of it.  But less frequently do we report on how this movement is and will be funded.  Are non-profits and good food mavens to rely only on government and foundation grants?  We think not.  That's why we're thrilled to have Elizabeth Ü and RSF Social Finance paving the way forward for a new way of understanding investment.

RSF is a pioneering nonprofit financial services organization dedicated to using the tools of business to bring about positive, real-world change. The goal is not just to make money available to progressive and innovative projects; it’s to fundamentally change the way the world works with money.

RSF offers investing, lending, and giving services to individuals and enterprises committed to improving society and the environment. They currently have over one thousand clients who are creating enormous positive impact by helping RSF redirect the flow of money from global capital markets to local ones.  The article below highlights one highly successful project benefiting from the RSF Social Investment Fund:

Revolution in the Cafeteria

By Ted Levinson

Originally published by RSF Social Finance...