Here’s the head shed (leaders for those of you in Rio Lindo) of the IFAJ. It’s Saturday morning and we’re having the IFAJ Executive Meeting. It looks like we have about 27 people here. I’m not here to provide you with a detailed report of the activities and agenda but I can tell you that the organization is growing and dealing with a lot of questions that come with growth and having a diverse membership that is spread over a lot of languages and cultures. It’s an interesting mix. But we’re dealing with the very same things that any member organization has to. I think one of the strong points of this organization is how inclusive it is. It doesn’t matter if you’re a broadcaster, editor or what. The point is we’re all reporting on agriculture have a desire to improve our skills.
Agricultural Production Displays
Some of the best looking vegetables I’ve ever seen are growing indoors here in one of the main agriculture buildings. I wish my garden looked like this. But I guess it would if I had a guy in overalls (there were a lot them) manually grooming and treating each plant every day. This building looks like a collaboration of many companies and you could essentially follow agricultural production through the whole chain from field to plate since you had crops, animals, processing and even a small grocery store set up to show how the consumer where their food actually comes from.
Biofuels Pavilion Features Ethanol
I had heard that Green Week had a whole pavilion devoted to bio energy this year. When I got there I found that it had more booths dedicated to things like wood pellet burning stoves for heat and a number of solar panel energy companies than what we think of such as ethanol and biodiesel.
Bio Products Pavilion
On Thursday at Green Week I finally had a chance to wander around some of the pavilions and booths. I started with the agricultural area first and walked right into a biobased products section. I’m not sure what the exact definition of “bio” is around the world or if it actually is different in different countries. I say this because this display was of organic dairy products and that doesn’t fit into my definition of bio-based products. In fact, I would say that true organic production implies to me that bio-type products weren’t used in the making of these items.
Farm and Food Policy Project
It looks like there’s a new player in the farm policy game. The Farm and Food Policy Project will be conducting a press conference in Washington, DC on Monday, January 22 to release a report titled, “Seeking Balance in U.S. Farm and Food Policy.”
UglyRipe Wins The Fight
You might remember the good old UglyRipe and the battle its developers were having with the Florida Tomato Committee. Well it looks like tasty but ugly wins out.
Acres of Food
If you’re interested in acres of food booths then Green Week is the place to be. It’s really hard to convey how large this show is. This booth is just a representative sample of what you’ll find here.
All About the IFAJ Congress in Japan
Right after our sushi lunch which did include some of the best sake I’ve ever tasted (really didn’t think I liked it) I got to interview Yamada Masaru who is one of the main organizers for the IFAJ Congress 2007.
Sushi Lunch in Berlin
After getting some proposals out and doing a little email catch up this morning I got to the Green Week press center in time for an excellent Japanese box lunch. The IFAJ executive committee was given a presentation on this fall’s IFAJ Congress 2007 which will be in Japan.
Late Night With IFAJ
It got a little late out in Berlin last night with my IFAJ buddies. Here’s a few of them. We braved the rain and wind to go out to a very nice dinner. And then the Prez decided we should stop on the way back to the hotel for “just one more.”