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| thinking + writing + speaking | ||||
| My husband and my mother died in January 2009. I am in transition. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. | ||||
| 10 essays on the politics of farming | ||||
| Download all 10 essays at once here, or download them individually below. | ||||
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These 10 essays are adapted from speeches, workshops, radio programs, research projects, and articles in print publications. Early versions of them may appear below in the Archives. They are available for your reprint/re-use, and for distribution as hardcopy. My email address is at the bottom of this page. Download this 380kb PDF file: 10 Essays on the Politics of Farming |
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| 1 of 10: Paradigm Shift | ||||
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We have created a world where it’s easier to get insulin than salad. Download 152kb PDF file: Paradigm Shift |
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| 2 of 10: Become a Conscious Consumer | ||||
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Every time you spend money, you are voting for the world that made the thing you buy. Download 116kb PDF file: Become a Conscious Consumer |
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| 3 of 10: Feed Your Brain | ||||
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See Twinkie. Hear Twinkie. Be Twinkie. Download 128kb PDF file: Feed Your Brain |
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| 4 of 10: Be a Systems Thinker | ||||
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Each time we solve a problem, the solution has an infinite cascade of consequences. Download 128kb PDF file: Be a Systems Thinker |
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| 5 of 10: Get Your Hands Dirty | ||||
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Farming is fundamental to democracy. Download 124kb PDF file: Get Your Hands Dirty |
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| 6 of 10: Do the Math | ||||
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When is the cost of building wealth greater than the benefits it confers? Download 140kb PDF file: Do the Math |
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| 7 of 10: The Fallacy of Cheap | ||||
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What happens to our homeland if we refuse to buy the things we make here? Download 124kb PDF file: Fallacy of Cheap |
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| 8 of 10: Small is Smart | ||||
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The new big is small things networked together. Download 124kb PDF file: Small is Smart |
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| 9 of 10: The Cow Industrial Complex | ||||
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Separate business and state, corporations are not people. Download 133kb PDF file: Cow Industrial Complex |
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| 10 of 10: Choose Your Future | ||||
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For the first time in human history, our species can consciously choose our future. Download 148kb PDF file: Choose Your Future |
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| professional history | ||||
| Professional History, July 2008 | ||||
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My complete contact information is included in my resume. Download PDF file: BBest Biz Resume July 2008 |
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| Agriculture Work Experience, February 2009 | ||||
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I am always looking for new projects. My complete contact information is included in my resume. Download 120kb PDF file: BBest Ag Resume Feb 2009 |
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| archives | ||||
| "Understanding Food Safety Regulations & Licensing for On-Farm Processing" presented March 11, 2009, at "Food Processing: Moving from concept to consumers" meeting at Friendly Farms Restaurant, Upperco, Maryland | ||||
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This presentation was made as part of a grant-funded project called, "Processing for Profits: Assessment and Comparison of Regional On-Farm Processing Regulations to Develop a State Food Policy that Accommodates Small- Scale Processing" A project of Maryland Cooperative Extension and Future Harvest – A Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture. Below is the PowerPoint file. If you wish to listen to the presentation instead of reading it, below is a link to stream the audio recording. If you wish to have the MP3 file, email Billie Best. Download 1.9mb PowerPoint file: Processing 4 Profits |
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| Listen to "Understanding Food Safety Regulations & Licensing for On-Farm Processing" presented March 11, 2009, at "Food Processing: Moving from concept to consumers" meeting at Friendly Farms Restaurant, Upperco, Maryland | ||||
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Streaming audio of presentation above made as part of a grant-funded project called, "Processing for Profits: Assessment and Comparison of Regional On-Farm Processing Regulations to Develop a State Food Policy that Accommodates Small- Scale Processing" A project of Maryland Cooperative Extension and Future Harvest – A Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture. If you wish to have the 90 minute 40 mb MP3 file email your request to Billie Best. Streaming audio (90 minutes): Understanding Food Safety Regulations |
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| "Understanding Food Safety Regulations for Farm-Direct Sales" originally produced in 2007 for Northeast Ag Works!, a project of the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG), updated March 2009 | ||||
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This 30-page report explains the architecture of the American food safety system, the division of jurisdiction among federal, state, and local governments, and the challenges and opportunities facing small farmers and food processors who wish to produce food and sell it directly to their customers. This document was written before the 2007 Farm Bill was passed by Congress. It is a useful policy analysis with realistic recommendations for policy changes. It is presented here as a Word document so you may re-use the text. If you do so, please credit the original project. Download 260kb Word file: Understanding Food Safety v11 |
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| October 24, 2008, "Farm & Food Public Policy" presented at the USA Delegation Meeting at Terra Madre, Turin, Italy, the biennial international conference celebrating food communities, hosted by Slow Food International | ||||
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After an off-microphone introduction by Erika Lesser, Executive Director of Slow Food USA, Billie Best makes a very brief presentation to the US Delegation of 700 farm and food activists on the importance of participating in public policy development, and becoming involved now in the next Farm Bill. Download 4.6mb MP3 file: TerraMadre-USAmeeting-Oct2402008 |
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| Small Scale Slaughterhouse Case Study of Rainbow Organic Farms, Kansas City, Kansas, September 2008 | ||||
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Iowa State University grant-funded case study for website of Niche Meat Processors Assistance Network or NPAN at http://www.nichemeatprocessing.org/ Download 448kb PDF file: Rainbow-NMPAN-Case-Study |
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| Thursday, August 28, 2008, 8:00-9:00 am, "Farm & Food Show: Healing Plants" Broadcast live on WRPI-Troy 91.5 fm, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute radio in the Albany-Troy, NY area, www.wrpi.org | ||||
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Billie Best hosts this one hour radio program. In "Healing Plants" she talks with Jean Giblette of High Fall Gardens about herbal medicine, and with Debbie Forester of Roots & Wisdom about a youth gardening program that markets herbal salves. The Farm & Food Show is a program of Regional Farm & Food Project. You may freely download, edit, and re-broadcast any portion of the show. Download 27mb MP3 file: Farm&FoodShow-HealingPlants-Aug2008 |
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| August 22, 2008, FDA Northeast Region Food Protection Seminar, Albany, New York, workshop "Building Community Based Food Safety Systems" | ||||
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The food system is changing. “Food security” and “sustainability” have entered the public’s vocabulary at home and abroad. A changing food system means a changing food safety system. If the food system is getting local, what does a community based food safety system look like? I think we need a more creative approach to food safety. Instead of saying this food cannot be produced here because this facility does not meet regulation specifications, we need to ask: How can this food be produced safely in this environment? Is it possible to create food safety standards that complement National Organic Standards? Is it possible to create food safety standards for minimally processed foods, on-farm meat processing, mobile processing units, home kitchens, and church and school kitchens? We need diverse, small scale food safety systems. Can food safety systems adapt to new small scale models of food production and distribution? Download 9mb PowerPoint file: BBest-FDA Conference |
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| August 8-10, 2008, Northeast Organic Farming Association Summer Conference, University of Massachusetts in Amherst, presenting a workshop called "Framing the Future of Farming" | ||||
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"Framing the Future of Farming" workshop description: Learn how to effectively frame your position in debates about farming, the food system, corporate personhood, and climate change by articulating the limits of growth, the principle of sustainability, the fallacy of cheap, and the three kinds of wealth. Download 11.4mb PowerPoint file: Framing the Future of Farming |
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| August 8-10, 2008, Northeast Organic Farming Association Summer Conference, University of Massachusetts in Amherst, presenting a workshop called "Understanding Food Safety Regulations" | ||||
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"Understanding Food Safety Regulations" workshop description: Federal, state, and local government agencies have jursidiction over food safety depending on the type of food and the circumstances. We will look USDA, FDA, NY, VT, MA, CT, and local board of health regulations for farm direct sales, and review 12 categories of food products typically sold direct by farmers. Download 300kb PowerPoint file: Food Safety for Farm Direct Sales |
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| "Big Beef Recall Proves Small is Safer" Published in Regional Farm & Food Project Earth Day News, April 2008, and in Hobby Farms magazine, July-August 2008 issue | ||||
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Proponents of large-scale industrial meat processing facilities and NAIS are getting away with “playing the food safety card.” But if we look at the facts, we see small-scale processing is safer for human and animal health because people working in small places are more accountable. There is less time/distance between the components of a smaller system enabling faster trace-back when problems do arise. In small facilities, carcass profitability and source verification are built into processing, sales, and marketing activities. And producing smaller batches of product presents less risk. Download PDF file: Big Beef Recall Proves Small is SAFER |
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| Thursday, July 17, 2008, Greater Capital Region Teacher Center, Albany, New York, course for K-12 teachers on "The Social, Environmental & Economic Impact of Our Food Choices: A Whole School Approach to Local Foods" | ||||
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More than any other choice we make each day, our choice of what to eat—how it's prepared, where it comes from, how it was produced, and who produced it—has a ripple effect around the world. Part 1 of this course will compare and contrast the social, environmental and economic impacts of slow food and fast food, organic food and conventional food, and global food and local food. We will consider the impact of our food choices on health and personal performance, family life, community, local landscapes, the environment, climate, the economy, geo-politics, and public policy. Part 2 will take a whole school approach to local foods by exploring programs that integrate the classroom, school food service, and gardening indoors and/or outdoors. School administrators, teachers, nurses, psychologists, counselors, and food service personnel are invited to attend. Participants will prepare a slow food lunch from farm fresh foods. Download 1.6mb PowerPoint file: Healthy Farms Healthy Schools |
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| Thursday, May 22, 2008, 8:00-9:00 am, "Farm & Food Show: Cow Stories" Broadcast live on WRPI-Troy 91.5 fm, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute radio in the Albany-Troy, NY area, www.wrpi.org | ||||
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Billie Best hosts this one hour radio program broadcast the 4th Thursday of every month. In "Cow Stories" she talks about her experience birthing calves on the farm. The Farm & Food Show is a program of Regional Farm & Food Project. You may freely download, edit, and re-broadcast any portion of the show. Download 26.5mb MP3 file: Farm & Food Show 5-22-08 |
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| Wednesday, April 30, 2008, NY School Nutrition Association Eastern Area Workshop: "Healthy Farms, Healthy Food, Healthy Schools" | ||||
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In this one-hour workshop, learn the current state of the food system, why slow food is good for schools, a whole school approach to farm-to-school, implementation challenges for schools and farmers, how to organize a three year plan for your school, a long-term vision for farm-to-school, and some of the changes we need to make to get from here to there. Download 2mb PowerPoint file: Healthy Farms, Healthy Food, Healthy Schools |
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| Thursday, April 24, 2008, 8:00-9:00 am, "Farm & Food Show: Kansas is Corn Country" Broadcast live on WRPI-Troy 91.5 fm, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute radio in the Albany-Troy, NY area, www.wrpi.org | ||||
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Billie Best hosts this one hour radio program broadcast the 4th Thursday of every month. "Kansas is Corn Country" is the story of Billie's trip to Kansas and Missouri to attend the Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education annual conference, and some of the contradictions she encountered there. The Farm & Food Show is a program of Regional Farm & Food Project. You may freely download, edit, and re-broadcast any portion of the show. Download 28mb MP3 file: Farm & Food Show 4-24-08 |
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| Saturday, April 5th, 2008, "Healthy Farms, Healthy Food, Healthy Communities" a workshop at Hastings-on-Hudson Green Living Fair, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY
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You can change the world by changing what you eat. This workshop explains how by taking a look at the social, environmental, and economic impacts of our food choices, highlighting the links between healthy farms, healthy food, and healthy communities. Learn the impacts of climate change on our farms and food, how to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet, and how to make choices and support policies that cool the planet. Download 9mb PowerPoint file: HealthyFarmsHealthyFoodHealthyCommunity |
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| Tuesday, March 25, 2008, SARE Annual Conference, Kansas City, Missouri, presenting poster session on "Farmer-Led Learning Groups to Mentor Beginning Farmers" | ||||
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Beginning farmers as well as farmers transitioning to more sustainable systems such as grazing can greatly benefit from the guidance of more accomplished farmers. In 2000, the Regional Farm & Food Project inaugurated an acclaimed Farmer-to-Farmer Mentoring Program with support from Northeast SARE. At the conclusion of that program it was clear that a more structured, group-oriented approach could better serve beginning farmers. Thus, in 2003, we devised "Farmer-Led Learning Groups to Mentor Beginning Farmers." Download PDF file: RFFP Group Mentoring Final Report |
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| Thursday, February 28, 2008, 8:00-9:00 am, "Farm & Food Show: Big Beef Recall" Broadcast live on WRPI-Troy 91.5 fm, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute radio in the Albany-Troy, NY area, www.wrpi.org | ||||
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Billie Best hosts this one hour radio program broadcast the 4th Thursday of every month. "Big Beef Recall" dissects NY Times coverage of the largest beef recall in history, correcting errors in the media coverage, and bringing to light aspects of the issues the media missed. The Farm & Food Show is a program of Regional Farm & Food Project. You may freely download, edit, and re-broadcast any portion of the show. Download 27mb MP3 file: Farm & Food Show 02-28-08 |
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| "Becoming Conscious Consumers" Speech given at Locally Grown: Locally Thrown gallery event in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, October 13, 2007, and at the Connecticut Organic Farming Association Annual Meeting, New Haven, Connecticut, November 3, 2007 | ||||
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I think becoming conscious consumers means facing up to this cultural hypocrisy. If we want to have good jobs close to home, we need to be willing to pay prices that reflect the cost of living in our community. Buying local is sharing the wealth. Download PDF file: Becoming Conscious Consumers |
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| "Farming Cooler Communities" Speech given at the Sierra Club Northeast Regional Meeting and Cool Cities Training, Fairelee, Vermont, June 2, 2007 | ||||
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There is a low carbon alternative to the industrial food system. Small-scale organic farming systems consume 30 to 70% less energy than conventional farms. The amount of carbon in local food systems is further reduced when you eliminate factories, packaging, warehouses and trucking systems. Low carbon farming means low carbon eating. Eating local is low carbon living. Small-scale sustainable agriculture not only reduces carbon emissions, it sequesters carbon. Download PDF file: Farming Cooler Communities |
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| "NAFTA & Mexican Immigration" Opinion piece circulated by email, June 2007 | ||||
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Do we have an immigration problem in the United States, or are we being purposely distracted from the bigger, more serious issues that face our nation? Are Mexican immigrants a threat to our national security, or are they an easy target while the real security threats remain out of reach? Are Mexicans to blame for low wages in the United States, or are they a convenient scapegoat for failed economic policies? Download PDF file: NAFTA+Mexican Immigration |
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| "The Fallacy of Cheap: Shifting Our Paradigm from Commodity to Community" Speech given at the Annual Spring Luncheon of the Egremont Land Trust at The Old Mill, Egremont, Massachusetts, May 20, 2007
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With globalization and a burgeoning world population, what we used to share among millions of us now needs to be shared among billions of us. The slice of the pie available to each of us is getting smaller and smaller. This is not a problem we can “grow” out of. The more we grow, the smaller our slice of the pie becomes. We cannot shop our way to sustaining ourselves. In fact, I think citizenship means we stop shopping. We need to buy fewer things, buy more of them locally, and generally pay more for what we buy. Download PDF file: The Fallacy of Cheap |
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| "Welcome to the Cow Industrial Complex: the link between your health, the stock market and corporate personhood" Speech given at the Farm & Food Network meeting, Albany, New York, April 30, 2007 | ||||
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What we want is simple: earth-friendly agriculture, humane treatment of animals, a healthy, nutritious food supply, and antibiotics that work. The roadblock is billions of dollars invested in a system that prevents those things. It began with the U.S. government’s subsidies of commodity crops, and it continues with something called corporate personhood. Pick any point in the process to dissemble the Cow Industrial Complex and you will run into a wall of money, and corporations claiming they have the same civil rights as people. Download PDF file: Cow Industrial Complex |
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| "The Future of Farming: Milestones & Millstones" Published in the Regional Farm & Food Project Newsletter, November 2006, and in The Natural Farmer, Spring 2007 | ||||
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Milestones and millstones are markers for ideas good and bad. At times an event regaled as an overdue solution, like the codification of national organic standards, comes weighted with unintended consequences like the industrialization of organic farming, and organic confined animal feeding operations. In light of those recent unexpected outcomes, we may be wise to consider the potential unintended consequences of our goals for instituting a more just food system, a more sustainable agriculture, and a more robust farm economy... Download PDF file: Milestones & Millstones |
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| "Return to Slavery: Will you be eating China's dust for breakfast?" Speech given at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, April 19, 2006, and at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, December 2006, published in Annals of Earth, Fall 2006, and included in Columbia Teachers College syllabus for Nutritional Ecology, Fall 2006
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Slavery is all about where your food comes from and what you have to do to get it. Since the beginning of recorded history, people have enslaved each other by controlling the food supply. The pharohs of Egypt enslaved the Jews, the Japanese enslaved the Koreans, the English enslaved the Irish, the Europeans enslaved the Africans, and the Indians invented the caste system so they could enslave each other. It’s easy to tell who the slaves are. They are the ones without food, without the access to food, without the economic power to procure food, and without the resources to produce their own food. Download PDF file: Return to Slavery |
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| "Separation of Business and State" Originally circulated by email in 2003, published in Annals of Earth, Fall 2006 | ||||
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When business corporations have the same civil rights as people, and are entitled to supplant the right to vote with money contributed to politicians and political campaigns, the process of government is perverted by greed. Government officials are corrupted and the law becomes a tool for creating wealth... Download PDF file: Separation of Business and State |
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| "What Does A Paradigm Shift Look Like?" Originally drawn April 2006 | ||||
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We are a paradigm away from the world we seek. It is for each of us to do what we can where we stand. Make conscious choices. Every time you spend a dime you are voting for the system that produced the thing you purchase. If you have trouble imagining a new system, this graphic should help. Download PDF file: Paradigm Shift |
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| "Community Based Food Systems: Small is Smart" Originally written April 2006 | ||||
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Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, our motto has been get big or get out. Our mantra has been shop till you drop. Shopping is the holy sacrament of American culture, and it’s killing us. Shopping is our national pastime, our favorite sport and our group therapy. It’s essential to our economy because today we measure our economic health by growth in spending... Download PDF file: Small is Smart |
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| New York State Assembly Public Hearing on "New York State Food and Nutrition Policy" Testimony given May 16, 2005, published in Cornell University Small Farms Quarterly, Summer 2005
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In this time of rising energy costs, financial market volatility and labor market uncertainty, the most cost-efficient markets for New York State food and agriculture businesses are the markets closest to home. New York State would benefit greatly from collaborating with our neighboring states to develop a Northeast regional food policy that focuses on broad import replacement and reducing regulatory barriers to interstate commerce. A frictionless regional market is essential to our regional food security and our regional economic growth. Download Word file: Agriculture Policy Reform |
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| "Commodity vs. Community - the high price of cheapness!" Published in the Regional Farm & Food Project Newsletter, Spring 2005
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...When you choose between commodity food and community food you are choosing between a faceless-placeless food system and a place-based food system. Sure, you may be in a hurry, you may not have many options to choose from, or you may just have a yen for junk food... Download Word file: Commodity vs. Community |
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| "Dinner for Seven Million" Published in The Women's Times, May 2005 | ||||
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...I spent most of my childhood living in a gravel road subdivision carved out of the cornfields of northern Illinois. Every two weeks my mother and I drove to the supermarket a half-hour away because the general store in town was too expensive and didn't have a good selection... Download Word file: Dinner for 7 Million |
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| My Haiku | ||||
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sleeping in the earth
i dream that i am compost mother of new soil |
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| "Tethering Goats" Published by Berkshire Homestyle, November 2004, and in Annals of Earth, Winter 2004 | ||||
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...About a week past the point of no return on removing the kids' horns, Chet was reading the fine print on poultry netting in his fence catalog. "Not suitable for animals with horns," it said. Evidently goats get their horns stuck in the plastic mesh and respond to the electric shock by pulling down and generally wrecking the fence. The chickens are then unprotected and uncontained, free to invade the gardens, lay eggs in the bushes, and be eaten by neighborhood dogs. Months of fence research had to be scrapped and the process begun again... Download Word file: Tethering Goats |
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| "Commodity vs. Community: Place-based pricing for milk can fortify local dairy industry" Published by Berkshire Trade & Commerce, August 2004, and Annals of Earth, Fall 2004 | ||||
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...About 35% of a dairy farm's operating expenses are grain, fuel and fertilizer, which can be more simply stated as fuel, fuel and fuel. Fuel to drive the tractor to produce the grain; fuel to truck animals and their food, and fuel as a major ingredient of industrial fertilizer production and distribution. Add to that the price of fuel for the truck that takes milk from the farm to the processor, and the truck that takes milk from the processor to the store. High fuel prices cause the price of just about everything else to be higher. One way to economize is to buy things that don't come from so far away... Download Word file: A New Formula for Milk |
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| "Becoming Farmers" Published by Bershire Homestyle, August 2004 | ||||
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...The barn intrigued us as much as the house. We found cool stuff in the outbuildings. The trees spoke to us. We were intoxicated by the wild flowers and hypnotized by the frogs. But we were busy working city jobs from a country home. We loved the farm, but we saw it as a postcard, not a working landscape... Download Word file: Becoming Farmers |
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| "Community-Based Food Systems" A homework assignment for Cornell University professional development course, Food & Agriculture Based Community Development, written in 2004
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... A community-based food system becomes established as more food is produced and consumed with fewer businesses and less distance between the food producer and the food consumer... Download Word file: Community Food Systems |
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| "The New England Food System in the Year 2025: A History of the Future" A homework assignment for Cornell University professional development course, Food & Agriculture Based Community Development, written in 2003
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...Many factors influenced the public and their elected representatives to agree on the revitalization of regional agriculture as a solution to social, environmental and economic issues. First and foremost was the reality that as long as people eat there will be markets for food products, and whoever controls those markets effectively controls the people... Download Word file: New England's Food System in 2025 |
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| "Dreaming Up a New Food System" Published in the Berkshire Eagle, November 26, 2003, in Cornell University's Community Food & Agriculture Newsletter, Fall 2003, and in Annals of Earth, Winter 2003 | ||||
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In my dreams our communities - rural, urban and suburban - experience a cultural renaissance with the actualization of regional programs to re-localize the food system. I'm imagining a food-and-agriculture-based community development program that encourages the production of local food products for local markets, reduces regulatory barriers for small food producers, builds regional food processing infrastructure, addresses issues of food security and self-reliance, and encourages economic growth... Download Word file: Dreaming Up A New Food System |
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