What's it like to live on food stamps?

On the next Your Call, we'll talk about who is living on food stamps and how they are making ends meet. 15% of Americans receive food stamps, which allocates an average of $4 per day. And the number of people relying on food stamp programs has risen with the recession. So how does this system work? Can you stay healthy on $4 a day? Join us at 10 or email us at feedback@yourcallradio.org. If you're on food stamps, how are you meeting your needs? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar, and You.

Guests:
Paul Ash, executive director of the San Francisco Food Bank

Click to Listen: What's it like to live on food stamps?

What's in store for the future of farmland in the US?

On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about the value of agricultural land and how we can keep from losing it. Between 1982 and 2007, over 41 million acres of rural land in the US were developed. How much viable farmland is left? Where is it? Who owns it? Join us at 10 or email feedback@yourcallradio.org. Should we have a policy to protect farmland? What would that look like? How does the loss of farm land impact food production and local agriculture? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar, and You.

Guests:
Ed Thompson, California director & senior associate with the American Farmland Trust

Ned Conwell, co-founder of Blue House Farm in Pescadero and regional advocate for land access through Pie Ranch in San Mateo county.

Constance Washburn, community outreach director with the Marin Agricultural Land Trust

Click to Listen: What's in store for the future of farmland in the US?

How could the Slow Money movement help local food economies?

On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about the Slow Money movement, which aims to connect small farmers and food entrepreneurs with investors. How promising is this economic model? And who is benefiting? Join us live at 10 or send an email to feedback@yourcallradio.org. What's in store for the future of Slow Money both on a national level and regionally? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:

Woody Tasch, president of the newly formed NGO Slow Money

Mason Arnold, founder and CEO of Greenling, the first and largest viable grocery delivery service in Austin and San Antonio

Marco Vangelisti, private investor, a founding member of Slow Money and an adviser to Ecocity Builders

Click to Listen: How could the Slow Money movement help local food economies?

How are food banks faring?

On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about the challenges facing food banks and the services they provide. Individual donations to food banks are down, but demand is on the rise. Some food banks are actually expanding and hiring. They're also providing fresh produce to the community. How are they doing it? Join us live at 10 or send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. From food banks to community gardens--what is the best way to meet our community's food needs? It's Your Call with Holly Kernan and you.

Guests:

Sue Sigler, executive director of the California Association of Food Banks

Willy Elliott-McCrea, executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz

Brian Higgins, communications director for the Alameda County Community Food Bank

Click to Listen: How are food banks faring?

Will "going local" make us happier?

On the next Your Call we'll talk about the value of localism. In her new documentary The Economics of Happiness, Helena Norberg-Hodge argues that not only does going local foster a better economy, but it's critical to finding pleasure and meaning in our lives. Has a more globalized economy made it harder to find happiness? Join us live at 10 or send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. Are connections to local businesses or markets part of "the good life" for you? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, author of Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, co-author of Bringing the Food Economy Home, and director of The Economics of Happiness

Jessica Prentice, professional chef and food activist, co-founder of Locavores, founding worker-owner of Three Stone Hearth, and author of Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection

Kirsten Schwind, program director for Bay Localize, author of the Community Resilience Toolkit, and co-author of Tapping the Potential of Urban Rooftops

Michael Shuman, research & economic development director for Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) and a fellow with the Post-Carbon Institute

Click to Listen: Will "going local" make us happier?

Should public water be privatized?

What does the privatization of public water systems mean for citizens and who is fighting back? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about the growing trend to privatize the country's water. Private companies are increasingly moving in to take over the operation of municipal waters systems by operating and profiting from reservoirs and other water-storage projects. Who is pushing for privatization? Join us live at 11 or send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. How are communities fighting back? It's Your Call with me, Rose Aguilar, and you.

Guests:
Emily Wurth, Program Director at Food & Water Watch's "Water: Private Vs. Public"

Jim Graham, one of the founders of the Felton Friends of Locally Owned Water (FLOW)

Click to Listen: Should public water be privatized?

Why are Americans wasting so much food?

On the next Your Call, we'll speak with Jonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of its Food (And What We Can Do About It). Every day, Americans waste enough food to fill the Rose Bowl--while one in seven Americans go hungry. He says current rates of waste and population growth can't coexist for much longer. It's already turning into a serious environmental hazard, so what can we do about it? It's Your Call with Sandip Roy and you.

Guest:
Jonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of its Food (And What We Can Do About It)

Click to Listen: Why are Americans wasting so much food?

Are we on our way to healthy food for kids?

On the next Your Call we'll talk about school food. In a unanimous vote, the Senate approved $4.5 billion to increase the number of free meals and improve the quality of food served in schools nationwide. How significant a victory is this for the campaign to improve school food programs? What's next on that movement's agenda? Join us live at 11 or send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. Have you seen menu changes in a school near you? It's Your Call, with Hana Baba and you.

Guests:
Janet Poppendieck, author of Free For All: Fixing School Food in America

Zenobia Barlow, cofounder and executive director of The Center for Ecoliteracy

Jennifer LeBarre, nutrition services director for Oakland Unified School District

Click to Listen: Are we on our way to healthy food for kids?

What do local street food vendors add to our communities?

On the next Your Call, we'll look at the pleasures and problems of street food. The San Francisco Street Food Festival is approaching and curbside cuisine is on the rise. What explains its comeback? How is it regulated? What kind of opportunities does it create? Join us live at 11 or send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. What do you love to eat out on the street? It's Your Call, with Sandip Roy and you.

Guests:
Caleb Zigas, executive director of La Cocina

Matt Cohen, founder of the San Francisco Cart Project, Off the Grid: San Francisco, and Tabe Services

Jessica Phadungsilp, co-owner of Global Soul

Click to Listen: What do local street food vendors add to our communities?

How can we ensure food safety without threatening small organic farmers?

On the next Your Call, we'll look at just what "food safety" means to Congress and the FDA. Senate Bill 510 would create stricter and more extensively enforced rules for produce growers. How would that bill affect small family farms and organic growers? Join us live at 11 or send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. The period for public comment on the bill ends in July. How do you want your food grown and handled? It's Your Call, with Sandip Roy and you.

Guest:
Dale Coke--organic farmer, Coke Farms
Jo Ann Baumgartner--director of the Wild Farm Alliance
Ken Kimes--organic farmer, New Natives Organic Sprouts

Click to Listen: How can we ensure food safety without threatening small organic farmers?

What's Driving the Globalized Business of Organic Food?

What should you know about your "organic" food from China? On the next Your Call, we'll continue with our series Agenda for a New Economy and ask, what's driving the globalized business of organic food? How do you make your choices at the market? And how do you know what's safe?

Join us live at 11 or send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. Why are we buying broccoli from China in the first place? And what do you want to know about it? It's Your Call, with Hana Baba and you.

Guests:
Samuel Fromartz is a veteran journalist and author of Organic Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew.

Paul Muller is a founding partner and organic farmer at Full Belly Farm in Guinda, California.

Christine Bushway, Executive Director of the Organic Trade Association (OTA).

Click to Listen: What's Driving the Globalized Business of Organic Food?

Your Call 070109 What happens when rural and urban collide?

What happens when rural and urban collide? On the next Your Call we'll speak with Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer. Carpenter bought a dilapidated house next to a vacant lot in West Oakland and converted the open space into an urban homestead with chickens, goats, rabbits, pigs, two turkeys named Harold and Maude and a vegetable garden, all in a neighborhood without a supermarket. We'll take your emails at feedback@yourcallradio.org and your questions live at 11 a.m. Could a city really feed itself? It's Your Call with Sandip Roy and you.

Guest:
Novella Carpenter in San Francisco
Author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer and proprietor of Ghost Town Farm, an urban farm in West Oakland

Click to Listen: What happens when rural and urban collide?

Your Call 060909 Can we think beyond corporations?

Can the dominance of corporate ideology in our lives and in our thinking be reversed? On the next Your Call we'll speak with Douglas Rushkoff, author of Life Inc: How The World Became A Corporation And How To Take It Back. Rushkoff, a novelist and professor of Media Studies at NYU, traces how the logic of markets came to dominate our sense of ourselves and lays out a plan to rehabilitate community power. Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 am. How are you nurturing community? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
Douglas Rushkoff in San Francisco
Best-selling author of Life Incorporated: How the World Became A Corporation and How To Take It Back and nine others about new media and popular culture including, Cyberia, Media Virus, Playing the Future, Nothing Sacred: The Truth about Judaism, and Coercion, winner of the Marshall McLuhan Award for best media book. He is the host of The Media Squat, on WFMU in New York and a correspondent for Frontline's ongoing examination of the future of media, DigitalNation.

Rushkoff will be at:
Tuesday, June 9
7:30pm
BOOKSMITH
1644 Haight St. in San Francisco

Wednesday, June 10
6:30pm to 8:00pm
MECHANICS INSTITUTE LIBRARY
57 Post Street at Montgomery (right above the Montgomery BART station)

Click to Listen: Can we think beyond corporations?

Your Call 082508 Building a Slow Food Nation

How can we create and build a genuine food culture in the midst of an overdeveloped consumer society? On the next Your Call, we'll have a discussion about eating well and responsibly as the Slow Food Nation meeting arrives in San Francisco. For the past two decades, the slow food movement has promised that healthy eating is the key to a healthy planet. With the proliferation of farmers' markets and organic farming, has this promise been proven true? Who can afford it? And how has it changed our food consumption patterns? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Anya Fernald, Executive Director of Slow Food Nation

Christine Adams, manager of the Farmer's Market at San Francisco Civic Center

Click to Listen: Building a Slow Food Nation

Your Call 070808 Victory Gardens

Could planting a garden help save the world? On the next Your Call we'll talk about the pleasures and politics of tending and harvesting your own food right here in the center of our cities. We'll discuss the Civic Center Garden project, where volunteers are transforming a patch of city owned dirt and grass into "a living quilt of plants and people." Is growing your own fruits and vegetables something more than just a healthy hobby? Is there a better use for that small patch of land than a nice green lawn? It's locally grown, organic, and practically free on the next Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Willow Rosenthal is the founder of City Slicker Farms

John Bela, Civic Center Victory Garden Coordinator

Dajuana Turner, Summer intern at City Slicker Farms

Click to Listen: Victory Gardens