A new venture has consumers directly involved with farmers and sustainable energy. The farmers aren’t producing energy to sell to others, but to power their own business. BoerENbuur (FarmerANDneighbour) is a network promoting alliances between farmers and their non-farming neighbours. One of the projects they’ve recently launched is buurZOEKTbuurvoorZONNEPANELEN—farmer seeks neighbour for solar panels. Since not every farmer can afford to buy a wind turbine, and some believe they would disfigure their part of the Dutch landscape, the project is asking individuals to buy shares of EUR 250 that will help participating farmers install solar panels on their roofs. In return, per share they’ll receive EUR 50 worth of produce from the farm, every year for six years. Plus the feelgood dividends of helping a farm become climate-neutral. Fifteen farmers have signed up for the first run, and the solar panels will be installed by the end of 2009.While it obviously isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme for anyone involved, grassroots initiatives like this make for a welcome antidote to corporate greenwashing.

Website: www.boerenbuur.nl

Another excellent post up at Urban Sprout:

Eating for the sake of your body and the planet doesn’t mean giving up on the foods you love. It does mean becoming more actively aware of where your food comes from, how it’s produced and how its production affects the Earth.

Fundamental to greening your diet is eating ‘real’ food. Processed and refined foods are, let’s face it, not good for you. Most of them are produced as part of the push by marketers to ‘make your life easier’ but they’re usually laden with chemicals, additives, pesticides, and barely disguised GM derivatives.

Click here to read the full post … 

eThekwini Municipality and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry ( DWAF) hosted a clean-up Campaign today in Lamontville ,in preparation for Arbor Week to be held on September 1, 2008 at the same place.

Lamontville High School Environmental Committee learners were on the forefront of the clean up of Gwala and Hull roads, which are at the entrance to the suburb. Durban Solid Waste provided the cleaning resources to ensure that the campaign goes well. Approximately 43 bags of litter were collected in just about two hours. Councillors and officials from eThekwini Municipality as well DWAF joined in the litter collecting campaign alongside learners.

“We are proud to be launching Arbor Week at Lamontville. Tree planting will cool and beautify the area. Trees absorb carbon dioxide to freshen-up the environment. We want Lamontville to be one of the cleanest areas in eThekwini,” said Councillor Nomvuzo Shabalala, Chairperson of Health, Safety and Social Services Committee in the municipality.

Moses MnCane Mbheki “Madevu” Mabhida (1923 - 1986)
Moses Mabhida was born near Pietermaritzburg on 14 October 1923. He joined the Communist Party in 1942 and in 1953 started working full-time with the trade unions. In the next decade, he organised scores of workers in KwaZulu-Natal and was a central participant in the development of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU). He was elected a vice-president at its first congress in 1955 and had a close working relationship with Chief Albert Luthuli. Mabhida became a member of the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) in 1956 and from 1958-1959 was acting chair of the Natal ANC.

A week after the declaration of the 1960 state of emergency, Mabhida was sent abroad by SACTU to represent the organisation internationally. For the next three years he organised international solidarity activities in Prague with the World Federation of Trade Unions and with the developing African trade union federations. In 1963, following his re-election to the NEC he was asked by Oliver Tambo to devote himself to the development of the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK).