Eat a Red Apple Day

America became quite the hotbed of apple development after the travels of Johnny Appleseed, and by the late 1800’s apple trees were everywhere in an amazing rainbow of delicious variety. So much so, in fact, that apple varieties were being developed as a response to the ease of transporting apples on a commercial level around the US. The ‘Ben Davis’ Apple was the reigning king of apples in 1880, due to its ability to handle rough growing conditions and its ability to keep a long time. But it wasn’t considered the best tasting one, and as moving produce from farm to store became easier better tasting was winning out.

Red Delicious held its position as the most popular apple in the world well into the 1980’s, when its popularity began to decline. How popular was it, exactly? Washington State is one of the biggest producers of apples, and the red delicious constituted 75% of the state’s production. While it’s shrunk to 1/3rd of that amount since, it’s still a massive part of the world’s production of apples.

International Tea Day

The main architects were Centre for Education and Communication, India (Shatadru Chattopadhayay); hind Mazdoor Sabha, India (Samir Roy); lendia National Trade Union Congress, India (Paramasivam); Institute of Social Development, Sri Lanka (P. Muthulingam); New Trade Union Initiative, India (M. Subbu); Red Flag Union- Sri Lanka (O.A Ramaiha) and United Trade Union Congress, India (Ashok Ghosh) at the World Social Forum in January 2005. The first International Tea Day was celebrated in New Delhi in 2005,^[7] with later celebrations organized in Sri Lanka in 2006 and 2008.^[5] International Tea Day celebrations and the related Global Tea Conferences have been jointly organized by trade union movements.^[5]

In 2015, the Indian government proposed expanding the observance of International Tea Day through the FAO Intergovernmental Group on Tea (IGG on Tea).^[8]

The FAO IGG on Tea leads multilateral efforts to support the world tea economy, has been a great advocate for the proclamation of the International Tea Day. In 2015, during a meeting in Milan, Italy, the IGG on Tea discussed the idea of an International Tea Day. The proposal was then endorsed by the FAO Committee on Commodity Problems (CCP) and subsequently adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2019.