MilkRun, a Portland, Oregon-based company, is supporting small, local farmers by enabling them to sell produce safely and directly to consumers' homes. Pikist
By Sean Taylor
MilkRun, a Portland, Oregon-based company, is supporting small, local farmers by enabling them to sell produce safely and directly to consumers' homes.
<p>Founded by farmer and entrepreneur Julia Niiro, MilkRun is an online platform that lets farmers set their own prices, cutting out wholesalers, shippers, and truckers. Once consumers place an order through MilkRun, farmers deliver produce to an aggregation hub, which MilkRun then boxes and ships to consumers' doorsteps.</p><p>On average, farmers receive <a href="https://www.fb.org/newsroom/fast-facts" target="_blank">eight percent</a> of the purchase price from grocery stores according to The American Farm Bureau Federation. But MilkRun estimates a return of up to 70 percent of the purchase price through their platform.</p><p>The platform is also trying to provide data on consumer purchasing patterns, purchase quantities, and food mileage, information that is often difficult for small farmers to obtain.</p>
<p>"Ninety percent of our nation's farms right now don't have even simple tools…they are having to recreate every data point… how can we help them do their jobs better?" Niiro tells Food Tank.</p><p>Niiro believes that the future of farming is bright, and she hopes to help farmers achieve success. "For young farmers, they need to know there's hope…you should be able to make a living and realize your dreams," Niiro tells Food Tank. "Who are we going to leave our food system to if not them?"</p><p>Niiro says that COVID-19 is also having unexpected benefits for both MilkRun and farmers. "COVID has put farmers back in business," Niiro tells Food Tank. She explains that while wholesale orders from restaurants have decreased dramatically, direct purchasing from consumers is offsetting the loss.</p>
<p>According to Niiro, farmers are re-scaling, creating new safety practices, and adapting to direct consumer demands. She says these changes are enabling farmers to turn a profit during the pandemic.</p><p>"I've never been more proud to be someone who's in this work and serving people," Niiro says. "The pride that comes with serving people and giving them an incredible experience makes us essential."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from<a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/09/an-online-platform-is-enabling-farmers-to-deliver-straight-to-consumers/" target="_blank"> Food Tank</a>.</em></p>
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One in four species of bee is at risk of extinction in North America. Buntysmum / Needpix
By Leslie Brooks
More than 75 percent of the world's food crops rely on pollinators, according to the United Nations Environment Program. Through their pollination, bees not only promote biodiversity, but also secure our food supply.
But one in four species of bee is at risk of extinction in North America, according to the United Nations Environment Program. And the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has recorded declines in bee populations in Europe, South America, and Asia.
<p>A combination of factors are contributing to the decline of bees, including habitat loss and degradation, pesticide use, the invasive parasitic <em>Varroa destructor</em> mite, and other <a href="https://ento.psu.edu/pollinators/resources-and-outreach/buzzkills-abiotic-and-biotic-stressors-of-pollinators" target="_blank">diseases</a>. The effects of climate change are compounding these stressors on bee populations worldwide.</p><p>But people around the world are working to create an environment that helps bees thrive. In honor of National Honey Month, Food Tank is highlighting 15 organizations and initiatives working to preserve the livelihood of bees, the ecosystem, and the global food supply.</p>
<p>1. Bees for Development, United Kingdom</p><p><a href="http://www.beesfordevelopment.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bees for Development</a> is an international organization that utilizes beekeeping as a tool to alleviate poverty and retain biodiversity around the world. They work in over 50 countries within local communities, and implement sustainable beekeeping techniques that use only local bees and local resources. They have an open-access information portal that provides information on bees and beekeeping worldwide. Bees for Development also provides advice and guidance to the World Bank, the United Nations, and other international organizations. </p><p>2. BEES for the World, Germany</p><p><a href="http://beesfortheworld.de/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">BEES for the World</a> is dedicated to designing sustainable supply chains for high quality organic-certified bee products all over the world. Their commitment is to Biodiversity, Education, Empowerment, and Sustainability (BEES). They work primarily within African countries to support forest beekeeping. By empowering local communities in the production of high-quality beeswax and connecting them to markets, the group protects local ecosystems while fostering the creation of jobs. </p><p>3. Elephant and Bees Project, Kenya</p><p>What began as a strategic plan to save the elephants, grew into a conservation project for elephants and bees alike. The <a href="https://elephantsandbees.com/" target="_blank">Elephant and Bees Project</a> uses beehive fences – a natural deterrent of elephants – to keep elephants off of farmland, reducing crop damage. This not only increases protected habitats for bees, but also helps educate farmers on the relationship between bees and crop health. The project supports increased bee populations and works in multiple countries throughout Africa.</p>
<p>4. Federation of Nepal Beekeepers, Nepal</p><p>The <a href="http://www.fnbk.org.np/index.php" target="_blank">Federation of Nepal Beekeepers</a> was established in 1999 to support and empower local beekeepers throughout Nepal. This umbrella organization advocates for national policies that benefit beekeepers, their bees, and their livelihoods. The organization also works to increase the capacity of beekeepers by training and educating farmers on the importance of bees in pollination and pasture management. </p><p>5. Honeybee Research Institute, Pakistan</p><p>The <a href="http://www.parc.gov.pk/index.php/en/hb" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Honeybee Research Institute</a> promotes beekeeping in Pakistan with the honeybee <em>Apis </em><em>mellifera</em>. While <em>Apis mellifera</em> honey bees were initially imported from Australia, the species has thrived in Pakistan since the late 1970s. With over 400,000 colonies present today, the bees contribute to increased honey production, income-production for rural populations, and increasing biodiversity. The Institute provides beekeeping training courses, promotes beekeeping for income generation, and has on-going research projects. </p><p>6. Pesticide Action Network Europe, Belgium</p><p>Founded in 1987, the <a href="https://www.pan-europe.info/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pesticide Action Network</a> (PAN Europe) is a network of consumer, public health, and environmental organizations, trades unions, women's groups, and farmer associations from across Europe. As advocates for a pesticide-free Europe, PAN Europe works closely with government representatives to try to reduce the use of hazardous pesticides. Through their European Citizens' Initiative, "Save Bees and Farmers", they are collecting signatures and calling on the European Commission to phase out synthetic pesticides in agriculture by 2035. </p>
<p>7. Pollinator Partnership Canada, Canada</p><p>As a leader in pollinator research and habitat improvement for over 20 years, <a href="https://pollinatorpartnership.ca/en/" target="_blank">Pollinator Partnership Canada</a> provides and supports various projects that help protect pollinators. They offer a Pollinator Steward Certification program for land managers, communities, and organizations. Pollinator Partnership also successfully advocated for Pollinator Week- inaugurally designated June 22-28, 2020 – in Canada to raise awareness about the importance of pollinators.</p><p>8. Purple Hive Project, Australia</p><p>Australia is the only continent not yet affected by the <em>Varroa destructor</em> mite, but researchers fear that Australian honey bees may soon be at risk. The <a href="https://purplehiveproject.com.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Purple Hive Project</a> is on a mission to prevent this mite – which decimates colonies and spreads honey bee viruses – from impacting honey bees in Australia. The Purple Hive uses Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) technology to detect the mite in real-time so that its spread can be prevented. Their long-term goal is to create a network of hives in high-risk locations across Australia. </p><p>9. Slovenian Beekeepers Association, Slovenia</p><p>The <a href="http://www.czs.si/wp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Slovenian Beekeepers Association</a>, originally founded in the late 1800s, offers key beekeeping knowledge and support within the country. The Association advocates and raises awareness on behalf of bees and their importance in the environment, provides beekeeping camps and workshops, and publishes a monthly beekeeping magazine. They are also registered as a research institution, where they develop safe bee products and research ways to protect the Carniolan bee, a type of honey bee indigenous to Slovenia. </p>
<p>10. The Bee Girl Organization, United States</p><p>Sarah "Bee Girl" Red-Laird founded <a href="https://www.beegirl.org/" target="_blank">The Bee Girl Organization</a> to inspire communities to conserve bees, flowers, and food. The Bee Girl team engages communities across the globe, providing educational classes and resources for regenerative beekeeping. In 2019, Bee Girl partnered with a local vineyard to initiate a Bee Friendly Vineyards pilot program. They planted 1800 square feet of sunflowers on a plot of unused land to attract bees to the area. This year, they are partnering with an additional vineyard to begin an in-depth research and habitat project. </p><p>11. The Honeybee Conservancy, United States</p><p><a href="https://thehoneybeeconservancy.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Honeybee Conservancy</a> is dedicated to protecting bees and securing food justice through education, research, habitat creation, and advocacy. Their flagship program, Sponsor-A-Hive, places native bee homes within urban gardens, schools, and organizations that grow produce to bolster local ecosystems. Last year they unveiled an eight-foot-tall rooftop beehive on the Empire State Building, which will house over 70,000 honey bees. Their goal is to place one million bees to support communities of need across the U.S..</p><p>12. Under the Mango Tree, India</p><p><a href="https://www.utmt.in/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Under the Mango Tree</a> was founded with the mission to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in rural India. The organization teaches farmers how to maintain bee boxes on their farms and harvest honey, and connects them to markets to sell their honey. They specifically focus on the indigenous bee, <em>Apis cerana indica</em>, to increase pollination and crop yields. In addition, the organization has trained upwards of 1,000 women to be beekeepers.</p>
<p>13. United Nations Development Program, International</p><p>To help achieve the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, the <a href="https://bees.undp.org/" target="_blank">United Nations Development Program</a> (UNDP) partners with local communities in multiple countries to work with smallholder beekeepers and farmers around the world. Through training and resources they help beekeepers earn a decent living and support the health of their communities, while providing a healthy habitat for bees. With help from the UNDP, beekeepers can more easily access markets and improve their livelihoods.</p><p>14. Wheen Bee Foundation, Australia</p><p>Gretchen Wheen, a pioneer in bee research and one of Australia's most well known beekeepers, donated her estate to establish the <a href="https://www.wheenbeefoundation.org.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Wheen Bee Foundation</a> upon her passing in 2012. The Foundation promotes awareness of the importance of bees for food security and ecosystem health. It funds research and development projects that seek to improve the health of the local bee population. They are currently working in partnership with other organizations to save the Green Carpenter Bee on Kangaroo Island, as the island recovers from the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-07/quarter-of-kangaroo-islands-ligurian-beehives-lost/11845372" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">destructive fires</a> earlier this year. </p><p>15. World Bee Project, England</p><p>Using cloud computing technology, the <a href="http://worldbeeproject.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">World Bee Project</a> created the world's first globally coordinated honeybee hive monitoring initiative. This Network will provide data that can inform international actions to improve pollinator habitats, food security, and nutrition. With this project, developers hope to deliver findings to smallholder farmers around the world.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/09/fifteen-organizations-and-initiatives-helping-to-save-the-bees/" target="_blank">Food Tank.</a></em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Despite a pandemic, we can limit our use of single-use plastics. Pxfuel
By Danielle Nierenberg
The production and disposal of plastic food packaging is energy-intensive and leads to polluted air, soil, and water resources. And once plastics are in circulation, they accumulate in oceans, harming marine life, and break down into smaller microplastics that make their way into food and beverages. Currently, the world's oceans are polluted by more than 5 trillion plastic pieces, collectively weighing over 250,000 tons. And of the 30 million tons of plastic Americans throw away annually, only 8 percent is recycled, according to the Plastic Pollution Coalition.
<p>And COVID-19 is likely spurring an increase in single-use plastics, according to <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.0c02178" target="_blank">a recent paper</a> from the American Chemical Society. Demand is expected to rise by as much as 14 percent in the United States, due in large part to more food delivery, takeout, and pre-packaged grocery products meant to limit the spread of the virus.</p><p>But despite a pandemic, we can limit our use of single use plastics. Food Tank is excited to highlight 6 easy ways you rethink your plastic packaging use—starting right now.</p>
1. Purchasing Products Using Innovative Plastic Replacement Technologies
<p>Keeping coffee fresh can be difficult, and <a href="https://sprudge.com/the-truth-about-compostable-coffee-bags-105358.html" target="_blank">several companies claim their bags are compostable</a>—but the plastic parts, which help with ventilation, are not. <a href="https://elevatepackaging.com/" target="_blank">Elevate Packaging</a> has created the first coffee bag with fully compostable valves, and <a href="https://donmaslowcoffee.com/blogs/sustainability/elevate-packaging" target="_blank">Don Maslow Coffee</a> is one of the first brands to adopt them. For their chocolate truffles, Alter Eco uses compostable wrappers made of eucalyptus and birch trees with <a href="https://www.newhope.com/supply-news-amp-analysis/guayaki-announces-ultimate-green-packaging-biodegradable-compostable" target="_blank">microscopic aluminum layers</a> that maintain freshness; these are fully compostable and biodegrade in oceans. And Guayaki, a sustainability-focused yerba mate company, now sells their loose-leaf teas in compostable <a href="http://www.biomasspackaging.com/brands/natureflex/" target="_blank">Natureflex</a> bags, which contributed to reducing their annual packaging use by 44,000 pounds.</p>2. Drinking Tap Water Instead of Buying Plastic Bottles
<p>Around 20,000 plastic waste bottles are sold every second around the world, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/28/a-million-a-minute-worlds-plastic-bottle-binge-as-dangerous-as-climate-change" target="_blank">according to figures from Euromonitor International</a>—a total of 480 billion in 2016. And not only are many of these wasted, but they also deposit microplastics in our digestive systems. And according to <a href="https://www.boell.de/en/2019/11/05/plasticatlas?dimension1=ds_plastic_atlas" target="_blank">the 2019 Plastic Atlas</a>, compiled by the Heinrich Böel Foundation and Break Free From Plastic, "people who drink water from plastic bottles wash something like 130,000 microplastic particles down their throats every year," compared with 4,000 particles present in tap water.</p>3. Trying to Avoid Disposable Plastic Utensils
<p>The wave of plastic straw bans in summer 2018 drew attention to the massive plastic waste associated with the products: Based on beach cleanup data, <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768.abstract?ijkey=BXtBaPzbQgagE&keytype=ref&siteid=sci" target="_blank">researchers calculated</a> that around 7.5 billion straws are currently littering America's beaches. But straws make up only <a href="https://phys.org/news/2018-04-science-amount-straws-plastic-pollution.html" target="_blank">around 4 percent of plastic trash</a> on a piece-by-piece level, making it important to examine other commonly disposed utensils, like plastic forks and spoons. Cutlery has been <a href="https://oceanconservancy.org/trash-free-seas/take-deep-dive/threat-rank-report/" target="_blank">rated by the Ocean Conservancy</a> as one of the items "most dangerous" to sea life—but if everyone in the U.S. switched from plastic to reusable cutlery, it would stop the use of <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/carrying-your-own-fork-spoon-help-plastic-crisis" target="_blank">more than 100 million</a> plastic forks, knives, and spoons.</p>4. Buying in Bulk
<p>Although many grocery stores' bulk bins have temporarily closed due to COVID-19, purchasing in large quantities, along with meal planning, can still be an effective way to minimize the number of individual packages sold. And switching from prepackaged foods to the bulk aisle can <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/04/12/149931279/whats-the-scoop-on-bulk-foods" target="_blank">save around 56 percent on food costs—what</a> NPR's The Salt described as "a permanent two-for-one sale on dozens of organic foods and ingredients.</p>5. Choosing Personal Care Products Without Microplastics
<p>Personal care products with microbeads, such as certain toothpastes and soaps, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X16308657" target="_blank">are a major contributor of microplastics</a>, or small plastic fragments that build up in the environment as a byproduct of plastic products breaking down. One study of particular exfoliant products found that <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025326X1500449X?via%3Dihub" target="_blank">between 4,500 and 94,500 microbeads</a> were released per use. Microplastics can <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/es501090e" target="_blank">get stuck in fish gills</a> and enter animals' digestive tracts, which can be problematic given microplastics' ability to <a href="https://civileats.com/2015/01/15/how-microplastics-from-fleece-could-end-up-on-your-plate" target="_blank">absorb and retain potentially toxic substances</a>.</p>6. Publicly Demonstrating Your Commitment to Cutting Down Your Plastic Footprint
<p>When artist and activist Dianna Cohen first started learning about plastic pollution, she said her first instinct was to find ways to clean up the plastic in the oceans—but she realized those efforts would pale in comparison to the new plastic waste generated every day. "The bigger picture is: we need to find a way to turn off the faucet. We need to cut the spigot of single-use and disposable plastics, which are entering the marine environment every day on a global scale," she said <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/dianna_cohen_tough_truths_about_plastic_pollution/" target="_blank">in her TED Talk</a>. She founded the Plastic Pollution Coalition, which is <a href="https://p2a.co/DUghpK4" target="_blank">collecting signatures on eight petitions</a>, from calling on Amazon to reduce plastic use to encouraging legislators to adopt anti-plastic policies. The coalition is also encouraging people to <a href="https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/pledge" target="_blank">take the 4Rs Pledge</a> to refuse disposable plastic, reduce your plastic footprint, reuse single-use items, and recycle what you can't refuse, reduce, or reuse. In addition, anyone can <a href="https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/the-coalition" target="_blank">become a member of the Plastic Pollution Coalition</a> and join 1,200+ businesses and individuals, including Ben & Jerry's and actors Fran Drescher, Jeff Bridges, Jane Fonda, and more.</p>From Your Site Articles
- World's Plastic Waste Problem Now Predicted to Reach 111 Million ... ›
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Women sort potatoes in the Andes Mountains near Cusco Peru on July 7, 2014. Thomas O'Neill / NurPhoto / Getty Images
By Alejandro Argumedo
August 9 is the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples – a celebration of the uniqueness of the traditions of Quechua, Huli, Zapotec, and thousands of other cultures, but also of the universality of potatoes, bananas, beans, and the rest of the foods that nourish the world. These crops did not arise out of thin air. They were domesticated over thousands of years, and continue to be nurtured, by Indigenous people. On this day we give thanks to these cultures for the diversity of our food.
<p>Yes, even in a globalized world and food system. Most diversity in crops – and livestock – is still found in the regions where they have been around longest, adapting to climatic extremes, pests, and diseases through millennia interaction with human cultures – as we have weathered our own storms and pandemics. Known as primary regions of crop and livestock diversity, these places are central to the present and future viability of food systems. They are also the homelands of many Indigenous peoples.</p>
<p>For centuries, crop diversity has enriched the world, but has been taken out of the hands of Indigenous people in doing so. That story is only beginning to shift as the rest of the world starts to give Indigenous farmers the respect they are due. Community initiatives like the <a href="https://parquedelapapa.org/" target="_blank">Parque de la Papa</a> (Potato Park), in the primary region of potato diversity in the Andes of Peru, are connecting with worldwide conservation efforts on the farmers' own terms.</p><p>Six Quechua communities established the Parque to ensure the survival of the thousands of traditional potato cultivars they grow. They then co-designed a unique agreement with the <a href="https://cipotato.org/" target="_blank">International Potato Center</a> genebank in Lima and the nonprofit <a href="https://andes.org.pe/" target="_blank">Asociacion ANDES</a> to return 410 native potato varieties to the Parque communities. Scientists had collected these from the region's communities since the 1960s, but many had disappeared from farmers' fields in the recent decades. That first agreement led to more collaborative research and monitoring, and today the Parque's diversity is conserved in farmers' fields, in new community seedbanks, in the CIP genebank in Lima, and, as a final safety backup, 7,000 miles north in the <a href="https://www.seedvault.no/" target="_blank">Svalbard Global Seed Vault</a> – where the Indigenous farmers who deposited them still retain their rights over their seeds.</p><p>Indigenous farmers and cooks in the primary regions of diversity are resilient. They know all about getting through trying times. Through it all, they have persisted: through loss of access to land and other resources; through industrialization, subsidies, and trade agreements that undermine rural livelihoods; through civil strife and political neglect. Often working in places of extreme topography, they have faced the most severe impacts of the climate catastrophe. This year they have been struck disproportionally, sometimes threatened in their very existence, by the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>In some countries, legislation finally respects their rights to traditional knowledge and livelihoods. Yet a larger transformation is still needed – to redress injustices, secure access to land, and generate a greater range of opportunities in food and agriculture.</p><p>I believe that a key agent of this transformation will be a global network that is already beginning to unite stewards of food traditions in primary regions of diversity. The potential is clear in the direct connections that Indigenous communities are making with chefs, civil society, and commercial endeavors to create – together – market opportunities for agriculturally resilient and nutritious local foods. It is encouraging that consumers are increasingly showing a willingness to try diverse foods, while recognizing the work of farming communities. A boom in community-based development and wider marketing of products made with local crop and livestock diversity is a small sign of the big shift coming.</p><p>Another emerging opportunity for Indigenous communities is the increased capacity to learn from the successes and challenges of others. While communities in primary regions of diversity often maintain a broad menu of domesticated and wild species, their food systems generally center on a few key species. Potatoes and quinoa in parts of the Andes; maize and beans in Mesoamerica; bananas and tubers in the highlands of Papua New Guinea: such emblematic foods can be pillars around which to co-organize global networks of custodians of agricultural biodiversity, building on existing networks of small-scale and Indigenous farmers. One such effort is hosted by the <a href="https://inmip.net/" target="_blank">International Network for Mountain Indigenous Peoples</a>. Inspired by the Parque de la Papa, it now includes communities in Bolivia, China, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Peru, and Tajikistan, each organized around different emblematic Indigenous crops. With time, the initial focus on relatively "charismatic" crops can be leveraged to benefit other, less well-known species and their stewards, too.</p><p>I draw hope and excitement from seeing Indigenous communities achieve recognition in local, national, and international policy arenas, and watching them strengthen their work by seeking out collaborations based on mutual respect. That kind of collaboration can reach across dramatically different scales, from farmers' fields, homes, and tables, to community actions like local seedbanks, to the large public genebanks that make crop conservation a global effort, and a global good. Meanwhile, redressing the imbalances that disadvantage Indigenous communities, and undervalue the diversity they generate and maintain, will mean reframing this diversity and its engendering biocultural processes as central community assets.</p><p>Celebrating Indigenous people on August 9 is not just about having a party; it helps keeps diversity and community on their feet as globalization shifts the ground from under us all.</p><p><em>Alejandro Argumedo is Director of Programs and Andes Amazon Lead of Swift Foundation (<a href="http://www.swiftfoundation.org/" target="_blank">www.swiftfoundation.org</a>); he is a recognized indigenous peoples' food rights activist currently acting as the international coordinator of the International Network of Mountain Indigenous Peoples (INMIP).</em></p>
From Your Site Articles
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Berber woman cooks traditional flatbread using an earthen oven in her mud-walled village home located near the historic village of Ait Benhaddou in Morocco, Africa on Jan. 4, 2016. Creative Touch Imaging Ltd. /NurPhoto / Getty Images
By Danielle Nierenberg and Jason Flatt
The world's Indigenous Peoples face severe and disproportionate rates of food insecurity. While Indigenous Peoples comprise 5 percent of the world's population, they account for 15 percent of the world's poor, according to the World Health Organization.
<p>But through seed saving initiatives, financial support, mentorship, and community feeding programs, many organizations are working to protect Indigenous food sovereignty—the ability to grow, eat, and share food according to their own traditions and values.</p><p>"We must care for this [natural] abundance as it will nourish our families—both physically as well as spiritually," said Maenette K. P. Ah Nee-Benham, Chancellor of the University of Hawai'i at West O'ahu at a <u><a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/01/we-must-listen-to-indigenous-communities-food-tank-in-arizona/" target="_blank">Food Tank Summit</a></u> in partnership with the Arizona State University Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems on the wisdom of Indigenous foodways.</p>
<p><br/></p>
<p>In honor of <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/indigenous-day" target="_blank">International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples</a> on August 9, Food Tank is highlighting 28 organizations from around the world protecting and cultivating Indigenous food systems. Through what many of the following organizations call <a href="https://sierraseeds.org/seed-rematriation/" target="_blank">rematration</a>, they strive to return Indigenous lands, seeds, foods, and histories to Indigenous Peoples and protect them for future generations.</p>
1. Aboriginal Carbon Foundation (Oceania)
<p>The Aboriginal Carbon Foundation is building a carbon farming industry in Australia by Aboriginals, for Aboriginals. The Foundation offers training and support for new Indigenous farmers so they can learn how to capture atmospheric carbon in the soil. The carbon farming projects generate certified <a href="http://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/Infohub/Markets/buying-accus/australian-carbon-credit-unit-supply" target="_blank">Australian Carbon Credit Units</a> (ACCU), which major carbon-producing businesses must purchase to offset their carbon emissions. Income generated by ACCUs is reinvested in Aboriginal communities by the Aboriginal Carbon Foundation and its participating farmers.</p>2. AgroEcology Fund (International)
<p>The AgroEcology Fund (AEF) galvanizes global leaders and experts to fund <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/07/26-organizations-working-to-conserve-seed-biodiversity/" target="_blank">biodiverse</a> and regenerative agriculture projects worldwide. Projects funded by AEF have included Indigenous food sovereignty initiatives, agroecology training institutions, and women's market access networks on every continent. With the support of governments and financial institutions, AEF hopes that agroecology will become the standard model for food production worldwide within thirty years.</p>3. Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (Asia)
<p>The Asia Indigenous People Pact is an alliance of Indigenous organizations across southern and eastern Asia. Collectively, the Pact promotes and protects Indigenous lands, food systems, and biodiversity. Their alliance is bolstered by regional youth and women's networks, as well as support from international institutions, including the United Nations and Oxfam.</p>4. Association of Guardians of the Native Potato from Central Peru (South America)
<p>The Association of Guardians of the Native Potato from Central Peru (AGUAPAN) is a collective of Indigenous farmers. Each farmer grows between 50 and 300 ancestral varieties of potato, which are <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/07/food-tanks-summer-2020-reading-list/" target="_blank">indigenous to the Andes Mountains</a> of modern-day Peru. AGUAPAN farmers preserve the crop's biodiversity in their native communities and band together to advocate for economic, gender, education, and healthcare equity.</p>5. Cheyenne River Youth Project (North America)
<p>The Cheyenne River Youth Project in Eagle Butte, South Dakota has served Lakota youth for more than three decades. Its Native Food Sovereignty initiative offers public workshops on <a href="https://www.nativeseeds.org/blogs/blog-news/how-to-grow-a-three-sisters-garden" target="_blank">Three Sisters gardening</a> of corn, beans, and squash. They also offer classes on Indigenous plants, gardening, and cooking. Their Winyan Tokay Win (Leading Lady) Garden serves as an outdoor classroom to reacquaint Lakota children with the earth. Their other programs use food grown in the garden for meals and snacks. They also sell surplus crops at their weekly Leading Lady Farmer's Market.</p>6. Dream of Wild Health (North America)
<p>Dream of Wild Health runs a 10-acre farm just outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Their Indigenous Food Share CSA program and farmer's market booths sell produce and value-added products grown by Native Americans. During the summer, Dream of Wild Health offers a Garden Warriors program where children can learn about seed saving, foraging, farmers market management, and other aspects of food sovereignty. They also host the <a href="https://dreamofwildhealth.org/indigenous-food-network" target="_blank">Indigenous Food Network</a> (IFN), a collective of Indigenous partners who advocate for local and regional policy changes. The IFN also hosts community food tasting events featuring prominent Indigenous chefs.</p>7. First Peoples Worldwide (International)
<p>First Peoples Worldwide was <a href="http://www.firstpeoples.org/" target="_blank">founded</a> by Cherokee social entrepreneur <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQxwHVeH6zc" target="_blank">Rebecca Adamson</a> to help businesses to align with First Peoples' rights. Now a part of the University of Colorado's <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/business/CESR" target="_blank">Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility</a>, First Peoples Worldwide continues to ensure that Indigenous voices are at the forefront of decision-making processes affecting their own self-determination. The organization works with businesses and institutions to assess their investments and guide them in incorporating Indigenous Peoples' rights and interests into their business decisions.</p>8. Indigikitchen (North America)
<p>Mariah Gladstone's Indigikitchen uses Native foods as resistance. Her <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO918GT8I3HX5f4Z1xKCV4A" target="_blank">cooking videos</a> offer healthy, creative ways to eat <a href="https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=PR005" target="_blank">pre-contact</a>, Indigenous foods. The recipes abstain from highly-processed grains, dairy, and sugar, ingredients that did not become standard in diets of the Americas until European colonization. Indigikitchen hopes that its recipes inspire Indigenous cooks to connect with Native foods.</p>9. Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative (North America)
<p>The Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative at the University of Arkansas provides model policies for Tribal governments to help <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/05/colby-duren-talks-indigenous-food-and-agriculture-policy/" target="_blank">promote and protect food sovereignty</a>. They also co-organize the Native Farm Bill Coalition with the <a href="https://shakopeedakota.org/" target="_blank">Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community</a>, the <a href="https://www.indianag.org/" target="_blank">Intertribal Agriculture Council</a>, and the <a href="http://www.ncai.org/" target="_blank">National Congress of American Indians</a>. The Initiative hosts annual <a href="https://indigenousfoodandag.com/resources/native-youth-summit/" target="_blank">Native Youth in Food and Agriculture Leadership Summits</a>, where American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian youth can learn about agricultural business, land stewardship, agricultural law, and more.</p>10. Indigenous Food Systems Network (North America)
<p>The Indigenous Food Systems Network (IFSN) is a convener of Indigenous food producers, researchers, and policymakers across the 98 Indigenous nations of Canada. IFSN supports research, policy reform, and direct action that builds food sovereignty in Indigenous communities. The organization's Indigenous Food Sovereignty <a href="http://www.bcfsn.org/mailman/listinfo/ifs_bcfsn.org" target="_blank">email listserv</a> offers its subscribers everything from stories and legends to recipes and policy reform tools.</p>11. Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty (International)
<p>Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty is an international organization based in Rome, Italy connecting the world's Indigenous People to agricultural research and advocacy groups. With Indigenous communities from China to India and Thailand to Latin America, Indigenous Partnerships forges dialogues within Indigenous communities to ensure <a href="http://www.fao.org/indigenous-peoples/our-pillars/fpic/en/" target="_blank">free, prior, and informed consent</a> between research and advocacy partners. Indigenous Partnerships also seeks to incorporate global and local Indigenous knowledge into non-Indigenous knowledge systems.</p>12. Indigenous Terra Madre (International)
<p>Indigenous Terra Madre is a global network of Indigenous Peoples sponsored by <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/06/living-the-slow-food-life-during-lockdown/" target="_blank">Slow Food</a>, an international institution based in Rome, Italy. The network amplifies Indigenous voices and protects the biodiversity of the crops Indigenous communities cultivate. By providing a platform for Indigenous communities to pool power and resources, Indigenous Terra Madre fights to defend the land, culture, and opportunity of all Indigenous Peoples.</p>13. Intertribal Agriculture Council (North America)
<p>The American Indian Food Program by the Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC) helps Native American and Alaskan Native agribusinesses and food entrepreneurs expand their market reach. The Made/Produced by American Indians Trademark promoted by the IAC identifies certified American Indian products and is used by over 500 businesses. IAC's other major American Indian Food Program, Native Food Connection, helps market Native American foods and food producers across the United States. IAC also offers technical and natural resource assistance to connect Native businesses with U.S. Department of Agriculture programs and conservation stewardship resources.</p>14. Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska (North America)
<p>Through its Alaskan Inuit Food Sovereignty Initiative, the Inuit Circumpolar Council-Alaska is convening Inuit community leaders from across Alaska. The Initiative seeks to unify Inuit throughout the state to advocate for land and wildlife management sovereignty. The Initiative also strives for international cooperation to promote food sovereignty across <a href="https://indigenouspeoplesatlasofcanada.ca/article/inuit-nunangat/" target="_blank">Inuit Nunaat</a>.</p>15. Mantasa (Asia)
<p>Mantasa is a research institution in Indonesia dedicated to expanding the number of indigenous plants consumed by the Javanese people. According to Mantasa, only 20 plant species comprise 90 percent of Javanese food needs. Their research is incorporating new wild foods from Indonesia's vast biodiversity into Javanese diets to improve food security and nutrition. Mantasa also helps promote these foods to consumers and local farmers to increase their popularity.</p>16. Muonde Trust (Africa)
<p>In Mazvhiwa, Zimbabwe, the Muonde Trust invests in Indigenous innovations in food, land, and water management. The Trust seeks out individuals with new ideas and provides peer-to-peer support to help bring those ideas to life. Muonde Trust currently supports innovations in indigenous seed saving and sharing, livestock and woodland management, irrigation systems, and constructing kitchen spaces.</p>17. Native American Agriculture Fund (North America)
<p>The Native American Agriculture Fund (NAAF) is the largest philanthropic supporter of Native American agriculture. The Fund offers grants to Tribal governments, nonprofit organizations, and educational institutions to support healthy lands, healthy people, and healthy economies. In 2020, NAAF is offering US$1 million in grant funds specifically for youth initiatives and young farmers and ranchers. NAAF is also centralizing COVID-19 relief information for Native farmers, ranchers, fishers, and Tribal governments.</p>18. Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance (North America)
<p>The Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance (NAFSA) places Indigenous farmers, wild-crafters, fishers, hunters, ranchers, and eaters at the center of the fight to restore Indigenous food systems and self-determination. NAFSA's primary initiatives are the Indigenous Seedkeepers Network, the Food and Culinary Mentorship Program, and their Native Food Sovereignty Events. Each of these initiatives centers around the reclamation of Indigenous seeds and foods.</p>19. Native Seed/SEARCH (North America)
<p>Native Seed/SEARCH preserves and proliferates <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/07/a-call-for-community-based-seed-diversity-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/" target="_blank">indigenous seeds</a> through their Native Access programs. Their Native American Seed Request program offers free seed packets to Native Americans living in or originating from the Greater Southwestern Region. The Bulk Seed Exchange allows growers to pay it forward by returning 1.5 times the seeds they receive to be put towards future Native American Seed Request packs. While Native Seed/SEARCH sells an assortment of popular seeds to the general public, its collection of indigenous seeds are <a href="https://www.nativeseeds.org/pages/native-access" target="_blank">only available to Native farmers</a> and families. They hope these seeds will revitalize traditional foods and build food sovereignty.</p>20. Navajo Ethno-Agriculture (North America)
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">Navajo Ethno-Agriculture is sustaining Navajo culture through lessons on traditional farming. The seasonal courses focus on land, water, and food as students cultivate, harvest, and prepare heritage crops. During COVID-19, Navajo Ethno-Agriculture suspended its courses and is focusing on supplying neighboring farms with heritage seeds and farm equipment. They are also offering food processing and packaging services to protect and rejuvenate soil.</span><br></p>21. North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (North America)
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">Founded by the chefs of </span><a href="https://sioux-chef.com/" target="_blank" style="background-color: initial;">The Sioux Chef</a><span style="background-color: initial;">, North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NāTIFS) is reimagining the North American food system as a generator of wealth and good health for Native communities. The organization seeks to reverse the effects of forced assimilation and colonization through food entrepreneurship and a reclamation of ancestral education. NāTIFS is establishing an </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/indigenousfoodlab/" target="_blank" style="background-color: initial;">Indigenous Food Lab</a><span style="background-color: initial;"> in Minneapolis, Minnesota as a training center and restaurant for Native chefs and food. NāTIFS plans to eventually spread this model across North America.</span><br></p>22. Oyate Teca Project (North America)
<p><br></p><p>In response to dire food access on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota, the Oyate Teca Project offers year-long classes in gardening, food entrepreneurship, and traditional food preservation techniques. Oyate Teca helps make local foods available to the community by selling produce grown in their half-acre garden at farmer's markets. The project also serves as an emergency food provider for families and children.</p>23. Tebtebba (Asia)
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">Tebtebba is an international organization based in the Philippines committed to sharing global Indigenous wisdom. Its Indigenous Peoples and Biodiversity project strengthens Indigenous organizations' research, policy advocacy, and education on biodiversity. The project also works directly with Indigenous communities to strengthen their governance structures, protect their land, and improve their food security.</span><br></p>24. Sierra Seeds (North America)
<p><br></p><p><a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/06/new-on-the-podcast-rowen-white-talks-indigenous-seed-sovereignty-and-viraj-puri-says-urban-greenhouses-can-transform-produce/" target="_blank">Rowan White</a> and her organization, Sierra Seeds, are dedicated to the next generation of farmers, gardeners, and food justice activists. Her flagship program, Seed Seva, offers a multi-layered education on seed stewardship and Indigenous permaculture. The program is offered online, allowing anybody to access White's wisdom. Additionally, Sierra Seeds offers a <a href="https://sierraseeds.org/seeding-change/" target="_blank">Seeding Change</a> leadership incubator, where emerging food justice leaders meet virtually to support one another while developing individual projects.</p>25. Storying Kaitiakitanga (Oceania)
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">Storying Kaitiakitanga – A Kaupapa Māori Land and Water Food Story is a project of Dr. Jessica Hutchings and other Māori researchers and storytellers. The project was developed as part of the </span><a href="https://www.ourlandandwater.nz/" target="_blank" style="background-color: initial;">Our Land and Water National Science Challenge</a><span style="background-color: initial;"> to collect the stories of Māori food producers across the food system. Storying Kaitiakitanga is exploring how traditional Māori principles and practices can inspire more sustainable food systems for the next generation. Stories include beekeepers, yogurt producers, and business development service providers.</span><br></p>26. Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation (North America)
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">The Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation (CDC) is a grassroots Lakota organization building food sovereignty on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota. Their reservation-wide Food Sovereignty Coalition is dedicated to reconstructing a healthy local food system. They have greatly increased food production on the reservation and train residents and students on Oglala food histories, current local foods, gardening, and food preservation.</span><br></p>27. Wangi Tangni (Central America)
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">In Nicaragua's Caribbean Coast, the women of Indigenous Miskita communities receive native plants from Wangi Tangni to grow for food, medicine, and reforestation. The organization provides communal and legal support for women, many of whom do not speak Spanish. The organization's overall mission is to promote political participation and gender equality through sustainable development projects such as indigenous plant rematriation.</span><br></p>28. Zuni Youth Enrichment Project (North America)
<p><span style="background-color: initial;">The public schools of the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico and Arizona partner with the Zuni Youth Enrichment Project to build gardening spaces and provide nutrition education. The partnership is intended to reintroduce traditional knowledge and practices into students' educations about food. The Project hopes that the community gardens will also inspire more Zuni to grow their own food and reduce rates of obesity and diabetes in their communities.</span><br></p>From Your Site Articles
- Indigikitchen Is Bringing Native Food Sovereignty Online - EcoWatch ›
- 8 Gardening Tips From Indigenous Food Growers - EcoWatch ›
- Indigenous Peoples Hold the Past and Future of Food in Their Hands - EcoWatch ›
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The European Commission launched a new Farm to Fork strategy in an effort to reduce the social and environmental impact of the European food system. European Environmental Agency / Flickr / CC by 2.0
By Katell Ané
The European Commission launched a new Farm to Fork strategy in an effort to reduce the social and environmental impact of the European food system. It is the newest strategy under the European Green Deal, setting sustainability targets for farmers, consumers, and policymakers.
<p>"Farmers are under extreme pressure," Stefan de Keersmaeker, European Commission Spokesperson for Public Health and Food Safety, tells Food Tank. "But our environment and health are under pressure." </p><p>The strategy aims to reduce the use of chemical pesticides by 50 percent, increase the proportion of land used for organic farming to 25 percent, and reduce nutrient loss by 50 percent before 2030. It is also working to tackle food waste, loss of biodiversity, and unfair wages in the food chain. </p><p>Olivier de Schutter, Co-Chair of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, explains on <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/06/new-on-the-podcast-olivier-de-schutter-on-democratic-food-policy-reform/" target="_blank">Food Tank Live</a> that the strategy comes after calls for a single, integrated food policy framework. After three years of advocacy, a <a href="https://www.arc2020.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/EU-FPC_Open-Letter-F2F-2.pdf" target="_blank">coalition</a> of more than 250 European organizations persuaded the newly elected European Commission to consolidate existing agricultural, health, trade, and environmental policies.</p>
<p>To achieve its goals, the European Commission plans to <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/food-farming-fisheries/sustainability_and_natural_resources/documents/analysis-of-links-between-cap-and-green-deal_en.pdf" target="_blank">reformulate</a> the Common Agricultural Policy (<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/food-farming-fisheries/key-policies/common-agricultural-policy/cap-glance_en" target="_blank">CAP</a>), which provides funding for farmers and rural development. The revised CAP will create <a href="https://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:ea0f9f73-9ab2-11ea-9d2d-01aa75ed71a1.0001.02/DOC_1&format=PDF" target="_blank">eco-schemes</a> to support farmers engaging in sustainable agricultural practices. This new system will reward precision agriculture, agroecology, carbon farming, and agroforestry, amongst other practices.</p><p>"We really believe that if we take this step…if we can set the standard, this will be a win-win situation for all involved," de Keersmaecker tells FoodTank. "What's important is that we ensure that the ensuing value is fairly distributed along the food chain so that those that really invest in this transition are actually rewarded."</p><p>But while de Keersmaekcker says the strategy marks a turning point in food systems legislation, some activists argue that it must go further. </p>
<p>Madeleine Coste, Policy Officer at <a href="https://www.slowfood.com/sloweurope/en/" target="_blank">Slow Food Europe</a>, warns that the 50 percent pesticide reduction target is still too low. </p><p>"[We] are worried that these targets do not go far enough to trigger a much-needed radical shift to agroecological practices," Coste tells Food Tank. If member states do not help farmers transition to more sustainable practices, she explains, "bee and pollinator [species will] continue to be wiped out due to the perpetuation of a farming system based on monoculture and…chemical inputs." </p><p>Coste also fears the European Commission's focus on food waste is too narrow by accounting only for consumer and retail waste. Alongside the <a href="https://eeb.org/" target="_blank">European Environmental Bureau</a> and the <a href="https://www.wwf.eu/" target="_blank">World Wildlife Fund</a>, Slow Food Europe advocates targeting<a href="https://foodpolicycoalition.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/NGO-Joint-letter_EC-Commitment-on-Tackling-Food-Waste-in-the-F2F-Strategy.pdf" target="_blank"> pre-retail waste</a>, which makes up 30-59 percent of Europe's total food waste, according to the <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/mb060e/mb060e.pdf" target="_blank">U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization</a>. </p>
<p>Others worry about the Farm to Fork's stance on industrial animal agriculture. The <a href="https://www.eurovia.org/" target="_blank">European Coordination of Via Campesina</a> (ECVC), joined by more than a dozen civil society organizations, <a href="https://actionaid.org/sites/default/files/publications/Less%20and%20better%20animal%20products%20in%20the%20Farm%20to%20Fork%20strategy.pdf" target="_blank">counseled</a> the European Commission to tackle the overconsumption of meat, dairy, and eggs.</p><p>These organizations argue that a reduction in the consumption of animal products would have a positive effect on the environment. But Pierre Maison, Coordination Committee Member of ECVC tells Food Tank, "we believe the capacity of the Farm to Fork strategy to facilitate this transition is very weak." Maison fears that the current policy environment may thwart the Farm to Fork's chances of moving Europe away from large industrial animal agriculture, and reaching its soil health and organic farming targets.</p><p>In order to meet the Farm to Fork's targets, the CAP must enhance <a href="https://www.eurovia.org/report-and-video-of-the-webinar-food-sovereignty-and-the-farm-to-fork-strategy-building-a-fairer-and-more-just-agricultural-model-in-the-eu/" target="_blank">food sovereignty</a> by centering small farmers, according to Maison. "Without market and product regulation, farmers will not receive decent and stable revenue, which will hinder their transition towards sustainable production systems," Maison tells Food Tank.</p>
<p>But by re-localizing supply chains and improving the resilience of farms, he believes the Farm to Fork strategy has the potential to empower small farmers. And Maison says that while organizers have a long way to go, the strategy is an important first step.</p><p>"The transition towards sustainable food systems cannot be successfully achieved if we do it on our own," de Keersmacker tells Food Tank, "it's a fight we're in together."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/08/social-and-environmental-justice-activists-react-to-eu-farm-to-fork-strategy/" target="_blank">Food Tank.</a></em></p>
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Tara Moore / DigitalVision / Getty Images
By Danielle Nierenberg and Maya Osman-Krinsky
In the United States, over 2,000 acres of agricultural land are sold every day for housing or commercial development, according to the American Farmland Trust. This has especially affected Black farmers who, since 1920, have seen nearly a 90 percent decline in land ownership, according to the U.S. Census.
<p>Over the past decade, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2019.1602520" target="_blank">as many as 200 million hectares of land</a> have undergone large-scale transactions internationally, according to a study by Oregon State University. These transactions, taking the form of <a href="https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/issues/food-farming-and-hunger/land-grabs/" target="_blank">land grabs</a> or <a href="https://www.rafiusa.org/blog/corporate-consolidation/#:~:text=The%20farmers%20help%20grow%20out,in%20poultry%20and%20livestock%20production." target="_blank">corporate consolidation of agriculture</a>, often deteriorate the economic livelihood and food security of small farmers and communities reliant on these lands for sustenance, as reported by the <a href="https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/driving-dispossession.pdf" target="_blank">Oakland Institute</a>. When communities control their own farmland, residents can invest in <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/brief/land-and-food-security1" target="_blank">sustainable and affordable agriculture</a>, which helps to alleviate hunger and malnutrition, according to the World Bank.</p><p>Many organizations around the world are fighting to help communities regain control of their land and livelihoods. Food Tank is highlighting 19 organizations combating land grabs and protecting land for farmers.</p>
1. Alaska Farmland Trust (United States)
<p>One in five Alaskans is considered food insecure, and over 95 percent of the food consumed by Alaskans is imported from the contiguous U.S., according to the Alaska Farmland Trust Corporation (AFTC). AFTC was created in 2005 to support the existing farms in Alaska's Mat-Su valley and safeguard farmland against development. AFTC aims to protect 5,700 acres of farmland in the next 50 years to ensure productive farms, ranches, and forests for generations of Alaskan farmers to come.</p>2. American Farmland Trust (United States)
<p>Since its inception in 1980, the American Farmland Trust (AFT) has worked to protect farmland from development and promote sound farming practices. AFT leads the <a href="http://www.fao.org/resources/infographics/infographics-details/en/c/216754/" target="_blank">conservation agriculture movement</a> by combining on-the-ground projects with research and advocacy. AFT also created the <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/11/14/1651476/0/en/No-Farms-No-Food-Farmland-Takes-Action-With-American-Farmland-Trust-Partnership.html" target="_blank">No Farms No Food</a> message, which aims to connect the food we eat to the farms that grow it. The organization has protected millions of acres of farmland from commercial development while helping tens of thousands of farmers adopt better farming practices.</p>3. Anera (Middle East)
<p>Since 1968, Anera has worked to provide emergency relief and sustainable long-term aid to refugee communities in Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan. In 1985, they began a decade-long <a href="https://www.anera.org/what-we-do/agriculture/" target="_blank">agricultural development project</a> to help Palestinian farmers reclaim hundreds of acres of land. This project continues to grow in the West Bank, giving loans to thousands of farmers and encouraging sustainable projects to combat food insecurity and water scarcity.</p>4. Bangladesh Krishok Federation (Bangladesh)
<p>The Bangladesh Krishok Federation (BKF) was established in 1990 as a grassroots peasants' rights organization. Since before its founding, BKF has organized landless people to fight for policy reform by demonstrating, organizing, providing legal aid, and working with the government to negotiate fair land deals. BKF and its women-led counterpart, Bangladesh Kishani Sabha (BKS), work in tandem to secure rights for peasants, farmers, and the 112 million landless people in Bangladesh.</p>5. Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community (Cambodia)
<p>The Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community (CCFC) addresses land rights issues for Cambodian farmers through community organizing and policy negotiation. CCFC's <a href="https://www.ccfccambodia.org/no-land-no-market-no-life" target="_blank">No Land No Life Campaign</a> tackles forced evictions and unjust legislation by mobilizing small farmers to speak out against Cambodian authorities on land tenure and human rights issues. CCFC has been a platform for <a href="https://www.ccfccambodia.org/archives/category/press-announcement" target="_blank">over 6,800 farming families</a> condemning forced evictions and exploitative commercial farming.</p>6. Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund (United States)
<p>The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund is a non-profit cooperative association of black farmers and landowners. The Federation builds support for public policies and credit unions that help Black and family farmers expand and protect their landholdings in the South. They also hold annual events and workshops centered around education, forestry, and racial equity in food systems.</p>7. Food First Information and Action Network International (International)
<p>Food First Information and Action Network International (FIAN) was the first international human rights organization with a specific focus on adequate food and nutrition. FIAN fights for land and natural resources by holding corporations and governments accountable for violations of people's right to food. FIAN aims to secure people's access to land rights while advocating for gender, economic, agricultural, and legal equality worldwide. In 2019, FIAN's right-to-food activism reached 60 countries.</p>8. Friends of the Earth International (International)
<p>Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is a grassroots network mobilizing for climate justice, human rights, food sovereignty, and gender justice. Across its 73 member groups, FoEI supports campaigns defending peasant farming against large-scale industrial land grabs. Most recently, <a href="https://ja4change.org/2019/12/13/justica-ambiental-ja-celebrates-human-rights-day-with-the-launch-of-2-case-studies/" target="_blank">Justiça Ambiental</a>, a FoEI member group, worked with a <a href="https://www.foei.org/news/blogs/agroecology/mozambique-land-rights-acroecology" target="_blank">Mozambican village</a> fighting to reclaim their stolen land.</p>9. GRAIN (International)
<p>GRAIN is an international non-profit organization that advocates for community-controlled and biodiverse food systems. Using research and public awareness outreach campaigns, GRAIN supports small farmers in their efforts to combat corporate land deals and land grabs. In 2019, GRAIN supported struggles for land in Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Cameroon, Cambodia, and Brazil.</p>10. Grupo Semillas (Colombia)
<p>Corporación Grupo Semillas is an environmentalist NGO that backs Afro-Colombian, indigenous, and peasant organizations in Colombia. Grupo Semillas supports land tenure and reclamation efforts in their <a href="https://www.semillas.org.co/es/resultado-archivo-categoria?id=53431fcd6075e1796e6f86f9ec1b9028" target="_blank">Tierras y territorios</a> division, which focuses on pushing back against agribusiness and land monopolies. Through partnering with other regional organizations, Grupo Semillas conducts and disseminates research about land rights, food sovereignty, and biodiversity to Colombia's marginalized populations.</p>11. Hawai’ian Islands Land Trust (Hawai’i)
<p>The Hawai'ian Islands Land Trust (HILT) takes a holistic approach to land conservation through <a href="https://www.conservationeasement.us/what-is-a-conservation-easement/" target="_blank">conservation easements</a>. HILT comprises four Hawai'ian land trusts, all of which aim to conserve Hawai'ian farms, ranches, watersheds, forests, and historical landscapes. HILT has protected over 18,000 acres of Hawai'ian land through land acquisition and protection initiatives and policy advocacy.</p>12. Institute for Poverty Land, and Agrarian Studies (South Africa)
<p>The Institute for Poverty, Land, and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) is an organization dedicated to researching land grabbing in Africa. PLAAS uses its research and policy engagement to highlight how food systems can both perpetuate and alleviate poverty. Since its founding in 1995, PLAAS has published reports calling for a restructuring of agro-food systems to aid marginalized communities harmed by parasitic land deals.</p>13. La Via Campesina (International)
<p>La Via Campesina (LVC) is an international peasant's rights movement fighting for food sovereignty, climate justice, and territory rights. LVC leads a global campaign for agrarian reform by defending food sovereignty and asserting peasant farmers' rights to seeds. LVC has covered land access efforts in Indonesia, Brazil, Colombia, Andalusia, and Ethiopia, carrying out nearly 50 activities across different continents in 2019 alone.</p>14. Namati (International)
<p>Namati is a legal empowerment organization that seeks to tackle problems of land, environmental, health, and citizenship justice. The organization employs paralegals who work directly with communities; with nearly 20,000 community partners, Namati reaches over 350,000 people directly. Namati's initiatives in Kenya, Myanmar, and Sierra Leone support smallholder farmers struggling to navigate administrative processes and land grab disputes.</p>15. National Black Farmers Association (United States)
<p>The National Black Farmers Association (NBFA) was founded in 1995 to represent Black farmers in the U.S. They focus efforts on civil rights, land retention, access to loans, education and agricultural training, and economic development. NBFA's work has impacted tens of thousands of farmers since its inception, fighting for food sovereignty, land rights, and an end to hunger.</p>16. National Black Food & Justice Alliance (United States)
<p>The National Black Food & Justice Alliance (NBFJA) is a coalition of Black-led organizations that is working toward Black land and food sovereignty and self-determining food economies. Building off a <a href="https://www.blackfoodjustice.org/rationale-strategy" target="_blank">long legacy</a> of Black food security efforts in the U.S., NBFJA is combating anti-Blackness and inequities in the food system by building visibility of Black-led efforts, creating an organized framework around food and land issues impacting Black people, engaging in direct action, and building togetherness space.</p>17. Partners for the Land and Agricultural Needs of Traditional Peoples (Brazil and Sub-Saharan Africa)
<p>Partners for the Land and Agricultural Needs of Traditional Peoples (PLANT) is a platform that confronts the marginalization of Indigenous peoples in Brazilian Amazonia and Sub-Saharan Africa. PLANT works with their local partners on hands-on projects, public policy, and research and analysis. PLANT supports food sovereignty, condemns land grabs, and seeks to center indigenous voices in global decision-making about ecological justice.</p>18. Peconic Land Trust (United States)
<p>The Peconic Land Trust (PLT) partners with landowners, communities, and organizations in Suffolk County to conserve Long Island's working farms. PLT is working on several local projects on Long Island, including land conservation legislation and community conservation campaigns. Since 1983, they have protected over 13,000 acres of land and secured millions of dollars for land protection.</p>19. South of the Sound Community Farm Land Trust (United States)
<p>South of the Sound Community Farm Land Trust (SSCFLT) is a Washington-based nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving affordable farmland. SSCFLT brings together local farmers, agriculture preservation advocates, affordable housing advocates, and active citizens to form a <a href="https://community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/clts/index.html" target="_blank">community land trust</a>. SSCFLT works to reduce landowning costs for farmers and demonstrate sustainable farming practices in community farm environments.</p>20. Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (United States)
<p>Iowa is <a href="https://silt.org/why-launch-a-land-trust/" target="_blank">losing 25 acres of farmland</a> each day to development and imports more than 90 percent of their food from out of state, but the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (SILT) is fighting to change this. They believe that through the state's farming landscape, economy, and food supply, they can build more resilient communities in Iowa. SILT is working to create affordable land access for Iowa's farmers and protect land for sustainable food farming to rebuild the the state's rural economy and mitigate climate change.</p><a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Over+2%2C000+acres+of+farmland+are+sold+daily+for+commercial+purposes%2C+according+to+%40Farmland.+These+20+organizations+working+to+%23ProtectFarmland+around+the+world.&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffoodtank.com%2Fnews%2F2020%2F07%2Ffarms-for-the-future-19-organizations-protecting-farmland%2F&via=foodtank"><span></span></a>
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Tens of thousands of restaurants closed at the start of the pandemic are still recovering. Unsplash / Michael Browning
By Francesca DiGiorgio
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is working to increase federal aid for emergency food distribution in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
<p>The <a href="https://mikethompson.house.gov/sites/mikethompson.house.gov/files/FEED_Act.pdf" target="_blank">FEMA Empowering Essential Deliveries (FEED) Act</a> will allow local and state governments to partner with restaurants on initiatives that feed people in need. It also calls on the <a href="https://www.fema.gov/" target="_blank">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a> (FEMA) to cover 100 percent of the cost.</p><p>Though FEMA assistance typically <a href="https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2020/03/13/president-donald-j-trump-directs-fema-support-under-emergency-declaration" target="_blank">covers</a> up to 75 percent of emergency and disaster expenses, the FEED Act will waive regulations on this limit.</p>
<p>"If this pandemic has shown us anything, it's the need to innovate," said Representative Rodney Davis, a co-author on the FEED Act, in a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/496183-lawmakers-introduce-bill-backed-by-jose-andres-to-help-restaurants-feed" target="_blank">statement</a>. "This bill helps utilize our restaurant industry ... in a way that's never been done before."</p><p><a href="https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/operations/nearly-24000-restaurants-are-closed-yelp-says" target="_blank">Tens of thousands of restaurants</a> closed at the start of the pandemic are still recovering. Some will never reopen. The new bill promises to revitalize the industry with funding to rehire staff and expand food distribution infrastructure for vulnerable populations.</p><p>"Too many families are going hungry during this pandemic, and it's not because America is running low on food," said Representative Jim McGovern, another co-author, in a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/496183-lawmakers-introduce-bill-backed-by-jose-andres-to-help-restaurants-feed" target="_blank">statement</a>.</p>
<p>As COVID-19 surges across the nation, food insecurity is increasing. Vulnerable populations including the elderly, young children and communities of color are among the <a href="https://tcf.org/content/commentary/covid-19-lays-bare-vulnerabilities-u-s-food-security/?agreed=1" target="_blank">hardest hit</a>, according to multiple reports by the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/05/06/the-covid-19-crisis-has-already-left-too-many-children-hungry-in-america/" target="_blank">Brookings Institute</a>, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-19/the-pandemic-is-exacerbating-america-s-systemic-food-inequality" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a> and others.</p><p>Household food insecurity for mothers with young children surpassed 40 percent in April 2020, a jump from 15.1 percent in April 2018, according to the <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=94848" target="_blank">Brookings Institute</a>.</p><p>Congress has already taken a number of steps to address food insecurity during the pandemic. A <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/temporary-suspension-claims-collections" target="_blank">temporary suspension</a> of certain program requirements for the <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program" target="_blank">Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program</a> (SNAP) allows more people to qualify for federal assistance.</p><p>In addition, the <a href="https://frac.org/blog/p-ebt-an-update-on-state-plans" target="_blank">Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer</a> (P-EBT) program helps families that qualify for reduced school meals to continue feeding their children while schools are closed. But <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/27/822647146/relief-package-a-good-start-say-advocates-for-the-poor-but-more-help-is-needed" target="_blank">administrative hurdles</a> currently prevent all those eligible from accessing the benefits.</p><p>To minimize these barriers, the FEED Act aims to set a new precedent for emergency response by easing restrictions on government aid, said Representative Mike Thompson of California.</p>
<p>Last year, the Congress member worked with Chef José Andrés of <a href="https://wck.org/" target="_blank">World Central Kitchen</a> to feed hundreds of residents displaced by wildfires in his district. The two joined forces again this year to introduce the new bill with other political leaders.</p><p>While the FEED Act won over the House in May as part of the <a href="https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20200511/BILLS-116hr6800ih.pdf" target="_blank">HEROES Act</a>, it still awaits Senate approval. Thompson, who is optimistic about the Bill's prospects, considers it an opportunity for national unity in the face of unprecedented challenges.</p><p>Thompson told Food Tank, "All of the things [the FEED Act] addresses: the need for healthy food, for small businesses to keep their doors open, for employees to have a paycheck, and for those paychecks to be spent in the local community, these are things that we can all agree on."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/07/new-feed-act-to-address-food-insecurity-with-help-from-restaurants/" target="_blank">Food Tank</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Collecting and organizing genetic diversity as a conservation strategy emerged in the 1960s and now plays an important role in ensuring the world's collective food security. Claire05 / Pixabay
By Katie Howell
More than 6,000 plant species have been cultivated for food worldwide, but only nine account for the majority of total crop production, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). FAO finds that crop diversity is continuing to decline across the globe because of unsustainable agricultural practices, industrialization, and increased urbanization.
<p>Collecting and organizing genetic diversity as a conservation strategy <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369848615001284" target="_blank">emerged</a> in the 1960s and now plays an important role in ensuring the world's collective food security. Seed saving organizations have helped secure <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2019/05/how-a-syrian-genebank-secured-over-100000-seeds-during-wartime-maybe-saving-the-future-of-wheat/" target="_blank">over 100,000 seeds</a> during wartime in Syria, preserve <a href="https://www.kew.org/press-media/Kew-celebrates-banking-13-million-seeds-from-UK-native-trees" target="_blank">13 million seeds from over 70 species</a> of native trees in the United Kingdom, and contribute to <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7b8e/e7ba0175d418985b43336183d9a24b759969.pdf" target="_blank">over US$77 million</a> in pastoral agriculture revenue in New Zealand. As the climate crisis continues, seed preservation <a href="https://www.bioversityinternational.org/fileadmin/user_upload/The_roles_Vernooy_2017.pdf" target="_blank">may also be critical</a> in research and innovation to help farmers adapt to changing conditions.</p><p>Seed conservation can occur on-site in farmers' fields or protected areas, referred to as <em>in situ</em>, or in off-site collections, known as <em>ex situ</em> conservation. <em>Ex situ</em> collections represent the <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/i1500e/i1500e.pdf" target="_blank">most widespread</a> conservation strategy for plant genetics–it includes seeds kept in cold storage, living plants grown in open field seed banks, or tissue, DNA, embryos, or pollen samples stored <em>in vitro</em>. "Such genebank collections provide a means to make unique biodiversity available cheaply, and effectively, for the long-term," <a href="https://cdn.croptrust.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Impact-Paper_16Dec2015_ks.pdf" target="_blank">according to Crop Trust</a>, a leading organization dedicated to conserving crop biodiversity.</p><p>According to FAO, there are more than 1,750 <em>ex situ</em> seed banks across the world – both international and local – that preserve over 7 million samples of seeds, cuttings, or genetic material. To celebrate these efforts, Food Tank has selected 26 seed saving organizations working to promote seed diversity through seed banks, exchange networks, and educational programs.</p><p>1. <a href="https://aseed.net/" target="_blank">ASEED Europe</a>, <em>Netherlands</em></p><p>Action for Solidarity, Equality, Environment, and Diversity (ASEED Europe) aims to achieve social justice and environmental integrity through grassroots organizing, education, and non-violent direct action. Founded in 1991, ASEED Europe organizes international campaigns focused on the decline of biodiversity in agriculture, the availability of seeds, and corporate concentration in the food system. They offer educational materials and training on topics such as seeds, climate change, trade, and food sovereignty.</p><p>2. <a href="https://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/Science/Australian-plantbank/Our-collections/Plant-journeys/The-seedbank" target="_blank">Australian PlantBank</a>, <em>Australia</em></p><p>The Australian PlantBank is the largest native plant conservation seed bank in Australia. Housing over 100 million individual seeds in 10,000 seed collections, it has become one of the world's most biodiverse seed banks. Located in New South Wales, the PlantBank uses seed banking, cryostorage, and tissue culture for conservation, horticulture, restoration, and research efforts. They also offer educational tours to teach visitors about the important conservation work of scientists.</p>
<p>3. <a href="https://www.brit.org/research/seedbank" target="_blank">Botanical Research Institute of Texas</a>, <em>United States</em></p><p>Founded in 1987, The Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT)'s mission is to conserve natural heritage by educating the public about the value of plants. BRIT operates the Conservation Seed Laboratory and Seed Bank as a part of their larger Texas Plant Conservation Program. In 2017, BRIT joined the Center of Plant Conservation (CPC) to help Texas organizations protect and preserve rare and endangered native plants. Through community education programs and workshops, research initiatives, and events, BRIT aims to increase awareness about sustainable stewardship and the importance of plant diversity.</p><p>4. <a href="https://secure.cherokee.org/seedbank" target="_blank">Cherokee Nation Seed Bank</a>, United States</p><p>The Cherokee Nation Seed Bank is maintained by The Cherokee Nation Heirloom Garden and Native Plant Site. The bank collects rare, native plants from the Cherokee regions. Representing centuries of Cherokee history, the Seed Bank provides an opportunity to continue traditions of ancestors, as well as educate youth about the Cherokee Nation's agricultural past. Seeds may be requested by community members; varieties include heirloom corn, tobacco, and gourds. Additionally, the organization offers educational materials like planting guides to help growers maintain the plants' genetic integrity.</p><p>5. <a href="https://caminoverde.org/" target="_blank">Camino Verde</a>, <em>United States & Peru</em></p><p>Camino Verde is a United States-based nonprofit with locations in Concord, Massachusetts and Puerto Maldonado, Peru. Camino Verde's mission is to plant trees and encourage future planting through educational programs and public awareness. From 2007 to 2016, Camino Verde worked to establish a Living Seed Bank of over 400 species of trees. With these seeds, they created a restoration forest center, planting over 25,000 trees whose nurseries now produce over 200,000 seedlings each year. The organization also works with farmers and native communities in the Amazon of Peru to help bring back forests to areas degraded by agriculture, gold mining, and ranching.</p><p>6. <a href="https://www.croptrust.org/" target="_blank">Crop Trust</a>, <em>Germany</em></p><p>The Crop Trust is an international organization whose mission is to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide. Through its Crop Diversity Endowment Fund, the Crop Trust funds the world's largest genebanks, including the <a href="http://www.cgiar.org/" target="_blank">Consultative Group for International Agriculture Research</a> (CGIAR) genebank platform, Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and Seeds for Resilience–a project supporting five seed banks in Sub-Saharan Africa. The organization also works to develop government conservation strategies.</p><p>7. <a href="http://www.vir.nw.ru/" target="_blank">Federal Research Center All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources/VIR</a>, <em>Russia</em></p><p>Located in St. Petersburg, the Federal Research Center All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources, or the Vavilov Research Institute (VRI), was founded in 1921 and has since expanded into 12 research stations throughout Russia. As the world's oldest and largest seed bank, they house a total of 60,000 seed varieties and their herbariums contain some 250,000 cultivated plant specimens and their wild relatives.</p>
<p>8. <a href="https://kohalacenter.org/hpsi" target="_blank">Hawai'i Public Seed Initiative</a>, <em>United States</em></p><p>The Hawai'i Public Seed Initiative (HPSI) was created by The Kohala Center in 2010 and is funded by the Ceres Trust. The initiative works to identify and save seed varieties best suited for the island's soils and climates. Through community seed networks and workshops, HPSI teaches people to select, grow, harvest, store, and improve seed varieties that can strengthen the state's food security. HPSI holds events to develop seed leaders across the state, including on Hawai'i Island, Kaua'i, O'ahu, Maui, and Moloka'i.</p><p>9. <a href="http://www.irishseedsavers.ie/" target="_blank">Irish Seed Savers</a>, <em>Ireland</em></p><p>The Irish Seeds Savers was founded in 1991 in County Carlow, before moving to Scarriff, Ireland. The organization aims to raise public awareness about the vulnerability of Irish agricultural biodiversity. They provide educational workshops to schools and community groups and aim to facilitate conversations between governments, universities, and gene banks. The Irish Seed Savers maintain a public seed bank with over 600 non-commercially available varieties of heirloom and heritage seeds, including rare vegetables, soft fruit, flowers, grains, potatoes, and apple trees.</p><p>10. <a href="https://ciat.cgiar.org/" target="_blank">International Center for Tropical Agriculture</a> (CIAT), <em>Colombia</em></p><p>Headquartered in Colombia, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) is a CGIAR research center focused on promoting agrobiodiversity and sustainable agroecosystems in Africa, Asian, Latin America, and the Caribbean. CIAT conducts crop research with its extensive genebank, which holds the largest global collection of beans, cassava, and tropical forages. CIAT provides seed samples free of charge to any individual or organization anywhere in the world for the purposes of research, breeding, or training.</p><p>11. <a href="https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/la/programs/?cid=nrcs141p2_015689" target="_blank">Louisiana Native Plant Initiative</a>, <em>United States</em></p><p>The Louisiana Native Plant Initiative (LNPI) is a multi-agency effort that helps conserve native plants. The National Resource Conservation Service of Louisiana collaborates with their many partners to collect seeds, preserve native varieties, increase flora abundance, and research plant materials for future revegetation projects. The initiative has spearheaded several conservation projects to protect species such as the longleaf pine, switchgrass, big bluestem, little bluestem, smooth cordgrass, eastern gamagrass, and partridge pea.</p><p>12. <a href="https://www.kew.org/science/collections-and-resources/collections/seed-collection" target="_blank">Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst</a>, <em>England</em></p><p>The Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst is a world leader in on-site conservation of wild plant species. The majority of the seed collections in the Seed Bank at Wakehurst are curated by the larger Millennium Seed Bank Partnership, a seed conversation network active in over 80 countries around the world. Currently, there are more than 92,500 seed collections in the bank, which represent over 40,000 species.</p>
<p>13. <a href="https://www.ars.usda.gov/plains-area/fort-collins-co/center-for-agricultural-resources-research/paagrpru/" target="_blank">National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Perseveration</a> (NLGRP), <em>United States</em></p><p>Located on the campus of Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, the National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation (NLGRP) is home to one of the world's largest plant and animal gene banks. NLGRP's mission is to support U.S. agriculture in producing high-quality food, feed, and fiber by acquiring, evaluating, preserving, and distributing critical genetic resources. In its plant division, the laboratory manages more than 10,000 plant species in long-term storage and on fields, orchards, and nature reserves.</p><p><em> </em>14. <a href="https://nativefoodalliance.org/" target="_blank">Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance</a><em>, United States</em></p><p><em> </em>Indigenous Seed Keeper Network (ISKN) is an initiative of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance (NAFSA), a non-profit organization aimed at leveraging resources to support tribal food sovereignty projects. The mission of the Network is to nourish and assist the growing seed sovereignty movement across Turtle Island. ISKN provides educational resources, mentorship training, outreach, and advocacy support on seed policy issues, and organizes convenings to connect communities engaged in this work.<a href="https://sierraseeds.org/" target="_blank"> Sierra Seeds</a>, a nonprofit sister program to ISKN, also uses mentorship and education to create greater sustainability in food and seed systems by sharing essential practical skills and promoting seed literacy.</p><p>15. <a href="https://www.nativeseeds.org/" target="_blank">Native Seeds/SEARCH</a>, <em>United States</em></p><p>Based in Tucson, Arizona, Native Seeds/SEARCH (NS/S) aims to conserve and promote arid-adapted crop diversity in the southwest United States. Since it was founded as a nonprofit organization in 1983, NS/S has established a reputation as a leader in heirloom conservation. Its seed bank holds nearly 2,000 varieties of crops adapted to landscapes extending from southern Colorado to Mexico. These varieties include traditional crops such as corn, beans, and squash used by the Apache, Havasupai, Hopi, Maricopa, Mayo, and many other tribes.</p><p>16. <a href="http://www.navdanya.org/site/living-seed/navdanya-seed-banks" target="_blank">Navdanya</a>, <em>India</em></p><p>Navdanya is a research-based initiative founded by Dr. Vandana Shiva, a world-renowned scientist and environmentalist. The organization is a network of seed keepers and organic producers that works across 22 states in India. Navdanya has helped set up over 150 community seed banks over the last 30 years. The organization has conserved and promoted undervalued crops such as millets, pulses, and pseudo-cereals and saved over 4,000 rice varieties. They also conduct research on sustainable farming practices and have provided training to over 750,000 farmers on food and seed sovereignty.</p><p>17. <a href="http://www.nycgovparks.org/greening/greenbelt-native-plant-center/conservation-initiative" target="_blank">New York City Native Plant Conservation Initiative</a>, <em>United States</em></p><p>The New York City Native Plant Conservation Initiative began in 2008 as a partnership between the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. In response to declining native plant populations due to increasing urbanization, the initiative works to maximize long-term conservation of diverse native species. Launched with 34 endangered species, conservation efforts include collecting seeds, preparing and implementing protocols for restoration and management of native plant populations, and raising public awareness of the status of native plants in NYC.</p>
<p>18. <a href="https://www.library.pima.gov/seed-library/" target="_blank">Pima County Seed Library</a>, <em>United States</em></p><p>The Seed Library is a collection of open-pollinated and heirloom seeds in Pima County, Arizona. The library works to create local seed stocks that are acclimated to desert climate and support an abundant and genetically diverse landscape. The collection helps to support gardeners and educate community members about how to grow, harvest, and save seeds. Made up of almost 250 types of seeds, varieties include beans, flowers, herbs, melons, and more.</p><p>19. <a href="https://rockymountainseeds.org/" target="_blank">Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance</a>, <em>United States</em></p><p>The Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance (RMSA) is a nonprofit organization working to create a network of seed growers, distributors, and educators in the Rocky Mountain West region of the United States. Founded in 2014, RMSA emphasizes sharing of seed saving knowledge to preserve and promote the use of regionally adapted crops, herbs, wildflowers, and native grass seeds. To create a more resilient food system, the organization provides seed education resources, runs an online seed school, hosts an international seed festival, operates a regional seed vault, and more.</p><p>20. <a href="https://weseedchange.org/see-the-impact/global-impact/" target="_blank">SeedChange</a>, <em>Canada</em></p><p>Formerly USC Canada, SeedChange is working to fight for farmers' rights to fair wages, land, and seeds around the globe. Through partnerships with nonprofits, they support over 30,000 small-scale farmers to restore degraded lands, share seeds, and start businesses. SeedChange projects are rooted in a Seeds of Survival approach, which emphasizes the importance of local seeds and local knowledge. They support about 70 seed banks run by the communities in which they are located, and hundreds of home seed banks cared for by the farmers in their own homes.</p><p>21. <a href="https://www.seedsavers.org/" target="_blank">Seed Savers Exchange</a>, <em>United States</em></p><p>The Seed Savers Exchange is a nonprofit in Winneshiek County, Iowa that focuses on stewarding and sharing a large collection of open-pollinated seed varieties across the U.S. Founded in 1975, the organization works to ensure the preservation of diverse heirloom seeds to guarantee future food security. Today, Seed Savers Exchange has over 20,000 plant varieties and 13,000 members.<em> </em></p><p>22. <a href="https://www.southernexposure.com/about-us/" target="_blank">Southern Exposure Seed Exchange</a>, <em>United States</em></p><p>Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, located in central Virginia, is focused on seed varieties that grow well in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern U.S. Operating as a cooperative, the organization offers 800 varieties of vegetable, herb, flower, grain, and cover crop seeds. Sixty percent of their seed varieties are certified organic and over 60 percent of seeds come from small farmers. Some unique Southern heirlooms they offer include peanuts, okra, naturally colored cotton, butterbeans, and roselle.</p>
<p>23. <a href="https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/food-fisheries-and-agriculture/svalbard-global-seed-vault/id462220/" target="_blank">Svalbard Global Seed Vault</a>, <em>Norway</em></p><p>Opened by the Norwegian government in 2008, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is the world's largest secure seed storage facility. Also referred to as the doomsday vault, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault holds duplicates of seed samples from other regional, national, and international gene banks to serve as backup storage in case of emergency. Svalbard has the capacity to house 2.25 billion seeds, equaling 500 seeds of 4.5 million crop varieties. The seed vault is run by the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Nordic Gene Resource Centre, and the Global Crop Diversity Trust. It currently holds seeds of more than 4,000 plant species.</p><p>24. <a href="http://www.genobank.org/" target="_blank">The Germplasm Bank of Wild Species</a>, <em>China</em></p><p>Created in 2004, The Germplasm Bank of Wild Species has collected over 80,000 seed samples from over 10,000 species of wild plants. The project is operated by the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and includes a seed bank, DNA bank, microbial bank, animal germplasm bank, and seed biology research center.<a href="https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-08-04/Seed-Bank-Protecting-plant-biodiversity-IRaTqG6pEY/index.html" target="_blank"> According</a> to one news source, by the end of 2018, the organization's seed storage accounted for one-third of the total wild plant species nationwide, making it the largest in Asia and the second of its kind globally.</p><p>25. <a href="https://avrdc.org/" target="_blank">The World Vegetable Center</a>, <em>Taiwan</em></p><p>The World Vegetable Center was founded in 1971 as the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC). Today, the Center conducts research, builds networks, and carries out training activities to raise awareness of the role of vegetables for improved health and poverty alleviation around the globe. The Center's Genebank is the world's largest vegetable germplasm collection, holding over 61,000 accessions–plant materials collected from different areas–sourced from 155 countries. Since its founding, the Center has distributed more than 600,000 seed samples to researchers in the public and private sectors in at least 180 countries. Their work has led to the release of hundreds of varieties throughout the world, especially in developing countries. The World Vegetable Center Genebank is part of the global germplasm network, <a href="https://www.genesys-pgr.org/welcome" target="_blank">Genesys</a>.</p><p>26. <a href="http://cintdis.org/vrihi/" target="_blank">Vrihi</a>, <em>India</em></p><p>Vrihi, the Sandskrit word for "rice", was founded by ecologist Dr. Debal Deb and is now the largest folk rice seed bank in Eastern India. In 1997, Vrihi began as a partnership of a nationwide folk crop conservation movement between the Centre of Interdisciplinary Studies (CIS) and Dr. Vandana Shiva's Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE). Since 2000, Vrihi has been an independent organization, working to promote the cultivation of folk rice varieties and reestablish non-commercial seed exchange.</p>
<p><em><em><em>Correction: </em>A previous version of this article mentioned The Kohula Center. The organization should be spelled The Kohala Center. The article has been corrected to reflect this change.</em></em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/07/26-organizations-working-to-conserve-seed-biodiversity/" target="_blank">Food Tank</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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By Danielle Nierenberg
Since the first episode of Food Talk Live aired on March 19, our twice-daily live conversation series has featured nearly 150 food system experts, advocates, scientists, chefs and more.
<p>This means that, over the past four months, I've probably asked more than 1,000 questions to these folks about the future of the food system. There has been a lot of news to unpack this week alone, between <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/07/with-us3-million-in-grants-refeds-covid-19-fund-is-saving-food-waste-and-feeding-people/" target="_blank">funding food waste reduction</a>, <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/07/little-free-pantries-providing-covid-19-food-relief-in-seattle/" target="_blank">addressing community food insecurity</a>, and <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/07/corporate-accountability-report-details-big-business-influence-on-nutrition-policy/" target="_blank">understanding the influence of the food industry on nutrition policy</a>. And during my live conversations, every question I ask raises even more.</p>
<p>This week, Food Tank is highlighting 15 quotes that address thorny, world-changing questions about building a more sustainable and equitable food system.</p>
How do we rectify racial inequities in land ownership?
<p>"As a result of colonial genocide, land grabbing, USDA discrimination, state-level nativism, lynching, and expulsion, over 98% of the farmland in this county is owned by white Americans today. Ralph Paige of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives put it simply, "Land is the only real wealth in this country and if we don't own any we'll be out of the picture." We need a nationwide commitment to share the land back, so that all communities can have the means of production for food security."</p><p>— Leah Penniman, founder and director of Soul Fire Farm. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-020-10055-3" target="_blank">Read more here</a>.</p>How impactful can collective agricultural labor unions be to protect farm workers?
<p>"In 2019, through our collective bargaining procedures, we resolved cases on wage issues amounting to over US$800,000 dollars. If they were non-union, that money would have been lost to the worker's pocket. If this is what we recoup for workers in the union setting, imagine what must be happening in non-union settings."</p><p>— Baldemar Velásquez, founder and president of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/06/new-on-the-podcast-baldemar-velasquez-on-amplifying-the-voices-of-migrant-farmworkers/" target="_blank">Listen to more here</a>.</p>What does it mean to support local, regional, and sustainable food by engaging in good food purchasing?
<p>"This is a time I think of as a great reckoning. Seeing the public interest in food and how important food is as a public service is how procurement works — it aligns the purchasing power of government institutions with what the values of the public are. I think an important next step would be to have city or municipal leaders set aggregate purchasing targets and invite, encourage, persuade all large food service institutions to participate in setting these aggregate targets. And then you can really start making accelerated change in the local food economy, which is something we know we need to build back right now. The idea of good food purchasing is to support equity and to support creating economic opportunity for those who have not had that economic opportunity."</p><p>— Paula Daniels, co-founder, chair of the board, and chief of what's next at the Center for Good Food Purchasing. <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/07/new-on-the-podcast-didier-toubia-on-cultivated-meat-and-paula-daniels-on-good-food-purchasing-policies/" target="_blank">Listen to more here</a>.</p>What is the importance of “middle-man” food processors in supporting local farm-based food systems?
<p>"Can we imagine how to circle out of this in a way that is better than what we had before? I want to shine an uncomfortable light on the farm-to-table movement. It turns out to have a very weak link. I don't know that the answer is to return to that moment, because what this shows is that it wasn't as strong in conception of feeding people and a food system moving forward as we would've imagined."</p><p>— Dan Barber, executive chef and co-founder of Blue Hill at Stone Barns. <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/04/dan-barber-and-luke-saunders-on-keeping-the-farm-to-community-connection-during-covid-19/" target="_blank">Listen to more here</a>.</p>What can we do to make regenerative farming not only the norm, but affordable?
<p>"We need to realize that economic justice and the growth of organic and regenerative food and farming and land use go together. We can't have one without the other. That's what's so beautiful about this Green New Deal."</p><p>— Ronnie Cummins, executive director of the Organic Consumers Association. <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/04/cummins-talks-green-new-deal-regenerative-agriculture-covid-19/" target="_blank">Listen to more here</a>.</p>How can traditional resource-management techniques lay the foundation for food sovereignty?
<p><em>"Tagal</em> is a traditional fisheries management practice in [the Malaysian state of] Sabah, in which communities swear oaths to nurture wild fisheries until they teem with river carp, and then open them, by agreement, for communal consumption at special times. During COVID-19 the power of tagal has therefore also become a key topic: how communities who have reinvigorated their culture of river stewardship have been able to access their own protein resources in their places."</p><p>— Cynthia Ong & Kenneth Wilson of Forever Sabah in Sabah, Malaysia. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-020-10082-0" target="_blank">Read more here</a>.</p>What role can mutual aid and distributive food systems play in feeding our communities?
<p>"Resilience and regeneration are not a given, they need to be purposefully nurtured. We therefore need to invest and facilitate the creation of distributive food systems based on local needs and capacities that assure a fair redistribution of value, knowledge and power across actors and territories to deliver sustainable food for all."</p><p>— Ana Moragues-Faus, professor of economics and business, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-020-10087-9" target="_blank">Read more here</a>.</p>How can greater public funding drive food innovation in Latin America and the Global South?
<p>"One of the forgotten links in all these food systems, connections between agriculture, nutrition, and health, is that you need knowledge. You need to do some research, and then you need to innovate. … If we can put trillions and trillions of dollars into good research on safeguarding the economy, we should also be putting in quite a bit of funding for health and food systems."</p><p>— Ruben Echeverria, senior research fellow at International Food Policy Research Institute and research associate at the Latin American Center for Rural Development. <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/05/new-on-the-podcast-john-piotti-discusses-a-farmers-relief-fund-and-ruben-echeverria-talks-global-food-policy/" target="_blank">Listen to more here</a>.</p>What role can entrepreneurs play in building a better food system?
<p>"We have this really beautiful rich, diverse country where we can produce and we can create so much wealth for all of us, and it's now about zooming in and resourcing these gaps that we know exist."</p><p>— Caesaré Assad, CEO of accelerator Food System 6. <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/03/caesare-assad-on-the-food-system-covid-19/" target="_blank">Listen to more here</a>.</p>How do we build a new European community-based sustainable food system that doesn’t replicate the past?
<p>"My vision is for a new food economy with more and more of us growing a percentage of our own food, and preferentially purchasing in season and local food from local and sustainable farmers. This future food system will not be identical to those that I remember from my childhood in the '50s and '60s, since the world has changed since then. The internet and other related digital innovations including on-line marketing, and the emergence of farmers markets and community supported agriculture, are all expressions of the boundless innovation of humanity. So, let us hope that the farming community will prosper and come to play a more central role in our future food systems. Let the new food revolution flourish and thrive!"</p><p>— Patrick Holden, British farmer and founder of Sustainable Food Trust. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-020-10049-1" target="_blank">Read more here</a>.</p>How can we understand and prepare for the connections between COVID-19 and diet health?
<p>"Because [the pandemic of diet-related disease] has happened over 30 to 40 years, we've ignored that equivalent or even larger pandemic. And now they're coming together, and we're seeing that we set up an environment of people with poor metabolic health who are predisposed to COVID. … We have not invested in the science that we should have invested in up until this point, to have answers to these questions. People are talking about stocking personal protective equipment and stocking ventilators and stocking vaccines — but what about stocking science on food and health and nutrition? That would've been incredibly important."</p><p>—Dariush Mozaffarian, cardiologist and dean of the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/05/new-on-the-podcast-dr-dariush-mozaffarian-on-creating-healthier-american-diets-and-nutrition-programs/" target="_blank">Listen to more here</a>.</p>How is localized, diverse seed security vital to our food security and national security?
<p>"As the world slowly rebuilds and recovers, we all have a fresh opportunity to regenerate and share a greater diversity of seeds—and to honor and return benefits to traditional seed keepers from many cultures. We would be remiss not to sow true, place-based seed sovereignty in every region and among every culture on this planet, well before a future crisis could uproot us again."</p><p>— Gary Paul Nabhan, ethnobotanist and co-founder of Native Seeds/SEARCH. <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/07/a-call-for-community-based-seed-diversity-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/" target="_blank">Read more here</a>.</p>How has the COVID-19 crisis played into forces of industrialization threatening Iranian smallholder farmers?
<p>"There is an irony in expecting governments to kick into action in an emergency to support people and production systems that they actively undermine in the best of times. This shows that COVID-19 is not impacting food systems in a vacuum, but is in fact a shock to an ongoing struggle for power and survival. Like many smallholder producers worldwide who make a massive contribution to food security, pastoralists struggle against forces that seek to upend their way of life in favor of industrial food systems."</p><p>— Maryam Rahmanian & Nahid Naghizadeh of the Centre for Sustainable Development in Tehran, Iran. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-020-10093-x" target="_blank">Read more here</a>.</p>How do we encourage young Africans to stay on farms and improve agriculture on the continent?
<p>"I would argue that what is missing in the [agricultural] sector is those young people who have access to productive resources and have the knowledge and the skillset that can help improve productivity. … If we want young people to stay in agriculture, then we have to make agriculture profitable for those young people. And for agriculture to be profitable, it has to be productive. Giving them access to those productive resources that will allow them to increase the productivity of agriculture will be critical."</p><p>— Felix Kwame Yeboah, social science researcher and professor of international development at Michigan State University. <a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/06/new-on-the-podcast-dr-felix-kwame-yeboah-on-youth-powered-agricultural-development/" target="_blank">Listen to more here</a>.</p>Finally, what will it take to help us use suffering as a springboard into liberation?
<p>"We're all suffering. But at the end of the day, folks, what makes us strong is our belief in one another, that we will come together to help one another get back on our feet. … This is our time, this is our moment to not go back to politics and Wall Street, but to move forward. It's more about people than profits. This is our time to move forward and change the system."</p><p>— Karen Washington, farmer and founder of Rise and Root Farm. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=227538081894588&ref=watch_permalink" target="_blank">Watch more here</a></p>From Your Site Articles
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A new tool called The Food Systems Dashboard aims to save decision makers time and energy by painting a complete picture of a country's food system. Photo courtesy of Dr. Jessica Fanzo and Dr. Rebecca McLaren
By Katie Howell
A new tool called The Food Systems Dashboard aims to save decision makers time and energy by painting a complete picture of a country's food system. Created by the Johns Hopkins' Alliance for a Healthier World, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Dashboard compiles food systems data from over 35 sources and offers it as a public good.
<p>"Trying to fix a food system without data is like trying to fix a car engine without any light in the garage," says Lawrence Haddad, Executive Director of GAIN and one of the contributing partners behind the Dashboard.</p><p>The new Food Systems Dashboard enables government officials, policy makers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and others to see what is working in their food systems and what isn't.</p><p>The Dashboard has three main objectives — describe, diagnose, and decide. It presents data to describe a country's food system, help decision makers diagnose the problem areas in their systems, and suggest policies, programs, and interventions to address identified issues.</p>
<p>Pulling data on over 180 indicators, the Dashboard presents more than 230 countries' food systems. These indicators, which range from agriculture production factors to diet-related disease rates, are broken down into five broad categories: food supply chains, food environments, individual factors, consumer behavior, and outcomes. Of these indicators, the team also selected 41 measures they deem critical to describe a food system.</p><p>"We hope that the Dashboard not only draws attention to the importance of food systems in shaping development priorities, but that it also can be used as a data-driven problem solving tool for more difficult food system challenges that countries may face," Dr. Jessica Fanzo of Johns Hopkins University and Dr. Rebecca McLaren, global coordinator for the Dashboard, tell Food Tank.</p><p>The layout for each country's page presents information in simple, visual ways so that users are able to quickly understand and take away key messages. Users can then compare their food systems with those of other countries, either by region, income classification, or a food system typology.</p>
<p>The tool also highlights issues like consumer behavior, that require more research to generate usable data. Fanzo and partners hope the Dashboard will simultaneously serve as a tool for data advocacy and lead to more comprehensive global data collection.</p><p>In the future, the Dashboard will continue to develop as the team works to further identify specific challenges countries face, Fanzo and McLaren tell Food Tank. It will also increase focus on recommended policies, programs, investments, and other interventions targeted to those specific challenges, Fanzo and McLaren tell Food Tank.</p><p>"The Dashboard is open to all and will foster much needed cooperation in transforming our food systems," says FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, "With the threats and opportunities presented by COVID-19, we need more collaboration between stakeholders who care about hunger, nutrition, livelihoods, climate, biodiversity, and sustainable natural resource use."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from<a href="https://foodtank.com/news/2020/07/new-tool-enables-decision-makers-to-see-what-works-in-their-food-systems/" target="_blank"> Food Tank</a>.</em></p>
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Giacomo Berardi / Unsplash
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed both the strengths and limitations of globalization. The crisis has made people aware of how industrialized food production can be, and just how far food can travel to get to the local supermarket. There are many benefits to this system, including low prices for consumers and larger, even global, markets for producers. But there are also costs — to the environment, workers, small farmers and to a region or individual nation's food security.
<p>These costs have led many people to look once again at the benefits of small farms and locally produced fruits, vegetables and meat.</p>
<p>Of course, farmers on relatively small plots producing for local markets are the norm in developing countries. While it has many benefits, small-scale agriculture is far from idyllic. It often translates into low incomes and even poverty.</p><p>But it doesn't have to.</p><p>There are many successful initiatives to help farmers raise their productivity and incomes, improve their communities and amass capital to expand agricultural output and start small businesses. All of this can be done in an environmentally sustainable manner that builds resilience to external shocks, including climate change and even pandemics. As Edd Wright, World Neighbors Regional Director for Southeast Asia notes, "In Timor-Leste, to control the spread of the virus the government called a State of Emergency, which included the closing of all markets where people would normally buy and sell their weekly basic goods. Small-scale farmers have continued to have a secure supply of food during this emergency as they predominantly live off what they grow on their own land." These holistic community-based development programs also improve health and sanitation, teach literacy and help develop local leaders who plan and advocate for their communities.</p><p>Successes in farming communities in Nepal, India, East and West Africa, Guatemala, Peru, Burkina Faso, and several other countries hold lessons for those in the US who look to small farms as a way to build resilience and food security. "Small-scale agricultural producers have a strong capacity for innovation," notes Do Christophe Ouattara, World Neighbors Senior Program Officer in West Africa. "In Burkina Faso, indigenous soil and water conservation techniques improve production and contribute considerably to food security."</p>
<p>While each community success story is different, they have a few essential commonalities:</p><p><strong>Organic Methods. </strong>Vegetables, fruit, eggs and meat produced using organic and sustainable techniques is healthier, due to the lack of pesticides and other chemicals. It's also safer for farmers, who do not have to handle dangerous chemicals. Finally, organic production has far less impact on the environment.</p><p>For small farms, the advantage of organic agriculture is clear — higher profits. Replacing chemicals with organic pesticides and fertilizers can significantly reduce costs. Because of consumer willingness to pay a premium for "cleaner" food with a smaller environmental footprint, farmers can charge more. According to Binu Subedi, a World Neighbors Senior Social Mobilizer in Nepal, "Organic farming is based on the insight that there really is no such thing as 'waste.' Finding a use for byproducts is the easiest way to cut input costs and raise returns."</p><p>While organic techniques are becoming well-established throughout the world, there are still many techniques to learn from farmers in developing countries. These include animal-derived pesticides, closed loop aquaculture, simple low-water irrigation systems, and more.</p><p><strong>Cooperatives.</strong> There are many successful cooperatives in the US and other countries. By banding together, small holder farmers cut out middlemen and gain leverage with purchasers. They also provide the resources to invest in marketing, government advocacy and other activities that build markets and increase sales.</p><p>Cooperatives are especially helpful — even necessary — in countries in where agricultural production is highly concentrated among a relative handful of dominant companies. The COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on this reality in the United States' meat processing industry. A handful of transnational companies dominate and have a monopoly on the industry. When meat processing workers got sick and meat production went down, the costs fell on workers and livestock farmers. The profits, in the form of higher meat prices to consumers, went to the handful of meat processing companies.</p><p>Small scale livestock farms, as well as processing plants, organized into cooperatives, could help address this. While the final products would likely be a bit more expensive, the meat is far less likely to become contaminated with E. coli, salmonella or other contaminants. In addition, smaller processing plants tend to be safer and have less environmental impact on surrounding communities.</p><p>Successful cooperatives in Kenya and other developing countries have a lot to teach, including how to generate capital through savings and credit groups. These groups pool savings of small holder farmers and loan to members at very low rates. They eliminate onerous loan conditions and show forbearance if borrowers encounter setbacks. Savings and credit groups are often the first step to larger, more comprehensive cooperative relationships. It's time to introduce these mechanisms in the US so that small scale farmers can thrive.</p><p><strong>Heritage Varieties. </strong>Industrial farming has resulted in consistent and attractive produce and meat. But to achieve this, and at the scale necessary for profitability, the variety has been greatly reduced. In most stores in the U.S., there are relatively few types of each fruit or vegetable. And these tend to have fewer nutrients and flavor than varieties grown and eaten prior to the domination of industrial farming. The same is true with meat. Factory farmed chicken and turkey are all but flavorless compared to traditional breeds.</p><p>The desire for more variety, flavor and nutrition is the reason many consumers are slowly rediscovering heritage or heirloom varieties. Produced on small farms, these products are often available at high end restaurants, farmer's markets and specialty supermarkets. Of course, this is just how organics started.</p><p>Like organics, heritage produce and meat often command a higher price. When produced organically, that translates into higher profits for small farm owners.</p><p>Peru, Guatemala and many other countries in the Global South have a great deal of experience with indigenous produce.</p><p>The need to grow more of it is especially pressing now, as large food companies successfully market highly processed food in these countries. The result has been the worst of all worlds: Chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity have reached epidemic proportions. Small scale organic farmers have experience cultivating produce that is healthier and can counter these diseases. A resurgence of these traditional varieties brings increased self-sufficiency and food security as well. This expertise — as well as the heritage varieties themselves — can and should be put to use on American small farms. As Olga Chivalan, a single mother who farms her own small vegetable garden in Guatemala said, "My neighbors and I grow a variety of fruits and vegetables, including those native to our region. We believe the reliance on indigenous varieties contributes to our community's good health."</p>
<p>Globalization — of ideas, goods, capital and cooperation — is a significant achievement. It can also have downsides. They include how food is produced, transported and consumed on a large scale. Ironically, those downsides are best addressed by more globalization. Specifically, small holder farmers in developing countries sharing their innovations with like farmers in developed countries. There's never a downside to learning how to improve incomes, health and security in responsible and sustainable ways.</p>
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Food Tank
By Danielle Nierenberg and Alonso Diaz
With record high unemployment, a reeling global economy, and concerns of food shortages, the world as we know it is changing. But even as these shifts expose inequities in the health and food systems, many experts hope that the current moment offers an opportunity to build a new and more sustainable food system.
<p>To understand what it will take to move forward, Food Tank has compiled its summer reading list to delve into the issues that affect our food system today. These 20 books provide insight into food access and justice in Black communities, food relief and school nutrition programs, the effects of technology on global food supply chains, the relationship between climate change and food production, and much more.</p>
1. Be My Guest: Reflections on Food, Community, and the Meaning of Generosity by Priya Basil (forthcoming November 2020)
<p>Priya Basil explores the meaning of hospitality within a variety of cultural, linguistic, and sociopolitical contexts in this short read. Basil uses her cross-cultural experience to illustrate how food amplifies discourse within families and touches on the hospitality and the lack thereof that migrants and refugees experience. <em>Be My Guest </em>is at once an enjoyable read and a hopeful meditation on how food and hospitality can make a positive difference in our world.</p>2. Biodiversity, Food and Nutrition: A New Agenda for Sustainable Food Systems by Danny Hunter, Teresa Borelli, and Eliot Gee
<p>In <em>Biodiversity, Food and Nutrition</em>, leading professionals from Bioversity International examine the positive impacts of biodiversity on nutrition and sustainability. The book highlights agrobiodiversity initiatives in Brazil, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Turkey, featuring research from the <a href="https://www.bioversityinternational.org/research-portfolio/diet-diversity/biodiversity-for-food-and-nutrition/" target="_blank">Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition Project </a>(BFN) of the <a href="https://www.bioversityinternational.org/alliance/" target="_blank">Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT</a>. Through this analysis, the authors propose that the localized activities in these countries are not only benefiting communities, but are transferable to other regions.</p>3. Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. by Ashanté M. Reese
<p>In <em>Black Food Geographies, </em>Ashanté Reese draws on her fieldwork to highlight community agency in response to unequal food access. Focusing on a majority-Black neighborhood in Washington, DC, Reese explores issues of racism, gentrification, and urban food access. Through her analysis, she argues that racism impacts and exacerbates issues of unequal food distribution systems.</p>4. Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice edited by Hanna Garth and Ashanté M. Reese (forthcoming October 2020)
<p>Access, equity, justice, and privilege are the central themes in this forthcoming collection of essays. The food justice movement often ignores the voices of Black communities and white food norms shape the notions of healthy food. Named for Black Lives Matter, <em>Black Food Matters </em>highlights the history and impact of Black communities and their food cultures in the food justice movement.</p>5. Diners Dudes & Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture by Emily J.H. Contois (forthcoming November 2020)
<p>In <em>Diners, Dudes & Diets</em>, Emily Contois looks at media's influence on eating habits and gendered perceptions of food. Focusing on the concept of dude foods, the book follows the evolution of food marketing for men. In doing so, Contois shows how industries used masculine stereotypes to sell diet and weight loss products to a new demographic. She argues that this has influenced both the way consumers think about food and their own identities.</p>6. Feeding the Crisis: Care and Abandonment in America’s Food Safety Net by Maggie Dickinson
<p>The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is essential for individuals who face food insecurity on a daily basis. Still, the program fails to reach many, including those who are unemployed, underemployed, or undocumented. <em>Feeding the Crisis</em> provides a historical overview of SNAP's expansion and traces the lives of eight families who must navigate the changing landscape of welfare policy in the United States.</p>7. Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege, and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries by Rebecca T. de Souza
<p>In <em>Feeding the Other</em>, Rebecca de Souza explores the relationship between food pantries and people dependent on their services. Throughout the work, de Souza underscores the structural failures that contribute to hunger and poverty, the racial dynamics within pantries, and the charged idea of a handout. She argues that while food pantries currently stigmatize clients, there is an opportunity to make them agents of food justice.</p>8. Feeding the People: The Politics of the Potato by Rebecca Earle
<p>In <em>Feeding the People,</em> Rebecca Earle tells the story of the potato and its journey from a relatively unknown crop to a staple in modern diets around the world. Earle's work highlights the importance of the potato during famines, war, and explains the politics behind consumers' embrace of this food. Interspersed throughout are also potato recipes that any reader can try.</p>9. Food in Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal by Hanna Garth
<p>In <em>Food in Cuba</em>, Dr. Hannah Garth looks at food security and food sovereignty in the context of Cuba's second largest city, Santiago de Cuba. Throughout the work, Garth defines a decent meal as one that is culturally appropriate and of high quality. And through stories about families' sociopolitical barriers to food access, Garth shows how ideas of food and moral character become intimately linked.</p>10. Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America by Marcia Chatelain
<p>Scholar, speaker, and strategist Marcia Chatelain provides readers insight into the ways fast food restaurants expanded throughout Black communities. Dr. Chatelain traces their growth during the 20th century and their intersection with Black capitalists and the civil rights movement. This book highlights the dichotomy between fast food's negative impacts on Black communities and the potential economic and political opportunities that the businesses offered them.</p>11. Honey And Venom: Confessions of an Urban Beekeeper by Andrew Coté
<p>In <em>Honey and Venom,</em> Andrew Coté provides a history of beekeeping while taking the reader through his own trajectory in the industry. A manager of over one hundred beehives, Coté raises colonies across New York City, on the rooftops of churches, schools, and more. Coté's<em> </em>passion for beekeeping comes through clearly as he narrates the challenges and rewards of his career.</p>12. Life on the Other Border: Farmworkers and Food Justice in Vermont by Teresa M. Mares
<p>Agriculture, immigration, and Central American and Mexican farm workers may conjure ideas of the Mexico-U.S. border, but in <em>Life on the Other Border</em>, Teresa Mares gives a voice to those laboring much farther north. Mares introduces the readers to the Latinx immigrants who work in Vermont's dairy industry while they advocate for themselves and navigate life as undocumented workers. This is an inspiring read that touches on the intersection of food justice, immigration, and labor policy.</p>13. Meals Matter: A Radical Economics Through Gastronomy by Michael Symons
<p>In <em>Meals Matter</em>, Michael Symons argues that economics used to be, in its essence, about feeding the world but has since become fixated with the pursuit of money. Symons introduces readers to gastronomic liberalism and applies the ideas of philosophers like Epicurus and John Locke to the food system. Through this approach, he seeks to understand how large corporations gained control of the market and challenges readers to rethink their understanding of food economics.</p>14. No One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg
<p>Greta Thunberg addressed the United Nations at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit and has since been a global symbol of environmental activism. Her community organizing and impassioned speeches are uncompromising as she argues that climate change is an existential crisis that needs to be confronted immediately. <em>No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference </em>includes Thunberg's speeches and includes her 2019 address to the United Nations.</p>15. Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It by Tom Philpott (forthcoming August 2020)
<p>In <em>Perilous Bounty</em>, journalist Tom Philpott critically analyzes the centralized food system in the U.S. and argues that it is headed for disaster unless it sees some much-needed changes. Philpot argues that actors within the U.S. food system are prioritizing themselves over the nation's wellbeing and provides well-researched data to back up his claims. Providing readers insight into the experiences of activists, farmers, and scientists, this is a great read for those starting to learn about the state of the country's food system and for those who are already deeply involved.</p>16. Plucked: Chicken, Antibiotics, And How Big Business Changed The Way The World Eats by Maryn McKenna
<p>In this exposé on the chicken industry, acclaimed author Maryn McKenna explains the role antibiotics played in making chicken a global commodity. <em>Plucked </em>makes it clear that food choices matter and show how consumers' desire for meat, especially chicken, has impacted human health. McKenna also offers a way forward and outlines ways that stakeholders can make food safer again.</p>17. Stirrings: How Activist New Yorkers Ignited a Movement for Food Justice by Lana Dee Povitz
<p>Between 1970 and 2000, food activists in New York City pushed to improve public school lunches, provide meals to those impacted by the AIDS epidemic, and established food co-ops. In <em>Stirrings</em>,<em> </em>Lana Dee Povitz draws on oral histories and archives to recount the stories of individuals who led these efforts. She highlights the successes of grassroots movements and reminds readers of the many women leaders in the New York food justice movement.</p>18. The New American Farmer: Immigration, Race, and the Struggle for Sustainability by Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern
<p>In <em>The New American Farmer</em>, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern offers a look at farm labor in the U.S. Although most farm owners are white Americans, farm workers are overwhelmingly immigrants and people of color. In this book, Minkoff-Zern details the experiences of farm laborers who are becoming farm owners themselves and outlines the many barriers that workers must overcome during this transition. Through interviews with farmers and organizers, Minkoff-Zern shows that these farmers bring sustainable agricultural practices that can benefit our food system.</p>19. The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here by Hope Jahren
<p>Hope Jahren breaks down climate change for readers in an accessible and data-driven book. <em>The Story of More </em>explains<em> </em>how greenhouse gas emissions and consumption of natural resources in developed nations exacerbate climate change and outlines the consequences of these actions. Although she argues that the planet is in danger, she also provides a variety of everyday actions, like decreasing meat consumption, that consumers can take to make a difference.</p>20. Vegetable Kingdom: The Abundant World of Vegan Recipes by Bryant Terry
<p>Author, chef, and food justice activist Bryant Terry provides readers with over a hundred recipes to create approachable and flavorful vegan dishes, without relying on meat alternatives. This book is a wonderfully practical recipe book that begins with a list of recommended tools, is organized by ingredients, and even includes a music playlist. Vegans and non-vegans alike will appreciate Chef Terry's <em>Vegetable Kingdom</em>.</p><a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Make+this+summer+a+season+of+reflection+and+self-education+with+Food+Tank%27s+reading+list+%E2%80%94+new+and+important+books+from+%40AMReese07%2C+%40GretaThunberg%2C+%40EmilyContois%2C+%40BryantTerry%2C+%40DrMChatelain%2C+and+more&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffoodtank.com%2Fnews%2F2020%2F07%2Ffood-tanks-summer-2020-reading-list%2F&via=foodtank"><span></span></a>
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