Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
A gift from AGree: position papers on food and agriculture.
AGree is a foundation-sponsored group devoted to nonpartisan ways to “transform federal food and agriculture policy to meet the challenges of the future:” future demands for food and improvements in conservation, public health, and agricultural communities.
It has just posted a series of position papers reflecting its members’ short- and long-term thinking about how to:
- Create a stable, legal food and agriculture workforce
- Ensure access to nutritious food through a food systems approach
- Increase agricultural productivity by conserving and enhancing soil, water, and habitat
- Attract young people to food and agriculture
- Strengthen research, education, and extension
AGree also offers a report on Facing the Future: Critical Challenges to Food and Agriculture. It has identified a set of strategies in addition to the ones listed above to address the challenges confronting the global food and agriculture system.
- Align U.S. diet with Dietary Guidelines
- Encourage diversity and coexistence of farming systems
- Advance landscape-scale management
- Provide risk management tools for producers
- Reduce post-harvest waste
- Strengthen regional food systems
These papers are useful for anyone interested in how to improve agricultural systems and it’s great that this group is laying the groundwork for serious thinking about these issues.
