Currently browsing posts about: Food-systems

I was fascinated to read yesterday that the President of the University of California (my alma mater), Janet Napolitano,  presented plans for a new 10-campus food initiative  to the California State Board of Food and Agriculture.  I loved it that she made the announcement with Alice Waters at Berkeley’s Edible Schoolyard.

The UC Global Food Initiative, Napolitano said:

is a commitment to work collectively to put a greater emphasis on what UC can do as a public research university, in one of the most robust agricultural regions in the world, to take on one of the world’s most pressing issues.  The food initiative will build on UC’s tradition of innovative agricultural research to support farmers and ranchers. Future efforts will build on work already begun by UC’s 10 campuses and its Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Here’s what she says the UC Global Food Initiative will do:

• Use collective purchasing power and dining practices to encourage sustainable farming practices, healthy eating, and zero food waste.
• Put food pantries and farmers markets on all 10 campuses.
• Partner with K-12 school districts to enhance leveraging procurement.
• Integrate food issues into more undergraduate and graduate courses.
• Develop catalogues of food-related courses.
• Put demonstration gardens on each campus for experiential learning.
• Mine data on California agriculture and response to climate change.
• Allow small growers to serve as suppliers for UC campuses.

What fun!  Can’t wait to see how it works.

Good work Alice Waters!

I hope other universities—including mine—start copying.

Here’s the info:

• UC Global Food Initiative
• California State Board of Food and Agriculture
•  UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
• President Napolitano’s speech

Go Bears!

Olivier de Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, has issued five recommendations for fixing diets and food systems:

• Tax unhealthy products.
• Regulate foods high in saturated fats, salt and sugar.
• Crack down on junk food advertising.
• Overhaul misguided agricultural subsidies that make certain ingredients cheaper than others.
• Support local food production so that consumers have access to healthy, fresh and nutritious foods.

De Schutter explains:

One in seven people globally are undernourished, and many more suffer from the ‘hidden hunger’ of micronutrient deficiency, while 1.3 billion are overweight or obese.

Faced with this public health crisis, we continue to prescribe medical remedies: nutrition pills and early-life nutrition strategies for those lacking in calories; slimming pills, lifestyle advice and calorie counting for the overweight.

But we must tackle the systemic problems that generate poor nutrition in all its forms.

Governments, he said:

have often been indifferent to what kind of calories are on offer, at what price, to whom they are accessible, and how they are marketed…We have deferred to food companies the responsibility for ensuring that a good nutritional balance emerges.

…Heavy processing thrives in our global food system, and is a win-win for multinational agri-food companies…But for the people, it is a lose-lose…In better-off countries, the poorest population groups are most affected because foods high in fats, sugar and salt are often cheaper than healthy diets as a result of misguided subsidies whose health impacts have been wholly ignored.

Much to ponder here.  Let’s hope government health agencies listen hard and get to work.

For further information, the press release adds these links:

• Nutrition diagrams for developed and developing countries
• The mandate of the Special Rapporteur
• The Universal Human Rights Index

It’s the fall book season and the food books are pouring in.  Here are five good ones, so recent that some have 2012 publication dates.

Michael Carolan, The Real Cost of Cheap Food, Earthscan 2011: The chapter titles, all of which start with Cheap Food, tell the story:  Globalization and Development, Conflict, Hunger and Obesity, Meat, The Environment, But at What Price, Community and Culture, and Who Wins.  The conclusion is Making Food Affordable.  How?  Eat less meat, don’t grow food for fuel, support urban agriculture, and other such excellent ideas.

Colin Sage, Environment and Food, Routledge, 2012: A beautifully designed and well written examination of every possible way in which food interacts with the environment.  It focuses on global food systems and their challenges and what we need to do to make the systems more sustainable.

Per Pinstrup-Anderson P and Derrill D. Watson II, Food Policy for Development Countries: The Role of Government in Global, National, and Local Food Systems, Cornell University Press, 2011: A serious look at how global food policies affect nutrition and health, poverty and food insecurity, and domestic markets, and the effects of all this on managing natural resources and climate change.  The book ends with a chapter on ethical aspects of food systems: “Investments in national and international public goods, particularly infrastructure and agricultural research developed for smallholders, are critical elements in supporting pro-poor economic growth and achieving their human rights.”

Madeleine Pullman and Zhaohui Wu, Food Supply Chain Management: Economic, Social and Environmental Perspectives, Routledge, 2012: A textbook for an undergraduate course but well worth a look for its analyses of how commodity food chains work, trends toward vertical integration, and the way supply chains are or are not regulated: “Many agree that the current system and trends have created a formidable force against the emergence of alternative food systems—particularly one that considers economic, environmental and social attributes simultaneously.”  Desirable foods supply chains would do better for consumers, farm workers, and the environment, and would be a whole lot more sustainable.

Alan Bjerga, Endless Appetities: How the Commodities Casino Creates Hunger and Unrest, Bloomberg Press, 2011:  Food prices are rising to the point of international crisis.  Based on the author’s personal visits to farmers around the world, Bjerga explains how the crisis happened (short answer: greed), its tragic effects, and what now has to be done to reverse them.

At TPMDC, Brian Beutler explains why the U.S. does not have enough money to pay for food assistance programs, safety regulation, better school food, or support for sustainable agriculture.

I’ve collected a few video bits and other such things.  Can’t wait to share them:

• The New York City Film Festival is coming June 23 – 27.  Not to be missed.
• Standup comic Brian Regan explains portion sizes.
• Hip Hop artist D-Nick (The Microphone Misfit) raps about Abnormality in our food system.
• Last but certainly not least, Stephen Colbert riffs on the benefits of corporate sponsorships, beginning with KFC’s partnership with the Susan Komen foundation.  If you aren’t interested in the bit on worms, start watching at 01:15.

Enjoy!  Happy Mother’s Day!

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who is clearly serious about sustainable food issues, just issued a new report: FoodNYC: A Blueprint for a Sustainable Food System.

Here are some of its goals:

• Promote urban agriculture
• Connect upstate and Long Island farms with downstate consumers
• Increase the sale and consumption of regionally grown foods
• Increase the number of “alternative” food markets, indoors and outdoors.
• Require a food curriculum in public schools
• Support large-scale and small-scale composting
• Increase access to drinking water fountains
• Support the rights of farm workers
• Create a Department of Food and Markets

If Manhattan can do this, other boroughs (and cities) can do this too!  Let’s do what we can to help Mr. Stringer make these work!

I’m catching up on my reading and have just gotten to the special 2009 issue of the Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition on food systems and public health.  If you – like most public health people – don’t usually think of agriculture as a major factor in health status, the papers in this journal will come as a revelation.  They demonstrate tight links between agriculture and public health issuees such as childhood obesity, food safety, and environmental health.    Best, they are downloadable at no cost, which means they can be easily shared with students.  I will use them in my food policy class next fall.