Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Despite the US’s recent withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, governors and mayors around the country continue working to mitigate and build resilience to climate change. As both policymakers and the public increasingly recognize the role of food and agriculture in intensifying climate change, many parties seek to address the food-climate connection. Fortunately, local and state policies and practices can do exactly that.
In my book looking back at the time I managed the Toronto Food Policy Council, I identified gratitude as the major virtue of a food leader, and love for your little corner of the world, and a desire to make it better, as the ideal motivation for food activism.
For two months in 2012, longtime Iola, Kansas, resident Mary Ross trudged through the sweltering heat, waving gnats from her view as she walked door to door with a petition. It was the hottest summer since moving there with her family about 30 years ago, but Ross was determined to gather signatures requesting a grocery store be established in the small rural town of fewer than 6,000 people.
The global pattern of nation states’ persistent neglect of the world’s most pressing issues is the unstated background to today’s precedent-breaking discussions about cities and food.
In many Great Lakes “rust belt” cities, urban agriculture has emerged as a productive reuse of vacant land resultant from economic decline, population loss, and home foreclosures.
Like the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the New Farmer’s Almanac offers long range weather forecasts, full moon dates, sunrise and sunset times, best planting dates, crop advice, tides tables, riddles, games, recipes, songs, and folk wisdom.
Bristol is the first UK city to have its own Food Policy Council. Joy Carey gives us some background on Bristol’s progressive food culture and the Bristol Good Food Plan.
There is a battle underway for the soul of Australia’s food system.
