Food News

by Carolyn Zezima, President, NYC Foodscape

January 13, 2011

On Wednesday, January 12, 2011, Worldwatch Institute released its annual State of the World report during a press launch event at WNYC’s radio studio in New York City. The report, titled 2011 State Of The World: Innovations that Nourish the World, showcases agricultural innovations and successes in “preventing food waste, building resilience to climate change, and strengthening farming in cities.” that together provide a roadmap for organizations seeking to lessen hunger and poverty around the world. The report focuses specifically on examples of progress in agricultural and environmental sustainability in Africa that are models for application around the world. As the report notes, “[a] rooftop garden cooperative that is feeding people in Dakar, Senegal, offers guidance for neighborhoods struggling with food shortages in inner-city New York.”

Each of the report's 15 chapters highlight successful prescriptions that can be replicated and scaled up here in New York or elsewhere in the world, including:

• Promoting innovative sustainable farming methods;
• Improving vegetable production and overall biodiversity;
• Increasing water availability, including retention methods and conservation;
• Improving soil fertility;
• Reducing impact of climate change, including inevitable methods for adaptation;
• Minimizing post-harvest losses and food waste;
• Feeding cities;
• Investing in local farmland
• Accessing distribution, processing and marketing channels and increasing overall farmer income; and

by Viktoriya Syrov, Food Systems Network NYC
January 5, 2011

When Michael Conard, Assistant Director of the Urban Design Lab at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, was first asked to consider the rising problem of childhood obesity in 2007, his team of urban designers and architects realized that what was being called for was a wholly new approach. Working with the MIT Collaborative Initiatives, the team embarked on a journey across the United States, funded by a grant from the United Health Foundation, to learn more about the disease and find a viable new solution.

What they came up with would not surprise many of us; the problem lay on the intake side of the energy equation, and much of it had to do with lack of access to healthy food. Through examinations of rural food deserts around the country, it was determined that in order to address the issue of access it would be necessary to develop an integrated regional food system. The second phase of the project “refined the concept of a comprehensive food system” and encouraged collaboration between industry leaders to come up with models for a new national food infrastructure.

“A more resilient, a more sustainable, and healthy system is an integrated regional system,” said Conard. “By building on the good efforts happening locally and regionally and further giving infrastructure to support them, by giving data and supporting funding, we can create a network of regional systems which will provide outcomes and further economic development.”

We are pleased to announce that we will hold our January Open Networking Meeting at Food and Finance High School, where culinary arts, hydroponics and aquaponics are part of the school day. Meet just before noon for a tour of the school labs and kitchens with Jessica Mates, community liaison, and Philson Warner, of Cornell University Cooperative Extension NYC, and learn about plans for a rooftop aquaponics greenhouse. The program will follow from 12:45 - 2pm in the VIP Room on different models and tools for food system education in New York City high schools.  Additional speakers include: Lynn Fredericks, FamilyCook Productions; George Irwin, Green Living Technologies; and David Saphire, GrowNYC.

Date: Tuesday, January 18, 2010

Time: 12:00pm Tour (meets promptly at VIP Room)
12:45pm Panel Discussion

*Please arrive a few minutes early to make it through school security in time for the tour, which will begin at noon.



Location: VIP Room
Food and Finance High School
525 West 50th Street
New York, NY 10019

For more information, contact vsyrov@foodsystemsnyc.org.

Suggested donation: $5 for non-members, though no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Avoid the fee by joining now!

by Adriana Velez, Brooklyn Food Coalition

January 3, 2011

On December 8, 2010, farmers, ranchers, food industry representatives, grocers and consumer groups gathered in Washington, D.C. for the fifth and final USDA/Department of Justice public workshop to discuss competition and regulatory issues in the US agriculture industry. The series of hearings titled, "Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement Issues in Our 21st Century Economy," brought a poultry workshop to Alabama, a livestock workshop Colorado, a farmers’ issues workshop to Iowa, and a dairy workshop to Wisconsin. While it is clear that corporate consolidation of food companies affects food producers, consolidation also affects consumers, thus the final workshop, "Margins," was an opportunity to hear from the rest of us.

According to WhyHunger’s Manager of Strategy Partnerships and Alliances, Siena Christman, who attended the workshop, the day was filled with contrasting portrayals of the food system. “Thanks to technology with its smartphone apps, we are entering an age of unprecedented transparency and competition,” said one food marketer. A farmer pointed out that all the iPhone apps out there cannot show how corporate buyers pressure vegetable farmers to sell their produce at ruinously low prices. Furthermore, said consumer advocates, 60 percent of Americans are unable to afford a smartphone. Instead, financially strapped consumers face fewer and fewer choices and have little control over their food landscape. But Christman walked away from the hearing optimistic: