Civil Eats

We’ve heard from the politicians, academics, activists, and social commentators about how to help a city like Detroit that is economically-depressed, struggling to retain residents (let alone attract new ones), and home to 500,000 food insecure residents. What has happened? Not much. People offer statistical calculations for how to reduce poverty levels but the city continues to lose residents and increase the number of vacant homes and lots. Mix in the obesity epidemic, lack of access to healthy, nutritious food and you’ve got the worst-case scenario for the city. I have a new equation to offer for how to build up Detroit. Till soil + plant seeds = self empowerment and community development. Multiply this over and over and the change is exponential. The enthralling short documentary, Urban Roots, proves this theory true. Read More

One of the most logical ways to eliminate food deserts – those places that don’t have adequate access to fresh fruits and vegetables – is through urban agriculture. In Brooklyn, New York, residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant are fighting to keep their urban farm – which produces 7,000 lbs of fresh produce per year – alive in the face of development. Read More

On May 16th, New York City unveiled a new initiative, Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH), which combines zoning changes and some financial incentives to make it less costly for developers to include supermarkets in their projects, and to allow the construction of supermarkets in light manufacturing districts without a special permit. Read More

People from all over the world travel to Namibia because it is rich in charismatic megafauna like elephants, lions, zebras, cheetah, kudu, oryx and springbok. Having grown up in New York City, I developed an insatiable desire to surround myself with wild, beautiful animals and landscapes. I was delighted to go to Damaraland in the Kunene Region of northwestern Namibia to join a team studying the nearly-extinct desert-dwelling black rhinoceros.

Our research looked at the effects of livestock herding practices on rhinoceros habitat. Since rhinoceroses and livestock occupy the same region and utilize similar food and water resources, we wanted to know if the presence of livestock negatively affects the rhinoceros population. I hadn’t guessed that it would be farmers, not rhinos, who would change my way of looking at the world. Read More

To many of us in the food and wellness communities, having a food supply based on local, sustainably-raised and organic foods should be nothing less than mandatory – it should be our right. But for many Americans, these terms remain elusive and even far-flung. Read More