In this week’s Field Report: A push to improve federal food purchasing heats up, the first food-focused COP kicks off, dust storms accelerate, and new evidence suggests that fair-trade certifications are failing to protect farmworkers.
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August 8, 2016
Civil Eats is taking a vacation this week. We hope you enjoy some of our great stories you may have missed from the first half of 2016.
1. How One Groundbreaking Set of Rules is Changing the Food in L.A. Schools and the System Behind It
The Good Food Purchasing Policy specifies that everything the students in L.A. Unified School District eat must be local, sustainable, humane, fair, and healthy. And it’s becoming a model for the nation.
2. Can This Market Be a Model for Getting Good Food Into Neighborhoods Shaped by Racism?
After years of planning, West Oakland’s People’s Community Market may finally come to fruition. Can it help counteract the decades of oppressive policies that shaped today’s “food deserts”?
The number of restaurants serving grassfed burgers is growing, but most are eschewing ground beef from small-scale U.S. producers in favor of foreign meat.
4. Does Food Tech Help Farmers?
A growing number of tech companies are working to bring more local food to consumers. But cracking to code to small farm survival appears to be another task entirely.
5. North Carolina’s Factory Farms Produce 15,000 Olympic Pools Worth of Waste Each Year
CAFOs are often hidden in plain sight. A new mapping project reveals the locations and impacts of the state’s 6,500 industrial hog and chicken farms.
6. Has the Organic Movement Left Black Farmers Behind?
A history of discrimination and powerful cultural differences can often keep Black farmers from growing organic.
7. Can Compost Recycle Our Drugs?
Antibiotic resistance poses a threat to people and the environment. Now, a Berkeley, California-based scientist has set out to find out whether the composting process can remediate drugs in our water and waste.
8. Can Organic Farming Boost Local Economies?
A new study says people living in “organic hotspot” counties are likely to fare better financially than those living in other agriculture communities.
9. How Carbon Farming Could Reverse Climate Change
Eric Toensmeier’s new book explores carbon sequestration through carbon farming as a way to cool a warming planet.
10. How One Immigration Lawyer Brought Justice to the Fields
Few migrant farmworkers have the time or money to seek out legal support. That’s where a mobile attorney like Melanie Gleason can help.
11. The Woman Fighting to Make Sustainability Part of the American Diet
Dr. Miriam Nelson was a key figure behind the effort to work sustainability into the nation’s 2015 dietary guidelines. And she has hope for the future.
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2. The Food Science Lab is Teaching Students to Grow Food in a Chicago High School
At the Food Science Lab in Chicago, high school students are using hydroponic and aquaponic growing systems to raise vegetables for school lunches and more.
13. A Burgeoning Effort to Restore Native Foods in an Unlikely Food Desert
The salmon and berries that once nourished a network of tribes in California’s Klamath Basin are now scarce. This effort hopes to reverse the trend.
14. Some Online Grocery Companies Are About to Start Taking ‘Food Stamps’
The USDA is expected to launch a pilot that will allow a limited number of internet food delivery services to start accepting SNAP payments.
15. What Other Cities Can Learn From Philadelphia’s Effort to Cut Salt in Chinese Take-Out
The city worked with its Chinese restaurants to reduce the sodium in their food by a third.
November 29, 2023
In this week’s Field Report: A push to improve federal food purchasing heats up, the first food-focused COP kicks off, dust storms accelerate, and new evidence suggests that fair-trade certifications are failing to protect farmworkers.
November 28, 2023
November 28, 2023
November 21, 2023
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