Sustainable Agriculture & Food Policy

Like the pioneers of the organic farming movement, a growing cadre of doctors, nurses and dietitians understand that healthy food begins with healthy soils.

DOCKS TO DELTA: LISTENING TO THE LANDSCAPE ALONG THE CAPITOL CORRIDOR TRAIN LINECalifornia Institute for Rural Studies, DavisProject Director: Idli Carlisle-Cummins

Laura Bozzi is the farm, food and youth programs director at the Southside Community Land Trust, where her responsibilities include expanding the organization’s youth urban farms internship program and developing ways to support beginning farmers through training and access to land. She has been in the post since January. Here she discusses developments at the nonprofit. Read more

“There’s evidence that diet is one route of exposure to pesticides, and you can reduce your exposure by choosing organic food,” said the lead author, Asa Bradman, associate director of the Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health at the University of California, Berkeley. “But I would never say that conventional fruits and vegetables are unsafe. They’re all healthy.” Read more

It seems that almost every week, another major food company announces plans to remove artificial colors and flavors from their products. In the past six months, major food companies such as Nestle, General Mills, Kellogg's, Hershey’s and Campbell’s committed to reformulating many of their iconic brands to be free of artificial colors and flavors. National restaurant chains such as Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Subway and Noodles & Company also made similar commitments. Tens of billions of dollars of products are being reformulated.

Brown University professor Elizabeth Hoover traveled the countryside with a filmmaker last year to research 40 Native farming and gardening projects. Over the course of three months and 20,000 miles, she discovered community leaders hopeful that upcoming generations would return to the indigenous food that buoyed their ancestors’ health.

The way Lauren Gwin sees it, helping small farmers and processors thrive is right in Oregon State University’s sweet spot as a land-grant university. It’s all about collaboration, sharing information and wading through the regulatory thicket. A successful local food system, she says, bridges the gap between farmers and community nutrition and public health in a way that producers don’t get caught in the “price-point conundrum.” Meaning they can make a living while providing people access to an affordable, healthful diet.

Jonesport native Brian Beal, a marine ecologist at the University of Maine at Machias and director of research at the state’s principal clam hatchery, the Downeast Institute on Great Wass Island, has been studying soft-shell clams for three decades. His data paint a stark and consistent picture of a resource driven to the brink by warm water-loving predators, from green crabs to worms.