Tag Archive: food systems

June 29, 2012

Food Network Solutions

“Agriculture can serve life only if it is regarded as a culture of healthy relationships, both in the field—among soil organisms, insects, animals, plants, water, sun—and in the human communities it supports.”

-France Moore Lappe

Reporting in from the Food Solutions New England convening in Burlington, Vermont.  Exciting and challenging conversation happening here about how to knit individual state food planning efforts into a robust regional network that ensures greater availability of and access to “local” food.  As part of the proceedings, we have heard a very informative and inspiring presentation by Rich Pirog, now of Michigan State University and previously of the Leopold Center in Iowa.  Rich has been part of very impressive work nurturing regional food networks, profiled in a report that served as pre-reading for the gathering.

Some of the highlights from the report worth mentioning here are the implications raised for other regional food networks, including: Read More

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December 1, 2011

Saving Our Tailings

recycle

|Photo by lydiashiningbrightly|http://www.flickr.com/photos/lydiashiningbrightly/3016016887|

One principle of living systems is that one person’s waste is someone else’s food.  This is how nature works, which is wonderful, and . . . unfortunately many of us are eating our own unhealthy waste in the form of industrial chemicals and other toxins, precisely because we seem to lack an overview of the cyclical nature of things.  On the upside, there are many ways that we could be much more efficient and even generate better health and greater wealth if we could think and act upon this notion of recycling and reusing waste.

This can include looking at how what is generally cast off as by-product might be used for creating additional value.  Read More

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