The post Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming appeared first on Real Food Media.

In imaginative, lively prose, Mayukh Sen—a queer, brown child of immigrants—reconstructs the lives of these women in vivid and empathetic detail, daring to ask why some were famous in their own time, but not in ours, and why others shine brightly even today. Weaving together histories of food, immigration, and gender, Taste Makers will challenge the way readers look at what’s on their plate—and the women whose labor, overlooked for so long, makes those meals possible.

The post Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America appeared first on Real Food Media.

In Animal, Vegetable, Junk, our friend and trusted food authority Mark Bittman offers a panoramic view of how the frenzy for food has driven human history to some of its most catastrophic moments, from slavery and colonialism to famine and genocide—and to our current moment, wherein Big Food exacerbates climate change, plunders our planet, and sickens its people. Even still, Bittman refuses to concede that the battle is lost, pointing to activists, workers, and governments around the world who are choosing well-being over corporate greed and gluttony, and fighting to free society from Big Food’s grip.

Sweeping, impassioned, and ultimately full of hope, Animal, Vegetable, Junk reveals not only how food has shaped our past, but also how we can transform it to reclaim our future.

The post Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal appeared first on Real Food Media.

An in-depth look at Black food and the challenges it faces today.

Black Food Matters analyzes how Blackness is contested through food, differing ideas of what makes our sustenance “healthy,” and Black individuals’ own beliefs about what their cuisine should be. This comprehensive look at Black food culture and the various forms of violence that threaten the future of this cuisine centers Blackness in a field that has too often framed Black issues through a white-centric lens, offering new ways to think about access, privilege, equity, and justice.

For Black Americans, the food system is broken. When it comes to nutrition, Black consumers experience an unjust and inequitable distribution of resources. Black Food Matters examines these issues through in-depth essays that analyze how Blackness is contested through food, differing ideas of what makes our sustenance “healthy,” and Black individuals’ own beliefs about what their cuisine should be.

Primarily written by nonwhite scholars, and framed through a focus on Black agency instead of deprivation, the essays here showcase Black communities fighting for the survival of their food culture. The book takes readers into the real world of Black sustenance, examining animal husbandry practices in South Carolina, the work done by the Black Panthers to ensure food equality, and Black women who are pioneering urban agriculture. These essays also explore individual and community values, the influence of history, and the ongoing struggle to meet needs and affirm Black life.

A comprehensive look at Black food culture and the various forms of violence that threaten the future of this cuisine, Black Food Matters centers Blackness in a field that has too often framed Black issues through a white-centric lens, offering new ways to think about access, privilege, equity, and justice.

Contributors: Adam Bledsoe, U of Minnesota; Billy Hall; Analena Hope Hassberg, California State Polytechnic U, Pomona; Yuson Jung, Wayne State U; Kimberly Kasper, Rhodes College; Tyler McCreary, Florida State U; Andrew Newman, Wayne State U; Gillian Richards-Greaves, Coastal Carolina U; Monica M. White, U of Wisconsin–Madison; Brian Williams, Mississippi State U; Judith Williams, Florida International U; Psyche Williams-Forson, U of Maryland, College Park; Willie J. Wright, Rutgers U.

The post Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice appeared first on Real Food Media.

Soil policies should be driven by science—not agrochemical companies.

The last time soil health was perceived as a pressing public concern was at the peak of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. Now, for the first time in nearly a century, it has once again piqued policymakers’ interest as awareness grows that the ground beneath our feet is a crucial carbon sink, making the soil a potentially powerful tool to fight the climate crisis. Speaking at an Earth Day summit last month, President Joe Biden said, the “soil of our Heartland [is] the next frontier in carbon innovation,” reflecting the momentum behind an idea known as “regenerative agriculture.” But just as the nation is waking up from its long slumber about the importance of soil, new research shows that the pesticides so commonly used in American agriculture are devastating the very organisms that ensure dirt becomes healthy soil and not just dust. 

As a set of chemical poisons, pesticides pose an undeniable hazard to the life of soil. This new study—from Friends of the Earth, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the University of Maryland—is the first comprehensive review of the impact of pesticides on soil organisms. Researchers (including one of us) analyzed nearly 400 studies focused on the effect of pesticides (a term that includes insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides) on 275 species or groups of soil invertebrates, from beetles and earthworms to mites and ground-nesting bees. In 71 percent of cases, pesticides either directly killed the organisms being tracked or significantly harmed them; for example, by impairing their growth and reproduction or decreasing their abundance and diversity. These findings parallel previous research that illustrates pesticides’ impact on vital soil microorganisms like bacteria and fungi. 

Other research reveals troubling trendlines: A recent study found that pesticides’ toxic impact on many invertebrates has nearly doubled in the past decade because of the increasing use of two specific classes of pesticides: neonicotinoids and pyrethroids. Some neonicotinoids are 1,000 times more toxic to bees than the infamous pesticide DDT, and they linger in the environment for months or years, creating a compounding toxicity in the environment. Another study found that since neonicotinoids were first introduced in the 1990s, US agriculture has become 48 times more toxic to insect life. Scientists warn that the loss of invertebrates threatens the collapse of ecosystems—and that biodiversity loss is a crisis on par with climate change.

The findings of this new study should alarm us not only because they further underscore the starring role pesticides play in the decline of insect populations, but also because the life of soil is at the heart of its ability to capture and store carbon. What do we mean by the “life of soil”? Plants breathe in carbon from the air, then store it in their bodies and exude it through their roots. Hidden from our view, a teeming ecosystem of microorganisms transfers carbon from roots to soil. Invertebrates such as earthworms and springtails feed on fallen plants, breaking them down and excreting carbon-rich casts and feces, mixing organic matter into the soil as they go. 

The aliveness of soil also bolsters farmers’ resilience in the face of climate-change-driven weather extremes like droughts and floods. Invertebrates are ecosystem engineers: With their tunnels and burrows, they craft soil structures, enabling the flow of nutrients, air, and water below ground. This allows the land to readily absorb water during intense rains and retain it during times of drought, much like a massive sponge. 

In short, healthy soil is living soil. So it should be no surprise that chemicals designed to kill are at odds with the objectives of regenerative agriculture. Research shows that the very farmers who are not using hazardous pesticides are among the most successful at capturing carbon. Organic farmers—who are expressly prohibited from using over 900 agricultural pesticides and who have long championed regenerative approaches like cover cropping, crop diversification, and composting—can sequester up to 25 percent more carbon in soil and achieve deeper and more persistent carbon storage than farmers using chemical approaches. 

Yet some of the loudest voices in the national conversation on soil are the companies behind the world’s most toxic pesticides. Last month, pesticide giants including Bayer-Monsanto and Syngenta were among the prominent backers of the reintroduced Growing Climate Solutions Act (GCSA), a bill that would channel interest in regenerative agriculture into soil carbon markets. 

That means farmers would be paid to sequester carbon—and then those “carbon credits” would be sold to polluters, allowing them to keep polluting. There’s no doubt that farmers should be supported in shifting to regenerative methods. But the evidence shows that using carbon markets to do so is an oversimplified and dangerous approach that will “let big polluters off the hook and fail the needs of family farmers,” says the National Family Farm Coalition. Carbon markets have repeatedly failed in their primary goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They have been plagued by fraud, and in many cases they have worsened pollution in low-income communities and communities of color, even resulting in human-rights abuses across the globe. Moreover, measuring soil carbon in a uniform way to ensure integrity in soil carbon markets will likely remain an elusive goal because soil carbon fluctuates based on the seasons, and samples taken even from the same field can lead to very different results. 

In light of this new study’s findings, another fundamental flaw of carbon markets is particularly concerning: They can be gamed by powerful players. Hence, the support from pesticide giants. Bayer, for instance, is pushing the passage of GCSA because the company stands to win big. If the bill passes, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) would facilitate farmers’ participation in private schemes like the new Bayer Carbon Initiative. Farmers would enroll in Bayer’s digital agriculture platform, Climate FieldView, and implement certain practices—dictated by Bayer—to receive compensation. Bayer would then sell credits for farm-sequestered carbon to polluters. But programs like Bayer’s are designed to accommodate the largest industrial-style farms and depend on use of the company’s patented seeds and toxic pesticides like glyphosate, a weed killer with known impacts on soil organisms like earthworms. Even more perverse, Bayer may pay farmers in the form of credits to be redeemed in the Bayer PLUS Rewards Platform—credits that are most efficiently spent on more Bayer products. 

While we celebrate that the conversation about soil and climate change is becoming mainstream, it’s imperative that the resulting policies are driven by science, not by the interests of agrochemical companies. The successful conservation programs that emerged from the Dust Bowl era can show us the way. Rather than spend billions of federal dollars creating market mechanisms that will enrich pesticide corporations and further entrench their power at the expense of family-scale farmers, the environment, and our health, we can invest in long-standing but under-resourced programs like the USDA’s Conservation Stewardship Program, Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and National Organic Program. And, we can update these programs to facilitate equitable participation of BIPOC farmers and to reflect the latest science on ecologically regenerative practices. 

During the Dust Bowl, the crisis was visible: Plumes of dust from the plains swept across the country and darkened the skies in Washington, DC. Today, the soil story is hidden in the ecosystems beneath our feet, but the crisis is just as pressing. This study is an urgent missive that the renewed national interest in healthy soil must result in policies that support truly regenerative efforts that build healthy, living farming systems. 

The post We Can’t Talk About Regenerative Ag Without Talking About Pesticides appeared first on Real Food Media.

Fifty years ago, my mother exposed the damage caused by our energy-intensive, environmentally devastating food production system. The struggle to change it continues.

The post The Long Fight for a Just Food System appeared first on Real Food Media.

More than a decade after Michael Pollan’s game-changing The Omnivore’s Dilemma transformed the conversation about what we eat, a combination of global diet trends and corporate interests have put American agriculture into a state of quiet emergency, from dangerous drought in California–which grows more than 50 percent of the fruits and vegetables we eat–to catastrophic topsoil loss in the breadbasket heartland of the United States. Whether or not we take heed, these urgent crises of industrial agriculture will define our future.

In Perilous Bounty, veteran journalist and former farmer Tom Philpott explores and exposes the small handful of seed and pesticide corporations, investment funds, and magnates who benefit from the trends that imperil us, with on-the-ground dispatches featuring the scientists documenting the damage and the farmers and activists who are valiantly and inventively pushing back.

Resource scarcity looms on the horizon, but rather than pointing us toward an inevitable doomsday, Philpott shows how the entire wayward ship of American agriculture could be routed away from its path to disaster. He profiles the farmers and communities in the nation’s two key growing regions developing resilient, soil-building, water-smart farming practices, and readying for the climate shocks that are already upon us; and he explains how we can help move these methods from the margins to the mainstream.

The post Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It appeared first on Real Food Media.

Now, two decades later, with the rapid expansion of genetically engineered organisms throughout the food system and emergent in animal agriculture and beyond, the wisdom—and caution—of The Pacific Declaration is just as relevant; its words prescient.

To mark this anniversary milestone and reflect on the current context and what we can learn from this history,  Anna Lappé—the daughter of one of the Declaration’s founding signatories—author Claire Cummings, The Center for Food Safety’s Rebecca Spector, The Cultural Conservancy’s Melissa Nelson, and others at the forefront of the conversation about genetic engineering came together to talk about the future of food.

Watch the webinar below. 

The post The Future of Food: Exploring the Politics, Ethics, and Impacts of Genetic Engineering appeared first on Real Food Media.

If companies are really committed to Black lives, their statements of support should include an honest reckoning with their own products and practices.

In a virtual town hall in June, Coca-Cola’s Chairman and CEO James Quincy said: “Diversity and inclusion are among our greatest strengths … We must put our resources and energy toward helping end the cycle of systemic racism.” Dow Chemical’s Chairman and CEO Jim Fitterling similarly committed to being an “ally” helping overcome “systemic oppression.” And Johnson & Johnson’s Chairman and CEO Alex Gorsky stated, “unequivocally that racism in any form is unacceptable.” These three proclamations echo others penned by Fortune 500 companies since the public reckoning with police violence and systemic racism has swept across the country in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in May.

But examine the impact of these companies on the lived experience of Black people and it’s clear these commitments fall far short of restitution. Consider Johnson & Johnson. Internal company documents have revealed that the company knew since at least 1957 that its talc-based powders could be contaminated with asbestos, a possible carcinogen, for which there is no known safe level of exposure. Despite these concerns, the company pushed these products in the United States and beyond, specifically targeting Black and Brown women. The company’s marketing plans included a race-based distribution model, moving baby powder samples through churches and beauty salons in African American and Latino neighborhoods, and seeking marketing agencies specializing in promotions to “ethnic consumers.” The impact is clear: A study of Black women who used these powders found they had more than a 40 percent increased risk of ovarian cancer compared to Black women who didn’t use them.

Several weeks after its CEO’s Black Lives Matter statement, a Missouri court ruled Johnson & Johnson must pay $2.1 billion in damages to nearly two dozen women whose ovarian cancers were linked to its talc-based powders.

Or consider Coca-Cola, whose CEO made a $2.5 million commitment in June to racial justice charities. Put aside, for a moment, that such a pledge is a paltry 0.27 percent of the company’s annual US advertising spend. The company could have used this political uprising to honestly reflect on how its business practices continue to harm Black communities. Its signature sugary drinks, for example, are a driving force behind one of the biggest public health crises of our time — diet-related illnesses like type 2 diabetes, kidney diseases, and heart disease — that disproportionately impact African Americans. Drinking as little as one 12-ounce sugary drink a day increases your chances of diabetes by 26 percent. A staggering fact made more worrisome in the face of findings that people with type 2 diabetes have a significantly increased Covid-19 mortality rate.

Yet a recent report on sugary-drinks marketing found Coca-Cola and its peers still disproportionately target Black consumers, particularly young Black people. As a result, Black teens have been seeing roughly 2.3 times as many ads for sugary drinks and energy drinks compared to White teens.

Then there’s Dow, whose Chairman and CEO’s Black Lives Matter statement made no mention of the impact the company’s manufacturing plants and products have had on communities of color. Dow, one of largest petrochemical producers in Louisiana, for example, is one of the many corporations that have located toxic manufacturing facilities along an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, home to many predominantly Black communities. The rates of cancer in the region are a staggering 50 times greater than the US average, giving the area the unwelcome name, Cancer Alley.

Dow. Johnson & Johnson. Coca-Cola. These are just three of the many companies claiming allegiance with those fighting racial injustice around the country. But as the old cliché reminds us: Actions speak louder than words. If these companies were really committed to Black lives, their statements would have included an honest reckoning with their own products and practices, past and present, and a pledge to act on such a reckoning.

Header photo by Austin Kirk.

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In paired chapters, authors present a problem arising from corporate control of the food system and then recount how an organizing campaign successfully tackled it. This unique solutions-oriented book allows readers to explore the core contemporary challenges embedded in our food system and learn how we can push back against corporate greed to benefit workers and consumers everywhere.

On this episode of Real Food Reads, we’re going to take a look at labor. Long-time friend, partner, and movement ally Jose Oliva joins us to to discuss his chapter, co-authored with Joann Lo, “Food Workers versus Food Giants.” 

Listen to the companion Foodtopias episode, Laboring in a Pandemic. 

The post Bite Back: People Taking On Corporate Food and Winning appeared first on Real Food Media.