Mukiibi: “Local food traditions are very important in ensuring sustainable diets and creating resilience to climate change in many different communities.”
Tapping into Ancient Strains to Bring Heat-Tolerant Wheat to Senegal
A group of scientists won the 2017 Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security for applying advanced breeding techniques to strains of primitive and modern wheat to develop a set of durum wheat varieties that can not only withstand constant 35 to 40 degree Celsius (95 to 104 degree Fahrenheit) heat, but also grow remarkably fast, in only 92 days.
U.S. Law Schools Launch Healthy Food Policy Project to Support Local Policies/Legislation
A team of leading food lawyers and legal scholars in the United States (U.S.) is launching the Healthy Food Policy Project (HFPP), a collaborative initiative working to identify and elevate effective local food laws as examples for advocates in communities across the country. The website features a searchable database of local laws that seek to promote access to healthy food while contributing to strong local economies, an improved environment, and health equity.
25 Children’s Books Growing Young Minds
Food Tank has compiled a list of 25 children’s books to nourish inquisitive young minds and encourages children’s creativity and participation in building healthier food systems.
Webinar: The Human Face of Trade and Food Security
The report examines the evolution of agricultural markets, global trade, and value chains and how smallholder farmers interact with the food system. Webinar will include a panel discussion of the report.
Swigging Cashew, Sorghum, and Sugarcane: the Ghanaian Entrepreneurs Competing for Ghana’s Drinkers
In a country that relies heavily on imports, Ghanaian entrepreneurs are taking matters into their own glasses, providing drinkers with tipples that help local farmers and national pride.
New Video Series Explores Local Food Initiatives Across North America
This 10-part documentary series highlights the work of the farmers, small-businesses, and food advocates that are building stronger and healthier food communities. Read about this filmmaker’s experience of traveling 4,800 kilometers from Monterrey, Mexico, to Toronto, Canada, interviewing the heroes of North American local food.
India’s Public Stockholding: “Much more than a welfare program”
India’s food security and stockholding program uses precisely the same policies that the U.S. used in its early farm policy coming out of the Great Depression. Exactly the same: price supports, food reserves, administered markets, subsidies. The U.S. government used them because they work. India and other countries should be allowed to use them, too. Because they work.
WTO and Food Security: Biting the Hand that Feeds the Poor
India’s National Food Security Act (NFSA), is one of the most ambitious food security initiatives in the world, planning to buy food grains from small-scale farmers to distribute to some 840 million poor Indians, two-thirds of the country’s people.
New Children’s Book Colorfully Deals With Food Waste
Author and illustrator Chris Newman is teaching children about food waste and positive body image in his colorful picture book The Perfectly Wonky Carrot.
France Takes Top Spot in 2017 Food Sustainability Index
The Food Sustainability Index, developed by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition Foundation, ranks 34 countries according to their food system sustainability.
Building A Better Future Through Agroforestry
BCFN Alumni Achmad Solikhin is embedding agroforestry education into Indonesia’s school curriculum and helping to build the next generation of food leaders.
Winners of the 2017 Food Sustainability Media Awards Announced
The Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition and the Thomson Reuters Foundation have announced the winners of the 2017 Food Sustainability Media Awards. The awards recognize excellent professional and up-and-coming journalists from around the world who have focused their reporting on topics relating to food security, sustainable agriculture, and nutrition.
U.S. Doctors Are Teaching Themselves About Nutrition
Diet-related illnesses kill more Americans than anything else. Meanwhile, American medical schools don’t prepare doctors to provide comprehensive nutrition advice to patients. A growing faction of doctors is fighting back by teaching doctors to cook.
BCFN Award Recognizes Young Food System Researchers
This year’s winners are researching food security and interventions to improve mother/child health in Lebanon and integrated pest management to lower negative rice production impacts.
13 Soil Scientists to Watch
To celebrate World Soil Day, Food Tank is highlighting 13 soil scientists from around the globe working to better understand soils and promote practices for maintaining healthy, fertile lands.
Live Webinar: Unravelling the Food-Health Nexus with the Global Alliance for the Future of Food
The Global Alliance for the Future of Food (GAFF) will host a webinar on December 12, 2017, at 11 am EST to highlight the findings of their recent report, Unravelling the Food-Health Nexus: Addressing Practices, Political Economy, and Power Relations to Build Healthier Food Systems.
Food Fight: the Battle Over Sri Lankan Food Production
Once known as ‘the granary of the East’, Sri Lanka’s food production has suffered over recent decades, with civil war, natural disaster, and failed policy all contributing to a fall in domestic food production and a rise in imports. In 2016, Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena published an ambitious three-year agricultural plan to build a ‘toxin-free nation.’ The plan reimagines the country’s agricultural future based on the principles of agroecology: an approach which prioritizes sustainable and people-centered practices over corporate profit.
Storytelling Contest Open: Win Trip to Alaska
Planet Forward, in partnership with the eco-tourism company Lindblad Expeditions, is accepting applications for its fourth annual Storyfest Award. Grand Prize is a trip aboard the National Geographic Sea Lion to explore the Alaskan Inside Passage in June 2018.
Food Network Chef Justin Warner Talks Food System, Sustainability, Tiny Cabbage
Food Tank talks with Food Network chef Justin Warner about sustainability, cooking around the world, and how Food Network avoids wasting ingredients.
