Yet much of the time, the local food economy ultimately depends on big farms thousands of miles across the country or even overseas: the seed producers who provide planting stock for the growing season. The resulting seeds, developed under very different environmental conditions, aren’t always a great agricultural fit for the farms that grow them. And mistakes by large seed farms can reverberate widely, as with last year’s “Jalapeñogate,” where stores across the United States sold peppers that had been mislabeled by an international grower.

Phil Howard, a professor of community sustainability at Michigan State University, has estimated that more than 60 percent of the global seed market is now controlled by four multinational companies after decades of consolidation through corporate acquisitions. Even regional seed distributors often get supplies from those centralized sources.

Aware of that disconnect, some growers are trying to keep things local all through the supply chain—including seed farming. Their efforts could make their local food systems more resilient, with seeds better adapted to regional climates and soils. 

Siembra Farm staff shelling Southern peas grown on the farm during a staff meeting. Photography submitted by Melissa DeSa.

Chris Smith’s Appalachian collective

Since 2018, Chris Smith has been working to promote agricultural biodiversity through his nonprofit Utopian Seed Project, based in Asheville, North Carolina. He’s explored and promoted obscure cultivars of southern staples such as Turkish Yalova Akkoy okra and colorful Ole Timey Blue collard greens, as well as experimented with creating new genetic potential through “ultracrosses” of many existing varieties.

“We’ve been talking about these seeds as ‘the seeds that know the South,’” says Smith. “They understand the heat, the humidity, the diseases and can respond better to that because they’ve been grown locally.”

To get those types of seeds into more hands, however, Smith knew he’d need a broader coalition. In 2022, he partnered with fellow farmers Leeza Chen and Shelby Johnson to reach out to regional growers and discuss what a local seed initiative might look like. They knew they wanted an approach radically different from the centralized model that dominates the market.

“It all has to be built on relationships; we have to know the people and trust the people that we’re working with,” says Smith. The group held monthly meetings with local farmers, many in-person around boxes of pizza, to establish shared values and goals.

What emerged was the Appalachian Seed Growers Collective. About a dozen members agreed to grow 11 regionally adapted crops in 2023, with the collective using a $25,000 grant from the Ceres Trust to invest in a mobile trailer that can visit each farm and process seeds using a “Winnow Wizard” and a threshing machine. 

Varieties on offer during the collective’s first season this year included Coral Sorghum, a cultivar Johnson is developing for both grain and syrup production; Blue Ridge Butternut, a squash resulting from 15 years of breeding by Western North Carolina farmer Matt Wallace; and Living Web Ventura Celery, which has naturalized and diversified over a decade of self-seeding.

Smith admits that the economics of seed work can be challenging, with global suppliers able to leverage scale and lower labor costs. But on the consumer side, the collective is working to boost demand by educating area distributors and gardeners about the added value of local seeds. Asheville’s Sow True Seed, where Smith worked prior to starting the Utopian Seed Project, is paying a premium for the seeds as part of its mission to support local growers.

On the production side, the collective guarantees farmers payment based on the amount of land they dedicate to seeds regardless of yield, which reduces the financial risk of a bad harvest. Smith says that approach can encourage more sustainable growing and shift attitudes away from regarding seeds as pure commodities. “We’re distributing the seeds, but what we’re really valuing is the people’s land and labor in producing them,” he explains.

Winnowing beans at Chris Smith’s community seed day. Photography submitted by Chris Smith.

Melissa DeSa’s seeds at work

Although Melissa DeSa grew up amid the snows of Western Canada, she took the first chance she got to move somewhere with a bit more sunshine— Sarasota, Florida—to work as a wildlife ecologist. 

A friend there got her involved in the local chapter of Slow Food, where she became passionate about the connections between agriculture and the environment, and after graduating from an ecology masters program at the University of Florida, DeSa cofounded the nonprofit Working Food in Gainesville in 2012. She soon became convinced that the long-term success and sustainability of Florida’s agriculture depended on locally adapted seeds. 

“Florida seems like a great place to grow stuff, and we do have a nice year-round growing season,” says DeSa. “But we also have poor, sandy soil and a lot of pest and disease issues that never get knocked back by freezes. We can’t just open up these big, beautiful heirloom seed catalogs, pick things, throw them in the soil and have them do well.”

DeSa established Working Food as a regional seed hub around north-central Florida, supplying local gardeners and market farmers with thousands of packets of suitable varieties. The bulk of those seeds are grown in Gainesville in partnership with GROW HUB, a nonprofit nursery that serves adults with disabilities. Others are raised by the University of Florida’s Field & Fork teaching farm or gardeners with a row to spare.

One local cultivar DeSa has championed is the Seminole pumpkin, long grown by the state’s Native communities. They’re robust against squash vine borers, taste pleasantly sweet and keep extremely well—a key quality in the humid Florida climate. “Having a pumpkin that can sit on your kitchen counter at 75 degrees for six, eight, 10 months? That’s pretty awesome,” she says.

Last year, Working Food scored a $41,000 grant from the US Department of Agriculture’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program to help encourage seed farming among local market gardeners. By building a network of local seed suppliers, DeSa says Florida can become more prepared for an uncertain future.

“I truly believe that if, say, during the pandemic, more growers already had these decentralized seed systems and food distribution systems in place, it wouldn’t have felt so crazy and scary,” she says. “We can’t depend on those big institutions or companies that are centralized to always be able to come through for us.”

Edmund Frost’s research and resilience

Edmund Frost’s job involves eating a lot of cucumber. As a member-owner of Common Wealth Seed Growers, he’s led the Louisa, Virginia-based project’s efforts to breed and produce regionally adapted vegetable seeds since 2014, and the cucurbits are a major focus.

“You’re looking for sweetness, crispness and a kind of cucumbery aromatic flavor, while avoiding bitterness and excessive astringency,” says Frost of his taste-test checklist. “Some plants will produce a lot, they’ll look good, but the cucumbers aren’t really inspiring.”

Just as importantly, his two leading varieties—South Wind Slicer and Common Wealth Pickler—can stand up to the heat and downy mildew pressure of late summer in Virginia, when most other cucumber cultivars have already petered out. Many breeders for the big seed catalogs are based in the Northeast, says Frost, and while their varieties often grow quickly and productively, they haven’t taken the conditions of the South into account.

Beyond breeding cucumbers, butternut squash, pumpkins and melons, Common Wealth has helped introduce varieties previously unknown to the South, such as a Guatemalan green ayote squash, that do particularly well in the area. Frost says the goal is to get market farmers and gardeners thinking more deeply about how to match the seeds they select with their regional realities.

“The idea with starting Common Wealth was to express values of regional adaptation and research through seeds, get those out to the customers and then the customers would value and pay for it to help fund our research,” he says. 

The ideal of resilience has taken on particular resonance for Frost: In March, a wildfire tore through the Twin Oaks intentional community where he lives, consuming a warehouse that housed Common Wealth seeds. Thankfully, many seeds were in another location due to planned renovations on the building; he expects his work to recover, and he plans to back up his stocks in multiple locations for the future.

Frost says the fire highlights why a more distributed, locally adapted seed economy will be so important in a time of climate uncertainty. “There’s so much opportunity—and need—for people to do seed work in our region,” he says. “I’d love to see a dozen farm-based seed companies in the Southeast.”

Joe Durando of Possum Hollow Farm shows other farmers the Cuban Calabaza (Cucurbita moschata) he’s been saving for many years at Possum Hollow Farm in Alachua, Florida. Photography submitted by Melissa DeSa.

Want to learn more about local seeds?

The first thing to do is shop local! Buy local seeds, ask your local nursery or garden center to stock local seeds or find growers near you who are prioritizing local varieties. 

Learn how to save local seeds yourself with our handy guide to seed saving, and connect with other seed savers on the Seed Savers Exchange, where you can find other heirloom varieties and learn more about particular plants in your area.

To find out who is working with local seeds near you, try out the Local Seed Search map. In Canada, you can use this map from the Young Agrarians to find your local seed source. 

The post On the Ground with the Growers Working to Localize Seed Production appeared first on Modern Farmer.

As the owner of a multi-generational farm, Mardesen has seen industrial agriculture and factory farming take increasing control over meat production in the last few decades. With that has come the extreme overuse of antibiotics in livestock farming.

“You know, we want to produce more pounds of pork, more pounds of beef, more pounds of chicken on smaller and smaller resources. The best way they have come up with to continue with this efficiency push is to pound antibiotics,” says Mardesen. “I have never been comfortable taking an animal as intelligent as a pig and cramming them into a concrete box for the sake of efficiency.”

A recent report released by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that antibiotic sales for meat production increased by 4 percent from 2021 to 2022, with pigs and cattle accounting for the majority of sales. Antibiotic sales for animal use peaked in 2015, after which the FDA banned the use of antibiotics for animal growth, leading to a major decline in antibiotic sales the following year. But from 2017 onwards, antibiotic sales for livestock farming have steadily risen each year, increasing 12 percent from 2017 to 2022.

“I have never been comfortable taking an animal as intelligent as a pig and cramming them into a concrete box for the sake of efficiency.” 

About 70 percent of medically important antibiotics in the US are sold for animals, not humans. The more an antibiotic is used, the more both animals and humans develop resistance to them, which significantly lowers the effectiveness of the intervention, says Steve Roach, food program director at Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), an organization that advocates for humane farming. 

While antibiotics were originally used to treat sick animals, in the 1940s, farmers discovered regular antibiotic use could make animals grow faster in less time and with fewer resources. 

Although the US banned the use of antibiotics for growth, they are still used for disease prevention and disease control. If one animal gets sick, the entire group is often treated because they live in such close proximity to one another. 

Nearly a third of medically important antibiotics have no duration limit, meaning a farmer can use those antibiotics in feed for as long as they want to prevent disease. Roach says this allows farmers to keep animals in poor living conditions that are more likely to get them sick.

Ron Mardesen stopped the use of routine antibiotics nearly 40 years ago. (Photo courtesy of Ron Mardesen)

Antibiotic use is particularly common on factory farms, where certain practices lead to disease in animals. Cattle are often fed a corn or soy diet instead of grass, which can lead to illness. Baby pigs are weaned off their mother’s milk and fed solid foods before they’re ready, causing diarrhea. 

“Having animals close together in crowded conditions, it saves you money, but also disease can easily spread,” says Roach. “You give them a diet that causes problems, so you basically just feed them antibiotics continuously.”

Lynn Utesch, a cattle farmer in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin—a region often referred to as CAFO alley for its high concentration of factory farms—discovered early on that, with the right methods, he doesn’t need antibiotics to raise his cattle. He and his wife Nancy own a 150-acre grass-fed beef farm and use a rotational grazing method. Every two days, they move their cows to a new pasture and the animals have plenty of space from one another. In his 30 years farming, Utesch has never had to use antibiotics on his cattle, not even for treatment. 

“If you allow the animal to eat its natural diet, if you allow it to live the way that nature intended out in the open air and where it cannot be confined tightly to the other cows, then you don’t have any need for antibiotics because those animals are completely healthy,” says Utesch.

Lynn and Nancy Utesch. (Photo courtesy of Lynn Utesch)

When the Utesches started farming, their customers expressed a preference for antibiotic-free, grass-fed beef. It was hard to find that elsewhere at the time. These days, it’s what many consumers look for. A 2021 poll found that “antibiotic-free” labels are important to two-thirds of Americans when buying meat.

Despite this priority, labeling is far from straightforward. From “antibiotic-free” to “no antibiotics routinely used” to “antibiotics may be used,” there are plenty of ambiguities within labeling and there is little room for nuance, says Roach. Antibiotics were designed to treat sick animals, but the overuse and lack of transparency has led to “an all-or-nothing mindset” and negated their original intent, he says.

FACT supports antibiotic use for animal treatment, but only if it is approached with transparency and communication between the farmer and the certifier. The Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at George Washington University is developing a “certified responsible antibiotic use” label, which would allow antibiotics for treatment but not for prevention.

“When you do use antibiotics for treatment, you need to report that to the certifier and let them know. And so we kind of prefer that label, but it’s harder to communicate that to the consumer,” says Roach. 

Unlike Utesch, Mardesen of A-Frame Acres does use antibiotics to treat a pig if it falls ill, but he uses a strict documentation process. He has to clearly identify the animal, what type of antibiotic was administered, the outcome of the treatment and where the animal was marketed. He cannot sell that pork to Niman Ranch, which has a strict “no-antibiotics ever” policy.

“If I do get an animal that does get sick, because I don’t routinely always throw antibiotics at these animals, when I have to treat an animal, the antibiotics that are available to use work a lot better on the farm,” says Mardesen.

Limiting antibiotic use will likely require stricter regulation from the FDA and more transparency in labeling. The USDA is considering implementing higher standards for meat to be labeled antibiotic free. But both Mardesen and Utesch say it starts with changing practices that benefit the animals so antibiotics aren’t needed for prevention or control. If there wasn’t such a focus on yield and production in the food system, fewer animals would be crammed into tight spaces and fed poor diets, says Utesch.

As a consumer, Utesch says the best thing you can do is educate yourself and learn where your food comes from. Look for organic and grass-fed meat, understand the different labels and, most of all, build a relationship with your local farmer. 

“Find a farmer, and not only just pick up the product the farmer has, but have a relationship where you say, ‘What does rotational grazing mean? Or outdoor access? What does that mean to you?’ Have a conversation about how an animal is actually raised and handled,” says Nancy Utesch. 

The post On the Ground with the Farmers Producing Antibiotic-Free Meat appeared first on Modern Farmer.

In the US, an estimated 77 million tons of food are wasted annually, even as one in eight American families struggles with hunger. Growing all that food that no one eats wastes financial and natural resources, while also contributing to climate change. Food is the number one item we throw into landfills, where it drives almost 60 percent of their methane emissions.

But there is an easy way to cut down a large portion of that food waste: Change the “best by” labeling system. According to new research by MITRE and Gallup, there are more than 50 different date label phrases in most grocery stores today—“sell by,” “use by,” “best if used by,” “enjoy by,” and so forth—leaving consumers confused about whether these terms refer to freshness, safety or other issues. As a result, one third of all consumers “often or always” throw away food that has passed its date label. The end result is that households and food businesses throw away perfectly wholesome food (6.5 million tons annually in the US, which is nearly 10 percent of all US food waste) and spend an average $1,500 a year per household on food that they then toss in the trash. 

The US has set a goal to halve its food waste by 2030. To accelerate progress, the Zero Food Waste Coalition (a group of nonprofits, major food businesses and communities) has come together to help advance two commonsense pieces of bipartisan legislation: the Food Date Labeling Act (FDLA) and the NO TIME TO Waste Act. Congress should pass both these acts in the upcoming Farm Bill.

The FDLA aims to establish a consistent, easy-to-understand food date labeling system, at no cost to the government. The FDLA would streamline food labeling into two simple categories: “Best If Used By” to communicate peak food quality and “Use By” to indicate the end of a product’s estimated shelf life. Most importantly, the act would launch an education campaign to help consumers understand the difference between these categories.

Simplified date labels are one of the most cost-effective strategies to reduce food waste across the supply chain—with the majority of the benefits going to consumers. The FDLA would also make more food available for donation by clarifying that food can still be donated after a quality date (which 20 states prohibit or restrict today). More than 23 industry leaders, such as Walmart and Unilever, have signed on in support of the FDLA.

In addition to the FDLA, the NO TIME TO Waste Act would establish an Office of Food Loss and Waste at the US Department of Agriculture. This office would spearhead a whole-of-government approach to reducing food waste, strengthen food waste research, create consumer awareness campaigns and support public-private partnerships and local food recovery efforts. 

These two pieces of legislation are a no-brainer for Congress to pass. Tackling food waste is good for consumers, businesses and the environment. Meeting our national goal of reducing food loss and waste by 50 percent would deliver a $73-billion annual net financial benefit (again, in large part to consumers), reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75 million metric tons and create 51,000 jobs over 10 years. The 2024 Farm Bill is a golden opportunity to make meaningful progress in our fight against food waste, help families stretch their limited food dollars and transition to a more efficient and sustainable food system. 

Pete Pearson. Photography courtesy of Pete Pearson/WWF.

Pete Pearson is senior director of food waste with World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C.

The Zero Food Waste Coalition aims to inform and influence policy at the local, state and federal levels and share policy updates and opportunities with partners and stakeholders around the country to bring consumers, businesses and government together to make food loss and waste history. The Coalition was launched by NRDC, WWF, ReFE, and FLPC in April 2023, formalizing a partnership that began in January 2020.

The post Opinion: Congress Should Standardize Food Labels in Farm Bill to Curb Food Waste appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Transitioning away from a system often characterized by carb-heavy, frozen and fried food can be a multi-year process, says Dreibelbis, and it starts with an in-depth assessment. “[Is the district] cooking anything at all? Are they buying everything prepackaged?” says Dreiblebis. “Do you have the equipment that you need to start cooking from scratch, even smallwares like cutting boards and knives? Some districts don’t even have that.”

From there, small changes add up to make a big difference: More than 28 million lunches are served every day in schools across the US, and for some students, that lunch is their most nutritious meal of the day. For schools with a breakfast program, evidence suggests that students who eat breakfast at school score higher on tests. But schools are up against many roadblocks, from staffing challenges to rising food costs.

Changing a school’s lunch program takes time, resources and commitment. Modern Farmer spoke with the four trendsetting schools to find out how they’ve made changes in their school lunches, what’s working and what the kids are saying about their new favorite foods. 

Students in the Clear Lake Community School District learn more about their vegetable of the month: corn. (Photography submitted by Julie Udelhofen)

Lowering the pressure 

“I was just reading that one in six kids have high blood pressure,” says Julie Udelhofen, food service director at Clear Lake Community School District in northern Iowa. “Sodium is an issue; so is sugar. We see it every day.” 

For Udelhofen, the health of the roughly 1,450 kids in her schools is a top priority, with sodium a particular issue. To combat the rise of sodium, Udelhofen has made two major changes. First, she’s moved away from pre-packaged and frozen foods as much as possible and brought in local fruits and vegetables, conducting taste-tests with her students. “We’ve done beets, kohlrabi, rutabaga and parsnips. We had all kinds of radishes, and about 10 different varieties of peppers, and the kids go down the line and pick their favorites,” says Udelhofen. The key, she says, is to introduce these foods in a low-pressure environment, making it a game of sorts. “It’s a lot of fun, because the kids are wholly invested in it. They will stop and taste things and talk to us.” 

Behind the scenes, Udelhofen and her team have drastically cut sodium levels by making their own spice blends, which have been a big hit with the kids. “That’s one of the best things we’ve done, especially in the middle school and high school.” They offer a garlic and herb blend, along with Greek and Italian seasonings that kids can add to their meals, without the heaping helping of sodium from traditional blends. 

At Sandy Valley School District, staff make up pre-packaged fruit and vegetable pouches for kids to grab and snack on. (Photography submitted by Tina Kindelberger)

Broccoli at breakfast

Most adults are probably not grabbing broccoli at breakfast, but somehow, Tina Kindelberger, food service supervisor at Sandy Valley Local School District in eastern Ohio, has turned the children in her schools into broccoli fiends. 

“It’s so cute when they do that,” says Kindelberger. “I see kids walking in here with packs of broccoli, and it’s 7:30 am.”

Kindelberger started her team’s transition to scratch cooking by first just making raw fruits and vegetables available to the kids at each meal. Rather than change everything they were cooking at once, they just added in a case in the cafeteria with packages of produce such as carrot sticks, tomatoes, snap peas, bananas, apples and yes, broccoli. “The kids seem to be excited when we bring out new things and try new things. I had plums out one day, and I couldn’t believe how many kids asked me what they were. They’d never seen a plum,” says Kindelberger. But they’re now primed to try these raw fruits and veggies, which also means they’re more willing to try the cooked options as the district moves to scratch cooking.

Kindelberger and her team feed about 700 students a day, from kindergarten to high school, and each age group has different tastes and preferences. For her, the first step to changing the menu was consulting with the kids. “I meet with [students] on a regular basis, and we get a lot of feedback,” she says. One request, from the older students, was a breakfast smoothie station. So, Kindelberger got a grant for a blender, and now there are fresh fruit smoothies. “The biggest thing is getting your kids involved, getting their opinions, because it does matter. They want to be heard.”

Carlee Johnson McIntosh has made many changes to her schools’ breakfast program, including adding a grab-and-go fruit station. (Photography submitted by Carlee Johnson McIntosh)

Spaghetti and moose balls

Local food looks a lot different in parts of Alaska than in much of the rest of the US. While many school districts are working with beef and potatoes, Carlee Johnson McIntosh, the food service director in the Petersburg School District in Southeast Alaska, has a freezer full of Sockeye salmon and moose meat. For her, working with local farmers sometimes means getting food delivered by boat from neighboring island farms. 

Her commitment to eating and preparing local foods started from a young age; Johnson McIntosh has allergies and was always looking for ways to alleviate and control her symptoms, so she became interested in what she was eating. Now that she supervises 450 students at her schools, she’s especially committed to ensuring they have high-quality and freshly prepared options. She’s spent the last decade advocating for changes at the school level, from altering when kids can eat breakfast to updating the kitchen facilities to allow for more scratch cooking. 

“Previously, the mealtimes were crammed together. The breakfast was before school and almost nobody showed up. Now, we’re after the bell,” and kids actually show up for breakfast, she says. She’s also had to push the district on purchasing more raw food and getting her staff certified to do more than just reheat frozen packages. “My first step was to talk to our health authority and see where our deficiencies are. Why is it that we are not adequately meeting a restaurant standard? We are feeding an at-risk population, so we should be held to the same standards [as other facilities].” 

That required some creativity on her part. While previous frozen options might be chicken nuggets, for Johnson McIntosh, local proteins are more likely to be moose, herring eggs or Sockeye salmon. So, that’s what they have. Now, the kids are chowing down on moose stroganoff or spaghetti and moose-balls, along with a daily salad bar. 

At RSU89, staff engage students in taste tests, to try out new recipes. And you even get a sticker for participating. (Photography submitted by Denise Tapley-Proctor)

One-bite policy

Not every new menu item is going to be a hit. Denise Tapley-Proctor, food service director at Regional School District 89 in Maine, knows that well. As she’s moved her team over to scratch cooking, there have been some fantastic wins and some less-than-stellar reviews. “We did a vegetable panini that the adults in the school system really liked and the high school kids were OK with. But the little kids were like, ‘no, don’t put vegetables in my grilled cheese.’ It was just a no go.” 

But that’s all part of the process, says Tapley-Proctor. One of the staff on her food service team introduced the “no thank you bite” policy when introducing a food of the month. You don’t have to eat the whole thing, but you have to take one bite to try it. Plus, you get a sticker if you do. 

The one-bite policy has been a great help to Tapley-Proctor and the team while they feed about 225 students a day. It’s allowed them to take a gradual approach with the changes, phasing in one new meal or even one new ingredient at a time. 

“Instead of bringing the box of instant potatoes, see how much longer it takes and how much better the flavor is [to make your own],” she says. “If we have leftover rolls from the day before that we didn’t serve the kids, if you cut them up and throw some spices on them, bake them in the oven, you have homemade croutons, and the kids are excited to put it on the top of their meal. It’s the little things that lead to the big thing.”

They’ve also started working with local farmers, teaching kids how plants grow. “We’ve learned that if the children have a stake in it somehow, like if they grow the food, they’re more apt to want to eat it,” she says. They’ve grown tomatoes in the school garden, then used the after-school program to make a salsa, which went on the menu the next day. “The kids were like, ‘this is our salsa,’” she says. 

Tapley-Proctor says it’s been a process for the staff as well. She’s helped them get training from the Chef Ann Foundation on kitchen skills and learning new recipes. But even with extra effort, she says the feedback from the kids is what makes it worth it. While serving a chicken pot pie, one of the students told them that it “made her belly happy.” Another boy was having a bad day, and then had some fresh watermelon with lunch. “This makes me think of summer and fireworks,” he said. “He had gone from a bad mental health day to a good mental health day because of the food.” 

A typical lunch tray at Sandy Valley School District. (Photography submitted by Tina Kindelberger)

Care about your cafeteria? Here’s how to get involved

The USDA will finalize proposed legislation around school lunches this month, with updates to its nutrition standards and exceptions for local and traditional foods. In the proposed changes, schools would have to reduce sodium levels, limit added sugars and would be allowed to use locally grown, raised or caught food that has been minimally processed in their menus. Updates will be phased in over the next five years, with the first changes coming to menus in the fall of 2024. 

If you have kids in school and are interested in helping bring about changes in your own district, everyone Modern Farmer spoke with recommended reaching out to the food service director at your school to find out what kinds of foods the school is working to introduce to kids and how. They’re the ones that feed your kids every day and can speak about their goals when it comes to nutrition. Some schools will even welcome parents to join their kids for a lunch period, to get a first-hand look at what’s on offer. 

You can also get involved at the state level, organizing around campaigns such as Healthy School Meals for All. For a list of what’s happening in your state, check out this map from the National Farm to School Network. 

And if you work in a school district, Dreibelbis advises that you make the switch to scratch cooking one step at a time. Take a cafeteria classic: boxed macaroni and cheese. You can change one element at a time, such as purchasing a pre-mixed cheese sauce but cooking your own pasta. Once that’s second nature, add one more element. “If you’re making something like a homemade cheese sauce, you’re using flour, butter, milk, cheese and salt. And right there alone, you’re going from what was probably 30 ingredients to five.”

The post On the Ground With the Schools Learning What It Takes To Improve Lunch Menus appeared first on Modern Farmer.

There’s no doubt that industrial animal agriculture carries a laundry list of sins; greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, deforestation, water pollution and labor rights abuses are just a few examples. But there’s also evidence that some regenerative grazing practices can enhance biodiversity, improve soil health and—possibly—sequester carbon. Not only that, but animal husbandry also has significant cultural value and eating animal products can have health benefits.

For some people, eschewing meat—or even all animal products—entirely is the only reasonable course of action. But for those who don’t want to go so far, “less” and “better” can seem like a pragmatic solution: There’s no need to cut out meat altogether; just cut down. Choose quality over quantity. Dig a little deeper, however, and things once again get very confusing. How much less is less? And how do we determine which meat is better?

Are chicken and pork the most climate-friendly options? Is it better for the planet to eat locally or organically? What’s the impact on my physical health of choosing one meat—or one meat alternative—over another? To be able to weigh up all these questions and accurately calculate which kind of meat and how much is “OK” for us to eat, the average consumer would need far more information, time and energy than anyone typically has at the grocery store. It can feel like we’re doomed to fail before we’ve even made a start.

Here’s the thing: There is no right answer when it comes to meat. And that’s OK. 

These questions and warring data points spurred us to make Less and Better?, our new podcast series from Farmerama Radio. Exasperated and concerned by the lack of nuance around this pressing issue, we wanted to try a different approach—one that attempts to illuminate the values and priorities that underlie even the most allegedly scientifically motivated positions.

For many people, the answer is simple: Just go vegan, or at least vegetarian. Studies show that diets without animal products have one-fourth the climate impact of meat-filled diets—from using less water and land and producing fewer carbon emissions. Rather than wrestling with the “best” meat to eat, many choose to forgo it altogether. 

But not everyone can do that. Meat holds cultural significance for many, and it can have nutritional benefits. There’s also a difference between heavily processed meat products and unprocessed meat, both in their effects on the body and the climate. So, for folks unable or unwilling to give up meat entirely, eating better-quality meat, and less of it, is the best approach. But even then, there are questions. The “right” answers to questions of how much less or what is better depend not only on a dizzying array of complex data but fundamentally hinge on which outcomes you believe are worth pursuing. Some argue that intensive factory farms produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, in general, than extensive, pasture-fed systems. Others disagree strongly with this, but say, for the sake of argument, we accept this as true. At first, it seems simple: “Better” meat is factory-farmed meat. Now we just need to figure out how much “less” we should eat.

But what if we think the most important issues are biodiversity loss and ecosystem health? Or water pollution? Or workers’ rights? Or animal welfare? We address each of these issues in our series, and each of them points to a potentially different answer. On that last point, for example, animal welfare scientist Professor Françoise Wemelsfelder argues that recognizing farm animals as sentient beings “probably means that large industrial farming systems are not morally feasible.”

Wrestling with these concepts and questions is a valuable and valid exercise; it’s commendable to make decisions about your consumption and purchases that reflect your morals and values. But, like comparing apples with oranges, trying to find the perfect answer is an impossible task. It could even have negative mental health outcomes. Research in the field of consumer behavior has shown that we can experience negative emotions when trying to make choices that force us to make “emotionally laden trade-offs.” And, higher levels of eco-anxiety are reported among folks with more environmental awareness. 

What “less” and “better” means for you also depends on what interests, values and biases underlie your particular vision of what the world could, and should, look like. Efforts to boil less and better down to simplistic questions of CO2 emissions per livestock unit or the relative technical merits of soil carbon sequestration versus cellular agriculture ignore political questions. Questions such as who benefits? Who holds the power? Who has access to “better” meat? And what kind of future are we building?

Ultimately, we don’t think it’s possible to provide a simple, silver-bullet answer to the question of what constitutes “less” and “better” meat. But we also think that’s kind of the whole point. When it comes to less and better meat, we think the real question we need to ask is better for whom and for what?

Listen to the podcast series Less and Better? by Farmerama Radio here. 

The post Opinion: There’s No Right Way to Eat Meat appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Conservationist Eric Steen aims to change that. His Earth to Beer project is bringing together over 35 breweries from across the US to make a commitment to brewing a mindfully sourced and packaged beer in collaboration with local environmental nonprofits this Earth Day, “to pack as much sustainability as possible into each can.”

As the impacts of climate change intensify worldwide, there is a greater awareness that we need to make changes in our daily lives to help combat its effects. With this project, Steen is enabling breweries and drinkers to do this in an open-ended and collaborative fashion. “What I think is truly unique about Earth to Beer is that we don’t prescribe a specific way to approach the environmental question,” Steen explains. “We aren’t telling brewers to buy organic only, we’re saying that organic is one of many great options that also include local, regenerative agriculture, other certifications like Salmon-Safe, non-certified but responsibly grown, and more. This decentralized approach allows breweries to get creative in ways that make sense for them, their budgets, and their communities.” 

Ghostfish Brewing of Seattle is putting out an oyster stout and supporting the Puget Sound Restoration Fund as part of the Earth to Beer project. (Photo courtesy Ghostfish Brewing)

Steen aims to make the project as accessible as possible for breweries and drinkers, offering negotiated discounts with suppliers, information about ethical sourcing, and marketing and branding resources and custom artwork to help breweries attract interest from customers and retailers. Brewers can make any style of beer and use whichever sustainable resources they feel will suit their needs best. Recipes released already include Aslan Brewing’s classic Amber Ale, which uses all Salmon-Safe certified hops, and GearHouse Brewing’s Imperial Honey Wheat Ale brewed with Pennsylvania honey and aged in locally sourced whiskey barrels.

Earth to Beer features participants from Alaska to Texas to Hawaii, all of whom have committed to working with sustainable suppliers and partnering with a local environmental nonprofit. “We’ve asked breweries to reverse the role of what normally happens with a nonprofit — usually the nonprofit approaches the brewery and there’s a pretty hands-off way of giving donated beer for a cause. In Earth to Beer, breweries have to find a nonprofit they want to work with, do the outreach and invite them in” says Steen.

Oddwood Brewing in Austin TX has chosen to partner with the Colorado River Alliance for the project. “With good, clean water being absolutely crucial to the creation of good beer we, as a small community-oriented brewery, wanted to team up with those that are fighting to protect our water and communities,” says Oddwood’s events and operations manager Charlie Mikulich. Oddwood is also sourcing its malt from TexMalt, a locally based supplier that works with nearby farms to reduce the carbon footprint of malt supply. It is also sourcing from Yakima Chief Hops, a grower-owned family farm collective that uses green energy to power its facilities, a water reclamation program to keep local habitats safe, and created the Green Chief Program (a sustainability management program that promotes and develops guidelines for all their farms). 

Breweries are required to pay a small fee to join Earth to Beer and make a contribution to the nonprofit of their choice, depending on brewery size, ranging from $500-$1,000 minimum. They are also expected to begin open-ended collaborations, such as providing beer for events and offering free meeting spaces. For startups and minority-owned breweries, sponsor Arryved, which specializes in point-of-sale technology, has provided a stipend so cost doesn’t prohibit participation. “Building a better world through beer requires not only more sustainable ingredients and processes, but also more opportunities for people of color to participate and contribute to the creativity and problem solving we will need to get there,” says Aaron Gore, Director of Community and Partnerships at Arryved.

MadTree Brewing in Cincinnati, Ohio organizes staff volunteer days and donates one percent of all sales to local nonprofits. (Photo courtesy MadTree Brewing)

Another sponsor and collaborator is Canworks, the first US company to print directly onto aluminum cans, eliminating plastic waste and making them recyclable. “There is a challenge in consumer awareness. Most consumers don’t realize that many of the cans they recycle are covered in shrink sleeves and those cans are going straight to a landfill because of that,” says Canworks head of marketing Daniel Rigdon. That’s where Earth to Beer comes in. “Educating consumers so they can make informed decisions is the fastest way to effect change,” Rigdon explains.

Steen aims to spearhead wider industry change by creating a multi-layered, inclusive, educational and open-ended initiative. “Formalizing a campaign around Earth Day and institutionalizing it will go a long way to get breweries who aren’t thinking about their impact to start to care,” he says. This is also the goal for Tulsa OK’s Heirloom Rustic Ales, which is partnering with the Conservation Coalition of Oklahoma. “Our hope for this project is that other brewers (and growers) will see that consumers appreciate, and even gravitate towards, agriculturally holistic products,” says co-owner and brewer Jake Miller. 

For Steen, the key goal is to raise awareness about brewing and drinking intentionally. “If you’re not already intentional in the way that you source your ingredients, consider making one beer a year where you change things up. And each time you make this beer, get a little more intentional about it,” he says. His advice to consumers? “Ask breweries what they’re doing to support producers and suppliers who are environmental stewards, and go out of your way to support breweries that are intentional.”

Earth to Beer releases will be available around the country this April. Find the full list of participating breweries here.

The post Drinking, and Thinking About, More Sustainable Beer appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Food policy experts Sarah Hackney and Jamie Fanous have advice for those who feel overwhelmed or unsure about how to make a difference. Hackney is the coalition director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) in Washington, D.C., where she works with grassroots organizations to advocate for federal policy reform to advance the sustainability of agriculture, food systems, natural resources and rural communities. Fanous is the policy director at one of these organizations, a California-based nonprofit called Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF). Together, Hackney and Fanous offer guidance on simple steps that we can all take to create positive change around us, in ways both big and small.

Join CSA programs and support food cooperatives 

Besides doing the research to elect officials who advocate on behalf of these priorities, the best thing we can do to support farmers year-round is to be just as conscientious about how we vote with our dollars. “Sign up for a CSA, go to the farmers market or co-op, purchase your produce from farmers directly. Go the extra mile to do that,” says Fanous. “If you’re going to a big box store, the produce is probably not from a small-scale farmer or a local farmer, so it’s really not supporting local economies. Joining a CSA program is a great way to build a relationship with your farmer and know where your food is coming from.”

Educate yourself and amplify your actions

For those looking to engage more deeply in food policy advocacy, Hackney and Fanous recommend tuning into social media platforms and newsletters from a mixture of national agricultural organizations, such as NSAC, and local ones, such as CAFF. 

“NSAC is one of the best places to get into the nerdy details of food and agriculture policy,” says Hackney. “We have a very active blog and a weekly e-newsletter where we highlight big food and ag policy news from D.C., along with free analysis you won’t find anywhere else.”

When it comes to understanding issues closer to home, Hackney says, “There are over 150 member organizations within NSAC, most of whom are state or regionally focused, and all of whom work in relationship with farmers and eaters in their communities. Almost all of them have active websites and social media accounts and some specifically have farmer- and consumer-led volunteer teams that help review and develop policy ideas both at the local and national level.” She recommends checking out the membership lists of a coalition such as NSAC or one of its peers, such as the HEAL Food Alliance, to see if there’s an active member organization in your state or region. 

Call Congress

Once you start following political and agricultural news, you may come across the occasional public request for citizens like yourself to contact local representatives in Congress to advocate for or against certain bills. 

“We share calls to action at key junctures in the policy process when there are opportunities for folks to make their voices heard directly with lawmakers,” says Hackney. “It’s absolutely possible for individual calls, emails and messages to make a difference: Lawmakers track and monitor who’s reaching out to them on issues that matter locally. When it comes to shifting food and farm policy toward more sustainable, equitable outcomes in our communities, we need those voices. We’re up against entrenched, well-resourced corporate interests and lobbying firms, and one of our best tools to push back is our willingness to speak up as voters, eaters and community leaders.”

“If organizations like CAFF or others ask—make the phone call. It makes a big difference,” says Fanous. “We very rarely ask people to make calls to their members, but when we do, it’s serious and we need that support. If you can’t make the call, repost the request on social media to give it more life.” 

Vote every chance you get

Besides the four-year presidential election cycle, there are congressional elections every two years, as well as annual state and local elections. Register with Vote.org to receive notifications about upcoming elections so that you never miss a chance to vote. 

“The coming 2024 election cycle may shape the fate and contents of the still-to-be-reauthorized farm bill,” says Hackney. The so-called “farm bill” should be passed by Congress every five years and pertains to much more than just farming. This package of legislation defines our food system, determining what we eat by how we use land, water and other natural resources. 

“Congress didn’t reauthorize the 2018 Farm Bill on time last year, instead opting to extend the old bill,” explains Hackney. “If Congress doesn’t complete the reauthorization process on the bill before the fall, that could shift farm bill passage timing into 2025, which means potentially new and different lawmakers sitting on the committees that draft the bill and new lawmakers in leadership positions to drive the process. While the farm bill is intended to represent the needs and issues of farmers and communities and families nationwide, the representatives and senators who sit on the House and Senate agriculture committees, who themselves only represent a slice of the country’s landscape and electorate, get to do the lion’s share of shaping that bill.”

If you’re not sure whether to vote yes or no for a particular bill, Hackney has advice: “If there’s a bill that focuses on an issue you care about, you can look up its authors and cosponsors—these are the lawmakers willing to go on the record with their support for a bill.” Keep an eye out for the names of politicians who are familiar to you and try to determine if their values align with yours, then use their judgment to guide your own. 

“For example, at NSAC, we’ve been organizing for several years around the Agriculture Resilience Act. It’s a bill that would address climate change by reshaping much of the US Department of Agriculture’s programming toward climate change action,” says Hackney. “It would increase resources and support for practices on farms that build diversity of crops and livestock, integrate perennial crops, keep the soil covered and integrate livestock into the landscape—all highly effective climate and agriculture solutions that can reduce emissions and build resiliency. Lawmakers who’ve endorsed this bill are essentially telling us: I support tackling the climate crisis by finding solutions through sustainable agriculture and food systems. You can find a bill’s cosponsors by using free, publicly available websites like congress.gov or govtrack.us.”

Diversify your approach 

“If we could fix our food and farm system by simply voting with our forks or making one quick call to Congress or growing our own food, we’d be there already,” says Hackney. “The truth is it takes action on multiple fronts—especially if we want to get to the root causes of the problems in our food and farm system. That means both doing what we can with our individual food choices—within our means and our communities—to support food and farm businesses operating on values of sustainability and equity and choosing to engage politically to improve food and farm policy.”

The post How to Be a Food Policy Advocate in Your Community  appeared first on Modern Farmer.

What if these food-insecure households—more than 13 percent of the county’s population—could access the abundant provision literally dropping from trees in their neighbors’ backyards?

“Food deserts—places like Phoenix, particularly—need to be more proactive about our own generation and capture of resources,” says Jérémy Chevallier, Phoenix resident and founder of Homegrown, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making local food more accessible to the surrounding community. Through a network of volunteers, farmers markets, food banks and grocery stores, Homegrown is channeling excess fruit from homeowners’ trees to food-insecure residents in and around Phoenix.

As a 31-year-old serial entrepreneur with a background in tech and marketing, Chevallier is an unlikely candidate to propose such an earthly solution. But unpredictable food availability during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns prompted him to consider how he could gain more control over his food supply.

“I recognized that many people were starting to pay attention to not only where their food was coming from but specifically getting it from as local of a source as possible… ideally their garden or their neighbor’s garden,” he says. “And I started wondering: How close is my neighborhood to operating as a self-sustaining village?”

It’s a critical question given the state of food access in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located. The county contains 55 food deserts—areas in which residents have limited opportunities to purchase healthy, affordable food—and 43 are in Phoenix.

But despite the area’s issues with drought, the city has access to a canal system that provides a ready source of irrigation. Combined with copious sunlight and compostable waste, this system creates a “goldmine of opportunity” that Chevallier believes Homegrown can leverage to transform the area into a hub of local food production.

When properly maintained, fruit trees can maintain plentiful production for decades—production that exceeds the needs of a single household. And Chevallier quickly discovered that homeowners are more than happy to let someone take the surplus off their hands, especially when they know it’s being distributed to local residents in need.

His efforts are already paying off. During the 2023 citrus season, Homegrown’s core team of six harvested thousands of pounds of excess citrus, raised more than $5,000 for the nonprofit and sold more than $2,600 worth of fruit, juice and homemade marmalades at farmers markets. Wholesale orders from local grocers netted another $1,346.

Money from sales and donations goes directly back into the nonprofit to pay the team and purchase supplies and equipment. As its capacity expands, Homegrown will be able to deliver even more food to underserved residents in the Phoenix area. Currently, the nonprofit donates harvested citrus to partners such as Feed Phoenix, which serves 500 to 700 people every week through free community events, and the Arizona Food Bank Network, a system of food banks and pantries that feed more than 450,000 food-insecure residents across the state.

And fruit is just the beginning: Chevallier also has his eye on the Phoenix Valley’s bountiful pecan trees, olive trees and date palms. But despite the plentiful supply, he’s concerned the area isn’t ready to sustain itself solely on locally grown food—a goal he sees as essential to long-term food security.

The Homegrown team. Photo submitted.

Part of the problem lies in the city’s construction. Pavement and buildings create an urban heat island that raises local temperatures and contributes to drought conditions, making the area unsuitable for consistent food production.

Chevallier says permaculture can address the problem. Short for “permanent agriculture,” permaculture replaces traditional landscaping and gardens with “a diverse, integrated system that doesn’t look like rows of trees over here and crops over here,” he says. “It looks like a forest.” The greenery in these food forests mitigates the heat island effect and creates milder microclimates where food crops can flourish. By combining permaculture with food harvest and distribution, Chevallier hopes to usher in a future where neighborhoods can sustain themselves without the need for commercial food production.

To help the movement toward complete food security blossom in the Phoenix area, Chevallier launched Permascaping.com and started a “Grants for Gardeners” program. Interested hobby farmers and animal keepers can apply for resources to establish and support self-sustaining permaculture installations in their backyards.

“The reason Homegrown exists is to make homegrown food accessible to anybody who wants it,” says Chevallier. “[And] a lot of times, what’s holding people back from doing more [with gardening] is simply the resources.” He wants to use Homegrown’s grants to provide the money and space for local growers to feed themselves and their communities.

Chevallier recognizes that expanding his self-described “idealistic hippie vision” will take time, and Homegrown needs additional support to make it happen. He’s currently on the hunt for more distribution partners to help channel the “absurdly huge” fruit supply into the wider community. Fellow advocates of homegrown food can also make tax-deductible donations to fund the nonprofit’s efforts.

But ideally, Chevallier wants to connect with people with the resources and enthusiasm to bring Homegrown’s vision to life in communities nationwide. “What I would love to do is for Homegrown to … be a chapter-based organization,” he says. “If we can set an example of what’s possible in Phoenix, in one of one of the harder places to do this, then we know that we can inspire people and … expand that model.”

And he’s more than happy to share the processes he’s established over the last year to enable new chapters to take root and spread. “I want people to realize that this food is homegrown, that it didn’t come from a commercially managed and owned grove or orchard, but that it came from someone’s backyard,” he says. “That, to me, is the biggest impact we have the opportunity to make, to bring people together over that shared store of value.”

The post Meet the Arizona Nonprofit Working to Transform Urban Food Deserts appeared first on Modern Farmer.

 In the aftermath of the war, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was accepted by members of the United Nations (U.N.) at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. Among the resolutions in the foundational text is Article 25. It reads, in part: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care.”

The right to food seems so basic; in 1948, it seemed unimaginable that we would be where we are today, with 828 million people living in hunger, according to the latest numbers from the World Health Organization. Most of those people—more than 85 percent—live in areas affected by conflict and war.

In 2015, the U.N. targeted 2030 as the year it would end hunger and food insecurity. In the past decade, we’ve seen catastrophic wars and food crises in South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Haiti, Gaza, Ukraine and Somalia topping the list, with tens of millions of their citizens suffering almost unimaginable hardship, hunger and suffering. The populations in those conflict zones risk starvation, because access to food has been either coincidentally or intentionally cut off. 

While the U.N. unanimously passed a resolution condemning the use of food insecurity and starvation as a tactic of war in 2018, the resolution isn’t legally binding. The only way the millions of people in conflict zones are getting food that they don’t grow or find themselves is through the efforts of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and nonprofits, often staffed by volunteers who risk their lives to deliver food to people on the front lines.

The circumstances and details of delivery vary considerably. 

“Logistics for delivery of aid differ depending on many factors, from the location, geography and weather to the nature of the disaster, beneficiaries, time of year and level of conflict,” says Christine Quinn Antal, co-founder of the nonprofit Task Force Antal and a veteran with years of experience operating in conflict zones and managing crises. Task Force Antal focuses on providing food, evacuation support and humanitarian aid with a team of elite special operations veterans in conflict zones across the world. “Keeping supply chains safe and secure is always a major focus, so we can maintain confidence that the food and supplies we’re delivering make it to the intended location without any tampering.”

Photography provided by World Central Kitchen.

Delivering aid in Somalia

For decades, Somalia has been enduring conflict and extreme drought. While the country’s Civil War was sparked in 1991 when Siad Barre’s military junta was overthrown, it has since devolved to include multiple warring rebel groups. Currently, more than four million people there are acutely food insecure and 1.7 million children aged five and under are expected to suffer acute malnutrition this year, according to CARE International.

CARE works in 97 countries, in a mission to promote social justice and defeat poverty. Justus Liku, the Kenya-based senior director of Humanitarian Response and Impact, explains that delivering food aid is one measure CARE takes to assist those in need. 

“The drought in Somalia has killed tens of thousands of people and decimated crops and livestock that people depend on for their lives and livelihoods,” says Liku. CARE relies on food imported from nearby Kenya and Ethiopia and imports corn from Western Europe.

It also relies on imported nutritional supplements that malnourished children and parents need, as there is no supplement industry local to Somalia. “Getting food aid to people is very challenging in Somalia because there are so many conflicts, so crossing from one zone to another requires a great deal of planning and coordination.”

To conquer the logistics of delivering food by truck from one conflict zone to another within Somalia, CARE relies on a chain of local connections who meet each other near border crossings and deliver food from one truck to the other. 

“The drivers know each other, and remain in contact,” says Liku. “It is complicated, but [it’s] the best way we have found to get food to people across Somalia.” 

Thankfully, says Liku, mobile phone service is much more dependable in Somalia than in other countries in which CARE works, which enables delivery drivers to utilize GPS when necessary and communicate with each other and the people they’re trying to reach. 

Finding local on-the-ground contacts is key to the NGO Human Appeal’s approach in Somalia, as well as its other efforts in 27 countries, including Sudan, Pakistan, Yemen and Iraq. In 2023, Human Appeal delivered food and nutritional support to 773,426 people. Each delivery, by design, was different. 

“Local partners know the context and local challenges, and identify duly vetted local implementing partners,” says Owais Khan, deputy CEO of Human Appeal, a nonprofit organization working across the world to deliver aid and fight poverty and injustice. In an email, Khan told Modern Farmer that the group has an established model to assess the ability and capacity of local partners to help with food delivery projects. “The same applies to suppliers who need to be screened, have a solid track record and economically viable prices.”

Understanding each country’s needs, the demographics of the target group, the local diet and preferences and any other specific requirements such as religious or other food codes is essential, says Khan —and frequently, locals are the only ones who can truly decipher these often unwritten rules for outsiders. 

The U.N.’s Humanitarian Response Plan in Somalia is woefully underfunded, with about 9.8 percent of the $1.59 billion needed funded this year.

“There are so many countries and people in need,” says Liku “and not enough funding.”

Photography submitted by World Central Kitchen.

Delivering aid in Gaza 

Food security experts warn that the war between Israel and Hamas has caused a food crisis that threatens every single person living in Gaza. Currently, about half of the population—1.1 million people—are facing severe hunger and the possibility of famine, according to Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, an agency that monitors global hunger. Delivering food has been a dangerous endeavor recently, when at least 112 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more wounded amid an aid truck delivery in Gaza. 

World Central Kitchen (WCK), a nonprofit founded in 2010 by Chef José Andrés, has delivered more than 350 million meals around the world. WCK delivered food to Israelis after the October 7 attack that sparked the country’s war with Hamas and now is delivering food to Gaza. 

In early March, WCK began exploring routes into Gaza, eventually partnering with the NGO Open Arms in securing a maritime route through Cyprus. The mission has been dubbed Operation Safeena, which translates to Operation Boat or Vessel in Arabic. 

WCK has come under fire recently following allegations of sexual harassment within the top levels of the organization; however, that does not seem to have hampered its aid work. A spokesperson for World Central Kitchen said that WCK continues “to prepare about 300 tons of humanitarian food aid for a second sailing to Gaza from the Larnaca, Cyprus port.” 

WCK is focused on delivering culturally appropriate, shelf-stable foods, such as beans, carrots, canned tuna, chickpeas, canned corn, parboiled rice, flour, oil and salt. To date, WCK has delivered 39 million meals by land, sea and air to Palestinians. More than 1,500 trucks have been dispatched for on-the-ground deliveries across Gaza from WCK’s Cairo warehouses, and more than 60 community kitchens have been opened in Gaza. During the sacred month of Ramadan, WCK is delivering daily airdrops, the spokesperson said. 

Common Man volunteers delivering food and presents. Photography submitted by Common Man for Ukraine.

Delivering aid in Ukraine 

The war between Russia and Ukraine began in 2014 when the republic of Crimea was invaded by Russian troops in disguise. On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion. Today, an estimated 3.7 million people are displaced in Ukraine, and 14.6 million people require humanitarian assistance, including food.

Children are especially vulnerable, says Susan Mathison, who co-founded Common Man for Ukraine in 2022 with Steve Rand, Lisa Mure and Alex Ray.

“When we visited Ukraine to see what we could do, we decided to focus on children, because we came to understand the enormity of what they were facing,” says Mathison. “Hundreds of thousands of children have been sent on trains from Eastern to Western Ukraine by their mothers who hope to keep them safe. Informal safehouses have sprung up to care for 2.5 million children.”

Two of the founding members of Common Man are members of the Plymouth Rotary Club in New Hampshire, and they used that connection to launch their mission.

“We knew we’d have to embed with local organizations on the ground if we wanted to succeed,” says Mathison. “So we called the Rotary presidents in Poland and Ukraine, and from there built an incredible network and system of delivery.”

Thus far, they have delivered more than three million meals to hungry children in more than 100 safehouses across Ukraine, using trucks driven by around 200 volunteers. They deliver locally produced traditional foods such as groat (similar to muesli or granola), canned meat and fresh produce grown by local producers, often to houses in the dead of night, and not necessarily with electricity. 

“Sometimes, I feel like we’re not doing enough,” says Mathison. “How are we really helping if we can only serve a fraction of the people in need? But I’ve been there to see the looks on the faces of the children when they receive the food, and that’s when I realize that what we are doing does matter, because every child matters.”

Hope for Ukraine, a non-profit launched in 2016 by Ukraine native Yuriy Boyechko, has raised more than $8.4 million since the full-scale invasion began and operates under a similar model.

“We realized that millions would need our help,” says Boyechko. “We began organizing food and field kitchens and figured out how to deliver meal kits that would feed families of four for (over a week).”

Currently, Hope for Ukraine is supplying 1,500 families with meal kits every week, with the help of co-partners on the ground and more than 100 volunteer groups, which deliver food to the most hard-hit regions in frontline towns. The non-perishable food they deliver is largely locally sourced, with the goal of boosting the economy, and providing the kinds of food locals are used to. 

“For a lot of people, this is their only lifeline,” says Boyechko. “Their infrastructure has been destroyed, and without this they will have no food. We are also operating five field kitchens with other pop-ups when possible and as needed.”

Currently, an estimated 10 percent of Ukraine’s humanitarian needs are being met, and Mathison says that donations have fallen off precipitously since the October 7 attack in Israel and the ensuing war there. 

“There are so many problems happening in the world, it’s easy to stay frozen,” says Mathison. “But if we could all just focus on one country, or one child, or one project, the world will be a better place. Pick something that will make your heart sing.”

Common Man for Ukraine founders. Photography submitted by Common Man.

Want to donate to an NGO or food charity? Here’s what you should consider: 

To ensure the safety of staff and success of the mission, always look at how the NGO interacts with and incorporates local groups into their work. 

“At the end of the day, any organization you support should be working with the actual citizens and organizations based there,” says Antal. “They are critical to know how to get in and get out, especially in armed conflicts.”

To ensure your funds are actually going to help, ensure that the charity is legally registered and abides by the rules and regulations of its governing body. Also important is that it submits an annual report of its expenses, so you can see exactly where the money is going. 

“A charity with a sustained track record of delivering aid to where it is needed most and regularly reporting its work to its donors is also key,” says Khan. “A professionally managed charity will always have internal policies and procedures that are applied across all internal functions to ensure proper governance and standards.”

In addition to the NGO’s featured above, here are vetted and widely respected organizations which you can feel safe donating money to:

The World Food Programme: Founded in 1963, it is the lead U.N. agency that responds to food emergencies and combats hunger worldwide. 

Oxfam America: A global organization founded in 1942 fighting to end poverty and injustice. 

Action Against Hunger: A global humanitarian organization that takes action against the causes and effects of hunger. 

The post How Does Food Get Delivered to Hungry People in Conflict Zones? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

When challenging its pork producer about its use of manure lagoons and the myriad health and environmental issues they pose, Ganzler knew that Bon Appétit’s end goal was not only to source more sustainable pork but to be able to communicate effectively with its customers about the issue—something that is quite difficult, since no one wants to talk about manure when they’re eating.

This tension is at the heart of Ganzler’s new book: How can companies practice authentic sustainability and work it effectively into their marketing strategy? In the book, Ganzler details Bon Appétit’s progress and missteps in navigating issues such as farmworker rights, pigs raised in gestation crates, chickens in cages, and more. The book, which comes out April 2, also includes interviews with other industry experts who talk about their experiences, including:  Rob Michalak, former global director of social mission for Ben & Jerry’s, who talks about integrating sustainability into operations and his experience with Milk with Dignity organizers; Gary Hirshberg, co-founder of Stonyfield Organic, who discusses picking your battles and taking stands on issues; and Lisa Dyson, CEO and co-founder of Air Protein, who talks about creating alternative protein and striving to be the number one meat company in the world.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Modern Farmer: In your book, you say that when a business does something right or makes progress toward a sustainability target, it should get credit for it. This can bolster the business, but you write that it can also create a ripple effect toward industry change. How so?

Maisie Ganzler: A great example of that was in 2005, when we at Bon Appétit made a commitment to cage-free eggs nationwide. We heard that the client at another corporation said to their food service provider, ‘We’d like cage-free eggs served here,’ and the food service provider said ‘Oh, we can’t do that. There’s not enough available, blah, blah, blah,’—all these excuses. And the client said, ‘Well, Bon Appétit does it for their locations. So, I’m sure you can do it here, too.’ That’s the ripple effect that I’m talking about—once a company has proven that something is possible, other companies now need to come to the table and do the same.

MF: Something you worked on passionately was sourcing pork from producers that don’t house pigs in gestational crates. You didn’t reach this goal overnight but through a series of milestones. You eventually accomplished this with pork producer Clemens Food Group, on which Modern Farmer reported here. To get there, you first had to hear big companies tell you no, it wasn’t possible. Why did you push on regardless? How were you confident you could achieve something that wasn’t being widely done at such a large scale?

MG: I pushed on for two main reasons. One was that it was simply the right thing to do. If you’ve seen a sow in a gestation crate, it’s heartbreaking. They can’t turn around, they can’t walk; it is very clear that something better could be done for that animal. So, that’s where we start, rooted in the idea that it’s the right thing to do for the animal. But as you’ve pointed out, we’re also a business and we want to get market credit. And we had made a public promise, and I was not going to go back on that. So, while I was transparent about the difficulties and about missing the deadline, I never wanted to say it can’t be done. Was I confident that it could be done? Not necessarily, but I don’t need confidence to keep pushing forward.

MF: You advise companies to own their challenges and obstacles to achieving their sustainability goals—something that can be tempting to hide. Why is it actually better to be transparent about these things?

MG: Being transparent is important because one, it will insulate you to some degree from greenwashing claims. If you are the person that’s stepping forward and saying here’s where we fell short, nobody can have that “gotcha” moment. The other thing is that it actually gets you more credit in the end. If you pretend that everything’s easy to do, why should anybody celebrate that you did it? If you’re transparent about how challenging it was, how many bumps there were in the road, how many times you failed and redoubled your efforts, how much more expensive it was, then all the more reason for customers or advocacy groups to laud your accomplishment when you finally do pull it off.

I don’t think that anybody on the consumer side, anybody reasonable, expects perfection from a company. But they do expect honesty. And I think that’s a reasonable expectation. One of the things that I talked to Gary Hirshberg about, the founder of Stonyfield, is he talked about people needing to make an emotional connection with the brand, especially if you’re asking them to spend more money on something. Just what I was talking about [with] gestation crates, and how they are so horrible for sows, that cuts to my heart, not necessarily to my head, because it is more efficient, it is more cost-effective, but my heart tells me something different. And a lot about building an authentic brand based upon sustainability is listening to your heart and being open with your heart.

If you’re not authentic in your desire to make real change, I think that people smell that. And you may actually have something backfire. Instead of [achieving] what you want, you may be in a worse position if you’re inauthentically making these promises.

Ganzler holds a piglet. (Photography provided by Maisie Ganzler)

MF:  You talk about how in Bon Appétit’s Farm to Fork program, you don’t require that producers be certified organic, but you do require that farms be owner-operated. As a farmer in St. Louis told you, if you’re a small farm, you can’t afford to scrap a whole field if you have a fungal outbreak, you need to be able to apply a fungicide. If you held firm to requiring organic certification, you’d end up putting the squeeze on some of your smaller producers. When setting a sustainability goal, how do you make sure that the parameters you choose can actually help you achieve your desired outcome?

MG: You have to first be really clear of what your desired outcome is. So, for the Bon Appétit Farm to Fork program, the desired outcome was to support farmers that were growing for taste—that was the initial impetus of the program: to get the best-tasting food. And to do that, we decided that we had to support small-scale farmers that were close to us that were able to grow for flavor, as opposed to grow for conformity or transportability or a whole host of other reasons. Be really clear about what your goal is. 

MF: Considering Bon Appétit’s size and reach, you encounter a lot of issues in our food system. You work with producers across a wide geography and advocates on a wide breadth of issues. From your perspective, what are the biggest issues in our food system right now? 

MG: From sitting in the chair of a food service company that’s a buyer, I think that the biggest issues really surround animal agriculture, how animals are treated and the impacts that the raising of those animals have on our environment. And there’s a lot of different things in play. And there’s a lot of strong opinions but also some conflicting information. So, I would say that there’s a whole host of issues around animal agriculture.

MF: For small farmers or food businesses that don’t have a marketing department, budget or training, do you have any advice for how they can still tell their story effectively?

MG: I think that the first thing is that they need to figure out what their story is and distill it down. If they have a package, what can they put on the package that quickly communicates the most salient points of their story, not the encyclopedic version of it, because no one’s going to take time to read that. Everybody’s got a website, so the same thing there, really figuring out what your headline is and succinctly communicating that to your customers. And making that headline something that does create an emotional connection with people. Not being afraid to take a stand, whether that is in the issues you take on, how you talk about them or where you talk about them. 

What I was trying to communicate in the book is the importance of both making meaningful change and getting market credit for it. And that’s where the title comes from—You Can’t Market Manure at Lunchtime. There was this real environmental change we were after, dealing with manure lagoons, but we also needed to be able to talk to customers about it. Because we are not advocacy groups, we are for-profit companies. But we have the power to do good in this world and capitalize on it. And there’s nothing shameful about that duality.

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