Scarcity and degradation of land and water: growing threat to food security
New FAO report profiles the state of the natural resource base upon which world food production depends Widespread degradation and deepening scarcity of land and water resources have placed a number of key food production systems around the globe at risk, posing a profound challenge to the task of feeding a world population expected to […]
Should we tax soda?
Nanny State vs Daddy Market By: Raj Patel Bigger isn’t always better. By 2030, half of Americans won’t just be overweight, but obese. By then, nearly a fifth of our healthcare dollars will be spent treating the diseases that come with being bigger. Our lifestyles, rich in fat, sugar and inactivity, are creating a debt that’ll […]
5 Ridiculous Myths People Use to Trash Local Food — And Why They’re Wrong
Articles “debunking” the local food movement are stale, shallow and often incorrect. It’s become predictable. At nearly regular intervals, someone, somewhere, will decide it’s time to write another article “debunking” the local food movement. The latest installment is by Steve Sexton, posted on theFreakonomics blog (which also treated us to a previous post called “Do We […]
Sowing a prosperous future
By: Michael Fitzgerald, Record, 11/6/11 The bitterest dish in Stockton is to live in America’s food basket, yet send kids to school hungry. Or live in an urban “food desert” devoid of fresh fruits and vegetables. Given this market failure, a Stockton neighborhood is trying a new approach: “social entrepreneurship,” a business venture aimed not only […]