While it doesn’t always show up in the current headlines about the “global food crisis”, many people and groups in North America and Europe have been taking action for quite some time to eat locally, support local farmers, and support organic production. Here are links to a few of these activities:

 

The 100-mile diet: a B.C. phenomenon that traveled fast…

When the average North American sits down to eat, each ingredient has typically travelled at least 1,500 miles—call it "the SUV diet." On the first day of spring, 2005, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon chose to confront this unsettling statistic with a simple experiment. For one year, they would buy or gather their food and drink from within 100 miles of their apartment in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Their 100-Mile Diet struck a deeper chord than anyone could have predicted. Within weeks, reprints of their blog at thetyee.ca had appeared on sites across the internet. Then came the media, from BBC Worldwide to Utne magazine. Dozens of individuals and grassroots groups have since launched their own 100-Mile Diet adventures.

 

Slow Food – a movement that has been growing since 1986

Begun in Italy in 1986, Slow Food believes that food should taste good and be produced without harming the environment, animal welfare, or health, and that food producers should receive fair compensation for their work. Its members consider themselves “co-producers” rather than consumers “because by being informed about how our food is produced and actively supporting those who produce it, we become a part of and a partner in the production process.”

Slow Food has 80,000 members and more than 850 local chapters worldwide. Some countries have national branches. Slow Food is led by the International Executive Committee, which is elected every four years at the Slow Food International Congress and consists of the President's Committee and the International Council, made up of representatives from countries with at least 500 Slow Food members.

The Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, founded in 2003, defends agricultural biodiversity and gastronomic traditions, with a particular focus on developing countries, while Terra Madre brings together food communities from all over the world and links food producers, distributors, cooks, academics and all those who work for responsible and sustainable food production. The University of Gastronomic Sciences offers a multidisciplinary academic program in the science and culture of food, linking the innovations and research of the academic and scientific world and the traditional knowledge of farmers and food producers.

 

Rethinking School Lunches in the United States

Given the recognition of the escalating public health crisis among American youth, and the crisis among small and mid-sized US family farms, “farm-to-school” programs that help school districts buy food from local growers are becoming increasingly popular. An example is the Home Grown Lunch program in Madison, Wisconsin, which also provides a useful summary of activities across the US.

Such programs can increase the nutritional value of children’s school meals, teach better eating habits, and provide reliable markets for local small and medium-sized farms. Schools are encouraged to purchase fresh food directly from local farmers through such programs as USDA’s "Small Farms/School Meals" initiative, and some school districts have successfully developed state, local or school-district food policies that provide legal precedent for school food services purchasing local and sustainably raised food.

Since 2004, school lunches have had a new flavour in Berkeley, California, where the School Lunch Initiative (SLI) connects formal academic subjects with experiential learning in instructional gardens, kitchen classrooms and the school lunch room. SLI provides students with delicious, healthy, seasonal meals made from local, sustainably grown ingredients, and the curriculum involves students in growing, preparing, serving and enjoying food with adults and peers. The project is a public/private partnership of the Berkeley Unified School District, Center for Ecoliteracy, and Chez Panisse Foundation.

 

European hospitals support organic farming, fair trade, provide healthier meals

A recent report on European hospital food highlights the benefits of “sustainable food procurement” – a buying policy that favours minimally processed, locally produced, organic, seasonal and fairly traded foods, while protecting the environment and the health of patients - and highlights the activities of eight hospitals in six EU countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) that are working towards sustainable food procurement.

“Buying fair-trade products helps to sustain the livelihoods of some of the world’s poorest and most disadvantaged food producers," the report explains. "Procuring local food helps to support local economic and social well-being and protect the environment, by potentially reducing transport emissions and ensuring that catering budgets benefi t the local economy. Sourcing organic food also has a wide range of benefi ts, as farming organically reduces pollution and energy use, creates better conditions for wildlife, supports higher levels of employment in rural areas and protects soil fertility. Sustainable sourcing also has the potential to make hospital food healthier and more appetising. Hospitals embracing sustainable procurement tend to use more fresh fruit and vegetables and fewer mass-produced processed foods. Buying locally grown produce is likely to mean that the food on offer is fresher, tastier and more nutritious. Using organic ingredients enables kitchens to reduce patients’ exposure to potentially harmful additives, pesticides and antibiotic residues and increase their intake of vitamins and minerals.”

 

Developing a sustainable European food system

AlimenTerra is a committed to developing practical and co-operative actions leading to the creation of a truly sustainable European food system. The network of organizations from five European countries (France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK) range from farmers’ unions and development organisations to NGO’s, local food initiatives and organic support bodies. Over the past decade its participants and many partner organisations have been engaged in carrying out joint actions which foster and promote a more sustainable food system. These actions have taken place at all geographical levels, involving both policy and practical actions that reflect the need to show how a truly sustainable system can operate, both locally and globally. In August 2007, AlimenTerra published a 223-page Dossier of Best Practice in Sustainable Public Food, Europe and the USA, based on research done in France, Italy, the USA, UK, Spain, Denmark and Sweden, that highlights a range of local activities in those countries.

 

 

 

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