Good Food is Everybody's Business
Bringing together research from a range of fields including anthropology, archaeology, ecology, economics, entomology, ethnobiology, genetics and geography, Biodiversity in Agriculture addresses key questions relating to agriculture.
Today, a billion people live in hunger. Peak oil and environmental degradation threaten the food security of billions more; particularly with half the world’s population living in urban environments where they are dependent on industrially produced and imported food. A transition is urgently needed, but how?
Salal, a native shade-tolerant shrub that produces little hairy berries and has a long affiliation with First Peoples as a source of food, medicine, lore, and much more. Sadly, while the salal plant has long been part of the food, medicine, and culture of Coast Salish peoples, the arrival of settlers led to the exploitation of the land, forests, and workers.
The wild strawberry has been recognized and used by indigenous peoples since the dawn of time. Native Americans have valued the wild strawberry as food and medicine, recognizing it as a blood purifier. Native Americans also have a spiritual understanding and relationship with the groundcover plant as illustrated by the Anishinaabe name for the wild strawberry, odeiminidjibik, which translates as “root of the heart” and illustrating the intimacy of the people and this wild berry.
All turkeys – wild turkeys and the broad-breasted white or the dozen or so “heritage” breeds grown domestically today – are the same species (Meleagris gallopavo). Consumers who want pasture-raised heritage breed turkeys are looking for birds that are well cared for, grow slowly, and have flavorful meat. We can support our small, local farmers who are doing their best to raise a good bird and sell it at a reasonable price.
Mark Bittman’s A Simple Fix for Food is an examination of a new study that produces results some farmers knew 30 years ago (even as long as 70 years ago). The conclusions? Organic farming – or at least very low chemical input – practices work.
What does farmland protection have to do with what’s on your dinner table? Or maybe it should be put this way: What does what’s on your dinner table have to do with farmland protection? Think about it… Today, the typical American prepared meal contains, on average, ingredients from at least five countries outside the US. What if we had to grow our food “back home?”
Long acknowledged as “the nation’s salad bowl,” California’s farm belt is facing some thorny challenges from our changing climate: rising temperatures, an uncertain water supply and more abundant pests that threaten multi-billion-dollar crops. The half-hour documentary Heat and Harvest, a co-production of KQED and the Center for Investigative Reporting, examines these threats and offers some potential solutions.
