Posts Tagged ‘Food’
From Freeway to Food Forest
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on February 16th, 2010
From “Building a Farm Where a Freeway Used to Be“, by Matthew Roth
A few weeks ago in San Francisco, a number of urban farmers opened a gate in a chain-link fence at Laguna Street, between Oak and Fell Streets, and entered an overgrown lot that has been unused for nearly two decades. The farmers brought with them steaming piles of mulch, which they cast over the edge of the ramps formerly used by cars to enter and exit the elevated Central Freeway spur above Octavia Street, arranging the soil in rows for planting vegetables and filler crops. Since the Loma Prieta earthquake made the Central Freeway unsafe for travel, leading to its eventual removal and the re-design of Octavia Boulevard, those ramps have been one of the more poignant reminders of a distant vision of San Francisco, with freeways crisscrossing the urban environment, whisking motorists above the unfortunate city dwellers below.
The new Hayes Valley Farm (HVF) inverts the paradigm and reclaims the space for city dwellers, if only temporarily. “We call it ‘freeway to food forest,’” explained Chris Burley, Project Director for HVF and former organizer of My Farm. Burley was joined by nearly fifty volunteers at a HVF work party Sunday. “We’re trying to create a successful, sustainable urban farm in the heart of San Francisco.”
Burley and several other organizers were approached by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development (MOEWD) last year with the idea to transform the unused lot into a farm. The HVF received a $50,000 grant from MOEWD for the first year of the project, money that comes from the operation of parking facilities along Octavia Boulevard. Burley expected to work the farm for between two and five years, depending on when the economy turns around and the land is developed.
Tags: behaviour change, community, Food, urban agriculture
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How low can we go? Greenhouse Gas Reduction in the UK Food System
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on February 12th, 2010
Source: Food Climate Research Network
…the important point is that we are highly likely to need both technological and behavioural change to achieve reductions of this magnitude – and help avoid dangerous climate change.
From the report: How low can we go? An assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from the UK food system and the scope for reduction by 2050.
When it comes to environmental impacts, the usual suspects have been mobility (the way we get around) and energy (the way we heat and light our buildings). However, there’s an equally significant actor in the creation of greenhouse gases: food. Some 20% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to what we put on our plates.
The UK has its own legally-binding targets to reduce production emissions by 80% by 2050 under the Climate Change Act. In order to make a proportional contribution to these reductions, and taking into account the fact that we need to continue to eat, WWF-UK and the Food Climate Research Network (FCRN) suggest food-related emissions need to be cut by 70% by 2050. Achieving this is highly likely to require significant changes throughout the UK food system – from production and processing to cooking, the kinds of food we eat and what and how much we throw away.
The aim of this study was thus to determine the feasibility of a 70% cut, where in the food chain cuts could be made, and by how much. In addition, the work estimated the emissions arising from direct and indirect land use change attributable to UK food consumption. This was done by calculating how much land, including forest, is converted annually to agriculture and the CO2 emissions that arise from this process, and attributing an appropriate amount of these emissions to UK food consumption.
As such, this study provides the most accurate inventory of greenhouse gases attributable to UK food consumption to date: the results were striking – and disturbing. As stated above, direct emissions from the UK food chain are estimated to be about 20% of the UK’s total consumption emissions. However, according the method and assumptions used in the study, including the emissions attributable to direct and indirect land use change lifts the proportion of UK consumption emissions attributable to food from 20% to 30% of all UK emissions – or from 152MtCO2 to 253MtCO2. Reducing emissions from food will thus be key to tackling climate change.
This study investigated a range of approaches to making the cuts, constructing three broad thematic scenarios:
The first was an energy-based scenario in which the focus was on (a) the decarbonisation of non-mobile processes, such as food processing, cooking and refrigeration and (b) the decarbonisation of energy used in transport. The result? Cuts of some 57% by 2050. Not enough.
The second was an emissions-led scenario which centred on (a) reductions in direct GHG emissions, such as methane from cows and sheep and nitrous oxide from fertilisers and (b) improved production efficiency, including increased crop yields and improved livestock genetics. The result? Cuts of some 55% by 2050. Again: not enough.
The final scenario considered (a) conservation, through waste avoidance and using wasted food to generate energy and (b) changes to consumption patterns in the UK. The result? Cuts of some 60%. Getting there, but still not enough.
Visit the website for the abstract or full report.
Tags: consumption, Food, greenhouse gases, report, waste
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Feeding the 5000: On the Day
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on February 5th, 2010
In the days and weeks before 16th December Feeding the 5000 received tonnes of generously donated fresh produce from farms, packers and markets – from the tonnes of produce that are ‘outgraded’ for being cosmetically imperfect and which would have been wasted though they are still good to eat.
From the original press release:
The produce will be delivered to the food depot of our main partner, FareShare. From there it will be taken to the commercial kitchens which have been kindly given over to us for the event. Here it will be prepared into soup and other food for the day by an army of volunteers trained in food handling and preparation. The food will be delivered by FareShare to Trafalgar Square on the 16th December and prepared in time for the free lunch, starting at 12 noon. Meanwhile, smoothies from fresh surplus fruit will be made by a team of bicycle-powered smoothie makers and handed out to passers-by.
For an insight into how the event turned out on the day, watch the Guardian.UK’s video of the event.
Tags: behaviour change, consumption, Food, waste
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Apple-filled Subway: Making a point
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on January 20th, 2010
Source: Treehugger
From “New York Subway Train Filled With Apples Is Emptied Onto Platform, Illustrates Food Waste (Video)” by Jaymi Heimbuch.
Every day, New York City residents waste 270,000 pounds of food. Want to know what that looks like? Here’s an unforgettable way to imagine it – fill up a subway train with the equivalent amount of apples, and release it onto the people waiting on the platform. New York’s City Harvest food bank created this commercial to illustrate the point that as thousands of pounds of food is wasted daily, thousands of residents don’t have enough to eat. City Harvest works to change that on a local level.
This year alone, the group will “rescue” and deliver more than 25 million pounds of quality food that would otherwise go to waste. The group collects food from the food industry, including restaurants, grocers, corporate cafeterias, manufacturers, and farms, and delivers it for free to nearly 600 community food programs throughout New York City using a fleet of trucks and bikes as well as volunteers on foot.
And no, 270,000 pounds of apples weren’t used to make the point. Here’s a video on how they created the video.
Read the full article by Jaymi Heimbuch.
[See the 
website for a Melbourne example of food-rescue ]
Tags: communication, consumption, Food, local action, new systems/services
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FarmGAS Calculator Launched
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on September 4th, 2009
Source: Cleanfood, the Future Climate newsletter
Image: Hannam Vale
The Australian Farm Institute has launched its FarmGAS Calculator.
The Calculator is an online application which enables farmers to model both the financial and greenhouse gas outputs of farm activities and the implications of changes in enterprises. The FarmGAS Calculator is available free online for anyone to access. The FarmGAS Calculator includes individual calculators for the major livestock and cropping enterprises, and any combination of these enterprises can be added to create an individual farm business. Farmers can come back to the calculator at any time to update or change their production data, or complete the process in stages. The Calculator applies the same methodology that is used by the Department of Climate Change in the estimation of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Accounts; and provides reports on the annual amount of methane and nitrous oxide emitted by each enterprise expressed as carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2-e). 
Farmers enter details of their enterprises (both financial and production) to calculate enterprise gross margins. The following enterprise types can be analysed using FarmGAS: beef production (both breeding of progeny and fattening), sheep production, broadacre cropping, irrigated cropping, intensive livestock systems (beef feedlot and piggery), perennial horticulture crops and environmental tree plantings.
FarmGAS is the result of an Australian Farm Institute research project on greenhouse gas mitigation options for Australian farmers. Funding for the project was provided by the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry under the National Agriculture and Climate Change Action Plan: Implementation Program
Tags: Carbon-neutral, enabling technologies, farm, Food
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Food Futures: an Australian approach
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on July 29th, 2009
Source: Rural Climate Network
Abstracts and conference registrations are invited for the PHAA conference, Food Futures: An Australian Approach, 20-21 April 2010 in Canberra.
Concerns about the relationship between food and the food system, nutrition, and population health are part of the motivation for the Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) to facilitate a national conference seeking an overarching approach to food policy that looks well into the future. Although health may be the driver for the PHAA, any such national policy or approach must also take into account issues such as agriculture, scientific research, production and manufacture, environment, retail and community concerns, to appropriately encompass all aspects of food.
Abstract submission closes October 5
Tags: conference, Food, Visions
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Integration of Community Gardening and Biodiversity
Posted in Models, RDAG by Virginia on June 11th, 2009
Ecological restoration and community gardens have been begrudgingly kept separate from one another. The integration of biodiversity with community gardens has received very little attention, which is surprising seeing that they have both been important contemporary environmental initiatives.
In essence, both these initiatives are interlinked. Biodiversity concerns are due to habitat degradation because of an ever increasing land required for urban developments. Urban developments in turn forces the relocation of land that had been traditionally used for farming into increasing wilderness areas therefore exacerbating biodiversity problems.
The Alex Wilson Community Garden(AWCG) established in Toronto in 1998 sought to rectify the divergence of ecology and community gardens by attempting to consolidate the two goals into one project. In trying to achieve this, the AWCG planted exclusively native species whilst maintaining space for a community garden.
Alex WIlson Community Garden
The AWCG can be used as a model for future community gardens to demonstrate the importance and feasibility of integrating biodiversity values with community garden initiatives.
Tags: biodiversity, community gardening, conservation biology, ecoloy, Food, toronto, urban agriculture
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The City that Ended Hunger
Posted in Models by Devin Maeztri on June 11th, 2009
This article discusses how a city can be self-sustained. Original article written by Frances Moore Lappé, published in YES Magazine.
“The city agency developed dozens of innovations to assure everyone the right to food, especially by weaving together the interests of farmers and consumers. It offered local family farmers dozens of choice spots of public space on which to sell to urban consumers, essentially redistributing retailer mark-ups on produce-which often reached 100 percent-to consumers and the farmers. Farmers’ profits grew, since there was no wholesaler taking a cut. And poor people got access to fresh, healthy food.”
To read more of the article visit YES Magazine.
Tags: family farmer, Food, hunger, local produce, self-sustained, sustainable city, urban farming
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An Urban Dream Farm for London?
Posted in Models by Devin Maeztri on May 14th, 2009
The first community project in the metropolis to recycle food wastes into energy and fertilizer by anaerobic digestion Sam Burcher.
The organic muesli producer who keeps making history.
Alex Smith has been made a London Leader of Sustainability for 2009 by the London Development Agency (LDA). This appointment by the Mayor of London’s office is a far cry from thirty years ago when Alex was a squatter and started his food company Alara with two £1 notes he found in the street. Alara now produces up to one hundred tonnes of organic muesli each week, some sixty percent of UK’s total muesli production.
Tags: community, energy, Food, London, sustainability, waste
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New Food Policy Book: Integrating health, environment and society
Posted in Research by Devin Maeztri on May 7th, 2009
Food Policy: integrating health, environment and society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lang. T., Barling, D. & Caraher. M. (2009)
For over half a century, food policy has mapped a path for progress based upon a belief that the right mix of investment, scientific input, and human skills could unleash a surge in productive capacity which would resolve humanity’s food-related health and welfare problems. It assumed that more food would yield greater health and happiness by driving down prices, increasing availability, and feeding more mouths. In the 21st century, this policy mix is quietly becoming unstuck.
In a world marred by obesity alongside malnutrition, climate change alongside fuel and energy crises, water stress alongside more mouths to feed, and social inequalities alongside unprecedented accumulation of wealth, the old rubric of food policy needs re-evaluation. This book explores the enormity of what the new policy mix must address, taking the approach that food policy must be inextricably linked with public health, environmental damage, and social inequalities to be effective.
For more information visit Oxford University Press.
Tags: book, environment, Food, food policy, Health, society
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