Tag: Food Desert

EPA Issues an Innovative Challenge

Posted on by robbie

Who says that government agencies don’t get innovative? The Environmental Protection Agency has partnered with the Agriculture Department to issue a challenge to creative problem solvers and entrepreneurs: Find would-be waste in the food chain, and re-direct it to feed America’s hungry and undernourished people. Food makes up a large portion of the nation’s landfills, and decomposition is a major contributor to climate change. Rather than react with bureaucratic subcommittees and lots of red tape, the Food Waste Challenge invites industrial leaders and universities, and even sports and entertainment businesses, to find ways to solve waste and hunger problems at the same time.

 

How to Break the Northeast’s Biggest Farming Rule

Posted on by robbie

The Philadelphia area has plenty of affluent communities ready and eager to participate in local shopping at farmers’ markets, but not far from those neighborhoods are vast food deserts. It’s a dramatic disparity, but local farmers have the power to help overcome the local food problems. Malaika Spencer is one of the farmers working to improve the local healthy options, and to do it she has transformed one of Bucks County’s traditional farms into a fully organic local resource. She has a revolutionary approach to the calendar, ignoring the Northeast’s standard six-month schedule. Instead, she’s using “storage crops like potatoes, winter squash, onions, garlic and turnips” to maintain her output through all four seasons. This way, her CSA shareholders enjoy her produce year-round and she becomes ingrained in the community’s agriculture, economy, and community.

Philly Activist Backs Fruit Into the Corner (Store)

Posted on by robbie

Philly-based healthy food champion Brianna Almaguer Sandoval is bringing fresh fruits and vegetables back to her city’s corner stores, one bodega and market at a time. She runs the Healthy Corner Store Initiative for the non-profit  The Food Trust. This initiative works with small store owners to make gradual steps towards carrying healthy food. I love the group’s practical “carrot” approach that starts with store owners carrying just four new products. For that, they get $100. There are incentives for every step forward they make to offer their customers more fresh produce and perishable foods.