Over 5 million people along the Euphrates River, which runs from Turkey through Syria and Iraq, are at risk of water scarcity and power outages, according to the REACH Initiative. Among this number are 1 million displaced Syrians. Rising temperatures, reduced rainfall, and a historic drought are reducing the river’s water levels, and Humanitarian groups warn of an unprecedented water and agricultural crisis.

“Water is life. Without water, there is no life, there is no development,” André Wehrli, the Senior Water Policy Advisor at The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), tells Food Tank. “Fair and equitable access to water is needed for long term peace and stability.”

Wehrli advises SDC’s Blue Peace Strategy, an initiative aiming to promote water cooperation and generate peace in the MENA region—the most water scarce region in the world. Of the 33 most water stressed countries, 14 are in the Middle East, according to the World Resources Institute.

The Blue Peace Strategy fosters relationship building between countries by combining continued dialogue with baseline studies, knowledge, and capacity building, and building confidence and trust.

The 2022 Global Risk Report from the World Economic Forum names water security as a top risk in terms of impact for the tenth consecutive year. In 2017 alone, water was a major factor in 45 global conflicts. And an article published in Geneva Solutions expounds the use of water as both a weapon of war and an instrument of peace.

“While international treaties and water law are absolutely necessary, they are not a silver bullet solution,” Wehrli explains. “It is important to strengthen the entire global water governance system.”

Wehrli says that building relationships enables transboundary cooperation, which is essential to achieving peace. “It’s not just water allocation. We need a new narrative; water is a key factor for social and economic development.”

SDC is working to mitigate conflicts in Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, as well as use the Yarmouk River as a common ground for negotiations between Jordan, Syria, and Israel.

“When you look into a complex region such as MENA, you understand that there are many factors that might facilitate or impede access to water cooperation,” Wehrli tells Food Tank. These factors include climate change, poor governance, and ineffective water management by agricultural sectors.

A recent report by SDC finds that agriculture is the main consumer of water. Wehrli tells Food Tank that effective water management in agriculture can help to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Along the Jordan River, farmers typically get 60 percent of the water resources they request. Werhli says that many are switching to water conservation methods such as drip irrigation to cope with water shortages. But when climate change-induced drought leaves farmers without water, “countries need to adapt in other ways. That is already a challenge for countries experiencing water scarcity,” Wehrli tells Food Tank.

“If you look at the entire food supply chain, 30 to 50 percent of food is wasted. Improving supply chain and logistics could create opportunities to improve water efficiency,” Anders Jägerskog, Senior Water Resources Management Specialist at the World Bank’s Water Global Practice, tells Food Tank.

Many MENA countries experiencing water scarcity may rely on food imports, Jägerskog says, raising concerns around food security. Supply chain disruptions due to the Russia-Ukraine war also increases the need for more water and arable land to satisfy food security needs.

Jägerskog explains that in addition to the climate crisis, population growth and dependency on global water imports challenge water cooperation in the MENA region. Water scarcity also creates concerns for hygiene and sanitation by exacerbating disease and other health risks in refugee camps and host communities.

Both Jägerskog and Wehrli still maintain a positive outlook on water cooperation in the MENA region. According to Jägerskog, in some instances, “where countries do not cooperate over other matters, they do cooperate over water.”

And while many countries coping with political tension, migration, and the climate crisis continue to “blame their neighbor” for water scarcity, Wehrli adds that generally, there is more cooperation than conflict.

“Generally what makes headlines is when there is conflict,” Jägerskog explains.”Water scarcity does not just increase conflict—most countries want to work together.” The “interconnectedness of water speaks to the need for countries to come together.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Image courtesy of Nasa, Unsplash

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Co-authored by Matthew Wexler and Tesha Buss, the book details the trials and triumphs of the authors’ experience building Good Commons. The two friends spent nearly a decade building the center, which today provides space for guests to refuel by slowing down their daily routines and sustaining their bodies with nourishing food.

Wexler explains that from the beginning, he and Buss knew that Good Commons would provide visitors with food from local purveyors, something that has become key to the business. “You cross the border [into Vermont] and you roll down the window and all you smell is green and fresh and alive. That absolutely had to be part of the food story of the place,” Wexler tells Food Tank.

Uncommonly Good also offers readers more than 75 recipes inspired by the authors’ Midwestern upbringings, their love of brunch, and Wexler’s experiences as a chef in New York City and Chicago.

And with the recipes come the stories behind each dish. “I was more interested in the stories connected to the food than writing an introduction to the recipe that is talking about the recipe,” Wexler says. “I wanted to give it a framework that had context because when people are at Good Commons and experiencing the food those narratives and that storytelling makes everything taste better.”

In addition to being entertained by the recipes and stories, Buss hopes readers will be inspired by their book. “Don’t be afraid of anything,” Buss tells Food Tank. “Don’t be afraid of the recipe. Don’t be afraid to fail. Just try it.”

Photo courtesy of Vincent Crossley

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Narrated by Woody Harrelson, “Kiss the Ground” premieres on Netflix on September 22.

The film is created by the Las Angeles-based organization of the same name. Kiss the Ground is dedicated to regenerating farmland soil and training farmer leaders. The organization hopes to inspire viewers of “Kiss the Ground” to take action to help regenerate soil.

Outdoor screenings of the film will also take place worldwide over the next 48 months. Viewers can also participate in a virtual Watch Party, After Party, and Q&A session on September 22 beginning at 9pm PT featuring some of the film’s cast members. To join the event, participants can register here.

In advance of the premiere, “Kiss the Ground” viewers can text “SOIL” to 323-622-1644 to receive more information about how to take action to regenerate the world’s soils.

The “Kiss the Ground” trailer can be viewed here.

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In honor of Juneteenth, a holiday that recognizes the end of slavery in America, A Growing Culture held a daylong broadcast to elevate Black voices in the food system and highlight ways to promote justice.

The Juneteenth Broadcast featured presenters including Queen Quet of the Gullah/Geechee Nation, farmers Leah Penniman and Karen Washington, Malik Yakini of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, Brooklyn Queens Land Trust board president Sawdayah Brownlee, and more.

The broadcast was streamed live on Friday, June 19, and the full conversation is now available on AGC’s YouTube channel. Conversations ranged in subjects including closing the food movement’s generational gap, agricultural oppression, seed sovereignty, and plants that have played a role in Black freedom. The full schedule is available here.

“I’m excited to participate in The Juneteenth Broadcast because I’m looking forward to people understanding that the narrative that Black people in Texas were not free until the Union Army General Granger arrived and read their proclamation is false,” Brownlee, who organized and will present in a conversation on land and liberation, told Food Tank via email. “Freedom is not a one-time event given to oppressed people by the state.”

“Just as it took a collective and organized effort of Black people freeing themselves across the South, it will take collaboration, communication, and strategic efforts to divest from the inequitable food system that exists and reclaim land to grow our communities on,” Brownlee said.

A Growing Culture (AGC) works to build a more sustainable food system by supporting farmers’ autonomy and innovation, land ownership, and traditional knowledge sharing. In addition to turning their platform over to Black food system voices on Juneteenth, AGC also hopes the broadcast would be an invitation to corporations, foundations, donors, and allies to stand in solidarity with the Black community and listen to their stories.

The Juneteenth Broadcast was a special edition of AGC’s The Hunger for Justice Series, a weekly live conversation about building a post-COVID food system. Guests have included Black farmer and beekeeper Samantha Foxx, Palestine Heirloom Seed Library founder Vivien Sansour, and gender equality advocates Wekoweu (Akole) Tsuhah and Seno Tsuhah.

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“The spirit of this song is about perceiving a deeper awareness of our own power within and recognizing our sacred capacity to transform every obstacle we face into a new path to personal victory,” Dawuni tells Food Tank.

A Regional Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Environment Programme, Dawuni is also behind the music for Food Tank’s forthcoming interactive musical, Garjana.

Watch the video for “Champion Arise” below.

Photo courtesy of Rocky Dawuni

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Barber is well-known as head chef and co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Barber and his team frequently experiment with complex flavors from raw produce, sustainably raised meats, and unique grains. Barber, along with Matthew Goldfarb and Michael Mazourek, founded Row 7 Seed Company, a platform for farmers and plant breeders to experiment with new flavorful grain and vegetable varieties. Merrigan is a former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and is currently the executive director of the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University.

You can watch the live feed above or here on April 30 from 4 to 6:30 pm ET.

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The modern food system values cheap food produced as quickly as possible, stressing the environment, the health care system, and food industry workers while deepening social inequities around race, gender, and income. And the current price of food does not reflect these true costs, says Michael Hamm, Founding Director of the Center for Regional Food Systems.

“Our food system externalizes every possible cost to make things cheaper,” Hamm explains. “What we need to do is internalize all costs. Doing this, the cost of food will go up, so we’ll have to have broader strategies to make it so that food is a right and not a privilege.”

Despite growing interest in sustainable and ethical food options, many cannot afford them—the majority of Americans wrestle between personal values and economic challenges. “The broad middle is struggling more and more [to afford food]; there is frustration at not being able to purchase the food they want,” says Hamm.

While food production is larger than ever, nearly 40 percent of food grown is thrown away. Vince Hall, CEO of Feeding San Diego, encourages policymakers and consumers to see the massive investment made in environmental resources, one that reaps no return. “Food is actually a surplus in our society,” he says. “4 trillion gallons of water, 800 million pounds of pesticides, and 30 million acres of farmland are all dedicated to growing the food that we just throw away. And then we throw that into the landfill, which releases methane gas.”

This cheaply produced food provides calories but does not nourish people. “We’ve lifted many people out of food insecurity in terms of caloric intake, but now we’re dealing with nutrition security…lacking access to adequate protein and vitamin sources in the form of fruits and vegetables and other high nutrient foods,” says Jennifer Burney, Associate Professor for the School of Global Policy & Strategy at the University of California, San Diego.

Consumers must create the demand for a more just system that allows workers to sustain themselves and their families, says Evelyn Rangel-Medina, Chief of Staff at Restaurant Opportunity Centers (ROC) United. “The people who are serving our food are experiencing justice issues and pushing for policy change, but our policymakers are overturning the will of the voters,” she says. “That is the kind of power that we have to fight against.”

Although no one policy or solution will solve the issue, the panel sees hope in initiatives like the bipartisan farm bill, elected governors removing corporate money from politics, and an increasingly engaged public. After all, as Burney says, “There’s no issue that more unites us all than what we eat every day.”

Watch the full San Diego Food Tank Summit panel on Practices and Policies to Improve Food Sustainability, above.

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Vilsack referred to the risks farmers engage in on a daily basis, their growing interest in technology, and the need for productive dialogue between tech engineers, farmers, and politicians. And Ali Lange, Senior Public Policy Analyst at Google, remarked about her experience working with farmer Don Bustos and the importance of introducing technology to farmers in culturally appropriate ways. Bustos, also present on the panel, highlighted this, stating, “Artificial intelligence has an important role in the global food system, but the more important question is how communities decide how to use that AI system?”

Check out a video of the entire event below.

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“Today the time is right for the promise to deliver the results that we have long been promised,” says Josh Henretig, Senior Director of AI for Earth & Sustainability at Microsoft. He highlights that providing better insights can help farmers make better decisions, leading to higher yields and lower resource inputs.

“There is a lot of really hot activity happening in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. AgTech companies are starting up by the minute almost, but our farmers don’t know what to make of it. Small communities are not participatory yet,” says Gabe Youtsey, Chief Innovation Officer of University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Helping more people share knowledge and make use of this technology to improve their farming operations is incredibly important.

“Breaking down barriers is really powerful for getting information to flow,” says Sarah Mesnick, Ecologist of Southwest Fisheries Science Center at NOAA Fisheries and Adjunct Professor of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. “One of the things we would like to do is integrate that education across this supply chain, so a student is getting a deep education, but they are also exposed to all of these different fields from the very beginning.”

In a low-tech approach, Ryland Engelhart, Co-Founder of Kiss the Ground, points to the ability of soil to capture atmospheric carbon and store it under the ground. He believes that a better understanding of this process can help champion regenerative agriculture for feeding the population and reversing global warming.

As the farming population is aging, panelists also share their concerns about inspiring the younger generation to be involved in our food system. Innovations such as indoor farming can attract the next generation who are interested in various fields including biology, technology, and engineering, according to Alina Zolotareva, Senior Marketing Manager and Product Champion at AeroFarms. “The work [people] do one bite at a time is really changing the planet; that is a real powerful message,” says Mesnick.

Watch the full panel with Sarah Mesnick, Gabe Youtsey, Ryland Engelhart, Alina Zolotareva, and Josh Henretig above.

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Both chefs talk about how their parents stressed the importance of not wasting. Corcos, co-host of Extra Virgin on the Cooking Channel, says that growing up in Italy, his mother pointed to each remaining crumb and assigned it a cash value. Ma, Chef and Owner of Kyirisan restaurant in Washington, D.C., says that as a child it was common for him to eat organs and other ingredients that some people might consider “the nasty bits.”

“This is a land where there are too many calories that are available,” says Corcos, noting that 24-hour grocery stores and other conveniences overwhelm people to the point of wasting.

In the conversation moderated by Wall Street Journal reporter Charles Passy, the two chefs talk about the packaging waste that goes along with excess.

While taking home leftovers can be a component of fighting food waste, Ma points out that if portions are sized accurately, diners won’t need doggie bags, which will also save packaging waste.

The chefs also discuss the challenges of finding viable alternatives to plastic straws and the difficulty in creating a truly balanced menu, in which every component of every ingredient is used.

Ma says chefs face dilemmas like, “how do you use all the tops on the greens in the same ratio you use the carrots?”

“I made a salad of organ meats,” Ma continues, adding that it was delicious. “That was great reuse (of the leftovers) and and very creative and very fun to serve. The hardest thing was getting people to eat it…it was still a salad of organs.”

“I’d eat it,” Passy says.

“I would love to!” Corcos says.

Watch the full fireside chat with Tim Ma and Gabriele Corcos, above.

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Food recovery, also called food rescue, refers to the recapturing of food ready for consumption that would otherwise go to waste. In most cases, excess food is recovered from companies and institutions and given to places like food banks and soup kitchens. For waste removal services and nutrition delivery services, both the recipients of rescued food as well as the companies who provide the food should be viewed as customers in this transaction, according to the panel.

For these food rescue services, there has been an increased focus on the nutritional needs and preferences of recipients—more choice is being introduced.

“In terms of innovation, [New York Common Pantry] went from someone calling and saying we want to make a donation—and donating whatever they wanted—to using a google form that gets posted on the site every day with what the recipients want and what the Pantry needs,” says André Thompson, Director of Food Programs, New York Common Pantry. “It has revolutionized the way donations are made and what is received.”

The ability for recipients to choose their food means they are able to fill in their specific nutritional gaps and to choose foods that are sensitive to their food preferences, cultural choices, and dietary restrictions. A shift away from a charity model means that, “Instead of saying ‘here is your box of food,’ we are saying, ‘what do you need?’” says Karen Hanner, Vice President of Manufacturing Partnerships for Feeding America.

And, traditionally, says Bonnie McClafferty, Director of Food Value Chain at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, the biggest challenge of food rescue has been taking in foods that are nutritious.

Elizabeth Balkan, Director of Food Waste at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), emphasizes the need to move away from a charity model and to view food waste removal as a service that food rescue operations are providing to companies. More discussion is needed about how this service could be paid for in some sustainable way through cost-sharing or other payment models, the panelists agreed. A move away from the charity model would reduce food rescue organizations’ dependence on foundation and donor funds for support and help food rescue operations to be more self sustaining.

Chris Cochran, Executive Director of ReFED, thinks a big innovation in food rescue is creative business models along with talking to companies about the financial benefits of dealing with food waste. Companies care about their pocketbooks. “When CFOs start paying attention to this issue, everybody lines up,” Cochran adds. “Presenting the business case can be highly effective.”

Hanner says that ever since the landmark NRDC Wasted report came out detailing food waste, “we’ve had the ability to talk about the financial benefit. For the first time, the protein industry is admitting they have waste in the system. They are now saying yes, we have surplus, and it’s going to landfills. Now, they are having conversations.”

Watch the full NYC Summit panel on Improving Food Recovery, above.

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Nestle’s forthcoming book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat, releasing October 30, 2018, investigates the food industry’s influence on nutrition research and practice. As a food systems and food politics expert, she shares that she often receives proposals from food industry corporations saying, “We are looking for research to demonstrate the benefits of our products,” but never, “We are looking to understand how our product affects people.”

Nestle views food policy issues through the lens of public health, which means focusing on root cause. The root cause of food waste, Nestle says, is overproduction. “Our food system is designed to be wasteful. Our food policies are set up to get food producers to produce as much food as they can … The total pressure is cheap food … We are not paying the externalized costs.”

When asked how all eaters can influence policy, “The first thing is you have got to vote with your dollar. The second thing is you have got to vote with your vote,” Nestle says, adding that people should run for office, get involved with politics, and sit on school boards. “If enough people are there working for change, things will happen.”

When it comes to activism to spark food system change, “Start local,” says Nestle.

Talking to city council members and local representatives can have great impact. On going to visit with a representative’s staff in person, Marion advises, “You must talk to them about legislation because that is what they do. You have to have an idea for legislation for them.”

“If you go visit a Representative’s staff with 5 or 10 people, they will sit and listen,” Nestle continues. “I am told by every single legislator that this is very impressive.”

In the front row of the audience, Community Liaison for New York State Assembly Member Nily Rozic in the 25th District asks Nestle what ideas she would suggest to state and local legislators who are interested in proposing legislative solutions. Nestle suggests legislation improving the New York City public transportation system, because the transportation system has a lot to do with food access. There is also a lot of room for legislation on school food issues, or legislation supporting regional food hubs so farmers in upstate New York get more easily get their food to market.

Watch the full fireside chat with Marion Nestle, above.

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The second panel of the 2018 NYC Food Tank Summit kicks off with Caity Moseman Wadler, Executive Director of Heritage Radio Network, defining on-farm food loss as “edible food that is not being harvested or food that is lost during storage and transport.” The panelists dive into challenges in transport and logistics, as well as the need for biodiversity and a fundamental shift in our food production methods.

“Cold storage is way out of reach for the smallholder farmer. Without storage, a lot is wasted,” Ambuko says. Rafael Flor, Director of Yieldwise at The Rockefeller Foundation, agrees, “Getting the logistics piece figured out drastically reduces food waste … We have seen that reducing food loss in transportation and storage gave an extra 30-percent revenue to smallholder farms.”

Pest and disease are contributors to on-farm food loss, as well, says Marie Haga, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust: “We have lost up to 80 percent of natural variety in our crops. We’ve lost varieties that can withstand pests and weather shifts.”

But the responsibility for on-farm food loss doesn’t fall on one player. “Solutions are going to rely on the connections of the entire chain,” says Tobias Grasso, North American President of Food Care at Sealed Air. “Transporters, logistics operations, processors, are all involved. It’s not one farmer’s responsibility—we need systems in place.”

And market standards, as well as consumer preference, need to be changed, says Elizabeth Mitcham, Director of the Horticulture Innovation Lab and Post Harvest Specialist at the University of California, Davis. “The grade standards play an important role in having a well-functioning market produce system, but some of the standards for many crops are based on appearance and size, which have little to do with the nutrition or quality of the food.”

The panel concludes by addressing the need for a fundamental shift in the way food is grown.

“The desire for cheap food has contributed to a monoculture that is detrimental to our environment, and has led to a loss of nutrition in these crops,” Haga says. “Twelve crops contribute to 75 percent of crop growth, and four crops contribute to 60 percent of calories consumed. Diversification of the food system will contribute to better health, for us and the environment, and decent income to farmers.”

“We need new generations to help create solutions to issues we’ve created in the past. We need more than economic return,” says Flor. “We need to care about nutrition, environment, biodiversity. It will require a different food system altogether.”

Watch the full NYC Summit panel on On-Farm Food Waste, above.

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There is a consensus between the panelists that education is key. “We need to educate the kitchen staff to be creative and be able to use waste to create new dishes,” says Dadisi Olutosin, Co-Founder and Chief Culinary Officer of Plated Food Groupe.

And education of the consumer is also important—portion sizes have gotten too large, leading to large amounts of waste.

Brad Nelson, Vice President and Global Operations Discipline Leader at Marriott International, frames the topic differently: “We have a food recovery problem, not a food waste problem.” He mentions the Marriott challenge to reduce food waste by 50 percent by 2025, and his strategy to train staff in the habit of treating leftover buffet food the same way it has handled pre-service: by refrigerating it right away so it can stay suitable for donation.

Pacific Foods President Joe Folds builds on this by describing his company’s partnership with the local Oregon Food Bank, where they help turn the food bank’s excess of produce donations into healthy soups that get donated back to the food bank for distribution.

On the restaurant level, Marco Canora, Chef and Founder of Brodo, believes, “as chefs, our responsibility is to use everything, to create a sustainable system within our restaurants.” He stresses the importance of being familiar with waste prevention techniques such as dehydrating and fermenting foods.

Another solution is to focus on redirecting the waste stream. Dickie Brennan, Owner and Managing Partner of Dickie Brennan & Company, discussed his participation in a program to recycle oyster shells from his restaurants back into the local ecosystem, serving to prevent coastal erosion and improve oyster habitat.

“Everyone needs to spend more money on food. The more value we place on food, the more inclined we may be to not throw it away,” Canora says.

Watch the full NYC Summit panel on Restaurants and Companies Fighting Food Waste, above.

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“We send messages in our society that ‘what I do doesn’t really matter,’ and that’s just false,” Steiner says.

To feed a growing planet, increasing food production isn’t the only solution. Society can substantially reduce the need for increased food productivity by decreasing food loss and food waste—and every eater can take action to contribute to this. Currently, 40 percent of food gets wasted, globally. This translates to 330 pounds (about 150 kilograms) per person per year, on average.

“It can take 10 years to get maize to give you a 15-percent increase in productivity,” says Steiner, who previously worked in plant breeding. “And in one year you can get a 15-percent reduction in loss,” by implementing food loss mitigation strategies.

Food loss and food waste are not the same, Steiner clarifies. Food loss refers to the loss that happens from the beginning stages of growing on the farm to the wholesaler or retailer. Some of it is spoilage, and some of it is edible produce that does not meet market standards of appearance. And as Chef Dan Barber notes earlier at the Summit, many parts of plants grown never get eaten despite the fact that they can be edible. For example, only the floret of a broccoli plant is harvested, but the stalk and leaves that make up a majority of the plant could also be used for food and nourishment.

Food waste, on the other hand, refers to food that made it to market, but doesn’t get eaten or used by either the retailer or consumer due to spoilage or non-use.

Rhea Suh shares that the NRDC is working with the Mayor’s office in Denver to reduce food waste at the municipal level. “Opportunity at the city level is not necessarily regulation,” she says. “The opportunity in cities that I see is connecting, perhaps to the consumer…in a meaningful way.”

On many packaged foods, “The expiration dates are completely meaningless” and often lead to consumers prematurely throwing out edible food. In the future, Suh thinks there could be some more food labeling on the Federal level and she believes that labelling can help to change behavior.

Watch the full fireside chat with Roy Steiner and Rhea Suh, above.

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We heard from more than 35 incredible speakers including Dan Barber, Dickie Brennan, Questlove, Tim Ma, Haile Thomas, Marion Nestle, Roy Steiner, Rhea Suh, Ben Tinker, and many more among an all-star lineup of conversations moderated by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, and more!

575 people from across the country attended, including representatives from food waste and food loss organizations in New York and beyond, city and state elected officials, journalists, and students. 62,340 people viewed the free live stream throughout the day, and the #foodtank hashtag trended on Twitter.

Questions from the audience sparked engaging dialogue among our diverse speakers and panelists. They helped generate new ideas and spark action towards combating food loss and food waste from within communities, cities, and governments.

In case you missed it, you can watch the full summit on youtube here and here.

The morning sessions began with a welcome and introduction from Pamela Morris, the Vice Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and Danielle Nierenberg, President of Food Tank. Danielle then launched the Summit with a Fireside chat with Dan Barber, Chef and Co-Founder of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, discussing why food waste is an issue we can solve and the role of chefs in sustainability.

Tobias Peggs, Co-Founder and CEO of Square Roots, spoke about the necessity of putting the farmer at the center of the food system before Julia Moskin, Reporter from the New York Times, moderated another Fireside chat featuring Roy Steiner, Managing Director for Food of The Rockefeller Foundation, and Rhea Suh, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

An inspirational and engaging Fireside Chat featuring Questlove and Haile Thomas, Founder and CEO of HAPPY (Healthy Active Positive Purposeful Youth), and spotlight from Homa Dashtaki, Owner of White Moustache Yogurt, led up to the first panel of the day, which wrapped up the morning sessions. Bryan Walsh, Former International Editor of Time Magazine moderated a conversation about the role of restaurants and companies fighting food waste between Dickie Brennan, Owner and Managing Partner of Dickie Brennan & Company, Brad Nelson, Vice President of Global Operations Discipline Leader from Marriott International, Marco Canora, Chef and Founder of Brodo, Katherine Miller, Vice President of Impact at the James Beard Foundation, Dadisi Olutosin, Co-Founder and Chief Culinary Officer of Plated Food Groupe, and Joe Folds, President of Pacific Foods.

The afternoon sessions began with a spotlight on Sheryll Durrant of the International Rescue Committee and New Roots Farm Coordinator. Caity Moseman Wadler, Executive Director of Heritage Radio Network, then moderated a panel on solving food loss on the farm between Rafael Flor, Director of YieldWise at The Rockefeller Foundation, Marie Haga, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, Tobias Grasso, North American President of Food Care at Sealed Air, Elizabeth Mitcham, Director of the Horticulture Innovation Lab and Postharvest Specialist for the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis, Jane Ambuko, Senior Lecturer and Head of Horticulture for the Department of Plant Science and Crop Protection at the University of Nairobi, and Jack Algiere, Farm Director at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.

Before a spotlight on Sandy Nurse, Founder and Co-Director of BK ROT, Danielle and Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, engaged in a stimulating Fireside chat about the importance of policy to address the systematic challenges around food loss and food waste.

The afternoon continued with a panel on improving food recovery, moderated by Ben Tinker, Supervising Producer, CNN Health, and included André Thompson, Director of Food Programs at New York Common Pantry, Bonnie McClafferty, Director of the Food Value Chain at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, Elizabeth Balkan, Director of Food Waste at the Natural Resources Defense Council, Robert Lee, Co-Founder and CEO of Rescuing Leftover Cuisine, Karen Hanner, Vice President of Manufacturing Partnerships at Feeding America, and Chris Cochran, Executive Director of ReFED.

The day concluded with a Fireside chat featuring Tim Ma, Chef and Owner of Kyirisan, and Gabriele Corcos, Host of Extra Virgin, moderated by Charles Passy, Reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

The Summit presented a diverse range of perspectives on food loss and food waste, leaving participants inspired and with tangible action steps to bring back to their communities.

It’s not too late to attend a Food Tank Summit in person. On November 14th we head to San Diego and tickets are now on sale. We promise an incredible agenda focusing on Growing the  Food Movement. Stay current on FoodTank.com and on Food Tank’s Facebook page.

We are grateful for our wonderful event partners and sponsors, which included New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center; Rethink Food Waste Through Economics and Data (ReFED); Natural Resources Defense Council; the Fink Family Foundation; The Rockefeller Foundation; Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN); Driscoll’s; Edible Manhattan; Food For All; the Food Recovery Network; Great Performances; Mother Jones; Nature’s Path; Niman Ranch; Organic Valley; and Sealed Air.

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Moderator: Chip Giller, Founder, Grist

Panelists:

• Mia Gregerson, State House of Representatives (D-SEATAC)
• J.T. Wilcox, State House of Representatives (R-Yelm)
• Mike Lufkin, Local Food Economy Manager, King County Government
• Anne Schwartz, Owner and Farmer, Blue Heron Farm
• Mark Lipson, Senior Policy and Programs Specialist, Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF)
• Melony Edwards, Farmer, Willowood Farm of Ebey’s Prairie

Discussion held at the at the 2018 Seattle Food Tank Summit on March 17, in partnership with Seattle University, Food Action, Grub, the Environmental Working Group, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The post Conversation: Agriculture Policy of the Future, Seattle University at the 2018 Food Tank Summit appeared first on Food Tank.