Some of the world’s most preeminent thinkers and activists have joined forces with an urgent message: We are at “hunger’s tipping point.” Together, over 150 Nobel and World Food Prize winners wrote an open letter, published on January 14, to call for transformation of food systems across the globe. They wrote of food production issues, stating, “We are not on track to meet future food needs. Not even close.” However, they see a path forward. Through investments in agricultural research and a swift, creative increase in food production, those needs might be met. While global solutions are required to help with the countries hit hardest by this crises, local efforts allow you to start with tangible and effective steps right at home. We’re diving into ways that Pennsylvanians can support healthy food systems and nutrition security in their local communities.
In the letter, Laurates point to certain factors that increase the odds of a global food crisis. Chief among them is climate change, which threatens staple crops like rice, wheat and maize. Here in Pennsylvania, farmers face major climate-related challenges like crop damage from frost destroying early buds, increased heavy rains, destructive high winds, and increased hurricanes as well as declines in dairy production and flowering crops due to heat stress. As temperatures rise, conditions become more favorable for some crop destruction from pests and disease, as well.
Other factors threatening food production include soil erosion, land degradation, water shortages and loss of biodiversity. Many of these are caused by human behaviors and practices like unsustainable agriculture, pollution, urbanization and policies that restrict agricultural innovation. The letter calls for a number of scientific and social solutions to help us move in the right direction, which include:
- speeding up photosynthesis in crops like wheat and rice
- using natural, nitrogen-converting fertilization for major cereals like wheat, rice, maize and barley
- moving from annual to perennial crops
- developing new and overlooked crops
- diversifying cropping systems
- improving storage, shelf life and food safety of fruits and vegetables
- creating nutrient-rich food from microorganism and fungi
- developing ways to reach and benefit those most in need.
The POP High Tunnel Celebration
In Pennsylvania, many farmers and growers are already responding to climate change, new (warmer) hardiness zones and other challenges with innovative and sustainable solutions. Farmers are embracing and introducing hardier, PA-friendly crops, like Cosmic Crisp apples and fungi-resistant Chambourcin grapes for wine, which thrive in the state’s weather and climate. They’re also planting cover crops like barley and wheat, which enrich the soil with organic matter and nitrogen. Many farmers and growers are constructing high-tunnels, which are simple and unheated greenhouses, to extend the growing season and protect crops from damaging rains and winds. The Philadelphia Orchard Project has taken it a step further, utilizing high tunnels as laboratories to experiment with climate resilience and growing foods of the future. Some of the plants in these “experimental food forests” require a warmer climate that Pennsylvania will one day have, and POP will be ready.
Despite all of the complex and interconnected challenges to crop health and food security, there are ways to start moving in the right direction on a smaller scale with solutions in you can implement every day in your own life:
Waste Not, Want Not
We tend to toss our trash in the garbage can and never think about it again. But that trash has long-lasting impact after it seemingly “disappears” in the waste collection truck. Landfills are major contributors to global warming, and a chief reason for that is food waste. According to the EPA, nearly 60% of the harmful methane escaping from landfills is from food scraps and food waste trapped in there. There’s no oxygen in reaching the discarded food, so it’s broken down, rapidly, by bacteria, instead. That breakdown process generates high amounts of methane gas, which advances the greenhouse effect and climate change.
What can be done? Making an effort to keep food scraps and waste out of landfills is a fantastic step to take from home. Being mindful of what we toss and finding purpose for scraps, like using peels for cooking and baking, stale bread for croutons and spoiled milk and citrus zest for cleaning, are great ways to start.
Composting is another wonderful method of waste diversion. Gwenn Nolan, Founder of Mother Compost, which serves the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia, says, “The average American tosses 30 pounds of trash weekly, with at least 30% being compostable organic waste. Composting combines food scraps with air, water and carbon materials, naturally transforming waste into a resource that enriches soil, prevents erosion and retains water. By keeping food scraps out of landfills, we save space, cut down on methane emissions and return valuable nutrients to the soil. Composting is a simple way to create a circular cycle that reduces waste and protects our soil for the future.”
Composting can be done on an individual level, either with a home system or through convenient collection services like Mother Compost. Neighborhoods, communities and workplaces can also band together and create cooperative composting networks for greater impact.
By taking small, daily steps to reuse and divert food waste, we help reduce climate change, overall, and support a more sustainable, food secure world.
Support Youth Programs
For yourself and for future generations of farmers, growers and consumers, agricultural education is critical for developing, understanding and protecting sustainable food systems.
A youth leader plants chard at the Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden.
For young people, youth agricultural education programs and summer camps help kids and teens learn about gardening and farming and expose them to potential careers in agriculture. The Pennsylvania 4-H, administered by Penn State Extension, offers programs for youth covering agriculture, natural resources, healthy living, wellness and more. Check out your local chapters here, and visit 4-H fairs to support this program in your community. You can also learn alongside young people. Check out local farm and community garden volunteer days, try a guided nature ID walk (or grab a guidebook and lead yourselves), and start slowly by growing a hardy potted herb or veggie.
Helping kids learn to cook with resources like Nourish PA For Kids recipes and The Food Trusts’s Hub are other ways to get them involved with food systems. It opens up conversations about the ingredients’ origins and allows them to see the science and chemistry of cooking and baking.
It will be all hands on deck to achieve global food security, and that will include not only agriculture and STEM, but social sciences, too. The next generation will need to improve food systems, enhance production technologies and science and figure out how to deploy food to reach those in the greatest need.
Help Out Neighbors
We can begin to address large-scale, global food needs right in our own communities. The best way to help your neighbors experiencing food insecurity is to support your local food bank. Food banks have systems and staff in place to optimize every dollar, food item or hour you’re willing to contribute. Locating your local food bank is a great first step.
By creating a web of support and lifting each other up, we strengthen the foundation of a community: its people. When we reduce hunger, we increase mental and physical health, productivity and resiliency in our neighbors.
To read about community based programs, interventions and education across Pennsylvania, check out our PA Food Heroes series and see what impactful actions Pennsylvanians are taking.
Buy Local
We know you’ve heard it before… but buying food locally is more important than ever. Buying local food is a direct investment into your own community. You’re supporting community farmers and growers, reducing your carbon footprint and contributing to local economic networks that include producers of related and value-added goods.
Some of the best ways to buy local are by shopping at co-op grocers and weekly farmers markets, joining a CSA and looking for the PA Preferred® logo on produce and goods. You can also invest in your region’s farms and gardens by volunteering your time and labor, participating in pick-your-own offerings, and attending special events like seasonal festivals, tours, special dinners and wellness programs.
Grow Your Own Food
Local and home food production contributes to food sovereignty and security. Perhaps the most obvious value of growing your own food is that you gain self-sufficiency. Knowing your food source is one thing, being your food source is another.
Growing food contributes to food security because it allows you to plan seasonally and control what you’ll be eating. You can grow food for nutrition, sustenance and for ingredients that hold cultural value to you. You can also control whether the food is treated with chemicals and fertilizers or grown more organically. By designating land for gardening or farming, you help to preserve that space from other less sustainable uses and contribute to its soil health when using sustainable methods and crop rotation.
Growing your own food also cuts down on your carbon footprint. Small scale food growth doesn’t require massive equipment that creates carbon emissions. You also eliminate the transportation footprint involved with shipping and moving food from farms to distributors, grocers and vendors.
Plus, fresh food is the best! It contains the most nutrients and the optimal flavors. Even growing a little bit of food is a wonderful step.
There are many resources for beginning gardeners to learn how to get started. Find training, support, tools and community through such organizations as PASA Sustainable Agriculture, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Soil Generation, Philadelphia Orchard Project, Grounded in Philly, Grow Pittsburgh and Penn State Extension.
For those interested in local level food production projects, the USDA is currently accepting applications for Urban Agriculture and Innovation Production grants. This funding support projects targeting food access and education and startup costs for new farms, helping bolster the efforts of farmers, gardeners, citizens, schools and other people and groups in urban and suburban areas.
- POP High Tunnel photo: Melissa Simpson
- Mother Compost photo: Mother Compost
- Sankofa Community Farm photo: Alan Brian Nilsen/GlaxoSmithKline
- Volunteers packing boxes photo: Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank
- All other photos: Bigstock
- PA Preferred photo: PA Preferred
