The Food System: Big Picture |
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The new Ecolution Collective series cumulatively points out issues of equity and sustainability alongside “what if” and “look at this” solution-makers. It is designed to network Minnesotans around innovations and action.
Ecolution is for people who care about:
1) food,
2) collective efforts,
3) ecosystem resilience,
4) and regeneration
If you want to be part of the Ecolution community, join the story team by taking this survey:
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Action Steps
1) Attend the Oct. 16 World Food Day 2020 virtual conference about hunger relief, regenerative agriculture and sustainable development, food security and safety, impacts of climate change, and more. The goal is to deepen determination to defeat hunger by 2030. It will celebrate the launch of MBOLD, a coalition that leverages Minnesota’s global food and agriculture leadership.
2) The 10-Day Local Food Challenge invites eaters to commit for 10 days (October 1-10) to eat food produced within 100 miles of their home. Learn more.
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As we have started to discuss in this new Ecolution series, industrialized food production, planetary health, environmental racism, and food insecurity around the U.S. requires of us a new system. Our first topic has been around healthy food security and, as one example, the solutions of Appetite for Change.
Building a Food Literate Society
According to YES! Magazine article (May 2020): “It’s cheaper to purchase a liter of soda than it is to buy a head of broccoli. A 2013 study found that a healthy diet costs $550 more per person per year than an unhealthy one.”
As a fifth-generation farmer put it: “The system is set up to feed poor people more poorly. The only reason that soda is so cheap [is because] the U.S. government subsidizes the hell out of sugar cane and corn.”
Billions of federal dollars are invested annually in industrialized products rather than family farms. What we lose is ecologically diverse agriculture, local farm security, and managed grazing systems that enable soil to sequester carbon. A key to changing that, the article continued, is “empowering people to know the difference.
"If consumers and voters understand the environmental implications of what they’re purchasing and which businesses they are supporting, then food policy at the federal level might look different."
In next week’s Ecolution Collective we will offer resources toward a food literate society. In future months, with your input, we will explore climate resilience, regenerative agriculture, and farmer justice.
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The Ecolutionary Team
This new communication tool will flourish as we receive more feedback in surveys. What has been shared so far:
You are passionate about: micro food systems, emerging farmers, revitalizing rural communities, regional food systems, soil health, community cooperatives, permaculture, zero waste, and more
Priority topics (in order): Co-op culture, community-based food resiliency, environmental health disparities, energy models, regenerative agriculture, reducing waste, smarter consumerism, climate resilience research
You ask for connection around: collaborative entrepreneurship, democracy and food systems, rural/metro interaction, enhanced labor models in food, defining food sovereignty
You offer great sources for future Ecolution Collective story sharing to come.
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Minnesota & Hunger Relief |
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Minnesota has a deep history of being part of solutions around hunger and food security.
Historic moment: 11 million people in Belgium and northern France were starving because of World War I. A humanitarian relief effort raised millions in private donations, food, and medicine. Much of the food aid included wheat flour from Minnesota, which quadrupled its grain production and flour mill output. The flour mill on the Mississippi River built by Washburn-Crosby Company (known today as General Mills) could produce enough flour in a day to bake 12 million loaves of bread. Ultimately, famine relief from the U.S. fed more than 100 million people through Europe between 1914 and 1923.
Virtual Event: A selection of historic thank you letters from children in Belgium will be on virtual display at the Mall of America; the opening at noon on October 12 will feature comments from diplomats and historians. Register here.
Source: Mark Ritchie, Global Minnesota
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The Twin Cities Mutual Aid map lists over 250 organizations and sites, updated daily by volunteers, providing a simple way to learn about community needs for donations and supplies. Details: tcmap.org
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Minnesota Central Kitchen brings together restaurants, caterers, and hunger-fighting organizations to tackle hunger and service-sector layoffs brought on by the pandemic. Donations are being matched by Medtronic.
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1 in 8 Minnesotans
will experience food insecurity this month, including 112,000 children
— data from McKinsey & Co, collected on behalf of Second Harvest Heartland
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What solutions have you seen around the state that are improving supply lines between healthy foods and those who need access?
Do you work with data or research that illuminates this issue?
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Next Step: Grow the Ecolution |
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1) Subscribe to this newsletter.
If you received it from a friend, please add yourself to the mailing list
2) Forward it to others who might be interested in the conversations
3) Take our survey to help us plan together stories of the future
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Upcoming Ecolution Topics |
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October 16: Collective Economies & 40 Acre Co-op
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November: The Air We Breathe
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December: Regenerating Habitat
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From Our Ecolution Library |
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Ecolution (ee-koh-LOO-shun) is a new word for a community-based approach to story-sharing. It is about making connections, sharing what we know, building resiliency through diversification, and taking action steps together.
Collaborative, collective partnerships generate community-based wealth and health.
Ecolutionaries (and yes, we made that word up) are not passive readers who simply “like” stories. They have ideas, resources, and storytellers to share — and are consumers who want to put their dollar where their values are. We will ask Collective members in surveys:
What do you think people should do?
Who should we learn from next?
What related issue do you care about?
Ecolution Collective is created by Minnesota Women's Press, a storytelling pioneer since 1985.
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With your input, each month we look at an Ecolution topic from different angles:
- Week #1: Overview of the topic and its questions
- Week #2: Profile about people centered on the issue
- Week #3: Data, research, science, and global picture
- Week #4: Action to further work and discussion
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