Over the last few years, food has emerged as a major issue in the mainstream press and planning circles. Since World War Two, a global system of food production and consumption has emerged that has focused on cheapness (low cost to consumers, high profit margins for corporations) and convenience (easy to store and cook for consumers, easy to grow and transport for corporations). It has increasingly been recognized that other values, especially health, taste and the environment, have been sacrificed in the pursuit of cheapness and convenience: a realization not only made by policy advocates but by the public at large, in many ways because of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, Morgan Spurlock’s documentary “Super Size Me"and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
This has led to a movement, both within planning and more generally, to promote more environmentally sensitive cultivation practices and healthier and better tasting food, preferably grown locally. This effort to create a more balanced food system is now arguably the cutting edge of the planning profession (especially as more traditional areas like land use planning have lost their urgency because the subprime crisis has led to a slowdown in construction).
Creating a sustainable foodshed for the San Diego region is no simple task. It will require assembling a massive infrastructure of growers and food buyers, of skilled cooks and of consumers who enjoy food made from whole foods. If, for instance, a school wanted to feed its students healthy food made from local ingredients, it would need (a) to convince local farmers capable of growing whole foods that it is dedicated enough to buy its products (for the farmer would be at great financial risk if the school changed its mind), (b) to train its cooks how to cook something other than highly processed foods, (c) construct kitchens that had the right equipment and (d) get the kids to eat it - and find the money to do all these things.
In truth, while there is a growing realization of the importance of crafting a sustainable foodshed for San Diego, at this point we still have a poor sense of the resource flows involved in feeding San Diegans. We do not have a “big picture” view of where the food consumed locally comes from nor where the crops grown locally (on imported water) are consumed.
Books, Articles, Papers
Practice/Applied Focus
Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development (JAFSCD).
http://www.agdevjournal.com/about.html
Key Academic Journals:
Agricultural Systems, Agriculture and Human Values, Ecology of Food and Nutrition, International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment, Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition, Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, and Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems.
Pollan, Michael. 2006. The omnivore’s dilemma: A natural history of four meals. New York: Penguin Books.
Pollan, a journalist living in Berkeley, has written what is one of the most well-known books on food in recent years. He has followed it up with In defense of food: An eater�s manifesto. While it is extremely well-written, The omnivore’s dilemma is probably too long to read fall quarter. Best to concentrate on the earlier chapters criticizing modern industrial agricultural practices, though the most well-known chapters come later in which Pollan is critical of large-scale organic farms.
The Garden (A Film by Scott Hamilton Kennedy)
The fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles is the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community. But now, bulldozers are poised to level their 14-acre oasis. The Garden follows the plight of the farmers, from the tilled soil of this urban farm to the polished marble of City Hall. Mostly immigrants from Latin America, from countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, we watch them organize, fight back, and demand answers: Why was the land sold to a wealthy developer for millions less than fair-market value? Why was the transaction done in a closed-door session of the LA City Council? Why has it never been made public?
Greening the Realm: Sustainable Food Chains and the Public Plate, Pages 1237 - 1250
Author: Kevin Morgan
DOI: 10.1080/00343400802195154
Link: http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=0034-3404&volume=42&issue=9&spage=1237&uno_jumptype=alert&uno_alerttype=new_issue_alert,email
Food Systems Planning and Sustainable Cities and Regions: The Role of the Firm in Sustainable Food Capitalism, Pages 1251 - 1262
Author: Betsy Donald
DOI: 10.1080/00343400802360469
Link: http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=0034-3404&volume=42&issue=9&spage=1251&uno_jumptype=alert&uno_alerttype=new_issue_alert,email
Web Resources - Links and Data
Wisconsin Foodshed
The Diggable City
UCLA study on the link between local food environments and obesity & diabetes
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