A call for dialogue...

Welcome to 'Home Grown'.

This is my experiment in catalyzing social change through food. What we eat matters profoundly, not only for our personal health, but also for broader ecological and economic sustainability. Can we create significant social change by altering our diets as well as our approach to food and eating? I think so!

We need to do something. Our food system is in a state of crisis: food prices have skyrocketed in recent months leading to mounting famine across the world. We are also facing the loss of small farms, an aging demographic of farmers and declining conditions in rural communities: will large scale, corporate agriculture be our future? Moreover, our current diets are oil and gas dependent as the globalized food system means food travels increasing distances between farm and fork. With the emergence of biofuels as an energy alternative, mounting pressures are placed on farmland to grow crops for transportation rather than food? We are also profoundly disconnected from our food supply, as our populations become increasingly urbanized and engage with the 'knowledge economy'.

A recent report by the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) has called for a reform of agricultural practices towards more sustainable, equitable, and ecological practices. Less large scale corporate monocultures and more diverse, robust, small farms.

The future of food is at a crossroads. We (consumers, food activists, producers, citizens) can play a role in what that future looks like. One thing is clear: we need change.

"Business as usual would mean more environmental degradation and the earth's haves and have-nots splitting further apart. It would leave us facing a world nobody would want to inhabit." Robert Watson, director of the IAASTD secretariat, chief scientist at Defra.

References

Balachrishnan, A. 2008, April 15. UN body urges agricultural reforms to stave off food crisis. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/15/food.unitednations1