Picture a banana. Can you see it in your mind’s eye? Yellow, green, maybe a beautiful ripe brown, ready to be flambeed, or maybe you’re even picturing it in a sundae? Here’s something crazy about that banana: we are all likely picturing the exact same kind. The banana of the US market, namely the Cavendish, […]
Local food focused conferences and summits are a great opportunity for seasoned food systems practitioners and budding local food enthusiasts to learn, connect and get inspired toward positive action. In southeast Michigan, two upcoming Local Food Summits provide unique opportunities for engagement and education: Greater Washtenaw Local Food Summit (LFS) Monday, March 9th 8:00 AM – […]
You have an upcoming event that will have vendors, talent, and of course attendees. You have organized the meeting space, audio/visual, catering, and more…but what about the waste produced from the event? Have you thought about the impact of the amount of waste an event generates? Quick example: the NFL regular season has 256 games […]
Films provide a channel for inspiration, escape, education and sometimes even a new-found purpose. Alex, our UP Local Food Coordinator, picked out the following 5 films to keep your creative juices flowing. Plus, these films are a great way to keep from going too stir-crazy during winter. A Fine Line – A Woman’s Place is […]
Food production and transportation are significant contributors to greenhouse gases. Besides the resources used to grow food, it takes energy to preserve, package, and ship our food around the country. Before it reaches your plate, food travels an average of 1500 miles! One way to cut down on the food energy footprint is to eat […]
Luis Chen is hard at work in Grand Rapids, feeding his community locally sourced produce through the YMCA Veggie Van as the Operations Manager, as well as running his own composting company, Wormies. He enjoys connecting with local farmers and bringing their produce to communities in need, as well as learning about growing healthy food […]
This article is part of a four-part series on buying, storing, preserving and composting foods to prevent waste There is no ‘away’ to throw things. When food ends up in landfills it decomposes anaerobically which releases methane, a greenhouse gas 25x more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Since Americans throw away around 150,000 […]
In my previous post of this Climate Change series, (see the first and second post here), I discussed how tree fruit growers in Michigan are faced with adapting to a “new normal” due to climate change. Pest and disease profiles are shifting, frost dates are less predictable, and precipitation is becoming more erratic. Growers adapt to […]
This is the second post of a three-part series. Before reading this, make sure you read the first post of the series here! To quickly recap, in the last article I mentioned how climate change will have unique impacts on tree fruit agriculture due to long-term growing requirements of growing perennials. This means that fruit […]
There has been a lot of discussion in recent years about how climate change in going to impact agriculture. The Midwest has been characterized by increasing average temperatures, earlier springs, and more frequent extreme precipitation events. For farmers, these changes will mean shifting growing seasons, flooded fields, and longer periods of drought.