Category Archives: food

From startup to your dinner table

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Co-founder of the Local Food Lab Krysia Zajonc makes her case for the crucial role of business within the sustainable food movement.  She also talks about the seeds of her business germinating in Costa Rica, some of the startups growing out of Local Food Lab, and takes time to address some of the frustrations people have with sustainable food.

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The elephant in the warming room: food & climate

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Food security expert David Lobell takes us around the world to give us a taste of the global food production system.  He discusses the wide range of problems our changing climate will have on agriculture and the prospects for creating a sustainable food system in the future.  And whenever you’re a visible figure and dealing with sensitive issues like food and climate change, there’s always a chance you end up getting hate mail… at 7am.

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Sustainability and the Green Revolution

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Agroecologist and Dean of Stanford University’s school of earth sciences Pam Matson discusses her agricultural research in the Yaqui Valley and how it relates to the Green Revolution.  She also reflects upon the politics of sustainable agriculture and how we might go about feeding the 9 billion people we expect in the coming decades.  As a final thought, she offers some advice to those who are coming of age in the Anthropocene, and why we shouldn’t waste our time trying to assign blame.

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Nitrogen: The element behind all your food

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With all of the attention paid to global climate change and the disruption of the carbon cycle, biologist Peter Vitousek discusses the serious impacts humankind has had on the nitrogen cycle and how that relates to our food system.  He expands on the modern food production system as the primary driver of land use change, and explains just what he means when he says he wants to make the world a less homogeneous place with some interesting cultural implications.

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