Food
… looking at both natural and industrialized approaches to the business and science of growing food, along with their economic, health, and environmental impacts.
Check out these resources from the Alliance:
- How Industrial Agriculture Is Destroying Human Health, a student research report
- Healthy Food for Healthy Communities
- Factory-farm pork production in PA – Hidden-camera video by MercyForAnimals showing cruelty to mother pigs and their young piglets at a Hatfield Quality Meat supplier—’Country View Family Farms’—in Fannettsburg, Pennsylvania. Watch the video. [6.5 min.]
[Warning: graphic footage of cruel treatment.]
Also see: Youth Food Bill of Rights
Additional links for food & farming:
- Food Alliance
- Food & Water Watch
- Natural Resources Conservation Service [part of USDA, but doing some good things with small farmers]
- NOFA [Northeast Organic Farming Association]
- PASA [Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture]
- Real Food Challenge
- Wild Farm Alliance
Sustainability in Food Businesses
There are many steps that can be taken to promote sustainability in food businesses. Today, there are numerous concerns that trouble businesses that are attempting to become more sustainable. This is because of the financial, environment, and psychological benefits that … more
Food on Campus
The Dining Services offered at both Lafayette College and Lehigh University have already taken some measures to becoming more environmentally sustainable organizations. Specifically, at Lafayette some of the vegetables served in the dining facilities around campus are grown in the … more
Do campus food services contribute to sustainability and health?
Campus dining services, like other institutional food-service operations, prepare large volumes of food every day, most of it the product of the industrialized agriculture system, not grown sustainably. It is often served in ways that produce large volumes of waste, … more
Earth Charter
The Earth Charter is a declaration of fundamental ethical principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society in the 21st century. It seeks to inspire in all people a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for … more
Permaculture
Permaculture has considerable design promise but poses organizing difficulties. On the plus side, its principles provide a transformative pathway toward a sustainable way of living, one that is a real, doable alternative to the unsustainable, life-threatening practices of our current … more
Lester Brown’s Plan B
The Wikipedia article on Lester R. Brown provides a lot of useful information on his life and the development of his ideas. Of note is his background in agriculture, food matters, and population, as well as his successes in entrepreneurial … more
Organic Is the Answer for Healthy Food, Healthy People, and a Healthy Planet
by Maya Rodale — The idea that our health is connected to the food we eat isn’t really a shocking concept. It just makes sense: you are what you eat. What matters to our health just as much—if not more—is how our … more
“Their Food”
In this section, we will be looking at the so-called food being provided by industrial ag. Commercial agri-business systems are organized to grow profits. They use such unsustainable approaches as: mono-cropping factory-farming use of laboratory-created chemicals for insecticides, fertilizers, and … more
Help get schools to serve healthier, more nutritious food!
Schools can do more to make sure that the food they serve is nutritious and promotes good health. (Research has found that healthy, fresh food improves school performance — while some over-processed food contributes to childhood obesity and diabetes.) In … more
Shaping The Future Of School Food (April 2005)
Are you concerned about the food students are eating? This free conference was held on April 10, 2005, at the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Performing Arts in Bethlehem to take an in-depth look at such matters as … more