Students who line up for lunch at the 50 or so salad bars that have cropped up in British Columbia school cafeterias are in the midst of a big undertaking.

As they load up on local greens, root vegetables, eggs and cheese, these youngsters are fortifying themselves and the province's local food system; they are also sketching the blueprint for a unique program with national aspirations and the potential to recalibrate how the leaders of tomorrow view food.

Called Farm-to-School, the program matches participating schools with farmers or small networks of growers who are paid fair market value to supply produce. It teaches students about more than just the food chain by integrating health, environmental studies, sociology, economics and agriculture. Inspired by a Toronto-based school-salad-bar model pioneered by the food-change organization FoodShare, it was launched four years ago by a community nutritionist bent on getting more fresh fruits and vegetables into B.C. schools.

"We were worried about the fact that there were so many children eating too much of the wrong things [who are] overweight or obese. On the other end of the spectrum, we have a lot of children who can't get enough of the right things to eat," said the nutritionist, Joanne Bays. "Kids' opportunities to access healthy foods were less than optimal."

Nutritionists in B.C. are mandated by the public-health authority to address community food security - ensuring that people have safe and nutritious food. For Ms. Bays, the ideal school solution was one that also boosted the food economy in urban areas and remote regions where farming has died off or is dwindling. She focused her project on areas where processed food is cheaper than fresh alternatives.

Seed funding from the Premier's office for salad-bar and kitchen construction, greenhouses and gardening tools paid to jump-start the program in 16 schools.

The money has long since run out, but the program, which Ms. Bays oversees, continues to balloon. This year, more than 50 schools across the province will operate the program, which costs students between $3 and $5 a day.

"This has taken on a life of its own and we're not dependent on the government for subsidies to make it happen," Ms. Bays said. "We've got communities engaged in doing it."

The results have been transformative. In Chetwynd, a small, northeastern B.C. town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the popularity of the school salad bar has regenerated the community's interest in producing fresh food: Several gardens have been launched to supply the salad bar; the town now grows enough to support a farmers' market, and curiosity about cooking is growing, particularly among youth.

"We have 11-year-old boys asking for recipes of stuffed mushrooms," said Marcie Fofonoff, the district's former healthy communities co-ordinator. "Or we have them saying they can make bread at home. The objective was to expand the palette, get them to try different foods."

Debbie Field, director of Toronto's FoodShare, which started the nation's first school-salad-bar program, said students' enthusiasm is proof that kids aren't only interested in eating junk food.

"People tell you that kids won't eat healthy," she said. "We've proven that they'll eat it."

For advocates of food culture change, winning over these young palettes is the holy grail. By the time students reach high school, many argue, their food habits are too entrenched to change.

"If we go back to teaching some of the basics at the younger age, we're beginning to form children who will not forget those as they grow old," said Carol Henry, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of Saskatchewan who studies school food in Canada. "By the time they get to high school, it's a little too late. In elementary school, they'll still listen."

Paolo Di Croce is international director of the Italy-based Slow Food, an organization with a global campaign to persuade educators to use food at school to teach lessons on farming, gardening, industrial food production and its environmental impacts. The value of doing so is in the multiplier effect, he explained.

"If you teach young children, they influence their families," Mr. Di Croce said.

The payback, some argue, will have a much broader reach.

At Windermere Secondary School in Vancouver, students grow and cook food for the school cafeteria and elementary feeder schools. They also use bicycles to transport compost from the feeders back to their greenhouse.

Principal Maria Taddei said the program teaches students about the inherent interconnectivity of nutrition, environmental science, social studies and health.

"It creates in a student more global-minded thinking," she said. "We're growing leaders."

Jessica Leeder, Globe and Mail, October 10, 2011

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The problem is stark: One billion people on earth don't have enough food right now. It's estimated that by 2050 there will be more than nine billion people living on the planet.

Meanwhile, current agricultural practices are amongst the biggest threats to the global environment. This means that if we don't develop more sustainable practices, the planet will become even less able to feed its growing population than it is today.

But now a team of researchers from Canada, the U.S., Sweden and Germany has come up with a plan to double the world's food production while reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture. Their findings were recently published in the journal Nature.

By combining information gathered from crop records and satellite images from around the world, they have been able to create new models of agricultural systems and their environmental impacts that are truly global in scope.

McGill geography professor Navin Ramankutty, one of the team leaders on the study, credits the collaboration between researchers for achieving such important results. "Lots of other scholars and thinkers have proposed solutions to global food and environmental problems. But they were often fragmented, only looking at one aspect of the problem at one time. And they often lacked the specifics and numbers to back them up. This is the first time that such a wide range of data has been brought together under one common framework, and it has allowed us to see some clear patterns. This makes it easier to develop some concrete solutions for the problems facing us."

A five-point plan for feeding the world while protecting the planet

The researchers recommend:

Halting farmland expansion and land clearing for agricultural purposes, particularly in the tropical rainforest. This can be achieved using incentives such as payment for ecosystem services, certification and ecotourism. This change will yield huge environmental benefits without dramatically cutting into agricultural production or economic well-being.

Improving agricultural yields. Many farming regions in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe are not living up to their potential for producing crops -- something known as "yield gaps." Improved use of existing crop varieties, better management and improved genetics could increase current food production nearly by 60 per cent.

Supplementing the land more strategically. Current use of water, nutrients and agricultural chemicals suffers from what the research team calls "Goldilocks' Problem": too much in some places, too little in others, rarely just right. Strategic reallocation could substantially boost the benefit we get from precious inputs.

Shifting diets. Growing animal feed or biofuels on prime croplands, no matter how efficiently, is a drain on human food supply. Dedicating croplands to direct human food production could boost calories produced per person by nearly 50 per cent. Even shifting nonfood uses such as animal feed or biofuel production away from prime cropland could make a big difference.

Reducing waste. One-third of the food produced by farms ends up discarded, spoiled or eaten by pests. Eliminating waste in the path that food takes from farm to mouth could boost food available for consumption another 50 per cent.

The study also outlines approaches to the problem that would help policy-makers reach informed decisions about the agricultural choices facing them. "For the first time, we have shown that it is possible to both feed a hungry world and protect a threatened planet," said lead author Jonathan Foley, head of the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment. "It will take serious work. But we can do it."

The research was funded by NSERC, NASA and NSF.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by McGill University.

McGill University (2011, October 12). Feeding the world while protecting the planet: Global plan for sustainable agriculture. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 13, 2011, from sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2011/10/111012151720.htm 

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The fall 2011 issue of the Canadian Farm Animal Genetic Resources Foundation Newsletter is available at the following link:  http://www.cfagrf.com/English_Home.html.

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CAST has released a new Task Force Report about Climate Change, examining agriculture's role in:

• Land-atmosphere exchanges of greenhouse gases (GHGs);
• The science of carbon sequestration and GHG mitigation for various sectors of U.S. agriculture;
• The consequences of any action--or inaction--in light of agriculture's role of providing necessary food, feed, and fiber.

The 116-page report includes graphs, photos, tables, and a large number of literature citations, but a statement early in the paper makes the key point clear: "Emissions of CO2, CH4, and N20 from agriculture are the result of both human-induced and natural processes in the ecosystem .... they can be lowered through modified land use and management."

The 22 eminent authors give detailed scientific explanations, but they also take an honest look at the causes of GHG emissions, how they might be managed, and what the consequences might be --environmentally, economically, and from a policy standpoint.

Purchasing Details:

The full text of Task Force Report 142 is available in hard copy ($50.00, plus shipping) and electronically ($10.00 download fee) through the CAST website at www.cast-science.org.   

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