Time for a change of diet?

Does Minnesota have a Food System Plan? Should it? Here's some background for your consideration.

Minnesota does well with apples but we need more than fruit

Photo by J. Harrington

More than a decade ago, the state of Vermont enacted legislation calling for a "ten year Farm to Plate Strategic Plan."

Farm to Plate is Vermont’s food system plan being implemented statewide

to increase economic development and jobs in the farm and food sector

and improve access to healthy local food for all Vermonters.

Around  the Chesapeake Bay, there's a multi-state foodshed network supporting a vision of:

A sustainable, resilient, inclusive and equitable food system that supports healthy communities, land and waterways in the Chesapeake Bay watershed 

Minneapolis was once know as "Mill City." That's changed

Photo by J. Harrington

Here in Minnesota, we have lots of activities supporting our farm and food systems, but, so far, I've found no indication there's a coherent statewide vision, although I have found so far at lease three regional visions and a statewide perspective.

• Region 5, a multi-county region centered around Crow Wing County, has focused on the local food system as an asset for economic development and the creation of a resilient region.
• Southern Minnesota has an  evaluation of local food systems as regional economic drivers.
• Northern Minnesota has Food Sovereignty in Northern Minnesota; Building a Sustainable and Accessible Food System in This Region
• Minnesota even has drafted a Food Charter, although  it appears there's insufficient interest or support for ongoing efforts.

If you've been following recent news, you've probably seen reports of meet processing and packing plants being  shut  down do to COVID-19. You may have seen coverage of farmers destroying and/or dumping food due to the pandemic and reduced markets. Meanwhile, "37 million people struggle with hunger in the United States..." Here in Minnesota, 

• Nearly 900,000 Minnesota residents live in lower- income communities with insufficient grocery store access. This grocery gap is fourth worst in the nation and disproportionately affects Minnesotans living in rural communities and tribal nations.1
• Rates of obesity and diet-related diseases and the resulting costs to society demonstrate the impact that these inequities have on the health and prosperity of our state; Minnesota incurs $2.8 billion in obesity- related healthcare costs per year.2
• Investing in healthy food infrastructure and agriculture could yield $2.9 billion per year
  for a state like Minnesota.3

You may also have read or heard that the way we produce and waste food has a lot to do with solving, or exacerbating, the  problems we've created by breaking the climate. "...agriculture and forestry activities generate 24% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. "

There's an old saying that seems to fit our current situation: "You ain't lost if you don't care where you are." It seems to me it's in our best interest to care where we are and where our  food system is headed, unless we believe climate change and future pandemics won't affect it or us, it's time for:

Change

By Wendy Videlock

Change is the new, 

improved 

word for god, 

lovely enough 

to raise a song 

or implicate 

a sea of wrongs, 

mighty enough, 

like other gods, 

to shelter, 

bring together, 

and estrange us. 

Please, god, 

we seem to say, 

change us.

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