Food/Land Use/

Agriculture

Food/Land Use/Agriculture Sector
Addressing waste and diets, protect ecosystems, shift agricultural practices

Thursday, May 27, 7:30-8:30PM (ET)

For our third The Science of Climate Solutions, we spent our time in Zoom hearing from:

  • Alexandre Martinez, Center for Hydrology & Remote Sensing (CHRS), Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of California, Irvine. He specializes on the impact of local hydrologic extremes on the global food system (example: droughts in Kansas could impact nutrition supply in Guatemala); the use of machine learning and satellite products to estimate cereal grain size, to detect flooding in the rice paddies; and, using drones for monitoring soil post-wildfires, and changes in soil characteristics.

  • Siobhan L. Fathel, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Penn State University. She will focus her presentation on farm energy-- from efficiency and conservation to integrating renewables, including irrigation efficiency and biogas.

There was time for Q&A and sharing of climate solution highlights in Pennsylvania and across the globe.

Before our Zoom session on May 27, we encouraged you to check out these resources below (these are all optional, but the more sources you review, the better prepared you will be to participate), as well as the websites for Project Drawdown and the Drawdown Ecochallenge.

(explore Drawdown summary and solutions for the Food/Land Use/Agriculture Sector)

Video

How to Feed the World & Shrink Our Climate Footprint | Navin Ramankutty for Project Drawdown (~36 minutes)

Dive into food systems and solutions with Ramankutty, a scientist focused on ways to feed humanity with minimal global environmental footprint. From the importance of voting and youth climate action to regenerative agriculture, Ramankutty shares up-to-date insight from his field.

Video

The other inconvenient truth (the need to address terraculture (farming for the whole planet)), by Jonathan Foley (~18 minutes)

A skyrocketing demand for food means that agriculture has become the largest driver of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental destruction. At TEDxTC Jonathan Foley shows why we desperately need to begin "terraculture" -- farming for the whole planet.

A podcast series was produced in summer 2019 on Drawdown solutions taking place across the state of Pennsylvania. These are two podcasts from of the Drawing Down in Pennsylvania series that relate to the Food, Agriculture, and Land Use Sector. Transcripts are available for the Food Sector and Land Use Sector audio files.

Video

How ugly, unloved food can change the world, by Dana Cowin (~8 minutes)

In 2014, Dana Cowin published her first cookbook, “Mastering My Mistakes in the Kitchen: Learning to Cook with 65 Great Chefs and Over 100 Delicious Recipes.” It was named one of the 10 most notable cookbooks of the fall by Publisher’s Weekly. She is on the board of directors of City Harvest, a New York City hunger-relief organization, where she founded the annual “Skip Lunch Fight Hunger” campaign. She is also on the board of directors of Hot Bread Kitchen, which helps train and support foreign-born and low-income individuals looking to work in food service. She invites you to Love Ugly Food.

Don't forget to join the Drawdown DCIS team for the Drawdown Ecochallenge! You can create your account and explore the Drawdown Ecochallenge platform. Join our next Action Category for now through the end of June - Food, Agriculture, Land Use. (*note that each month, we'll move to a new Action Category - stay tuned for details!)

Additional resources of interest relating to Food/Agriculture/Land Use solutions

Recording of the May 27th session with Penn State & Univ. of California - Irvine