Real Food Challenge And Environmental Justice

Real Food Challenge and Environmental Justice Throughout this semester I have had the opportunity to work with the Real Food Challenge. This is a national organization of student activist groups who aim to bring ‘real food’ to the national university campus’. The focus and overall goal of the group is to shift one billion dollars of existing university food budgets away from industrial farms and junk food, towards the four categories which classify real food; local, fair, ecologically sound, and humane by 2020. The University of Utah was the largest institution and first pac-12 school to sign the commitment.

“Real Food is food which truly nourishes producers, consumers, communities and the earth.” (Real Food Challenge) Seed to plate is

Food justice is often described as the equitable access to healthy and culturally appropriate food, as well as access to the benefits of food production and distribution for all communities. What and how we eat has broad implications for our planet and society. Our cultural backgrounds and values seek compassion, health, and sustainability in the production of food, from seed-plate. These values that we seek have and continue to adjust and modify as systems change in results to factors like the exponentially growing population. Food production has become a vast worldwide industry, involving the growing, processing, packaging, transporting, and distribution of food. Environmental justice issues are becoming more apparent as transitions are implemented for these types of factors in the processes that characterize food production. As the global population continues to exponentially grow there is an increasing demand for resources. The need for mass production of food has resulted in the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides with crops and the mistreatment of animals and workers in food production. Both the overuse and the large waste streams from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) result in pollution of water, land, and air. “Agriculture is a huge emitter of greenhouse gases associated with climate change. This is an important emerging topic as Americans

When crop yields radically increased with the Green Revolution, wheat, rice, soybeans, and corn were all being produced in large quantities. Chemical dependence grew and former food cultivation practices were replaced. These intensive farming practices are linked to high levels of soil erosion and decreased biodiversity. Other ecological consequences are seen in efforts to make meet cheaper. Concentrated animal feeding operation were introduced. Livestock is forced by the thousands into confined spaced, pumped with antibiotics and growth hormones, and fed non-native diets, in order to increase size of animal, further to increase production of meat. These environmental health issues raise major ethical concerns. The cumulative impacts of industrial farms have also been implications of major contributors to climate change patterns. Lifecycle impacts of these intensive practices, from production to transportation to consumption, and disposal all disrupt critical ecological processes, plus contribute massive amounts of greenhouse gas