Food Tank

The Puyallup Tribe of Indians are organizing programming, events, and fan zones in Seattle, Washington during the 2026 FIFA World Cup. This marks the first time a Tribal Nation is formally represented at the World Cup, providing an opportunity for them to share their story, culture, traditions, and foodways with a global audience.

As Seattle prepares to host six matches for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the city is working to ensure that the tournament leaves a positive lasting impact on the community. As part of these efforts, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians were named the Official Legacy Supporter of FIFA World Cup 26 host city Seattle.

A central goal of this partnership is the reestablishment of Lushootseed language, which appears in welcoming messages, murals, signage, and other SeattleFWC26 materials. This feeds into broader sustainability efforts, explains Amy McFarland, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians’ World Cup Project Director.

“It’s the sustainability of language, history, and economic development,” McFarland tells Food Tank. She adds that this also extends to medicine, foodways, and environmental protection.

The Puyallup Tribe are preparing for a collection of camassia, a tubular used for medicine. They are also focusing on reintroducing plants and ecosystems that have been destroyed, such as camas prairies. And through community gardens, they are highlighting Indigenous plants and medicines while promoting the importance of sustainability.

“We think about sustainability of our environment, taking care of our waters, ensuring that we know and teach our children how to forage, collect, harvest, and use traditional foods and medicine,” McFarland tells Food Tank.

Celebratory events are also engaging the broader community. Between June 19-21, the Puyallup Tribe will host one of their signature events, the first World Cup Pow Wow. Free to the public, the event will include food trucks, singing, dancing, and more. And on match days, they will organize official fan zones and viewing parties featuring live broadcasts of the games, food vendors, and youth activities.

To create additional opportunities for young people, the Puyallup Tribe have selected 25 youth ambassadors who will volunteer at the matches. They will distribute clean water to elders throughout the events and lead songs, dances, and stories.

“Youth is a vital part of what we have,” says McFarland. “Without teaching our young ones the way to do things, the future is not there.”

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Photo courtesy of SounderBruce, Wikimedia Commons

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We’re about halfway through the International Year of the Woman Farmer, declared by the United Nations to recognize a truth that Food Tankers already know well: That global food systems are cultivated by, sustained by, and nourished by women.

Some of my favorite parts of recent Food Tank events have been the nights we turn our stage over to farmers to share authentic stories from the ground. This year alone, women farmers have joined us onstage in Park City, UT; Dublin, Ireland; Adelaide, Australia; and Austin, TX to tell personal tales of their lives in the food system.

Women in agricultural communities are farmers and also simultaneously caregivers, nutrition providers, innovators, pillars of their communities, and so much more. As the International Year of the Woman Farmer calls attention to, gender gaps in income and in accessing resources like land ownership and financial markets have been well-documented. But there’s another factor that cannot get lost during this special year: Women’s health.

“Women are central to food systems, and therefore women’s health is also central to food systems,” Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins, President and CEO of PAI, a policy advocacy organization, told me on the Food Talk podcast. “If a woman’s health and reproductive health are not prioritized and supported…how is she going to be effective in her job, and how is she therefore going to be effective in feeding and nourishing the world?”

And the impact of women in food is multi-generational.

“Every day on our farm, we get up, we work hard,” Carina Roseingrave, Co-Founder of Burren View Farm, told our Food Tank audience from the stage at SXSW. “What we have, we’ve built for our family that are here now. But what’s very important to our family is to pass it on to the next generation. We don’t want to lose the next generation that’s coming behind us. We want to pass on the knowledge that was passed on from my grandmother.”

If that seems like a heavy load to carry mentally just as much as physically—it is. As Reema Nanavaty, Head of the Self- Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), told me on Food Talk, major challenges like the climate crisis weigh particularly hard on women farmers’ mental health and tend to impact their economic opportunities at disproportionately high levels. Part of Reema’s work with SEWA involves vital efforts to reduce the tragic rates at which young women farmers are dying by suicide.

For me, as someone who’s devoted my career to researching gender in food and agriculture systems, I think any push toward uplifting the needs and rights of women and young girls—like International Year of the Woman Farmer—is a step in the right direction. I also hope that, alongside addressing economic inequities, we don’t ignore the need to protect women’s physical and mental well-being as part of our food system and sustainability solutions.

This takes both big-picture and small-scale efforts. As Rosinah Mbenya, Country Coordinator for PELUM Kenya, told me on an episode of Food Talk, we see a gap in on-the-ground efforts focused on youth- and women-centered landscape transformation. This needs to catch the attention of international development organizations and business and philanthropic leaders.

“There is a lot of work that needs to go into capacity-building,” she says. “But I’m looking forward to seeing more investments so that we can have increased financing and attention.”

At the same time, we cannot lose sight of the fact that food should be joyful and grounding and delicious—and that’s good for both physical and mental health, too!

I really loved what Lynsey Gammon, the Farm Director of Gracie’s Farm and the Lodge at Blue Sky, told us during a storytelling event at our All Things Food and Environment Summit during Sundance. It was her Italian grandmother, she said, who taught her “the art and love of growing food.”

“She could never really leave behind the love of growing food and the joy and love that it gave to her and the connection with the land and her history,” Lynsey told us. “Because, like so many women before her, farming was her ancestry. It ran through her veins.”

Here’s to the generations of empowered, hardworking, healthy women who feed us, from farms to our kitchen tables!

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Evan Rally, Unsplash

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In the largest agricultural state in the U.S., Regenerative California is creating new pathways to help new and beginning farmers build a different future for global food and agriculture systems.

The nonprofit, based in Monterey County, California, uses their demonstration farm to prove that regenerative agriculture is viable. Now in its second year, Regenerate 68! Farm grows berries and vegetables. The site is currently Certified Organic, and Kristin Coates, the organization’s Co-Founder and CEO, says they’re working toward Regenerative Organic certification.

As the farm evolves further Regenerative California is hoping to bring students onto the land to encourage more people to see a future in agriculture.

Coates explains that her children have no interest in farming. “They see this dead end,” she says. “I’m around all these synthetic fertilizer and pesticides. Why would they choose [this path]?” But, she says, “it doesn’t have to be business as usual.” Regenerative California wants to prove that there’s another way.

“We’re in conversations with local universities that are training the next generation of ag and farm workers,” Coates tells Food Tank, so they can serve as “a living classroom for regenerative agriculture.”  The organization is also working with vocational schools in the area.

Coates says she’s particularly excited about young people’s interest in gathering data, measuring the impact of climate-friendly farming practices, and improving biodiversity. “The other piece we’re seeing is this entrepreneurial spirit,” she tells Food Tank. “Young people are seeing that ‘I can have my autonomy, I can have independence, I can grow my own business.’”

One vocational school, Rancho Cielo, works with youth between the ages of 16 and 24, who learn skills in sectors including welding, hospitality, or agriculture. When they come to the farm, Coates explains, “we’re seeing this is a place to create an entirely new livelihood, and there’s a lot of enthusiasm to do that.”

Listen to or watch the full conversation with Kristin Coates on “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” to hear more about how Regenerative California plans to share their model with other counties, their work on blue food systems, and what it looks like to build trust and drive community engagement.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Andrea D, Unsplash

The post In Monterey County, this Farm Is Building a Path to a Regenerative Food Future appeared first on Food Tank.

This article is part of Food Tank’s primer series, “Food Tank Explains.” Each installment unpacks the ideas, innovations, and challenges shaping today’s food and agriculture systems, offering clear insights into complex topics. To explore more articles in the series, click here.

CRISPR is a gene-editing technology that can make targeted changes to the DNA of living organisms. Adapted from a immune system mechanism found in bacteria, it has become a widely used tool across medicine, research, and agriculture.

Short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, CRISPR originated from a defense mechanism that bacteria use to identify and eliminate invading viruses. The system is made up of two key parts. One component identifies a target DNA sequence, another cuts it. The bacteria then stores fragments of the virus’s DNA, helping the bacterium recognize and eliminate the virus if it attacks again.

For thousands of years, humans have used genetic modification methods like selective- and cross-breeding to grow crops and raise animals with desirable traits, like corn that grows taller or watermelon that has fewer seeds. “Nature is basically gene editing all the time,” Alison Van Eenennaam, an Animal Geneticist and Biotechnology Specialist at the University of California, Davis, tells Food Tank.

But once the molecular mechanism for its DNA-cleaving ability was discovered, CRISPR was quickly repurposed into a tool for editing the DNA of living cells. In the past decade, CRISPR has taken the biomedical world and life sciences by storm and is now being used in thousands of labs worldwide.

When compared to other genome editing tools, researchers say CRISPR is more versatile and more efficient. They also underscore the tool’s accuracy. “Genome editors are far more precise than some of the tools we already use for plant breeding,” Christine Tait-Burkard, Group Lead at the Roslin Institute, tells Food Tank.

Gregory Licholai, a biotechnology entrepreneur and lecturer at Yale School of Management, compares earlier gene-editing methods to editing a book by removing entire pages. CRISPR, by contrast, allows scientists to edit individual letters, enabling more precise changes to DNA.

The technology has expanded opportunities for both biomedical research and the treatment of genetic disease. Researchers use CRISPR to create cell and animal models for studying diseases including cancer and mental illness, while clinicians have used CRISPR-based therapies to treat sickle cell disease. Scientists used CRISPR to edit disease-causing mutations in human embryos in 2017, and, in 2019, Victoria Gray became the first person in the U.S. to receive a CRISPR treatment for a genetic disorder.

Researchers from around the world have applied the technology to a wide range of crops and livestock, while patent data suggest growing commercial interest. CRISPR can improve crop yields by shortening breeding timelines and targeting and modifying genes linked with productivity and stress tolerance. Researchers used CRISPR to recreate naturally occurring traits in sorghum that help protect the crop from Striga hermonthica, a parasitic weed responsible for significant yield losses across parts of Africa.

CRISPR can also be used to improve food quality and shelf life. Scientists modified potatoes to reduce compounds that can be converted into acrylamide during frying, resulting in potato chips with substantially lower acrylamide levels. Researchers have also developed non-browning avocados to extend shelf life and reduce food waste.

Researchers are also exploring how CRISPR can support sustainable food and agriculture systems, including by developing crops with greater tolerance to drought and other environmental stresses. Researchers are also investigating whether gene editing can reduce food production emissions by modifying microbes and other organisms used in manufacturing processes.

The African Plant Breeding Academy, launched in 2013 by the University of California, Davis in partnership with the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC) and AUDA-NEPAD, trains African plant breeders in advanced crop improvement techniques, including genomics and CRISPR-based breeding techniques.

Hosted in Nairobi, Kenya, the Academy has trained more than 150 scientists from 28 countries, helping strengthen local capacity to develop improved crop varieties. At the program’s launch, Howard-Yana Shapiro, founder of the AOCC, described the initiative as part of a broader effort to equip African scientists with the tools needed to improve nutrition, food security, and agricultural resilience across the continent.

Using CRISPR, scientists have modified traits in farmed animals and aquaculture species. Researchers at Auburn University developed blue catfish with improved resistance to bacterial disease, offering a potential alternative to routine antibiotic use in aquaculture. In livestock, researchers used CRISPR to remove a gene that enables the PRRS virus to infect pigs, creating animals resistant to a disease that costs the U.S. pork industry billions of dollars each year.

The technology’s precision and versatility and the potential ability to repair disease-causing mutations has sparked excitement in the scientific community, Licholai says. And the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) calls CRISPR a promising tool for agriculture, citing its potential to contribute to food security, climate adaptation, and more efficient food production systems.

But CRISPR has raised concerns among some researchers, ethicists, and policymakers. A series of studies have linked the technology to unintended genetic changes, highlighting the need for continued research into its safety. And in a briefing to the U.K. Parliament, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics warned that gene editing could contribute to “unethical or unsustainable practices” if it enables animals to endure poorer living conditions rather than improving animal welfare.

Care must therefore be taken to ensure that genome editing does not contribute to an acceleration of unethical or unsustainable practices,” the Council states. They emphasized that the introduction of genetically edited animals to the marketplace should be guided by robust public dialogue and aimed at raising animal welfare standards.

Moving forward, FAO argues that gene editing’s potential to improve food security, nutrition, and environmental sustainability will depend on effective governance. The organization calls for clear regulatory frameworks, ongoing safety assessments, and attention to economic, social, and ethical considerations, while encouraging greater international coordination as countries develop different approaches to regulating gene-edited products.

According to the Food and Drug Law Institute, despite various hurdles to overcome, CRISPR is “likely to revolutionize how we eat.”

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Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute

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Massive loss of bee colonies, lower crop yields, and higher price tags at the grocery store are among the impacts industry experts anticipate following the closure of the United States’ largest bee research lab.

The U.S. Agricultural Research Service began shuttering Maryland’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) in late April and plans to relocate its programming elsewhere in the country, citing “outdated or underutilized” buildings. The center’s bee research lab is a global leader in bee health research and supports American beekeepers through free testing, disease management, and the development of pest control techniques.

The closure follows a few challenging years for American beekeepers, who lost around 60 percent of their colonies nationwide in 2024 and early 2025 to viruses spread by varroa mites, the nation’s dominant bee pest. At the time, researchers from the Beltsville Bee Lab traveled to several states to collect samples for analysis. In February 2025, the Trump administration fired thousands of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) employees. Department officials also “prohibited” Beltsville researchers from sharing their findings with beekeepers, according to Dr. Jennie Durant, a food systems researcher at UC Davis and former USDA fellow.

“What was most frightening—and this is where we’re so scared about losing Beltsville — is that these mites were all resistant to the most commonly used pesticide that beekeepers use to control mites,” Durant tells Food Tank. “Beltsville Bee Lab is the number one lab that’s been helping beekeepers control mites.”

The lab, which has operated for over a century and has been in Beltsville since 1939, is best known for its Bee Disease Diagnosis Service, through which American beekeepers can submit samples of bees or brood comb and receive free disease analysis reports. As varroa mites continue to develop resistance to new pesticides and tropi mites—a newer pest in the U.S.—begin to decimate colonies, experts like Durant hope that the lab’s closure is reversed.

“Beekeepers are used to having the Beltsville Bee Lab on speed dial—and without having that lab with that particular specialization, they’re really concerned about who’s going to do that crisis intervention and support when they’re dealing with major pests and disease,” said Durant, who recently published a book on how industrial agriculture threatens bee health. “They don’t know who’s going to be their crisis support team anymore.”

For many beekeepers, pollination services make up half or more of their income. Bees, which Durant describes as the “gig workers” of American agriculture, are economic powerhouses that play an outsized role in the U.S. food system, pollinating crops worth around US$15 billion every year. Honey production also racked up US$353 million in 2025.

Each February, nearly all of the nation’s commercial bee colonies are transported to California for almond pollination. In 2024, Californian almond farmers alone spent over US$325 million on pollination services.

The lab’s closure may also create long-term impacts on food and agriculture systems, including small upticks in grocery costs. Though seemingly subtle, those increases can “have a real effect for disadvantaged communities,” she said, since bees pollinate a range of nutritious crops, such as almonds, blueberries and squash.

“One of the key dynamics that has happened already is that farmers are getting fewer bees, and there’s maybe a less robust crop or slightly lower yields,” Durant says. “Those lower yields and that scarcity that’s on the market is going to have a direct impact on consumers.”

In addition to mites, the survival of bee colonies is also threatened by several other challenges, including extreme weather caused by climate change, poor nutrition as a result of biodiversity loss, and exposure to certain agrochemicals.

Maryland lawmakers in April described the BARC’s closure—part of the USDA’s larger reorganization plans—as “illegal,” claiming that it violates provisions of the Agriculture Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2026. This also follows the Trump administration’s proposal to defund the U.S. Geological Survey’s Ecosystems Mission Area program, which supports a key research center for bees in North Dakota, according to Durant.

Durant encourages consumers to tell their legislators about the importance of the lab’s research efforts, and when possible, buy organic to support farms where bees face less exposure to agrochemicals. She also warns that following a recent survey of USDA employees slated for relocation—of which 76 percent said they would not continue with their jobs—the BARC’s relocation will strip beekeepers and farmers of critical expertise.

“Researchers are truth-tellers, and truth-tellers provide data that does not match the agenda of this administration,” Durant tells Food Tank. “Most people are not going to move. Even though they love their jobs and they want to serve the community, it’s just not an option for them, and the administration knows that.”

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Photo courtesy of Simon Kadula, Unsplash

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Each week, Food Tank is rounding up a few news stories that inspire excitement, infuriation, or curiosity.

USDA Proposes Closure of Bee Research Facilities

Bees and other pollinators are essential to our food system. They are uncredited workers who support the production of many of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts we consume everyday. But pollinator populations are facing increasing stress due to climate change-related threats and diseases.

Globally, wild bee and native pollinator populations are declining rapidly, and managed honeybees are experiencing similar threat. Last year, commercial beekeepers in the U.S. reported losing about 60% of their honey bee colonies, the highest loss rate since tracking.

At a time when we need to increase support for bees and beekeepers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has, instead, proposed the federal closure of essential bee research facilities.

One facility is the Beltsville Bee Research Lab in Maryland which has provided support for beekeepers, run disease diagnostics, and conducted essential research for over a century.

The closure of bee research labs reflects a growing trend Food Tank has been reporting on: at the very moment when more support is needed, federal funding is instead being stripped.

Food Insecurity in the U.S. Rises Beyond COVID Rates

Similarly, last year, the US Department of Agriculture stopped collecting data on American food insecurity, arguing that the studies were “redundant” and served to “fear monger.”

But Americans are experiencing food insecurity. The data still exists and it’s shocking.

A new survey released last week from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that food insecurity in the U.S. has reached its highest rate in six years.

Hunger is now more widespread than it was during the summer of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic triggered severe economic disruption and unemployment.

As grocery prices continue to climb and Americans face higher fuel costs, many families are being forced to make impossible choices between necessities.

The report shows about 10% of families reported missing meals. For lower income families, this number doubles. Nearly 20% of families reported having to skip meals or go without food due to financial constraints.

The report also comes on the heels of the FAO’s declaration that a broader global food security crisis may be on the horizon. Geopolitical conflicts and disruptions to the supply of energy, fertilizer, and other agricultural inputs could lead to lower crop yields, and increased global hunger, in the years ahead.

The Colorado River is at a Historic Low

Just as food insecurity is rising globally, water access is becoming an increasingly urgent issue across the American West.

The rules that govern the Colorado River, the primary water source for much of the region, will expire at the end of 2026. But despite years of negotiations, the seven basin states (California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico) still have not reached an agreement on how the river should be managed.

The challenge is driven largely by climate change. More than two decades of drought, rising temperatures, and declining snowpack have reduced river flows and pushed the system’s two largest reservoirs to historically low levels.

The stakes are enormous. The Colorado River supplies water to about 40 million people and irrigates millions of acres of farmland. Any decision about how water shortages are allocated will directly affect farmers and food production.

The negotiations taking place this year will likely shape water policy across the American West for decades to come.

Climate Resiliency and Learning from Dryland Farmers

Now, more than ever, we need to focus on climate resiliency for farmers.

One of the most important places to look for solutions is in the farming communities that have been adapting to water scarcity for generations.

Across dryland regions like East Africa and central Australia, farmers have spent generations producing food in water-scarce and variable environments.

These farmers understand what it means to farm through drought, uncertain rainfall, and extreme heat and, as these conditions increase, this knowledge is becoming more important than ever.

Éliane Ubalijoro with CIFOR-ICRAF said recently that drylands are “rich with opportunity, ecological intelligence, and the potential to drive resilience, economic vitality, and sustainable prosperity for millions.”

Food Tank recently published a list of 10 amazing dryland crops you may not be familiar with. These crops are grown by farmers who are leaders in climate resiliency.

FIMCON Gathers Food is Medicine Professionals

Food Tank attended FIMCON, the largest gathering of food is medicine professionals, last week in Washington, D.C. The event brought together healthcare providers, researchers, policymakers, and advocates who are working to demonstrate how access to healthy, nutritious food can prevent and manage chronic diseases.

As conversations around healthcare continue to evolve, events like FIMCON showcase innovative strategies that recognize food not only as a basic necessity but also as a powerful tool for treatment and prevention.

The goal for food is medicine dialogue in the future is to ensure farmers are always at the center of these discussions.

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Photo courtesy of Mike Newbry, Unsplash

The post Food Tank’s Weekly News Roundup: Colorado River at Historic Low, Dryland Farmers Lead in Resiliency, and Bee Research Facilities’ Proposed Closure appeared first on Food Tank.

Here in the U.S. but certainly also all over the world, when people have questions about health and wellness, nearly three-quarters of us turn to the internet first. And in a country where 1 in 2 adults is experiencing diabetes or pre-diabetes and 7 in 10 faces overweight or obesity, according to The Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, nutrition is increasingly a central subject we’re relying on technology to help guide.

This week, I was in Washington, D.C. for FIMCON, a new national Food is Medicine Conference. I moderated a panel that explored how we can communicate nutrition and health messages to the public using a mix of digital platforms, behavioral science, and emerging artificial intelligence (AI) tools. I spoke with experts including Nira Goren, MD, Head of AI for Societal Health & Food is Medicine at Google; Noosheen Hashemi, Founder & CEO of January AI; and Sarah Mastrorocco, VP & GM of Instacart Health.

I find it fascinating that the increasing public realization of the power of Food is Medicine in recent years has coincided with the boom of generative AI, and I’ve got to be honest: It makes me both excited and nervous. GenAI is a hugely powerful tool—and with major opportunity comes the serious challenge of using it responsibly. That’s exactly why we need to talk about it.

According to a study in Frontiers in Nutrition, AI can be used to deliver personalized nutrition recommendations, enable early dietary interventions to prevent chronic diseases, and optimize food processing to reduce food waste. At the Periodic Table of Food Initiative, researchers are using AI alongside a global database to map out what they call the “dark matter” of food—the overwhelming majority of biomolecules in food we don’t know about—to improve human and planetary health.

These potential impacts stretch from your forks all the way back to our farm fields. At the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) this week, the annual Menus of Change summit brought together chefs, advocates, and private-sector food leaders to discuss ways that food systems of the future—including health-oriented technologies like AI—begin in the kitchen.

And as we’ve reported at Food Tank, AI tools can also help farmers improve their land management practices via precision agriculture; analyze climate risks and predict disruptions before they become disastrous; and strengthen transparent and traceable supply chains.

But of course, no technological solution is a silver bullet. Along with well-documented environmental impacts that cannot be ignored, generative AI exists in an overwhelming internet information ecosystem that is not always accurate.

“Unfortunately about 50 percent of the information online in nutrition is disinformation,” Nira Goren of Google told us at Food Tank’s SXSW Summit earlier this year. “So navigating that sea of information—what’s high quality, what’s not high-quality, why are these two institutions saying conflicting things—is something we wanted to help make better.”

To address this, Google is working with the Tufts Food is Medicine Institute to ensure their tools and models are both building upon and delivering the best available public nutrition information.

And the public health landscape has changed significantly in recent years. For example, challenges around obesity have really only become predominant in the past few decades, says cardiologist Dariush Mozaffarian, the Director of the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University.

“I graduated medical school in 1995; we were talking about eating disorders (when) we talked about nutrition. There wasn’t an obesity epidemic in 1995. So this has happened in just the last 30 years in our adult lifetimes,” he says.

And the economic stakes are higher than ever, too. Besides the quality-of-life impacts of poor nutrition, health care spending and lost productivity from sub-optimal diets cost the economy US$1.1 trillion in the U.S. alone, per The Rockefeller Foundation. So the costs of getting things wrong—or doing nothing!—are enormous.

There’s no question that the food movement needs to ask serious questions about the future of generative AI. When it comes to protecting biodiversity, establishing food sovereignty, and even the idea that food is our first and best medicine, we often find deeply powerful answers in Indigenous wisdom that has guided humanity for millennia. As the climate crisis becomes more intense, we cannot afford to make certain sacrifices but we also cannot afford to leave powerful tools on the table unused.

In other words, some new problems require new solutions. Investing in emerging technologies to bolster our efforts to nourish the planet can truly pay off—if we manage them responsibly and center equity and justice in all of our decision-making.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Nathan Dumlao, Unsplash

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FoodCorps and Teachers College, Columbia University recently announced a new microcredential designed to help K-5 teachers integrate food education into everyday classroom learning. The six-week program, Food Education in the Classroom (Food-E), combines nutrition science and experiential learning to help educators foster students’ knowledge, curiosity, and confidence around food.

Food-E is launching on the 80th anniversary of the National School Lunch Program, which feeds nearly 30 million students every school day and is an important source of fruits and vegetables for many children, Rachel Willis, President of FoodCorps, tells Food Tank.

But access alone is not enough, according to FoodCorps. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that 60 percent of U.S. children fall short of fruit intake recommendations and 93 percent do not consume enough vegetables.

The launch comes eight months after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act cuts eliminated SNAP-Ed, a federal nutrition education program that served roughly 90 million Americans, including 35 million children. One consequence of those cuts, Willis says, was the loss of nutrition educators in schools and communities. Food-E is designed to help address that gap by preparing K-5 teachers to integrate food education throughout the school day.

The course integrates biology, ecology, environmental science, sociology, and history, allowing educators to connect food lessons to existing learning standards rather than treating food education as a separate subject. Willis says conversations with Pamela Koch, Associate Professor of Nutrition and Education at Teachers College and head of the Food-E program, helped shape this approach.

Koch’s work with educators reveals a common challenge: many teachers recognize the value of food education but struggle to fit it into already packed curricula. Food-E addresses that challenge by helping educators identify opportunities within lessons they already teach. A geometry lesson, for example, might incorporate food through concepts such as measurement, shapes, or fractions.

The course also encourages teachers to make use of “micromoments”—brief periods before an assembly, during transitions, or at the end of the school day—to spark conversations and curiosity about food. Rather than adding another responsibility to educators’ workloads, Willis says the goal is to make food education a natural part of students’ daily learning experiences.

Food-E pairs nutrition science with experiential learning, helping educators help students engage with food through hands-on activities. According to FoodCorps, an average of 60 percent of students who participate in its food education programs report greater preference for fruits and vegetables. Students who participate in more hands-on activities, such as cooking and gardening, consume up to three times as many fruits and vegetables.

Willis says Food-E is designed to help more educators bring these experiences into the classroom through activities ranging from cooking and gardening to science experiments, taste tests and food-related storytelling, helping students build curiosity, confidence, and agency around food from an early age.

In addition to nutrition science and classroom activities, Food-E challenges participants to think critically about their own experiences with food. Early modules ask participants to reflect on their memories of school meals, the messages they received about food growing up, and the experiences that shaped their attitudes toward eating. The course also explores how those experiences can influence classroom conversations and shape students’ perceptions of food.

Willis says this work is important because educators have an opportunity to help children develop curiosity and confidence around food rather than judgment or anxiety. Reflecting on her own experience, Willis says her work in food education has led her to reconsider some of her own assumptions about food. Food-E, she explains, creates space for educators to do the same while ensuring that students have the opportunity to develop their own relationships with food.

Making Food-E broadly accessible was essential to FoodCorps’ vision for the program. Willis says the organization wanted to create a resource that could support nutrition educators, classroom teachers across disciplines, and individuals with little or no prior experience in food education. That approach extends to the program’s cost. FoodCorps set the enrollment fee at US$295 in an effort to reduce barriers to participation and make it easier for both schools and individual educators to enroll.

FoodCorps envisions a future in which all 50 million public school students have access to food education and nourishing meals at school. Willis says Food-E is a critical tool for scaling that impact. By equipping more educators with food education tools, Willis believes the program can help build support for policies and practices that expand children’s access to nourishing school food.

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Food to Power is working to expand food access, food and education, and food production to create a more equitable food and agriculture system in the greater Colorado Springs region.

What started as a food recovery organization in 2013 has evolved into much more. The nonprofit operates a no-cost grocery program, runs a quarter-acre farm to grow produce that they sell at a local farmers market, and organizes a youth internship program. They also engage in policy advocacy to advance legislation that builds healthier and more equitable food and agriculture systems and they collect food scraps to turn into compost. 

The goal is to create a healthier food ecosystem, Patience Kabwasa, the organization’s Executive Director explains. “We’re really taking food and transforming it, regenerating it into power through everything that we do.”  

A key part of this work is reclaiming land stewardship practices. Their Hillside Hub sits in a historically Black neighborhood in the southeastern part of Colorado Springs, where residents may have become disconnected from agricultural roots. 

“Being able to have a space where you’re able to learn and produce in a way that benefits yourself and your community is really important to us as an organization,” Kabwasa tells Food Tank. 

Food to Power, like many nonprofits in the United States, have experienced challenges in the face of recent funding cuts and canceled grants. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had awarded them a US$350,000 regional environmental justice grant—but last year they learned the funds were no longer available. 

“We had to absorb that, which was a huge blow,” Kabwasa says. “So we really had to think about what our core programs and how we get food to people.” 

The news also pushed Food to Power to think differently about expansion strategies and diversifying their budget to become less grant-dependent. “We need to be able to navigate this time for the foreseeable future,” Kabwasa says. 

New partnerships offer one way forward as they scale their composting work, a source of income for the organization. And even with limited resources, Food to Power’s program reached 44,000 households last year—a 34 percent increase from the year before. 

“We’re moving through and we are being generative in this time of difficulty,” Kabwasa tells Food Tank, “and really taking it as an opportunity to just root down even deeper and build across the region.” 

Listen to or watch the full conversation with Patience Kabwasa on Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg to hear more about how Food to Power is co-creating solutions with their neighbors, Kabwasa’s journey into food justice work, and the policy wins that the organization helped make happen. 

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This article is part of Food Tank’s primer series, “Food Tank Explains.” Each installment unpacks the ideas, innovations, and challenges shaping today’s food and agriculture systems, offering clear insights into complex topics. To explore more articles in the series, click here.

Agroforestry is a land management system that integrates trees with crops or livestock, delivering benefits for food security, environmental outcomes, and farm incomes.

Unlike monocultures, where a single crop is grown over large areas, agroforestry allows different biological systems to interact and strengthen one another, mimicking natural ecosystems. Tree roots release carbon into the soil, improving soil health, and reduce erosion by helping to support soil structures. The trees provide fodder for livestock and corridors for wildlife, while the animals enrich the soil and help with seed dispersal.

Canadian forester John Bene coined the term “agroforestry” in 1973, calling for global recognition of the key role trees play on farms. But, according to World Agroforestry (ICRAF), the practice has ancient origins steeped in local wisdom and traditional knowledge from around the world.

East Amazon communities adopted agroforestry 4,500 years ago, according to research published in Nature Plants, cultivating multiple crops alongside edible forest species. Farmers in West Africa have practiced the parkland system, one of the oldest agroforestry techniques, for over 1,000 years, growing crops like millet and sorghum beneath scattered baobabs and shea trees.

Modern agroforestry systems vary widely across regions and communities, reflecting differences in environmental conditions, cultural traditions, available resources, and local needs.

Agroforestry systems can strengthen food security by increasing and diversifying yield and by improving the availability of micronutrient-rich fruits, seeds, and nuts during lean growing periods, Todd Rosenstock, Director of CGIAR Climate Action, tells Food Tank. They can also serve as an important source of income diversification, and help generate sales that enable the purchase of further food products.

A women’s cooperative, founded by a Lenca community in Honduras, grows fair trade organic coffee under fruit-bearing trees like mango, plantain, and jackfruit. This increases crop diversity and yield, providing the cooperative with fruits that they can barter or sell at the market.

Multi-species, multi-storied, and multi-purpose gardens located close to home are common to many parts of Indonesia. Referred to as “home gardens,” these plots were historically producing foods for home consumption. Now, home gardens play a fundamental role in providing income. They are also considered to have the highest biodiversity of any human-created ecosystem.

In South and Southeast Asia, rotational farming is deeply rooted in traditional knowledge, philosophy, and spirituality, and provides a crucial source of livelihood and food security for millions of people. Prasert Tralkansuphakon, Chair of Pgakenyaw Association for Sustainable Development and Inter Mountain People Education and Culture Association in Thailand, describes agroforestry as a means of producing both food and income “in a traditional and innovative way, managed both by humans and nature, or [just] by humans, but in a natural way.”

As farmers face more frequent extreme weather events, some agroforestry systems seek to offer protection while others help improve resiliency. Windbreaks include linear tree plantings that shelter crops and soil from wind, snow, and dust. In silvopasture systems, which integrate trees and livestock, trees provide animals essential shade and shelter from extreme heat.

Karina Gonçalves David, Co-founder of ProNobis Agroflorestal, tells Food Tank that the agroforestry system on her family’s farm helps their crops withstand extreme weather. By forming a protective microclimate, the system shields crops from winter freezes, limits soil erosion, and increases the soil’s water-holding capacity.

And ICRAF research suggests that agroforestry is linked with benefits for planetary health including prevention of both air pollution and heat exposure for farmworkers, and regulation of solar radiation and wind.

To expand agroforestry more widely, researchers suggest pairing locally adapted practices with stronger support systems. CIFOR-ICRAF calls for investments in extension services, market development, and institutional capacity, while Cornell University researchers suggest that integrated landscape management can help align efforts among farmers, researchers, policymakers, and the private sector to address persistent barriers.

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The Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, in partnership with Kaiser Permanente, launched a new Food is Medicine Toolkit to provide clinicians and medical practitioners an evidence-based guide to improve health outcomes through nutrition interventions.

“If you care about health, nutrition has to be at the top of the list. Not top five, not top three, top of the list. Poor nutrition is the single leading cause of death and disability in the United States and around the world,” says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian—Director of the Tufts University Food is Medicine Institute.

“We need to make sure that we’re implementing the right programs… built on the most promising evidence… so that they can be most effective. Because at the end of the day, what we want is improved health outcomes and lower cost of care,” asserts Pam Schwartz, Executive Director of Community Health at Kaiser Permanente. The Toolkit is designed to help practitioners and patients alike, featuring comprehensive modules and infographics based on the most relevant dietetic evidence.

The toolkit offers templates for structuring food is medicine (FIM) programs tailored to fit the needs of specific institutions and patient populations, recognizing that “there is no single best model.” These templates aim to assist care teams with community partnerships and the successful implementation of FIM interventions.

While coverage for healthcare-administered dietary intervention programs varies across states, the Toolkit represents a positive shift in how clinicians and patients understand the relationship between food and personal health.

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Coffee Watch and the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) recently launched the Coffee Agroforestry E-Library. The freely accessible database compiles more than 60 years of global scientific research on agroforestry coffee systems. 

Coffee Watch finds that research has been scattered across journals and institutions, with much of it sitting behind paywalls. This forces researchers, policymakers, and farmers to conduct time-intensive searches to locate relevant literature. 

The e-library contains over 1,300 peer-reviewed studies, manuals, and technical reports. By consolidating decades of research into a single open platform, Coffee Watch and CATIE hope to make agroforestry evidence more accessible to governments, NGOs, industry actors, and farmers.

The database has also revealed opportunities for future research. Studies can often examine individual elements rather than holistic approaches, says Arlene López-Sampson, a lead researcher involved in developing the database. “Publications are focused on the implication of one variable on crop management or conservation, not the intersection of these variables on different dimensions,” she tells Food Tank. She adds that economic and social benefits of coffee agroforestry systems remain underexplored.

Coffee is the most widely traded tropical product and an important export for many producing countries, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Many countries depend on coffee, says Coffee Watch Founder Etelle Higonnet. “Without that money, they would not be able to pay for things like law enforcement. There would be system-wide collapse,” Higonnet tells Food Tank. But Coffee Watch notes that coffee supply chains have long been linked to environmental degradation, deforestation, and human rights violations.

To increase short-term yields, sun-grown monoculture systems that remove trees and rely heavily on synthetic pesticides have been widely adopted by major producing countries, including Brazil and Vietnam. Coffee Watch reports that these practices degrade soils and contribute to water contamination, ecosystem damage, and public health risks.

Monoculture further contributes to the climate crisis through deforestation, reduced carbon storage, and intensive chemical use. A study in the journal Climatic Change warns that the climate crisis may reduce the land fit for coffee cultivation by 50 percent by 2050. 

But governments and industry are promoting full-sun monoculture and pesticides, Higonnet says. “They are pulling farmers in the wrong direction,” she tells Food Tank. 

Higonnet views agroforestry as part of the solution. According to the FAO, these systems can improve biodiversity, resilience to climate stress, farmer income, and carbon storage. But Coffee Watch reports that adoption of these practices remains uneven. Transitioning to agroforestry requires support for farmers in choosing tree species to plant, accessing markets for diversified products, and financing the change.

“You cannot roll out a good agroforestry program at scale if you do not put people at the heart of it,” Higonnet says. “The human rights and environmental reforms that need to happen in coffee are indissociable.”

Many coffee farmers live on less than US$1.25 per day. And the U.S. Department of Labor reports persistent human rights violations across coffee supply chains, including child labor and forced labor in several producing countries such as Vietnam, Brazil, and Costa Rica.

Dependence on monocropping can reinforce this vulnerability, Higonnet says. “Monocropping keeps farmers hostage to the vicissitudes of market shocks and impoverishes them catastrophically if the price of coffee falls on the world market,” she says. “Not being able to do agroforestry means no income diversity and less food security for coffee farmers.”

Coffee Watch views the e-library as one component of a broader push for the sector to support farmers absorbing the financial risks of switching to agroforestry. Complex supply chains, limited traceability, and inconsistent reporting standards continue to make it difficult to assess corporate progress on environmental and social commitments. 

Coffee Watch plans to publish a scorecard ranking major coffee companies based on their agroforestry practices and policies. It will highlight strengths and gaps in publicly available sustainability disclosures while inviting companies to provide additional detail about their initiatives.

Higonnet notes that where coffee agroforestry research exists, it is rarely written for those implementing it. “The science is written to get tenure or grants or things like that, not to make sense to regular people or coffee companies, far less farmers,” she says. “The e-library does not make the information more digestible; it makes it more accessible.”

Over time, Higonnet hopes the e-library will be used by ministries of agriculture and farmer organizations to translate the science into more practical guidance that farmers can apply.

“The science is crystal clear: agroforestry coffee is a big win for farmer food security and income diversification, a massive win for carbon and biodiversity, and the best way to climate-proof our coffee,” Higonnet tells Food Tank. “We’re at the edge of a cliff, but we can walk back. If we care and if we act, we can make the world a better place with every cup.”

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Feeding Change at the Milken Institute recently released a report providing Food Is Medicine (FIM) stakeholders with a framework for designing, governing, and sustaining partnerships. The report, Activating the FIM Ecosystem: A Framework for Stakeholder Partnerships, seeks to help nonprofit, for-profit, and public policy actors collaborate in an increasingly complex sector.

According to the report, FIM began as a community-based response to unmet nutrition and health needs, evolved into a national movement, and has now reached a critical inflection point.

FIM programs rely on an expanding range of activities, from clinical referrals and care coordination to reimbursement, data sharing, and food delivery. Coordination requires an increasing number of stakeholders, including health care providers, community-based organizations (CBOs), participants, food retailers, funders, and transportation companies.

This growing complexity can create barriers to collaboration, the report says. FIM stakeholders interviewed for the report describe challenges including unclear roles, misaligned incentives, redundant responsibilities, uncertain payment pathways, and decision-making structures that struggle to adapt as programs evolve. This causes strained relationships, reduces efficiency, and reduces the ability to scale FIM programs.

Increasing resilience in an ever-changing FIM landscape requires thoughtful partnership design and adaptable models, Holly Freishtat, Senior Director of Feeding Change, tells Food Tank. Rather than prescribing a single model or a universal solution, the report offers a variety of tools.

The report is designed to help stakeholders quickly navigate to the sections most relevant to their objectives, sector, and stage of engagement in the FIM ecosystem, the co-authors explain. And certain sections are interactive and customizable. It was intentionally designed for stakeholders across the FIM ecosystem, Anna Lin-Schweitzer, Associate Director at Feeding Change and co-author of the report, tells Food Tank.

“We wanted to make sure that the toolkit was not designed just for one sector or just for one stakeholder, that it was going to be useful to anyone who picked it up,” Lin-Schweitzer says. “Whether they’re a nonprofit or a health plan or a food retailer, whether they have been in the FIM space for a long time or they just started.”

To develop the framework, Feeding Change conducted 43 interviews, two sector-specific working sessions, and a 40-person roundtable, while also incorporating feedback from FIM program participants. Freishtat says the resulting recommendations were grounded in qualitative analysis and stakeholder experience.

The report is organized around three themes. The first, Designing Partnership Architecture, explores a range of partnership structures applicable to a variety of goals, funding mechanisms, operation scales, and stages of development.

The Optimizing Funding Partnerships for Collaboration section, explores existing funding pathways, ensuring stakeholders are aware of their options and encouraging a diversified financing approach.

And Building Shared Understanding and Long-Term Value, focuses on challenges that commonly emerge as partnerships develop, scale, and adapt to changing circumstances. According to the report, aligning goals, responsibilities, decision-making processes, and measures of success can help organizations navigate these tensions in the long term.

Looking ahead, Lin-Schweitzer highlights the importance of cross-sector and cross-regional collaboration, which allows stakeholders to learn from one another and build on existing successes. Lin-Schweitzer also emphasizes the value of keeping program participants involved in, and at the center of, FIM discussions.

According to Freishtat, “if we want to see reduced healthcare costs and improved health and nutrition outcomes, we need to be very intentional and strategic and disciplined on how we continue to design, evolve, and grow FIM for this country.”

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The 100% Fish Program, created by the Iceland Ocean Cluster, is working to transform fish byproducts into new economic value chains. The program is committed to using every part of the fish, from eyes to livers to skin, to reduce food waste while helping breathe new life into coastal economies.

Fishing is the pillar of Iceland’s economy, accounting for 40 percent of export earnings, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

In 1983, Iceland introduced a temporary quota system to protect declining fish stocks, setting a Total Allowable Catch (TAC) for the first time. It became permanent in 1990 as an Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) system, with TACs now issued annually based on scientific research.

While this was great news for the conservation of Iceland’s fisheries, it left fisherfolk and the industry asking “how do we do more with less?” Alexandra Leeper, CEO of the Iceland Ocean Cluster, tells Food Tank.

In 2011, Thor Sigfusson started the Iceland Ocean Cluster. His doctoral research revealed that companies in natural resource industries tended to shy away from networking, preferring to close off markets and keep others out. According to Leeper, Sigfusson wanted to highlight existing work and identify entrepreneurs, fishing businesses, and researchers who could drive further innovation once connected.

The 100% Fish Program began with high-volume, lower-value applications, such as streamlining fillet processing to preserve more meat. It championed drying fish heads for export. Eventually, the cluster began working toward low-volume, high-value innovations, like medical skin grafts, pharmaceuticals, and supplements like Dropi, a cold-pressed fish oil.

“It’s also building on heritage,” says Leeper, pointing to fish skin leather as an example of a traditional product reimagined as a modern textile.

The Iceland Ocean Cluster estimates that in Europe and North America, over 50 percent of a cod’s material weight is wasted in the production process. That waste represents not just lost material but lost economic potential.

“What we calculate today is that there’s about US$5,000 being created from a single fish when we look at all these potential opportunities,” says Leeper. For comparison, in the 1970s one Icelandic cod was worth roughly US$12 in its entirety.

Organizations around the globe reach out to the Iceland Ocean Cluster to launch their own 100% Fish Programs. There are now sister ocean clusters on five continents. Each new ecosystem offers a unique opportunity for the Icelandic team to work alongside local industries, governments, and community partners to tailor the program to their circumstances. 

“The first place we really tested this out and built an understanding of how to adapt the steps and lessons from Iceland and cod to a new, very different ecosystem was in the Great Lakes,” says Leeper.

David Naftzger is the Executive Director of Great Lakes St. Lawrence Governors & Premiers, where, with the support of the Iceland Ocean Cluster, he helped launch the 100% Great Lakes Fish Project. He says there have been significant environmental gains as some of the program’s most immediate and important wins.

Since 2022, more than 40 companies and organizations, representing over 90 percent of the region’s commercial fish production, have signed the 100% Great Lakes Fish Pledge to end landfilling and fully utilize each fish by the end of 2025.

“Environmentally, landfilling organic waste is highly emissions-intensive, generating nearly 400 kg CO₂e per ton,” Naftzger tells Food Tank. “Diverting fish waste from landfill to even a low-value alternative, such as composting, can reduce emissions by roughly 90 percent.”

For the Namibia Ocean Cluster (NOC), which brings together six of the nation’s largest vertically integrated hake fishing companies—including Hangana Seafood and Seawork Seafood—much of the work comes down to building trust. “Generally, all of Namibia’s fishing companies are fiercely competitive, and the culture is one of operating independently,” Pierre Le Roux, Chairperson of the NOC, tells Food Tank.

“In the hake sector alone, at least 30 percent of the fish is lost as waste,” says Le Roux. “In this day and age, how many industries can afford to throw away 30 percent of their product?” He sees collaboration as the key, arguing that if more companies join the NOC, the shared research and marketing costs of developing high-value products from processing waste become manageable for everyone.

These cross-sector connections are one of the program’s greatest assets going forward, Leeper believes. The Iceland Ocean Cluster is currently developing a 100% Fish Program playbook to help disseminate knowledge and build systems that benefit both the environment and the evolving needs of the global fishing economy.

“Sharing these stories,” says Leeper, “and sharing them in unlikely places and connecting with people is hugely powerful.”

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Homeless Hunger, a youth-led volunteer is providing meals to unhoused individuals in Sydney, Australia. The initiative aims to cook and deliver 50 meals every one to two weeks.

Natalia Alderson, a high school student, explains that she felt unsatisfied by passively observing the hardships endured by unhoused people in her city. She realized she could offer home-cooked meals to those in need by mobilizing a group of peers at her school.

“We carry bags of food in containers and hand it out to people around Sydney Central Station and the surrounding park,” Alderson tells Food Tank. “If it’s a hot day, we try to also provide bottles of water.” The students make their delivery at a similar time and along the same route each time. They hope that this consistency allows those in need of the meals to locate them.

What began as a personal response has become a coordinated, student-led initiative to engage in direct community action. Homeless Hunger reports that they have cooked and distributed almost 500 meals.

Using Jame Oliver’s stew recipes, Alderson and her team focus on nutritious and scalable meals that are rich in protein and have broad appeal. The meals are distributed with napkins, forks, and sometimes a biscuit. And as important as the meals themselves are, Alderson emphasizes the power of human connection as one of the initiative’s most powerful components.

“While the meals provide short-term nourishment, the act of stopping, speaking, and acknowledging someone can be just as meaningful,” Alderson tells Food Tank.

According to Foodbank Australia’s 2025 Hunger Report, one in three Australian households experienced food insecurity in 2025, making hunger a highly prevalent and pressing issue to tackle nationwide 

Alderson hopes to see the program grow even further, aiming to provide hundreds more meals over the next year. She also hopes that the project serves as an example of the power and potential of grassroots youth-led direct action.

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Each week, Food Tank is rounding up a few news stories that inspire excitement, infuriation, or curiosity.

U.S. States Move To Ban Food Dyes and Additives

The USDA’s new public tracking system was updated this month to show the progress food companies are making to remove petroleum-based synthetic dyes from their products.

This federal push encourages companies to act before states implement their own restrictions but, over the past few days, several states have advanced major food safety measures to limit or ban certain food dyes and chemical additives.

In Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds signed a sweeping health bill that bans certain artificial food dyes and additives from school meals and expands ingredient-related health regulations.

The legislation prohibits six food dyes and two additives from foods and drinks served in many K-12 schools across the state. The law is being described as one of the most prominent state-level food and health measures in the country.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in New York have advanced the “Food Safety and Chemical Disclosure Act,” which would ban additives in foods sold in the state.

Potassium bromate, one of the additives targeted in the New York bill, is commonly used to strengthen dough and improve texture in some iconic New York foods like pizza and bagels.

According to a report from The New York Times, some bakers have pushed back against the proposal, arguing the additive helps preserve the texture and consistency of traditional recipes.

However, many bakeries have taken the bill in stride and are now adjusting their family recipes to ensure a safer slice for New Yorkers.

Thailand’s THAIFEX Expo Highlights the Global Shift Away From Ultra-Processed Foods

As legislation moves forward in U.S. states, food leaders are gathering in Bangkok this week to discuss the next generation of cleaner, more sustainable foods at Thailand’s THAIFEX expo.

THAIFEX is one of Asia’s largest food and beverage trade shows and is being promoted by the Thai government as part of its strategy to position Thailand as a global food hub.

One of the primary focuses of this year’s expo is the future of alternative proteins, especially plant-based products.

Industry leaders at the expo are emphasizing a shift toward plant-based foods that are more affordable, more flavorful, and more nutritious than earlier generations of meat substitutes.

Fermentation technology is also a major theme at the conference this year, as companies look for new ways to create proteins and ingredients with fewer additives and less industrial processing.

The event reflects a broader global push to adapt food production as governments, startups, and major food manufacturers respond to concerns about climate impact, supply chain resilience, and long-term food security.

U.S.-Mexico Trade Disputes Continue to Drive Up Tomato Prices

In the U.S., trade disputes with Mexico over tomatoes are beginning to hit consumers. More than 70% of the fresh tomatoes consumed in the U.S. are imported from Mexico, making American grocery prices especially vulnerable to supply disruptions and tariffs.

Last year, Food Tank reported on the U.S.’s termination of the “Tomato Suspension Agreement.” Now, the U.S. is enforcing a 17% tariff on many fresh tomatoes imported from Mexico and American consumers are feeling the effects of rising costs.

Tomato prices recently reached an eight-year high, 23% above last year’s prices.

Supporters of the tariffs, including many Florida tomato growers, argue that Mexican producers have long sold tomatoes below fair market value, undermining domestic farmers. But industry experts warn that U.S. producers are unlikely to replace Mexico’s supply quickly enough to stabilize prices.

The situation has been further complicated by winter freezes and crop diseases across North America this year which significantly reduced tomato production on both sides of the border.

Food policy experts say the dispute underscores broader challenges facing the global food system, including climate-related production risks, water scarcity, supply chain vulnerability, and growing concerns about long-term food security and regional resilience.

Federal Decision Could Remove Bison From Public Lands

Concerns about regional resilience are also surfacing in the American West this week, where a federal decision threatening bison herds has sparked backlash from tribal nations and conservation advocates.

The recent federal decision could remove bison from public land in Montana, potentially displacing nearly 1,000 animals.

The decision centers on grazing permits administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), where officials have argued that bison are not a “productive” livestock species like cattle.

Bison help shape grassland ecosystems, support biodiversity, and maintain prairie health. They also hold deep cultural and economic importance for many Native American tribes.

In the late 1800s, federal eradication campaigns devastated the North American bison population from tens of millions to only a few hundred surviving bison.

Tribal nations and conservation groups have spent decades rebuilding herds and restoring the species to parts of its historic range.

The Coalition of Large Tribes joined protests to oppose the bison removal as a threat to tribal food sovereignty, cultural traditions, and ongoing conservation efforts. They argue the federal decision may mark worse to come for bison herds across the country.

The Hajj Brings People—and Culinary Traditions—Together

This week also marks the beginning of the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the largest religious gatherings in the world. Millions of Muslims are traveling from across the globe to Saudi Arabia, bringing with them important food traditions, ingredients, and cooking styles from their communities.

Pilgrims this week will share foods including Indonesian rice dishes, Nigerian stews, South Asian biryanis, North African couscous, Turkish desserts, and so many more regional specialties.

Food safety, refrigeration, sanitation, and supply logistics become especially critical during the pilgrimage because of the scale of the gathering and the intense summer temperatures in Saudi Arabia.

This week, thousands of farmers, workers, volunteers, and aid organizations will work to get meals safely to millions of people participating in the Hajj.

At a time of such global division, the Hajj is a reminder that food remains one of the most powerful ways people connect across borders, languages, and traditions.

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The post Food Tank’s Weekly News Roundup: The Hajj Begins, States Move to Ban Food Dyes and Additives, and Trade Disputes Continue to Drive Up Tomato Prices appeared first on Food Tank.

Nicholas Enrich knew he had to go public.

Enrich was one of the top global health officials at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), where he’d worked under four Presidential administrations. When the Trump-Vance Administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency began taking steps to dismantle USAID, Enrich knew the results would be devastating.

In March 2025, Enrich released a set of whistleblowing memos exposing the Administration’s actions and the harm they caused. He warns that the destruction of the agency “will no doubt result in preventable death, destabilization, and threats to national security on a massive scale.”

This year, Food Tank has been exploring these far-reaching consequences—and, crucially, exploring how we rebuild and strengthen these life-saving aid programs—in an ongoing monthly podcast series. In your podcast feeds today, we’re featuring my conversation with Enrich, who recently published a book called “Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID.” You can listen to the episode here.

“People have been focusing a lot on the impacts that have already happened, and they’ve been enormous,” he told me. “But it’s that next generation that is really what keeps me up at night. We’ve abandoned a generation of children who we had been committed to providing immunizations against the world’s deadliest diseases.”

Enrich is right. As I’ve traveled on ground-truthing research trips, I’ve observed the effects of the dismantling of USAID and similar aid programs first-hand. Disease prevention work and other scientific research is slowing down or stalled, food security efforts are facing existential budget shortfalls, and vital steps to support women and girls are threatened.

“I don’t think anybody expected that the rug would be pulled out from under humanity in an instant,” Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins, President and CEO of PAI, told me on a previous episode of our USAID podcast series. “This wasn’t just about cuts…This was really a dismantling of systems that advance health, human rights and economic development.”

Ultimately, Enrich told me, it was too late for whistleblowers like him to save USAID—but it’s not too late to protect and even strengthen other institutions against political threats like the ones we’ve seen in recent years. His book ends with a series of recommendations for civil servants and other advocates to speak out against unethical behavior and take actions that can literally save lives.

“You cannot wait for somebody else to take responsibility,” he reminded us. “We all think that there’s somebody else who’s more senior, or who has seen more, or (that) somebody else is better positioned to be the one to speak out. And I think my story is a good example of the fact that there is nobody else…You need to speak out when you’re being asked to do things that you know are not right.”

Food Tank’s USAID podcast series has also featured a conversation with Abby Maxman, President and CEO of Oxfam America, and some of our next conversations will be with food and nutrition economist Patrick Webb and global food policy researcher and professor Caitlin Grady. Throughout the summer and beyond, we’ll look at what the agency’s closure means for public health (HIV/AIDS and malaria), climate resilience on farms, agricultural research and development, and US farmers.

It’s overwhelming to wrap our heads around the full effects of the dismantling of USAID. But if there’s one thing I’ve taken away from my conversations on the Food Talk podcast, it’s this: If one person’s decision-making can have such a destructive impact, imagine the scale of positive change that a global community of citizen eaters can have!

“What does a better world look like? It’s about caring for common humanity. And I’m seeing people mobilizing, taking action,” Maxman told me.

Again, you can click here to tune in to my full conversation with Nicholas Enrich, and I want to close this note to you with something he said that I found particularly motivating.

We cannot afford to be bystanders—not ever, and especially not in a precarious moment like right now. Not everyone is in a position like Enrich was, to be a whistleblower, and not everyone can put their livelihood on the line. But, in one way or another, everyone can step up and stand up for what’s right.

“Courage is contagious,” Enrich said. “And I hope that people will, as you see other people, speak out. It’ll be an additional encouragement to know that sometimes you have to say the right thing.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Ian Taylor, Unsplash

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Wild Kid Acres began as a neglected piece of land in Maryland, largely overlooked and used as a dumping ground. Today, it is a thriving community hub that draws tens of thousands of visitors each year. Founder Gerardo Martinez says that the transformation represents a broader vision of what farming can be.

“I want to showcase the impact of what a farm can do beyond just growing food,” says Martinez, who not only sells food through Wild Kid Acres but hosts agricultural education, including youth and family programming, and is a refuge for animal therapy.

The seeds for Wild Kid Acres were planted many years prior. After serving in the Marine Corps, Martinez traveled to Cameroon through leadership development work, where he visited a farm that inspired him to see farming as a form of community care.

“It was not just where they grew food. It’s also where they went for community. It’s where the church was. It’s also where the school was,” says Martinez. “It’s where you went if you felt bad. It’s where you went if you felt good. It was everything to them.”

Martinez was inspired to build something similar when he returned to the United States in 2019. He and his wife purchased an abandoned property that others had used to dump trash. They moved onto the land in an RV and began slowly restoring it.

As Martinez rebuilt the soil using regenerative practices, his neighbors began to take notice. Neighbors would pull their cars into his driveway to ask questions about what he was doing. Initially, he kept the farm closed off. 

“Empathy isn’t my strongest suit that I can bring to the table,” Martinez admits. But one day in late 2020, a woman pulled into his driveway, said hello, and broke down crying. The encounter convinced him to offer his property as an investment in the community.

Wild Kid Acres began opening to the public for just two hours on Saturdays. The community’s response was immediate: There were 6,000 visitors in 2021. Martinez says the farm quickly evolved into the type of gathering place he saw in Cameroon.

The team began giving away food and investing more deeply in the surrounding community. Volunteers helped build infrastructure, including a barn constructed with the help of local children.

“It started becoming this community center,” Martinez says.

By last year, Wild Kid Acres had welcomed 50,000 visitors. But more important for Martinez has been its work empowering the next generation.

“How do we grow food ethically and still care for the planet? Why isn’t anyone helping the farmers? Why aren’t there farmers that look like me? How can I become a farmer?” Martinez recalls children asking. They were able to see the range of systemic challenges facing farmers much more quickly than adults typically would, he says.

Their questions led Martinez to rethink the farm’s direction. Wild Kid Acres is now focused on building pathways into agriculture for young people. Recently, Martinez launched a new initiative to support youth-led farming ventures, which offers support to young farmers across the country with marketing, access to markets, and capital.

For Martinez, this work is urgent. He believes the future of agriculture depends on investing in those who will carry it forward.

“These kids are going to grow food and feed your kids. They should be the priority within everything you write, everything you invest,” he says. “My farm doesn’t matter unless my grandkids can take it over.

Watch Martinez’s story below and find others from our farmer storytelling events on Food Tank’s YouTube channel.

This article is part of Food Tank’s ongoing Farmer Friday series, produced in partnership with Niman Ranch, a champion for independent U.S. family farmers. The series highlights the stories of farmers working toward a more sustainable, equitable food system. Niman Ranch partners with over 500 small-scale U.S. family farmers and is committed to preserving rural agricultural communities and their way of life.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Wild Kid Acres

The post A Regenerative Farm Becomes a Lifeline for Community and Youth appeared first on Food Tank.

A new book by former civil servant Nicholas Enrich offers an insider’s account of the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)—and the steps he took to speak out against the destruction.

During the early months of the Trump-Vance Administration, USAID was the target of funding freezes, program cancellations, staff layoffs, and more. Federal officials said they were “clearing significant waste, before the agency officially shuttered in July 2025. But Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID paints a different picture. 

“The agency was dismantled, not because it was wasteful, not because it wasn’t working or inefficient or to better align foreign aid with the President’s agenda,” Enrich tells Food Tank. “It was demolished by a group of uninformed and unqualified sycophants who were working to satisfy the ego of the world’s richest man.” He says he needed to write this book to set the record straight and explain what really happened.

Enrich worked at USAID under four administrations, most recently serving as Acting Assistant Administrator for Global Health. Like any institution, there were ways that USAID could operate more productively, he believed. And before officials from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) arrived, he optimistically prepared a list of ways he thought he could be helpful.

But within a couple of weeks, it was obvious to Enrich that DOGE wasn’t interested in making the agency operate better. The tipping point, he says, is when Elon Musk posted on X in early February that the government had “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” 

Just a day before, Musk also called the agency “a criminal organization”—a statement that Enrich says was painful to hear. “I thought there was a certain valor in dedicating your career to public service,” he tells Food Tank. “You felt like this is a country that you want to make better, that you’re willing to make that sacrifice….It was a calling.” 

After this, Enrich watched with alarm as life-saving aid was eliminated. Programs to tackle infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria and support maternal and child health were canceled overnight.

“I think people have been focusing a lot on the impacts that have already happened, and they have been enormous,” Enrich says. But it’s the impact on future generations that “really keeps me up at night.” 

Enrich and colleagues began to document what was happening, which he compiled into three memos. The first tracked every effort he and others made to re-start the agency’s work and the roadblocks they encountered at every step of the way. The second focused on the destruction of the workforce “that made it impossible to do our work even if we had been allowed to,” Enrich says. The third highlighted the extent of the damage, based on modeling and projections from technical experts. 

Enrich knew that distributing these memos publicly would cost him his job, but by that time DOGE was terminating contracts needed to continue USAID’s work. “Once it became clear that’s where we stood, I realized that I was not going to be able to fix this from within,” Enrich tells Food Tank. “And my silence, if I continued, would really be complicity.” 

Listen to the full conversation with Nicholas Enrich on Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg to hear more about what made USAID so vulnerable, the impact of the agency’s closure on local communities, and the advice he gives to anyone in a situation like his.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Embassy Apia, Samoa

The post What Really Happened to USAID? A Former Civil Servant Tells All appeared first on Food Tank.

This article is part of Food Tank’s primer series, “Food Tank Explains.” Each installment unpacks the ideas, innovations, and challenges shaping today’s food and agriculture systems, offering clear insights into complex topics. To explore more articles in the series, click here.

Food traceability is the ability to track food products and ingredients through every stage of the supply chain—from production and processing to distribution and retail. As global food and agriculture supply chains grow more complex, with ingredients often traveling thousands of miles and passing through multiple hands, traceability systems can help document and connect information about where food comes from and how it was produced.

“Food systems are only as strong as the trust and transparency behind them,” Mark Kaplan, Co-Founder and Chief Sustainability Officer at Wholechain, tells Food Tank. “Traceability and data standards are the foundation that allows food to move fairly, safely, and sustainably across the globe.”

Food traceability plays a central role in managing food safety risks. Unsafe food causes 600 million cases of foodborne illness and 420,000 deaths each year globally, according to the World Health Organization. The burden falls disproportionately on low-income countries, conflict-affected populations, migrants, and women, and children under 5 account for 40 percent of cases and 125,000 deaths annually.

By linking data across production, processing, and distribution, traceability systems allow investigators to rapidly detect potential risks and trace hazardous products back to their source, reducing the spread of contamination. According to the World Bank Group, a food safety management system cannot be truly effective unless it includes a well-established traceability component.

Traceability systems provide greater visibility across the food supply chain, supporting oversight of labor practices and accountability for environmental marketing claims.

The agricultural and seafood production industries rank among the world’s most dangerous occupations due to the use of heavy machinery, exposure to chemicals and the elements, and long hours. Meanwhile, agricultural workers receive limited occupational health protection and investigations have linked seafood supply chains to forced labor, slavery at sea, wage theft, deceptive or coercive recruitment, and physical abuse aboard distant-water fishing vessels.

Evidence of human trafficking aboard distant water vessels has grown exponentially in the past few years. Unethical activity plagues the seafood industry, Kaplan says. Food traceability can help increase visibility into labor exploitation and abuse hidden within supply chains, enabling regulators to track unfair labor practices and consumers to make more informed purchases.

Traceability also supports greater accountability for sustainability-related claims. Consumers are increasingly interested in sustainably sourced and produced products, but weak oversight and opaque supply chains have facilitated the rise of greenwashing, the practice of using deceptive environmental advertising to boost product sales.

According to Changing Markets’ research, greenwashing in the food sector is rampant, with many environmental claims like ‘carbon neutral’, ‘climate positive’ and ‘net zero’ lacking substantiation. By helping verify sustainability claims, traceability helps reduce opportunities for food companies to capitalize on consumers’ environmental concerns without taking any positive environmental action.

Traceability systems can also create operational benefits for businesses. Research suggests that digital traceability systems can improve efficiency, optimize resource allocation and use, and reduce costs across supply chains.

And the market for products backed by traceability claims continues to grow, providing an opportunity for businesses. “The potential for traceability can unlock so much more value for businesses,” says Alex Golub, Sustainability Director at Acme Smoked Fish and Chair of Sea Pact. “If consumers know where their food is coming from, harvesters can really have those assurances, and that transparency can ripple through.”

Food traceability adoption varies widely, with governments and private companies implementing different standards, technologies, and regulatory frameworks. The European Union has established some of the world’s most comprehensive requirements, mandating that food businesses track products across all stages of production, processing, and distribution.

Japan, Australia, Finland, France, Italy, and South Korea have also adopted digital systems ranging from electronic livestock databases to blockchain-enabled QR codes and cloud-based supply chain platforms.

Adoption also differs by industry, with seafood emerging as one of the most advanced sectors for traceability. “No other commodity has advanced as far along the digital traceability journey as seafood,” Huw Thomas, Executive Director of the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability, tells Food Tank. To explain the sector’s early investment in digital tracking systems, Thomas points to the industry’s complex international supply chains and growing regulatory pressure.

As governments and companies expand digital traceability systems, the World Bank and research published in the Journal of Foods argue that technology alone will not solve the food system’s transparency challenges. Standardization across industries and supply chains is essential, Thomas explains.

Organizations like the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Economic Forum emphasize that regulatory frameworks, global standards, and cross-sector cooperation will play a central role in determining how and whether traceability systems are adopted and enforced.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Norbert Buduczki

The post Food Tank Explains: Food Traceability appeared first on Food Tank.