Initiatives are cropping up in Arizona and around the world, which are helping to alleviate hunger, while also cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions and protecting crop biodiversity.
In Phoenix, the organization Waste Not collects 6,000 pounds of surplus, perishable food from grocery stores, and restaurants. It delivers this food to daycare centers and retirement homes. This helps cut down on the food that rots in landfills, emitting potent greenhouse gases. In West Africa, farmers are using solar dryers to dry mangoes, papaya, and other fruit to prevent them from going to waste.
And efforts by five Slow Food chapters across Arizona are helping to celebrate local and traditional foods including prickly pear, mesquite, and chilies. Slow Food Phoenix hosts farm tours and supports a school garden program at Desert Marigold School.
Danielle Nierenberg, an expert on livestock and sustainability, currently serves as Project Director of State of World 2011 for the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental think tank. Her knowledge of factory farming and its global spread and sustainable agriculture has been cited widely in the New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and
other publications.
Danielle worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. She is currently traveling across Africa looking at innovations that are working to alleviate hunger and poverty and blogging everyday at Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet. She has a regular column with the Mail & Guardian, the Kansas City Star, and the Huffington Post and her writing was been featured in newspapers across Africa including the Cape Town Argus, the Zambia Daily Mail, Coast Week (Kenya), and other African publications. She holds an M.S. in agriculture, food, and environment from Tufts University and a B.A. in environmental policy from Monmouth College.
