Planning Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems: From Soil to Soil by Julia Freedgood

© Planning Sustainable and Resilient Food Systems: From Soil to Soil by Julia Freedgood, Routledge, 2024

The food we eat every single day is the product of an almost inconceivable number of decisions: We had to decide what to buy from the store, the store had to decide which vendor to buy from, that vendor had to decide how to package their food and where they'd buy the raw ingredients, a producer had to decide what equipment was suitable for growing those ingredients, an equipment company needed to decide how to create value for their shareholders, a retiring landowner had to decide how to sell their farmland and to whom, ad infinitum. If we take the sum total of those decisions and the social, economic, and political factors that drive them as our "food system," how might we best approach decisions here and now to ensure that food system can withstand what is to come in a changing climate and a changing political reality? Julia Freedgood, Senior Policy Advisor for American Farmland Trust, provides guidance, context, and recommendations to food systems planners, from professional planners, planning commissions, and boards to conservation districts and on-the-ground change-makers. This new book provides a history of transformation in the food system, lays a foundation for planning practices and policy development, and shares strategies and best practices for local application around the country.

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