The latest food insecurity in the United States are the worst they’ve been since the Great Recession and are poised to get much worse as politicians push forward SNAP and WIC rollbacks.

If you, like me, enjoyed some tofu with rice noodles from time to time, I’ll go ahead and spoil things for you: You and all the tofu eaters out there were not the culprit. Neither were all the preschoolers eating their Dora the Explorer-branded edamame snack packs.

To reflect on 2023 and prepare for 2024, the Grow Well Consulting team sat down to discuss the challenges and opportunities they’re facing in the agriculture and food system worlds.

Structural systemic differences between the Irish and American models of dairy production illuminate opportunities to achieve more than 50% reductions in methane emissions with management changes that increase grazing, reduce manure storage, and incorporate novel feed ingredients.

For decades, there has been a growing divide between American farmland and American diets. In the last 5 years, this trend crossed some critical thresholds catapulting the ag land-rich US into new net food importer territory.

Alright folks, I know this feels like it’s lost all sense of meaning or structure, and just a reminder here, that we’re following the structure *line by line* of an essay that an industry leader described as “brilliant.” In case anyone is wondering how “climate smart ag” is going.

On cattle, climate, scientific uncertainty and whether we know enough to make better decisions.

In a world where the food system is facing multiple crises, from climate change to increases in diet-related diseases and mortality, innovation is an imperative. We need to innovate our food environment – how we choose and acquire food, where we eat, when we eat, who we eat with, how much time we take to eat – not just what we eat in order to achieve better health outcomes.

Food waste in the United States and across the globe is now estimated to account for about 8-10% of the food system’s climate impact.

Books have the power to open our minds, challenge our perspectives, and drive us to take action. My recommended books in this blog post offer profound insights into climate change, inequality, housing insecurity, economic justice, and the food system. By reading and reflecting on these thought-provoking works, we can deepen our understanding of these complex issues and better understand how to address them.

Research on organic agriculture shows the system has potential to adapt to climate change by enhancing resilience and lowering dependence on fossil fuel derived inputs.

Agri-food companies need traceability to the point of production to comply with emerging voluntary and mandatory climate and other sustainability disclosures.