It Takes a Village: Collaborating for sustainable and equitable food systems across Arizona4/13/2017  At Pinnacle Prevention, we believe it takes a village to make a meaningful difference. Our state is full of individuals and organizations that are passionate about creating healthy, sustainable, and equitable food systems across Arizona. In March, we released a report that digs in to what these organizations are doing, and how a collaborative statewide network could help improve food systems in communities across the state.
These organizations and others work to fill gaps and advance their community’s food system, but each faces similar challenges throughout their work. Each organization featured in the report advocates for a statewide network of collaboration to address many of these challenges, and also enhance success. “By creating a network of networks that shares a vision, collective objectives, and common data,” the report says, “the local organizations will see where they fit in the big picture, where activities align, and how to build and learn from one another.”
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 Cooking fresh meals at home usually yields some amount of waste: from egg shells and vegetable peels to cardboard containers and more. Think twice about tossing that waste in the trash -- what we do with our biodegradable waste matters. Biodegradable material that gets tossed in the trash will inevitably rot, and the nutrients that are produced when organic material breaks down go to waste sitting in a landfill. The decomposition process in landfills also creates large amounts of methane, an environmentally unfriendly greenhouse gas. Composting, on the other hand, is meant to produce carbon dioxide and water instead of harmful methane.
 Graphic courtesy of Nourish Initiative, www.nourishlife.org Here at Pinnacle Prevention, much of our work revolves around local food systems in Arizona. We are all part of the food system, though most of us don’t realize it. The food system is comprised of nearly every aspect of food, including the environment in which it is grown, production, demand, processing, transport, and where it is consumed and disposed. Each and every component is complex in its own right. Our mission is to encourage and build healthy, sustainable food systems in our state and communities.
Did you know that grocery stores across the country throw away thousands of pounds of perfectly edible food every year? Over 25 percent of edible produce ends up in the trash each year, often because it does not meet the beauty standards that Americans have come to expect from our fresh finds.
Fresh and perfectly edible carrots, potatoes, peppers and more are picked around and tossed out based on appearance — all while one in six Americans does not have a secure supply of food. Millions of pounds of food end up rotting in landfills, producing harmful methane emissions. |
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