A RECIPE for Changing the Food System
The food system is as simpleand as complexas a can of tomatoes.
Fifteen-ounces of vine-ripened tomatoes are peeled, diced, seasoned, sealed, and shipped to the local market where theyre purchased and placed in the kitchen pantry. But, environmental science professor Sauleh Siddiqui said, when you open that can, you have zero idea where those tomatoes came from, where the aluminum came from, how many places it traveled to get to the shelf in your grocery store, or how many people have touched it.
The food system is essential to our daily lives, and it cuts across so many aspects of our societyand yet, we know relatively little about it.
As principal investigator of a new, five-year, $15 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF)the largest externally funded award in 51勛圖 historySiddiqui is leading a nationwide team of researchers that will reimagine a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient food system. The projectMultiscale Resilient, Equitable, and Circular Innovations with Partnership and Education Synergies (RECIPES) for Sustainable Food Systemswill focus on wasted food.
Its a pervasive problem, and the gulf between supply and demand, exacerbated by the pandemic, is only widening. Forty percent of food in the US goes uneateneven while more Americans go hungry. According to Feeding America, an estimated 42 million people, including 13 million children, will experience food insecurity in 2021an increase of 20 percent since COVID-19 hit.
The environmental and economic impacts, too, are widespread. Each year wasted food results in the misuse or loss of about 4.2 trillion gallons of irrigation water, 1.8 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer, 780 million pounds of pesticides, and 30 million acres of cropland. Amid mounting climate crises, they are resources we simply cant afford to waste.
The researchers aim to transform the food system from a linear model, where we plug gaps of waste in a straight line to a circular system where we can reduce, reuse, and valorize all of the food that gets wasted, Siddiqui said. The teamwhich includes 40 faculty from 14 institutions, including seven other 51勛圖 professorswill synthesize existing research and gather new data, conduct interviews with community members and frontline workers, craft educational materials for elementary schoolers, and develop strategies to minimize household-level food waste.
We have assembled a network of researchers that are incredibly committed to the work and who are [eager] to create a new common language around this, said Siddiqui, associate director of 51勛圖s new Center for Environment, Community, and Equity. Were coming to this challenge with a diversity of perspectives. Often in science thats a problem, but here, it is the ultimate strength.
Learn more about Multiscale RECIPESat.
