In Washington DC’s Ward 8, adults who are diagnosed with hypertension, pre-diabetes, or diabetes are now being prescribed a visit to their local Giant supermarket. Instead of picking up antihypertensive medications or insulin from a pharmacist, some patients fulfill a $20 produce prescription using their grocery loyalty card and consult with an on-site nutritionist. The […]
In 2016, Isa Mujahid founded CTCORE to address the historical and contemporary root causes of racial discrimination in a new way. Inspired by the momentum around Black-led movements that were building in Ferguson and beyond in response to the tragic killing of Michael Brown in 2014, Isa recognized the need for a statewide organization in […]
The rural U.S. economy is changing as traditional employment sectors, like agriculture, adopt digital infrastructures. This transition to digital agriculture has highlighted a growing need to bridge the digital skills gap and prepare rural workers for new roles in the workforce that are classified as “middle skill.” Equipping workers for middle skill jobs will allow […]
The negative impacts of our trade war with China reverberate throughout the U.S. food and agricultural industries, causing significant changes to our food system and how we interact with it. Where American farmers once relied on robust trade agreements with countries like China, they now find themselves faced with the daunting task of identifying and […]
The Climate Action Summit of the UN Secretary General and the Global #WeekforFuture organized in response to youth activist Greta Thunberg both took place this week. It also marked the conclusion of Covering Climate Now, a reporting initiative led by the Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation “aimed at strengthening the media’s focus on the […]
This is an excerpt from a longer article recently published in Sight & Life magazine (August 2019). It is co-authored by Refresh Working Group members Danielle Nierenberg, Alicia Powers and Sarah Papazoglakis. Recent digital innovations in e-commerce, online grocery shopping, and food and meal delivery services are helping to address food and nutrition insecurity by […]
Datasets are a key ingredient that feeds data-driven tools for the food system. They are repositories of statistics, images, and/or other relevant information about a particular subject. In the food system, these collections of information on agriculture, food retail, or nutrition, for example, are among the important reservoirs of data used to develop food and […]
Melinda Dittmer is the COO of Nexyst 360—a new midwest-based startup developing revolutionary storage, distribution, and product preservation systems with the goal of harvesting and transporting crops, like grain, with 100% traceability back to the field. In her role, she is helping to innovate new technologies that could help to reduce the costs of farming, […]
This is an excerpt from a longer article recently published in Sight & Life magazine (August 2019). It is co-authored by Refresh Working Group members Danielle Nierenberg, Alicia Powers and Sarah Papazoglakis. Overview Today, data-driven technologies are being used to improve nutrition and health outcomes at the individual level and on a global scale. For […]
This is a guest post from Refresh Working Group member Amy Wu, founder and chief content creator of From Farms to Incubators, a multimedia initiative that spotlights women in food, farming, and agtech. She is also a member of the Refresh Working Group Broadband Committee. City of Salinas, “Salad Bowl of the World,” moves to […]