Written by Amanda Schultz Brochu As the San Diego Food System Alliance looks towards building a more equitable food system that supports and is enjoyed by all San Diegans, one immediate opportunity to strengthen our local food system is by maximizing our region’s...
Working across the County, I Love to Glean helps to increase the capacity to recover and distribute food that would otherwise be wasted to agencies serving those in need. The organization works...
The Carbon Farming Task Force, led by the San Diego County Farm Bureau and Solidarity Farm, brings together producers, researchers, technical assistance providers, policymakers, and funders to...
Cooking for Salud®, a program of Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center, is an 8-week bilingual English and Spanish nutrition education program that teaches participants how to make healthy changes...
The San Diego Food Bank and Feeding San Diego are two organizations that have been on the front lines throughout COVID-19, securing and distributing more food than ever before. According to the San...
Anna Rameshwar grew up in Fallbrook surrounded by plants and gardening. Some of her earliest memories involve patting down soil and spending time in nurseries. When she grew older, Anna helped out...
The people who are most adversely impacted by governing body decisions on issues like justice, land use, and public policy are rarely at the table when those decisions are made. There are a lot of...
Poder Popular, a community advocacy group under Vista Community Clinic’s Migrant Health Program, believes that zip codes should not determine life expectancies. Yet the reality throughout low-income...
While the agricultural world relies on hardworking migrant farmworker communities, these communities remain some of the county’s most vulnerable as they exist in a labor system that is not designed...
The County of San Diego Climate Action Plan (CAP) contains a series of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next 30 years. These measures are administered through multiple County...
“I grew up in Imperial County and never knew that working in food systems was an option,” said Bianca Bonilla, the director of the Botanical Community Development Initiative, an organization that...
It is impossible to separate equity from economics. Knowing that systemic exclusion has served as the backdrop of the American story for generations, Catalyst of San Diego & Imperial Counties...
Since 2014, Coastal Roots Farm has been on a mission to cultivate healthy, connected communities through sustainable agriculture, food justice, and ancient Jewish wisdom. “We practice organic...
“Mesquite, acorn, and nopales—three foods that are native to this region, sustainable, and good for you,” says Abe Sanchez, a member of the Purepecha Tribe who works with scholars and culinary...
Stephanie Parker, the founder of Epicurean San Diego, and Christina Ng, chef and founder of Chinita’s Pies are, first and foremost, ambassadors for local farmers, producers, and artisans. Together...
Households are the largest contributors to the food waste stream—at 43%, they easily outsize waste generated from commercial kitchens, distributors, and producers. While consumer education campaigns...
What would it look like to pile up all of the food waste from a commercial kitchen over the course of a week, a month, or a year? The Alliance got a glimpse into the answer to that question by...
“San Diego county is rich with fresh produce that belongs in the food system, not the landfill,” said Nita Kurmins Gilson, Co-Executive Director and Co-founder of ProduceGood, a nonprofit that...
Community composting comes with a host of challenges, most notably, the collection of food scraps. San Diego, Chula Vista, Encinitas, and Vista are the only cities in the county that allow community...
Linda Vista is one of San Diego’s six most socio-economically distressed communities, which is compounded by it being a USDA-defined food desert. With more than half of the nearly 34,000 residents...
The traditional territory of the Pala Band of Mission Indians stretches from Warner Springs, home to the original village of Cupa, all the way to the mouth of the San Luis Rey River in Oceanside....
Stepping into City Heights’ Mid-East Market is a sensory experience, and for many first- and second-generation Americans, it conjures up memories of home—childhood, comfort, holiday traditions,...
Launched just before the pandemic shook the world, the Pala Band of Mission Indians’ Púyily ‘Áy’enish (Big Meal, a Great Feast) couldn’t have been a more valuable last gathering. The first Púyily...
Dian Moss, Managing Director of Project New Village in Southeastern San Diego, was not always interested in food justice—in fact, her discovery of the movement was happenstance. “In 2006, I happened...
“¡Más Fresco! is a promise,” says Joe Prickitt, the Senior Director of the Southern California Nutrition Incentive Program known as ¡Más Fresco! More Fresh. “It is the promise of a more just and...
“The bottom line is, kids aren’t getting the healthy food they need,” said Mim Michelove, who co-founded Healthy Day Partners in 2012. “We have enough food to end hunger. What we need is the...
Mikey Knab runs three restaurants and works with more than 800 restaurant owners. He hates to tell you this, but those breadsticks aren’t free. Neither is having accessible housing, childcare, and...
Becky Arrolando spent 26 years in a cycle of addiction, gangs, incarceration, and homelessness. Then, in 2017, while staying at a sober living home post-incarceration, she met an apprentice enrolled...
Food can bridge divisions in ideology and politics while sparking animated conversations like nothing else. Everyone eats, and taste buds don’t discriminate. Even timid eaters will salivate for Sri...
Passion for the local farming community is personal for Janis and Rafael Garcia. Rafael got his start as a farm worker when he was 14 years old, and then went on to enjoy a successful career in...
San Diego County has more small farms than any other County in the United States, but connecting those farms to institutions with different sizes and volumes of needs creates a supply and demand...
Many San Diego residents who live in low-income and ethnically diverse communities have limited access to healthy foods, including fresh produce. This is a...
In San Diego County, you’ll find that those who farm, fish, brew beer, make wine, and operate our local markets and restaurants, are deeply connected to their communities. They feed people and...
Public institutions spend billions of dollars on food purchases each year, which presents an incredible opportunity to transform the food system. The Good Food Purchasing Program was designed to...
Becoming a subscriber to Foodshed’s Fresh 5 program—a weekly distribution of fresh, seasonal produce, grown by the small farmers who make up the Foodshed cooperative—means you’re in for two...
In 1984, my parents immigrated to the United States from Vietnam. My father worked in construction and my mother started a catering business from our small apartment. She specialized in cooking...
Despite having over twelve thousand miles of coastline, 99% of all seaweed consumed in the United States is imported. For Brant Chlebowski, founder of California Seaweed Company, this travesty has...
As a twenty-four year old, third-generation fisher, I have watched the ebb and flow of the commercial fishing industry evolve with the countless changes we continue to endure. On any given...
My family immigrated to San Diego from Xalapa, Mexico, in 1987. In 1989, my parents founded Super Cocina, a small restaurant, in the building where the Barrio Logan Farmers Market was once held....
The greenhouse at Solutions Farms is cool, humid, and bright, vibrating with activity as employees tend rows of white trays overflowing with lettuces. Solutions Farms—a 2-acre, commercial aquaponic...
On the drive to Pauma Valley, it’s wise to slow down on Cole Grade Road. Not just because there are two hairpin turns as the road drops eight percent, but because a perfect, panoramic view appears...
At Pixca Farm, December showers quite literally brought Mother’s Day flowers: golden calendula, gumdrop-like gomphrena, tall and delicate caspia, and Pixca’s signature, bright orange...
Officially, Nick Stridsberg has been managing San Gabriel Ranch for seven years, since he took the reins at the 100-acre organic fruit farm in Valley Center while earning a degree in Business...
