Future of the Food System

Students in our 7th/ 8th grade elective class have been learning about all aspects of the food system--from labor to food access and methods of production to food waste. As we approach each of these topics, students have been asked to use a food justice lens to ask, are these methods equitable and sustainable? In this assignment, students were tasked with envisioning how one area of our food system might be made more equitable and sustainable. Thanks to the students who agreed to let us share their work!

The concept I chose was better and equal pay for farmers regardless of race, class, or religion. This will change people’s lives because those who will actually get paid a living wage will be able to pay bills and pay for food. My drawing is different from today because at this point it seems impossible to fairly pay farmers and other workers, and it will be hard to accomplish. The reason it is so hard is some people in power don't want to risk making less money off of other people’s hard work.
​-Kajsa

I chose the idea of more people eating less meat (to emit a smaller amount of greenhouse gases) because I thought that it was an interesting concept and it sounded really strange to me because I eat meat a lot. It’s kind of weird to imagine all of the foods that we would no longer eat very much, like burgers, steak, and foods like that. I think that if the majority of people actually did this it would make a big impact on the environment, even though it might not be very realistic (especially because I love meat). This idea is different from today because meat is an important part of many cultures and peoples diets.
​-Tesla

There is too much carbon in our atmosphere, but plants take it in. Plants feed the carbon to microorganisms who then help make more healthy soil. If we plant more plants we will have less carbon in our atmosphere, and more healthy soil. 
​-Juna

I chose my idea because I thought it was a very important subject that many people don’t know about. It will be better for the environment because there will be less carbon emissions if people switch to eating on a more plant based diet. It will change people's lives because it is a whole new way of eating and it will be way better for the environment and people's health.
​-Josie

This would be different from today because right now people who can’t afford healthy food don’t get to have it, and the farmers are not selling as much organic food as a result. In this vision of the future, people who can’t afford food can still receive this food and the farmers will be able to grow more of it.
-Maddie

This is my full drawing and I chose it because the part I wanted to focus on is the picture below these words. It’s the idea of wasting nothing and it shows that I believe people will start caring about wasting food. The solution, like in the article it says to feed scraps to pigs. This’ll be different then today because the article states that 40% of what farms produce are wasted and if there’s a way to prevent this with pigs, why not use it?
-Ashlinh

Making farms local and smaller
​Making farms more local and small can help climate change in many ways:
Benefits of being local
Not only is it cool to know that the food you cook with is grown locally but it is great for the climate. Local food production would help because there is less transportation involved which would cut down carbon emotions by a lot. 
Smaller farms
Smaller farms would most likely grow more than one type of crop which is called biodiversity which is very beneficial to the earth.
-Julian