The Food Fix

Barb Barton harvests and sells wild food such as wild rice, wild mushrooms, maple sugar, wild fruit jellies, and wild nut butters at her business, Where the Wild Foods Grow, located in Lansing, Michigan. Reporter Kelly van Frankenhuyzen spoke with her about traditional rice harvesting and the importance of wild food.

Photo: Barb Barton, taken by Rob Curtner.

For more information on native wild rice, visit: http://www.nativewildricecoalition.com

Urban farming is often celebrated for bringing fresh, homegrown food into the city. Community gardens provide easy, affordable access to organically grown produce for an entire neighborhood.

But cities pose challenges for would-be farmers. Planting a garden on land contaminated with lead or arsenic risks health problems for garden workers and produce consumers. And green lots with good soil can cost a pretty penny.

Jenny Bongiorno is an urban farmer and the founder of Our Fresh Local, a Grand Rapids, Michigan, company that builds community gardens and teaches people about local food.

Visit the webpage for Our Fresh Local here: http://www.ourfreshlocal.com

Photo: Jenny Bongiorno

A group called Scientific Animations Without Borders is creating animated videos to help educate people around the world about agriculture, women’s empowerment, and disease.

The videos cover a wide range of topics, from tuberculosis to food storage to drip irrigation. Volunteers translate the videos into many languages, so people from China to Mali can understand them.

Julia Bello Bravo is the co-director and co-founder of Scientific Animations Without Borders, she talked about how these videos are making an impact on food systems around the globe.

Audio from some of the animated videos was used in this podcast. If you want to watch these animations and more, go to http://sawbo-illinois4.org/videos

Photo: Julia Bello Bravo. Taken by Cheyna Roth

How can plants grow in the boiling waters near volcanoes? How do they survive in deserts? How do they survive a flood? The answer is that trillions of partners help them survive. These partners are microbes!

Microbes are microscopic creatures like bacteria and fungi. They interact with plants to ensure the availability of nutrients, enhance root growth, battle toxic substances and improve plants’ resistance to disease, flood, heat and drought.

James Kramer is a doctoral student in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences at Michigan State University. He studies how microbes help plants to become more resilient to environmental hazards. The research has implications to improve food production across the globe.

Photo: James Kramer

The Food Fix went to ArtPrize in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, to talk to people who are taking a more artistic route to better feeding the world.

Art Prize is an independent, international art competition that takes over three square miles of downtown Grand Rapids from September 23rd to October 11th. Anyone over the age of 18 can enter ArtPrize and compete for the public vote and juried prizes.

Exhibitors Kathleen Hodges and Elaine Harlow are raising awareness about abandoned farms and child hunger in Michigan through their art.

Hodges was struck by the number of abandoned farms across the United States and what that meant for food prices and availability. Hodges’ exhibit is in the Monarchs Club Corner Tap & Grill.

Harlow uses 31 paintings of various bowls, only 19 with food inside, to demonstrate the hunger that takes place in her own neighborhood in Plainwell, Michigan. Harlow believes that many people fail to see the problems right in front them, and this is her way of making them aware of hunger. Harlow’s exhibit is in the Grand Rapids Downtown Market.

You can check out both exhibits from now until ArtPize is over October 11th.

Photo: Cheyna Roth

The Food Fix went to ArtPrize in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, to talk to people who are taking a more artistic route to better feeding the world.

Art Prize is an independent, international art competition that takes over three square miles of downtown Grand Rapids from September 23rd to October 11th. Anyone over the age of 18 can enter ArtPrize and compete for the public vote and juried prizes.

Emeka Ikebude is from Nigeria, but he currently calls Texas home. His installation at ArtPrize, The Stream, is a 3-D sculpture made of twine, bronze dust, wood and water. With this project, Ikebude wants to “engender a rethinking of the problems of global water scarcity.”

Costa Rica is a relatively developed country in Central America, but some of its indigenous citizens have been left behind. The Shuabb people in the Talamanca region of Costa Rica have limited running water, electricity and waste management.

Nicole Kruse and Gina Masell are undergraduate students in Michigan State University’s Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering. They are exploring ways to use waste treatment to bring ecotourism to the region.

Researchers are exploring growing plants for bio fuels in a low-quality type of soil called marginal land.

Aaron Garoutte is researching the impact bacteria may have on the growth of plants in these areas.

Photo: Aaron Garoutte

Understanding fish and water resources is vital for the food system in Ghana. Illegal mining is causing water pollution in Ghana, which can harm people who eat fish.

Doctor Rose Emma Entsua-Mensah, who goes by Mamma, is the Deputy Director General of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Ghana. She discussed the importance of aquatic life in Ghana.

A couple weeks ago we talked to Jodie Zhu and Kevin Mills before they headed off to Lilongwe, Malawi as part of a pilot program called the Frugal Innovation Practicum. The group worked with students at LUANAR university in Malawi on solutions to food-based issues that could be put in place without needing a lot of money to work.

They talked about their experience, and shared some of the results of the practicum.