Thinking about waste and want together

In putting together the roster of speakers for this Friday’s Tufts Food Systems Symposium, the organizing group asked ourselves, “Where is food wasted? And where is food insecurity?” We tried to gather a group of people who could speak about many locations where both waste and want occur across our complex food system, and help us to think about how–and where–there may be intersections between these two issues.

For the opening keynote session, we’re excited to hear from Doug Rauch of Daily Table in conversation with Sasha Purpura of Food for Free, two thoughtful and experienced practitioners with unique perspectives on the waste-and-want relationship.

In the second hour of the symposium, our panel discussion will bring together scholarship and advocacy from a broad range of perspectives including agricultural production, farm-to-institution initiatives, housing issues, food policy, food labeling and behavioral changes.

You can read more about our speaker lineup here.

It makes perfect sense to rescue wasted food and redirect it to food-insecure people–or at the very least to compost it and put it back into the nutrient cycle so it can help produce more food rather than contributing to greenhouse gas emissions from a landfill. But as “solutions,” these praiseworthy efforts leave the root causes of both wasted food and food insecurity solidly in place. We’re hoping that our conversations on Friday can inquire into some of those deeper connections and look toward emerging projects in the field. There will be lots of opportunity for informal discussion over lunch and in the final poster/expo hour of the symposium, and we’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Image: Daily Table, Dorchester.