Pennsylvania Media Coverage

Re-Localizing Food? by Tracy Sutton. Lancaster Farming. Published 09/05/2008.
It wasn’t that many generations ago that nearly all food was local food. In 1900, 40 percent of Americans farmed, down to a little over 1 percent today. Back in the day, eating close to the land wasn’t a “locavore” ideal, it was a simple geographic necessity. It’s an oft-cited statistic that food now travels an average of 1,500 miles to arrive at your plate. But the days of cheap fossil fuel that make reliance on transported food the cheaper economic choice are coming to an end, say experts. Coupled with climate change, depleted water resources, and an aging farmer population, the United States is looking at an agricultural revolution in the next 20 years. Read the entire article.

Can the "farm-to-school" movement gain traction in Philly? by Tom Namako. City Paper. Published 10/03/2007.
"I really think there are some hurdles to doing it, but is it impossible to do? We sent a man to the moon. Just buy corn from Pennsylvania processors who buy Pennsylvania corn." Read the entire article.

Linking subsidies to healthful foods practices with Community Volunteers in Medicine by Ana M. Negrón. The Philidelphia Inquirer. Published 07/19/2007.
It's an outrageous contradiction. On one hand, public-health experts try to educate Americans about the importance of healthful food choices. On the other, our federal government shells out billions of dollars to subsidize the production of pork, beef and other artery-clogging meat, as well as oil and sugar - while fruits and vegetables receive almost no support at all. Read the entire article.

Movable Feast by Marian Uhlman. Philadelphia Inquirer. Published 07/11/2005.
Johnathan Russell is the kind of teenager who doesn't just eat his vegetables. He grows them, markets them, and gets other kids to eat them, too. None of this he could have imagined four years ago when he entered University City High School and started working in the school's half-acre garden. Read the entire article.

Pennsylvania farmers target colleges as market for produce. Knight Ridder Tribune. Published 12/19/2003.
Each week in fall, Indian Orchards of Middletown Township, Delaware County, delivers about five bushels of apples to nearby Swarthmore College. "Their student body was eager to get real apples instead of waxed apples," says Nancy Bernhardt, whose grandparents started the 15-acre orchard nearly 100 years ago. It's not a large quantity of fruit, but it's an important part of her business, said Bernhardt, one of 40 representatives of farms and colleges in southeastern Pennsylvania who met ... Read the entire article.

Taking farm to school. York Dispatch. Published 07/13/2003.
Officials last week unveiled the state's new Agriculture Education Initiative designed to make school-aged children aware of the importance of agriculture in their lives. Announcing the initiative at the Pennsylvania Association of Agriculture Educators Summer Convention in Doylestown, Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff said that with "less than 2 percent of Americans engaged in farming today, each generation is becoming further removed from agriculture." Read the entire article.

Slippery Rock University Taps Local Farmers for food by Mary Pickels. Pittsburg Tribune-Review. Published 02/09/2003.
A garden of potentially endless nutrition and community good will has been planted at Slippery Rock University, seeding interest by other state schools of higher education. It appears to be an obvious trade-off. Produce, locally grown, is harvested and delivered to nearby institutions of education, where fresh vegetables and fruits are served. Staff and students reap health and taste benefits, and farmers are assured of a buyer for a portion of what they grow. It's a process at work at the Butler County school, in a pilot project designed by a graduate student, college administration and the school's food service provider, Aramark. Read the entire article.