Hey there,
Welcome back to Before the Cutting Board, your weekly roundup of food + supply chain hot topics to help keep you up to speed on what’s going down with your food. If you’re new to Before The Cutting Board, here’s how it works: The “This Week” section focuses on news and current events. Occasionally, I’ll include a “Food Fights” section that explores some of the interesting debates flying around the food news world.
Let’s dig in.
-This Week-
Salvage shopping on the rise
From the New York Times: Salvage store shopping is on the rise as relying on major chain groceries for affordable food continues to cause headaches and the collective consciousness about food waste grows. Interestingly, this report also breaks down how salvage store owners and food brokers navigate disruptions to food flows in order to source product.
The impact of farm loss
From Civil Eats: An op-ed drawing, in part, from the author’s own experience to break down the history of farm loss in California’s Japanese-American communities that goes largely unrecognized in spite of the role Japanese immigrants played in California’s current position as an agricultural powerhouse. A piece from Mother Jones from earlier this year also dived into the intergenerational impact of this displacement.
More on the Colorado River
From AP: My friend Sam reported on the Colorado River negotiations that are poised to impact farmers across seven states and at least 10 tribes.
Also on the Colorado River negotiations, this piece from The Arizona Republic features in-depth coverage of how Native communities are finally being included in river management conversations after over a century of exclusions and inequitable policies that ignored tribal governments’ water rights.
Railroad Labor Disputes
In the US, railroads account for nearly a quarter of grain transportation. Over the course of this year, there have been some major labor disputes happening across the US freight rail system. Bloomberg Law outlined general details about the conflict between rail companies and unions. The Biden administration put together a presidential emergency board to help alleviate the stalemate in negotiations with the hope that an agreement will be reached before the September 16 deadline.
That’s it for this week. If you enjoyed reading this, please forward to a friend. Even if you didn’t enjoy reading it, still tell your friends - misery loves company :)