The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future—working toward a healthy, equitable, resilient food system from within the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering.
Center for a Livable Future Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 111 Market Place, Suite 840 Baltimore, MD 21202 Website
The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future has been applying big-picture thinking to the food system since 1996, and has been educating the public, policymakers and advocates on key food system issues. The Center has focused on issues such as the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture and the resulting increase in antibiotic-resistant organisms, the public health risks of arsenic in some agricultural antibiotics, and the “food desert” phenomenon whereby some communities cannot easily access healthy foods. The Center funds research on these and other food system issues, and also tries to translate its research findings into policy. It often partners with impacted communities to both conduct the research and disseminate the findings.
CLF teamed up with the Video and Film Arts Department at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) to produce Out to Pasture: The Future of Farming? films in 2010, which explore important issues in our food system. CLF and MICA also collaborated to produce a film about sustainable food animal production entitled Out to Pasture: The Future of Farming? (34 minutes) CLF’s Leo Horrigan plays the role of producer for Out to Pasture and Allen Moore, a MICA professor and independent filmmaker, directs the film. Out to Pasture contrasts industrial-style confined animal production with farms that raise food animals outdoors in diversified operations, striving to be sustainable. Several of these pasture-based farmers are profiled and they tell their own vibrant stories of bucking the trends in farming. They discuss how they got started in farming (three transitioned from confinement operations), what’s important about their farming methods, how their conventional-farm neighbors view them, how to keep young people on the farm, the future of the food system, and other compelling topics. The film also features Robert Lawrence, director of CLF; and John Ikerd, a leading thinker on sustainable agriculture issues.
Food Frontiers showcases six projects from around the United States that are increasing access to healthy food in varied ways – from a pioneering farm-to-school project to creative supermarket financing to cooking classes in a doctor’s office and a teen-managed grocery store. This 36-minute documentary film – produced by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future – is part of the FoodSpan curriculum, which provides an overview of the food system for high school students. http://www.foodspanlearning.org
22.05.2020 In the face of threats to our farming future such as climate change, people are innovating to protect and regenerate our most vital resources – soil, water, seeds, and our farmer workforce. Growing Solutions features a centuries-old water conservation method, a farmer who’s growing topsoil faster than most thought possible, a seed-saving high school, a farmer training program for military veterans, and researchers who are developing a perennial style of agriculture that mimics the prairie.
