[Note: This article was also published on Civil Eats, a journalism site that covers sustainable food issues.]
Whole Foods Market (WFM) is again at the forefront of the movement for greater transparency in food production and processing with its new comprehensive ratings system for fresh produce and flowers.
The Dane County market, also known at the Market on the Square, rings the state Capitol building in the heart of Madison from spring through fall (before moving to indoor quarters for the winter). It is described as the nation’s largest producer-only farmers market, and there is no reason to doubt this boast. Even on the foggy, muggy morning of Oct. 5, with a threat of thunderstorms in the forecast, the square was packed with throngs of shoppers. Enjoy this photo gallery of the market.
As a pioneering organic farmer, an academic at Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and president of New York’s Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Fred Kirschenmann is both a practical and intellectual leader in the Good Food movement. In the second of our two-part q-and-a, Kirschenmann discusses obstacles to change in our industrial food system as entrenched interests try to hold their grounds, and why he is hopeful that the rise of “food citizens” will bring change nonetheless.
On a day when mainstream media outlets are focused on the dysfunctionality plaguing our political system, it is timely to provide a reminder that there are millions of Americans working tirelessly to affect positive change at the grass-roots level. Fred Kirschenmann — pioneering organic farmer, academic, and a leading intellectual force in the Good Food movement — is a shining example of that.