Both improving public health and reducing health disparity through access to better nutrition certainly seem to be at the heart of what was recently referred to in the New York Review of Books by Michael Pollan as the food “movements.”  For example, urban agriculture and farmers’ markets increase access to healthier food, and many groups are working to have more of both. The social, environmental, cultural and economic problems often focused on in public health are to varying degrees rectifiable by reforming the ways in which food is produced and distributed. Such efforts can often be coordinated with those to protect the environment, since most farming in the United States pollutes our air, water and soil. At this crossroads, public health advocates can serve to foster more collaboration among environmentalists and food advocates and help make the case for public health on behalf of these common efforts to lawmakers. Some well known environmental issues related to food production are the distance traveled from the field to plate, chemicals used in food production, packaging, and perhaps the lesser known areas of composting, soil, air and water management.

The increase in garden spaces can help with both waste and water management. Many community gardens compost both the gardens’ organic matter as well as food scraps. According to the EPA’s 2008 data, 12.7 percent of municipal solid waste was food scraps and 13.2 percent was yard trimmings (of a total 250 million tons, prior to recycling).  If that waste was diverted to dispersed, small-scale composting facilities, much less fuel would be used to haul garbage, less space would be taken up in landfills, and less methane (a potent greenhouse gas) would be released by its anaerobic decomposition. The resulting compost humus can lead to healthier soils that are better capable of nourishing plants and with improved ability to drain excess water and to be drought resistant. The addition of new organic matter to soil reduces the concentration of toxic substances, an important function in cities where lead and other pollutants have often tainted the soil. Small-scale community gardens and those practicing ecological agriculture are already beginning to divert significant amounts of such matter by using it as a resource (check out Growing Power’s impressive composting information).

Soil can replace nonporous asphalt or concrete in urban environments, which aids in water management. Along with rain barrels, often used in backyard and community gardens, and the growing use of green roofs, these changes are diverting significant amounts of rainwater from wastewater management systems. The financial and energy costs of normal water management aside, this is no small matter when, as the New York Times noted last year, the systems can be overwhelmed during a storm, leading to the release of wastewater before it is treated.  The article states, “In the last three years alone, more than 9,400 of the nation’s 25,000 sewage systems — including those in major cities — have reported violating the law by dumping untreated or partly treated human waste, chemicals, and other hazardous materials into rivers and lakes and elsewhere.”  Gardeners and urban farmers could have a great impact on the number and volume of these overflows, which could protect both humans and wildlife alike from untreated wastewater.

While the modern food movement appears to be hitting its stride on a number of levels, conventional agriculture is still the norm and is being exported to developing nations. Some contend it is the only way to feed the world. However, a recent study shows that ecological agriculture, including organic production, can in many cases increase yields while avoiding so many of the environmental problems caused by conventional agriculture. Raj Patel, in Stuffed and Starved, The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, counters that today, hunger is largely a problem of distribution, of people being denied the right to food, not one of production. Maria Rodale’s Organic Manifesto notes that compared to conventional, organic agriculture uses 30 percent less fossil fuel while creating 15 percent more jobs, which makes a strong economic case for switching to organic production. While organic food usually costs more, Rodale contends that it would be cheaper than conventional if it were not for the fact that “just 0.3 percent of the Farm Bill’s $284 billion budget” goes to organic research. Considering all of the external costs, opponents say that the real costs of conventional agriculture to both public health and the environment vastly outweigh any case that can be made for continuing on that path. What is the greatest case a public health advocate can make for reforming the way our food is produced? One of our largest public health threats is that which is posed by global climate change, and according to the Rodale Institute, “practical organic agriculture, if practiced on the planet’s 3.5 billion tillable acres, could sequester nearly 40 percent of current CO₂ emissions.”