Adventure 21: Is Food Diversity an Illusion?, by Phil Howard

As part of Eat Local Week, Westminster College hosted a free lecture by Phil Howard on the illusion of the diversity of food in America.

It was a rainy night last night, and figuring out parking at the Westminster campus can be tricky. So I was a few minutes late to the lecture, but managed to snap this picture as I ran across campus with my cute umbrella. I mean really, isn't it though?

Though I was running in the rain, I was struck by the beauty of the campus. It's small, but has a charm of it's own.

The lecture took place in the Bill and Vieve School of Business Auditorium.

So Phil Howard did a study while at Michigan State University looking at the food diversity in the grocery stores in the surrounding area there. He presented what he found. In all industries there seemed to be a big three in each that owned all the smaller brands we might perceive as smaller, independent companies. 

He also showed an interesting animation showing dots on the screen that represented innovative organic food companies that started in the 1990's, then showed which of those were acquired by venture capitalists, and larger companies through 2007. While there is still more diversity among those companies than other brands, it was interesting to see how fewer independents there were.

Since I seem to always have my camera open on my phone while adventuring, there is always a minimum of 3 accidental shots I find later.

The four areas of diversity he discussed were ownership, production, ingredients and breeds/seeds. Suffice it to say in all of these areas there is very little diversity.

One surprising fact that stuck out to me was that there is only one breed of turkeys commercially bred, the white heritage breed. This, of course makes it very possible for disease to wipe out the entire turkey population.

Howard ended the presentation with a few suggestions on how we can affect change. There are a few local organizations as well as many national whom we can get involved with. His last words were, eat local!

It was a considerate 1 hour presentation, with a few questions at the end. There were a few unfavorable remarks made about the corporations making these decisions. Which, of course I see the logic behind, but it made me wish someone from one of these corporations could be there to give a full explanation behind these decisions.

Time spent on adventure: 1 hour
Money spent: $0
Recommendation: 6 out of 10 adventure points!