Civil Eats

In a new survey conducted by Consumer Reports, consumers named “reduced use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides” as one of their top priorities when purchasing food. But that goal is not a focus of most companies’ regenerative agriculture commitments.

Sunni Park, a Korean-American chef in Pittsburgh, says she has always viewed perilla as a steady companion and a “doorway” through which she could explore her own culture. “When I’m eating perilla, I’m thinking of all my ancestors.”

Ali Hayton, owner of the International Marketplace grocery store in Point Roberts, Washington, says escalating trade tensions with Canada are putting her business at risk of closing, an outcome that would eliminate the area’s only grocery store and put residents’ food security at risk. Read more from Contributor Jennifer Cole. ⬇️

From a small, diversified farm to a 3,000-acre commodity row crop operation, regenerative practices can mean a range of options.

“When the land beneath large-scale solar projects is managed like this, as a system of soil, plants, and water, the benefits compound: the soil becomes healthier, water movement improves, and reliable plants thrive,” writes soil scientist Emily Cole in an op-ed.

Korean kkaennip, Japanese shiso. This spring, Ginger Brooks Takahashi grew a garden featuring more than a dozen perilla varieties that represent a kaleidoscopic view of the plant and the Asian communities that cling to it. The Perilla People’s Garden is her way of bringing people together to probe the deeper questions perilla presents about colonization and the movement of people and plants across space and time. The garden is part of a broader installation she designed around perilla for the 59th Carnegie International, a quadrennial survey of contemporary art hosted by Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art. Ben Seal for Civil Eats. https://lnkd.in/gJ8a_Skv

Appropriators in Congress provided $7 million during the 2025 fiscal year and $5 million in 2026 to be used for Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production grants. None of that money has been made available to date, and the 2027 fiscal year starts this week. ➡️ https://buff.ly/hnJ3NQl

"Multinational corporate 'efficiency' is not the same thing as resilience, and consolidation is not inevitable. It is the result of policy choices, financial incentives, market structures, and decisions about who gets access to land and capital,” writes Tim Gibbons, executive director of the National Family Farm Coalition, in an op-ed.

Ocean advocates and fishermen groups say that the super El Niño highlights the need to reform how disaster relief is delivered to fishers as climate-change impacts accelerate and small family businesses are forced to close.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture failed to distribute $12 million in funding allocated to support farmers in urban and suburban areas over the past two years.