Top Five Sustainable Food Stories of 2009

As we sit here on a day off, happy with the gifts we've gotten and looking forward to the festivities of New Years, let's take a moment to look back on the year in sustainable food. It's hard to choose the top five stories since so much happened for food in 2009, but I've whittled it down to a handful of particularly notable developments. Try these on for size:

1. The White House garden. Not since Carter slapped solar panels on the White House has the First Family provided such a good example. In the midst of a national conversation about our ill-health and obesity, the Obamas' commitment to demonstrating what good food looks like is a major vote of confidence for a change in the way we produce food in this country. A special shout-out goes to Michelle Obama for her tireless efforts to get children involved.

2. National discussion on food safety and health. With the discussion about health care reform on everyone's mind, a growing consensus that we have a major problem with obesity and a spate of food-contamination scares to rile people's outrage, this has been a banner year for our national conversation about food and health. Writing in the New York Times, Michael Pollan pointed out that our food problems and our health care issues are inextricably related. A lot of Americans are starting to come around to the idea that we might need to change the way we eat and the way we produce our food.

3. Huge growth in farmers markets. In 2009, the number of farmers markets in the US expanded from 4,685 to 5,274, a growth rate of 13 percent. More and more people from all walks of life are embracing the farm-to-table ethic, coming to understand that buying from the farmers market is healthy, sustainable and supports local economies. This is great news, as devotion to farmers markets is key in establishing a food system that challenges the industrial model.

4. Web connections. To get us back to a place of health, our sustainable agricultural system needs to move into the modern world fast. People who grow the food and people who buy the food need to embrace dynamic, new ways to find each other and do business, as well as to build communities of thought and practice. Luckily, we've seen major advancements on this front lately. Take a look at Ecotrust's Food Hub, Tim Will's Farmers Fresh Market or the nascent "Pro Food" movement, driven by the Twitter tag #ProFood, which Rob Smart calls an effort to "revitalize the entrepreneurial side of the American food system."

5. Urban farming. While urban farming has been gaining momentum for a while, this year brought widespread attention to the field. The New York Times covered the trend and published a feature about Will Allen, "the go-to expert on urban farming" and founder of Milwaukee's urban farming NGO Growing Power. Grist wrote about "the new wave of urban farming." Detroit-based NGO Urban Farming, the founder of which I will be featuring in an upcoming Food Files, was featured on ABC News and USA TODAY and won a 2009 MySpace IMPACT Award.

It's been a great year for sustainable food. But we've only just begun! Look out in the coming week for my "top five sustainable food trends to watch in 2010."

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

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