Your Evoke Mission: Innovate Food Security, Online

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2010-03-13 06:52:00 UTC
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The world is imperiled by food security issues. Global warming is changing growing patterns and making droughts more unpredictable and severe. Competition for land resources for water and food is perpetuating conflict cycles. And today, 1 billion people will go hungry. We need your ideas to stop these travesties.

That was the message I got from "Alchemy," leader of the "Evoke Agents" -- a global network of social change agents who are participating in the first massive online game to focus on making a positive world difference. As I've previously written, the game Evoke is a collaboration between the World Bank Institute and alternate reality game designer Jane McGonigal. For the next 10 weeks, people can join the game and participate in missions with the goal of learning about and acting to improve social issues.

This week's mission is dealing with food security. Evoke uses the 1996 World Food Summit definition to describe food security -- that is, enabling systems to make food always and predictably available, not simply provide meals here and there.

Thinking about food justice is an increasingly important part of the social entrepreneurship landscape. There are many people -- with folks like Omnivore's Dilemma author Michael Pollan out at the forefront -- focused on changing the way we consume. Our current food model of fast, highly processed foods is not only detrimental to our bodies, it's increasingly poisoning our environment as well.

At Pop!Tech last year, Pollan explained how bad our current food system is for the environment:

More recently, UK chef and now US TV star Jamie Oliver won the TED Prize with a wish to change the way we teach our children about food in schools:

And at that same TED conference, New York chef Dan Barber told the story of an entirely different model of fish farming. For Barber, this model is the must-imitate model for the future, as we've destroyed 90% of the natural big fish population in the ocean:

When it comes to the full spectrum of innovation happening across our food systems, these people and organizations are just the tip of the iceberg. One of my favorite examples is Gardens For Health, an Echoing Green fellowship-winning organization that helps communities struggling with HIV/AIDS in Rwanda build local food systems as the foundation for good health.

If this is an issue whose time has come, it's still up to us to really do something with it. Alchemy is waiting: Will you answer the challenge?

Read more about Evoke here, or join the game at Urgentevoke.com

Photo Credit: Screenshot taken from www.urgentevoke.com

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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