When the Covid pandemic ripped through global food supply chains, it threatened the livelihoods of farmers, created shortages in grocery stores, and very quickly revealed the cold hard truth to any consumer who didn’t already know: Our globalized, industrial food system is broken—a truth that’s further magnified by today’s tariff wars. Change has been necessary for a long time, but now it’s all too evident, and a bold idea is taking hold: What if we return to a time when our needs were met by producers in our own communities, to a food system that prioritizes the health of our families, our communities, and a planet over profit-at-all-costs ethos? A grafting of the best modern agricultural and environmental practices onto community-based food systems.
In her new book, Reaping What She Sows: How Women are Rebuilding Our Broken Food System, Nancy Matsumoto introduces readers to the women changemakers who are building local and regional supply chains: maverick farmers, millers, and bakers who are bringing back local grain economies; brewers, distillers, and winemakers who are regenerating land and ecosystems; indigenous and diasporic seed savers; and more.
With Nancy and me today is Kathleen Finlay, president of Glynwood—and also, incidentally, my dad’s partner and a friend of Nancy’s—who graciously accepted my invite to guest co-host.
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