News

FoodPrintNM made its debut at the International Xeriscape Conference, February 20-22, 2009 in Albuquerque, NM.

FoodPrintNM is an alliance of business, government, academics, and nonprofit food policy advocates working together to enhance local, organic food production while bringing down the emissions of carbon dioxide and methane throughout the food system.  In New Mexico we all hope to eat every day, but one in six New Mexicans face chronic food insecurity.  Meanwhile, shrinking agricultural land and scarce water threaten our ability to keep land in production.  Lack of infrastructure for processing and storage mean that locally grown food ends up traveling thousands of miles before it returns to local stores, with added risks of picking up contaminants along the way.

FoodPrintNM's strategic plan includes:

• Assessing the capacity, risks, and feasibility of using local food to feed nearly 2 million New Mexicans
• Adopting cap and trade as a framework for action
• Leveraging opportunities with non-traditional advocates
• Educating stakeholders throughout the food system
• Identifying barriers and incentives for public policy changes that achieve the vision

A newly funded demonstration project is underway to show what a carbon-neutral food system will look like.  FoodPrintNM member organization UNM Sustainability Studies Program will lead the design of a Harvest Assistance Vehicle, or HAV.  The system has three components:

• Engineering of on-board infrastructure for transportation, washing, and storage of fresh, locally grown food.
• Business model to make the system cooperatively owned and operated.

• Information management, analogous to Craig's List, to automatically link growers to markets and schedule trips.