This week on Eating Matters, host Kim Kessler is on the line with Paula Daniels, the founder of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council (LAFPC), a policy based collective impact initiative of food system leaders working toward an environmentally sustainable, equitable and regionally based food system. Discussing the current drought in California, Paula shares the outlook from the agricultural perspective and details the overall crop production throughout the state and how it affects water consumption. With almond farming taking up nearly ten percent of California’s water resources, for example, Paula suggests aquaculture as an alternate farming practices that could perhaps be an eventual fix to such droughts. Aquaculture, the farming of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks and aquatic plants, has potential to not only be economically viable but also to support local food systems. After the break, Kim and Paula talk about the Los Angeles Food Policy Council’s key project, the Good Food Purchasing Policy, which harnesses the purchasing power of major institutions to encourage greater production of sustainably produced food,healthy eating habits, respect for workers’ rights, humane treatment of animals and support for the local business economy by providing new opportunities for small and mid-sized farmers and job creation along the supply chain. Tune in to hear more from Paula and the LAFPC’s many accomplishments. This program was brought to you by Cain Vineyard & Winery.

“Most of the water in California in the north, most of the demand is in the Central Valley and in the south, in Los Angeles… so we’ve been moving water around the state for nearly a century now.” [5:33]

“The issue with the tree crops is that they are permanent so they function in a way that we call hardening the water supply so you can’t fallow tree crops, you have to pull them out… so it’s a big economic loss if you have to do that.” [6:58]

—Paula Daniels on Eating Matters