Tanya Denckla Cobb in the News
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
[from UVa News Services, by Jane Ford]: Since mid-April, when the World Food Program declared a global food price crisis, the ripples of the so-called "silent tsunami" have been felt across the globe.
There have been riots over the cost of food in Somalia and Egypt. Haiti's prime minister was forced to resign by legislators seeking to quell violent protests over rising food costs. And here in the United States, rising global grain prices helped spark the largest increase in monthly food costs in nearly 20 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics described the 0.9 percent rise between March and April as the biggest since January 1990.
Tanya Denckla Cobb, senior associate at U.Va.'s Institute for Environmental Negotiation, views the world's food crisis as less of a shortage and more of a problem of food distribution. "People on plant Earth produce more than enough food to feed all of our planetary tenants, but we have not yet learned how to distribute our harvest in an equitable way that gives affordable and meaningful access to all."
The Center for Global Health recently funded Denckla Cobb's spring course, "Healthy Communities, Healthy Food Systems: Global-Local Connections." She and Tim Beatley, the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, led students in a novel endeavor to figure out where Charlottesville's food comes from, be it local or from thousands of miles away. Students conducted nine different case studies to discern how to better balance global and local supplies. At the end of the semester, the students presented their findings at Charlottesville's City Hall. [for complete article, follow link embedded in headline]
Monday, June 9, 2008
[from Darden School of Business Communications]:The Darden School and the University of Virginia’s Architecture School, Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, have received a grant fromSaunders Hall at the Darden School the Jefferson Area Board for Aging (JABA) and the UVA Institute on Aging to fund student research this summer.
The grant will support one Darden student and one Architecture School student in research for the Community Food System Program (CFSP) in Charlottesville. One of the benefits of this program is that it will ultimately help Darden achieve its own sustainability goals by sourcing food locally.
The students and faculty advisors will work with the CFSP advisory board, local farmers and other participants to evaluate the feasibility of an integrated and expanded food system – a hub for food delivery, preparation, preservation, marketing and agriculture/food education in the community. The goal is to provide increased offerings of fresher, more nutritious, and better tasting food that is locally sourced.
[for complete article, follow link in headline]
Monday, June 9, 2008
Follow the link in the headline to the podcast of the final class presentations for the Charlottesville Glocal Food System course taught by Prof. Timothy Beatley and IEN Senior Associate Tanya Denckla Cobb in Spring 2008.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
[From WVIR-TV, Charlottesville, VA] UVA Students Conduct "Glocal" Study
"Do you ever think about where your food comes from? Some of it's from thousands of miles away. Other items may only be from a few miles down the road.
"University of Virginia students have been working to figure out where our area's food system stands. Tuesday, they're revealing their results and want to hear from you. The students have been studying Charlottesville's 'glocal' food system. That's a combination of global and local. Their goal was to assess different situations and find out how we can work to create a better balance between the two areas depending on what people need.
"Tim Beatley is a professor of Sustainable Communities at the University of Virginia. His class is studying Charlottesville's food system. Each student is focusing on a different aspect of 'glocal' foods or combining global and local supplies. Families in affordable housing, restaurants, and community services are all topics. Each has its own story...."
[for complete article, follow link to WVIR-TV's website]
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
"UVa students celebrate with foods from region"
by Brian McNeil, Daily Progress
"As part of a Thanksgiving experiment, 100 University of Virginia students and professors gobbled down a potluck feast of turkey from a farm in Staunton, applesauce made from handpicked Carter Mountain apples, mashed potatoes made with Staunton-grown Yukon Gold potatoes, raspberry ice cream with Charlottesville-grown fruit, and a casserole filled with Central Virginia potatoes and cheeses.
“'Many of us believe that we need to support local farmers,'” said Tim Beatley, a UVa professor who teaches a class about sustainable communities. “'Here’s an opportunity for us to walk the walk.'”
"The UVa students and faculty members took part in a 'glocal' Thanksgiving, in which participants sought to cook with only local ingredients and food from elsewhere that was obtained through ethical means, such as fair trade." [for complete article, see the Daily Progress website]
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
[From UVa News Services]:
The creation of a statewide policy group to coordinate efforts at ensuring that Virginia's food supply remains secure well into the 21st century is the major recommendation in a new report generated by a group of concerned citizens and professionals, among them faculty from the University of Virginia.
The report outlines a vision for food security in Virginia and addresses issues of farming, health and childhood obesity, as well as the state's economy. As a first step toward implementing the report's findings and recommendations, it has been shared with Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine and his cabinet.
The report grew out of a Food Security Summit, which attracted 146 participants from all regions of Virginia who came together in May to discuss various issues surrounding food security. The event was a partnership initiative of the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning and Institute for Environmental Negotiation, both in the University of Virginia's School of Architecture, and the Virginia Tech Department of Food Science and Technology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. [for complete article, see UVa News Services]
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Excerpt from “Food Fights”, Cville Weekly July 10, 2007 by Meg McEvoy
>> Two professors in the department of urban and environmental planning have twice taught a course in “community food systems.”
“Food system planning has become a very new, cutting edge part of the planning field,” says Tanya Denckla Cobb, a professor with UVA’s Institute for Environmental Negotiation who teaches the course with sustainable communities professor Tim Beatley. A few graduate students have even enrolled in the department specifically to study food issues.
And EAT Local brings groups of activists, retailers, farmers and academics together regularly for potlucks and discussions at venues like Feast! market in the city.
That the educated liberal elite take an interest in food issues isn’t surprising. But, when the liberals meet the libertarians, an “everyone at the table” philosophy means sometimes there isn’t enough elbow room.
For starters, there’s the question of whether government will help or hurt the local food movement.
The academics, no surprise, are more inclined to speak the language of the establishment. In fact, one of the bullet points of the class-produced Charlottesville Region Food System preliminary assessment reads: “Provide governmental incentives to transition to sustainable methods.”
Beatley brings up the example of Woodbury County, Iowa, which, in 2006, became the first county in the U.S. to mandate that all food purchased for government departments and schools be local and organic, shifting an estimated $281,000 of annual food purchases to the local economy.
Earlier, in 2005, Woodbury County became the first in the country to provide incentives to farmers who switched to organic growing methods. The action gives tax breaks of $50,000 a year for five years.
But, the website for the rural economic development department of Woodbury County reveals where all the support is coming from: USDA Rural Development, which provides grants, Iowa Department of Economic Development, the Iowa Farm Bureau and the U.S. Department of Commerce, which gives export assistance to Woodbury County.
It’s hard to imagine our local farmers accepting such handouts while resisting regulations handed down by the same agencies.
Even smaller, localized solutions can be met with opposition.
A popular idea among members of the EAT Local group is that of a community kitchen, where farmers could bring bruised or extra tomatoes, for example, to make into tomato sauce to up profit margins on sales. Local users would split the costs of kitchen inspections and regulation compliance.
But Russell says she’s not interested in hauling her produce into town to use a kitchen that’s not her own. She’d rather spend her time chipping away at the rules that say she can’t make and sell tomato sauce in the first place.
Russell also points out that a recently held Food Security Summit at UVA, sponsored by the department of urban and environmental planning, cost $45 and took place on a workday during harvest season, which suggests to her that academics are out of touch with the basic requirements of a farmer’s life.
Even the Buy Fresh, Buy Local guide distributed by Piedmont Environmental Council is, in the eyes of some, too selective and focused on pricey restaurants and markets. VICFA has long published a plainer-looking producers’ guide that lists member farms in Albemarle and surrounding counties.
Beatley thinks these differences aren’t prohibitive: “I’m a teacher, and an important part of this is an educational mission. So we want our students to understand all sides, all points of view, and we do have to be a bit more balanced. …But this local foods movement, sustainable foods movement, is a large tent, and it can accommodate lots of different positions.”
Monday, July 3, 2006
Heinz Professor Timothy Beatley of the Dept. of Urban + Environmental Planning teamed up with Tanya Denckla Cobb, senior associate at the Institute for Environmental Negotiation (IEN) to lead a course during the spring 2006 semester entitled, "Planning for a Sustainable and Secure Community Food System." Students in the course presented their findings to a meeting of Charlottesville-area government, community leaders, growers and retailers at the conclusion of the semester. Over the summer students are continuing to work with local citizens and leaders to assess community food source origins. In Spring 2007, a new class will convene to prepare a community food plan for Central Viriginia. The class report is available at
www.tjpdc.org.
Tuesday, May 9, 2006
Students in PLAC 569: Community Food Systems presented their findings to Charlottesville City Council last night before an audience that included representatives of many local groups. The resulting discussion lead to plans for another community meeting in June to further discuss the implications of food origins.
Monday, August 22, 2005
In partnership with the Virginia Association for Community Conflict Resolution, the Institute for Environmental Negotiation (IEN) has created a new initiative to assist localities in resolving complex environmental issues. The initiative is featured in an article entitled, "UVa Group Paves Collaborative Way," published in the August 21 edition of the
Daily Progress.
