Mighty Partners Bring Collaborative Solutions to Climate Impacts on Food Systems

According to the United Nations, “In the next 30 years, food supply and food security will be severely threatened if little or no action is taken to address climate change and the food system's vulnerability to climate change.”

The UN goes on to say, “We need to combat the negative impacts of climate change on food security in many different ways: by decreasing greenhouse emissions to reduce the climate change that will occur; improving the resilience of the global food system to climate change; and developing early warning systems that can warn us in due time when nature is about to 'run wild'.”

These warnings can be overwhelming, but they can also be motivating. As human beings living, moving and eating on this planet, we have agency. We can act in our own lives by learning more about where our food comes from, how we can make smart choices from market to dinner plate — and we can invest in others who are finding creative and innovative ways to make our food systems more durable and resilient in the face of the climate crisis. We continue to look to our Mighty Partners, who are leading the charge in this space. 

One of these leaders is the California Climate & Agriculture Network (CalCAN), a coalition of sustainable and organic farming organizations that advocate for state and federal policies to ensure the resilience of California farms and ranches in the face of climate change. In addition to advancing policies that scale up agricultural solutions to the climate crisis, CalCAN centers, amplifies and elevates farmer and rancher voices. 

On their website, CalCAN says, “Climate change is having increasingly profound impacts on California farms and ranches, farmers and farmworkers, and the nation’s food supply, disproportionately harming low-income communities of color. Policy change can encourage much-needed innovation and can deliver the system-wide resources needed to scale up agricultural practices that safeguard our food supply, keep family farmers on the land, and improve working and living conditions for farmworkers, people of color, and the rural poor.”

California’s rich, diverse agricultural communities have fed the world for generations and with continued drought, they are at the epicenter of the climate crisis. This incredible coalition understands the challenge while focusing on solutions that move us forward. 

A little further east, we look to Drylands Agroecology Research, based on the Front Range of Colorado. Their vision is to transform dry, abandoned and marginalized landscapes ​into lush ecosystems ​where humans, animals and spirit can thrive. So far, their team has conserved 75,000 gallons of water, sequestered 20,000 tons of carbon and planted 15,000 trees. Because we’re better together, DAR partners with land stewards and organizations to build regenerative land and human systems. 

Creating lush ecosystems within degraded landscapes and designing those landscapes to store carbon and retain water? That’s exactly what DAR continues to do. And with the Colorado River in its 23rd year of drought sinking its two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, to historic lows, we have no time to waste.

Make no mistake, we are in a crisis. The urgency of this moment is clear. And in the face of these threats, our money is on creative, collaborative solutions. It’s why we’ve committed to investing the entirety of our fund by 2040. In these times of uncertainty, we choose to bet on the power and ingenuity of our collective humanity. We encourage you to learn more about our Mighty Partners and take action.