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GOURMET NEWS SEPTEMBER 2019 www.gourmetnews.com NEWS & NOTES 4 FROM THE EDITOR Greetings! This month as we go to press with the September issues of both Gourmet News and Kitchenware News, we are hearing a lot of rumbling around two subjects: climate change and tariffs. Concerns about climate change have been ratcheted up by a report from the United Nations' Intergovernmen- tal Panel on Climate Change, which sug- gests that, as a species, we human beings are eating ourselves out of house and home. As the world's population has grown rapidly over the past few decades, we've re- sponded by cultivating more and more of the Earth's surface and siphoning up more and more of the Earth's fresh water supply until we're now at the point at which about 2 billion adults are now overweight or obese while 821 million people are still un- dernourished. The activities we've undertaken to keep our species fed have greatly contributed to the greenhouse gas emissions that are caus- ing climate change effects that are already readily observable. These changes include shifts in crop yield in various latitudes, changes in animal growth rates and pro- ductivity in Africa, insect infestations and crop diseases and more. In short, "climate change creates additional stresses on land, exacerbating existing risks to livelihoods, biodiversity, humans and ecosystem health, infrastructure and food systems." The report says that we can expect to see more heat waves throughout the 21st cen- tury with more and deeper droughts and extreme rainfall events that happen more frequently and with greater intensity in many regions around the world. As these events occur, they'll disrupt the stability of our global food supply, probably leading to higher food prices and increased risk of food insecurity and hunger. These effects will be worst for those of us who are al- ready among the most vulnerable – those who are already hungry. The report's good news is that we're al- ready doing some things that mitigate these risks, including efforts to achieve sustain- able food production and better forest man- agement, attention paid to carbon management in our soils, and efforts to re- duce food waste. While some of these ef- forts have impacts that can be felt in the short term, others will take decades to make a difference. The farmers who are already improving the way they manage their croplands and grazing land to increase the land's ability to sequester carbon, keeping it out of the at- mosphere, are making a contribution with respect to climate change as well as to the health of their own soils. According to the report, the practices that contribute to cli- mate change adaptation and mitigation in- clude increasing soil organic matter, erosion control, better fertilizer manage- ment, improved crop management, choos- ing plant varieties and animal breeds for heat and drought tolerance and better ma- nure management. As you know if you've already been read- ing both Gourmet News and Kitchenware News, these are not new ideas even though the information about how to achieve them is growing so fast that many farmers around the world are racing to keep up. That is so even while our American farmers are also stressed by the need to deal with the impacts of federal trade policy and in- ternational markets. Now, more than ever, this is not the time to blame "the agriculture industry" or farmers or ranchers for the fix in which we find ourselves. Now is the time to support, with our interest and our dollars, those farmers who are working their hardest to grow our food the best way they can to en- sure that we'll all be able to pass a livable planet down to our descendants. We all need to share the responsibility for the choices we make in the grocery store, and once we have the food at home, to try our best to waste less of it. It continues to be our pleasure to con- tribute to the discussions about how we do all that. We are also so very grateful to the readers who have encouraged us to do that. Every little once in a while, I run into a farmer who's curious about why a maga- zine called "Gourmet News" is asking questions about waste management, water conservation and crop rotations. The spe- cialty food retailers who read the magazine, however, understand that continuing to eat well means understanding more now about how our farmers grow our food. The spe- cialty kitchenware retailers who read Kitchenware News understand just as surely that continuing to eat well means understanding more about what to do with that food when we've brought it home. Thank you all! Your understanding of these vital issues continues to bolster our efforts and gratifies us with your appreciation for the work we do here. GN — Lorrie Baumann Editorial Director FROM THE EDITOR WWW.GOURMETNEWS.COM PUBLISHER Kimberly Oser SENIOR ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Jules Denton-Card jules_d@oser.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lorrie Baumann editor@oser.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Anthony Socci anthony_s@oser.com SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Greg Gonzales ASSOCIATE EDITOR Jeanie Catron ART DIRECTOR Yasmine Brown GRAPHIC DESIGNER Jonathan Schieffer CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER Susan Stein CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Tara Neal tara_n@oser.com CIRCULATION MANAGER Jamie Green jamie_g@oser.com EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT Heather Albrecht heather_a@oser.com PUBLISHING OFFICE 1877 N. Kolb Road P.O. Box 1056 Tucson, AZ 85715 520.721.1300 Fax 520.721.6300 SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Gourmet News P.O. Box 30520 Tucson, AZ 85751 520.721.1300 G OURMET N EWS ® OSER COMMUNICATIONS GROUP FOUNDER Lee M. Oser MEMBER OF: Periodicals postage paid at Tucson, AZ, and additional mailing office. Gourmet News (ISSN 1052-4630) is published monthly by Oser Communications Group, 1877 North Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ 85715; 520.721.1300. Publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material or prices quoted in newspaper. Contributors are responsible for proper release of pro- prietary classified information. ©2019 by Oser Communications Group. All rights re- served. Reproduction, in whole or in part, without writ- ten permission of the publisher, is expressly prohibited. Back issues, when available, cost $7 each within the past 12 months, $12 each prior to the past 12 months. Back orders must be paid in advance either by check or charged to American Express, Visa, or Master Card. Gourmet News is distributed without charge in North America to qualified professionals in the retail and dis- tribution channels of the specialty foods and hardgoods trade; paid subscriptions cost $65 annually to the U.S. and Canada. All foreign subscriptions cost $150 annu- ally to cover air delivery. All payments must be made in U.S. funds and drawn on a U.S. bank. For subscriber services, including subscription information, call 520.721.1300. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Gourmet News, 1877 North Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ 85715.

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