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KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • SEPTEMBER 2019 • www.kitchenwarenews.com 4 PUBLISHER Kimberly Oser SR. ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Jules Denton-Card jules_d@oser.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lorrie Baumann lorrie_b@oser.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Anthony Socci anthony_s@oser.com ART DIRECTOR Yasmine Brown GRAPHIC DESIGNER Jonathan Schieffer CUSTOMER SERVICE Caitlyn McGrath MANAGERS caitlyn_m@oser.com Susan Stein susan_s@oser.com CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Tara Neal CIRCULATION MANAGER Jamie Green jamie_g@oser.com OSER COMMUNICATIONS GROUP KITCHENWARE NEWS & Housewares Review Kitchenware News & Housewares Review is a publication of Oser Communications Group Inc. 1877 N. Kolb Road • Tucson, AZ 85715 520.721.1300 www.kitchenwarenews.com www.oser.com FOUNDER Lee M. Oser Periodicals postage paid at Tucson, AZ and additional mailing office. Kitchenware News & Housewares Review (USPS012-625) is published 7 times per year (Jan., March, May, July, Sept., Nov., and Dec.) by Oser Communications Group, 1877 N. 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 proprietary classified information. ©2019 by Oser Communications Group. All rights reserved Reproduction, in whole or in part, without written permission of the publisher, is expressly prohibited. Back issues, when available, cost $8 each within the past 12 months. Back issue orders must be paid in advance by check. Kitchenware News & Housewares Review is distributed without charge in North America to qualified professionals in the retail and distribution channels of the upscale kitchenware and tabletop trade. For subscriber services, including subscription information, call 520.721.1300. Printed in the USA. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Kitchenware News & Housewares Review, 1877 N. Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ 85715. 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' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which suggests 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 responded 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 causing climate change effects that are already readily observable. These changes include shifts in crop yield in various latitudes, changes in animal growth rates and productivity 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 century 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 already among the most vulnerable – those who are already hungry. The report's good news is that we're already doing some things that mitigate these risks, including efforts to achieve sustainable food pro- duction and better forest management, attention paid to carbon management in our soils, and efforts to reduce food waste. While some of these efforts 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 atmosphere, 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 climate change adaptation and mitigation include increasing soil organic matter, erosion control, better fertilizer management, improved crop management, choosing plant varieties and animal breeds for heat and drought tolerance and better manure management. As you know if you've already been reading both Gourmet News and Kitchenware News, these are not new ideas even though the infor- mation 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 international 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 ensure 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 contribute 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 magazine called "Gourmet News" is asking questions about waste management, water conservation and crop rotations. The specialty 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 specialty 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 ap- preciation for the work we do here. KN Lorrie Baumann, Editorial Director editor from the

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