Elaine C.

Named “Humanitarian of the Year” by the James Beard Foundation, ZFP sees the food system as a major solution to global warming as well as a major cause. ZFP members crowd-fund grants for farmers to switch to renewable farming practices—proven to be the most impactful initiative yet towards solving global warming. Think of it like improving the grid—of food. Just a few cents from restaurant meals, in aggregate, can create acres and acres of healthy soil and shift us from the extractive “conventional” agricultural system to a renewable food system. In fact, healthy soil could sequester all the carbon humans emit every year if farmers and ranchers reduced tilling, applied compost, planted cover crops, and incorporated animal grazing—practices that improve soil health by increasing the amount of life in the soil. That biomass is also carbon coming out of the atmosphere. Unfortunately, today’s industrial food system subsidizes practices that degrade soil, release carbon, deplete nutrients, and mistreat animals and resources. Zero Foodprint was formerly known as The Perennial Farming Initiative.