Food and Technology: Learning from our past and defining our future

On a recent Tuesday night, the back room at Jimmy’s No. 43 in the East Village is packed with foodies and techies, researchers and entrepreneurs, filmmakers and activists. The group has converged for “Five on Food #2”, the monthly event from Meetup.com’s food+tech group. We are there because we believe that technology can disrupt habitual behavior, points of reference, and mindsets, and that just such a disruption is needed if we are going to achieve sustainability in food and agriculture.

When Will Turnage takes the stage to talk about what the combination of food and technology means to him, and how he weaves the two fields together in his daily life, the group nods when he talks about being a developer, and cheers when he announces that he keeps bees. Turnage’s combination of technical expertise, passion for food, and commitment to combining the two in ways that are good for people and the environment, is a common theme among members. However, Turnage, who helped to develop the Ratio application that accompanies Michael Ruhlman’s book by the same name, suggests that the point of technology is to reacquaint us with the instinct and intuition we have lost. He wants to give people the tools they need to get comfortable in the kitchen again.

Daniel Bowman Simon, of the People's Garden NYC, also reminds us that we are not new here. On stage, he produces a photocopy of a 1917 city pamphlet promoting school gardens. Ironic, he says, given how he has had to hit the street to get people to sign his petition to ask Mayor Bloomberg to put a garden in front of City Hall. Simon says he likes making the face-to-face connection with potential supporters first, having them sign, and then following up with an e-mail (in other words, technology enhances the connection but does not establish it). So far, 5,000 people have signed; he wants 8 million signatures. “That’s how many it would take for it to be unanimous,” he says. Simon reminds us that where we are trying to go might not be so far from where we, or at least our ancestors, have been before.

Because of technology, we now have the potential to see the systems around us in new ways. Wendy Brawer of Greenmap.org arrives with symbols printed on bright orange paper. These symbols, she says, are the iconography that helps connect communities around the world to sustainability resources. The open mapping project, which she has led since the early ‘90s (it started on paper, she reminds me), allows cities, organizations, and individuals to create their own maps, which Brawer believes are the missing link in delineating and communicating the issues around food sustainability. She has gotten us a long way toward visualizing the activities, concepts, and needs that shape our local, regional, and global perspective on food systems.

Leitha Matz, who is Senior Content Manager at Fresh Direct, is another presenter this evening who is keen to offer a new level of transparency into food. She reminds the group that food and technology can sometimes be used to describe mega food corporations. However, this group interprets the combination much differently. For us, “food+tech” describes the potential that innovative technology, from iPhone applications and social networks, to GPS and e-commerce, has to restore a healthful, regenerative food system.

At Fresh Direct, Matz has been part of the effort to double the amount of local produce that the online grocer offers. In her view, online grocery has an opportunity for transparency that traditional retail lacks: it’s hard to put on the shelf the integrated pest management and other sustainable farming practices of farms like Red Jacket Orchards, but it is possible to tell a more complex story with digital content. Matz reminds us that this is a “wonderful moment” for consumer information. Though this is nowhere near a sales pitch, Matz’s talk suggests that radical transparency in food is possible.

Stephanie Beack is a farmer’s daughter. With a business degree and a professional background in tech, she says, “I firmly believe in the way technology can change lives.” For Beack, the transformation of food happens in the kitchen. Her site, Scrumptious Street, started two years ago because for her, getting healthy, sustainable food into the home is a way to change mindsets about how we eat. Beack suggests, as she closes her talk, that technology enables food.

But doesn’t food enable technology as well? If not for a stable and healthful food supply, we would not have the wherewithal to pursue the technological innovation that improves connectivity among people and throughout ecosystems. The essential nature of food makes it our most urgent challenge to resolve. As I step into the crowd after the presentations, I have great confidence that the creativity, enthusiasm, and commitment of the people in this room will, through unique applications of technology, change how we understand the future of food.