Kick Off for CCNow’s ‘Food & Water’ Joint Coverage Week

Here's our recap of the first day of coverage.

It was a great first day of Covering Climate Now’s joint coverage week focused on ‘Food & Water,’ which runs from today through July 1. Our thanks to all participating — we look forward to seeing your stories throughout the week.

Today, CCNow partners published a Newsmaker Interview with Oxfam International executive director Gabriela Bucher. In advance of this week’s G7 summit in Germany, Bucher, the head of one of the world’s leading anti-poverty NGOs, sat down with the Guardian, Al Jazeera, and The Times of India to discuss the summit, the climate crisis, and spiking world hunger. Bucher called the global food crisis “unprecedented,” attributing its severity to a combination of crises, including the war in Ukraine, the pandemic, and the ever worsening climate crisis. She called for a windfall tax on pandemic profits — and using the revenues to prevent the death by starvation of “hundreds of thousands of people” — and a doubling down on solidarity with countries and peoples in desperate need.

Stories by the Guardian and The Times of India are available for publication by CCNow partners, and the raw footage, shot by Al Jazeera, is available for partner use. A transcript of the interviews is here. Guidelines for publishing these stories are below.

Keep reading, and you’ll find more coverage from our partners, further recommendations for republication, and some great food and climate stories with a special focus on justice. As a reminder, here’s how you and your news outlet can be involved during the week:

  • Publish original content on the intersection of food and climate, or publish content made available by another CCNow partner, through our Sharing Library.
    • For original stories, please include the following tagline:
      This story is part of Covering Climate Now’s ‘Food & Water’ joint coverage week.
    • For stories that are republished from other CCNow partners, this tagline is mandatory:
      This story originally appeared in [name of outlet] and is part of Covering Climate Now’s ‘Food & Water’ joint coverage week.
  • Tune in for our press briefing and social media events (more below).
  • Amplify food and water stories on social media, tagging us @CoveringClimate and using the hashtag #CCNow.
  • Join the conversation in our CCNow collaboration-wide Slack space. Share your stories with fellow journalists, brainstorm ideas, and more. (If you haven’t joined already and want to, send an email to editors@coveringclimatenow.org

Joint week events reminder

Press briefing. Join us Wednesday, June 29 at 12pm US Eastern Time for a press briefing with a panel of experts on climate, hunger, and the future of food. We’ll hear about climate’s role in the growing food crisis and solutions to help improve our food systems. RSVP here.

Join us on Twitter Spaces. Throughout the week, we’ll speak with journalists about their experiences covering food & water on the climate beat. Today, we focused in on justice with Naomi Starkman, editor and founder of Civil Eats; Angely Mercado, of Gizmodo; and Caitlin Ochs, a freelancer and CCNow Awards finalist. Check out a recording of that Spaces here.

“Food & Water” Talking Shop. Last week, we spoke with journalists from India, Hong Kong, and the US about climate connections to food and water — and why these subjects are great entries to the climate story for audiences. A recording and transcript are here.

Today’s highlights

From The Nation: A conversation with Carly Griffith Hotvedt about the Native Farm Bill, traditional Indigenous knowledge, and environmental conservation. “We have a seven-generations perspective,”  Hotvedt said. “What are we doing to make sure that what we have now is either the same or better for that seventh generation down the road?” By Danielle Renwick, of Nexus Media News.

From Canary Media: To feed the world without burning up the Earth, we need to get more calories, responsibly, from every acre. Enter the pongamia tree, “a reforestation crop that can replace deforestation crops.” By Michael Grunwald.

From Media Matters for America: In a new study, Media Matters finds media coverage of food and water as they relate to climate has increased by leaps and bounds in recent years and has expanded to a wider range of issues, including environmental justice and corporate accountability. By Ted MacDonald.

Republication recommendations

The following stories deserve special consideration for republication by CCNow partners:

For partner outlets: to submit stories for sharing, please use this form. As always, instructions for republishing and the full list of stories available for republication can be found in our Sharing Library.

Focus on justice

Justice is core to the food & climate story, in that marginalized communities will be hit hardest as climate change ravages our food systems — but the same communities are at the forefront of solutions. Here are some justice stories we’ve loved at the intersection of food and climate:

  • From the Guardian: In Hawai‘i, traditional farmers are combining modern tools & tech with ancient regenerative practices to meet the islands’ food and climate challenges. By Nina Lakhani, as part of the Guardian’s ‘Unequal Earth’ series.
  • From The Counter: “Regenerative agriculture” might be the future — but there’s limited agreement on what it means, and major questions about race, equity, and access remain. Another CCNow Awards finalist, by Joe Fassler.
  • From BuzzFeed News: In the American West, drought has states scrambling to manage limited Colorado River water resources. Will basin-area tribes have a seat at the table? A CCNow Awards finalist, by Caitlin Ochs!
  • From Indian Country Today: For the Navajo Nation, climate change threatens water access and longstanding farming practices — but many are determined to adapt. By Pauly Denetclaw.
  • From Civil Eats: As food and farm working conditions grow more dangerous, there are alarmingly few protections for vulnerable workers on which our food systems depend. By Greta Moran.