Food Resiliency Project

Probing key law and policy issues to ensure resilient, sustainable food systems. The Food Resiliency Project will address key environmental and policy issues relating to all stages of the food system, including production, transportation, packaging, and consumption. These issues are examined through both a local and a transnational perspective. Local resilience to natural disaster and climate change is a key theme driving communities to develop self-sufficiency in their food systems. Important issues include patents related to modified seeds, land use reform to promote urban and household food production, use of public parks and spaces as “foodscapes,” use of conservation easements to secure urban farms, impacts from genetic modification of food and genetic pollution, transition from pesticides and herbicides, legal incentives to promote carbon sequestration in farming practices, global food trade, and international frameworks to ensure food sovereignty, security, and justice, among many more.

Nate Bellinger is a second year law student with an interest in environmental law, especially climate change and food studies. During the summer after his first year of law school, Nate was a law clerk at the Oregon Department of Justice in the Natural Resources Section. Originally from Massachusetts, Nate earned a B.S. in Natural Resource Studies from the University of Massachusetts before moving to Oregon. After spending three years working as a firefighter, a ski instructor, a rafting guide, and traveling, Nate returned to school and earned a Master’s degree in Geography from the University of Oregon. His thesis documented the social and environmental impacts of Ecuador’s commercial tuna fishing industry. Nate takes full advantage of all the outdoor recreational opportunities that Oregon provides but particularly enjoys long distance trail running, backpacking, and hiking with his dog. He is an urban homesteader and spends much of his free time working in his garden, canning and drying food, or cooking and eating the food he grows.