Food advocate and professor Oran Hesterman's new book Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System for All covers a lot of bases. Food justice, food safety, accessibility, quality—all of these fundamental issues are wrapped up in the solutions that Hesterman highlights.

He breaks the book up into three parts: problems, solutions, and how to get involved.

The first section is dedicated to a quick run-down of the major faults that Hesterman identifies in the food system. If you've read much else about modern food production, this section is a bit of a breeze. His points are important, but for the most part not revelatory. The real value of this book lies in the later chapters when he identifies and prioritizes solutions.

In his second section, Hesterman highlights individuals and organizations that he views as models for reform in the food industry. From individual farmers running small CSAs, to large non-profits organizing hundreds of urban teenagers and teaching them how to work the land, Hesterman casts a wide net and keeps an open mind when seeking alternatives. Accompanying these small-scale approaches is a broader theoretical basis for his opinions. He advocates diversity in the size and offerings of food businesses, direct action from the population, and organizing small groups to create large-scale change.

Hesterman begins the third section of his book with a lament about Michael Pollan's oft-repeated advice to "vote with your fork." While economic empowerment is valuable, he says, there are many more ways that we as citizens can and should be engaged in creating a new food system. He talks about engaging in local community organizations who strive to equalize food access, and starting buying clubs that purchase in bulk from local producers.

The last section of the book is on resources. I don't know if I've ever seen such a diverse, comprehensive collection of important and effective organizations. Hesterman makes a clear effort in this book, and in the Resources section particularly, to identify the people and groups that are effecting real change. Every group in his guide is worth a serious Googling.

Hesterman's upbeat outlook and gentle push toward activism inspired me to further my own engagement. His book is one of the best I've read on how we as individuals can be involved in the future of America's food system.

About the Author: A student in Providence, Rhode Island, Leah Douglas loves learning about, talking about, reading about, and consuming food. Her work is also featured in Rhode Island Monthly magazine.