Civil Eats

Sustainable Agriculture Chat (#sustagchat) is back after a break for Memorial Day weekend, and ready to discuss the upcoming films (Food, Inc., FRESH, etc), the new television series by Mike Judge poking fun at greenies The Goode Family, and our first Supreme Court Nominee interested in talking about food — Sonya Sotomayor, in a 1 1/2 hour discussion beginning this Sunday the 31st at 8pm ET. We hope you can come out! All are welcome to join the chat, just please announce yourself at the beginning by telling everyone your name and affiliations, and use the #sustagchat tag on your tweets in order to create a searchable dialog. You are welcome to send questions and comments to our moderator, @sustagchat. Read More

As an apprentice farmer hoping to strike off on my own sometime soon, I’m pretty much always asking myself, “where should I farm?”  Should I return to Georgia, where I have family and friends?  Stay in Massachusetts, with its farmer-friendly state government and affordable health insurance?  I hear Pennsylvania has a great climate for tree fruit…  Recently I asked my current farm boss, Don, if he thought that the market near Williamstown could support another CSA farm.  “That depends on whom you ask,” he noted after some thought.  “There are farmers who hear of a new farm in the area and worry that the extra competition will hurt their own business; others view a new farm as an asset, an additional resource when you’ve got problems or questions, as well as another reason for townsfolk to buy local.”

His answer stuck with me.  And since I received it, I’ve begun to notice more and more the ways that the farmers I know support and assist one another. Read More

Like it or not, capitalism and business are at the heart of what makes America tick. They exist using a language all their own, influencing our economic system through terms like government spending, taxes, investment, profits, quarterly earnings, debt, revenues and growth.

And when capitalism and business speaks, America listens, particularly when the news is big – from politicians, to CEO’s, to the average Joe. When taxpayers were asked to dish out billions in the case of the recent banking and auto industry bailouts, ears perked and immediate action was taken to bring about long overdue and necessary change. Business could not continue under threat and no stone was to be left unturned. The banking sector was overhauled and policed while the auto industry was told to go electric or go home.

In both of these laborious examples of change, are there lessons that the sustainable food movement can learn to further its invaluable (and arguably far more laudable) agenda? Could our movement use these latest examples of change, attention and action within the economic and business realms to push through its goals? Read More

If you liked Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, my guess is that you will love Novella Carpenter’s new book, Farm City: The Education of An Urban Farmer. I found it to be both grittier and funnier than Kingsolver’s book and even easier to read.

The book chronicles Carpenter’s somewhat unintentional experience of creating a “squat garden” in the vacant lot next to her apartment building in Ghosttown, which is what she and the other residents call their rundown neighborhood located near downtown Oakland. Read More

Thomas Keller is one the world’s most celebrated chefs with his fleet of restaurants in Yountville, Los Vegas, and New York. At the same time, he is a vocal “thorn in the side” of local food advocates, with his direct dismissals of the locavore movement.

His message was much the same this year when he spoke at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sustainable Foods Institute a few weeks ago.  Speaking on a panel called “The Future of Food: Scaling Down,” Chef Keller made the distinction between geographically local and temporally local food.

That is, he personally considers local food to be anything that he can get at his doorstep within one day of harvest – even if that means flying that product overnight from across the country.

Here are some excerpts from Keller’s comments on the panel: Read More

The first time I saw “Pressure Cooker” was at Slow Food Nation last Labor Day. It left me–and as far as I could tell every single other viewer in the theater–in tears. It follows three seniors at a Philadelphia public high school, charting their journey through a culinary arts curriculum under the wing of the hilariously blunt, tough-loving Mrs. Stephenson. The film has been making the film festival circuit for the past 9 months and will now be enjoying a theatrical release in several cities (scroll all the way down for schedule). Here I sat down for an interview with Co-Directors Mark Becker and Jennifer Grausman: Read More

If you’ve ever been curious exactly how America produces the cheapest and “safest” food on the planet, but not quite believed all the hype that fuels the empty advertising slogans on your television, then Food, Inc. promises to be the film that explains why there’s a serious disconnect between food propaganda and reality.

In exactly 93 minutes, director Robert Kenner manages to slice down to the bone the many myths of the U.S. food system in a riveting documentary that exposes how a handful of corporations determine what our nation’s children eat and how America’s addiction to cheaper, faster, and larger portions has managed to shorten the average lifespan of the next generation for the first time since the Black Plague. Read More

On May 9, New York City hosted an international dialogue about healthy food, sustainable agriculture, and community engagement — but it wasn’t held at a university or sponsored by a borough president. Three grassroots community groups in Brooklyn’s most underserved neighborhoods welcomed a group of 45 UN delegates from almost 20 countries for a day of conversation and exchange showcasing examples of New York City’s innovative urban agriculture. Read More

When Michael Jones, a chef by trade, came to Columbus, Ohio back in 1995 he was surprised there weren’t more local foods available for purchase by restaurants. Since Columbus is situated smack dab in the middle of a state whose number one industry is agriculture, he thought fresh local produce would abound. He quickly learned that commodity crops ruled just as heavily as fast food restaurants. Fifteen years later there’s been a huge shift. “People are more aware of different types of cuisine and there is more and more awareness of local food and its importance,” says Jones; and he should know. As the Executive Director of Local Matters, a non-profit whose mission is simply to build supply and demand for local food and make it equally accessible to underserved neighborhoods, he’s had a hand in supporting it. Read More

I was born in raised in a city, “the city” if you live in the Bay Area. Growing up in San Francisco taught me to value diversity, to be creative, to care about saving the world. Somehow, living in the city, I also got interested in farming. This interest came about out of a realization that our fossil fuel-based economy couldn’t continue indefinitely, and that our most basic need—food—was also in jeopardy due to the tenuous situation wrought by peak oil.

Upon this realization I decided to learn how to grow my own food, and to teach other people these skills. This wasn’t just a prelude to an escapist fantasy wherein I would move to the country, get “off the grid”, and form my own self-sufficient farm (replete with shotguns and stockpiled wheat) to weather the collapse of the industrial economy. No, instead I sensed that food could be a tool to get city people interested in taking control of a key aspect of their lives, and by doing this hopefully challenge the soul-crushing dynamics of modern urban existence (wage slavery, alienation, pollution and ill health being a few aspects). With these goals, some friends and I began to cultivate a piece of land which became known as Alemany Farm. Read More

Last week, Civil Eats and 18 Reasons announced it would begin a regular series of live conversations at Linden Tree in San Francisco at the architecture office of Sagan-Piechota. Tuesday evening marked the inaugural session of Kitchen Table Talks (KTT), a new conversation series on the American food system. It was developed by a small group of organizers from Slow Food Nation and regular contributors to Civil Eats who wanted to capitalize on the conversation started at last summer’s event and on this site. One of the most notable things that we learned from the event and this site is that people are hungry for “food for thought” (pun intended). The Food for Thought sessions sold out quickly and the online videos garnered interest and attention following Slow Food Nation. The mission of KTT is that attendees leave each session inspired and ready to take action in their own communities. A crucial part of this equation is to bring in persons from various industries – health care, sustainable farming, food accessibility, food safety, government and general consumers – to create a unified movement in which we can make change to our food system. Read More

On a recent Saturday, I took a trip out to rural Oregon with about 20 other Slow Food Portland members. We woke early and drove through the dreary morning rain, leaving behind the streets of Portland for the vast agricultural fields of nearby Marion County. We were seeking the origins of our food. Read More

Beyond the thirty-year experiment in free-market ideology having been judged a failure in financial markets, one thing is clear: as Kerry Trueman reminded us in a recent post, unfettered capitalism has also been bad for our health, and indeed the safety of our food.

Last week, The New York Times reported that this administration has said it will take a harder line on anti-trust legislation, in diverse sectors of the economy including agriculture.  Perhaps its premature to tell what this will look like, but enforcing the laws that we already have on the books would be a great start to building a better food system. Read More

On May 16th, New York City unveiled a new initiative, Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH), which combines zoning changes and some financial incentives to make it less costly for developers to include supermarkets in their projects, and to allow the construction of supermarkets in light manufacturing districts without a special permit. Read More

As much as New Yorkers love the city, there’s nothing we love more than a getaway. That’s why when I found out that the launch of Huffpost Blogger Cathy Erway and Akiko Moorman’s supper club Hapa Kitchen was going to be a benefit dinner for the Queens County Farm Museum, I could not hold myself back from buying a ticket. And convincing four friends to come with me. Read More

Three recent news articles about manipulative agribusiness actions have me almost giddy with excitement. After years of having agribusiness dictate the direction of the food system, it has now taken a reactionary stance. Read More

At the Sustainable Foods Institute, part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s annual Cooking for Solutions festival, one of the panel discussions was called “Communicating Environmental Messages: How Journalists are Telling Stories of Sustainability.” Read More

California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has released a list of state properties that might be for sale in this time of unprecendented budget crisis. On that list are a couple of fairgrounds, including the Ventura County Fairgrounds in Southern California.

The Ventura County Fairgrounds is actually California’s 31st Agricultural District, and operates under the oversight of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. You can visit that website to learn more about our Fairs and Expositions; they represent a great underutilized resource in California. Read More

The US Green Building Council’s draft LEED* for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND) rating system would allow subdivisions built on prime farmland to qualify for the organization’s green seal of approval. At a time when farmland is converted to subdivisions and shopping malls at a rate of two acres a minute, this is a major step in the wrong direction. Indeed, communities throughout the nation are looking for ways to revitalize their foodsheds and grow more food locally. We should be doing everything possible to preserve prime farmland, instead of greenwashing projects that pave over it. Read More

Since the overwhelming passage of California’s Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act this past November, Big Agribusiness has been in a feeding frenzy, stepping up its attacks on its critics, most especially The Humane Society of the United States. Read More

Sunday, there will be a new sustainable agriculture chat on Twitter. The focus of the two hour-long chat will be education and the messaging around sustainability. We will begin at 8pm ET and last until 10pm. All are welcome to join the chat, just please announce yourself at the beginning by telling everyone your name and affiliations, and use the #sustagchat tag on your tweets in order to create a searchable dialog. Nicole de Beaufort is this week’s moderator, and for the sake of transparency, no one had paid for her to perform this service. She comes by her own desire to discuss these issues. You are welcome to send questions to the moderator, @sustagchat. But here is how the chat will proceed, including questions to get you thinking about the topic written by Nicole: Read More

When the Agriculture Department released its 2007 census recently, the news appeared surprisingly good: For the first time since World War II, the United States did not lose farms, it gained them — 75,810, to be exact, for a total of 2.2 million.

But on closer inspection, the numbers aren’t so hopeful. The discrepancy stems from this tricky question: What is a farm? The census has changed its definition nine times since 1850, most recently to “any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the census year.” Read More

It’s possible, it the biggest and most anonymous city in America for dinner with a group of strangers to feel completely familiar and relaxed. The Ted and Amy Supper Club was my second foray into the underground supper club scene — amateur chefs hosting under the radar dinner parties in someone’s apartment, where they charge a relatively low flat fee for several courses and free flowing wine. (Check out my first experience at One Big Table here.) These supper clubs seem to me to be the social dining experience of both the now and the future. I think everyone realizes the cultural winds are shifting — formal, fancy, trendy, showy and gimmicky gastronomy is out. Home cooking, value, connection to your food and the people around you are decidedly, wholeheartedly in. Read More

UPDATE: Emails show that the FDA relied heavily on the industry for science on BPA.

Chicago is the first city in the nation to ban bisphenol A (BPA) from plastic baby bottles and sippy cups for children under the age of 3. The Chicago City Council voted to approve the ban yesterday, which would be implemented early next year, and Mayor Richard Daley said he will sign the ordinance. “The F.D.A. continues to be recalcitrant and very slow about taking any action on BPA,” said Chicago Alderman Manuel Flores, one of two city officials who proposed the ban last year, after hearing concerns about the potentially harmful effects of the chemical to young children. Read More

Civil Eats and 18 Reasons announced it will begin a regular series of live conversations, Kitchen Table Talks, at Linden Tree in San Francisco.

The purpose of Kitchen Table Talks is to build a coalition of stakeholders from all segments of society who come together to develop relationships, exchange knowledge and ideas and leave with specific actions they can implement to make meaningful improvements in our food system. At each meeting, participants will be introduced to a different non-profit organization that focuses on one facet of the sustainable food system. The presentation will be followed by an open forum, allowing guests to ask the presenter questions and discuss recent food news, pending legislation and opportunities to get active in the sustainable food community. Read More

Spring time is here and the time is nigh to get growing. Every sunny day that comes makes me more eager to plant. But first, I must finishing drawing up plans, gather materials and build raised beds. I must organize help to bring up those 1000 lbs of soil to the roof, in a building with no elevators. I look forward to these tasks; though they will be difficult, I will be happy to get dirty and work hard.

Our plan includes a roof garden made up of fruit, vegetables and native flowers that can serve as an oasis in the city for me and my neighbors. I started my seedlings under the kitchen table in my apartment a few weeks ago in order to give my plants a head start on the growing season. For my indoor growing, I used the system the team of seasoned growers at retrovore.com put together (shown in the video below, hosted by Retrovore’s Kerry Trueman) to start my squash, swiss chard, sunflowers, tomatoes, broccoli and Brussel sprouts. (Check out their site for a lot of other great books and help for people new to gardening.) Read More

I’ve been pondering a lot the last three weeks, trying to think outside the box, and trying to proceed as if there is no box at all. Two weeks of conferences in a row, one the Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Conference, the second sponsored by the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Very different conferences, but a common theme: Food Systems All the Time.

At the UC-sponsored professional conference that I recently attended, I had the opportunity to hear historian James McWilliams speak.   I have read some of McWilliams’s work previously and greatly admire his research and work. (He’s also an incredibly likable and humorous man on a personal level). Like me, McWilliams is an historian attempting to use the past to inform current public policy in the nation’s food system. (I like this. We need more historians informing public policy in general, and particularly vis-à-vis food systems). Our research focuses on different areas; we agree on some things, but disagree on others. I will be reviewing his upcoming book, Just Food: How Locavores Are Endangering the Future of Food and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly (Little Brown, June 2009), for this blog. Read More

Last week, I sat riveted at the Horticultural Society of New York while watching a screening of the 2008 Oscar-nominated documentary, The Garden, a tour de force that pits a 14-acre community garden in South Central Los Angeles, run by mostly Latin American immigrants, against a wealthy developer with questionable city ties. A powerful treatise on power and racial discord, The Garden tells the story of farmers who organize to fight back against backroom deals to try and save their green urban oasis. [spoiler alert] Read More

The number of landless and itinerant young farmers, working alone or with a few other people, is a pretty large demographic in my world. What is sometimes missing is not only land ownership but the sense of community that can come from an agrarian culture. None of these farmers wants to farm alone, removed from the company of like minded people.

The reality is that the work of farming requires a lot of time, and extra time is not always available to pursue the sort of friendships and bonding with other area young farmers that make the experience more fulfilling. Farming might not be as sexy as the New York Times sometimes makes it out to be, but can definitely be as fun as it looks. However, it can also get lonely and monotonous. Read More

Tonight, the focus of an hour-long sustainable agriculture chat on Twitter will be defining sustainability. The chat will begin at 8pm/5PT. All are welcome to join the chat, just please announce yourself at the beginning by telling everyone your name and affiliations, and use the #sustagchat tag on your tweets in order to create a searchable dialog. I am moderating tonight’s chat, and for the sake of transparency, no one had paid for me to perform this service. I come by my own desire to discuss these issues. You are welcome to send questions to the moderator, @sustagchat. But here are some questions to get you thinking about the topic: Read More