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.

Per a report produced under the leadership of previous Governor Gray Davis (remember him?):

The network of California fairs is an economic, social and cultural bonanza that enriches the lives of Californians from every background and walk of life. California’s fair network dates back to before the Civil War as a way to advance public knowledge of agriculture and provide a community gathering place. That tradition continues to this day, but with modern innovations that bring home the importance and reality of agriculture to an urban population that may have little contact with farms, ranches and agribusinesses.

In California, the mission of fairs has grown to include commercial ventures that hold little relation to agriculture (such as car races). But I know that the Ventura County Fair is one of the last great fairs in California, one that truly evokes the spirit of agriculture, past and present, and helps people to understand more about those who work to feed us.

California legislates by ballot box. Competing initiatives and propositions from different election cycles make it difficult to develop and provide a coherent and sustainable roadmap for the state. The passage of one ballot initiative, for example, may rule out another. Each ballot is a confusing tangle of competing initiatives, nearly all driven by special interests.

California’s initiative law was passed in 1911, during the Progressive Era. Ballot initiatives provided an instrument that enabled “the people” to check excesses during a period when there was little regulation of industry or other aspects of American life (call it the Gilded Age). Peter Schrag, a columnist with the Sacramento Bee, has written about this in “Paradise Lost.”

(Schrag has also written a book more recently about California as America’s “high stakes” experiment. He generates interesting and thought-provoking work that will challenge your thinking in any number of ways. If you hold the view that the beginning of the budget crisis in California dates back to Prop 13 in 1978, Schrag’s work may resonate with you. Even if you don’t believe that, you’ll find his viewpoint worth considering, and he’s a lively writer.)

We are in a world of budget trouble in California. I have been sharing this with the many out-of-staters that I speak to on a daily basis. I don’t know that my out-of-state friends fully comprehend the size of the state, and the implications for the nation if the experiment here fails. Per 2008 census estimates, 36,756,666 Americans live here…that’s nearly 1 in 12. We have more than six million students K-12 enrolled in our public school system; that’s greater than the entire population of some other states. We’re a MEGA state by nearly every index, including the challenge index.

We’re also a mega agricultural producer. In 2007, California was the number one state in cash farm receipts. The state produces about half of U.S.-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables. Many crops are produced solely in California. Bring this down to a smaller, local level, and California is still a leader: we are also home to some of the most productive agricultural counties in the U.S. Per 2002 Ag Census figures, 9 of the nation’s top 10, and 12 of the top 20 ag producing counties are in California. Ventura County is one of them.

So what does this have to do with the sale of state property? In California, agriculture is not just something that’s part of our past, as it is in some other places. It’s vital to California’s future, and the state’s current economic health. And the kinds of foods we produce are vital to human health, which ought to be a national priority. This is important and heady stuff, the stuff of a nation’s food security, a nation’s future.

How do we preserve this and assure agriculture’s vitality for future generations? We continue to educate the public about the importance of agriculture, no matter how deep the budget cuts go. If anything, we do more. Agricultural education is our seedbank; it is where we should be sowing more now, to reap future benefits. Not just in California, but nationally.

How do we do this? Well, we could lose No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and replace it with education about agriculture. When we don’t educate youth about the food system and healthy lifestyle, we leave all children behind. Substitute NCLB with a national curriculum that incorporates food systems education, environmental awareness, and human health. Teach children about agriculture, where their food comes from, about the importance of healthy soil in producing healthy food and healthy communities. That’s a good start (and my next public policy agenda item).

But we also need to keep the Fair and Exposition system intact in the Great State of California. If anything, we should commit to pumping into that system more money, resources and a real mandate to improve and increase the focus on agricultural education, making it once again the primary mission of these public venues. We must develop a coherent educational and outreach plan that involves all stakeholders, including agricultural interests (who, in Ventura County, do a great job of educating the public about their work at the Fair). But we don’t sell taxpayer treasures like county fairgrounds, which sometimes provide the only link between consumers and the agriculture that feeds them.

The threat to sell state properties such as fairgrounds may be a publicity stunt on the part of the Governor. He is clearly trying to let citizens know that we are in a dire situation, and that whether these ballot measures pass or not in the upcoming special election, that there is going to be a lot of pain to go around. He is daring us to consider what might happen if we fail to approve these measures. Double dog dare the voters.

But talk about selling fairgrounds? If we value the future of agriculture in California, this is not a dare any of us should be willing to take.

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.

The title of McWilliams’ talk was “Business, But Not Business as Usual: A Proposal for the Future of Sustainable Agriculture.” It was offered to academic and program staff affiliated with UC’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Division, some of us working with Extension, others with campuses.  For an organization charged with working with all aspects of the food system, we don’t actually talk about it at the systems level much. This conference was different: McWilliams offered the plenary, and spoke directly to the topic. There were also two other sessions/workshops that discussed these sorts of issues; they were very well attended, and have provoked discussion and conversation that is continuing in post-conference settings. Not just nationally, but in my own institution, forces and issues and needs and agendas are converging in a perfect storm of interest in the food system. Change is inevitable; nearly every institution is going through a period of “creative destruction” due to budget constraints. There are new challenges and opportunities for all of us.

McWilliams’ opened his talk by asserting that fixing the food system is one of the most pressing tasks we face in this country. Agreed. Nearly every problem we face as a nation can be addressed in some way – and in some big ways – by improving the current food system. But McWilliams made a statement with which I heartily disagree: essentially, that the Locavore movement seeks to “banish to the dustbin” other models.

I’ve never termed myself a “Locavore,” although I’m a strong believer in the value of strong local and regional food systems, and actively promote them. I believe that multiple food systems exist – and probably always will – and that most of us participate in several kinds of food systems simultaneously. I don’t seek the destruction of any food system. I seek instead, the room and opportunity to develop alternatives for the places and situations in our country where the predominant, or meta, food system is not working effectively.

McWilliams argued for a kind of pragmatism that I find appealing in a general and theoretical sense…work within the system rather than against it. There’s a certain logic in that…perhaps…sometimes.  Using the success of Forest Ethics as a model, McWilliams argued that those of us advocating for local food systems should be more pragmatic, reconsider working with agribusiness, find common ground, seek real solutions, and be prepared to compromise some, to seek evolution in the food system rather than revolution. McWilliams presents a persuasive model, in a persuasive way. Evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

But I’ve had other people to persuade me, too, to remind me that real change is needed, and needed now. Will Allen is someone I admire immensely. I heard him speak (again) the week before McWilliams made his presentation at UC. The creator of Growing Power, a MacArthur genius grant recipient, and a national leader in the sustainable food systems movement, Allen provides eloquent testimony about the kinds of changes needed to make the food system more effectively meet the needs of some parts of urban America. In his case, that has involved creating a new kind of food system model. What he has done in Milwaukee within a framework of urban agriculture is simply astounding. There is a lot to be learned from this work. Allen is a big man, physically; he also has big ideas. What I love about his work is that he applies his visionary ideas in ways that are highly impactful on the local level.  I believe his work has the ability to be scaled up, which could have positive implications for other urban areas.

Allen has recently published a manifesto proposing a novel and worthy public policy idea, suggesting the creation of a “public-private enabling institution” called the Centers for Urban Agriculture. Per Allen’s document:

It would incorporate a national training and outreach center, a large working urban farmstead, a research and development center, a policy institute, and a state-of-the-future urban agriculture demonstration center into which all of these elements would be combined in a functioning community food system scaled to the needs of a large city. We proposed that this working institution – not a “think tank” but a “do tank” – be based in Milwaukee, where Growing Power has already created an operating model on just two acres. But ultimately, satellite centers would become established in urban areas across the nation. Each would be the hub of a local or regional farm-to-market community food system that would provide sustainable jobs, job training, food production and food distribution to those most in need of nutritional support and security.

Allen is not only proposing a new kind of model for urban food systems…it seems to me that he is proposing a (largely) new location for Extension work and new kind of Extension model.   Allen’s proposal seems to combine elements of working both within and outside of the system. Especially because I’m familiar with his work, I find it compelling and thought-provoking. It is clear to me that our current land grant system – in a national sense – has not put enough muscle into urban agricultural and local food systems efforts.  We have made many notable contributions, to be certain, but our institutional resources have not flowed into this area in the large way that would be needed to effect national change. There are many reasons for this: years of declining funding; the relative dearth of funded research opportunities in this area, at least until recently; political pressures; lack of mandate; lack of understanding of the interconnectedness of our work in agriculture and human areas; a failure to fully anticipate the converging crises and challenges facing us; and perhaps even a lack of awareness of how large, mainstream and dynamic the interest in sustainable foods systems has become.

I’d suggest that everyone reading this blog read Will Allen’s proposal and James McWilliams’ soon-to-be-released book. Their work represents stark differences in opinion on options for local food systems. Point and counter-point.

A final note: As we participated in this UC conference, which was focused on creating implementation strategies for a Strategic Vision plan UC Cooperative Extension and its related components have developed relating to our work for the next 15 years, we were initially told to “think out of the box.”

Then a better framing statement was offered…”There is no box.”

McWilliams’ ideas actually retain the box – or framework – of the existing national and largely industrialized food system. Allen’s work assumes no box.

Practical and prophetic, particular and poetic, and entirely personal, this is how I would describe Our Life in Gardens.  Composed of nearly 50 essays arranged in alphabetical order, the book is termed by its authors a “gypsy trunk of this and that.” I’d think of it more as an old-time curiosity cabinet, a curio full of treasures to be pulled out and carefully savored, one by one. Part memoir, and part garden how-to, it is a completely engaging book to enjoy, perhaps while sitting in a favorite chair in the garden on a sunny afternoon, or by the fire on a cool, wet day, when gardening might be more of an intellectual pursuit.

Our Life in Gardens is co-authored by Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd, founders of the Vermont garden design firm North Hill. They are also the authors of two other collaborative works, including A Year at North Hill: Four Seasons in a Vermont Garden and Living Seasonally: The Kitchen Garden and the Table at North Hill. (Each has also written books individually). North Hill, which is a primary topic – but not the exclusive subject – of this book, is the creation of nature fostered by Eck and Winterrowd. It is regarded by many people as one of the finest private gardens in the United States.

This book reads like an iterative conversation occurring during a friendly visit, incorporating a fine meal, and an informative (and informed) walk around the garden at North Hill. Through the course of reading, I often felt as if I were in the garden with Eck and Winterrowd. While the book is co-authored, it appears to be penned in a single, unified voice, the result perhaps, of the authors’ lifetime of shared personal and professional experiences, many of which have occurred within the context of the gardens they have cultivated together.

But the book is also a highly practical gardening guide, which provides incredible detail about different kinds of plants and Eck and Winterrowd’s experiences with cultivating them. The authors are incredibly observant and provide much valuable information about garden design, as well. Descriptions are complete, Latin names are given, and the illustration provided at the beginning of each essay is handsomely rendered.

As I read, I was with Eck and Winterrowd as they enjoyed their early gardening efforts in a “grand” apartment located at 89 Beacon Street, across from the Public Garden, sharing their joy in the chickens they raised there. (Chickens in a Beacon Street apartment…see, you must read the book). I learned about their Xanthrorrhoea Quadrangulata, an Australian native they acquired during a visit to the Los Angeles Arboretum, and which has grown into “a great potted ox of a plant” at their home in Vermont. They note and carefully (lovingly) describe the growth of individual plants, including a Japanese apricot, the way I note and describe the growth of my daughter.

The garden is a place where much life flourishes, but there is also death. Eck and Winterrowd write here about the ephemeral nature of gardens; a topic I, as a writer-gardener, have also been writing about of late. There is a certain poignancy to Eck and Winterrowd’s perspectives on the passage of time, an intimacy that is both heart warming and heart rending, the sharing of something as personal as a garden made together…a life made together.

Eck and Winterrowd have produced an extraordinary book that provides valuable and practical information about any number of plants, and about gardens, their design, and their value in our lives. This book moved and humbled me, because of its incredible combination of all things practical and the personal experiences it shares. For the authors have written with an authentic voice about the sacred and ordinary act of gardening, about home, their favorite tools and things, domestic life, vocation and avocation, seasons, and journeys they have taken, together.

Eck and Winterrowd understand something key that draws so many of us into gardening: that fact that “gardens are infinitely imaginable.” But Eck and Winterrowd have also provided a window into the other kinds of journeys that we as gardeners take when we carefully, lovingly cultivate gardens, stepping into possibility, the journeys of the heart that all true gardeners – and those who aspire to garden – know.

Hank Cardello knows a great deal about the food industry; for more than three decades, he helped some of the world’s largest companies sell their products to you.  In his book, Stuffed: An Insider’s Look at Who’s {Really} Making America Fat, Cardello shares his vast knowledge about the industry in a readable, organized and highly accessible fashion — and attempts to make up for his past sins with a critique on the system he no longer works for. 

Cardello opens with a bit of history about the creation of the Swanson frozen turkey dinner, and its impact on the food industry.  He writes that in this “one single moment, the face of food” in America began to shift.  As an historian, I like to think about longer trends and arcs, but fixing on that turkey dinner (my husband recently confessed to having loved this TV dinner as a child) is certainly a great hook.

For the purposes of the book, Cardello breaks the food industry into three segments.  “Packagers” are food manufacturers, like Cardello’s old employer, General Mills.  “Merchandisers” are supermarkets; they are described as “the gateway to the food industry.” Obviously, packagers and merchandisers have a great deal of interaction.  And restaurants are referred to as “Operators.”

How the food industry works was, for me, the most valuable part of Cardello’s book.  He was an insider for more than three decades, an integral part of it.  The book moves with assurance and authority in those sections that describe the nuts and bolts of the food industry.  Chapters discuss, for example, how food executives think, how purchasing agents make us fat, food legislation and “the nanny state”, school food policy, and consumer behavior.

I made a quick trip to Vons Grocery, immediately after reading the chapter titled, “What Grocers Don’t Want You to Know.”  My awareness of displays, advertising, and the shopping behavior of others (and myself) was greatly heightened.  Cardello was spot on about this.  I found myself evaluating the “arc of activity” (Cardello explains that this is the six inches above and below five foot six, which is the average height of women).  What Cardello shared about “power items” (bread, milk, meats, eggs) is true, and like other shoppers, I found myself pulled through the store to reach these essential items, which are located in the back.  Every consumer ought to read this chapter; it alone makes the book worth purchasing.

Cardello has many valuable things to say and I would highly recommend this book to others.  However, by no means do I agree with everything he writes.  In fact, I would urge readers to be cautious consumers, and to carefully evaluate some of Cardello’s arguments, particularly those relating to public policy.

One conclusion Cardello draws that I strongly disagree with is contained in the chapter entitled “How Big Brother Can (Really) Help.”  Cardello argues in more than one place that government is not the “right institution to force the industry’s hand.”  He says that the “blunt arm of legislation will only make the transition…harder.”  He suggests that based on “priority public health issues” – which the government should determine – general guidelines should be set.  Sounds great.  But Cardello then argues that the “guidelines should push the industry to solve the problem rather than advancing legislation that results in unintended consequences.”   He argues that we ought to “give businesses the opportunity to take the high road,” and ultimately, let the food industry “be the agent of change on the issue of health and food.”

Huh?  This model has not worked so well in other sectors of the American economy lately.  Has there been evidence that the food industry, by and large, has already demonstrated its willingness and ability to do this?  Hmmm.  Call me naïve, but I don’t trust that many corporations will place American health above their bottom line, unless they’re forced to by regulation and oversight or the sheer weight of consumer disfavor. Clearly, the idea that the food industry would voluntarily improve the healthiness and nutrition of their products, at least by and large, hasn’t panned out so well for consumers, at least to date.   And unlike Cardello, I don’t think that food systems activists are well-intentioned individuals/agencies/organizations whose work is creating unintended (and unfavorable) consequences.  Unfavorable to who, exactly?

To his credit, Cardello does indicate that should industry fail to police itself, government should intervene. He truly believes voluntary measures will work, and holds up his old employer, General Mills, as an example of hope “that the right thing can be done” by food sellers.  I want to believe Cardello.  Really, I do.  But history indicates otherwise.   More than a hundred years ago, when segments of the food industry wouldn’t and couldn’t clean themselves up, the federal government stepped in with landmark legislation in the form of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, which began the era of labeling food.

There is some extremely good information in the book; I learned a great deal.  But despite his own health scare, and the new kind of work Cardello does, he is certainly not strongly challenging food industry orthodoxy.  He does, however, do an excellent job of highlighting key issues relating to food systems, including obesity, access, school lunch programs, portion sizing, economics, etc. Cardello also notes that all of us are complicit in the current problem.

Stuffed was a quick, fascinating and extremely provocative read.  I was alternately sucked in by Cardello’s clear and detailed description of how the food industry works, and alarmed by some of his conclusions and recommendations.  I found myself making all sorts of notations with a pencil on its pages.  My notations included words such as: agree; disagree; gross; great idea; and wrong.  When I make copious notes in its margins, it’s generally a sign that a book has challenged me, made me think, and will likely impact my thinking and behavior.  I’d strongly suggest that people read this book for the nuts and bolts information it provides about the food industry, as well as for some provocative ideas.  Readers will learn a great deal.  But taking all of Cardello’s public policy recommendations to heart?  Perhaps not so much.

There is one argument that Cardello makes with which I am in wholehearted agreement:  these are profoundly complex matters and issues that will require a great deal of cooperation and out-of-the-box thinking to resolve.

Like one of the BBQ meals described in its pages, America Eats! by Pat Willard is tasty and completely satisfying.  It’s a timely book, too: not only because of the material’s origin as a New Deal project (which the nation’s current economic situation has all of us thinking and talking about), but because of the growing interest in American food culture and sustainable food systems. 

This book really represents two writing projects: It incorporates extensive pieces of regional manuscripts produced during 1930s by the Works Progress Administration with contemporary observations by Willard, who attempted to follow the footsteps of the original WPA authors to discover what remained of the food culture they described, or what corresponded in contemporary experience.

As such, the text weaves back and forth, past and present, an unknown WPA writer, then Willard’s contemporary account.  Pay close attention: you won’t want to miss a bite…er, word.  One minute I was reading a report from the WPA’s Oregon Office about wild hogs in cane-break, circa the Great Depression.  A paragraph later I was learning about modern residents of Oregon, the Erickson family, (who live south of Portland) and their wild fallow deer herd.

The original WPA America Eats! project was produced by unemployed writers during the Great Depression.  The goal was not to collect recipes, per se, but to understand food and eating as part of American social and cultural life, and to document the development of local cuisine and customs.  (There are some recipes in the book, but not all are precise and usable).

The stories written by WPA writers were slices of life: local events where food was served.  These included – but weren’t limited to – political, church and community events; religious revivals; teas; fairs; family reunions; rodeos; harvest festivals; national holidays; and memorials.  Likely due to their prevalence during the Depression, the food and cultural life of hobo encampments was even included on the list. WPA writers were generally unknown, but many became famous (including Eudora Welty, Ralph Ellison and Saul Bellow).

The original WPA project was incredibly ambitious, and was divided into five geographical regions.  Willard has provided a truly great service by producing this book, because the original America Eats! was never published.  With WWII looming, the program was eventually discontinued.  While the Library of Congress has some of the holdings, others are spread throughout the United States, and some of the original materials have been destroyed or lost altogether.  Willard’s work in highlighting the original project has brought to the fore important observations about American food culture that should inform our lives – and public policy – today.

This book celebrates American cuisine, and the diverse cultural and geographical elements that influenced it.  Willard argues that while America is a young cuisine in contrast to that of other nations, it suffers from no “poverty” of heritage. The accounts of social life (past and present), and the food presented at these occasions, clearly demonstrate that American cuisine developed – and continues to develop – as a result of what Willard terms “unprecedentedly varied cultural influences,” among other factors, including necessity and “contrasting agendas.”

You can read the first chapter of Willard’s book, free of charge, on Amazon.  (America Eats! was one of Amazon’s July picks). But you’ll want to buy the book or check it out of the library, because the rest of it is what I regard as required reading.  In particular, the last chapter is one every American interested in sustainable food systems and American food culture, including our federal policy makers, should read.

In it, Willard discusses the role of food in creating community, and how important regional cuisines and what she describes as “plain cooking” are to us.  Willard makes a strong argument that it’s not the taste of our food, but how we use it, which has been central to the development of our nation’s cuisine, and perhaps, our community life.  She also argues that we accept variations in our cuisine with more grace than others.  We’re willing to do it our way, and let others do it their way, too, when it comes to food.  Food has been an important point of assimilation in American life, and Willard describes the merging of immigrant and regional dishes in a way that should make anthropologists and sociologists take notice.

We each have our own food allegiances.  I was born in Pennsylvania to expatriate Southerners.  (And like Willard, while I can’t intellectually rationalize the ingredients of Pennsylvania Dutch scrapple, the mere thought of fried scrapple makes my mouth water).  The gatherings of my Southern relatives nearly always included gumbos (chicken and shrimp), ham, cornbread, grits casserole, Ambrosia salad, my grandmother’s Million Dollar fudge, trays of pralines, lemon meringue pie, and Jezebel jelly.  Oh, and bottles of Coca Cola pulled (at great risk) from the rusty old pop machine my great-grandfather kept in the barn behind his house.  I don’t eat most of these foods now (except corn bread, which we eat at least once a week).  But the memories of this food, a yard full of exotic relatives (none of whom I see any more), are some of the clearest, purest memories of my childhood.  We each have food memories like this.  Food shapes us, not only physically, but culturally.

We are beginning a new chapter in our national life, one that will feature some hard times and some hard choices.  We’ll be looking back to our past for clues, and Willard’s book provides some important ones.  These harder times, these changing times, conversely, will also provide more opportunities to strengthen our communities.  Despite the Great Depression, WPA writers found strong communities.  Willard found them, too.  Food will, and should, play a central role in this new period in American life.

Being Secretary of Ag is a big deal in America. The USDA is not only one of the oldest federal agencies, but one of the largest.  Boasting an annual budget of more than $90 billion, the USDA employs over 100,000 people throughout the U.S., many at the county level.  In addition to overseeing ag (including some aspects of food safety, like meat inspection), the USDA is also responsible for national nutrition programs, including food stamps and school lunches, programs that daily impact the lives of urban and rural residents alike. Perhaps more than any other U.S. agency, the USDA directly impacts the daily life of Americans. In a nation that has often defined itself by its agricultural productivity and special relationship with the land, the USDA has perhaps also been invested with larger meaning.  We were a nation of farmers at origin: we are still a nation of farmers at heart.

Anticipating an announcement of Vilsack’s selection early last week, I stayed up half one night rereading one of my favorite books, New Frontiers, written in 1934 by another Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Agard Wallace.  (There have actually been two secretaries of Ag named Henry Wallace. Henry A. Wallace’s father, Henry Cantwell Wallace, held the position from 1921-1924. Henry A. Wallace, the 11^th Secretary, held the position from 1933-1940, when he was elected to serve as FDR’s wartime Vice President. He also served as Secretary of Commerce for one year, under Truman).

Those who know me well quickly learn that I deeply admire Henry A. Wallace, who oversaw the most radical and sweeping restructuring of agricultural life in America’s history, as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal.  My affection is not unexamined: Wallace’s work was controversial then, and the policies he helped develop and implement are often criticized today.   Some were indefensible; the destruction of crops when millions of Americans were starving led even Wallace to concede that these “were not acts of idealism in any sane society…”

But Wallace had vision. Grand vision. He understood agriculture. And he understood that his generation needed to face both ways at once: to pull strength from the lessons of American pioneers and frontier experiences, but also to develop new ways of thinking and responding to the enormous challenges presented by the Great Depression and a changing American cultural and economic landscape. We’re at the place again in American life.

Wallace sought economic equality and balance, and knew that any possibility of achieving that required some sort of reform that would challenge long-held beliefs.  “The hard but necessary first lesson we must all learn is that we cannot prosper separately,” he once wrote. While I could argue with Wallace’s acceptance of the inevitability of “bigness” in American life (government and business, including agriculture), he helped initiate changes that were needed during that period to make agriculture and the nation more vibrant.

If you’ve read VictoryGrower on more than a casual basis, you know that I believe that America needs a New New Deal, especially vis-à-vis the food system.  While Mr. Vilsack may not have been the first choice of many people, I think he has an opportunity to make an enormous and positive impact.

My advice to the incoming Ag Secretary: Channel another son of Iowa, Henry Agard Wallace.  Read everything he wrote. Focus on Wallace’s visionary nature and the size of his ideas. Don’t accept the inevitability of bigness in the food system. Instead, perhaps the “big idea” here represents a smaller focus: helping to recreate local and regional food systems.   Take incredibly good ideas – like school lunch programs – and incorporate new elements that encourage local sourcing. Take USDA-sponsored programs, such as the Master Gardeners and 4-H Youth Development Programs, and leverage these hundreds of thousands of youth and adult volunteers to create an army of foot soldiers to support school, home and community garden programs across the nation. (A bonus for you: coming full circle with 4-H in Iowa, which had some of the earliest clubs, and where the organization’s Clover symbol originated). Take a really good idea from the USDA/Food Administration, and revive Victory Gardens.  And like Henry Wallace did in WWII, make sure to cultivate your own garden at home.   As someone who has worked extensively with Master Gardeners, 4-H and the concept of Victory Gardens, I’d be happy to chat with your staff about these ideas, on my own dime. They’re good ideas. As Secretary of Ag, you could make them happen, and I pledge my full support.  Can we talk?

The basic idea of all of the above: use the USDA’s vast resource base of employees, volunteers and cooperating agencies (states, school districts, etc.), and capitalize on the agency’s geographical reach to build and rebuild sustainable and healthy American communities in all senses of the word.

I’d also suggest that you and your staff read about the cultural, intellectual and social life – and the policies – of the New Deal. Something tells me there are some good lessons there.  In addition to Wallace’s own words, David Kennedy’s Freedom from Fear is a rollicking good read (it won the Pulitzer Prize). If you don’t have time to get through all 936 pages, at least read the sections on the New Deal and agricultural reform.  (And to get an idea of how this all got set up, read chapter 13 of William Leuchtenburg’s Perils of Prosperity, appropriately entitled “Smashup.” Heck, read the whole thing – it’s short and you won’t be able to put it down).   You may also wish to snag a copy of Richard Pells’ “Radical Visions and American Dreams: Culture and Social Thought in the Depression Years”.

Near the end of New Frontiers, Wallace wrote “Too many of us want to see “normalcy” restored, in the old sense, and live again in plenty without facing facts. That cannot be. The world has changed.”

Indeed it has. And under your leadership, the USDA has an opportunity to respond in new and visionary ways to these changes. Please take the opportunity to effect real change, Secretary Vilsack. And count me in to help.

The election is over, and it’s time to think about the future. Glass ceilings have been shattered, and all sorts of barriers we thought existed have disappeared. I’ve got gardening on my mind…it seems even more important now.

The Victory Gardens of World War I and World War II – and the garden efforts of the Great Depression – helped Americans successfully negotiate hard times. These gardens helped the family budget; improved dietary practices; reduced the food mile and saved fuel; enabled America to export more food to our allies; beautified communities; enabled every American to contribute to a national effort; and helped bridge social, ethnic, class and cultural differences during a time when cooperation was widely needed. Gardens were an expression of solidarity, of patriotism, and shared sacrifice. They were found everywhere…schools, homes, and throughout public spaces in communities all over the nation. No gardening effort was too small. Every effort counted. Americans did their bit. And it mattered.

Consider this: In WWI, the Federal Bureau of Education nationalized a school garden program and funded it with War Department monies. Millions of students gardened at school, at home, and in their communities. A national Liberty Garden (later Victory Garden) program was initiated that called upon all Americans to garden for the nation, and the world. In part because of the success of home gardeners (and careful food preservation), the U.S. was able to increase exports to our starving European Allies. During 1943, an estimated 3/5ths of Americans participated in some sort of gardening activity, including Eleanor Roosevelt, who planted a Victory Garden on the White House Lawn, and Vice President Henry Wallace, who gardened with his son at the VP’s residence. Nearly 40% of the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed stateside during 1943 were grown in school, home and community gardens. In addition to providing much-needed food, gardening helped Americans accept the nation’s plurality, providing a positive experience that transcended race, class and socioeconomic divisions. That bridged rural/urban differences. They provided a way for all Americans to provide a service to the nation. Gardens were not a diversion…through gardening efforts, Americans made significant contributions to the war effort.

Our nation has many needs right now. Families need help with their personal economies. Entire communities are food-insecure. We have a tenuous connection with the land, and a poor understanding of our food system. Obesity is an epidemic. Environmental concerns – and declining oil supplies – dictate a need to recreate more sustainable and local food systems. And Americans have proven that they are hungry for change, eager to re-engage with their neighbors, their communities, their nation.

A revival of the successful national gardening programs of the past could help in many, many ways. This would not be a costly program. All of the educational materials that support school, home and community gardens is available through existing government agencies and private organizations. A government-sponsored program through the USDA, state land grant institutions, and county government fields thousands of highly-trained Master Gardeners who could be called upon to share their expertise with school, home and community gardeners.

What is needed to make this idea a reality is an “ask” by our new President. Simply encourage all Americans that can to plant some sort of garden for the spring/summer season of 2009. Encourage them to plant for their families, and their communities. To share extra produce with food banks and the growing number of hungry in our nation. Put a vegetable garden on the White House lawn. (You might consider talking to my friend Roger Doiron about that -visit him at Eat The View).

And please visit my UC Victory Website for additional information about how the past could inform current public policy in this area.

Video: Original WWII film on victory gardening

Last week, while the market experienced a kind of volatility that had nearly everyone drawing parallels with the Great Depression, I had the privilege of participating in the Western Regional Assembly on Farm-to-School, which was sponsored by Ecotrust.  A large group gathered in Portland to share information, develop strategies and network around the issues of good food for schools, institutions and communities.

To many people, farm-to-school, school gardens and attempts to create local food systems are somewhat of a novelty.  Here’s the line of thinking: Sure, it’s important to provide healthier food options to youth, and to teach them about agriculture and the food system…And it’s important to try to eat locally sourced foods as much as possible, for many reasons…But mostly, these activities lie largely outside of the “big-E” economic system.  They are simply too small in scale to make much of an impact.

What I learned last week about this topic shifted my thinking in fundamental ways.  Local food systems – including farm-to-school programs – can mean real money for local farmers, local food processors and local/state economies.

And the state of Montana has an excellent model for this.

Mary Stein, who is on the faculty of Montana State University, shared information about what’s going on in Montana in terms of needs and opportunities.  She described an area of acute poverty that has developed on the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains, and in reservation counties.  I did some of my own research over the weekend and was astounded to learn that some of the poorest counties in the United States are in Montana. Rural residents have been struggling there for years.  In one county, the new jobs created in the last six-seven years numbered 42.  Sure these are small counties, but these figures represent poor economic health and growth.  History repeating itself? Perhaps.  While 1929 marked the beginning of the Great Depression for Main Street America, rural residents had been struggling for nearly ten years prior to that, since the conclusion of WWI.  And too often, rural struggles go unnoticed in America.

Through the 1950s, Montana produced about 70% of the food its residents consumed.  That figure has fallen to 10%, and the state is perilously – I would argue dangerously – dependent upon food that is shipped in, much of it via trucks.  A frequent observation is that Montana is one truck driver strike away from food insecurity.

Like many other states, Montana’s attempts to recreate a more locally sustainable food system have been hampered because of the loss of nearly all the food processing infrastructure in the last fifty years.  When we created a meta/mega food system in America, one of the casualties was local processing.

Montana has become a commodity-based agricultural system, producing mostly grains and beef cattle that are shipped out of state for processing and distribution.  Ironically, Montanans probably re-import processed grains and meat that they produced.

It’s not just a lack of processing infrastructure that hampers the effort to eat more locally sourced foods.  It is also federal school lunch policy.  “With the way the commodities programs are currently structured, there is a massive barrier for K-12 schools to source these commodity products locally,” MSU’s Stein says.  ”Montana is a beef state, and yet it’s almost impossible for our schools to access locally-produced beef, because districts can’t specify local beef within the federal commodities program.”  Nor can they get cash in lieu of commodities to buy local beef.

Grow Montana seeks to change this food system and revitalize the state’s economy.  Grow Montana is a broad-based coalition whose purpose is “to promote community economic development policies that support sustainable Montana-owned food production, processing, and distribution, and that improve all of our citizens’ access to Montana foods.”  The coalition is coordinated by the National Center for Appropriate Technology, which is based in Butte, Montana, and which is also one of the coalition’s partners.

Grow Montana Director Nancy Matheson says of their model, “We’re looking to use the local food movement as a way to transform and revitalize Montana’s economy, specifically the rural economy.”   She is particularly interested in hearing from others who are working on topics central to rural food systems and economic transformation.

Grow Montana works on multiple levels.  It encourages conversations with communities, entrepreneurs, farmers and ranchers, identifying needs and opportunities.

Matheson says, “The message is coming from the grassroots, and we take it on a collective basis to the state level.”  And Grow Montana’s policy work is having real economic impacts, because its members recognize the real opportunities that exist.  Unlocking the Food Buying Potential of Montana’s Public Institutions – Towards a Montana-based Food Economy is a study that provides information about one Grow Montana strategy that impacts farm-to-school programs, and could inform this work elsewhere.

On the ground, Grow Montana’s work is equally impressive.  The organization uses a FoodCorps to accomplish vital economic and human goals.  FoodCorps members – VISTA volunteers – deploy to create and develop farm to cafeteria programs in local schools and colleges. Through these programs, K-12 schools and colleges buy locally-grown food.  This strengthens Montana’s agricultural economy, while also serving healthy and delicious food to youth.

The FoodCorps work is coordinated by Crissie McMullan, who traveled with this year’s FoodCorps (hundreds of miles via a van) to the Western Regional Assembly in Portland.  One of the real “goose bump” moments at the gathering was when the Montana delegation was asked to stand. These incredible young volunteers – who are doing such important and ground-breaking work in sustainable food systems – earned an enormous and sustained round of applause.

Per Grow Montana Director Matheson, FoodCorps also enables the larger organization to “develop strategies that we can test in the real world, on the ground…strategies that inform our policy work.”  Food Corps volunteers track statistics about the amount and value of local food purchased for their programs; valuable information is being gained.  And dollars are staying in Montana because of the program.  The economic impact is real.

In honor of the Montana program, which provides a unique model we ought to consider – and which has inspired me enormously - I’m including their tagline with the Victory Grower tagline:

“Montana Food for Montanans”
“A Garden for Everyone.  Everyone in a Garden.”

Photo: simplesee

Rose Hayden-Smith’s work focuses on providing gardening and food systems education to youth, educators, and community audiences. She chairs UC’s Garden-Based Learning Workgroup, serves on California’s Instructional School Garden Committee, and is a 2008-2009 Food and Society Policy Fellow (FASP). Her personal website can be found at groups.ucanr.org/victorygrower/.

This morning in San Francisco, the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden broke ground, marking an important milestone in the city’s progress towards becoming a model for government-supported community projects and civic engagement.

My work as an historian of the Victory Garden movement during World War I and World War II is a small piece of my larger work as an historian of the American homefront during wartime. Without understanding the battlefront, one cannot truly understand the homefront. I am in the odd position of being a person adamantly opposed to war, but also its constant student.

When talking about the power Victory Gardens had on the American homefront in particular, it’s easy to focus on the positive, and I do. There’s the fact that Americans greatly increased food production and improved their diets during a period of challenge; the fact that they used gardening as a way to create common purpose among a diverse people; and the fact that gardens provided a means to re-introduce a producer ethic that had been increasingly lost in a nation that was becoming more consumer-oriented, and were used to educate a younger generation about their food system. Victory Gardens enabled us to accomplish much more of value during wars that were horrific and disruptive in ways that we can hardly perceive today.

I sometimes find my Victory Garden framework challenged by individuals who view them within the larger context of war and the unhealthy sort of nationalism that often parades as patriotism. They view the context of war as divisive. I appreciate their concern, because I struggle with the ambiguity and those concerns on a daily basis.

Recently, I was interviewed by Lisa Kivirist, a writer/innkeeper/ecopreneur/organic grower who is doing important work in the area of rural women and economy. Lisa is also a Food and Society Policy Fellow. The article appears under the title Planting Patriotism: Recreating The Victory Gardens For Modern Times. I include a quote from that article – and some of Lisa’s comments – here to clarify my philosophy about Victory Gardens, and why I think the term works today. Lisa herself defines our work as “mission based” gardening, and that’s a lovely term.

Lisa: “…Hayden-Smith isn’t a historian stuck in the past – she’s an advocate championing bringing the Victory Garden concept back to create a sustainable food system for future generations. Historically, World War II Victory Gardens were kitchen gardens planted to help relieve wartime food shortages. Hayden-Smith defines Victory Gardens more broadly:

Rose: A Victory Garden today can be any garden with a purpose that you define personally. That purpose can be a family project to raise food for your household or a community effort to grow produce for a local food bank or whatever else you see as a need.

Lisa: Such mission based gardening moves our food choices beyond our own personal plate and into the political realm: Make a statement with your garden, vote by example for self-sufficiency and independence. Why rekindle the Victory Garden concept today?

Rose: Victory Gardens showcase patriotism in its truest sense, with each of us taking personal responsibility for doing our individual part to create a healthy, fair and affordable food system.

I want to thank Lisa for encouraging me to articulate my philosophy. I hope you’ll learn more about her work and visit her website.

The American homefront today is far different than the homefronts of WWI or WWII. While Victory Gardens have little formal connection with our nation’s current military involvements, they have everything to do with purpose, personal mission and goals, and a sustainable food future.

“A Garden for Everyone. Everyone in a Garden.”

Rose Hayden-Smith’s work focuses on providing gardening and food systems education to youth, educators, and community audiences. She chairs UC’s Garden-Based Learning Workgroup, serves on California’s Instructional School Garden Committee, and is a 2008-2009 Food and Society Policy Fellow (FASP). Her personal website can be found at groups.ucanr.org/victorygrower/.

Photo by Scott Chernis