Civil Eats

Albert Straus is a dairy farmer and President of Straus Family Creamery located on the beautiful shores of Tomales Bay and the Point Reyes National Seashore, 60 miles north of San Francisco. He is an outspoken advocate for sustainable, non-GMO dairy production, farmland protection and environmental stewardship.

Albert’s family farm, which has been operating for more than 65 years, began when his father, Bill Straus, began farming there 1941 with just 23 cows. Ellen Straus, Albert’s mother, read the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson in the early 1960s and began the family’s strong commitment to environmental sustainability.

In 1993, the farm became the first certified organic dairy west of the Mississippi River, making Albert an industry innovator and organic pioneer. The creamery, which he founded in 1994, is a leading producer of the highest quality organic milk, yogurt, butter, sour cream, and ice cream. In 2004, Albert introduced methane-digester technology to convert dairy waste into energy, which today not only powers the farm but also powers his car. The extensive sustainability program that Albert implemented at the dairy and creamery also includes a closed-loop water reuse system; production of milk in reusable glass bottles; and an employee carpool program.

What issues have you been focused on?

Primarily it’s the financial viability of our family farm. Specifically, the lack of availability of certified organic, verified non-GMO feeds for cows. There’s pressure on farmers to grow GMO crops for fuel and not for food. I’m also focused on helping consumers and farmers keep GMOs out of our food supply. Read More

Over 1,000 people have gathered in Oakland, California to attend the Community Food Security Coalition Conference today, an annual gathering that, as Nieto says, is “a real opportunity to organize and a call to action to take back our food system.” We are just steps from the tent city housing a lively group of Occupy-ers and the boarded Bank of America and Wells Fargo storefront windows along Broadway Street. In light of these converging movements and the urgency of communicating the needs of the 99 percent, it’s fitting to highlight and champion the work of Y. Armando Nieto, Executive Director of the California Food and Justice Coalition. A child of the 60s, he is a staunch supporter of rising up and speaking your mind. Nieto is also a veteran of the environmental movement and a seasoned executive and development professional who is applying his business acumen towards good food for all. Let him inspire you to rise up and take a stand for what matters most to you and your community. The time is now. Read More

As Campaign Manager for Food Day, a project led by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Lilia Smelkova has a lot to do before the October 24 debut of this nationwide effort that hopes to advance the momentum of the food movement.

Good thing this isn’t her first time at the rodeo. Read More

Ken Meter is a very smart guy. He’s also incredibly friendly and, I hear, very fun to hang out with. He’s vocal about how the government needs to stop throwing cash at commodities and start investing in communities and as author of 70 regional farm and food economy studies, his job is to shed light on the realities of food systems change with the hardcore lens of economics. One of the most experienced and dedicated food system analysts in the United States, Ken’s work integrates market analysis, business development, systems thinking, and social concerns.

As president of Crossroads Resource Center, Ken has over 39 years of experience in inner-city and rural community capacity building and is passionate about engaging low-income people in creating solutions for themselves. His pioneering study of the farm and food economy of Southeast Minnesota, Finding Food in Farm Country, helped strengthen a collaborative of food producers and led to the creation of the Hiawatha Fund, a regional investment fund. His work serves as a national model for analyzing rural economics and has been adopted by 45 regions in 20 states across the U.S. and in one Canadian province.

What issues have you been focused on?

I focus on how local farm and food economies work and how to foster an effective movement to build stronger locales. Read More

Deborah Kane is the Vice President of Food and Farms for Ecotrust, a Portland, Oregon-based conservation and economic development group that has their hands in a variety of powerful pots including a USDA-backed online service called FoodHub that helps connect farms of every size with schools, hospitals, caterers, restaurants, and distributors. Deborah is also the publisher of Edible Portland. She was invited to the White House a few weeks ago to brief President Obama on FoodHub, which she hopes will go national next year.

What issues have you been focused on?

I’m very focused on connecting producers to domestic markets. Read More

Thomas F. “Fred” Stokes was born and raised on a small diversified family farm in Kemper County, Mississippi. At the age of 17 he enlisted in the Army and later completed Infantry Officers Candidate School and received a commission. His 20 years of military service included two tours in Vietnam. He retired in 1972 as a Major. He returned to Mississippi and has been involved in the cattle business and active in agricultural and rural life issues ever since. Fred is deeply concerned about the disappearance of the family farm and ranch and the decay in rural America and is widely known as an outspoken critic of U. S. farm and trade policy. He was instrumental in founding Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) and Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA). He currently serves as the Executive Director of OCM and on the board of CPA. He and his wife of 50 plus years live on their small cattle farm in East Central Mississippi.

What issues have you been focused on?

Our issue is making the marketplace a fair game as it affects farmers and ranchers in rural America. Read More

Sue Ujcic is an innovative farmer and a champion of what’s possible when communities work together. She is as adept in connecting people to good food, good health, and good times as she is harvesting potatoes.

As co-owner of Helsing Junction Farm in Rochester, Washington, just outside of Olympia, Sue and her business partner, Anna Salafsky, have worked since 1992 with almost the same crew of 12 people to farm and grow 30 acres of organic vegetables, fruit, and flowers to serve their 800-member CSA program, one of the most established in the country. Much of their produce throughout the growing season is also donated to the local food bank where they deliver weekly CSA shares directly to recipients, a program funded by donations from their members, which they match.

What issues have you been focused on?

Linking low-income people with fresh organic produce. Read More

Helene York is both an educator and coach for Bon Appétit Management Company, the socially responsible food service company that operates more than 400 on-site cafés for universities, corporate employers, and museums in 31 states. She is also the director of the Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation, whose mission is to educate chefs and consumers about how their food choices affect the global environment and to catalyze changes in the supply chain. Read More

Siena Chrisman is the Manager of Strategic Partnerships & Alliances at WhyHunger in New York City. She joined WhyHunger in 2005; in her current capacity, she works with organizations and advocates around the country to build the movement for a healthier and more just food system. She is the editor of Green Roofs: Ecological Design and Construction (Schiffer Publishing, 2004), and holds a BA from Mount Holyoke College. Originally from Amherst, MA, Siena lived in Italy prior to moving to New York, teaching English, doing odd jobs, and learning what a culture looks like when it values food. She now lives in Brooklyn, where she cooks, bakes, composts, and is anxiously awaiting warmer temperatures so she can start planting in her community garden plot.

What issues have you been focused on?

In my work at WhyHunger, I’m fortunate to focus at both macro and micro levels, working with national level organizations and local grassroots groups around the country. Read More

Like many of the women I admire most, Joan Gussow has a bit of an edge to her.  One gets the impression that she doesn’t gladly suffer fools.  But as an avid gardener and longtime professor of nutrition at Columbia University’s Teachers College, she is also a world-class nurturer and a mentor to many, including Michael Pollan, whose quote on the back of Joan’s latest book, Growing, Older, reads:

Once in a while, I think I’ve had an original thought, then I look and read around and realize Joan said it first.

Joan is also a practice in dichotomy–though she bemoans new media for its “misinformation pollution” and is known best for her expertise in that old-timey tradition of subsistence farming (though on an extremely small scale), she is also an unrepentantly radical thinker and the first person I ever heard speak coherently about nanotechnology. Read More

Pam, who I was grateful to meet on an urban agriculture tour in New Orleans this past October, is the founder and Executive Director of the Women and Agriculture (WandA) Network, one of a group of organizations strategically thinking about food justice and women farmers in urban areas. She is the former Deputy Director of the New Orleans Food and Farm Network and currently tends a small, but vibrant urban farm called Sun Harvest Kitchen Garden located in the severely distressed Central City neighborhood of New Orleans.

Currently, she’s got an abundance of Asian greens, red leaf mustards, collards, spinach, onions, herbs that carried over from the summer like fennel, curry, basil, all kinds of mint, stevia, tarragon, rosemary. In the spring she hopes to make cucumbers, tomatoes, and parsley and green onions available to a neighboring senior center residence complex because they really want access to fresh seasonings. She also has a market garden portion that will grow for Café Reconcile, a nonprofit restaurant that serves as the primary training ground for “at-risk” students seeking to acquire skills in the food service industry. (They also make a sweet tea that made me cry and a crawfish bisque that’ll get you crawling back for more!)

What issues have you been focused on?

I have primarily been working across the city with interesting people and groups about the notion of creating a viable infrastructure for urban ag in NOLA. What does that mean?What’s the best approach to get us some concrete results? Read More

A week after penning his final article for the New York Times as The Minimalist, and just before beginning a weekly op-ed column and becoming a regular Times Magazine contributor, Mark Bittman spoke to Civil Eats about his vision for a saner and more delicious food system. Read More

Few would argue that Joan Dye Gussow is the mother of the sustainable food movement. For more than 30 years, she’s been writing, teaching (she is emeritus chair of the Teachers College nutrition program at Columbia University), and speaking about our unsustainable food system and how to fix it. (This excellent article by journalist Brian Halweil showcases her work in detail.) Now more than ever, her ideas have wings. Michael Pollan, for example, has said, “Once in a while, when I have an original thought, I look around and realize Joan said it first.”

Gussow lives what she teaches, growing most of her own food year-round in her backyard. The New York Times profiled her last spring as she was rebuilding her garden after it was destroyed by a flood. When I asked her about her newly rebuilt garden, she said, “It’s given me 10 additional years of life, at least!”

I spoke to her recently about how far we’ve come, the future of the food system, and her new book, Growing, Older: A Chronicle of Death, Life, and Vegetables.

Read More

Rick North is the man who put the fight against rBGH on our radar. As the Director of the Campaign for Safe Food Program at Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Rick leads grass roots efforts to discontinue the use of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST) in cows and to ensure that genetically engineered biopharmaceutical crops do not contaminate the human food supply or environment and speaks on the topic regularly. Rick will retire January 31 so that he can become a full-time volunteer fighting undue corporate influence in our government and other aspects of our lives. He’s very concerned about the corporate take-over of our government and the unlimited funds coming into our election process. After the recent elections, he knew he needed to do something. So, he’s taking it on. With a successful track record of beating Monsanto under his belt, we’re all lucky to have him in the trenches. Go Rick! Read More

We featured Lisa’s ideas back in July [Work with Passion: Four Reasons Why Blending Business and Life Rocks for Women in Agriculture] as a part of our support of Farmer Jane. As the work of women farmers continues to gain attention, we wanted to learn more about this dynamic woman who champions the voices of women farmers and ecopreneurs from her bucolic Wisconsin bed and breakfast. Lisa is also a Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow specializing in the role of women in agriculture and speaks on the subject frequently.

What issues have you been focused on?

I work on a diversity of issues under the sustainability umbrella. My family and I run Inn Serendipity, a diversified farm and bed and breakfast and grow our own food and food for the business. We specialize in a 10-feet breakfast, from the garden to the B&B plate. Read More

Michele Simon is a public health lawyer specializing in policy analysis, legal strategies, and countering corporate tactics. With 14 years of experience researching and writing about the food industry, she authored Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back. She is currently watchdogging the alcohol industry, as Marin Institute’s research and policy director. You can read her writing on her blog, and follow her on Twitter.

What issues have you been focused on?

My interests include nutrition policy and the role the food industry plays in marketing and obstructing policy to undermine public health. Read More

In 2004, Morgan Spurlock‘s documentary film Super Size Me debuted. In it, Spurlock eats McDonald’s food for 30 days straight. This extreme experiment sought to document the adverse health effects of the all-to-common practice of over-eating fast food, using himself as test subject. Indeed, Spurlock gained weight, scared his doctors when his liver went south, felt depressed, lost sexual function and more. But the film also became a sort of watershed moment, shocking general audiences and thereby playing a big role in spurring growth of the food movement. I met Spurlock recently while picking up my weekly farm share (we belong to the same local CSA), and he kindly agreed to talk about the food movement, changes in the fast food industry, and how his McDonald’s binge has affected his long-term health. Read More

As a long-time regular of Angelica Kitchen restaurant in New York City, I’ve come to consider it a “second kitchen,” a place I feel good about supporting because it shares the values I keep in my own kitchen: High quality ingredients that provide a fair income to farmers who are working to protect the environment–and which provide nutrition without sacrificing any of the flavor–all for the reasonable cost afforded by buying direct.

And I am not alone. Since it opened its door in 1976, Angelica Kitchen has cultivated a loyal following, and their sustainable business model–maintained without serving alcohol (you can BYOB)–is a case study for success outside of the mainstream restaurant industry. Angelica’s is also one of the most popular vegetarian restaurants in New York City, precisely because it attracts a clientele that includes many non-vegetarians. In honor of Vegetarian Awareness Month, I spoke with owner Leslie McEachern–who is being awarded for her long-time advocacy of small, local farms by the Northeast Organic Farming Association this month–about running a restaurant built on relationships. Read More

Jordan Treakle hails from the mountains of western North Carolina and recently graduated with a degree International Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a student he was a founding member of the UNC student group FLO (Fair, Local, Organic) Food. Jordan directed the organization’s goal of promoting institutional purchasing of sustainable foods in collaboration with the Carolina Dining Services (CDS) and helped build new supplier partnerships that promoted local food purchasing and consumption. His efforts have insured that FLO Food and CDS together are developing a successful model for sustainable food to be served at a flagship, public university. His work with the Real Food Challenge, a national student-led NGO working to build the youth sustainable food movement, has helped to establish working relationships with a range of local community groups and regional non-profit organizations in the Southeast as part as the RFC’s national campaign to increase direct farm-to-university links in the food chain. He is currently organizing farmers around hydraulic fracturing issues at the Rural Advancement Foundation International.

CE: What issues have you been focused on?

JT: For the past three years I’ve focused on student and youth organizing around agriculture issues in North Carolina and the Southeast. I initially became interested in industrial hog production in North Carolina and the effects it has on the land and the people in my home state. This led to analyzing the institutional food purchasing of my university and how students can advocate for universities to invest in sustainable food systems. Read More

Miles Gordon is the Founder and Project Coordinator for The Gardens Project of North Coast Opportunities which he started in 2007 in Ukiah, Mendocino County, California. His inspiration for The Gardens Project began 10 years ago as a result of a local hunger assessment. It revealed that Mendocino County needed more access to food which inspired Miles to help organize the Cleveland Community Garden – now Ukiah’s oldest and largest. As a former teacher who worked with school gardens, Miles noticed that some struggled, competing for resources. He saw a real need for two things: networking existing gardens so they could share resources and expertise while simultaneously, and rapidly, developing access to new gardens.

In the last three years, The Gardens Project has helped develop 16 new gardens and network over 65 in Mendocino County. These include gardens at schools, senior centers and those in the community at large. Miles and his wonderful Americorps VISTA volunteers also work on farmer development and rebuilding the food system on many levels.

CE: What issues have you been focused on?

MG: Empowerment. Read More

Urban farmer Annie Novak is farmer and co-founder of the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn, New York—a green roof turned vegetable farm built by Goode Green on top of a warehouse owned by Broadway Stages. In its second growing season, the farm has become a center of community, with a weekly market, a popular volunteer program, and farm talks on subjects like composting, artisanal food businesses, and chicken-raising. Annie also finds time to run an education program she founded called Growing Chefs and works as the Children’s Gardening Program Coordinator at the New York Botanical Gardens. And she can be seen zipping around town on a bike that she built herself.

She’s garnered loads of press for her work, including this Grist interview with our own Paula Crossfield.

CE: What issues have you been focused on?

AN: Food access. What ancient agricultural skills have we lost? Everything I do ties back to the soil and land itself. Where does good soil come from and what’s happened to it? Read More

Debra is one of the founders of FoodCorps and the Communications and Outreach Director of the National Farm to School Network, which is a program of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College. Debra is also an Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy Food and Society Fellow. Debra’s previous non-profit work spans the globe in the humanitarian, conservation, sustainable agriculture, and food justice realms. She works from her fifth-generation family farm in Ohio, where she continues her passion for organic farming raising fruits and vegetables.

CE: What issues have you been focused on?

DE: It ranges from food policy, Farm to School, school gardens, school food, rural sociology, obesity, dairy policy, commodity policy, food justice… basically from seed to stomach. The whole gamut.

CE: What inspires you to do this work?

DE: I am a dairy farmer’s daughter and given that there are fewer than 60,000 dairy farmers in the United States, not many people can really understand what that means. But, I grew up with a dairy chip on my shoulder, watching how working for this food system is hard work and when you see that it’s broken even after all of that hard work, that’s frustrating. Read More

Lisa Kivirist is a bonafide Farmer Jane in Wisconsin where she runs her family farm with the help of her husband and son Liam. Off grid and creative, she and her husband have figured out how to make a living in a rural place – something that’s not really easy to do. Lisa is also a Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow specializing in the role of women in agriculture and speaks on the subject frequently.

We are honored to share some of Lisa’s insights about why working in agriculture is the perfect fit for women entrepreneurs and ecopreneurs in this article within an article. Read on for some serious inspiration. Read More

Chef Kurt Michael Friese is the founding leader of Slow Food Iowa, serves on the Slow Food USA National Board of Directors, and is editor-in-chief and co-owner of the local food magazine Edible Iowa River Valley. A graduate and former Chef-Instructor at the New England Culinary Institute, he has been Chef and owner, with his wife Kim McWane Friese, of the Iowa City restaurant Devotay for 13 years. Devotay is a community leader in sustainable cuisine and supporting local farmers and food artisans. Friese is a freelance food writer and photographer, with regular columns in six local, regional and national newspapers and magazines, and his book, A Cook’s Journey: Slow Food in the Heartland has just been published by Ice Cube Press.

CE: What issues have you been focused on?

KMF: Lately a lot more on bringing the ideas about good food to a wider audience. It’s not just about good food, but good food for everybody. I work a lot with Slow Food and it’s been saddled with an elitist bag; and rather than yelling “uh uh” it’s easier to demonstrate with good works that good, clean and fair food isn’t just for upper class white folks, it’s for everybody. Read More

Jennifer Curtis is the principal of Curtis Consulting and Project Director for NC Choices, a Center for Environmental Farming Systems initiative. Since 1986, Jennifer has been working to improve the sustainability of food and farming systems. Jennifer is dedicated to facilitating change from the ground up—developing applied tools and programs to address agriculture’s economic and environmental challenges. Often an ambassador from the environmental to the farming community, she is skilled at building bridges and encouraging collaboration. Read More

Temra Costa is a sustainable food and farming advocate and author of Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat. Civil Eats will feature her profiles of some of America’s women farmers and food advocates over the coming weeks.

On the banks of the Sacramento River, farm crops are the beneficiaries of centuries of natural flooding that have added rich sediment to the soil’s fabric. The longest river within California, the Sacramento, stretches from Mount Shasta all the way down to the Delta, where it joins with the San Joaquin before splurging out into the Suisun Bay just north of the San Francisco. The story of the Sacramento is as rich as its soil as Native Americans traversed its banks long before Interstate 5 was put in. Read More

Anthony Flaccavento is an organic farmer near Abingdon in the heart of Appalachian Virginia, and is founder of SCALE Inc. (SCALE stands for, (Sequestering Carbon Accelerating Local Economies) which works with new and emerging sustainable ag projects. He has been working on community environmental and economic development in central Appalachia for the past 25 years.  In 1995, he founded Appalachian Sustainable Development, a nonprofit dedicated to developing healthy, diverse, and ecologically sound economic opportunities in southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee, which has become a regional and national leader in sustainable economic development. Read More

Chef Ann Cooper, also known as the “Renegade Lunch Lady,” has been working to improve public school lunches from the inside first in Berkeley, and now in Boulder, Colorado. She is the author of Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children. I asked Chef Cooper a few questions for our series, Faces & Visions of the Food Movement. Read More

Temra Costa is a sustainable food and farming advocate and author of Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat. Civil Eats will feature her profiles of some of America’s women farmers and food advocates over the coming weeks.

Molly Rockamann (pictured: Karen, Molly, Vicki, Danielle) will forever be remembered as the apprentice at UC Santa Cruz’s Farm and Garden Program that made “Farm Grease, The Musical,” happen. This 28 year-old farmer grew up playing in the racks of her grandmother’s costume shop and with a family that made variety shows a priority at nearly all functions. So it’s not surprising that Molly continues to weave art, dance, and music into her farm in Ferguson, Missouri. Read More

James Johnson-Piett is responsible for the overall management of operations and strategic vision for Urbane Development, a community and economic development firm based in Philadelphia. He specializes in neighborhood scale development and the revitalization of urban commercial and retail amenities. His work focuses on strengthening neighborhood commercial and retail enterprises by providing services and expertise that infuses principles of social entrepreneurship, sustainability, and technical acumen into the core of his client’s operations. He serves as Treasurer on the Board of Directors of the Community Food Security Coalition, is a co-convener of the Healthy Corner Stores Network, and a member of the Philadelphia Development Partnership’s Young Entrepreneur’s Advisory Board. James is an alumnus of Swarthmore College with a B.A. in Political Science and Environmental Studies. I sat down with James to ask him a few questions last week for our new series, Faces & Visions of the Food Movement. Read More