Civil Eats

For too long, funding provided by the United States’ most far-reaching food and farm legislation has primarily benefited agri-business and large scale industrial-scale commodity farms that aren’t growing food.  Instead, they’re growing ingredients for animal feed, fuel and highly processed food—at a high cost to our nation’s health, environment and rural communities.

Meanwhile, only meager public resources have been invested smartly to build the kind of dynamic local food economies that support agricultural diversification and help link small- and mid-sized family farms to local and regional markets.

With the 2012 Farm Bill fast upon us, Congress has an opportunity to make smart, timely changes to help  fix our broken food and farm system by embracing a package of policy reforms outlined in the Local Farms, Food and Jobs bill. This legislation was recently introduced by Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and is co-sponsored by 63 representatives in the House and 9 in the Senate. Read More

After Novella Carpenter’s critically acclaimed memoir Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer came out, she and friend Willow Rosenthal, the founder of West Oakland gardening nonprofit City Slicker Farms, started talking about compiling a manual on urban gardening. “We always got these random emails like, ‘My chickens aren’t laying anymore!’” says Carpenter. So she and Rosenthal joked that they should write a book so they could reply: “Buy the book!”

Three years later, they can. Their new book, The Essential Urban Farmer, is a 500-page nuts-and-bolts guide to farming in the city–complete with sample garden designs, detailed illustrations, and photos of rabbit genitalia. Rosenthal, who is also a Waldorf School teacher and runs a small CSA in Berkeley, wrote the first two sections of the book: “Designing Your Urban Farm” and “Raising City Vegetables and Fruits.” Carpenter wrote the section called “Raising City Animals.” With advice on how to fix a chicken’s prolapsed “vent,” and a detailed how-to on eviscerating a chicken, it’s not for the squeamish. But then, neither is raising livestock.

I talked to Carpenter and Rosenthal recently about the guide, and got some tips about  how to create a thriving urban farm. Read More

“Heirloom” is an interesting term, and like the word “sustainability,” it means different things to different people. Recently, I read The Heirloom Life Gardener, a book written by Jere and Emilee Gettle. The Gettles are the co-founders of the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, which publishes a lush and incredibly informative seed catalog and has spun off a variety of gardening-related enterprises across the nation.

The Gettles define heirloom seeds as being “nonhybrid and open-pollinated” and as usually having been in circulation for more than 50 years. Some heirloom seed types currently in use could have been found in Thomas Jefferson garden at Monticello. Some appear more recently, during the Great Depression, including the Mortgage Lifter tomato (who couldn’t use one of these in today’s economy?).

While reading the Gettles’ book, I began thinking once again about the relationship between land and the American character. I was inspired to pull some of my favorite books off the shelf and revisit them, to consider the notion of “civic agriculture.” Read More

Amidst a spate of law enforcement raids and other regulatory actions taken by local, state, and federal officials against raw milk producers across the country, an alarmed group of small California dairy farmers and consumers have recently formed the Food Rights Coalition and begun to push state regulators and legislators to take action to help them. The coalition formed in response to at least a half dozen cease and desist orders issued by the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) over the past year to  small dairy herdshares across the state.

At a Petaluma, California meeting last week, several local members of the group expressed concern for the loss of their livelihoods and the safety of their families, seeking the assistance of 6th District Assemblyman Jared Huffman to protect their milking rights. Read More

Smack in the middle of a half-dozen shipping containers and striding up a mound of gravel, Johanna Gilligan, 31, can’t contain her excitement. “This looks so awesome!” She nods her head at an alcove between two containers, painted the pale color of new celery, with dry sinks attached. “That’s going to be for processing.”

Gilligan, co-director of New Orleans’ Grow Dat Youth Farm, traipses up the mound, which terminates at a deck of sorts and more containers, crowded with architectural students from Tulane University and local urban farm experts. Beyond the deck sits a bayou, lined with trees weeping Spanish moss into the water; the I-610 freeway buzzes along in the background. “I can’t believe how much is done! My office is going to be in a treehouse!”

She has reason to be excited. At four acres, the buildings’ site is just a sliver of City Park, 1,300 acres of green space on New Orleans’ north side. But come February, the buildings will be done, the beds will be ready for planting, and the second class of Grow Dat farmers will commence their work. The goal: one acre planted, 10,000 pounds of food grown, 20 jobs for student workers. Read More

When he was seven years old, Malik Yakini, inspired by his grandfather, planted his own backyard garden in Detroit, seeding it with carrots and other vegetables. Should it come as any surprise that today, Yakini has made urban farming his vocation? The Executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN), which he co-founded in 2006, he is also chair of the Detroit Food Policy Council, which advocates for a sustainable, localized food system and a food-secure Detroit.

It’s well known that Detroit has been hard hit by the economic crisis—its unemployment rate is a staggering 28 percent—but it also has one of the most well-developed urban agriculture scenes in the country. Over the past decade, resourceful Detroiters and organizations such as DBCFSN have been converting the city’s vacant lots and fallow land into lush farms and community gardens. According to the Greening of Detroit, there are now over 1,351 gardens in the city.

I spoke to Yakini, one of the leaders of Detroit’s vibrant food justice movement, about  the problem with the term “food desert,” how Detroit vegans survive the winter, and what the DBCFSN is doing to change the food landscape in Detroit. “We’re really making an effort to reach beyond the foodies—to get to the common folk who are not really involved in food system reform,” says Yakini. Read More

What if we could use technology-based products or services to grow local food systems ten-fold or even twenty-fold in the next few years–from one percent of the current food production in our country today to 10 to 20 percent in the next decade? Our new company, Goodeggs, seeks to do just that. Our hypothesis is that some technology-based product or service will be an important enabler of that future. Read More

Luc Chamberland thinks oyster farming is often misunderstood. That’s why the aquaculturist wants to educate the public about the benefits of cultivating bivalves in Tomales Bay, a pristine estuary in West Marin, Calif.

A recent, high-profile controversy surrounding a commercial oyster farm in the area has focused on the potentially negative environmental impacts of cultivating oysters (namely disruption to native species). But Chamberland sees oyster farming as a sustainable practice that does more good than harm.

That’s why, a few years ago, he conceived of Pickleweed Point Community Oyster Farm–a kind of CSA for the briny bivalve–so that the public can, quite literally, grow their own oysters, and in the process better understand the critical role oysters play in maintaining a healthy ecosystem.  Read More

A physicist, a chemist, and an economist are stranded on a desert island with nothing to eat when a can of soup washes to shore. The physicist says: “Let’s smash the can open with a rock.” The chemist says: “Let’s build a fire and heat the can first.” The economist says: “Let’s assume we have a can-opener.”

The attacks coming from economists against the local and sustainable food movement sound a lot like this joke: The arguments are based in flawed assumptions, obfuscated by fancy charts, big words, and complex calculations.  Read More

It’s time to support farmers who think small. In the latest report showing how small-scale farmers get the shaft, the Center for Rural Affairs found that a poor understanding of sustainable agriculture has led to a bias against lending to these farmers—many of whom are deemed too risky so they get charged extra fees. And banks aren’t the only ones neglecting these growers.

Development agencies across the country are ignoring the needs of small-scale producers and other small food enterprises, offering few opportunities for business assistance and training. Without small business development resources, those in regional food production have limited access to the capital needed to grow. Across the country, small and midsize producers, processors, and distributors provide critical support to local economies by creating jobs and building wealth that stays in the community. Read More

Energy security is an increasingly important—and sometimes overlooked—aspect of food security. Producing food requires considerable fuel, electricity, heat or cooling, and inputs that have embedded energy costs. Every step from seed to stomach requires energy, and has a carbon cost. And in thinking about a secure, decentralized food system we have to think about how to meet those energy needs in secure, affordable and local ways.

This idea is nothing new to farmers and ranchers, for whom the bottom line considerations of energy use are an essential part of their business calculations. Read More

Aaron French, a self-described eco-chef, has headed up the kitchen at The Sunny Side Café on Solano Avenue in Albany, California since it opened in 2004.

For the past two years he’s served up breakfast standards (think pancakes and eggs) and simple lunch fare (burgers, sandwiches, salads) at a satellite café of the same name in Berkeley.

French bounces between the two popular spots several times a day and jokes that the breakfast-brunch shift is the Rodney Dangerfield of cooking (it don’t get no respect).

Still, he’s proudest of his low carbon emissions menu options and his weekend food specials, a short, seasonal list that emphasizes local farms and calculates food miles. Read More

Heads up, green thumbs struggling to offload excess edibles: Aid is out there. A growing movement, designed to help people eat well, save money, and get to know their neighbors, is planting seeds in communities around the country. Crop swaps–meet ups where people exchange their surplus backyard bounty–are thriving from the San Francisco Bay Area to Boston in city and suburban enclaves and online, too.

Of course, there’s nothing particularly new about this phenomenon; who hasn’t been the beneficiary of the guy next door’s abundant squash plot or the woman across the street’s surplus spinach bed? Informal, low-key fruit and veggie trades have gone on since humans began cultivating crops. But these days, with the economy and the environment on many people’s minds, bartering food in a systematic manner is making a comeback. (For more on this, see Shareable’s story on food swaps.) Read More

Armed with soil and seeds, Catholics in blighted cities are taking social justice into their own hands.

In Camden, New Jersey a jumble of railroad tracks, freeways, and abandoned factories lace through the Waterfront South area on the Delaware River just across from Philadelphia. During heavy rains, a nearby wastewater treatment plant frequently leaks raw sewage onto the streets.

An urban exodus from Camden has left 4,000 empty lots in a 10-square-mile area; half of the houses have been abandoned. This makes the city a prime place for people to dump stuff they don’t know what to do with. One day an old speedboat ended up on Broadway, one of the city’s main streets. Two weeks before, a huge abandoned factory caught fire and burned to the ground. 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

The Alameda Point Collaborative Urban Farm is a one-acre farm growing a variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, eggs, honey, and–with the introduction of new aquaculture ponds–will soon offer fish as well. Neat rows of plants are surrounded by olive and stone fruit orchards, but beyond this farm, towering cranes are positioned on the horizon. This farm is in a unique location. Read More

Many New York State farms have experienced devastating losses in the wake of Hurricane Irene. Wind and subsequent flash floods destroyed late summer crops and vegetables, while others have reported drowned cows and washed away barns. Many more farms are without power and, because of washed out roads, countless more do not have a means to distribute their milk.

The flood is particularly brutal because it comes at the height of harvest, which means it is not only a financial disaster, but also an emotional blow. In addition to losing direct sales through farmers‘ markets and grocery stores, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members might not receive further produce for months, since waterlogged produce is illegal to sell. Read More

“You’re farming in Alaska?! What can you possibly grow there?” This was a common response when I told people I was moving to Alaska to be an AmeriCorps VISTA at Calypso Farm and Ecology Center in Ester, Alaska. To be honest, I myself wasn’t quite sure what to expect. When I arrived in April, the ground was still covered in ice, the fields covered in snow. Three months later, I’ve discovered the shocking truth. In Alaska, a food revolution is brewing, and it’s led by 12 year olds. Read More

“For folks who have cooked their whole lives, taking business into their own hands with their family by their sides, is a huge risk. But it provides potentially huge freedom,” said Caleb Zigas, director of San Francisco’s La Cocina culinary incubator summarizing the second National Street Food Conference at Fort Mason in San Francisco.

The conference, held August 21-22, united street food entrepreneurs and mobile vending policy makers from around the country to share experiences and insights around trends, marketing, and money. Conversations about freedom, daring, and risk wove throughout each session.  Read More

I accepted an invitation from Derrick Kiyabu recently to visit MA’O Organic Farm where the path out of poverty starts with a walk down the farm’s vegetable rows. On the west side of the island of Oahu, just past Honolulu’s ocean view condos and the Pearl Harbor Naval Base I found myself on Highway 93 where a sign saying “Now Leaving Paradise, Welcome to Poverty” would be placed if tourist officials chose to acknowledge such things. But lacking what many vacationers are looking for in a tropical getaway, the Wai’anae Coast, as it is commonly known, can only offer fast-food joints, scruffy commercial buildings, and residential housing that rivals the worst of third-world Asia. Perhaps this is why the Lonely Planet guidebook refers to the region, almost quaintly, as “a little bit of Appalachia by the sea.” Read More

At a compost bin that doubles as a podium, urban farming hero Will Allen faced the inaugural class of 50 FoodCorps service members—sitting together in Milwaukee but about to spin out to ten states around the country–giving them advice for the year of service they have ahead of them.

“There’s a lot of skill and knowledge existing in the communities you’re going into. You’ll bring stuff, and you’ll learn stuff. It’s a two-way street,” he said. “That’s how real sustainability works.” Read More

Seattle is where Asian America intersects with food and environmental justice, as I discovered when I spoke there recently as part of a “Sustainable Growth Summit” convened by the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Seattle embodies the diversity, contradictions and great talent that define our Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community: wealth and poverty, hunger and abundance, access or exclusion based on citizenship and English language proficiency. Read More

It’s an unlikely story: A vegan chef and his vegetarian wife open a butcher shop that becomes a commercial hit and an industry game-changer. It all started thanks to that omnivore gateway meat, bacon, which for years was Jessica Applestone’s one vegetarian exception. When she started craving more meat she searched for meat that aligned with her ethics: Something raised with respect for the animal and for the environment. But she found meat labels confusing.

She concluded her best option was to buy a whole steer from a farmer, but how to deal with a whole animal when she was the only meat-eater in the family? Jessica’s dilemma revealed a gap in the market: Butcher shops that break down whole, well-raised animals for the average home cook. Her husband Joshua saw an opportunity and the couple began the painstaking training and groundwork that eventually became Fleisher’s Grass-fed and Organic Meats in Kingston, New York. Read More

When Brandon Sheard brings his knife across the throat of a sheep, his movements are swift and precise.  The sheep, lying calmly on her side in the pasture on which she has lived her whole life, gently closes her eyes.  Brandon rests his hand on her throat and offers a prayer of gratitude to affirm the sacrifice of her life.

Brandon and his wife Lauren are the proprietors of Farmstead Meatsmith, a small business on Vashon Island, WA, that provides the services of slaughter, butchery, and charcuterie to small farmers in the Puget Sound region, as well as classes in slaughter and butchery. Read More

Thursday, August 4 is the final day for public comment on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) plan to limit mercury emissions from coal and oil-fired power plants. Two decades overdue, the proposed regulation would capture 91 percent of airborne mercury before it leaves the smokestack.

Despite widely available and proven technology, power-plant mercury currently floats unregulated beyond the reach of the Clean Air Act. While the utilities industry has delayed regulation through lobbying and court challenges, I have watched upwind construction of more than 20 new coal-fired generators over the past 20 years. Read More

Dan and Isabelle sit patiently on the folding metal chairs in the tastefully decorated waiting room of Seattle’s Ballard Food Bank. Intelligent, soft-spoken, and in his late 50s, Dan is a chronically underemployed architectural draftsman who barely managed to eke out three days of temporary work over the past week. His unemployment benefits have long since evaporated and he’s thinking about applying for food stamps, although he cringes as the words leave his mouth. With his shrunken income dedicated to keeping a roof over his head, he and Isabelle are two among 1,200 or so neighborhood residents who will request a shopping cart-full of food this week at the food bank. 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

There’s a scene in Terry Gilliam’s 1991 movie “The Fisher King” in which a man plucks the discarded wire cage from a champagne bottle off a pile of garbage bags as he walks down a New York City street with a woman he is trying to impress.  He fiddles with the wire in his hands as they walk, eventually holding up what looks like a delicate and beautiful little metal chair, fit for a dollhouse. “You can find some pretty amazing things in the trash,” he says to her.  She is smitten.

That transformation of a piece of trash into a thing of beauty transfixed me then, and still does.  When I traveled to Cuba a few weeks ago, on a food sovereignty study trip with Food First, I had the opportunity to be transfixed again and again. Read More

Sunday marked the grand opening of Urban Adamah, the first faith-based, modern urban farm in West Berkeley, at 1050 Parker Street near San Pablo Avenue, opposite Fantasy Studios. The one-acre farm with Jewish roots offers a residential fellowship program for young adults, summer camps for kids and teens, and plans to help feed the needy in the community. 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