Part history text, part socio-political commentary and part call to action, Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to the Next Food and Farm Bill offers something for everyone from the seasoned agriculture advocate to the newcomer on the food systems scene. The newly re-issued book by Dan Imhoff comes just as the federal debate over the 2012 Farm Bill is heating up.

The book is divided into three sections: Why the Farm Bill Matters; Wedge Issues; and Turning the Tables. To set the context, Imhoff summarizes the early history of the farm bill, describing the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, and the overproduction of crops that led to its creation as a cornerstone of the New Deal. The history lesson continues with a short summary of the impact of the Green Revolution on farm bill policy, as well as the story of how the bill came to include hunger and nutrition programs, and the ebb and flow of conservation programs to incentivize environmental stewardship on the nation’s farms and ranches. And because no discussion on the farm bill would be complete without discussing commodity subsidies, that’s covered too.

After laying down the foundation, he devotes the rest of the book to strategic topics. He lays out a number of “wedge issues” that could change the terms of the farm bill debate—government deficits, the increasingly apparent impacts of climate change on agriculture, and other emerging ecological crises, the rise of the local food movement, food security concerns, and more.

The last few pages of the book are devoted to “Turning the Tables” and Imhoff offers a checklist of 25 ideas whose time has come—an aspirational menu for American agriculture. Finally, he provides a succinct activist tool kit with tips on organizing and a resource list of organizations across the country engaged in progressive advocacy on the farm bill and related issues.

Perhaps my favorite quote from the book—maybe because I can relate to it–is this: “I confess, I am a reluctant policy wonk. But these are the issues of our times. If Americans don’t weigh in on the Farm Bill, the agribusiness lobbyists will be more than happy to draft the next one for us as they have done for at least 30 years.”

The book is available online at Watershed Media where you can also see a number of other of Imhoff’s books. You can also order it on the action-oriented Food Fight site that features farm bill-related events, news and a “what you can do” section.

In her 2011 book, Founding Gardeners, British author and design historian Andrea Wulf indulges her personal curiosity about the connection between America’s political origins and its early leaders’ extensive and magnificent gardens. Her colorful exploration suggests that the evolution of agriculture and botany in the U.S. go hand in hand with the patriotic visions of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams.

Wulf’s depiction of these founding farmers is at once nostalgic and heartening, particularly given more citizen involvement in farming and a greater focus on the value of the natural world. The founding gardeners’ emphasis on simple living and self-sufficiency is a priority in the food movement today as well–a relevant reaction to the fear of an industrialized economy that drives Americans to extravagant lifestyles born of capitalistic inflation.

But fear is relative to the altruistic and visionary perspective that Wulf offers on these politicians. The gardens of Monticello, Mount Vernon, and Montpelier are depicted as havens and respites from the stress of war, the strife of partisan disputes, and the drudgery of political life. Garden beds and political agendas merge into one identity and native plants become the centerpiece for the founding gardeners’ display of American patriotism.

Drawing design and layout inspiration from England’s famous gardens like Kew and Stowe–which were, ironically enough filled with American varietals after the American Revolution–Adams and Jefferson vowed to create distinctly different gardens from those of the country that once ruled them. Less orderly and defined by their variety, the gardens of the American leaders defied British control and influence through a display of native plants and shrubbery.

As Wulf defines the early American landscape through its plant life, she acknowledges that the terminology around “gardening” and “farmer” is nebulous and self-selective as the founding fathers were by no means farmers by profession. Nor did their lands all yield food. Among the four men, Adams appears to be most deserving of the title “farmer” as we would define it today, as he cultivated produce on his land well into his retirement from political life.

It is difficult to determine to what extent this history can be more romantically understood because of many present-day efforts to improve the quality, context, and understanding of the country’s food systems. The story’s wholesome, conscientious aura likely has as much to do current trends toward more localized agriculture and intentionality about food choices, as it has to do with the political trailblazers’ foresight for the farming future of this country.

One critical note that is necessary to the discussion of farming and productivity is the consideration of slave labor. While Washington did plant many trees with his own hands and Jefferson arrived in his garden earlier than his hired staff each morning, a great number of slaves were employed to accomplish the tasks that these gentleman farmers often dictated from their posts in Washington, D.C., New York, or Philadelphia. And while James Madison’s slaves were better treated than many others, the fact remains that many individuals were forced to cultivate the crops, landscapes, and visions of men whose aim it was to create a more equitable society. On this point, Wulf fails to unpack the inequalities within labor and human rights, both past and present. It must be acknowledged that farming, in a newly founded country based upon the principles of freedom and equality, was and still is wrought with injustice. Though this book was not designed to deal with this topic, slave labor can never be far from our thoughts when considering how we have and do farm in this country.

Founding Gardeners is a collection of Wulf’s exploration into the journals and letters of these four great American figures. It is a study spoken to her audience as if they, too, are historians. Her declaration, and at times metaphorical insight into the connection between landscape and patriotism, is the most intriguing element of this work. Ultimately her book brings new life into the story of our country’s origin and provides a unique way to relate our current efforts for food and freedom back to America’s founding.

Tracie McMillan’s The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table takes us on a vivid and poignant tour of a place we don’t really want to go: the mostly hidden, sometimes horrible world of the workers who form the backbone of our cheap, industrialized food chain. Sound grim? It is, at times, but McMillan’s lively narrative and evident empathy for the people she encounters make her sojourn into the bowels of Big Food and Big Ag a pleasure to read.

From the fields of California’s Central Valley to the produce aisle of a Michigan Walmart, and lastly, the kitchen of a Brooklyn Applebee’s, McMillan gives a firsthand account of the long hours, lousy wages and difficult conditions that are par for the course in these places. This is tricky terrain for a white, relatively privileged, middle-class American woman, and McMillan navigates it with grace and humility, remaining acutely aware of the pitfalls inherent in such a project.

I sat down with McMillan recently to chat about her populist odyssey and found her to be just as down-to-earth and plucky as her prose.

What was the hardest part of going undercover?

This was the first time I had gone undercover to do work like that, because I believe very strongly in the importance of being upfront with people about what you’re doing and who you are and I am not a good actress (laughs). So the place where I was culturally the least good of a fit, in the fields, I was really protected by the fact that I didn’t speak the language. I just seemed like a kind of dumb white girl, and that was really helpful.

The first thing was getting over my anxiety over doing that kind of project and coming to terms with it. It meant that I had to be dishonest with my coworkers. I don’t really care so much that I’m not honest with the companies. It’s very interesting, the same year that I was working at Walmart during the holiday season, Stephanie Rosenbloom at the New York Times went and worked for a day at a Walmart with the company’s permission, and she had a very different experience than I did.

And that’s why you do it. Companies and supervisors do not treat you the same, and coworkers won’t be as honest with you, or as open. I’ve come out of this very convinced that undercover work is worthwhile, but it’s a complicated thing. There’s a tendency to think “I can totally do this, and how else can I get this information?” but I also understand why people react badly to it sometimes.

So there was the undercover thing, and then there was finding the right balance between my narrative and talking about the people I was with. It’s not supposed to be about me as a white girl having that experience; the idea is that I can only tell my story and what I observed, but I’m using that to get to the stories of the other people around me.

You found that farm work in California’s Central Valley was extremely demanding, sometimes dangerous, and routinely underpaid. What do you think it would take to provide the people who pick our crops with better working conditions and paychecks that don’t deliberately shortchange them?

I was typically working alongside undocumented immigrants. You always hear the stories about how undocumented immigrants work for very low wages and how they get treated. It’s one thing to hear about it, it’s another thing to see how terrified everybody is, how unwilling they are to say anything.

They complained about it outside of work, we’d talk about how bad the wages were and the women were like, “Why don’t you say anything?” For me that was really awkward, because I wanted to say “That’s terrible, and I will march off and I will fix everything!” Which is not something you can do as an undercover reporter.

Even if you’re undocumented, you still have legal rights, but they don’t necessarily know that. And even the ones that do, it’s not like they have a guaranteed job, you could be hired or fired at any moment. There’s no job security. So, you keep working, and at least you have the stability of knowing that you will get your eight hours of work for which you’re paid $25 to $40.

How do you fix that? You enforce the existing labor laws. You don’t necessarily need new ones. I think it’s important not to stifle businesses’ ability to do their job, but I did observe when I was working in the fields that every week I was asked to sign a piece of paper stating that I had taken food safety training that I had never taken. One of the arguments around food safety is that farmers should be allowed to self-regulate that. I saw in my work that self-regulation wasn’t working.

And in terms of labor law enforcement, you need some sense that people are going to get in trouble if they cheat workers. The average fine levied under the Agricultural Worker Protection Act is about $350. During my time in the fields I was underpaid by about $500.

A farm advocate in Ohio explained to me that it’s cheaper to violate the law and pay when someone complains than it is to follow the law.

Can you even imagine how different conditions would have to be for it to not be an anomaly to have someone with your own background choosing that kind of work?

That’s called unionization and massive social change! Factory work in the early 20th century was really dangerous and it didn’t pay very well, but those became really good jobs because there was unionization and legislation to protect workers. My grandfather raised my mother and her two brothers and took care of my grandmother on the salary he earned working for Ford.

So, if you could figure out a way to make farm labor a better job in terms of wages and working conditions, more people would do it. The reason why people don’t do farm labor isn’t because they’re, like, “Oh, we’re too good to be in the fields,” it’s because it’s really hard work that often doesn’t pay minimum wage. Picking up garbage is a shitty job, too, but people still go do that, because it’s a decent gig.

What were your most miserable moments?

This belies my upwardly mobile aspirations (laughs). For me, what was the most emotionally miserable was working the night shift at Walmart. I didn’t see any daylight for the most part. That’s also really physical work, so I would move half a ton of sugar and a half ton of flour in a night, by myself. It’s isolated work, you’re in an aisle stocking by yourself, so there’s no social aspect to it.

But what I found most draining about it was that most of my coworkers, many of whom were married and had families, had been there for seven, 10, 15 years. One coworker was earning $11 an hour after working there for seven years, and she talked about how if you worked at Walmart for 15 years that’s actually really good because you get a lifetime discount card.

There’s something really sobering when what you’re aspiring to is that if you stick it out at $10, $11, $12 an hour you’re going to get a lifetime 10-percent discount card.

Walmart keeps touting its commitment to fresh healthy produce, but in your experience, they treated fresh fruits and vegetables just like any other non-perishable consumer good. Their blasé attitude toward the fresh produce engendered so much waste! How do you square that with their famous obsession for maximizing profit?

I was really shocked to be working at Walmart and to see how inefficient the place I was working was. I have no idea if that department was just an anomaly, or if that’s a broader problem.

Randy, the manager, was incredibly young, didn’t really know what he was doing, and didn’t particularly care. For that, I would fault the store management. It’s one thing to be really bad at your job, but why did somebody give you that job?

What was really upsetting to me was that one of my colleagues, I think I call him Sam in the book, who’s a black man, he had come to Walmart after the grocery store he worked at closed down. He had been working in produce for five years and knew a lot, so I could ask him anything, like “How do I tell if this is ripe?” Sam had applied for that job and they had given it to Randy instead. I have no idea who on the planet would have picked Randy over Sam, because Sam knew produce, whereas Randy had a background in electronics.

You write, “When cooking instruction is paired with basic nutrition education, Americans cook more and eat more healthfully–even when money is tight.” What’s your prescription for battling kitchen illiteracy?

Almost everything people are eating at home involves some degree of convenience foods. That kind of thing usually tends to have a lot of salt and preservatives in it. But it’s actually no more time-intensive to do a Hamburger Helper kind of thing from scratch, and it’s actually cheaper.

The thing that sucks about a box isn’t that it’s quick–it’s that if you don’t already know how to cook, you think you can’t make a cake without a box. We need to start thinking about cooking as a basic life skill, not something that’s optional. Incorporating that into public education to me seems like a smart idea. It can be a really great way to teach people other stuff. It’s great for math, right? And for reading comprehension. Or learning to write recipes. It’s an important survival skill.

I think one of the things you can support, no matter what your politics are, is that our schools should be teaching our kids how to be self-sufficient, how to take care of themselves and not to have to depend on large institutions. I would include in that not just government but also corporations.

We don’t want to be raising kids who depend on corporations to tell them what to eat and how to eat. That’s a really important part of American culture. People talk all the time about a nanny state, but there’s the corporate nanny, too. And I don’t like that either! If we want people to be self-sufficient, cooking and eating is a part of that. So, we need to include cooking as part of public school education. I also understand fully the difficulty of educational reform, but I think it’s an important point to start discussing.

Originally published on AlterNet

The content of “On The Future of Food” (a speech given in May of 2011 by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales at Georgetown University and recently published by Rodale Press) shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with the Prince or sustainable agriculture. The two have been connected since at least 1985, when HRH converted his farmland to organic, wildlife-friendly practices. In contrast to other monarchs and heads of state, the Prince has also been an advocate of sustainable practices for commercial operations and has long stood out as a critic of industrial agriculture. That he is so personally knowledgeable on the subject—as well as being in a position to influence discourse and policy at such a high level—gives him some clout to tell us what is wrong in the food system and what can be done about it.

The newly published version of his speech is a good book for someone who hasn’t yet heard: Our current industrial food system is failing us and the planet. The Prince shows the irony that “an industrialized system, deeply dependent on fossil fuels and chemical treatment, is promoted as viable, while a much less damaging one is rubbished and condemned as unfit.” He also addresses the irony of obesity and hunger, two sides of the same dysfunction. He makes the usual case for the depth of the problem and the urgency of change and shares some reasonable solutions.

These solutions include physical changes: Reducing pesticide and chemical usage, conserving water through drip irrigation, and adopting agro-ecological techniques for small, family-scale farms. The Prince also wisely advocates for re-localized production and distribution of staple crops, due to food security concerns. As organic farmers know, farm-scale solutions are pretty simple, really: Add organic matter to the soil. Avoid poisons. Water wisely. Cultivate diversity.

The more complicated aspects of the Prince’s speech relate to the social, political, and economic realms of the food system and here he hits some key points, but stops short of making truly innovative suggestions. He notes the reality that sustainable food only accounts for two to three percent of the U.S. market and that people cannot access such foods because they generally cost more. The Prince blames two factors for this: Distorting subsidies and a lack of true-cost accounting. The solution, then, would be a redirection of subsidies away from industrial methods towards sustainable methods (and I would add, supports for young and beginning farmers), along with policies that could incorporate the externalities of industrial production into the price of its products.

These suggestions are certainly worth looking at, but are not without problems. After all, direct removal of most subsidies in the U.S. would likely result in loan defaults and massive poverty for communities managing industrial-scale corn, wheat, and soy farms, which would only lead to further corporate consolidation of land. Incorporating the costs of water pollution from nitrogen runoff and health costs from diet-related disease sounds great, but those costs are very difficult to quantify and enforce. This isn’t to say that these aren’t solutions, but that behind them stand structural barriers. Corporate/financial money power dominates markets, elections, and the policymaking process. Even when environmentalism is legislated, as through certification schemes, companies will do the least for sustainability and social justice that they can, as continued attempts to water down and circumvent organic certification standards show.

As much as I appreciate that he conveys the relatively commonsensical views of agro-ecology and state subsidies for sustainability to a relatively new audience, a fundamental belief of the Prince undermines his presentation: His belief in markets. As a member of the British royal family, and as a political figure, his social position reflects the historic global spread of markets; it is hard to imagine him challenging the primacy of markets in proposing solutions to agricultural sustainability. And sure enough, the Prince lauds both the efforts of government (Michelle Obama) and corporate America (Walmart) in promoting food sustainability, regardless that these could be the major forces behind the crux of the problem.

The agricultural problems the Prince cares so much to solve are not simple, but they are all symptoms of one much deeper issue: Policies are consistently bent to the will of companies’ bottom-line mentality, causing a market that harms. Without addressing this, how are we to expect the marketizing of ecosystem services (as the Prince suggests) to protect those services? Carbon markets haven’t exactly worked wonders. Without corporations under command of government, and government under command of the people, any reform risks getting rolled back or co-opted.

At the beginning of his speech, the Prince says that “questioning the conventional worldview is a risky business” and I agree. But if we want our proposals to be unconventional, we aren’t likely to find them from a member of the one percent whose position sits within a long tradition of Brits extolling the virtues of capitalism. Capitalist competition and the corporate class’ ongoing control over government–not mere misplaced subsidies–are at the root of the problems HRH decries.

Short of a total transformation of society (a long shot), there are other solutions to promote for food system change. A litany of electoral reforms (instant runoff voting, campaign finance limits, overturning Citizens United, limits to lobbying) might curb legalized corruption and two-party dominance, allowing the Prince’s reforms of subsidies and externality pricing to have a fighting chance. Beyond a focus on restoring democratic governance (which must include a resolution of the proper levels of both government intervention and the decentralization of decision-making), I see two “unconventional” ways forward.

To destroy the primacy of private property, without destroying it completely, we should develop “social obligation“ laws in land, as already exist in Brazil. Their constitutional clause allows the Landless Peasants Movement (MST) to squat un- and misused farmlands, creating instead their own agro-ecological communities. While there aren’t large peasant populations in the U.S., it would still be a substantial change to move the onus of environmentally friendly land stewardship to landowners (this is a “stick” approach in contrast to the “carrot” of paying landowners for ecosystem services). The other tactic is to revitalize the idea of “commons”, or “common pool resources”, on multiple scales. Nobel Prize in Economics winner Elinor Ostrom has pioneered research in this realm, helping us see that the management of scarce resources is sometimes best left to those who use them. As Ostrom advises, there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution (like marketizing) to commons management, and so environmental issues should be negotiated by users of resources and those affected by their use–through governing structures they themselves participate in.

As difficult as this might sound, it is but one of the challenges for creating a sustainable agriculture. Technical, social, economic, geographic, and political factors must all be addressed, from multiple vantage points and at multiple scales, by a movement of people, creating solutions as data is gathered, models are proposed and tested, policy is advocated for, and direct action is taken. Relying on political leaders to craft or implement solutions, like relying only on dominant paradigms within which to envision solutions, will only limit our progress.

Oral history is a tool for conveying first-hand experience and sharing knowledge. It also provides a medium to weave experiences together, crafting a whole patchwork of personal stories into a larger history. The 29 oral history excerpts in the recently released, Cultivating a Movement: An Oral History of Organic Farming & Sustainable Agriculture on California’s Central Coast, capture the integral 40-year history of the organic movement in Santa Cruz and its rippling effect onto the rest of the world. As part of the Regional History Project set in motion by the University of California, Santa Cruz, this curated anthology defines an organic food revolution. And according to forward, written by Linda L. Ivey, Ph.D., the organic movement is indeed a revolution: “a historic shift in the way a society operates within its natural environment.” Twenty-nine voices attest to the large-scale shifts in cultural, economic, societal, and environmental practices by explaining their strategies for navigating a sustainable way of life.

“It was quite difficult to design the order of the book,” says co-editor Irene Reti. “At first we considered creating sections for Farmers, Researchers, Educators, etc. but most of the narrators fit into more than one category–you can’t put them in a box!–so that wouldn’t work. So we realized we needed to come up with a more subtle structure.”

The structure is almost seamless and moves from chronological pioneers of organics like Betty Van Dyke, Andy Griffin, and Jim Cochran to some relative newcomers, or second wave farmers like Dee Harley. There are also excerpts from ALBA farmers like Maria Ines Catalan, “the first Latina migrant farm worker to own and operate a certified organic farm in California and the first Latina in the country to found a farm that distributes produce through a community supported agriculture program (CSA).”

Perhaps the most recognized names in the bunch are the policy makers and activists: Mark Lipson, the first paid staff member of CCOF; Congressman Sam Farr, who with Lipson, helped to pass the 1990 California Organic Foods Act which created standards for what became the federal National Organic Program; Bob Scowcroft, founder of the Organic Farming Research Foundation; and Tim Galarneau, co-founder of the Real Food Challenge.

Voices of educators, writers, and thinkers supplement the activist within this oral history. These are the people that are creating change in thought, bringing us to a place where wider conventional beliefs are being re-examined and moving us toward a more ecological way of thinking. Steve Kaffka, manager of Alan Chadwick’s legendary Farm and Garden, and Sean Swezey, a heavy hitter within organic farming research and an expert entomologist and integrated pest management specialist map the shift in paradigm: “In the late nineties or early in this century, we crossed a threshold where the organic research legitimacy struggle was won and now the task is creating a strong body of scientific literature to substantiate the claims of organic farming,” Swezey explains.

The lives of these dedicated voices are diverse—their current projects range from digging in the soil to work in Washington, D.C.—but not surprisingly, many in the bunch grew up farming or in a rural setting.  Their interviews are filled with descriptive memory, scenes of happy childhoods in the dirt and sensory examples of what grew around them. There were several people who described what it is like to watch rural land turn into urban sprawl, a big influence in choosing a path that tends to preserve our natural environment. But regardless of the roots of how their stories began, there is a cohesive discussion about the importance of sharing knowledge, community, and ultimately, the responsibility of the history we create.

Many of these people influenced each other too, sharing experiences in the same places and learning skills that led to innovative models within the food system. If I have one critique of Cultivating a Movement, it is also why I like the book so much: the scope is local and specific to Santa Cruz. I love that the people in these pages are the ones I see at my farmer’s market, or pass on Highway One, or even share food with at a potluck from time to time. But there is still much to learn from the Central Coast voices and their stories which capture the activity of an organic movement that is itself a living history.

*If you do live around Santa Cruz or happen to be in the area, there will be a reading at Bookshop Santa Cruz on February 22, 2012 at 7pm.

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.

Willow Rosenthal

Why did you write this book?

Carpenter: We were both trial-and-error urban farmers. We would’ve loved to have had a guidebook that showed us best practices. So this is the book that we wished we’d had when we were starting out.

In the intro, you write that the average urban backyard can grow all the fruit and veggies for one person in 25 x 40 feet, and that it makes economic sense to garden if you have more time than money. Is this book geared, in part, towards low-income readers?  

Carpenter: Yeah, definitely. I’m low-income, Willow is probably low-income, too. People are like, “You should eat organic food,” but when you go to Whole Foods or the farmers’ market, it’s so expensive. So this was our DIY way to eat organic, healthy food. If you do it right, it can be cost effective.

Rosenthal: I wouldn’t say that it’s only geared towards low-income people, but toward people who are interested in making their own solutions. It’s not going to be as useful for people who want to purchase everything at the garden store or hire other people to do work in the garden. To make an impact on the way that the food system is structured for environmental good, it’s necessary for people of all walks of life to grow food in the city.

What mistakes did each of you make early on in your respective urban farms that you hope to prevent others from making with this book?

Carpenter: Well, I remember that Willow and I had built a chicken shed and we were raising pullets (adolescent chickens) and we didn’t realize that raccoons are really smart. They can use their little fingers to pry off staples (which we’d used to staple the chicken wire to the chicken shed). Over the course of four days, the raccoon would slowly pry off more. And then one night, it came in and killed every single pullet–I think there were 25 in there. It was massive carnage. The lesson here was don’t put the staples on the outside.

In terms of the garden, I would say my problem is not harvesting stuff. You can plant all these really beautiful vegetables and there’s a tendency to not want to harvest them because they look so beautiful. You need to have a harvest day, like Fridays or Thursdays, where you go out into the garden and harvest everything that’s ready and put it in your fridge. I can’t emphasize how genius this is.

Rosenthal: What mistakes didn’t I make?  (Laughter.) Farming is a process of trial and error. Each farm is its own unique entity. You do need to find your own way. Plants are always gonna die and you’re going to have to figure that out.

Rosenthal: Many landlords have an altruistic streak. When presented with something to do for the community that’s no skin off their back–they’re happy to do it. I think we tend to make a lot of assumptions about who people are. But it’s important to have an open mind. Maybe two out of 10 landlords don’t care at all about the community. But there are eight who do, so let’s get those people involved. You’re politicizing them in a way–you’re bringing them into this activist movement.

[Another] real perk is your thanks! I know that sounds cheesy, but you should focus on informing the landlord of what’s going on and thanking them. The mistake some people make is, “I got permission and now I can forget about it.” It’s a relationship you need to cultivate and not take for granted.

Starting an urban farm demands a lot of work–not to mention money. You need to pay for water, buy liability insurance, equipment, wood and nails for raised beds, maybe even hoop houses. Are there funds would-be gardeners can apply for if they don’t have enough of their own money?

Carpenter: If you’re doing a community garden, you can approach your city government. Pretty much every city has a community garden association. I know in Seattle it’s the P-Patch.

Rosenthal:  There are a couple of important resources. Master Gardener programs exist in every county in the United States–they are a subset of the agriculture extension services run by local universities. The USDA spends money through these agencies to support farmers. They were intended to support primarily commercial farmers. But this is changing as people in urban areas are actually using those services more. I always tell people, this is your tax dollars at work and you have every right to utilize them!

If you have a pest, you can take a sample of the plant and put them in a baggie and send them to a specialist and they will ID that for you–for free.

In some states, like California, you can now get services through the [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)] program to help you start a home garden. You can use food stamps for all sorts of special vouchers for gardening supplies.

Regional and citywide organizations can often provide a lot of technical assistance. Some of them may provide materials free of charge–City Slicker Farms does. The other way that home gardeners can make it affordable is by producing their own vegetable seedlings. When you go to the store to buy a cauliflower seedling and it’s $3 for a six-pack, you’re hardly saving money on your food bill. But if you’re buying a packet of seeds–100 seeds for two bucks. In our book we give an outline of a simple setup for using fluorescent lighting to start seedlings indoors.

Novella Carpenter with her goats.

The book does contain many tricks for saving money on construction: getting softwood pallets for free to use as compost bins or boxed beds, using old bathtubs as containers. What are some other tricks the two of you have used over time to save money on construction supplies?

Carpenter: One of the greatest fencing materials is really cheap: concrete reinforcement mesh.  But you can buy this mesh at any Home Depot or local lumber yard and it’s $12 for a giant sheet of it. You can use it for making quick and easy fences. It’ll even keep goats in!

Also for me, one of the great parts of living in a city is there is so much waste that you can feed to animals. You [also] never have to buy pots. You can usually find those at garden stores–they’re trying to get rid of the black plastic pots.

I found this guy who makes redwood sculptures of giant grizzly bears. And he has all these scrap pieces of redwood that he throws aside. I actually built a little chicken coop from those once. So you have to look at your resources and think how you can repurpose [them into] building materials.

Rosenthal: Get your building materials for free or cheap, but invest money in hardware. If the bolts that hold your boxes together are rated for outdoor use your boxes will last a long time.

In terms of getting free building materials: I was blessed because here in the East Bay we have a wonderful company called the ReUse People. They salvage whole houses–including a lot of the framing lumber–and they sell it for a very affordable price, already cleaned of nails and screws. So check your salvage yard.

Extremely valuable materials go into the garbage, such as hardwood pallets. Softwood pallets, unless you line them with something, can degrade pretty quickly. Hardwood pallets are an amazingly valuable resource.

My other favorite free material is old burlap sacks. They’re great containers for planting. They’ll degrade over time but they’re free and have structure to them. You can get them at coffee roasters or chocolate companies. A lot of times you can find them on Freecycle.org.

I was surprised to learn that you can farm on heavy-metal contaminated soil.  Have either of you done that? And if so, which precautions did you take?   

Rosenthal: There’s a lot of gray area when it comes to health, toxicity, and safety. Rather than saying “do this or just do that,” our hope is to educate people so they can make their own decisions.

With our backyard garden program at City Slicker Farms, the first thing we do is go into a resident’s garden and test their soil for lead and heavy metals. There were some situations where we said, “No, we don’t think you should have vegetable gardens unless we cap the soil and put in raised beds.” We follow stringent guidelines with people.

First we cover the soil with mulch–or put down layers of cardboard and mulch. Dilution has an effect. If you bring in an equal volume of compost and mix that in with your soil, you’ve already cut the level of lead in half.

You say that native soil is better than potting soil, but what if your soil has chemicals or toxins in it?  Where do you go about getting healthy native soil to amend your own?   

Rosenthal: That’s a good question. We live in such an “I can just buy whatever I need” culture. And a lot of the potting soil is actually toxic to plants.

It’s possible to get topsoil. You can sometimes go on Craigslist and find people who are doing construction projects and need to get rid of some dirt. But often they’re like, “We need to dump it today.” And you should take a sample to the lab and test it before you buy it.

You can buy topsoil, potting mix, and compost. But you want to be sure they’re testing these products. Talk to the employees at locally-owned gardening centers. They often know a lot about what different potting mix companies are doing. Not all materials are equal. Making your own compost is a great way to get a high quality product.

What about theft? A friend of mine in Portland recently had all of her (perfectly ripe) persimmons stolen from their backyard. Any tips on how to deal with this? 

Rosenthal: It does happen. My strategy has always been to try to communicate with these unknown people. It’s easy to victimize a faceless person, but if you put a sign on the front of your fence saying, “Hey, I know you might be tempted by these beautiful tomatoes, but if you want some, why don’t you just come knock on my door and I’d be happy to share.”

We are living in desperate times. It’s up to all of us to do what we can to help and not to take it personally. What we did at City Slicker Farms, we did have to lock our gardens at night so they wouldn’t get vandalized. So we just set up planter boxes outside of them and put up signs saying “Help yourself.”

Novella, you emphasize how important it is to check your city’s ordinances to see whether it’s legal to keep bees, chickens, goats, rabbits, etc. Can you say more about that?

Carpenter: Oakland has kind of lax laws and the ordinances were ambiguous. For instance, I can have goats but I can’t have a male goat. I think actually you can’t have pigs, it’s buried into some weird law. I think it’s legal in Portland to have goats. It is in Seattle as well. In the book, we’re talking about super ground-level things like, it’s illegal to keep chickens in some cities. But then it becomes a question of who is watching those laws. If you had a neighbor that doesn’t like you, who is calling the city every day to report you, that’s when you’re gonna run into a problem. In that case, you  want to cover your ass and make sure that you’re legal.

You say that bees are the “gateway urban farm animal.” Yet it sounds like it’s a fairly expensive operation. What’s the ballpark amount you spent buying hives, supplies, extractors, etc.? 

Carpenter: To get a beehive with bees and the queen and all that, you’re looking at $250. So, it is definitely a fairly nice Christmas present or birthday present. Or for some people, it’s a really nice pair of shoes. There are ways to do it more cheaply. If you’re handy, you can make your own frames. You can build your own boxes. But I’ve found that usually anything that I build is shit. I spend more money being frustrated.

To me, $250 seems expensive, but when you harvest your honey, you get six gallons, and you can sell it for $15 for half a quart or pint. And those boxes will last forever.

You write that overfeeding is one of the biggest problems with backyard chickens–people give them scraps and kitchen waste but then forget to reduce the amount of pelleted feed. And as you mention, overweight chickens not only have trouble laying eggs, they can die prematurely. What’s a general rule of thumb for how much chicken feed to give a full-grown chicken per day?

Carpenter: Some people think of their chickens as their pets. That’s fine if you can afford to—you can buy scratch and hydrated mealworms. You can really go crazy with snacks for the chickens!  But each chicken needs about a handful of feed a day. So it’s not a huge amount.  You supplement with greens, weeds, grass, and they’ll be totally healthy and fine.

You say rabbits are the new chickens. Is that really true? I’m not a vegetarian, but I just can’t get past the notion of slaughtering a bunny.

Carpenter: There is a pretty big trend of people who are new meat eaters and they want to raise their own turkeys and chickens and now rabbits. They can save money and have this great source of low-fat, hormone-free meat. Some people just use their manure, though. It’s so good and they poop so much!  It’s really balanced–not super high in nitrogen. I know a guy who grows a bucket of rabbit poop and sells it for $10 to people who grow marijuana.

Which animal was the most rewarding for you to raise/keep?

Carpenter: You love them all for different reasons. But the animals I will have forever are bees. Bees are so giving. And I bought all that expensive equipment, so I better keep at it! There’s also just something so amazing about bees. They are such hard workers and you have this connection to the seasons that is really intense.

Originally published on Grist

When I was an intern in Santa Fe, New Mexico a thousand years ago, my mother sent me a three-page letter (yes, a letter. It was that long ago).  Worried that her underpaid intern son might be starving in the desert, she wanted to pass along her wisdom on how to cook and eat on the cheap.  It was called “Good Old Mom’s Three Days on One Chicken and Other Depression Folklore.”  It kept me fed that long hot summer and later became a family treasure.

I was reminded of it recently when I had the opportunity to read An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace, by Tamar Adler.  Ms. Adler has certainly made her bones as a cook, having worked in such legendary establishments as Chez Panisse in Berkeley and at Prune in New York.  It may have been there, under James Beard award-winning chef and author Gabrielle Hamilton that she found her voice as a writer.  Hamilton after all is not only among the most talented chefs in New York, but is also the author of the widely acclaimed memoir, Blood, Bones, and Butter–a must-read itself.

An Everlasting Meal is part memoir, part cookbook, and part self-help manual for all who wish to cook better with less; and these days, who is not among that group?  She points out, for example, that “Minestrone is the perfect food. I advise eating it for as many meals as you can bear, or that number plus one.”

The book is full of that kind of clever phrasing. Adler clearly shares my fondness for MFK Fisher, and can channel her at will, it seems.  Her writing is never pedantic, never preachy, always smart, descriptive, and leisurely.  It is as practical as the recipes she includes.

Her recipe for the classic Italian peasant soup is simple and uses lots of ends and bits, like Parmesan rind and the end of a good piece of hard salami.  These and many other ingredients are simmered “45 to 60 minutes, until everything has agreed to become minestrone.”

Adler reminds us that “Some vegetables are persistently underrated.”  Here I’d have listed turnips, but she looks toward ones we take for granted, like onions and celery, and finds both comfort food–onion soup–and less common dishes like celery poached with lemon and topped with a handful of breadcrumbs.

There is good food to be had in the barest of pantries, Adler assures us, if we are resourceful enough and know the basics of how to cook.  In a chapter entitled “How to Weather a Storm,” we find recipes for chickpeas with pasta, spicy green beans, and fish cakes made from canned salmon or mackerel.  There’s even one called Salad for a Natural Disaster, made of ingredients she found in a chef’s earthquake kit, presumably while in the Bay Area.

Perhaps most helpful for the frugal but passionate cook is the inclusion of an appendix subtitled “Further Fixes,” where we learn two dozen or so suggestions for what to do when things have gone wrong.  Meat a little dried out?  Make crispy lardons.  Chicken undercooked?  Remove it from the bones, simmer in butter and chicken stock and toss with egg noodles.  Curry too spicy?  Eggplant too salty? Rice or lentils overcooked?  Adler includes fixes for them all.

In a time when we can all appreciate the value of frugality in the kitchen, when each of us can ring a wry smile from the Tuscan proverb she quotes: Si stava meglio quando si stava peggio (“We were better off when things were worse”), it is refreshing to know that with just a little effort, and a lot of love, delicious healthy meals are waiting to be awakened from their slumber in the back of the pantry.

Bi-Rite Market is a well-known San Francisco grocery store located on 18th Street, just down the block from Tartine Bakery and Delfina Restaurant. Across the street, Bi-Rite Creamery is equally famous and if you ever get a craving for salty caramel ice cream, plan on standing in line, a very long line. (Even if it’s foggy and 54 degrees and you’re wearing sweaters and scarves, you will stand in line.)

So what’s a grocery store in San Francisco doing with a cookbook and why should you care? Take a peek at that lovely cake pictured and then read on for my review.

At first glance it may seem like Eat Good Food is for Bay Area shoppers only. After all, its co-author, Sam Mogannam, is a San Francisco native who is a second generation owner of a San Francisco grocery store, as well as a farm in Sonoma County. The book itself is loaded with pictures and profiles of hyper-local Northern California farmers, producers, and suppliers. This makes sense, since the Bi-Rite Family (there is also a second store in the works, as well as an ice cream store and a community center) is solidly built on a commitment to local foods and creating community and connections. But does Eat Good Food have any relevance for people who don’t live in the Bay Area? In my opinion, the answer is yes. Absolutely.

Eat Good Food‘s subtitle, “A Grocer’s Guide to Shopping, Cooking, and Creating Community Through Food,” pretty much sums up what this book is about. Every aspect of the grocery shopping experience is represented here in nine chapters: Community, Grocery, Deli, Produce Department, Butcher Counter, Dairy Case, Cheese Department, Bakery, and Wine and Beer.

Within each chapter the specific foods that can be found in these departments are thoroughly covered, each with a How to Buy, How to Store, and How to Use section. There are even boxes that cut to the chase with “At the Very Least, Look For” and “Ideally, Look For” pointers. This acknowledges that the ideal is not always available in your average grocery store, but still, it’s good to know what it is.

There are also sections that zero in on items such as canned fish, preserves, varieties of apples, etc. My favorite is a page that pictures 18 kinds of citrus; from large pomelo grapefruits to tiny mandarins, it’s great to finally know the names and characteristics of some of the more obscure varieties. The full-color pictures throughout the book illustrate recipes, cuts of meat, farmer’s in their fields, shots of the store and, most memorably, a group shot of the 80 plus employees that help to run Bi-Rite. (Sam says it’s now over 100.)

There are also dozens of recipes such as Curried Coconut Sweet Potato Mash; Brussels Sprouts Salad with Pistachios and Warm Bacon Vinaigrette; Moroccan Lamb Meatloaf; Grilled Pimenton Leg of Lamb with Cucumber Raita; Grilled Peaches with Blue Cheese and Hazelnuts.

So who is this book for? It’s for people who want to know how to navigate their grocery store as informed participants in their food systems; it’s for your nephew or daughter who are just starting out on their own and need some guidance; it’s for people who want to eat better but aren’t sure how; it’s for schools and church groups and community centers that want to teach children about good food; it’s for people who believe that going to the grocery store does not have to be an anonymous, impersonal event, that it can actually can be fun. If you love to eat good food, then this book is for you.

When I lived in San Francisco, I couldn’t always afford to shop at Bi-Rite but I would treat myself to a few meals from there on occasion. I would go when I was hungry but I didn’t quite know what I was hungry for. I knew that the food at Bi-Rite would answer that hunger in a way that was deeply satisfying and nourishing on many levels. From the beautiful display of flowers out front to the helpful and friendly staff, I didn’t have to worry if what I was purchasing was fresh or delicious or raised in a sustainable way. If it came from Bi-Rite, it was going to be good. This book captures that spirit and takes it out into the larger world and, hopefully, it will find its way into your kitchen where it will inform, encourage, and inspire you to Eat Good Food.

I buy local and organic food as much as possible, but find that not only do I have to force myself to eat vegetables, but I lack enough ways to cook them besides the handy but boring steaming and stir frying. Many farmers’ market patrons and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members have a similar problem. However, Basics with a Twist (available here), by Kim Sanwald, has truly inspired me to transform my own cooking with the same zeal and enthusiasm as blogger and author Julie Powell had when she cooked her way through Julia Child’s classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

As a truck farmer at Brickyard Farms in southwestern Michigan, Sanwald and her partner, Valerie Lane, grow 17 varieties of tomatoes, seven varieties of potatoes, hard garlic, three varieties of beets, seven varieties of carrots as well as different greens including collards, kale, Swiss chard, and spinach.

The five-and-a-half acre farm’s success is attributable to the production of fresh, flavorful vegetables grown in good clay soil that has “some amazing minerals” to enhance their “shocking taste.”  This is all done without chemicals or sprays, although the farm is not certified organic.

Last year Sanwald and Lane grew 4,800 tomatoes from 1,500 plants and from 650 seed potatoes, they harvested 7,000 pounds.  Their market customers couldn’t get enough!

In the book, Sanwald takes readers through the growing season by focusing on the farm’s most popular vegetables: Garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and beets. She provides tried and true recipes for salads, soups, stews, sauces, dressings, casseroles, and side dishes that go well with various meats. They make your mouth water just reading them.

But the book is more than a cookbook. It is also a memoir of Sanwald’s complete change of life after 36 years as a manager of a dental office in the city to become a truck farmer–a farmer growing a diverse range of vegetables on a small scale, often sold from truck to consumers or to restaurants–in rural Cloverdale.

Sanwald first started working on the farm in 2007 when she and a group of friends came to Lane’s aid after her partner, Cate Burke, had died unexpectedly from a blood clot at age 46.  Lane had purchased the farm in 2001 after leaving a career as a building and remodeling contractor.

Being close to the land and close to her source of food awakened something in Sanwald despite the fact that the work is hard and dirty and the days are long.

One day as she was harvesting kale she suddenly broke down in tears realizing that she was connecting to the earth in a deeply spiritual way.

“I’m home,” she said.  “I felt like I had arrived.”

Doing what others encouraged or expected her to do had made her unhappy and depressed through most of her life. She found happiness, however, by growing food. Today, she said she rejects hair coloring, make-up and stylish clothes, things that once held great importance for her.  She has also reduced her weight by 30 pounds and two dress sizes.

“I feel better,” she said, “And the better I feel, the more I want to do this work.”

Basics with a Twist shows readers what can happen to a person through greater attention to food.  Ever the cook, Sanwald expresses her appreciation for the aesthetic pleasures of food that is flavorful, healthy, homegrown, home-cooked—and shared with others around a table.

The whole project came about because Sanwald found herself giving out hundreds of recipes to customers at the Fulton Street Farmers’ Market in Grand Rapids, where Brickyard Farms is a vendor. Lane suggested she put the recipes together in a book, however, Sanwald was anxious to write about what her new life as a truck farmer meant to her.

“The book is a validation of who we are and who I am,” she said. “I love to write and cook. It’s my creative outlet and this book stretched me and my learning process. By combining both of these things, I am able to help others as well.”

She has plans to write a second book that encourages people to grow their own gardens.

The book also includes a resource list for people looking for information about self-sustaining and organic methods of farming and gardening as well as commentaries on the local food movement and environmental issues.

A version of this piece was originally published on olgabonfiglio.blogspot.com

Unless you travel in food policy or agronomy circles, you probably haven’t heard of Oran Hesterman. It’s time you had.

Hesterman, who runs the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based nonprofit  Fair Food Network, has written a book that just might wake you up and get you to care about what’s going on with the food you eat and how it gets to your table.

Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System for All is what Hesterman is talking about, and I’ve got to admit, this reporter covering food news cracked open his book (which landed in bookstores yesterday) a tad wary.

Would this highly educated and well-meaning agronomist-activist guy really offer anything new to the sustainable food conversation, I wondered, and more importantly, would he speak to regular people trying to feed their families in a tough economy and who might not understand the difference between grass and grain-fed (or why it matters)?

Boy was I wrong and thrilled to stand corrected. Hesterman breaks free from a tradition of densely written, muddled prose intended for inside baseball players and instead speaks to us all, loud and clear.  On the opening page of the book, he starts from a familiar point of reference–that our education, health care, financial and energy systems are all deeply troubled and in need of dramatic reform.  (No matter which side of the political fence one sits, no one would dispute that America is hobbling on these four fronts, all of which make daily headlines.) He is clever to point out that as we focus our attention on the ongoing debates over health care or financial reform, “there is another system that gets much less attention than it deserves, even though we all rely on it to keep us alive–if we are lucky, three times a day: our food system.”

And then he takes us straight to Detroit, America’s eleventh largest city and erstwhile mecca of the automotive and music industries, which has been without a supermarket since 2007.  (Take a moment to absorb that stunning tidbit.)  If you’ve been scratching your head over what a “food desert” means, here you go.

And if you’re wondering why you should care, a la “not in my backyard,” Hesterman’s got that covered, too. “Even those of us who live in ‘food oases’ and have enough money to buy virtually any food product from any place in the world are living with the fallout of a broken system,” he writes.

It’s a bleak picture alright and arguably depressing. But, I applaud Hesterman for keeping it real and shouting from the rooftops that yes indeed our food system is broken. If you read just the first 50 pages of the book, you will get your money’s worth because it succeeds (where so few others do) in explaining what in the hell is going on every time we chew and how we are all affected, regardless of our wallet size, politics and geography.

Lest you think the book is one big downer, Hesterman quickly shifts gears and proposes solutions for a redesigned (yep you got it) “Fair Food” system that operates on a guiding principle of equal access to healthy food. “In truth,” Hesterman writes in chapter three, “Equal access to healthy food will do more to level the playing field than anything we might change in our health care system.”

And this may be where some of us, new to the conversation, may wander to the list of resources (which is thorough and vast) or skip to the how-to “From Conscious Consumer to Engaged Citizen” chapters.  For the more fluent and well versed, there’s a chapter on public policy and another on the power and influence of big business and its role in the food system, broken or otherwise.

In short, Fair Food is like a good salad bar: You can fill your plate, or have a light snack, but whatever you decide to bite off and chew, you’ll digest every morsel.  Fair food for thought indeed.