Mesa-Bains’s exhibition, “Geography of Memory,” draws on her personal memories of the Santa Clara and San Joaquin Valleys and her family’s history as immigrants and farm laborers. An important retrospective of her intricate, sensory-rich installation work, the exhibit includes pieces such as “Transparent Migration” and “The Curandera’s Botanica” that incorporate synthetic and organic materials and that pay homage to family history, Mexican iconography, and the botanical world. To walk through and immerse oneself in these installations is to encounter a space of curio cabinets packed with botanical samples, family photographs, handmade journals, rows of sculptured maize, religious icons and, in the case of “The Curandera’s Botanica,” a stainless steel medical examination table. Spending time in the galleries containing these visceral and expansive installations is to see California’s shared, multiethnic histories that center on cultivation and food but also the violent realities of migrant labor and industrial agriculture.

Walking back through the atrium and past its permanent collection of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican art takes the viewer into Bixler’s exhibition, “A New Pastoral: Views of the San Joaquin Valley.” Comprising over forty photographs arranged into fragmented clusters that at once seem mechanical and organic, the exhibit includes images of state-of-the-art industrial dairies, rusted machinery, manure evaporation lagoons, brownfield sites, and austere grain elevators. These are the images that viewers notice first, perhaps seeing in them a searing critique of industrial agriculture and its environmental costs. With time, though, other images come into focus that offer a more ambivalent view: a newly planted field glowing yellow and green with young crops; perfectly still, fog-shrouded orchards in winter; doves taking flight from a burned-out trailer; and a man’s weathered hands held poised over the soil he stands on (the only photograph containing a person). In a recent article on Bixler’s project, Fresno Bee arts columnist Donald Munro captures the overall effect of “A New Pastoral”: “an almost ghostly tour of a familiar landscape, one that strips away the human presence while at the same time zeroing in on the human impact.”

“Geography of Memory” and “A New Pastoral” on the surface offer starkly different visions of California and its agricultural story. For Cano, the former “remind[s] the viewer of the difficult life journey of the immigrant,” the latter of the “environmental degradation caused by industrial farming.” But, as Bixler puts it, “both shows explore how agriculture simultaneously shapes the land and the fortunes of the people who live on it and work it. Both shows present a tension between growth and decay, wholeness and fragmentation.”

Given all the media attention, you may think that Alice Waters is the only person in Berkeley doing anything to fix school food–and that her Edible Schoolyard Project is the only organization tackling this topic across the country.

But that perception would be wrong. Founded in 1995, the Center for Ecoliteracy has also long championed school food reform and channeled funding in the millions to garden programs, cooking classes, and nutrition-based curriculum in Berkeley public schools.

Along with the Chez Panisse Foundation and Berkeley Unified School District, the Center for Ecoliteracy also implemented the School Lunch Initiative, which kickstarted local, seasonal, and sustainable food for students here and connected the classroom and the cafeteria.

Currently, its Rethinking School Lunch program offers a planning strategy for revamping food service beyond Berkeley to rural and urban areas around the state struggling to improve the eating habits of school children, many of whom are hungry, nutritionally depleted, or hampered by diet-related illnesses such as obesity and diabetes.

Last week, the center introduced school nutrition personnel from around the country to its new cookbook-guide, Cooking with California Foods in K-12 Schools, which played a starring role in a hands-on workshop on creative school lunch menu planning, as part of the national Community Food Security Coalition‘s 15th Annual Conference in downtown Oakland.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon a stuffy, windowless Marriott hotel conference space was packed with about 60 school food folk from both coasts and the country’s center and south, all eagerly drinking the Kool-Aid—sorry, make that freshly squeezed lemon juice with a hint of mint—dispensed by renowned cookbook author, culinary teacher, and food policy consultant Georgeann Brennan and her colleague Ann M. Evans, former Davis mayor, co-founder of that city’s food co-op and farmers’ market, and a long-time advocate of sustainable food systems.

Participants, who left with renewed enthusiasm and ideas to try back at their own schools—along with a free guide and a nifty apron—formed small groups to turn out such salads as zucchini and feta; broccoli, raisin and walnut; tabbouleh; and Asian cabbage and orange with ginger. They also connected with kindred spirits in the school food world while they grated, chopped, and stirred.

Also on hand to talk transforming school food: award-winning Oakland Unified School District Nutrition Services Director Jennifer LeBarre—along with four of that city’s Lunch Ladies who shared stories about the pressing need and formidable barriers to bettering school food, as only those in the frontlines every day can do—and Zenobia Barlow, the Center for Ecoliteracy’s executive director and co-founder.

Barlow isn’t a celebrity chef and she doesn’t own a famous restaurant. Rather, she hails from an anthropology-sustainability-think tank-policy wonk pedigree. And her commitment to improving what children eat at school every day is clear and consistent. “The Center has quietly and steadily worked on improving school food and providing professional development and training to school food personnel for about 15 years,” said Barlow post conference from her office at the David Brower Center. “We helped bring about the changes in school food in Berkeley and we’ve moved on to other schools and districts to facilitate change there too.”

The cookbook is part of this plan. It is based on a simple yet clever 6-5-4 formula that consists of six dishes (salads, soups, pastas, rice bowls, wraps, and pizza toppings), five flavor profiles (African, Asian, European/Mediterranean, Latin American, and Middle Eastern/Indian) and the fresh produce available during the four seasons. The approach was developed in the Davis, Oakland, and Winters school districts over three years.

Funded by TomKat Charitable Trust, the guide’s goal is to help school food service staff find ways to add more fresh, local, healthy foods to school meals (though the downloadable document offers recipes suitable for home cooking too). Some 8,000 guides have been downloaded since August, more than 1,000 have been shipped to school nutrition staff and all 40 copies got snapped up at last week’s workshop, according to Barlow.

Each presenter stressed the importance of integrating California specialty crops—such as walnuts, lettuce, olive oil, strawberries, apricots, figs, citrus and more — into meal programs. “How can we expect our children to understand what food is grown in their area and how it tastes if it’s not on their plate?” asked Evans to a receptive crowd, who also noted California’s long growing season and diverse range of produce not available in most parts of the country.

Attendees from states such as Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Montana raised the challenges they face in sourcing affordable fresh produce at certain times of the year. “California is blessed with great soil and climate and has the capacity to grow for a population far larger than itself,” said Evans. “To share that bounty is great for California farmers and for consumers around the nation. This doesn’t have to supplant local produce in other states, but can compliment it.”

She also noted that schools in as diverse California locations as Davis, Riverside, Ventura, Winters, Santa Cruz, Los Angeles, and Clovis are all early adopters of the 6-5-4 approach to school menus, which allows for substitutions based on availability.

Barlow, who is currently working closely with the Oakland Unified School District, also pointed out the OUSD’s novel approaches to enhancing the edible experience at different sites—like the “Grab and Go” breakfast bags offered at high schools, the grant-sponsored fruit and vegetable snacks for elementary schools, the new supper program recently implemented at some schools, or the more than 20 afterschool farm stands on school grounds in that city, where many children live in food deserts.

“It’s been important to take what we learned in Berkeley and apply it on a larger scale in districts in more urban settings like Oakland, which benefits 40,000 children a year, more than 70 percent of whom are eligible for free or reduced lunch,” Barlow said.

“For some children who are fed five times a day at school, it’s the only place they eat. So we’re applying the best of Berkeley’s school food practices and sharing them with the rest of the state and even the country. This guide is part of the solution to the challenge of reinventing school food.”

Photo courtesy Zenobia Barlow

Originally published on Berkeleyside

The letter comes as big ag interests are working to short-circuit the 2012 farm bill process by pushing a secret farm bill through the deficit-reduction Super Committee.

The letter includes a petition signed by more than 14,000 Californians asking their 55 members of Congress to defend key farm bill programs that are critical to a state that generates more than $36 billion in agriculture revenue. The coalition letter demonstrates a broad consensus in California that top priority for federal agriculture funding should go to local food production, nutrition, research, specialty crops, organic agriculture and proven conservation programs. It also underscores the need to invest in local food infrastructure and to expand access to local and fresh fruits and vegetables in food assistance and school lunch programs.

As the nation’s largest grower of fruits, vegetables and nuts–as well as the home to the biggest organic sector–California stands to gain from policies that put more emphasis on production, promotion and consumption of healthy and sustainably grown foods. These kinds of proposals are included in a new Local Food Farm and Jobs bill being introduced by Rep. Pingree (D-Maine) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

Supporters of the coalition warn that their healthy food reform ideas may be thwarted by a closed-door process being pushed by industrial agriculture lobbyists and their patrons in Congress. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Carolyn Lochhead elaborated in a front page article Sunday (Oct. 30):

Leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees are attempting a breathtaking end-run around the democratic process. They are hatching their own farm bill in private and plan by Nov. 1 take it to the new deficit Super Committee to be enacted whole, without votes in their own committees or in Congress.

EWG’s Ken Cook issued a call to food policy reformers to stand up and fight the agribusiness lobbyists’ to hijack the farm bill debate with a backroom process. Long-time farm bill reformer Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) is circulating a letter to his colleagues objecting to this profoundly undemocratic process:

If the Joint Select Committee were to approve such a proposal, the Congress would have no opportunity to consider any amendments to whatever terms are agreed to by the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Agriculture Committees. The Congress would never even have an opportunity to have a separate up-or-down vote on the Farm Bill. Numerous media reports quote Senators and House Members saying that is precisely the reason the Agriculture Committees are pursuing this route.

If the California delegation wants a voice, their first job is to object strongly to this undemocratic scheme to craft the $300 billion farm bill entirely out of public view.

Unless the California delegation stands strong for the interests of their state’s producers and eaters, it is likely that the closed-door process will yield much of the same: a grossly inequitable system that puts tax dollars in the hands of largest and wealthiest growers of commodity crops such corn and rice, while shortchanging healthy food, small farmers and the environment.

Originally published on EWG’s AgMag

Pat Van Valkenburgh is the kind of person that The Bread Project hopes to help. A stay-at-home mom who home-schooled her two children until they attended Berkeley High School, Van Valkenburgh desperately needed a job when her construction worker husband became unemployed. Since she enjoyed cooking, she thought the nonprofit’s nine-week café training program, which focuses on basic kitchen, food service, and barista skills, was a good fit and would help her find a job in the restaurant industry.

Van Valkenburgh didn’t have to look far for work: she was snapped up by the organization to manage the café it runs out of the Berkeley Adult School, where the program for low-income job seekers, started by Susan Phillips and Lucie Buchbinder in 2000, has been housed since 2003.

The part-time gig has made all the difference during tough economic times; Van Valkenburgh’s family has held on to their home and health insurance. (Both her kids, who attended the Academic Choice School at BHS, currently study at local community colleges and intend to transfer to UC.)

The Bread Project Café, where students learn and practice their new culinary skills, is open to the public and frequented by the staff and students at the adult school. It serves baked goods, soups, salads, and sandwiches, along with coffee and tea at prices half those charged in most local cafés.

No matter that the vast multipurpose room that houses the cafe is largely devoid of charm, people come to the café for the food, the friendly service, and to support a worthwhile cause. On the menu yesterday: lemon scones and chocolate croissants, corn chowder with spinach, vegetarian pizza, and corn-crusted tilapia with rice and vegetables. In the late morning a steady stream of people were putting in their lunch order.

The Bread Project also boasts a bakery in Emeryville, opened last year thanks to funding from both Semifreddi’s and Chevron, where it runs a 12-week training program that emphasizes baking, batch cooking, food service and food manufacturing.

The program serves vulnerable populations, including low-income immigrants and single moms, former felons and recovering substance abusers, the once homeless and the formerly employed. Bread Project staff recruit students from quarters few other culinary programs would approach: homeless shelters, halfway houses, addiction recovery programs, jails, and social service agencies.

Potential participants go through a screening interview to assess their strengths—along with their challenges and barriers—to better serve their goal of finding food service employment once they finish their training.

Students earn a certificate of completion if they attend most of the instruction sessions and pass most of the required written and practical tests given during the course.

While there’s a lot of encouragement and support for students, there’s also an expectation that they meet standards of on-the-job food industry—like showing up for work. The program’s main goal: to foster economic self-sufficiency in program participants.

Their results speak for themselves: over the past three years an average of 77 percent of students graduated, 72 percent found jobs in the food field, and 80 percent retained employment. Last fiscal year 126 students completed the program.

Many of those students have never had a job, have been welfare recipients for a long time, have minimal education or workplace history gaps. But as the economy continues to tank, there’s been a significant increase in the number of college graduates in the program’s mix, along with a larger group of recently unemployed and those who need job retraining, said acting executive director John Lee.

Graduates have gone on to work in restaurants like Radius in San Francisco and Lake Chalet and Spice Monkey in Oakland, said Daniel McCarthy, a veteran chef who co-teaches the culinary café program. Others have obtained employment in food industry positions for Jamba Juice, SF Soup Co, Mariposa Bakery, AG Ferrari, Berkeley Bowl West, and Revolution Foods, according to Lee. Some have joined the staff of catering companies or senior centers. In addition, the program, which has a policy of hiring its own graduates, currently has six on staff.

“It is personally rewarding to see the individual successes of our graduates, whether it is an improvement in self-confidence or obtaining their dream job,” said Lee.

The culinary program is free of charge to participants. The organization’s income is split 2 to 1, between donations, grants and other charitable contributions and earned income. The organization’s budget this year is $1,235,039.

The program offers students the opportunity to try their hand at everything from bread baking and cookie and cake making to main meals, side dishes, and other savory fare. Students also learn how to make specialty coffee drinks and work a cash register. The project has a catering arm, wholesale bakery business, and partnerships with farmers’ markets like the one at Rincon Center in San Francisco, and social-service agencies such as Project Open Hand.

“It was an excellent training program,” said Dilsa Lugo, a graduate who runs Los Cilantros Mexican food catering company, in a Berkeleyside story last year. “To this day the staff there have been helpful to me in my business.”

One former student recently opened her own café in Berkeley. Mary Dirks runs the new Hippie Gypsy Cafe on Shattuck Avenue (in the former Village Grounds space). Dirks hired two fellow students from The Bread Project to work with her, Angela Guzman, 25, from Oakland, and Erika Burrios, 19, from Richmond.

She’s not your typical Bread Project success story: Dirks’ parents ran a coffee house-gas station and she had years of food service experience as a Subway manager in Florida, where she lived up until two years ago, when she sold her home and moved with her son to South Berkeley.

The 46-year-old single parent already had a café business plan in the works, but landed in town with few connections on the food industry front. When a flyer for the Berkeley Adult School landed in her mailbox, she realized The Bread Project was just the kind of course she needed to help turn her café idea into reality.

She jokingly described Chef Daniel as the Gordon Ramsey of The Bread Project, because of his high expectations and commitment to restaurant-quality standards. But she also said he’s been an invaluable resource and informal consultant for her own budding business. And his philosophy of passing on your culinary expertise and giving back to the food community resonated with her.

Guzman, a single parent and former nurse’s assistant with no formal culinary training, was an immediate pick for Dirks, because of her common sense, calmness under pressure, and strong work ethic, the café owner said.

Along with food service training, the program helps students with job placement skills such as resumes and cover letters, said Guzman, and encourages students to overcome self-esteem issues (she described herself as quite shy before she did the training) in order to find work.

“I learned knife skills, such as how to julienne vegetables, health and safety rules around the use of cutting boards, and other kitchen skills,” said Guzman. “But there was also room to be creative. We were shown the basic ingredients that go into making scones and were given the opportunity to come up with our own flavors like lemon blueberry or orange chocolate,” she explained.

“It’s really hands-on, which is how I learn best. You’re encouraged to just do it, get messy, and figure it out for yourself—which is great training for a job.”

Photos: courtesy The Bread Project

Originally published by Berkeleyside

While the expression “vote with your fork” has become a slogan for the modern food movement, many advocates struggle with how to move from conscientious consumerism to engaged citizenship. Harnessing the groundswell of public interest in food to create lasting policy change was the subject of a recent San Francisco Kitchen Table Talks, a monthly conversation about food issues.

Richmond District Supervisor Eric Mar, San Francisco Urban Agriculture Alliance co-coordinator Eli Zigas, organizing expert Stephen Burdo, and 50 local food advocates gathered at 18 Reasons to discuss tactics and tools for activating the good food movement. Surrounded by street artist Zoltron’s images of a conflicted Ronald McDonald, the conversation focused on two successful campaigns that put San Francisco food policy on the national stage.

Supervisor Mar brought his perspective as a legislator and chief sponsor of the Healthy Meal Incentive Ordinance, passed last November. Misleadingly nicknamed the “Happy Meal Ban” by critics, the ordinance holds fast food restaurants accountable by placing limits on calories, sugar, and fat in kids’ meals served with toys.

Facing a fierce opposition from chains like McDonald’s, Mar credits the campaign’s success to uniting diverse community interests under the banner of public health. “Legislation is not the most important thing; it’s the process of empowering or disempowering people,” he said.

The campaign found allies in local community groups with interests in food access and children’s health, including the SEFA Food Guardians in Bayview Hunters Point, the Women’s Collective of La Raza Centro Legal, and Literacy for Environmental Justice. They also partnered with Corporate Accountability International, authors of the Retire Ronald and Value the Meal campaigns.

McDonald’s threw lobbying and advertising money into a strong counter-campaign, claiming that the regulations would hurt small businesses and take away parents’ right to choose. In response, the Healthy Meal campaign framed the issue as a public health concern, rallying pediatricians and parents groups behind the cause.

Eight supervisors’ votes were needed to override Mayor Gavin Newsom’s anticipated veto. The campaign put pressure on Supervisors Sophie Maxwell and Bevan Dufty by mobilizing parents and communities in their districts. The ordinance passed eight to three. By asserting local rights over the interests of multimillion-dollar food corporations, the groundbreaking legislation sent a powerful message. “It’s a small step forward but it’s a proud moment when you force corporations to make some changes,” said Mar. “We have to be revolutionaries in thinking about the food system, not only about what we do as individuals. It has to challenge the corporations that rip off and oppress our communities.”

From the Grassroots Up

From the citizen frontlines, Eli Zigas discussed how the San Francisco Urban Agriculture Alliance (SFUAA) went about changing outdated zoning code, thereby empowering urban farmers to cultivate and sell their produce in the city. The initiative originated with two young urban farmers, Brooke Budner and Caitlyn Galloway of Little City Gardens, a 3/4-acre farm in a residential neighborhood in the outer Mission district. When they decided they wanted to set up a farmstand and start marketing to restaurants, they ran up against city rules requiring an expensive conditional-use permit and a hearing before the S.F. Planning Commission.

They launched a campaign to revise the old law, backed by the newly formed SFUAA, who began sending letters to the mayor’s office. After an influential sympathizer wrote a letter of support, the mayor began to take notice.  Motivating many individual citizens to take action (grassroots), while simultaneously forming alliances with well-connected or well-respected champions (“grasstops”), were key ingredients in the campaign’s success. “Much of what we did was not about electronic activism,” said Zigas. “It was about old-school activism that used electronic tools in turning out people and sending in letters and making phone calls and turning out people again.”

After nearly seven months of meetings with city departments and supervisors, Supervisor David Chiu and Mayor Newsom introduced the new legislation, kicking off a larger public debate. As a volunteer-run effort, numbers were important, with some individuals being more or less involved. Participants showed up at hearings, circulated petitions, solicited businesses for support, got other groups to sign on, wrote letters, built a Web site, and presented to classes.

Timing and luck also played their part. Urban ag was experiencing a renaissance and public support was flourishing. In 2009, Mayor Newsom passed the Executive Directive for Healthy and Sustainable Food, which called for an increase in urban food production through an audit of unused public land, support from Rec & Park, and new marketing opportunities for local farmers. The SFUAA’s proposal was right in San Francisco’s sweet spot.

On April 12, 2010, the bill passed unanimously, raising the level of power and influence of farmers and gardeners in the city. “When it came down to it, the most important thing was packing 70 people into a City Hall hearing room, so much so that the police had to keep people out,” said Zigas. “That had an impact on everyone who saw that hearing.”

Tools of the Trade

Stephen Burdo, Political Director for Kathleen Russell Consulting, a strategic communications firm specializing in nonprofit and political campaigns, described the importance of blending tried-and-true traditional organizing methods with modern tools.

Prior to social media, some of history’s most successful movements, such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, organized through word of mouth: church meetings, phone calls, knocking on doors. From the food movement playbook, federal food labeling requirements started with a group of California mothers who organized through PTA meetings, leading to the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990.

With the advent of social media tools, the rules for engagement have changed, but they haven’t replaced direct action; they’ve just maximized it. “Social media increases your ability to organize by 100 times,” Burdo says. An early example of social media organizing, Kitchen Gardeners International’s 2008 Eat the View campaign gathered 110,000 signatures through online channels, successfully urging the White House to plant a garden. The project reached a critical mass after months of campaigning when their petition jumped from 10,000 signatures to 20,000 in six days after it posted clever videos that went viral.

How can food activists successfully blend old-school tactics with modern technology to create real and lasting change?

Tell a story. The SFUAA’s campaign gained attention by presenting a simple, easily relatable story about two young gardeners who just wanted to sell their veggies. Create strong, clear messaging, and use voices, photos, and videos to bring your issue to life.

Get the word out. Know where your message is going. According to Burdo, 71 percent of Americans are on Facebook, making it the place to go to build and converse with supporters. Only 5 percent of the general public, but 90 percent of media professionals, use Twitter, making it less useful for grassroots organizing and more useful for framing the debate for reporters.

Seek grassroots and grasstops allies. Form coalitions to build numbers. Partner with community groups and organizations that share interests in public health, local development, and the environment. Don’t underestimate the power of sympathizers in high places, who can push your cause behind closed doors.

Use social media, but don’t overuse it. Clogging feeds and inboxes with e-blasts is no way to keep supporters. Be strategic in your communications. “Post no more than three to four times a week on Facebook,” said Burdo. “Organizing is about building a list and turning that list out.”

Keep momentum going. In drawn-out political campaigns—and most of them are—the worst thing you can do is let momentum fade, according to Burdo. To keep supporters engaged, provide concrete actions to participate in, such as meetings or rallies. Zigas agrees: “When you ask people to do something make it meaningful (don’t waste volunteers’ time), make it fun, and win.” Celebrate victories of all sizes, even if it’s just scoring a hearing date.

Make it personal. What about those chain-letter petitions that glut our inboxes? The panelists agreed that a personalized paper letter goes much further in getting a legislator’s attention than a boilerplate e-mail. Put time into your communications to elected officials, write from the heart, and create a meaningful connection.For the SFUAA, having online petitions, a Facebook page, and a MailChimp list helped keep their supporters informed, but they were just tools of the trade, not ends in themselves. “It’s not how many tweets you have, but how well your tweets and phone calls get people out to do tangible things,” said Zigas.

Further Reading

• Michael Pollan discusses how the good food movement is winning the culture war but making little progress with the political one. Read his article in The Nation.
• Online campaign strategist Michael Silberman summarizes the best articles about online organizing. Read his work at the Huffington Post.
• Frances Fox Piven describes the process of change through grassroots efforts in Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America.
• For an instructive take on the late 19th Century farmers’ insurgency, read Lawrence Goodwyn’s The Populist Movement.
• Mark Bittman relates Occupy Wall Street to the modern food movement, calling for a systemic approach to change. Read his column at the New York Times.
• Want to get involved now? There are many opportunities to engage around the 2012 Farm Bill. Visit Food and Water Watch.

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.

The Naval Air Station at Alameda was founded in 1927 when wetlands were filled on the tip of this island in the San Francisco Bay to build runways for military planes. As a naval port, the base was most active during World War II and later during the Cold War. In 1997 the station was closed, as part of the fourth round of closures under the Base Realignment and Closure Act. But the closing of a military installation is often seen as a development opportunity in urban areas, as it opens up land for growth and expansion within city limits.

In the case of the Alameda Station, 1,734 acres became available for other uses. At least three other former military lands are slated for redevelopment in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Mare Island, the Presidio, and Treasure Island–most in some form of combined mixed-use, housing, and open space plans. Typically, some portion of the land is also set aside for use by government agencies and non-profits as a “public benefit conveyance.” One such public benefit, a portion of the former Alameda base is used by the Alameda Point Collaborative (APC), a “supportive housing community” that provides homes, job training, and other services to formerly homeless families.

The APC Farm grew out of a food community assessment that found widespread difficulty in obtaining nutritious and fresh food due to availability and cost. The community was stranded in a food desert. In 2008, following these findings, the farm was created to provide produce for the residents and to educate youth and community members on the benefits of healthy eating. The APC Farm now offers a CSA-style weekly produce delivery service and sells at a farm stand and to local restaurants, and produce from the farm also serves the community kitchen. The farm’s focus on education was nationally recognized in late August, as members of the Growing Youth program traveled to Philadelphia to help draft the Youth Food Bill of Rights at the Rooted in Community Conference.

The APC Farm is an example of the public benefit communities can reap from former military lands, one that addresses multiple levels of the urban food system, including food security and food deserts. In urban areas, lack of available land restricts potential for growing food. But base closings free up large swaths of land which can be used for farming. In fact, the very scale of lands available in these former bases indicate the possibility for much larger, more ambitious farming projects.

Areas around a former base are often economically depressed, having weathered a sudden loss of population and jobs. They are also poorly served by grocery stores and public transportation. By bringing productive landscapes to the base (and setting up market stands and CSAs, too), the neighborhood is served with a fresh, nutritious food source.

So why don’t we see more proposals for farms on former bases? One major constraint is contamination issues: Military bases are often highly polluted from former operations at the base, and many are Superfund sites.

In the case of the APC Farm, the farm is located on a former playground, which means the risks of contamination are low (soil was tested to confirm lack of contamination before the farm was cultivated). Depending on the past uses of a base, there can be many low-risk areas suitable for agricultural uses, including buffer areas at the base edges, former housing and administration areas, or undeveloped areas. In most cases, soil health has to be rebuilt and soil testing must be performed.

Communities will emerge around land that can support a population. If we consider the option of repurposing natural landscapes, integrating agriculture as a core element, then we can grow new types of neighborhoods and marketplaces which are strong enough to provide for local populations and the city beyond their borders.

Farm programs on abandoned military land are opportunities to strengthen food deserts. We shouldn’t ignore their potential.

When we think of “the rural,” California may not come to mind, though it’s estimated that 80 percent of the land area in California is rural.

Now the lines between urban and rural there are blurring. California faces an unusual challenge: productive agricultural regions are growing cities in addition to fruits, vegetables and grains. This is causing a change in federal classification which makes it harder for truly rural areas to get needed government funding. 

California’s counties are vast–San Bernardino County, for example, stretches over 20,000 square miles–that’s larger than nine states. But if you spread the population of San Bernardino County over the area equally, the population density would be sparse at about 100 people per square mile. However, because there are cities in the county with more than 50,000 inhabitants, the county as a whole is designated metropolitan.

The change to metropolitan status has on-the-ground repercussions. For California health agencies and non-profits, for example, this redefining of rural areas has resulted in the inability to apply for funding that is channeled to rural regions. This, in turn, results in the decline of public health services, rural development and food access for rural residents. Much of rural California is now more populous, more Hispanic, but less healthy, poorer and less well educated than urban areas. The conclusion is inescapable: the divide between California’s rich and poor is becoming ever wider.

A shifting definition

There is no universally accepted definition of “rural.” In fact, there are over 15 definitions in use in federal agencies. In most instances, the term “rural” is a catch-all applied to any region that is “not urban.”  With changes in the definition of rural by the Census Bureau and the development of Rural-Urban Continuum Codes, just four California counties are officially classified as rural (Alpine, Mariposa, Sierra, Trinity).

More than 98 percent of the state’s rural residents live in counties described as “metro” or as “non-metro”. Huron, Mendota, Mecca, Orange Cove, Parlier and Arbuckle, among many others, have populations that exceed the 2,500 cutoff to be classified as rural. But nearly every resident of these communities will say they live in a rural community. Reviewing the census data, we discovered that less than two percent of California’s rural population resides in the four counties specifically identified as rural.

California: a special case

While the Golden State’s overall population increased by about 10 percent between 2000 and 2010, counties with rural populations grew by a larger percentage. Riverside County grew by 42 percent, Kern by 27 percent, San Joaquin by 22 percent and Tulare by 20 percent. In contrast, during the same decade, Los Angeles County’s population increased by a mere three percent and Orange County’s, six percent.

There are two basic explanations for this demographic shift. One is spillover from urban regions by people seeking less expensive housing, lower crime rates, a higher quality of life, more space and the rural lifestyle. The second shift is the emergence of Hispanic majorities in large portions of the San Joaquin Valley. Residents have migrated into these agricultural regions from Mexico and Central America drawn by the prospects of employment, higher wages and a better life for themselves and their children.

Rural California differs from rural areas in the midwest because almost half of all the country’s fruits, vegetables and nuts are produced there. Nine of the top ten agricultural producing counties are in California. California produces more milk for the U.S. than any other state including Wisconsin, America’s Dairyland. And this production occurs on small family farms–the average farm size in California is 100 acres less than the U.S. average farm size and 75 percent of California farms are smaller than 100 acres. Seventy-nine percent of all California farms are owner operated and are family owned.

Like other rural areas, rural California faces the specter of climate change and the impacts that may have on our farms and the people who work them. High unemployment and foreclosure rates have disproportionately impacted rural cities and towns. Farmers and their employees can’t afford health care and yet, they have one of the most dangerous jobs in America. Food insecurity in farming regions is among the highest in the country and this level is even higher for farm laborers. The people who work to grow food for the world don’t have enough to eat and what they can afford is unhealthy. In Fresno County, the most productive agricultural county in the nation, about 40 percent of the residents experience poverty and hunger.

For example, California’s 20th Congressional District, in the heart of the agricultural region on the West Side of the San Joaquin Valley, ranked as the very worst among all of the nation’s 436 Congressional Districts in the “American Human Development Index” (Burd-Sharps et al, 2008)

The measures used to rank congressional districts were: life expectancy at birth, educational attainment, school enrollment (as percent of eligible children) and median earnings. In this district, a plurality of all private sector male workers is employed in agriculture. And yet the 20th Congressional District, in a county now categorized as metropolitan, is a major success story of agricultural production. According to the 2007 Census of Agriculture, the district ranked 14th in the nation in total farm cash receipts with $4.4 billion, and 2nd overall in vegetable sales.

A county-based definition of “rural” does not work in California. Financial stresses on rural systems are largely a manifestation of federal policy–rural regions are not homogeneous and policies to address rural challenges need to be flexible. It’s time for the federal government to change the way it invests in rural America.

Photo: Doreen Forlow

This spring on national television, British celebrity chef, restaurateur, and food system revolutionary Jamie Oliver filled a school bus with sugar.* The white stuff poured over seats and out of windows, piling into three foot drifts outside the bus as a handful of school parents looked on, speechless. The sugar represented the total amount in Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) milk every week. “Yeah, I’m trying to make it dramatic!” Oliver shouted, “Because I want people to care!” Oliver was dismayed that more parents weren’t there to witness the stunt. “Maybe coming to LA was a big mistake,” he lamented.

Oliver’s crusade for better school food began in England, where he got £2 billion voted into the budget for cooked from-scratch meals in 2005. Last year he launched Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution in the U.S., accompanied by an ABC television series filmed in small-town West Virginia that went on to win an Emmy for Outstanding Reality TV Program. For this year’s season of Food Revolution Oliver had hoped to film inside cafeterias and a large food processing center in the LAUSD. But he was blocked by the school board, or more specifically, Superintendent Ramon Cortines.

To hear the media tell it Jamie Oliver has had a rough year. In addition, some food activists have been critical of Oliver’s show and methods. But to see 2011 as a failure for Oliver is to miss the point of his mission. It’s not to dominate American television ratings or even to directly influence food policy. Oliver’s mission is to ignite and expand an army of food revolutionaries in the U.S. who will drive change themselves. With the full force of his celebrity and national exposure he continues to be spectacularly effective in recruiting food activists.

Oliver found a way to work around the LAUSD and struck a deal with West Adams Prep, a school run in partnership with LAUSD and educational nonprofit MLA (or Mentor LA). MLA CEO Mike McGalliard brokered a very delicate arrangement through which Oliver could teach, and film, a small cooking class at the school.

Every episode was fraught with conflict over this arrangement, with permits and permission being revoked often at the last moment, much to Oliver’s growing frustration. Eventually he was shut out of even West Adams, though he did still manage to set up a kitchen classroom within walking distance to the school and arranged for Better Homes and Gardens to install a garden at the school–not on film, of course. Meanwhile, at a school board hearing, Ramon Cortines declared that he was the one behind all of Oliver’s setbacks, not the school board. Cortines claimed he wanted to shield his schools from ridicule and controversy; Oliver saw this as belligerent obstruction.

Finally, near the end of the season, Cortines’ term expired and a new Superintendent was elected, John Deasy. An LA Glasnost was ushered in as Deasy met with Jamie Oliver–on Food Revolution and on Jimmy Kimmel–and promised to propose to the board that LAUSD schools drop flavored milk. His proposal passed with only one dissenting vote and as of this month flavored milk is a thing of the past in LA. It helps that the milk contract was up for renewal this summer. Picking a well-timed campaign with an unambiguous goal proved to be a smart gamble–and a sharp strategy.

Alas, this story played out in real time ahead of the plot of Food Revolution as it was broadcast. After letting Food Revolution try the high-profile Tuesday night time slot, ABC put Food Revolution on hold for May Sweeps from April 19-May 24 and then moved the show to Friday nights, where it continued to lead. Meanwhile, the flavored milk victory came (around April 27) while the show was on hiatus, leaving supporters with no show to rally around in celebration.

However, food bloggers like Bettina Elias Siegel of The Lunch Tray began an earnest debate over whether banning flavored milk is really the right thing to do. What if kids stop drinking milk? Is this the best use of our energy? The national food movement fractured over the flavored milk ban, just as it fractured over the 2010 Child Nutrition Bill and the big organic/small organic debate. But for the fans and viewers of Food Revolution the milk victory wasn’t an just an endgame about flavored milk in LA; it was a key motivating win that has encouraged them to remain engaged in the fight with the hope of making similarly profound change happen in their own communities–and maybe someday on a national level.

“Who the hell does this guy think he is?” This is a sentiment I have heard about Oliver from organizers who have long had their noses to the grindstone. Grassroots-level progressives tend to be suspicious of the power of celebrity, of big budgets and corporate sponsorships, and of anything that hints of emotional manipulation. Oliver has been scolded for demanding change of people stuck in the middle, school nutritionists, cafeteria workers, small restaurant owners, instead of taking on Congress or Monsanto. He has been taken to task for glossing over important details, like the hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of funding that backed up the glorious transformation of Santa Barbara school cafeterias featured in an episode.

But Oliver is relevant because he brings the big food fight to a national audience. 7.5 million people viewed the Emmy-winning first season of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution last year. This year’s six-episode season had nearly as many viewers at its peak. Over 700,000 people have signed his Food Revolution petition demanding “better food at school and better health prospects” to be delivered to the U.S. President. And Oliver persuaded 25,000 people to comment on the new USDA school food standards.

The truth is, Jamie Oliver is a showboat, but that’s a powerful asset. His show sometimes sacrificed absolute transparency for the sake of effective storytelling (bloggers and tweeters filled in those missing details anyway). But we need those compelling narratives, visuals, and experiences that dig into Americans’ hopes and fears, our hunger and disgust and pride. Oliver’s hugs and calling people, “my brother,” and constant appeals to emotion are, like it or not, apparently highly effective. We need charisma and connection. And yeah, a bit of celebrity magic doesn’t hurt, either.

Again and again Oliver starts with a cooking lesson, and somehow that lights a fire in an individual, and they begin to see how that food in the pan connects with a larger system that had previously obscured their path to healthy living. This is the mission of the Food Revolution: light a fire under our asses and get us to make change ourselves.

The next chapter in the Food Revolution saga is to deploy Oliver’s Big Rig Teaching Kitchen, a mobile classroom hatched from Oliver’s TED prize wish, where hopefully some 2500 kids throughout southern California will get life-changing cooking classes. Big Rig is operated in partnership with the California Endowment, (whose Building Healthy Communities initiative will provide support for the instructors) and will be working with community organizations throughout the Los Angeles area, starting with Challenger Boys and Girls Club.

Now it’s up to us to capitalize on the momentum and energy of the Food Revolution. How do we connect it with larger battles? How do we keep telling compelling stories? What novel methods can we use to connect with more people? As Jamie Oliver says in the season finale, “We’ve all got to start stirring the pot. And we’ve all got to start expecting more.” Those of us who have already been working in the food movement, on the other hand, already expect much–what we need to do is take a page from Oliver’s book and get more creative and daring in communicating our vision.

*Not actually sugar, but pale sand that resembled sugar.

Watch this year’s episodes of the Food Revolution in LA here.

Exploring alternative ways to work in the food industry is a hot topic. Recently in San Francisco a sold out Kitchen Table Talks, a monthly panel showcasing local food folk, featured a discussion about successful edible enterprises that haven’t started the conventional route.

Two of the four panelists hailed from Berkeley. Three Stone Hearth‘s Jessica Prentice, whom I’ve previously profiled on Berkeleyside, talked about her cooperative kitchen model. Cathy Goldsmith represented The Cheese Board Collective. (San Francisco business reps in the mix: Caleb Zigas, who runs the kitchen incubator program La Cocina and Anthony Myint, the restauranteur behind Mission Chinese Food and Commonwealth, both eateries give big chunks of change to charity.)

Beyond the obvious culinary connection each business is unique. What they have in common? A desire to build community—of workers, artisans, and customers—around their real food ventures.

Case in point The Cheese Board Collective, which has served as an anchor institution in what’s known as Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto for more than 40 years.

Goldsmith, who has a restaurant background, has been a worker-owner at The Cheese Board for 16 years. She likes to say that the collective got going “back in the day” and people who work there do  everything “from soup to nuts.” What that means is the 52-year-old finds herself serving cheese one day, rolling out dough the next, dealing with health insurance and other human resource issues on another, along with stocking bread bags, sweeping floors, and scrubbing toilets.

Goldsmith also tends to do the collective’s media outreach, though she declined to be photographed for this story because, perhaps fittingly for a collective owner-worker, she wanted the spotlight on the group, which numbers more than 45, not on any one individual. The Cheese Board opened in 1967, when revolution was in the air, in the slip of a space that now houses The Juice Bar Collective. On the first day of business original owners Sahag and Elizabeth Avedisian grossed less than a hundred dollars after an initial investment of just a few hundred dollars on cheese. The couple began selling a selection of high-quality cheeses in stark contrast to the massive orange blocks wrapped in plastic that passed for American cheese then.

How times have changed. And we’re not just referring to the fact that worker-owners no longer streak naked across the median strip (as they did, legend has it, “back in the day.”)  Today, the store sells some 300 to 400 goat, sheep, and cow milk cheeses from all over the world, including many artisan American offerings. The store is also beloved for its trademark sourdough baguette and assorted baked goods, such as scones, muffins, cookies, and chocolate things, as well as focaccia, rolls, challah, and other breads.

The Avedisians, who had worked on a kibbutz in Israel, wanted to run a democratic shop where all the workers were owners and shared the wealth. So in 1971 the couple converted the business to a collective, bringing their six employees into the fold as equal partners. To this day, a new employee earns the same hourly pay as one who has been with the cooperative since the beginning. Elizabeth Avedisian, now in her 80s, still does two shifts a week at the store, without fanfare. Her ex-husband Sahag, who left the collective and the Bay Area years ago, passed away in 2007.

Over time, batches of freshly baked bread were added to the shop’s repertoire, followed by pizza in 1985. The store moved from its original location on Vine Street to its current Shattuck Avenue spot in 1975. It has expanded twice since then. In 1986 the collective acquired the space vacated by Pig-by-the-Tail Charcuterie, which now houses the pizzeria. In 1990 the group expanded when the fish market next door went out of business.

The Cheese Board Pizza Collective operates as its own business, though the pizzeria and the cheese store share the same corporate by-laws. Wholly owned by its members, the business is incorporated for tax and liability reasons. All members have equal say in business decisions and are eligible for the same benefits. Profits are used to buy new equipment or maintain existing infrastructure, raise wages, and contribute to retirement funds. In keeping with the collective’s left-wing, pro-labor politics, the store is closed on May 1st,  International Workers’ Day. The collective with a social justice conscience routinely donates food to places that feed the needy, including Food Not Bombs and hands out free sandwiches to the homeless.

Goldsmith declined to give hard numbers on the store’s financial health, saying simply that business is “fine.” She pointed to the heady dotcom days of the early 2000s as particularly good times. Over the decades, the store has weathered varying nutritional whims where bread and cheese are concerned, including the Atkins diet, carbo-loading, and low-cholesterol regimens, along with fluctuations in the commodity markets for dairy, flour, and corn, which impact their operating costs.

The Cheese Board has nurtured other food collective, and spawned another baked goods and pizza cooperative called Arizmendi Bakery in Oakland in 1997. The Cheeseboard crew, which wanted to promote their way of doing business without expanding into franchises, shared all its recipes and even its sourdough starter with this nascent bakery. Since then four other Arizmendi stores have opened their doors in the Bay Area.

In 2003, with the release of The Cheese Board Cookbook: The Collective Works, the counterculture entrepreneurs shared their popular recipes with the public.

Goldsmith, who lives in Central Berkeley, offers other examples of the collective’s community-mindedness. On a day of protests against the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, during the tenure of George W. Bush, the collective voted to close the store—on a Saturday no less, the busiest day of the week. Instead, members baked mini scones and made peace signs from dough and set up shop outside the North Berkeley BART station, where they dispensed the baked goods for free to residents on their way to the march. Once the scones were all spoken for, they headed to the anti-war rally themselves.

When the September 11, 2001 attacks happened, people spontaneously started pouring into the store, said Goldsmith, not to buy cheese, just to be together during a very dark day. Likewise, the store showed its support in 2008 for then-campaigning Barack Obama by offering specials on “swing state” cheeses.

Such community kindnesses and civic engagement is rewarded by a loyal clientele. In 2007, the group celebrated its 40th year at a dinner at Chez Panisse, which celebrates its own 40th next month. The chefs volunteered their time, and Alice Waters refused to accept payment for the meal, Goldsmith told the Kitchen Table Talks crowd. It was Waters’ way of giving thanks for the thriving business across the street on Shattuck Avenue that paved the way for others, like herself, to set up budding food businesses in an area now dotted with restaurants, cafes, and fine-food purveyors.

Collectives, of course, are not for everyone. Some people chafe at the thought of endless monthly meetings, committee work, and making decisions by modified consensus.

It took about three years, for example, before the store allowed credit cards; the pizzeria only recently accepted plastic as payment. “We didn’t want to encourage people to live beyond their means, something that credit cards make it easy to do,” explained Goldsmith. “But then we put out a cookbook and it cost a chunk of money and we felt like it wasn’t really any better sending moms with strollers in the rain to get money out of the Bank of America ATM.”

Even the cookbook initially encountered some opposition within the ranks; collective members aren’t big on blowing their own horn it seems. Likewise the early morning coffee and pastries set up was fiercely debated at first; though it has proved a big hit with locals starting their day.

The collective operates much like a family, dysfunctions and all. They may argue about change but at the end of the day they’re all in it together. Members have an annual bouillabaisse party out at Point Reyes and a disco ball in the store is a remnant from a New Year’s Eve party, where the floor was cleared and members danced like, well, it was 1999. Goldsmith says she routinely listed the store as the emergency contact on her son’s school forms.

The chatty Cathy is the final food purveyor people meet on the Edible Excursions Gourmet Ghetto tour on Thursdays (which this writer sometimes leads). She is a warm and welcoming presence, as she greets guests from near and far into the collective’s kitchen, where, more often than not, Dan the Baker is loading English muffins into the oven.

From this vantage point, Goldsmith walks people through the iconic institution’s colorful history, all the while offering samples of cheese, bread, and other goodies. Her enthusiasm for her place of work and how it’s run in full view.

A version of this post originally appeared on Berkeleyside and on Lettuce Eat Kale.

Photos: Christina Diaz

Ana Catalán may seem young, but don’t let this 23-year-old fool you; when it comes to farming, she’s wise beyond her years. As the youngest child and only daughter of María Catalán, matriarch and owner of Catalán Family Farm, Ana plays a crucial role in the workings of this Hollister-based organic farm.

“I am basically trained to run the business right alongside my mother,” she said on a recent Thursday at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market, while waiting in line at the Blue Bottle kiosk for her second (or was it third?) soy latte of the day. Anna’s three older brothers all work for the farm as well—one manages restaurant relations and orders while the other two sell produce at farmers markets for a commission—but, as Ana sees it, “together, my mother and I are the brain of the business.”

Being the brain of the business generally means working seven days a week, either at a market, in the office, or around the 15-acre farm. It’s not a lifestyle Ana shares with many other people her age. “I honestly only have close friends, because they understand that my job consumes my life,” she said.

Boss-Ladies

When it comes to co-supervising the farm’s crew of workers (a group that ranges in size from six full-time people in December to 40 part-time workers in the summer harvest months), Ana takes cues from her mom. Once a farmworker herself, María graduated from the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) over 15 years ago and has run her own organic farm ever since.

But getting established as a woman farmer (and single mom) wasn’t easy; many in their extended family were skeptical. “People did not value organic farming as they do now,” recalled Ana. “It was a hard time. My mom knew how to farm, but she didn’t know about marketing. She invested a lot and lost a lot.”

Throughout it all, the drive to treat workers with respect has remained central. “My mom tries to be the best boss that she can be,” said Ana. “She says, ‘I’d rather pay my last dollar to my worker than pay myself.’” Like on any farm with a shifting, seasonal workload, retention can be a challenge. But, Ana said, “No one who has ever worked for us hasn’t wanted to come back.”

Not that it’s easy supervising people twice your age. Ana is a social person and she says it took her a while to figure out how to draw the line between work relationships and personal ones, since she spends so much time at the farm. “I tell them, ‘Once we’re working I’m your boss; off the clock I’m your friend. That stays there and the job stays here. Don’t think I’m going to mix it up.’ But I started so young—it took me a long time to figure this out,” she said.

She Hearts SF

Ana has been coming to the Ferry Plaza since she was 19; these days she runs the Catalán booth on Thursdays and Saturdays, along with one or two other markets in San Francisco. And although the drive from the farm can be grueling at times, she loves coming to the city for its exciting mix of people, food, languages, and cultures. “I started off doing markets in Berkeley. It was fun; but the City has my heart.”

It’s hard to say which came first, Ana’s love of San Francisco or her sense of independence, but there’s no doubt the two things are related. Last year, Ana moved off the farm to an apartment in San Jose with friends–a decision that requires her to drive 45 extra minutes every day (on Saturdays, it means she often leaves her house by 3 am).

“I was the first in the family to move out. In my culture, for a woman to be out of the house, unmarried, and without children…it’s a big deal,” she said. But Ana held her ground. “I’m the only one of my cousins who didn’t get pregnant in high school. I do want to get married and have children some day, but I want my kids to be raised in the home that I choose.” She’s had to have “a lot of sit-downs” with members of her extended family, who like to say she’s become too Americanized.

Since graduating from high school Ana has taken classes at several different community colleges in Gilroy and the Salinas area. But, in the end, it’s always hard to prioritize because the farm has to come first. On the bright side, she said, dealing with family politics primed Ana for her favorite class: Political Science. She thinks often about moving in with relatives in Southern California in order to get just far enough away from the farm to focus on finishing her degree. But for now, it’s hard to leave a family that depends on her (“everyone knows me as Maria’s daughter…I’m her Junior.”) and a job she loves.

The Farmer’s Daughter

“There’s just something about the farm when you’re harvesting. The work that you’ve done has paid off and you get to see the fruit of your labor, literally,” said Ana. “I like waking up before sunrise and going out on the field. The air is so fresh; it’s really beautiful out there.”

On top of growing vegetables, Ana has also been planning to expand on a canning experiment she started last fall; “I want it to be like Happy Girl Kitchen, but Mexican,” she says. And no matter what happens next, it’s clear that Ana enjoys being at the helm of the farm she’s built alongside her mother.

“When I was 13 I was so embarrassed to tell my friends that I had to get dirty and help in the fields. I didn’t want them to think I was just another farmworker.” Now, she said, “they’re all like, ‘Can you hook me up with a job?’”

Originally published by CUESA