Mark MacInnis is a native-born Detroiter who returned in 2009 to document a burgeoning urban farming community that is converting abandoned lots and open spaces into local food production and a sustainable food system. His film, Urban Roots, takes a close look at what happens to a city after a post-industrial collapse and suggests a new type of American Dream – one founded on nourishing community through the creation of a local economy. In a place where 46.6 percent of children live below the poverty line, there is an urgent need for change.

Having interviewed over 50 people during a two-year span, MacInnis has created a film that speaks to the “positive spirit” of the urban farming movement. He “pulled the weeds, bailed some hay” and grew to know the community as an inducted member. “There’s a bond that takes place when you’re working together on that farm that you can’t really find in other places,” he says. “You’re laughing; you’re working; you’re sweating; you’re bonding over food.” There is much potential in the city’s neglected 40,000 plots of land – and the vibrant marketplace they could create.

“It’s [Detroit] not Chicago, or San Francisco, or LA, where land is so coveted,” MacInnis offers for comparison. And still, the issues around zoning laws and land ordinances remain fuzzy at best. Some of the farmers featured in the film do not own the property they tend. Chickens are raised in dilapidated houses, plants are grown on unsanctioned plots – productivity blooming without official permission. Then there is D-Town Farm, an operation of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, which manages a seven-acre plot of land through partnership with the Detroit Area Regional Outreach Training Center for Growing Power Inc. Legal or illicit, these plots of land are thriving as agricultural spaces, so it seems only logical that the state should reconsider outdated regulations that were designed for a city of two million during the 1950 heydays. Now, as the city population has diminished to approximately 700,000, community-powered farmers want new regulations for city land use. By becoming producers, urban farmers are taking part in an improved, fair, localized food system – and they want to keep it that way.

Various perspectives within the movement are presented: There’s Matt Allen from Hantz Farms – a superpower of urban agriculture with Big Ag tendencies; former Mayor, Dennis Archer; and finally city planner, Kathryn Underwood. Each responds differently to the question of what revitalization means for the Detroit. MacInnis and his crew lend their own voices to the conversation. “We want to attach action,” he explains, when asked about the next steps for Urban Roots. Tree Media, Urban Roots’ production company, is doing just that, coming “full circle with story-telling” through their Farms in Schools initiative. Tree Media’s foundation currently supports a school garden at Garfield High School in Los Angeles and five more pilot schools will be added once they raise the funds to expand their programming. (You can help their efforts by donating here.)

To date, Urban Roots has been screened all over the world: in churches, at festivals, in breweries, at community centers and during neighborhood gatherings. MacInnis estimates that over 100,000 people have watched the film so far, and in July the film will appear in theaters. He also encourages interested people to contact Tree Media to organize a screening. “The film is not done yet. The whole mission is not done yet,” declares MacInnis.

Detroit farmers will continue to build their city from the roots upward. There is still much to be done to guarantee a protected system that honors their communal desire to grow a productive, secure and sustainable economy. But at the end of Urban Roots, their vision remains intact and fortified.

With the closing words of community farmer, Greg Willerer, we begin to see what a revitalized Detroit can look like:

“We’re not trying to create another institution. We’re trying to create a bunch of small 1-2 acre urban farms. To me, that’s pretty wise, because when you think about – from an urban planning standpoint – why do people go to New York or Toronto? They go there to see that whole labyrinth of stuff to do. And pretty soon, maybe in another 5 or 10 years, we’re going to have our own mosaic of small, urban agriculture businesses here.”

Originally published on The Edible Schoolyard Project

When I was in the Ukraine in 1992, I heard an interesting story about small and large-scale farming happening side by side in the countryside. Although most rural people worked on the massive state-controlled collective farms, each person was allowed a small garden plot next to his dacha for personal use. Predictably, folks ended up using these plots to produce a lot of fruits and vegetables and even, through barter and the black market, income for their families. Meanwhile, the collective farms did not usually live up to expectations. The way the Ukrainians told it it, they made more income off these sub-acre plots than they did off the huge collective farms.

At first blush, this story is a lesson about capitalism rewarding hard work in the midst of the general failure of Soviet-style communism. Of course there are some other lessons more applicable to our current situation. One is that small-plot agriculture like we often see in urban settings can be incredibly productive. Studies by the Rodale Institute have shown that organic agriculture is at least as productive as conventional chemical-dependent agriculture, and the experiences of intensive urban farmers everywhere continue to demonstrate how much can be done with a little space.

Right now in the U.S., there are many consumers who are willing to pay a premium for beyond-organic, local produce, and there is a growing number of urban farmers who are coming up with inventive ways to harvest produce in tight quarters. Last week I was sitting around a table in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans at the Blair Grocery project as part of the filming for my upcoming documentary “Plant This Movie.” Nat Turner and the Blair Grocery team do a lot of great things including a good bit of education and a whole lot of community building. But the grocery’s business model is particularly compelling.

I observed a group of high school students busily stuffing bags full of sprouts to be sold at a local co-op and to restaurants. Each 4.2 ounce bag sold for $5, and the co-op was turning around and selling them for more than $7. Some of this exchange trickles down to the students themselves in the form of $50 weekly checks for their roughly 10-hour per week commitment. The Blair Grocery farmers also sell at farmers markets and to their neighbors, who usually get a discount from the co-op prices.

New Orleans isn’t exactly crawling with healthy marketplaces, so if this model works there, it can certainly work in more affluent communities in the developed world. Sure, the kids are absorbing many intangible benefits by being part of a farm team and taking responsibility for their product, but I know from talking to them that the weekly stipend is definitely one of their motivations for getting and staying involved. It’s hard to imagine community gardens generating the same kind of excitement in a teenage population who need to make a living.

Even in Cuba, where food security was much more than an academic term, urban farming developed into a vital part of local economies across the island. What began as a dramatic effort to fend off starvation turned into a way for many Cubans to make a living. They formed co-ops where many of them still make three to five times the average Cuban monthly salary. I asked Macon Fry, a legendary urban farmer in New Orleans, his opinion on the profit versus free question. We were in one of his three farm plots at the time, a space owned by Xavier University. As part of his answer to the question, Macon pointed to a run-down plot in the corner of the garden. “People need to have ownership,” he said. He thinks the best answer for most people is tending a backyard garden.

To borrow an idea that I read about years ago, why don’t we have more people working two part-time jobs–20 hours a week inside doing office work or anything else, and the rest of the work week spent outside, growing food? Of course when the need is very great or where the growing is very easy, people are going to grow food regardless of their ability to make money doing so. But I do think that the dacha garden example does make an argument for the profit motive. Community gardens have been around for a long time, and while they do their part for creating community and putting fresh vegetables on the table, I think if we are interested in scaling up urban agriculture in the developed world, we need to support for-profit ventures. Now more than ever we need to think about the way our food is produced and how best to keep our urban farmers in business.

I was skeptical and sighing heavily when I pressed play to view Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead. I immediately thought, “With such a negative title, this documentary will be a) depressing and b) preachy.”

I’m an optimistic person though–hence my dislike for the title–so I tried to toss out the judgmental thoughts and, as it turns out, my initial impression was pleasantly proven wrong.

The premise of the story is that Joe Cross, an affluent Australian businessman and director of the film, armed himself with a juicer and a video camera to wage a war against his weight in America. Predictably, Joe loses 100 pounds after a 60 day juice fast and eradicates his autoimmune disease that manifests itself as an annoying rash. (Admittedly, I scoffed at his complaining about taking a few pills a day while I watch my husband give himself six insulin shots daily along with a cocktail of pills, but, really, a disease is a disease whether a rash or a failed pancreas.) If this was the end of the film, I would think it was an indirect infomercial for a new line of juices.

But this is where the film takes a direction that is refreshing, especially after watching Jamie Oliver’s come-to-America-and-revolutionize-the-food-system, community-placed approach.

Joe has a genuine, gregarious, non-condescending manner that allows his conversations with the diversity that is America unwrap raw truths of the trajectory of our food culture. From a family that proudly only eats a home cooked meal a few times a month to a father who shrugs off dying early in front of his son even when he could change course with better eating habits, our convenience-based eating habits are exposed.

Then Phil comes along, a story one gets all too used to after shows such as the Biggest Loser. By befriending Phil, a random trucker with the same rare condition as Joe and who is severely obese, the film demonstrates how a helping hand and a healthy relationship with food can give you a life back.

And that is what the film’s mission is to do, I learned, with a campaign called “Reboot.” As the film unrolls across screens this spring, the Reboot team is partnering with the National Good Food Network to help build the supply channels to meet the increased demand for fresh fruits and vegetables this film will seed.

As a beginning farmer and advocate for local food systems, I cannot help but love the demand this film can create for local produce growers, but in the film there is no rally cry to local, sustainable or organic food, it’s just simply increased fruit and vegetable consumption. The film’s singular focus may attract more viewers, but it’s a missed opportunity to not touch upon the built environment, i.e., how many fast food chains were in close proximity to Phil’s home compared to the grocery store or farmers’ market? Why was the day’s worth of juice ingredients more expensive from the local co-op versus the big box store? Maybe Reboot as a campaign will delve more deeply into the issues the film skimmed over.

So even though I still don’t like the title, I recommend watching the film to witness how the simple act of consuming more fruits and vegetables can, in fact, reboot your life.

You can watch the trailer here:

Photo by Daniel Marracino

The cast of farmers in our documentary GROW! have something in common: a desire to grow clean, fair food on their own terms. They’re growers of vegetables, fruits, and grain, and they raise pigs, cattle, sheep, and chickens. They’re Georgia’s next generation of young, organic, and sustainable farmers. Most have college degrees covering all sorts of disciplines ranging from Physical Chemistry to Engineering, Pre‐Med to Political Science, English Literature to Accounting. Some have never worked in their chosen fields. Some have, got fed up, and left. Disgusted by corporate America and its influence on a broken food system, these young farmers had no problem leaving the cities to live more simply. Arianne McGinnis of Hope Grows puts it most succinctly: “Farming is an activism for a way of life that is in danger.” There’s a reason why the “food movement” earned its name.

One of the biggest challenges facing any aspiring agronomist is access to affordable land. Of the 12 farms featured in GROW!, only three are owned by the farmers. The other farmers rent, manage, or borrow the land on which they toil. Tim and Krista Showalter‐Ehst of Oakleaf Mennonite Farm arrived in Atlanta from Pennsylvania two weeks after the congregation had prayed for someone to grow food on the acreage surrounding their church. Paige Witherington and Justin Dansby manage Serenbe Farms, a certified organic fruit and vegetable operation which is part of an upscale eco‐community located 45 minutes from Atlanta. Arianne McGinnis and Elliott McGann of Hope Grows are friends who met in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina while working for Americorps in New Orleans. They rent a farmhouse and six acres in Sylvania where they raise broilers, laying hens, and pigs.

Family land is another route some young farmers take. Wes Swancy grew up on Riverview Farms, acreage his father had once farmed conventionally. After graduating from college with degrees in Chemistry and no desire to become “lab rats,” Wes and his wife Charlotte returned to the farm. They persuaded his father to transition to certified organic. In danger of losing the farm, he was willing to try something new. That was 10 years ago and Riverview Farms is now one of the biggest certified organic farms in Georgia. My point is that there are many ways to farm even if you don’t have enough capital to start an operation on your own. Those who choose to take up the plow work long, hard hours and don’t necessarily make a lot of money. But as McGann of Hope Grows says, “Would I be happier working 40 hours a week at McDonalds and making minimum wage? I don’t think so.”

These kids love farming. For some, it’s the independence of self-employment. Those farmers find inspiration from their customers and the satisfaction of providing food for a community. For others, it’s the simple act of growing something in the ground that sustains. As for hard work, William Hennessey of W.A. Hennessey Farm sums it up, “People always tell you to do what you love. And if you’re doing what you love, it doesn’t seem like work.”

Our motivation for making a documentary that follows young, passionate farmers is to inspire other young people to take up farming and to learn the stories of those who have already. Maybe you’d like to help: We’ve launched a fundraiser for GROW! on Kickstarter, and we’re now 82 percent funded.  Time is up on the 31st of October at 11:00 a.m.

Look out for GROW! in the spring of 2011.

The first time I saw “Pressure Cooker” was at Slow Food Nation last Labor Day. It left me–and as far as I could tell every single other viewer in the theater–in tears. It follows three seniors at a Philadelphia public high school, charting their journey through a culinary arts curriculum under the wing of the hilariously blunt, tough-loving Mrs. Stephenson. The film has been making the film festival circuit for the past 9 months and will now be enjoying a theatrical release in several cities (scroll all the way down for schedule). Here I sat down for an interview with Co-Directors Mark Becker and Jennifer Grausman:

Civil Eats: What do kids get from culinary education that they can’t find elsewhere in their schools/lives?

Jennifer: Culinary education provides hands on training that can engage all of the senses – smell, taste, touch, sight, and sound. It combines creativity with practicality, and is a skill students can use in their lives now and in the future. Culinary Arts also encompasses many other disciplines: reading, math, science, but presents them in a practical rather than theoretical way that appeals to many students. In addition, the discipline of the kitchen adds structure to lives that may not have much structure, and teaches teamwork.

Mark: As for the students from Frankford, in Culinary Arts with Mrs. Stephenson, they are gaining access to a classroom unlike any other at their public school. They know that if they can perfect their crepes and tourne potatoes for Mrs. Stephenson, they can get scholarships and get out of Frankford. Mrs. Stephenson, through her irreverent and uncompromising manner, teaches the value of practice and discipline. There are seven sides on a correctly crafted tourne potato: Wilma helps the kids see that there is a serious upside to perfecting that shape. The patience, repetition, and focus necessary to tourne a potato are skills predictive of success inside and outside the kitchen. Wilma makes that abundantly clear.

Civil Eats: What do kids gain by developing a relationship with food?

Jennifer: Some students develop a passion for food and cooking, some gain respect and understanding for the products used in the kitchen, and many learn about nutrition as they broaden their palate and modify their eating habits.

Mark: I felt like I witnessed a developing respect for process. The students at Frankford were learning to put time and care into an endeavor. In preparing even something as seemingly straightforward as an omelet there were several variables that could lead to success or disaster. They developed a rigor in their mentality about how to achieve results.

Civil Eats: In the movie we see the kids eat home cooked meals and the food they cook in school–do they, like most teenagers, eat fast food? Or has their culinary training made them less susceptible to the big draw of fast food? Did you learn anything about kids and their relationship to fast food?

Jennifer and Mark: Although Mrs. Stephenson’s students cook gourmet meals at school and often cook at home, they also consume a lot of fast food because of its low price and easy availability. Also, several students work in fast food chains and often eat there for free. Money and time are big factors when students are at school, doing sports, taking care of siblings, and working part and full-time jobs. Mrs. Stephenson does try to broaden her students’ palates. In one of the scenes in the film, Erica (a 17-year-old) even chastises her family for not having a discerning palate: “You haven’t acquired the taste for anything but Fritos and Chitos.” And Erica believes in what she is saying, even though the food economy and culture around her can prove an overwhelming foe.

Civil Eats: The organization that runs the scholarship competition, C-CAP, has been around for over 15 years. How has C-CAP changed the landscape restaurant kitchens?

Jennifer: It is difficult to say that C-CAP has changed the landscape of the restaurant kitchens at this point. But many of its graduates have made it to the top of the kitchen hierarchy in some of the best restaurants in the country. Certainly, the lives of many students have been changed, and with the continued guidance of C-CAP they are furthering their education far beyond what they would have otherwise, and often finding great success in kitchens across the country

Civil Eats: As audience members we get drawn into the lives of the students very deeply–it is an emotional movie. As documentary filmmakers did you have to work to stay emotionally uninvolved? Or is emotional involvement with your subjects and their story necessary to create a movie like this?

Mark: On this film, one could not be detached. Dudley, Erica, and Fatoumata are these smart, ambitious, sensitive kids who are trying to do something that will help them potentially transcend the other options before them in Northeast Philly. They are funny and mature and charming, and their lives are so much more full and complex than the platitudes one hears about people in working class communities. So whenever we would film with them, or spend time with them, we always got that sense of peculiar privilege that one can sometimes feel when making a documentary. You feel like you are genuinely lucky to have access to this person, and you feel like you can learn from them.

Jennifer: Although we never wanted to interfere, or inject ourselves into their lives, we wanted to be there as people the kids and Wilma could talk to – about the good and the bad – even if it wasn’t material for the film. Some of the best conversations we had with them were off camera. In the end, we hope that that type of connection between filmmaker and film subject allows for naturalness to the Wilma, Fatoumata, Dudley and Erica you see on camera.

Watch the trailer here.

See it here:
* NYC, IFC Center
o MAY 27 – 9 days only
* LA, Sunset 5
o JUN 5 – 1 week only
* Philadelphia, Ritz at the Bourse
o JUN 12 – 1 week only
* Nashville, The Belcourt Theatre
o JUN 30-JUL 1
* Seattle, Northwest Film Forum
o JUL 10-16
* Washington DC, E Street Cinema
o JUL 17 – 1 week only
* Denver, The Starz Film Center
o JUL 30-AUG 6

The last couple sunny days have gotten me itching to buy seeds.  The skilled gardeners I know (of which I am decidedly not, having barely grown an herb garden that now looks like brittle sticks in dirt) have told me to get started with my highlighter and my catalogs – order before it gets to late and the best seeds are gone.  So I became a member of the Hudson Valley Seed Library ($20) and got ten complimentary packets of their heirlooms, most of which come from this area.

With Monsanto and their ilk gobbling up all the seed companies in the last decade, its important to remember to support the little guys – like another small company in Missouri, Baker Creek Seed Company.

From The People Who Feed Us:

At sixteen years of age, Jere Gettle joined Seed Savers Exchange and never
looked back. With his interest in gardening (and collecting) as the catalyst, he
started Baker Creek Seed Company And he still looking for ways to get the
word out about the value of heirloom seeds.

Now his operation distributes nearly 100,000 catalogs yearly, hosts a gardening
forum-I Dig My Garden, and has put together what is generally acknowledged as
one of the best seed collections around.

Jere gives a good explanation here of why heirlooms matter. The diversity of
plants is a strength that Baker Creek promotes mightily. As host to several events
at his southwestern Missouri location every year, Jere is a outspoken advocate
for real food through old-school seeds. He loves this stuff.

Check out the engaging documentary they made of Jere Gettle (and the many other wonderful documentaries on their site, www.thepeoplewhofeedus.com)

For months, I’d been planning to see the French television documentary The World According to Monsanto (Le Monde selon Monsanto, also to be released in spring 2009 in book form), made for the French-German network Arte by the journalist Marie-Monique Robin, which premiered in France March 11, 2008.  Having plenty of reasons to despise Monsanto (Agent Orange, PCBs, global food domination) I thought that this film would only confirm what I knew about the giant agribusiness firm, which controls between 70%-100% of the GM market share for various crops.  Well, I was wrong.  There was more to fear, and seeing it all on film made it more concrete.

Marie-Monique Robin spoke to people in government at the time GM seed was given approval and granted “substantial equivalence,” to farmers in the fields in India, Paraguay, Mexico, and Iowa, and to anyone she encountered in her research that could explain the story on rBGH, seed contamination (The part on Mexico’s corn crop contamination is particularly sad and ominous – I was left wondering whether contamination was part of Monsanto’s plan in the first place), the legacy of Agent Orange, and PCB contamination in Anniston, Alabama.  She leaves not a stone unturned in the Monsanto cabinet of curiosities.  And, folks, we should be scared, very scared about the implications of these details on the future food security in the world.  I left the film certain that Monsanto was responsible for perpetrating a slow and conscious modern holocaust, and should be no less than tried for crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court.  Sound extreme?  70% of food on supermarket shelves contains GM food, and scientists in government and university research programs have been fired for speaking out against treating human beings as guinea pigs, aside from all of Monsanto’s other trespasses (Wonder why you didn’t know that 70% of supermarket food contains GMOs? lobbying against labeling).

During this holiday lull, do yourself a favor and watch this film.  It is the most important and fundamental documentary about the future of our food system, and it is available to watch here, or can be bought here.  (Also, here is a great review from Truthout.org last November.)  If you are new to these facts, this movie will convert you to food security issues.  If you know all there is to know about why our food system is broken, this will reinstate your food fighter’s fervor.