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

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

What issues have you been focused on?

I have primarily been working across the city with interesting people and groups about the notion of creating a viable infrastructure for urban ag in NOLA. What does that mean?What’s the best approach to get us some concrete results? We have serious food security issues here post-storm. They were big before but even more now. So, I’ve zeroed in on working with others to utilize urban agriculture as a revitalization tool.

And, now as a part of the WandA Network, it’s about how to enlist more women across ethnicities and social and economic spheres to start farming and involve them in becoming successful growers. I think we have great opportunities with the amount of restaurants we have in New Orleans More and more of them are wanting to source as much locally grown produce as possible. We have a year-round growing season in our local area but we need to create the knowledge base and the skills to better utilize it.

What inspires you to do this work?

I was inspired from spending time in the country, the rural areas of Louisiana where my parents are from in Lafourche Parish. It was a strong agrarian community, growing cane and some produce. Both my parents are from farming families. As a little girl I was always attracted to what life was like in the country, maybe in a more romantic way and I spent summers there. When I was eight, my dad gave me my own little garden spot in front of our house. So, I have been gardening most of my life.

Now with the food movement I see how I can bring that passion to some every day work.

What’s your overall vision?

I often tell people I’m helping to sow the seeds of a local food tapestry here in NOLA. I have this vision of being able to fly into the city and see the topography of our marsh lands and our waterways and tributaries, and really being able to see our landscape integrated with food producing gardens. I think we have an opportunity to create a model in our rebuilding and recovery to make wiser, more efficient use of our vacant and blighted land.

“Feeding communities. Cultivating beauty. Nurturing lives” is the WandA tag line and my vision.

What books and/or blogs are you reading right now?

I just bought a book, the latest from Muhammad Yunus on changing the landscape of poverty in the world called Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism and Half the Sky about the transformation of women from oppression to opportunity across the world.

My favorite quarterly magazine is Urban Agriculture produced by the RUAF Foundation. It focuses on the global nature of the food security and urban agriculture movement. I just get so excited when it arrives in the mail. And, I can’t wait to read Farmer Jane.

Who’s in your community?

Oh my goodness. I interact with so many people across so many lines and culture groups. Mainly the people I interact with are what I call the Sisterhood of my House. It’s the women who live in my house, from my 10-year old granddaughter to my mother who is 96. My sister comes over and shares in the care of our mother. I can also count on her and my daughters to help me in the garden. I also have two close “sister friends” that are founding executive directors of young organizations. We have formed what we are calling exciting strategic partnerships to see where our work intersects so that we can lend each other development and fund raising support.

I’m finding that my day-to-day associations are strengthened by my “community of women.”

What are your commitments?

My main commitment right now is making sure I’m taking care of myself and really, really devoting some quality time and attention to that. I realize in order to continue being strong in this work that I have to do that.

Beyond that I’m committed to really honestly figuring out, not just by myself, but with a circle of colleagues and friends and partners how to best do this work. How to do my small part, whatever that part is. If it’s a small piece I really want to do it well; if it grows, all the better. I really want to go from idea to impact. It’s great to have ideas. But if they aren’t developed in a way that’s impactful, even if it’s something small then we’re really missing the mark.

What are your goals?

I know some people have a three year plan, but right now I have a goal of successfully working through an incubation period for WandA that began July 2010 and is projected will go through Spring 2011. I’m devoting careful attention and planning to that public launch of WandA by nurturing current partnerships and seeking potential opportunities.

What does change look like to you?

Change is a constant thing. When I think about developing my garden, over the course of a little more than a year and a half, I’ve seen a vacant property go from no fertility to increasing fertility and that really took some consistent, careful and thoughtful input. I guess change looks like taking careful and thoughtful action applied to whatever the situation is. That lot went from compacted clay and urban decay to fertile ground but it didn’t just happen because I brought in loads of soil, it happened because I brought together all sorts of inputs that had to work together in a complex system.

Regarding the practicalities of enacting change, what planning is involved? What kind of outreach?

In partnership with one of my development colleagues, Gia Hamilton of Gris Gris Lab, we’ve initiated an “action outreach” plan to engage participants in our work that are usually deemed undeserved or vulnerable. I know of people that fall into these groupings who don’t have a lot of resources but are extremely creative and entrepreneurial.

What projects are affiliated with yours?

A major signature project is developing Sun Harvest Kitchen Garden as a demonstration social enterprise growing operation to teach youth and women how to grow for the marketplace.

WandA is developing The Beautiful Blocks Project that will conduct action outreach along 11 blocks of Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, a national historic Main Street. The project is being launched during the 10th anniversary of Café Reconcile to pay tribute to the efforts of all of the groups that have been part of the neighborhood’s revival. We plan to engage the residents, organizations and businesses in transforming the corridor by creating beautiful streetscapes, edible landscapes and yard gardens.

What projects and people have you got your eye on or are you impressed by?

Recent research into women’s collectives led me to SEWA in India. They are well-established women driven entrepreneurial organization that supports women from the lower castes of India and have been around for some time. I was so inspired.

I’m also inspired by Village Heath Works in Burundi where my cousin is its executive director. I’ve been so moved that she, as a young woman has been able to connect significantly to the profound needs of the people there. We both use this term “mighty work to describe our work.

Where do you see the state of agriculture/food policy in the next 5-10 years? Is real policy change a real possibility?

Nationally I’m really pleased that one of the best things to come out of Washington is the First Lady’s focus and commitment to food security, better health, and quality of life for children and families. I’m encouraged by a series of recent meetings and conferences I’ve attended focused on food security that indicate increasing interest in food policy on local, state and national levels.

In five to 10 years our food and agriculture situation, as well as the health of the nation, might possibly be improved by better educating women and youth about these issues. Accounts say that the world is more urban than ever. Better, more innovative training and practices at home, in schools and throughout our communities about our connection to food can influence policy and thus change.

What does the food movement need to do, be or have to be more effective?

We have to be more open and realistic about including people of color, women and youth to add to the diversity of leadership and participation in the food movement. My experience conducting food systems and agriculture related research and work in West Indian and African American communities led to accounts of youth, in particular, associating farming with slave labor. So, in our 21st century, information and technologically interactive world, we have to devise creative ways to change that image.

What would you want to be your last meal on earth?

I would want my last meal on earth to be some really good barbecued tofu with a combination of tender young mustards and collards, and buttery corn bread. And, a tall glass of sweet tea with lemon.

Driving around North Berkeley with Natasha Boissier is an educational experience; where others see a quiet residential area she sees streets lined with potential pickings and delights when she spots prospective bounty or familiar fruit.

Boissier is a part of a growing movement of urban gleaners who pick fruit from people’s yards (with permission) and donate this surplus produce to food banks, senior centers, and schools who can put this fresh food to good use.

Some residents view an abundant fruit tree as a problem but the 42-year-old clinical social worker sees a simple solution to excess bounty and a way to fill a community need.

Boissier grew up, in part, in Switzerland and remembers climbing her favorite walnut tree during her childhood. She’s turned her love of fruit picking into a kind of foraging philanthropy as the founder of North Berkeley Harvest.

Since the summer of 2007 Boissier and her loose-knit volunteer crew (about 30 in all, around 10 regulars) has harvested a cornucopia of fruit including apples, pears, Asian pears, oranges, lemons, limes, plums, peaches, figs, nectarines, apricots, persimmons, feijoas, grapefruits, sour cherries, walnuts, quinces, and loquats.

Word spread quickly about her gleaning for good effort after local media coverage and a nod in a New York Times story on backyard bounty finding its way to food banks. She has expanded her reach beyond Berkeley to include neighboring El Cerrito, Albany, Richmond, and parts of Oakland too.

Last year North Berkeley Harvest picked 3,602 pounds of fruit from 43 homes, many the group visit every year. During peak picking season volunteers meet about once a week.

Boissier delivers the bags and boxes of fresh fruit to several local non-profit organizations, including Berkeley Food and Housing Project, Berkeley Unified School District’s Central Kitchen at King Middle School, and the senior lunch program and after-school children’s program at the Jewish Community Center of the East Bay.

She lives in North Berkeley with her partner and two young children. We met this week first for fruit foraging and later for lunch at Au Coquelet Cafe.

How did you get started?

I was walking in my neighborhood while on maternity leave with my newborn son and I was struck by how many fruit trees there are here, how abundant they are, and how much of their fruit is allowed to drop and rot. It was a light-bulb moment: Picking this unused fruit seemed like a natural way to address waste and deal with hunger. So I went home and wrote up a flyer. That’s how North Berkeley Harvest came into fruition.

Do you have standards for the fruit you forage?

I taste test and only pick fruit that I would eat myself. I harvest fruit that hasn’t been sprayed or fertilized with any chemicals. It’s perfectly fine if the fruit comes in funny shapes, that’s how it is in nature, but it has to taste good.

What’s the most unusual use for the fruit you pick?

We harvest grapefruits but the ones here in Berkeley don’t taste so good to humans. A woman from an animal sanctuary called PAWS collects them for her elephants. She says they eat them like bonbons.

How has this project impacted your life?

It has brought me tremendous satisfaction. I work at UCSF’s [University of California at San Francisco's] Memory and Aging Center, counseling families dealing with dementia in their elderly loved ones. It’s rewarding work but it’s often very sad.

I’m also the mother of two young children with all the challenges that come with parenting. So sometimes I enjoy just going to harvest on my own. It’s a meditative, contemplative time for me. A very restorative hobby.

I particularly like picking fruit for seniors, many of whom can no longer climb a ladder or aren’t able to do physical labor anymore. They come out and talk with me while I work and I appreciate and respect their wisdom and experience, and hearing about the ups and downs of having lived life. These moments of connection have brought me–and I hope them–a great deal of unexpected joy.

Have there been other unforeseen benefits of this work?

Serendipity. A friend I lost touch with, Sarah Pyle, read about my work and contacted me; now she’s one of my most regular volunteers. And sometimes a resident will recognize one of the volunteers–from way back–and they’re so happy to see each other again. I love it when these kind of things happen.

Do you have a preference for where you pick?

If I have to prioritize during the busy harvest season I’ll choose to pick fruit from the homes of elderly residents, many of whom are treasures who have tended these trees for decades. There are some really old trees in town.

Do you have advice for others who want to forage fruit for donation?

Yes, it’s simple and straightforward. This doesn’t need to be a big, organizational undertaking. Write a flyer and put it in people’s mailboxes in your local area. Enlist family and friends for your initial harvest and start small. The only equipment you need is a ladder, a fruit picker–you can buy one at Home Depot for about $30–clippers, gloves, and some bags or boxes for the bounty. Identify some local groups that could use the fruit and get in touch in advance to find out what and how much they can accept (sometimes more isn’t better).

Have a contact person for your drop-off days but keep in mind these organizations are often staffed by low-paid workers or volunteers and there’s high turn over. They’re also very busy; so don’t expect a lot of accolades. Just deliver and go and know in your heart you’re doing good. I remember one resident at a shelter yelling at me: “Why are you bringing us fruit?” We’re grown men–we need meat!” I thought it was funny.

Have you met any interesting people harvesting?

There have been so many. One elderly couple come to mind: He’s a retired UC Berkeley expert on moss, she’s interested in lichen. I’ve been picking their apple tree for the last few years. I call her the Lichen Lady because she showed me her notebook full of these watercolor sketches of all the different lichen she’s seen in her travels around the world. They were just exquisite.

This is a place that celebrates people’s uniqueness. This town is full of intense, quirky, opinionated, and passionate people. I come into contact with some of them picking fruit. I call them the Berkeley specials. They keep things fun.

What’s next?

I’d like to take young school children on fruit harvesting field trips. It’s an area ripe with educational experiences: Nature, growing produce, tasting food, and sharing abundance.

Do you have a preferred place where you like to donate?

My first stop is often the men’s shelter. I’m not sure why. They’re often last in line for services–I mean, of course, women and children first–but these men are often blamed for what’s wrong with them. I see them early in the morning standing out in the cold after enduring a night of who knows what and I want to give them a piece of fruit to offer a moment’s respite from their pain and suffering. That’s my hope: To provide something tangible, simple, and sweet in their lives.

Originally published on Berkeleyside

The food companies have created an industrialized agriculture system that uses a multitude of chemicals in fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides as well as genetically-modified products. Some people believe these additives contribute to skyrocketing rates of diabetes and obesity not to mention asthma, food allergies and other health problems.

Accessibility to good food can also be a problem, especially for lower-income groups in large metropolitan areas who typically do not have grocery stores in their neighborhoods. Instead, these “food deserts” have an ample supply of party and liquor stores that stock snacks and processed foods but not fresh fruits, vegetables and meats.

Participants in the food movement have actively taken on these “food security” or “food sovereignty” issues by creating substitutes to the industrialized food system including community-supported agriculture (CSA), farmers markets, local food, family and neighborhood gardens, farm-to-school initiatives, food as economic development, food policy councils, food assessment programs, and youth programming and training. And, they are beginning to make a difference in the way America eats.

Food sovereignty means that people have the right to decide what they eat and to ensure that food in their community is healthy and accessible for everyone, according to the Community Food Security Coalition. It also means that producers receive a fair price for their products and that local family farmers and fishers should have the first right to local and regional markets.

With this mission in mind, food security advocates have been successfully changing food policy not only in the United States but all over the world.

Here are some good examples of groups that were honored at the Community Food Security Coalition at its annual conference held recently in New Orleans. Family Farm Defenders received the 2010 Food Sovereignty Prize, which recognizes organizations that uphold the principles of food sovereignty and fight for and make real change to end hunger and poverty.

Honorable mentions were also awarded to ROPPA (Burkina Faso), the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, and the Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty (Vancouver, BC).

Family Farm Defenders

Family Farm Defenders (FFD), a grassroots non-profit organization in Madison, WI, was founded in 1994 to support the livelihoods of small dairy and vegetable farmers.

John Kinsman, who is president of FFD, began pushing for food sovereignty when he helped protest the injection of bovine growth hormones (rGBH) in dairy cows on the University of Wisconsin campus. Researchers there were beneficiaries of corporate gifts that encouraged and affirmed its use. Even the National Dairy Board promoted rGBH. But no one ever asked the dairy farmers if rGBH hurt their production, said Kinsman, despite Monsanto’s claims that it did.

Kinsman worked with former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold who at the time was a state senator, on labeling rGBH milk, which the corporate milk producers didn’t want to do. A labeling law was eventually passed, however, and it became a model for the organic food movement, which now is trying to label genetically-engineered (GM) foods.

Through FFD, Kinsman also worked to re-localize food/farm economies and forge new economic relationships between consumers and farmers. An example of this cooperative effort is the Family Farmer Fair Trade Project that enables FFD to direct market cheese from Cedar Grove in Plain, WI. One outcome of this relationship is that farmers receive a fair price for their products as they provide consumers with rGBH-free alternatives.

“I’m a peasant farmer,” said Kinsman who uses this term to differentiate himself from food corporations that are now trying to call themselves “family farmers” just as Monsanto is trying to call itself “green.”

“We need to find new words,” he said.

It is important to note that Family Farm Defenders makes sure that urban people are on its board–40 percent of them. This is because the board believes that they must be as involved in defending the family farm as the farmers themselves.

“Farmers are so beaten down by industrial food companies and low prices,” he said. “They have had their dignity taken away from them.”


ROPPA

Our culture requires us to behave in a certain way and that is centered around food, said Djibo Bagna, of the Network of West African Peasant and Agricultural Producers’ Organizations.

Food policies are usually formulated by people in offices and agriculture is governed only by financial considerations, he said. However, peasants are leaving their farms because they cannot earn a living.

“As a food sovereignty council, we first had to decide that we would no longer allow others to speak for us or tell us what kind of agriculture we should have,” said Bagna.

Poverty is a rural phenomenon and its strongest conflicts center around resources. Unfortunately, there typically is no investment in rural areas nor is credit offered at reasonable rates. ROPPA tried to change this situation and decided that in order to do so it had to be present at the policy table.

The United Nations Agriculture Policy group was surprised to learn of ROPPA’s request. At first it allowed them only one representative but ROPPA baulked. It didn’t just want representation; it wanted to shape the policy. When the UN refused to give ROPPA representation, ROPPA promised that it would organize 10,000 farmers to take the streets during the policy group’s meetings. The UN capitulated and allowed ROPPA a seat at the table.

“You can’t have food sovereignty unless you are involved in the debate,” said Bagna. “You need funding for farmers to grow food and communication to break down the barriers between policymakers who set the rules and farmers who produce the products. You need agricultural research, value-added products and a dialogue space to talk to each other.”

Detroit Black Community Food Security Network

Detroit has one of the poorest urban populations in the country. With 50 percent unemployment in the city, which contains areas labeled as “food deserts,” a group of school parents, teachers and administrators decided it was time to act: they would learn how to grow their own food for their children.

In 2006, this group became known as the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. It focuses on urban agriculture, policy development and cooperative buying.

The group observed that “many of the key players in the city’s local urban agriculture movement were young whites, who while well-intentioned, nevertheless exerted a degree of control inordinate to their numbers in Detroit’s population,” according to its website.

DBCFSN believes that the most effective movements “grow organically from the people whom they are designed to serve.” So, the group is creating model urban agricultural projects that seek to build community self-reliance and to change people’s consciousness about food.

For example, its urban agriculture program planted and maintained a quarter-acre garden in 2006 and a three-quarter-acre mini-farm in 2007. In 2008 it built the D-Town Community Garden where it grows 35 crops, keeps bees and maintains a vermiculture compost program.

All produce is grown using sustainable, chemical-free practices, and sold at the farm sites, the Eastern Market, and markets for urban growers throughout Detroit. The group also holds harvest festivals four times a year.

Policy development, however, is DBCFSN’s “jewel in our crown.” It has crafted food policy for the city that was adopted by the Detroit City Council. This policy includes provisions for education, economic justice, finding ways to combat hunger, discerning the school’s role in food security, advocating and providing for urban agriculture, developing emergency responses to food shortages and food deserts and forming a food policy council.

With cooperative buying, the network has tried to go beyond the basic co-op model and include food distribution networks. So the network formed a regional system with Detroit, Toledo, Chicago, and Milwaukee in cooperation with the trucking industry.

“We didn’t do anything that we didn’t feel we had to do,” said Aba Ifeoma, one of the members of the network.

Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty

Dawn Morrison of the Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty is a member of the Vancouver Island Network that has mobilized people to define the food system in Canada for indigenous peoples of 27 nations. They did this by working together with non-indigenous people.

Morrison pointed out that food is a sacred gift of the Creator and humans have a responsibility to maintain right relationship to plants and animals that provide us with food.

“We must be free from corporate control to determine where we get our food and how we grow it,” she said. “We do this in our day to day actions with family and the community. Our policies, meanwhile, must be driven by practice and be community-based.”

Citizen participation is the key to establishing and keeping a democracy. As we watch our representative government crumble through corporate influence, political corruption and hate speech, we can look to the food sovereignty movement to remind us how democracy really works. Then, let’s hope that spirit will spread.

Community is at the center of the good food revolution, and the Lower Ninth Ward section of New Orleans is home to one of the more extreme examples. Five years after Hurricane Katrina broke the levees–flooding the neighborhood and forcing its residents to decamp elsewhere–the area, largely frozen in time, has become home to a thriving community of urban farmers aiming to improve the quality of life of its residents.

I was in the neighborhood recently on a tour arranged by the Community Food Conference, a four-day event in October offering panels on different aspects of food policy. My tour guide, Jenga Mwendo, grew up in the Lower Ninth, but was living in New York City when Katrina hit.

“I quit my job, sold everything and moved out to New Orleans with the intention of finding some way of being a contribution,” she said. Mwendo had purchased a house in the Lower Ninth as an investment property just weeks before the storm, and so began by rebuilding it. Next, she decided to figure out who owned the abandoned properties near hers. “I decided that I was going to single-handedly revitalize my block,” she said.

Statistics reveal that only 25 percent of residents have returned to rebuild. As a result, abandoned houses dot the neighborhood, services and infrastructure are sorely lacking, and there is a lot of land. This has made the Lower Ninth prime for urban agriculture–which, for Mwendo, has been key to rebuilding and bringing together the community.

Through her work, she has brought back to life an existing garden, started a new one, and created the Backyard Gardeners Network, which connects gardeners to resources and to each other. She also helped facilitate the planting of 175 fruit trees. [You can read more about her work in an interview I did with her recently for Grist.]

“The more people that I spoke too, especially the elders, the more I realized that [agriculture] was really an integral part of the history of the Lower Ninth Ward,” she said. “This whole process has been an opportunity for me to reconnect with my past and know New Orleans in a way that I never knew it before.”

In communities of color, where one in two people is now predicted to become diabetic in their lifetime and where there is often a strong history of agriculture, community gardening projects can have a huge impact–especially in places like the Lower Ninth, which doesn’t have a single grocery store. “I see the gardens as opportunities to come together, work together, and do things that are going to be beneficial for our neighborhood,” said Mwendo.

Nat Turner also made his way to New Orleans from New York City in the wake of Katrina. First he came as a history teacher bringing his students there for volunteer projects, and then later he became a resident and founded Our School at Blair Grocery, a school housed in a former grocery store.

“There were kids falling through the cracks, so I said, let’s start an independent alternative school,” said Turner. Agriculture is used as a tool to help students, who have dropped out of traditional school settings, develop work skills.

As Turner tells it, the idea of using food as a teaching tool was originally about providing access to produce. “People in the neighborhood want bell peppers, okra, and shallots,” he said. So he built vegetable beds, chicken coops, and greenhouses where the students participate in a sprout-growing operation for local restaurants.

In addition, he saw that there was a need to create jobs. “There is nowhere for black teenagers in New Orleans to find a job,” said Turner. “There is probably a 70 percent unemployment rate in our neighborhood.”

Each day at Our School, in addition to studies geared toward passing the GED exam, students plant, harvest or deliver sprouts grown in their greenhouses to restaurants all around the city. The farm’s model is inspired by Will Allen–a Milwaukee, Wisconsin urban farmer who builds intricately diverse growing systems that provide fish, vegetables and rich compost year round to residents. Through their work, students learn business skills–and get to rub elbows with famous local chefs like John Besh of restaurants La Provence, Lüke and August. After he took a tour of the school recently, Turner said, Chef Besh said that he “wants to buy everything that we can possibly grow for his restaurant.”

The school benefits from around $2000 per week from these restaurant sales, which helps subsidize local sales, and the students take home a stipend of $50 per week along with other benefits like paid cellphone bills. As a result of this work, three blighted lots in the neighborhood have been turned into productive farmland. And they are expanding–having just received notice of a three-year, $300,000 community food project grant from the USDA which will allow them to increase their growing capacity, take on more students, and pay for building repairs.

Both Mwendo and Turner agree that the government has a role to play in improving the quality of life in the Lower Ninth. “It would be really nice if they could release some of those federal dollars around fresh food retail outlets in under-served neighborhoods,” said Turner, who is also looking for the government to make it easier for groups like his to access blighted land.

Volunteering for an afternoon at Our School, I found myself standing up to my ankles in rotting fruits and vegetables, cardboard, and coffee grinds at the giant compost pile that would become a new farm field in the spring. Four of Our School’s students–all boys–and one teacher explained the difference between “green” matter and “brown” matter (the green matter being the food waste, containing nitrogen, and brown matter the cardboard and wood chips, containing carbon). All four of the students were different sizes and ages, and all worked diligently together to complete the project.

Indeed, composting seemed like an apt metaphor for the changes happening in the Lower Ninth. Instead of standing by to watch a neighborhood slowly disintegrate, urban farmers are breaking down food waste into a productive medium in which to grow. While the stand-off continues between business owners who wait for the population of the neighborhood to increase, and people who wait for amenities like grocery stores and schools to open before they move in, activists like Mwendo and Turner will continue to grow community at the grassroots: starting with the soil.

Some tough questions need to be asked and answered before we’ll know whether or not Monsanto’s donation will help or hurt long-term efforts to rebuild food sufficiency and sovereignty in Haiti. Here are five of them:

• What do Haitians think? Do rural organizations representing Haiti’s farmers actually want these seeds from Monsanto or not? We know at least one spokesperson for Haitian farmers isn’t interested. Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay and the National Peasant Movement of the Papay Congress said in a recent article published by Grassroots International that “if people start sending hybrid, NGO seeds, that’s the end of Haitian agriculture.”

• Will Haitian farmers be able to use existing farming methods with these seeds or do they require a completely different set of techniques – for example, is it possible for these seeds to be banked year to year for use in more than one planting cycle? Hybrid seeds don’t have a great track record for re-planting, which means that farmers typically must buy new seeds every year.

• Does cultivation of these seeds require expensive new inputs and/or chemicals that may negatively impact the environment and soil over the long-term? Hybrids typically require a lot of fertilizers, pesticides, etc. and according to the press release, these will be provided through the USAID’s 5-year WINNER program. When the WINNER program is done, will farmers find themselves reliant on external inputs they can’t afford or access? What will the inputs leave behind in terms of the soil’s condition?

• Will the rest of the Monsanto seeds sent to Haiti over the next year be conventional or genetically modified (GM)? GM seeds are as controversial in Haiti as they are here at home. It is critical that Haitians themselves are in charge of the decision to plant or not plant GM; they first need to know what is being offered to them in the first place.

• Will the Monsanto seeds (whether conventional or GM) affect indigenous seed diversity by mixing with them and contaminating existing seed strains? Large influxes of non-native seeds have touched off controversy and alarmed environmental activists and peasant farmers from Mexico to Malaysia to Mali.

Agricultural development is critical for Haiti and was even before the earthquake. Lambi Fund of Haiti, a partner organization of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), has been working with rural communities to create indigenous seed banks, building expertise in farming techniques and using environmentally-friendly methods to renew depleted Haitian soil.

Advocates for common sense food aid, including AJWS, are asking Congress to spend the $150 million dollars requested by the Obama Administration for Food Aid to Haiti on resources that will help Haiti feed itself for the long-term. You can make your voice heard by signing this petition.

Monsanto’s donation – just like the US government’s in-kind food aid donations – should empower rather than dis-empower the rural communities working to grow food for their country over the long term. More to the point, the communities most affected by these donations should decide whether they want this aid at all and if so, what they want and when they want it. It’s unclear in this case if Monsanto or anyone else has asked them.

Belo Horizonte is the stuff of food security legend. BH (pronounced beh-agah), as it is known by locals, has been on the radar of food systems folks since their innovative programming began in the early 90s, and their recognition has only grown over time. Attention has come in the form of shoutouts by the Lappe mother-daughter team in Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet, the Huffington Post and Yes! Magazine and the 2009 Future Policy Award from the World Future Council, to name a few. As topics relating to food security and the future of agriculture rise on the government priority lists and health-related NGOs, more and more eyes turn towards BH for best practices. So it was with nearly four years of built-up anticipation that I arrived in BH for a whirlwind tour of all things food and ag.

BH is Brazil’s third largest city. With nearly three million residents in the city proper, and nearly double that in the metropolitan area (which includes the city’s vast stretch of favela-like communities). But staring out the window of the bus only an hour before entering the city, one would never know a metropolis was just around the corner. BH is situated in central Minas Gerais, a state that earned its place on the map when the Portuguese discovered gold here early in Brazil’s colonial period. Mining (“minas” is Portuguese for mines) brought massive wealth to this vast stretch of verdant, breathtakingly beautiful land with its ever-rolling hills, waterfalls, and semi-tropical vegetation. As the mining industry grew, the state became one of Brazil’s wealthiest, and between the mining industry and the ideal growing climate, Minas came into its own with splendor and grace.

Long story short, the mining boom didn’t last forever (it never does). And although mining still remains an important economic activity here in Minas Gerais, it is nowhere near as central to the state’s economy as it was back in the good ‘ole days. But before the massive decline ensued, the mine-owners needed labor. And labor they brought. Over time, their workers ranged from African slaves to native Indio peoples from Amazonas to, more recently, internal migrants (from a number of ethnic backgrounds) seeking higher wages and a better life.

Today, the purpose-built capitol of BH struggles tremendously with ever-growing migrant communities. With the decline of mining, many laborers have found themselves out of work. In addition, Brazil’s tumultuous land-use situation has pushed many off subsistence plots, thus stripping farmers of their livelihoods. And, as the story goes worldwide, millions of these displaced, out-of-work folks have moved towards urban centers in search of work and educational opportunities for their children.

But the differences between BH and other rapidly-growing cities cannot be underestimated, and thus lies the nugget of gold that brought me to this food security mecca. In 1993, puzzling over what to do about skyrocketing food prices (and all the subsequent health problems), a growing poor population, and a loss of marketing opportunities for rural farmers, BH had the brilliant idea to centralize, in one municipal department, the Belo Horizonte Secretariat for Food Policy and Supply [PDF] (SMAAB in Portuguese). This department governs all the programs that deal, even tangentially, with food access, nutrition, and producer livelihood. What has unfolded over the past 17 years seems to be simultaneously “keep it simple, stupid” obvious and remarkably and bravely innovative.

The core tenants of SMAAB’s work are clear: food is a human right, not a commodity; everyone should be able to access and afford to eat healthy, nutritious food; nutrition is a vital component of public and personal health; and producers of food deserve fair marketing opportunities and wages. From those basic principles emerged a system of integrative planning and programmatic implementation that includes (ready? this is the bona fide bulletpoint list from the government of BH): direct marketing, warehouse marketing, organic markets, community and school gardens and orchards, central municipal supply, popular markets, a market district, food and nutrition education, courses for food handlers, food banks, food assistance programs, a free and fair trade model, research baskets, school food policies, popular restaurants, planting in alternative spaces, training agricultural workers (both urban and rural), supply for retail shops, and, to keep all the number-hungry politicos and grant-makers happy, the research-oriented Center for Information and Documentation.

As if this weren’t enough, BH has been blessed with a number of NGOs working on food, agriculture, and health issues on the community level. One such group, REDE de Intercambio de Tecnologias Alternativas (The Network for Exchange of Alternative Technologies), a non-profit that works at the household and community level to empower, educate, and train low-income BH residents in techniques to improve their health, environment, and quality of life. Their programs and accomplishments are too numerous to list here, but suffice it to say, they are a small but very busy team, and I have seldom stumbled across such savvy, engaged, progressive, and hard-working activists.

I could go into extensive detail about the workings of these programs, but instead I suggest you check out the Future Policy Award brochure, read the Lappes’ accounts, and peruse (with the help of a translator) REDE’s website. What I want to focus on is the stories I heard and the sights I saw, as for me, that’s where the proof of true success lies.

With city government representatives, I first visited a small organic market stand on a busy neighborhood corner. This particular producer (who we’ll call Joao) and his wife come three times a week to three different stall locations from their home 40k outside the city bearing bushel upon bushel of fruits, grains, vegetables, and preserves. Most of these they grow themselves, some they trade for with other organic producers in their community to diversify their market offerings. We arrived at 10:30 a.m. and they were almost entirely sold out. Empty crates sat piled by their truck, in preparation for the early afternoon trip home. While chatting over the benefits of having such marketing opportunities, Joao told me that they have been able to make plenty to live off of from their large garden alone. But he was careful to emphasize that the best part about the city marketing opportunity was the relationships he and his wife had formed. Nearly all of their customers are regulars, and they have adapted their production to accomodate local demands. Many city residents have standing orders which Joao and his wife keep on reserve until they can be picked up. When a regular customer is sick, they make local deliveries. And once, when their truck broke down en route into the city and the stall wasn’t set up, Joao told me he received nearly thirty phone calls from anxious customers wondering what had happened. I can relate, as working at farmers markets and in CSA sheds has always been the highlight of my ag-related jobs. To me, the best part of working with food and agriculture is the creation of these strong human bonds.

Next we headed to another BH neighborhood to visit another market stall. This particular producer (we’ll call him Ailton) and his wife (and, we’ll call her Carla) come twice a week to set up a sprawling display of gorgeous greens. For the first time since arriving in Brazil, I saw the likes of mizuna, artichokes, bok choy, and cherry tomatoes. This couple revels in the art of cultivating unusual crops, as expressed by Carla as she waxed poetic over the sublime flavor of her spicy greens and the beauty of their Italian artichoke varieties. And their customers reveal just as much glee from snatching them up. Carla and Ailton were originally courted by a local gym (of which there are a surprising number here in Brazil, and a particularly high concentration in BH) to serve health-conscious people in their post-workout shop. But in the years since then, local families and a handful of chefs have started to frequent the stand as well. Carla and Ailton’s stall was also nearly empty by 11:30 in the morning, save for a few heads of lettuce. When I asked them if they needed to have any off-farm work to supplement their income, they laughed. The city markets have provided more than enough for their lifestyle, and they can’t imagine doing anything other than the work they so love.

Hungry after eyeing gorgeous producers all morning, we headed to one of the city’s Restaurantes Populares. These remarkable programs, which serve approximately 16,000 nutritious, regionally-sourced meals a day (three meals a day) for less than a dollar a pop. As I guiltily cut the line with my hosts, I noticed a line that wound around the corner, down the stairs, and into the parking lot. This program is indeed feeding people, and lots of them.

Sated, we headed out to the source, a third-generation eight-acre organic family farm about 50km outside of BH proper. Stephen, a strapping hulk of a young man, greeted us donning his Prefeitura BH (BH City Government) hat, an immediate sign of his feelings about the city’s work to improve agricultural technology and marketing opportunities. We spent the afternoon wandering his fields and hoophouses and chatting about his family. He and his three brothers grow nearly 30 varieties of fruits and vegetables for themselves and markets, and are now beginning to experiment with aquaponics. They have received technical assistance from city extension agents, helping them to make their land-use more efficient. Their production and marketing has been so successful in the past couple of years that they have been able to move off the farm to a house closer to the village, and have been able to purchase basic appliances and vehicles to improve their quality of life and that of their children. The process seems so simple, the goals so obvious. And yet, these are they types of programs we so struggle to initiate in the United States.

I spent the next day scouting neighborhood projects with REDE. From a small garden started on a formerly druglord-infested corner to an enormous school garden project (this is more like a school jungle, complete with terracing and a shaded hoophouse for crops that can’t stand the midday Brazilian sun). We ended the evening sitting in a backyard garden REDE had helped to plant. An old woman and her husband lovingly tended a chicken coop, three thriving orange trees, a vegetable patch, and banana and papaya groves. I was amazed by the sheer amount of food produced in this small space, and my friends at REDE helpfully explained to me that all their work is done with a focus on agro-ecology — a technique that considers environmental, human, and cultural health. We watched the sun set over the remarkably rural favela as we sat carving the peels off of perfectly ripe oranges, the delightfully tart juice dripping down our arms and chins, the perfect end to a hot day.

Belo Horizonte certainly hasn’t solved all their food-related problems (not that I can think of a city that has). But what so impressed me was the willingness to integrate, to share information, to bring new players into the fold, and most importantly, to demand attention for nutritious, affordable food as an absolute necessity. It seems to me, if all of us working in and around cities could integrate just a bit of BH’s model into our own work, we would be well on our way to a series of more just, sustainable, and — let’s get serious — delicious food systems.

The increasingly coordinated campaign to inject the current mainstream food system with good-food principles has slowly gained momentum. For three decades now organic and sustainable food producers have been preparing the ground by offering food that is place-based, healthier for humans and ecosystems, and more delicious. For about ten years, visionaries and writers like Carlo Petrini, Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, and Alice Waters have been providing the intellectual and cultural underpinnings for the good food movement. More recently, with local activists leading the way, a few cities, counties and states (notably New York City, Seattle, Woodbury County in Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Illinois) have been working to codify in ordinance and law a glide path for development of a better food system. Most recently, Michele Obama’s garden at the White House, Tom Vilsack’s at the USDA, and Maria Shriver’s in Sacramento sent a message that the top tiers of American political leadership are receptive to the good food movement. The stage is set for an explosion of comprehensive reform.

In Oakland, there were three concrete indications that a new level of grass tops political leadership has emerged to meet the grass roots. First, the Agricultural Marketing Service of USDA provided the bulk of the funding for a summit meeting entitled “Developing Sustainable Foodsheds to Enhance Food Access and Nutrition.” The senior USDA official attending the summit, Deputy Under Secretary, Ann Wright, head of marketing and regulatory programs said the term “sustainable foodshed” is not exactly part of the everyday lexicon at USDA. Yet, she and 15 officials from the marketing, food and nutrition, rural development, and regulatory divisions came anyway to engage good food activists in a substantive dialog so that summit participants can offer recommendations to policy makers on how foodsheds and food access may be improved. Clearly, today’s USDA is moving toward a new food system, not seeking to defend the old one from much needed evolution.

Second, Oakland Mayor, Ron Dellums, who spent 28 years in the US House of Representatives, 21 years on the Armed Services Committee, which he chaired for a time, addressed the Summit. He said that food security is national security, that military planners now see food as a potential primary cause of war. He emphasized that food links the global to the local and is therefore fundamental to the future of cities. He stated that the good food movement could count on him to assist with any effort by mayors to deliver the message to Congress that food security for cities must be enhanced. As if to underline his point, on the same day, the G8 issued its statement on food security in which they said, “food security is closely connected with economic growth and social progress as well as with political stability and peace.”

Third, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, the man who actually spawned the trend among political leaders with his Slow Food Nation garden in 2008, issued the most comprehensive food policy document yet produced by any politician in the nation. His Executive Directive on Healthy Sustainable Food for San Francisco is truly holistic, knitting the many elements required to create a functional foodshed that serves rich and poor. It contains 11 guiding principles and 15 actions with clear deadlines. Other cities have already embraced some of the items in Newsom’s directive, but what is most impressive is that he calls out the need to prioritize healthy food access, ecological health, and the interdependence of rural and urban communities in a period of economic crisis. He sees the link between sustainable food and the nation’s future economic growth.

Newsom orders City departments dedicated to nutrition programs to remain sufficiently staffed despite budget cuts to serve those needing better nutrition. He directs the City to advocate for federal and state policies that will bring about a sustainable food system. Specifically, he cites policies that conserve the region’s prime agricultural land and regional food and agriculture businesses — outside the city’s political boundary. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, he calls for good food principles to be implanted within the City code and general plan in order to ensure that development of a sustainable foodshed and good food access will continue after his administration.

With the linkage of food security and national security and San Francisco’s groundbreaking directive, the bar for healthy sustainable food policy has been reset for all other policy makers in the nation. We applaud both men for their vision and particularly Mayor Newsom for his bold action.

With a new year now here, and new season in the White House on the verge, featuring a President who successfully harnessed a burgeoning movement (one that I like to call the Transparency Movement or the We’re Not Going to Take it Anymore Movement) now is the time to put our potential into action.

It makes sense to turn over a new leaf in the new year by growing the conversation on how we eat, and what to do about it.  In this period, there is a new opening of opportunity ready for the taking.  Fortunately we are in a time of increased need for resourcefulness, when what we say and do about the food system will have a direct impact.  This is our moment; it is time to change the world we’ve been watching from the sidelines.

Therefore we are proud to present for your consideration Civil Eats version 2.  We hope the new site will be easier for our readers to use (and take part in), and will continue the conversation on fixing our food system, which began in October, more vibrantly.

In looking forward at the work ahead for us food fighters, Civil Eats is taking stock of the big changes we seek to push forward in the coming year.  We hope that you will find all that you need here on the site to learn about and take action on issues that are pressing in food policy.

To that end, our new year’s resolution is to keep bringing you up to date on the day to day news on food, and also to focus in on the specific barriers we face:  empowering and bringing new farmers into the fold, cooking good food economically, healthfully and sustainably, learning how to grow your own produce in whatever space you have, rebuilding our local foodways and communities and more.

And we are always looking forward to your feedback — Let us know about the issues that matter to you.  Just this morning a reader wrote me to ask about our future coverage of school lunch programs.  And I will be looking into ways to put more focus on the government programs that determines so much of the food eaten in the United States, as well as supporting stories on healthy kids.

I look forward to the coming months, and the continuing the fight to change the way we eat for the better.

Photo: Depression era quintuplets celebrate decadent birthday

Joseph helped found CFSC and has worked in the area of community food systems for more than 25 years, specializing most recently in new entry immigrant farming. I recently had the privilege of speaking to him to find out more about Comfood.

“When Comfood started in 1997, it was envisioned as a straightforward national networking vehicle on community food security topics,” said Joseph. “Now it’s become a repository for most food-related issues.” During the past ten years, it has grown from a few dozen people to nearly 2,500 subscribers and from two to three postings to 10 to 15 posts a day. Joseph believes Comfood has a certain momentum of its own; it’s spread by word of mouth and each posting includes an easy way to subscribe at the bottom.

The growth of Comfood is in sync with the growth of the sustainable agriculture movement. Joseph believes that awareness of food and agriculture issues is a reaction to the overall globalization and consolidation of our food system, which has driven small and regional farmers out of business. Joseph noted that the number of Community Supported Agriculture programs and farmers markets have doubled and tripled in the past decade. “Despite the cheap food mentality that pervades our society,” Joseph said, “More and more people are looking for alternatives and linking healthier eating with local food systems to do so.  Comfood offers interested individuals and organizations a simple way to communicate with one another about these issues.”

On any given day, subscribers will post news stories, share job postings, ask for background for research projects or share studies or ideas related to sustainable agriculture. Many subscribers reply to one another off screen, but just as many start a dialogue that is shared throughout the day, if not carried over thereafter.

“Comfood is really the e-spine of the sustainable agriculture, good food community,” said Wendy Wasserman, a consultant on good food issues and former publisher of Edible Iowa River Valley. “It’s part news service, part bulletin board, part discussion. It’s also one of the most accurate snapshots of what is happening in the community because everyone is on it—from veterans of the movement to newbies, from producers to policy wonks.”

Comfood has become more policy oriented, in part, Joseph believes, due to the increased interest in the 2007 Farm Bill, when people become aware of the issues at stake in our food and farming policy and joined the listserv as a means of gaining greater insight. The recent nomination of Tom Vilsack as USDA Secretary alone has merited several dozen postings, with individuals and organizations sharing ideas, strategy and news with one another. Comfood also helped spawn a hugely successful online petition calling on President-elect Obama to choose from a group of qualified sustainable food-stamped folks for Agriculture Secretary and Under Secretary.

While it’s unclear to Joseph whether the listserv can influence policy, he believes its greatest success is building awareness, engendering grassroots work and connecting the vast network of sustainable food foot soldiers. “I’m so grateful to the Comfood listserv for giving the good food movement’s movers and shakers a forum where we can exchange ideas and information, and keep up with the latest news and developments on the issues near and dear to our hearts,” said Kerry Trueman, co-founder of Eating Liberally and regular contributor to Huffington Post, Open Left, Alternet and Air America. “Thanks to my fellow Comfoodies, I know I’ll never miss a great editorial or ag-related article—I think of it as food-for-thought security.”

Whether and how Comfood evolves could be up to the subscribers who read the daily postings.  Joseph said a survey is in the works to determine the best way for the listserv to move forward.  Comfood members have a certain pride in subscribership and sense of belonging to a community that cares about the future of food in this country.  If you’re a subscriber to Comfood, share your story with us by commenting below!

One of our own Slow Food Nation bloggers (and chef extraordinaire), Aaron French, wrote a piece for northern California’s public radio station, KQED. His piece, which was written for KQED’s Perspectives series, aired this morning and can be heard here.

The transcript is below:

Over lunch, during a break in the Slow Food Nation festival in San Francisco, I experienced one of those moments of clarity. I started up a conversation with the owners of a vineyard in Santa Barbara County. In passing, they mentioned the endangered California Condors that are increasingly seen soaring above the ridge-line.

The largest birds in North America, Condor populations plummeted in the first part of the twentieth century. In 1987 the remaining 22 condors were brought into a captive breeding program. Now, there are more than three hundred condors, half of which have been reintroduced into the wild.

But during their 20-year recovery in captivity the condors had forgotten how to feed their young. The wild Condors were killing their chicks by feeding them bottle caps, plastic bags, and pieces of wire. They had lost their native understanding of what good and healthy food was.

And that was when I realized – we’ve done exactly the same thing.

Just like the condors, we have lost our cultural “food compass” that naturally orients us to what is most healthy. Instead, we are drawn to foods that are too sweet, too salty, or too fattening, and we’ve created a new food culture of haste and convenience.

This, in a nutshell, is what the Slow Food Nation festival was all about – repairing that “food compass” and reconnecting to the land and people involved in food production.

The question is how do we regain that knowledge we’ve lost?

In his 1989 essay. ‘The Pleasures of Eating’, farmer and writer Wendell Berry addressed the question. “What can city people do?” to reverse the decline of traditional American approaches to food and eating. Berry simply responded: learn.

“Learn the origins of the food you buy,” Berry writes, and “Learn as much as you can of the life histories of the food species.”

We need to keep our food knowledge alive, and rekindle what we have forgotten, or risk sharing the fate of the endangered condors who have lost the wisdom of what food means.

Chef / Ecologist Aaron French is passionate about the connection that food forms between humans and our environment. He has a Masters in Ecology, is the chef of The Sunny Side Cafe, and is the EcoChef columnist for ten Bay Area News Group newspapers. You can contact him at www.eco-chef.com.

Image: captpiper