In the 10 weeks since that momentous spark in mid-September, what began as an audacious protest, call to action, and singular act of civil disobedience on Wall Street, has quickly taken root worldwide. Capturing the hearts of those negatively impacted by the current economic and political system, speaking passionately for the disenfranchised, and uniting arms in solidarity with protest movements around the world, the Occupy movement has become a lightning rod and catalyst stimulating a long needed dialogue. Economic and social justice, corporate control and profiteering, and systematic corruption are just part of that discussion.

On Thursday, December 15, 2011 please join us in San Francisco for the next Kitchen Table Talks for a thought provoking and stimulating exploration of the context, implications, actions, and promise of Occupy for the food movement.

When: Thursday, December 15, 2011; 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Food and drink at 6:30 pm; Discussion at 7:00 p.m.

Where: Women’s Building, 3543 18th St. (between Valencia and Guerrero Streets), San Francisco

Tickets: $10, available at Brown Paper Tickets
A limited number of sliding scale tickets will be available on a first come, first serve basis at 7:00 p.m. on the night of the event.

Joining us in conversation will be:

Raj Patel, thought leader, writer, academic, and activist who has worked for the World Bank and WTO, and now protests against both. Raj is currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for African Studies and a fellow at The Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First. In addition to numerous scholarly publications, he regularly writes for The Guardian, and for many mainstream publications. He is the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and The Value of Nothing, is a New York Times bestseller.

Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety, is a public interest attorney, activist, and author. He has been involved in public interest legal activity in numerous areas of technology, human health and the environment for nearly 25 years. He is author of Your Right to Know: Genetic Engineering and the Secret Changes in Your Food and editor of the highly-acclaimed Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture. His articles on law, technology, social, and psychological issues have also appeared in numerous law reviews, technology journals, popular magazines, and newspapers across the country, and he has been featured in numerous documentaries including the film The Future of Food.  In 1994, the Utne Reader named Kimbrell as one of the world’s leading 100 visionaries.  In 2007, he was named one of the 50 people most likely to save the planet by The Guardian-U.K.

Sarah Treuhaft, Associate Director, Policylink. Sarah collaborates with local and national partners on research and action projects and authors policy briefs and reports to advance Policylink’s social equity mission. Sarah has worked on food policy and was a member of the team that successfully advocated for the creation of a national Healthy Food Financing Initiative. Her most recent publication is America’s Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model, co-authored with Angela Glover Blackwell and Manuel Pastor. Sarah was a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, West Africa.

Kitchen Table Talks is a joint venture of CivilEats and 18 Reasons, a non-profit that promotes conversation between its San Francisco Mission neighborhood and the people who feed them. Space is limited, so please RSVP. Seasonal snacks and refreshments generously provided by Bi-Rite Market and Shoe Shine Wine.

Everyone from Willie Nelson to your average Zuccotti Park resident knows that we need to see policy that reflects our national needs for good, clean, healthy, and fair food. But, how and where to get involved in a piece of legislation as complicated and entrenched as the Farm Bill? To aid in your education, we’re excited to announce a special Kitchen Table Talks on Sunday, November 6, in conjunction with the Community Food Security Coalition’s annual conference. Join us in San Francisco for a lively conversation about the Farm Bill at our new location at 18 Reasons and we’ll take a look at this important piece of legislation from national, state and local levels, and answer your questions about what the it is, where it is headed and how you can get involved.

When: Sunday, November 6, 2011; 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Where: 18 Reasons, 3674 18th Street (@Dolores), San Francisco

Tickets: $10, available at Brown Paper Tickets

Food and drink at 6:30 pm; Discussion at 7:00 pm
8:30/9:00 Mission Pub Crawl with Jen Dalton

Joining us in conversation will be:

Kari Hamerschlag is a senior analyst with the Environmental Working Group. Kari monitors implementation of the 2008 Farm Bill and promotes policies that expand local and sustainable agriculture, increases consumption of healthy food and reduces agriculture’s negative impact on the environment. She educates and activates consumers on these issues and recently authored a comprehensive Meateater’s Guide to Climate Change and Health. Kari is a member of Oakland’s Food Policy Council and recently helped lead a collaborative effort with over a dozen groups to promote a California citizen petition and organizational sign on letter on the Farm Bill around National Food Day.

Udi Lazimy helps farmers advocate for federal policies that support organic agriculture, and currently runs the Organic Farming Research Foundation’s (OFRF) national 2012 Farm Bill Campaign to ensure that widespread public support for organic is adequately reflected in the Farm Bill. Before coming to OFRF, he ran the farmland preservation and agriculture outreach program for Cascade Land Conservancy in Seattle. Udi has also directed programming for nonprofit conservation and sustainable development organizations across the country and abroad.

Susan Kuehn is the SF Coordinator for Food & Water Watch building a grassroots coalition of SF residents, organizations and businesses around our Resolution proposing that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors support initiatives that rebuild local and regional food infrastructure, support small and medium-sized producers and ensure that they are fairly compensated by buyers, promote sustainable and urban agriculture, increase access to health food, and connect San Francisco residents with local farmers and ranchers.

Kitchen Table Talks is a joint venture of CivilEats and 18 Reasons, a non-profit that promotes conversation between its San Francisco Mission neighborhood and the people who feed them. Space is limited, so please RSVP. Seasonal snacks and refreshments generously provided by Bi-Rite Market and Shoe Shine Wine.

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.

Strawberries are tasty, sweet treats that announce spring and warmer weather. We use them in baking, cocktails, and eat them straight out of hand. As delicious as strawberries are, they are also a huge industry in California–the state is the nation’s leading producer and over 37,000 acres are set aside for strawberry production this year. They are the sixth most valuable fruit crop in California, with an approximate value of $2.1 billion.

Because they are such an enormous part of California’s agricultural economy, strawberries are also a microcosm of many issues facing the industry, especially the proposed use of highly toxic chemicals like methyl iodide and the labor, health, and safety issues that accompany it.

Called “one of the most toxic chemicals on earth,” methyl iodide remains a pesticide that is used in growing strawberries. A carcinogenic toxin, it is harmful to farm workers and the communities surrounding the strawberry fields themselves.  While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved methyl iodide for use in 2007, it wasn’t until December 2010 that outgoing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger controversially approved its use in California over the vehement protest of many scientists, and more than 53,000 public comments.

Join us on Wednesday, April 6, at Viracocha in San Francisco, for the next installment of Kitchen Table Talks. We’ll gather to discuss this important issue and some of the many related and critical issues facing agriculture in California.

Joining us in our panel for the discussion will be:

Sam Mogannam, owner of Bi-Rite, a neighborhood market in the Mission district of San Francisco renowned for the care and consideration invested in its sourcing practices. Sam is uniquely versed in local farmers and their growing methods and will share his insight into why he chooses organic strawberries and what he looks for when buying them.

Dana Perls, Community Organizer for the Central Valley and Bay Area region at Pesticide Watch.  Dana will tell us about the methyl iodide fight and how she believes we should help push Governor Brown to overturn the previous administration’s decision.

Brett Melone, the Executive Director of the Agriculture & Land-Based Training Association (ALBA). The Salinas/ Watsonville area is the largest grower of strawberries in the state, and ALBA is in the middle of the action. ALBA helps to generate opportunities for farm workers, by empowering them through training for their roles as pickers, crop growers, to farmers market vendors and has fostered 40 new farmers through their Farm Incubator Program. Many of those farmers grow strawberries.

Ryan Casey from Blue House Farm, a certified organic farm located on the San Mateo Coast in Pescadero. The farm grows a diversified assortment of fresh produce, fruit, and flowers and is committed to providing delicious, seasonal, local foods to the peninsula region. Ryan will discuss the realities of growing and selling organic strawberries in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Viracocha, 998 Valencia Street @ 21st Street, San Francisco

Food and drink at 6:30 p.m.; Discussion at 7 p.m.

Kitchen Table Talks is a joint venture of CivilEats and 18 Reasons, a non-profit that promotes conversation between its San Francisco Mission neighborhood and the people who feed them. Space is limited, so please RSVP. A $10 suggested donation is requested at the door, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Sustainable food and refreshments will be provided, courtesy of Bi-Rite Market and Shoe Shine Wine.

Two million young people—many of them from rural backgrounds—have served in the U.S. military since the attacks of 9/11. These veterans are facing extremely hard times, with very high rates of unemployment. Farming can be their ticket to a bright future and they could help solve our nation’s severe shortage of new farmers.

Join us in conversation with Michael O’Gorman, a pioneering organic farmer who leads the Farmer-Veteran Coalition. He will bring a few veterans with him and share a preview of the program he will deliver at the 2011 Eco-Farm conference (The Ecological Farming Association’s Annual Conference).

When: Monday, January 24
Food and drink at 6:30 p.m.; Discussion at 7 p.m.

Where: Viracocha, 998 Valencia Street @ 21st Street, San Francisco

Kitchen Table Talks is a joint venture of CivilEats and 18 Reasons , a non-profit that promotes conversation between its San Francisco Mission neighborhood and the people who feed them. Space is limited, so please RSVP. A $10 suggested donation is requested at the door, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Sustainable food and refreshments will be provided, courtesy of Bi-Rite Market and Shoe Shine Wine.

Last week, Kitchen Table Talks gathered in San Francisco to discuss “The Meat of the Matter”: How our food system is structured to support industrial animal production and what alternative solutions exist, including reducing our meat consumption and supporting sustainable ranchers. We also heard new data underscoring meat’s deleterious environmental effects.

Leading us in conversation was Kari Hamerschlag, a Senior Agriculture Analyst working in the Environmental Working Group’s California office, who explained how she came to work on this subject 25 years ago after reading Francis Moore Lappé’s Diet for a Small Planet: “I was struck by the information in the book about the massive resources—water, fertilizer and pesticides, and fuel that goes into growing the feed that goes into producing a pound of beef and how highly inefficient and environmentally harmful the process is to get the protein we need,” Hamerschlag said. “Lappé argued convincingly to me that it would be much better to use at least some of those resources to grow food for hungry people rather than for animals.” She was so inspired that when she graduated from college, she drove cross-country and went to work for Lappé’s institute—Food First.

In Hamerschlag’s view, Lappé’s arguments are now more relevant than ever as meat production is central to a growing global water, energy, climate change—and food crisis. Next year, EWG will publish a “Meateaters’ Guide to Climate Change and Health,” which will quantify the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) associated with a typical serving of beef or pork or chicken—from the production of the fertilizer to the processing, transport and cooking, and waste of that product—so that the public can understand with greater certainty how changes in our individual diets affect the planet.

Bottom line: Eat lower on the food chain. Factory farmed lamb and beef, have the highest GHG impact—more than twice that of pork and chicken and more than five times that of veggie proteins—like beans, lentils and tofu, which have very low emissions. Cheese consumption has the third largest impact, when compared by weight. Waste accounts for about one-third of overall emissions associated with a pound of beef or chicken. “This is because a tremendous amount of resources go into producing wasted food which then ends up in the landfill generating additional methane,” Hamerschlag said. “Besides reducing our demand, reducing waste would be the other critical thing we need to do as a society to combat climate change and reduce the negative impact of agriculture.”

Hamerschlag explained the myriad problems with industrial animal agriculture: Nearly 149 million acres (or half of all crop land) is used for growing animal feed for U.S. livestock. Roughly 17 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer is needed to grow the feed—which generates nitrous oxide, a GHG 300 times as potent as carbon dioxide. “The pesticides and fertilizers often end up as runoff which pollutes our groundwater and waterways,” she said. “We now have a ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico the size of New Jersey—where no marine life can live due to the lack of oxygen, largely a result of the phosphorous and nitrogen fertilizer used for grain production. And all of this grain is subsidized with our tax dollars—$45 billion worth over the past 10 years.”

Animals also generate huge amounts of manure, which creates nitrous oxide and methane, a GHG gas 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide. “Iowa’s 5,000 confined hog facilities generate over 50 million tons of raw waste or 16.7 tons of animal manure for every resident,” she said. “But unlike human waste, waste from animals is not generally regulated and the manure, which is either stored or spread on the fields, can leach all kinds of pollutants—such as antibiotics, metals like arsenic and selenium, and especially nitrogen and phosphorous directly into groundwater that affects drinking water.”

Hamerschlag noted that the meats that are most energy intensive are also worse for our health and may be contributing to the increased burden of chronic and acute disease in the U.S. Between 1950 and 2007, per capita meat consumption in the U.S. increased an astounding 78 pounds per person per year and world meat consumption is expected to double by 2050. The health consequences from the overconsumption of meat—obesity, coronary heart disease, and cancer—are now well documented. In addition, the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in animals (70 percent of all antibiotics used in America are used in meat production) is also posing a serious threat to human health.

Kim O’Donnel, a trained chef, longtime journalist, and the author of the new book, The Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook, took the conversation from the theoretical to the personal: She grew up eating meat at every meal (her mother gave her T-bone steaks to gnaw on when she was teething as a baby), battled high cholesterol, and lost her father to a heart attack when he was 37. Her mother is now with a partner who loves meat and who has had several heart attacks.

O’Donnel explained the importance of reducing meat consumption for health, personal, and environmental reasons and said she wrote the book for her mother’s partner and for others, the hypothetical “Mr. Sausage”—the person who can’t imagine not eating meat every day, several times a day. “The idea is that you can still have your meat—still have your T-bone if you want it,” she said. “But I wanted to give creative, delicious ways for meat eaters, like myself, to take at least one day off a week from eating meat. And once you start, you feel better and your body will thank you.” She noted that reducing meat consumption by just 15 percent is good for your health and the planet.

O’Donnel’s own journey crystallized when the environmental impacts of meat eating were made clear in the 2006 United Nation publication, Livestock’s Long Shadow. “I was struck by a comment made by Nobel Peace Prize winner and UN climate expert Rajendra Pachauri that one of the most important things you can do to help the planet is not trade in your gas guzzler for a Prius, but go meat-free once a week,” O’Donnel said.

Her book has 52 menus (one for each week of the year), organized seasonally. She eats meatless several times a week and noted that even her mother is cooking less meat-centric meals. “I want people to get into the kitchen and put these ideas into practice,” O’Donnel said. “A little bit at a time and we can chew a little bit less meat.” Noting that one of the most well-known of meat-eaters, Bill Clinton, has recently professed his new plant-based diet, O’Donnel explained the trend around eating less meat and the growth of Meatless Monday, an initiative of Healthy Monday and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

From eating less meat, to eating “better” meat, Marissa Guggiana, the author of Primal Cuts: Cooking with America’s Best Butchers and president of Sonoma Direct, a family business providing sustainably raised meats, explained the importance of supporting small, sustainable ranchers, such as California’s Marin Sun Farms and Prather Ranch. She explained the expense and complication of raising and slaughtering meat and how local cattle ranchers must rely on the Bay Area’s last remaining slaughterhouse, Rancho Veal in Petaluma, built 80 years ago, or send their meat off to a larger Midwest slaughterhouse.

Guggiana detailed how in the last 20 years, slaughterhouses have consolidated (from 1976 to 1996, the number of federally inspected plants processing beef decreased by more than half), and have grown from facilities that killed fewer than 100,000 animals a year to ones that are designed to kill 10 times as many. “Doing less bad is different than doing good,” Guggiana pointed out, referring to the current status of slaughterhouses. “The USDA sees the need for more affordable and expandable infrastructure and has created guidelines for mobile slaughter units, after seeing the success of many, like the Island Grown Farmers Cooperative in Washington state,” Guggiana noted.

A lively conversation ensued about the importance of supporting local ranchers and what “sustainable” ranching means by learning to ask meaningful questions from retailers: Who grew this livestock? Where was it raised? What did it eat? How was it treated? Was it purchased from the farmer or aggregated by a middleman? And of course: Was it treated with non-therapeutic antibiotics? (Guggiana also wrote this guide to understanding some meat labels out there, such as “free range” and “grass fed.”) The question of ethical eating of meat was raised and folks brainstormed ways to bring the meatless message to a wider audience—especially those outside of the Bay Area—and how to support farmers. One participant suggested a “Farmer Friday” along the lines of Meatless Monday.

In the end, all three panelists gave timely recommendations for direct action. O’Donnel urged everyone to keep it simple and take incremental steps, and if you live alone, to cook with others. Guggiana noted that it’s important to enjoy eating and slow down and taste your food, while learning how food was made. “When you taste non-industrial meat, you’ll want to support ranchers who’re doing the right thing, and be willing to pay a higher price and eat it less often,” she said.

Hamerschlag ended by noting that changing our consumption is important, but changing our policies would have an even greater impact. “We need to reduce subsidies for animal production by reforming the subsidy system that underwrites feed production and when farmers do get subsidies, they need to play by certain environmental rules to protect the soil and water,” she said. “We need to elect politicians who have the courage to enact and enforce climate change policy. But when our politicians don’t listen, we need to lead by example. Not everyone can buy a Prius—or put solar panels on their homes—but we all can reduce our meat and dairy consumption and go meatless on Mondays, and perhaps on Thursday and Fridays, as well. Besides helping the climate and our environment, it’s good for our health, our waistlines, and our pocketbooks.”

Photo: Skinnyde via flickr

Industrial animal agriculture and meat production and consumption have become central issues of our time. Between 1950 and 2007, per capita meat consumption in the U.S. increased an astounding 78 pounds per person per year and world meat consumption is expected to double by 2050. The health consequences from the overconsumption of meat—obesity, coronary heart disease, and cancer—are now well documented.

The 2006 United Nation publication, Livestock’s Long Shadow articulated the environmental impact of industrial animal production—and a new study further estimates that livestock farming on its own—disregarding all other human activity—could negatively tip the balance for climate change and habitat destruction by mid-century.

Between the serious environmental and public health and food safety issues associated with Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)—known for their disregard for animal welfare, misuse of pharmaceuticals, pollution and mismanagement of waste, and concentrated corporate ownership; the importance of alternatives such as sustainable ranching; and the debate as to whether we should eat meat at all, lies an important conversation worth having regarding our role in meat’s global and local impact.

Join us for the next Kitchen Table Talks in San Francisco on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 to discuss “The Meat of the Matter,” where we will engage our community in a thoughtful discussion about this personal and very political issue. We will talk about how our current food system is structured to support industrial meat production, share new data underscoring meat’s deleterious environmental effects, learn ways to creatively reduce our meat consumption, and offer some alternative solutions to the industrial food system.

Joining us in conversation will be Kari Hamerschlag, a Senior Agriculture Analyst working in the Environmental Working Group’s California office. Prior to working with EWG, Kari worked for many years as a sustainable food policy consultant in the Bay Area, including a year long stint running a Farm Bill campaign for the California Coalition for Food and Farming.

Also joining us will be Kim O’Donnel, a trained chef, longtime journalist, and the author of the new book, The Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook. Formerly of The Washington Post, Kim has also written for many other publications and will begin writing a regular column for USA Today in November. She’s also a regular contributor to Culinate, where she hosts a weekly chat. In her work, Kim combines reportage and analysis on where and how our food is raised and grown with practical tips and advice on the kitchen life. Kim is also the founder of Canning Across America, a collective dedicated to the revival of preserving food.

Marissa Guggiana is the author of Primal Cuts: Cooking with America’s Best Butchers ; president of Sonoma Direct, a family business providing sustainably raised meats; and the co-founder of The Butcher’s Guild, a new organization to promote the art and interests of America’s sustainable butchers. Marissa is an editor of Meatpaper, a fellow with Roots of Change , and also sits on the board of Ag Innovations Network, an NGO that facilitates communication for stakeholders in regional food systems.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Viracocha , 998 Valencia Street @ 21st Street, San Francisco

Food and drink at 6:30 p.m.; Discussion at 7 p.m.

Kitchen Table Talks is a joint venture of CivilEats and 18 Reasons , a non-profit that promotes conversation between its San Francisco Mission neighborhood and the people who feed them. Space is limited, so please RSVP. A $10 suggested donation is requested at the door, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Sustainable food and refreshments will be provided, courtesy of Bi-Rite Market and Shoe Shine Wine.

Photo: Martin Gommel

It’s a figurative time of reckoning for global biodiversity. In 2002, 188 hopeful nations gathered together for the Convention on Biological Diversity and launched a global initiative to set biodiversity targets for the next eight years. The countries assembled in response to the relentless loss of life, now well documented, across many biological kingdoms, and gathered as a concerned community with the noblest of goals: to reduce the alarming rate of biodiversity loss as “a contribution to poverty alleviation and for the greater benefit of all life on Earth.” In a similar vein, in 2006, the United Nations General Assembly, declared 2010 the “International Year of Biodiversity.”

How effective has all of that attention by the global community been the past few years? This year, the British newspaper the Guardian, reported that a coalition of 40 conservation organizations declared the efforts of the Convention on Biological Diversity an abject failure—not only failed to stem the rate of decline, but that “pressures on the natural world from development, over-use and pollution have risen since the ambition was set in 2002.”

Across the world, urban landscapes are on their own evolutionary path: meandering towards sameness, banality, regression to the mean and sterility of race, class, and vice. Driven by the destructive need for empire-building by an elite few, endorsed by their legislative hosts, cheered on by sycophant mainstream media, and fueled by the feckless capital, exhaustion and apathy of the masses, the beat somehow manages to go on. At least there remains a beat, for now. It is the monotony of desire, it seems.

In food and agriculture, diversity loss continues unabated, ominous soil erosion and water contamination threats build, islands of food scarcity persist, and the menace of industrial ag looms larger than ever. Even those prescient and selfless souls who sacrificed for the greater good and managed to plan for an uncertain future are increasingly under attack: the Iraqi national seed bank was destroyed during the war, and now the world’s first seed bank, in Russia, which has the largest field collections of fruits and berries from 40 countries, is threatened by developers.

To highlight just one example of the ongoing devastation of biodiversity at the core: in the U.S. alone, as recently as the 1800s, there were upwards of 7,100 distinct varieties of named apples (fueled in part by our national obsession with hard cider). Today, it is estimated that fewer than 300 remain. The rest are considered “extinct.” Consider what has/will happen to the following apples, likely unknown to many:

“Flower of Kent”: Isaac Newton’s apple tree, circa 1629;
“Newtown Pippin”: dating to 1759 in Queens. Named New York City’s official apple in 2004;
“Yellow Newtown Pippin”: reportedly a favorite of George Washington;
“Esopus Spitzenburg”: reportedly a favorite of Thomas Jefferson;
“Lady Apple/ Pomme d’Api”: two inches in diameter. Perhaps the oldest known variety, dating back to Roman times. Spectacular aroma when ripe;
“Reinette Simirenko”: Russian cosmonauts took this apple into space;
“Woolman’s Long Pippin”: named after the famous Quaker preacher and abolitionist John Woolman;
“Porter”: singled out in Fanny Farmer’s cookbook as best apple for apple pie;
“Gravenstein”: was lifeblood of Sebastopol, CA through 1970s. Many regard among best tasting;
“Westfield Seek-No-Further”: reportedly another Thomas Jefferson favorite; and
“Cox’s Orange Pippin”: classic British dessert apple.

To discuss a tiny element of biodiversity in our foodshed and highlight some of the stalwart growers, producers, and nursery folk who dedicate themselves, against the odds, to preserving what remains, more than 70 San Francisco Bay Area community members came together at Viracocha, for another gathering of the Kitchen Table Talk series. “Heirloom” fruit—whether descended directly from family, or a non-commercial, long lost cultivar from the distant past—is a small, but meaningful, part of sustaining communities in Sebastopol, the Santa Clara Valley, and the Central Coast of California.  Heirloom fruit, as with most heirloom crops, are not just necessary for our ability to adapt to climate change, but they are also testaments to our diverse culture and shared heritage, while providing nutrition, visual delights, and spectacular unparalleled flavor.

Edward Bunyard, a nurseryman at the turn of the last century, wrote of the nectarine in 1934: “The peach came as we now know from China, but where and when it produced that happy freak, the nectarine, we know not.” Perhaps the real freak is not the nectarine, but the world’s second most cultivated fruit—the plum. In Japan, plums have managed to symbolize both “happiness” and “chastity” at once. A trick of another sort to be sure.

It was no surprise then that San Francisco played host to a celebration and show of support for those who are laboring against the odds on behalf of the “freaks,” in order to preserve diversity. Joining the conversation were: Terry Harrison, who for 20 years, together with his wife Carolyn, sold thousands of apple and pear trees for their Sonoma Antique Apple Nursery (now known as Trees of Antiquity); Bryce Austin, of Austin Heritage Fruit Ranch, who proudly grows plums, apricots, and avocados on the same land in Guerneville that his great grandfather homesteaded in 1862; and Casey Havre, of Loulou’s Garden and Lagier Ranches, who literally preserves heirloom fruit in many ways—all of them delicious.

Terry began by educating folks on the means of propagating fruit, explaining that fruit trees are not “true to seed,” remarking that, “those of you who have children understand this phenomena.” While Terry spoke, attendees tasted, many for the first time, spectacular “Fay Elberta” and “Baby Crawford” peaches from Andy Mariani’s unique orchard in Morgan Hill.

Bryce shared a personal story of the loss of his father when he was nine, and subsequent trial by fire amidst family orchard blocks named “Spring Orchard,” “Pea Patch Orchard,” “Above the Barn Orchard,” and the “French Orchard,” among others. He spoke of his mother, known in town as “the Apricot lady,” of long summers working in the orchard for money to buy clothes, and 100-year-old apricot and prune trees with unsurpassed flavor. While Bryce spoke, attendees enjoyed tasting his delightful “French Prunes,” “J.H. Hale” and “Rio Oso Gem” peaches, and amazing “Elephant Heart Plums” from Dry Creek Peach and Produce in Healdsburg.

Casey shared her connection to the land, the exceptional fruit of Lagier Ranches, and her personal journey as a child watching her mother and a dear friend and neighbor, Mrs. Volgaletti, preserve food. She poignantly noted that in those days, canning was “food for the poor,” done as much out of necessity as for taste. In contrast, at the time, they longed to “live better, electrically.” A recent trip to Slow Food International’s Terra Madre event reinforced Casey’s desire to cull from her land, and allow the unique expressions of the heirloom fruit and soil to speak for themselves. While she spoke, folks tasted her delicious Quince Jelly, rare “Bronx Grapes,” and “PawPaws” from Lagier Ranches, and “Hubbardson Nonesuch” and “Gravenstein” apples from Devoto Gardens in Sebastopol.

All of the speakers touched upon the blemishes that hinder the more widespread enjoyment of heirloom fruit today: their increased cost and attendant difficulty in growing, picking, storing, and transporting, and the all too common surface blemishes that stand in stark contrast to commercial, green harvested, “perfect” fruit from beyond.

In this year of biodiversity, I proudly stand, with all others in the Kitchen Table Talks community, alongside the tarnished, the squat, the misshapen, the unsightly, and the dappled. Our simple secret—that when you peel back the surface, ever so gently, you will see random and mesmerizing colors, smell ethereal and memory laden perfumes, and taste your wondrous new destiny. In short, “heirloom” fruit is life. And life is beautiful.

To find out more about additional ways to protect biodiversity and support heirloom fruit growers:

Slow Food Foundation’s Ark of Taste
Gravenstein Presidium
Pacific Coast Farmers’ Market Association
California Rare Fruit Growers
The Arboreum Company
Austin Heritage Fruit Ranch: Healdsburg Farmers’ Market most Tuesdays and Saturdays
Crane Family Melon Barn
Apple Hill Growers Association
Central Coast Farm Trails
Brentwood Farm Trails
Devoto Gardens
Van Dyke Ranch
Blossom Bluff Orchards
Masumoto Family Farm
Gabriel Farm
Woodleaf Farm
Tory Farms
We Love Jam
Blue Chair Fruit
Forage Oakland

Photo: Eric Cohen

Whether you are a home gardener preserving tradition, an ecologist maintaining bio diversity, an activist protesting industrial ag, or a foodie in search of distinctive flavor, there are plenty of reasons to save, support, and savor “heirloom” varietals. 
Controversy surrounds the meaning of the word “heirloom” itself; some contend that it refers to a cultivar that has been propagated for a certain length of time, while others cite a requirement that the varietals must have been passed down through generations within a family.

Like the fruit itself, any blemishes on the surface of these “heirloom” varietals pale in comparison to the unquestionable benefits that we can easily agree on: these edible treasures bear a connection to our shared history, preserve genetic diversity, and reveal incomparable flavor. Sadly, relentless development and economic and industrial ag pressure have greatly reduced the old stone fruit orchards of the Santa Clara Valley and the Gravenstein apple orchards of Sonoma County. With that has come a dramatic loss for countless families, communities, and the varietals themselves.

Join us for the next Kitchen Table Talks in San Francisco on Tuesday, August 31, where we will meet a some of the stalwart growers, producers, and nursery folk who dedicate themselves, against the odds, to preserving what remains. We will also be tasting the unique fruit of their labors, including apples, peaches, plums and the “poor man’s banana.”

Joining us in conversation will be Terry Harrison, who founded the Sonoma Antique Apple Nursery (now Trees of Antiquity) in 1980 with his wife Carolyn. Starting with 20 varieties that Terry’s mom and dad liked, it eventually blossomed after 22 years into more than 100 heritage apple varieties and 25 varieties of pear trees. They are proud to have helped preserve many rare varieties by selling thousands of trees throughout the U.S. Terry is a former member of the board of directors of California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), and is currently the President of the North Coast Chapter of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF).

Bryce Austin of Austin Heritage Ranch is proud to be farming part of the same land that his great grandfather homesteaded in 1862. Now called the “French Orchard,” it includes over 200 trees, among them rare prune, apricot, and fig trees—among many others. His spectacular fruit, from his unique orchard at 1,000 feet elevation, can be found at the Healdsburg Farmers’ Market on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Casey Havre is a fourth generation Californian who preserves the recipes and traditions of her Gold Rush ancestors. After years of gleaning, canning, and sharing the bounty of each season with her friends and family, she created Loulou’s Garden, a small company dedicated to producing entirely hand-made jams, preserves, and pickles. She and her husband John Lagier split their time between their organic farm, Lagier Ranches, in the San Joaquin Valley and Casey’s family’s house in Calaveritas, a legendary ghost town in the Mother Lode.

Tuesday, August 31

Viracocha, 998 Valencia Street @ 21st Street, San Francisco

Food and drink at 6:30 p.m.; Discussion at 7 p.m.

Kitchen Table Talks is a joint venture of CivilEats and 18 Reasons, a non-profit that promotes conversation between its San Francisco Mission neighborhood and the people who feed them. Space is limited, so please RSVP. A $10 suggested donation is requested at the door, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Sustainable food and refreshments will be provided, courtesy of Bi-Rite Market and Shoe Shine Wine.

On a recent Tuesday evening, a group of thinkers and food lovers gathered to hear a farmer and a fisherman talk about water. The occasion was the latest in the Kitchen Table Talks series, and it took place in the basement of Viracocha in the Mission district. Contrary to the how the media often portrays such things, the farmer and the fisherman were in agreement.

Like most conversations about water in California, the evening focused around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the West Coast’s largest ― and some say most important ―inland river delta and estuary.

The farmer in attendance was Brett Baker who, along with his father Chuck Baker, farms pears on a small island in the Delta called Sutter Island. He’s also a biologist and has worked as a water and agricultural policy analyst. Brett readily admits that farming on the Delta, at the scale his family does, sets him apart from many in the agriculture industry.

“It’s convenient to draw that line between farmers and fishermen,” he told the audience. “But there are several classes of agriculture in the state; there are small family farmers—my family lives on and farms around 30 acres—and on the opposite end of the spectrum you have farms, like the kind you see on I-5, that stretch for miles.” Many of these large corporate farms, he pointed out, “are set up as tax shelters for larger companies” and often see water as just another line item in the larger drive to make a profit ― rather than a precious life-giving resource.

The fisherman speaking that night, Mike Hudson, agreed. Hudson is the president of the Small Boat Commercial Salmon Fishermen’s Association and former executive director of SalmonAid. He also owns Hudson Fish Company, a company that sells fresh local fish at several East Bay farmers markets.

Like many area fishermen, Hudson believes that without leaving more water in the Delta, we’re unlikely to see a healthy population of salmon return. “Just a few years ago, our fleet of fishermen went out and caught close to two million salmon, and close to a million fish went back up the river,” Mike recalled. But, as the amount of water exported from the Delta went up, the number of fish went down – dramatically. Now, he says, the number of salmon returning to the Sacramento River tributaries is down to only 50,000 fish.

“Through the 90s,” Mike said, “around 4.5 million acre-feet of water were exported every year.” [An acre-foot is acre of land covered by a foot of water.] In the early 2000s, that was ramped up to 6 million acre-feet a year.” That change, he says, is a direct cause of the lack of salmon and has put an ecosystem in danger.

Both speakers agree: it’s important to keep a healthy amount of water flowing through the Delta. A recent study by the California State Water Resources Control Board echoes this sentiment. Currently around half of the snowmelt and rain that flows into the Delta watershed every year moves out into the Bay. In order for a healthy ecosystem to exist, 75% of the water should be making it out to the bay.

The two men are concerned about an 11 billion dollar water bond proposed in Proposition 18 that will be likely be voted on* this November. While the bond reads like a promising move forward in the efforts to manage water in the state, both men feel that what little conservation efforts it includes are largely outweighed by the advantages it offers to a few very large agriculture businesses.

At the center of the projects the bond would fund is a peripheral canal, or a man-made pipeline that would route water around the Delta from a more northerly section of the Sacramento River. Not only would such a canal be costly to the state, but it would allow more salt water from San Francisco Bay into the Delta. “It could have a devastating effect on all of the small farms that have existed in the Delta for generations,” said Baker.

Another big concern both men shared was the fact that the water bond (which would cost Californians $800 million in annual debt payments for the next 30 years) sets aside $3 billion towards water storage projects – with a preference to dams. The bond would allow private corporations to be part owners of these dams and to re-sell the captured water to developers for a profit. An example the advocates point to [PDF] is something called the Kern Water Bank. The water bank was initially funded publicly, and was built using public funds, but is now owned by Paramount Farms, a project of the billionaire business man Stewart Resnick and his wife Lynda (owners of POM, Fiji Water, Teleflora and millions of acres of almond and pistachio orchards).

In the end, both farmer and fisherman agreed that the issue of water in California is less about agriculture versus fishing than it is about big business versus public interest.

To learn more about water bond, read Governor Schwarzenegger’s break down here or visit Food and Water Watch’s No On The Water Bond for the opposing view. Or read an op-ed from the United Farm Workers here.

*There is a chance that a vote on the bill may be delayed until 2012.

Originally published in the weekly CUESA E-Letter