Growing Power on Milwaukee Renaissance

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Official Growing Power Web Site…

http://www.growingpower.org

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What’s growing at the White House?

By Ellen Goodman: July 4, 2008
SCARBOROUGH, Maine

IT HAS BEEN decades since that famous forager Euell Gibbons reached through the White House fence and picked four edible weeds out of the president’s garden. This is not something that the Secret Service would recommend you try today.

But Roger Doiron has a better plan for eating the view of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. He’s started a campaign to get a kitchen garden growing on the White House lawn.

Doiron works out of his small Cape house in Maine, where I find him one summer day. A wasp-thin 41-year-old, he’s part of the fastest-growing - I used the word literally - movement in the country. His organization, Kitchen Gardeners International, is one link in a loose chain of partisans who are neither conservatives nor liberals but locavores. They want to think global, eat local. Very local. As in their front and backyard.

He shows me the lawn sign that expresses his politics: “1,500 Miles, 400 Gallons, Say What?” It’s a reference to the average miles food travels to your plate and the gallons of fuel used in its migration. It’s not the sexiest slogan, but kitchen gardeners are probably as passionate about vegetables as Republicans are about tax cuts.

Doiron spent a decade with a grass-roots environmental group in Europe. After returning to his hometown in 2001, he became a lettuce-roots environmentalist. As head of Kitchen Gardeners International, he also walks the walk, showing me 50 varieties of vegetables he grows for his family of five on about a sixth of an acre. Memo to other amateurs: You will be pleased to know that Doiron’s garden also has weeds.

The appeal of kitchen gardens - food you grow for the table - has been increasing pretty steadily. Taste bud by taste bud. But this year, a harmonic or maybe disharmonic convergence of factors led to a giant leap in the number of grow-it-yourselfers.

For one thing, there’s the rising cost of food - 45 percent worldwide in two years. There’s also the rising consciousness about the carbon footprint on your dinner plate. There is, as well, recognition of an international food shortage and moral queasiness about biofuels, growing corn to feed cars while people are going hungry. Meanwhile, we’ve had more uncertainty about food safety, whether it was spinach in 2006 or this year’s tomatoes. And the floods that ruined millions of acres in the Midwest have undermined our easy sense of plenty.

“When people feel they are living in uncertain times, they turn to things that give them a sense of security,” says Doiron. “There are not many sure things but if you put a few seeds in the ground and you don’t muck it up too much you’ll get a crop.” As proof he stands beside a neat patch of potatoes.

He adds, “Don’t do it because it’s the cheap thing to do or because Al Gore said it’s the right thing to do. Do it to make a small yet concrete step. You may not be able to single-handedly take on Exxon and Chevron but you can take on your backyard.”

In that spirit, Doiron is pushing for edible landscapes everywhere from schoolyards to governor’s mansions to empty urban plots. But Doiron set his eyes on everybody’s house, the White House.

He wants the candidates to pledge they’ll turn a piece of the 18-acre White House terrain into an edible garden. Or rather, return it into an edible garden.

After all, John Adams, the first president to ever live in the White House, had a garden to feed his family. Woodrow Wilson had a Liberty Garden and sheep grazing during the First World War. And, of course, the Roosevelts famously had their Victory Garden during World War II, a time when 40 percent of the nation’s produce came from citizen gardeners.

It’s too late for a Bush harvest, but the campaign to get the next president to model a bit of homeland food security has sprouted on Doiron’s website called EatTheView.org.

Eat the View doesn’t have the marching sound of John Philip Sousa. It doesn’t have the patriotic salience of a flag. But in dicey times, the idea of growing just a bit of your own food carries the real flavor of July Fourth. It smacks a lot of independence.

Ellen Goodman’s e-mail address is ellengoodman@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
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Farmers on YouTube

Philanthromedia, a group that produces interactive content for donors and foundations, created a short and insightful piece about the benefits of farmers’ markets. The video is available on YouTube or on Philanthromedia’s own site.

If neither of the embedded links above work with your browser, you can copy and paste the following URL to view the video. http://www.philanthromedia.org/archives/2008/06/videofarmers_markets_build_com.html.

The piece addresses how farmers’ markets improve communities, support farmers and increase access to fresh, nutritious food in cities.

Enjoy!
David

David Adler
The Food Trust
One Penn Center
1617 John F. Kennedy Blvd., Suite 900
Philadelphia, PA 19103
P(215)575–0444×120
F(215)575–0466
www.TheFoodTrust.org
Headhouse Farmers’ Market opens on May 4, 2008. More information at www.headhousemarket.org
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From State Department Cultural Attache Michael Macy…

Check out the Food For London blurb, inspired by their trip to Growing Power

The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments:
Shortcut to: http://www.usembassy.org.uk/

30 June 2008 “Food for London” : Embassy Cultivates Growing Business of Urban farming… They went to the U.S. to learn more about agriculture in America’s cities, and now they’re back and helping London boost its own farming capacity.

Food for London - Urban Farming
The four members of the UK Delegation Team to America show their recent report. The team includes (from left to right): Catherine Miller; Tony Leach; Colin Buttery; and Ben Reynolds; (back) Embassy London Assistant Cultural Attaché, Mark Lanning … more
(Embassy photo by S-J Mayhew)

Embassy News & Events
30 June 2008
“Food for London” : Embassy Cultivates Growing Business of Urban Farming

Tony Leach (left, London Parks and Green Spaces Forum) chatting with American artist/writer Fritz Haeg, whose recent book, “Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn,” describes turning barren lawns into food-bearing gardens. (Embassy photo by S-J Mayhew)

They went to the U.S. to learn more about agriculture in America’s cities, and now they’re back and helping London boost its own farming capacity. Four Britons traveled on an Embassy-sponsored small grant last year, and this year they organized a conference at City Hall focusing on agriculture policies in London.

Farming in London? Well, the city is home to more than 400 farmers, and has the potential to help feed the millions of visitors to the 2012 Olympics.

Some 200 people attended the “Food for London” conference on June 30, which attracted even Mayor Boris Johnson. Mayor Johnson bolstered the spirit of the event, saying, “I want you to know that I support you.”

Urban agriculture promotes the growing of plants and animals within city limits to provide local, organic food supplies in an era of high oil prices and rising food costs.

“Food for London” was sponsored as part of the London Festival of Architecture and was hosted by Sustain, a non-governmental organization focused on healthy food and agricultural policies.

The four members of the British team (photo) that visited the U.S.: Colin Buttery (Royal Parks, London); Tony Leach (London Parks and Green Spaces Forum); Catherine Miller (Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens) and Ben Reynolds (London Food Link Project/Sustain).

The group has compiled their research into a 42-page report, which can be found at http://www.sustainweb.org/page.php?id=432 .

For more information about the U.S. Embassy’s Cultural Affairs Small Grants Program, please visit http://london.usembassy.gov/ukpa_cultural_grants.html .

The conference was held at City Hall. The chair of the event, Kath Dalmeny from Sustain, is seen here presenting.
(Embassy photo by S-J Mayhew)
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A New City of New Orleans

Good morning, America, how are you?
Don’t you know me I’m your favorite child.
I’m the people of the city of New Orleans,
I was down but now I’m back
Let’s move it on.

I was down but now I’m back
Let’s move it on.

There’s a train they call
The City of New Orleans
Stops at cities great along the way…

Detroit, Old Milwaukee, and Chicago,
St. Louie is the last stop of the day.

And on that train a rainbow throng is gathering,
With eyes fixed on the prize of freedom,
And on that train a global village’s bloooming,
Visions of the new dawn that we’re growing,
Knowing, the human race is one.

Good morning, America, how are you?
Don’t you know me I’m your favorite child.
I’m the people of the city of New Orleans,
I was down but now I’m back
Let’s move it on.

I was down but now I’m back
Let’s move it on.
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Growing Round the Houses Paper From London International Urban Agriculture Conference

I thought you may be interested in the briefing paper that we’re launching on Monday at the ‘Growing Food for London’ conference. If you’re too eager to see it to read through the following(!), just follow this link to find the briefing paper: http://www.sustainweb.org/pdf/food_growing_&_social_housing.pdf

News Release
New food around the block
26/06/2008

Rising food prices and increased interest in healthy food, means more people are looking to grow their own. Growing Round the Houses1, a new briefing paper by Ben Reynolds of Sustain2 and Christine Haigh of Women’s Environmental Network3 (WEN), explains how social housing providers and their tenants can work together on their estates to grow food. As well giving advice on how to set up a food growing project on their estate, it describes examples such as the Spitalfields Estate Community Garden, where residents worked together to build themselves a food growing space for vegetables and herbs popular with the local ethnic minority community.

With urban allotments like gold dust, housing estates, with wide, underused green spaces are coming into their own, turning over their lawns to food growing plots. Ben Reynolds said “There’s incredible interest in growing your own food. Vegetable seed is overtaking flower seed sales for the first time. We hope this work will be the catalyst for a new dawn for urban agriculture.”

Christine Haigh, who works on WEN’s Local Food programme with women’s groups in East London, says “This paper provides inspiration and useful guidance for residents and social landlords looking to set up similar projects.”

Simon Donovan, community development manager at Tower Hamlets Community Housing4 comments, “The food growing project on the Spitalfields estate is an inspiration. Residents are talking to their neighbours, taking charge of their own space and having a pride in it. As well as cheap healthy food, there are physical and mental health benefits from the outdoor activity involved.”

The document will be launched on 30th June at the Growing Food for London conference in London[#rth5 | 5], the first time that the diverse urban agriculture communities – such as food growers, park keepers, architects and others - have been brought together in London.
ENDS

Press contact: Ben Reynolds, London Food Link project officer at Sustain, tel (work): 020 7837 1228, (mobile): 07939 202711, Ben@sustainweb.org
or Christine Haigh Local Food Project Officer at Women’s Environmental Network, tel (work): 020 7481 9004, (mobile): 07870 577934, food@wen.org.uk.

Citations
1) Growing Round the Houses: Food production on housing estate land is a joint briefing by Sustain and Women’s Environmental Network launched on 30th June 2008. Copies are available from http://www.wen.org.uk/local_food/resources.htm and here. The paper makes recommendations to social landlords, planners and developers, and residents to facilitate new food growing projects on housing estates across the country.

2) Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming represents around 100 national public-interest organisations. Sustain (a not-for-profit organisation) advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, promote equity and enrich society and culture. www.sustainweb.org

3) Women’s Environmental Network is the only organisation in the UK working consistently for women and the environment. WEN’s local food project provides training and support to groups of women growing food in urban areas. http://www.wen.org.uk/

4) Tower Hamlets Community Housing (THCH) is a Registered Social Landlord (RSL) and a Registered Charity that owns over 2,800 homes in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. http://www.thch.org/

5) The Growing Food for London conference is an all day event at City Hall, on Monday 30th June. Booking is necessary. Speakers include Tim Lang (City University), Joe Nasr (author of Urban Agriculture: Food, Jobs and Sustainable Cities), Fritz Haeg, (author of Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn) and Ian Collingwood (Middlesborough Council regeneration, and lead on the Middlesborough Urban Farming project). The event, which is jointly organised with the London Parks and Green Spaces Forum, is part of the London Festival Architecture.
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21st Century Milwaukee Helps the World Feed Itself

Not Vast Wheat Farms But Square Foot Backyard/Rooftop Worm Depositories & Food Gardens

19th century Milwaukee may have been the port
From which went forth more wheat to the wider world
From the Great Plains and Great Midwest
Than from any port heretofore in the history of humanity.

There is a lovely poster with a beautiful women
Casting wheat to the world entitled…
“Milwaukee Feeds the World.”

Perhaps the image for the 21st Century
Which may find Milwaukee helping the world’s cities
And their immediate water basins and bio-regions
Re-learning how to feed themselves…

With the help of worms and radiant waste,
Growing the finest soil for the healthiest plants,
Animals, and Humans,
Growing backyard mini-farms, community gardens,
City farmers, and liberating convivial communities.
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The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart

of the City, Reviewed and discussed here:

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/23/the-urban-homestead.html

“a delightfully readable and very useful guide to front- and back-yard
vegetable gardening, food foraging, food preserving, chicken keeping,
and other useful skills for anyone interested in taking a more active
role in growing and preparing the food they eat. I learned a great
deal about composting, self-watering containers, mulching, raised bed
gardens, vermiculture (worm composting), and raising chickens by
reading this info-dense book.”
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Food Policy Councils for Cities *updated*

CFSC’s website on food policy councils: http://www.foodsecurity.org/FPC/.
San Francisco Food Systems group: http://www.sffoodsystems.org/
Oakland’s Food System Assessment: http://oaklandfoodsystem.pbwiki.com/
Oakland’s Food Policy Council: http://www.edibleeastbay.com/pages/articles/spring2007/pdfs/oakland.pdf
Emory University Sustainable Food Initiative: http://www.emory.edu/sustainability.cfm.
Sustainable Food Policy Project: http://www.sustainablefoodpolicy.org/
Community Farm Alliance in Kentucky: http://www.communityfarmalliance.org/
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Compost Tea Eliminates Need for Pesticides or Commecial Fertilizer

Thank you so much for your article “Genetic engineering – a crop of hyperbole” on June 18! I attended the biotech convention as I am working on a book about the food crises of the 21st century. I found the presenters of sessions on genetically modified crops mostly well-meaning but extremely short-sighted. As the article pointed out, they failed to consider the other tools we have to solve the problems farmers face (such as pests or drought) - tools that are time-tested, free, and already legal. For example, a farmer can use compost tea to protect crops from extreme temperatures, drought, pests, and disease while also enhancing a crop’s ability to obtain nutrients from the soil. By using compost tea, the farmer would not need to apply pesticide or commercial fertilizer, two major sources of pollution. This is no rejection of technology as it makes use of the most advanced microbiology available.

Jill Richardson
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Agroecological Strategies for Food Security

Folks – Agroecological strategies are extremely important for reducing poverty, eliminating food insecurity, and enhancing rural livelihoods – according to the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology, available at www.agassessment.org. This was a report by 400 scientists from around the world. Mary

Mary Hendrickson, Ph.D.

Extension Associate Professor

Department of Rural Sociology

Director, Food Circles Networking Project

Associate Director, Community Food Systems and Sustainable Agriculture Program

200 Gentry Hall

University of Missouri

Columbia, MO 65211

Tele: 573–882–7463

Fax: 573–882–5127

Web: www.foodcircles.missouri.edu and www.foodandsocietyfellows.org
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Milwaukee Inspires London International Food Conference

This is a letter by Ben Reynolds, organizer of the Growing Food For London international conference, inspired by visits to Growing Power sites in the U.S.A. and the Milwaukee International Urban Agriculture Conference to a NYT reporter…

Dear Tracie,

Suported by the US Embassy, we recently organised an exchange trip with Will Allen from Milwaukee, and took a group of parks, and food growing people from the UK to look at urban agriculture projects in the states. From this we’ve produced a report showcasing some of these US projects and how they compare with the work in the UK, identifying opportunities for moving this work forward. I attach a PDF of the report - which is also available here: http://www.sustainweb.org/page.php?id=431

The response to this report has been phenomenal, with interest all across the world, particularly from the states and Canada, but also Australia, Europe, and obviously the UK. We’re organising a conference on the 30th June (http://www.sustainweb.org/page.php?id=433), bringing together a line-up of interenational speakers, and we see it as a follow up to one that was organised in Milwaukee 2 months ago. Interestingly we’ve getting a lot of interest from architects and landscape designers (the conference is part of the London Festival of Architecture) - which means that the urban food growing movement is moving beyond just the socially-environmentally aware folk (beardy-weirdy’s we call them here!) and getting out to those who are drawing up the plans of the future.

This whole issue is really high up the media agenda in the UK at the moment, with rising fuel prices and rising food prices, many people see urban ag as part of the solution. We have 10 year waiting lists for some allotment sites in London, with thousands across the capital waiting for a plot, inspired by recent TV programmes by people like celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. One of the largest seed manufacturers in the UK has stated that sales of veg seed have overtaken flowers seed for the first time.

I’m not sure it will do loads to combat climate change (which is another motivation here amongst many), but I do think that it’s inevitable that we will see urban ag having a much higher profile in cities in the UK (and probably beyond) as a way of (particularly low income communities) coping with higher food prices particularly. But with no land, we’re going to have to think outside the box for growing spaces.

Let me know if you want to discuss this in any more detail.

Ben
____________________
Ben Reynolds
Network Director
Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming
94 White Lion Street
London, N1 9PF
Tel: 020 7837 1228
Fax: 020 7837 1141
Email: ben@sustainweb.org
Web: www.londonfoodlink.org
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London Conference Agenda

Chair - Kath Dalmeny, Sustain

9.30 – 9.40 Chair’s introduction

9.40 – 11.10 Session 1 – Setting the scene

• Edible Cities: A report on visit to US Urban Agriculture projects – Colin Buttery, Royal Parks & Tony Leach, London Parks and Green Spaces Forum
• Overview on urban agriculture - Dr Joe Nasr and Dr June Komisar, Ryerson University
• Overview of urban agriculture issues in London’s urban fringe - Mark Holmes, ADAS a
• Training talk - Jonathan Pettit, LANTRA
• Panel with: Marielle Dubelling, RUAF; Andre Viljoen, Bohn & Viljoen Architects and Ben Reynolds, London Food Link

11.10 – 11.30 Tea break

11.30 – 13.00 Session 2 – Making growing economically viable

• Overview on issues for farms in the green belt; recommendations to support fringe farmers - Terry Jones, NFU
• Experiences of a fringe farmer - Peter Clarke, Kingcup Farm
• Social enterprise as a way forward - Julie Brown, Growing Communities
• Training talk - Jonathan Pettit, LANTRA
• Panel with: Tully Wakeman, EAFL and Cheryl Cohen, LFM

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 15.30 Session 3 – Expanding growing to new spaces

• Growing food in cities and food security - Tim Lang, City University
• Growing food in parks - Ian Collingwood, Councils Regeneration Consultant on the Urban Farming project
• Edible Estates, focus on Brookwood Edible Triangle - Fritz Haeg & Carole Wright, BOST
• Training talk - Jonathan Pettit, LANTRA
• Panel with: Christine Haigh, WEN (also launching joint LFL –WEN briefing on food growing and social housing)

15.30 – 15.50 Tea break

15.50 – 17.20 Session 4 - The future of community gardens, city farms & roof tops

• Roof gardens – Dave Richards, RISC
• City farms as productive land – TBC
• Funding for the future – Kelvin De Sena, Local Food fund
• Training talk - Jonathan Pettit, LANTRA
• Panel with: Tony Leach, London Parks and Green Spaces Forum; Richard Wiltshire, Kings College London and Catherine Miller, FCFCG

17.20 – 17.30 Chair’s close

Move to nearby pub for follow-up drinks and talking.
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Outpost Natural Foods Thrilled w. Rooftop Farm of Artisan Turning Urban Farmer

This comes from an organizer at Milwaukee’s Outpost Natural Foods, recently connected with Community Growers(inspired by Will Allen’s Growing Power), which connects urban artisans with urban farming. Erik Lindberg has been astonished at the yield Growing Power’s compost affords.

From Diana Sieger of Outpost:

You’re going to flip when you hear this-

146 steps across Capitol drive…then up a ladder is Outpost’s next source for sustainably raised produce.

Thursday we met Erik Lindberg from Community Growers when he brought Keith and his staff a sample of what he’s growing over there on his roof top garden.

We practically did cartwheels back to the store to tell everyone about it! (I wonder how many cartwheels it is if it’s 146 steps?)

Anyways, a million thank yous to Keith for hooking us up right away with a video interview - and photos for the signs that we’ll have in the store featuring their produce.

Erik has a little of this, a little of that as he figures out what grows best up there…we’re just feeling pretty lucky we get to help him get the word out!

Walkin’ the talk yo.
Diana

watch the video interview:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLsAUS86J7E

Growing Urban Farming Movement With Urban Artisans

The arrival in Milwaukee of the Community Growers network of artisans, artists, urban agrarians, and sustainability theorists/activists in Milwaukee suggests serious consideration be given to projects that aim to connect the urban agriculture movement with the restoration artisans and their informal guilds in our big cities.

See the front page story of this welcome development at…
http://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/Main/HomePage

Complementarity of “Talented 10%” of Restoration Trades and Urban Agriculture Movement

The “talented 10%” of our big city restoration carpenters, roofers, metal smiths, masons, and painters are predisposed to seriously consider and succeed in urban agriculture these days for many reasons.

Resources Already Possessed by Restoration Trades

• trucks and other equipment able to move lots of material, e.g. soil, composting leaves and wood chips from dumps, mountains of veggie wastes, etc.

• time-lots of down time in the restoration trades throughout the year and even during the weeks and days of the normal work season, e.g. rain days

• prodigious work ethic and quite often enormous physical stamina and power

• competence in “small is beautiful” technological innovations and “yankee ingenuity”

• backyards, empty neighborhood lots, and roof tops available for intensive growing,e .g. Milwaukee is ready to give 220 lots away gratis if our movement can demonstrate capacity

• high tolerance for handling “yucky stuff” like compost breaking down

• recent farming backgrounds in many artisanal extended families

Opportunities for “Mighty Collaborations” Right At Your Front Door!

Many of the key theorists and practitioners of the urban agriculture movement own old houses that will require them to connect with members of the restoration trades. Consider spending some time with your roofer, carpenter, mason, painter, etc., explaining and showing them the possibilities of intensive soil development with composting and worms and the high yields for use and market such rich soil in small places will afford.

Many members of the artisan class these days are migrants from rural backgrounds with farm skills yet in extended families from down south, Mexico and other Latin American countries, eastern European and Eurasian migration streams. Urban farming has great promise to fill otherwise empty time as well as offer family members of your artisan classes a means of new use and exchange value.

Connect Your Tradesmen w. Joe Jenkins, Josh Fraundorf, and Erik Lindberg

Joe Jenkins, author of “Humanure,” is the nation’s foremost authority on slate roofs, i.e. also author of “Slate Roof Bible.” Two of the founders of Milwaukee’s Community Growers, Josh Fraundorf and Erik Lindberg, will combine for a couple of million of restoration projects in 2008. All three of these leaders of the trades are deeply committed to connecting their fellow artisans with the urban and organic family farm movements.

Consider suggesting your favorite artisans send an e-mail to UrbanArtisanFarmExperiments@milwaukeerenaissance.com? to initiate a conversation that might serve them and your community greatly.

Also consider developing some grant proposals aimed directly at doing what is needed to marry the urban restoration trades with the food security movement. A number of Milwaukeeans in this effort would very much enjoy brainstorming this vision with you!

The Marriage That Made Your City Some Kind of Holy Place

Your city will start feeling like some kind of Holy City, when
On cold winter or rainy spring or hot summer days
Laid off construction workers
And retired young elders will gather veggie wastes
From every neighborhood’s food and cafe co-ops,
Brewers yeast from the finest micro breweries,
Wood chips from the city yard,
Coffee grounds from Alterra roasters all over town.

They’ll deliver this precious cargo of potency
To neighborhood gardens, edible school yards,
And emerging at-home city farms and kitchen gardens,
For composting food for a myriad of city worm ranches
And neighborhood year round food growers.

The kids in the hood will gather buckets of compost material
From just about all the neighbors,
And simultaneously deliver their block’s newsletters
Filled with images and information to promote and defend
Their increasingly connected neighbors,
On higher and higher planes.
Viva, the marriage of urban restoration artisans and the urban agrarian movement!

Godsil
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Will Allen Says “Don’t Let the Floods Get You Down!”

Pictures of Will’s Farm Before and After the Flood

A Call to All Growers:

DO NOT LOSE HOPE! GO BACK TO YOUR FIELDS AND REPLANT!

That’s what I’m going to do. Our communities need our GOOD FOOD.

My Best,
“Big” Will Allen, Chief Executive Officer

Growing Power
5500 W. Silver Spring Dr.
Milwaukee, WI 53218
Voice: 414–527–1546
Fax:414–527–1908
www.growingpower.org
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Square Inch City Farms To Change the Way We Live: Permaculture Cities!

Will Allen rightly booms forth during most of his glorious Growing Power tours…

It’s not how green is your thumb!
It’s how fertile is your soil!

And then…

Just start growing something, anything,
In any kind of pot. See what good will happen!

Community Growers Recruiting Square Inch City Farmer Apprentices

With Will Allen compost or homemade compost following Will’s methods,
A network of artist/artisan/urban farmers is giving people small hanging pots
To grow arugula for their family and friends, and, if they are ambitious,
For one of Milwaukee’s most revered family grocers, e.g. Seneks on Downer,
Which put out the call for “local organic arugula” this week.

From Pots to Plots

The hypothesis is that 100 such pots will yield one or two
Apprentice city farmers,
Once the magic is experienced.

It will also yield returns for those offering the pots,
Intrinsic and otherwise. And…

Hastening the Emergence of 10,000 Mini City Farms & Roof Top Gardens

In each of our venerable industrial cities
Becoming, by necessity, something new…

Say…

Permaculture Cities!

What say?

Godsil
Apprentice Urban Farmer
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Kitchen Gardeners International Newsletter June 2008

Enjoy: http://www.kitchengardeners.org/newsletterjune08.html

KGI Newsletter: June 2008

Contents:

Spotlight on Africa:
-Organic Agriculture Center of Kenya
-The view from Mali
-Keyhole gardens: part of the key to global food security (video)

Gardening:
-Too late to dig a garden? Think again.
-Keeping track of planting dates and times -To defeat weeds, show no mercy -Adding organic matter to your garden -Sizing up your first garden -Beans get stubborn with age -Understanding lettuce types

Food and cooking
-Kenyan-style sauteed greens
-Tomato arugula sandwich
-Frozen spinach cubes

Food systems change
-Attack of the tomatoes
-Banking on gardening
-The end of food (as we know it)?

Just for fun:
-Creative mole control (video)

Community blog posts:
-My Cretan Diet
-Why bother with a kitchen garden?

Forum discussions:
-Oil and food - the crucial link
-Intensive or not intensive?
-Does the world really need a few billion locavores?
-Blue potatoes
-Gardening laments

Featured Network Members:
-Megan, CA, USA
-Marcela & Juan, Denmark
-Barbara Ann, NY, NY

Popular videos:
-Build a self-watering container
-Making compost
-Beauty food
-History of gastronomy
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E.F. Schumacher Society and Rodale Institute’s “New Farm” Offer Insight Into How to Develop Local Food Movement

One group that has developed community programs that address some of this is the E.F. Schumacher Society in Great Barrington, MA. Check out their website. Their work is stunning. http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/

Another great source is the Rodale Institute’s publication New Farm. Under Greg Bowman’s editorship, New Farm has become a valuable resource for all of us in this movement. http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/new_farm

We need to have a conversation about what it means to “grow our movement”. In particular, I believe we need to work on ways consumers and farmers can work together to help transition existing, nearby farms into participants in emerging local food systems. This transition work, in my opinion, should extend to transitioning to organic farming practices, as well.
Again, Rodale is the leader here.

Christopher Bedford offered the above information.

CENTER FOR ECONOMIC SECURITY

1. 6543 Hancock Road

Montague, MI 49437
chrisbedford@charter.net
231–893–3937
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Small Farms Most Productive Throughout the World

“These objects of contempt are now our best chance of feeding the world”

Peasants are detested by both communists and capitalists - but when it comes to productivity a small farm is unbeatable
Read more at…http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/10/food.globaleconomy
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Cuba’s Urban Farming Program a Stunning Success

With Food Prices Soaring, Cuba’s Urban Farms Could Be A Model For The World

http://www.abcnews.go.com/International/comments?type=story&id=5024253

By NIKO PRICE Associated Press Writer
HAVANA June 8, 2008 (AP)
The Associated Press
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Sacred Soil from Sacred Grounds

I have recently been blessed with a gift to urban farmer/gardeners
By the Quaker House in Riverwest, Milwaukee, of wood chips
That have been “cooking” on their grounds for about 3 years!

The bottom of their very large pile of wood chips,
Dropped off to them gratis by the Milwaukee Department of Public Works,
Appears to this apprentice urban mini-farmer to be wonderful.
My worms love it!

The Quakers used their wood chip pile for an on-site garden
But now have so much they have offered it to people in the community.

Would it not be a good thing to encourage other spiritual communities
To have other department of public works deposit quantities of wood chips
At an appropriate place on their grounds, first for their congregation’s gardens,
And then for their neighbors’ use?

The wood chip pile could be an occasion to educate people about composting
And gardening, and connect spiritual communities with their neighbors.

Perfect Spring Morning in Milwaukee
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San Francisco Victory Garden Initiative…

A local network of home gardens = A community of food producers!

Victory Gardens 2008
(VG2008+) is a project of Garden for the Environment and the City of San Francisco’s Department for the Environment. A two-year pilot project to support the transition of backyard, front yard, and unused land into organic food production areas, Victory Gardens 2008+ derives its title from, and build on, the successful nationwide Victory Garden programs of WWI and WWII. Victory Gardens 2008+, however, redefines “Victory” in the pressing context of urban sustainability. “Victory” is growing food at home for increased local food security and reducing the food miles associated with the average American meal.

Victory Gardens 2008+ was ideated by San Francisco based artist and designer Amy Franceschini in the Fall of 2006, for which she received the 2006 SECA award from the SF MOMA. Amy Franceschini partnered with Garden for the Environment for the planting of three initial Victory Gardens, and to develop and operate a citywide Victory Gardens program in San Francisco.

Backyard Victory Gardens (Current)

In 2008, Victory Gardens will install at least 15 pilot urban organic food gardens in San Francisco. Participation in the pilot program includes a multi-year commitment to the pilot program and a specified number of public Victory Garden tour dates. Once chosen, Victory Garden staff will install, and support, each Victory Garden. Through public outreach and education programs, VG08+ aims to create a community of urban food producers. Additionally, Victory Gardens is assembling data on the location and productive potential of urban land through the program’s City Garden Registry.

You can pick up a paper copy of the Victory Gardens Application at City Hall in the Mayor’s office of Neighborhood Services, Room 160, in San Francisco.

Demonstration Victory Garden (Current)

Victory Gardens has developed a demonstration of the productive potential of small urban spaces for growing organic food at the Garden for the Environment, located at 7th Ave and Lawton Streets in San Francisco. Please stop by Wed 11AM-2PM to talk urban food with our Backyard Victory Garden Manager, Brooke Budner.

Urban Food Growing Workshops (Summer, Fall 2008)

Victory Garden and Garden for the Environment staff will host regular workshops on organic horticulture, with the specific goal of increasing gardeners’ capacity to successfully grow their own food in San Francisco’s challenging Mediterranean climate. Workshops will be targeted to the pilot program participants, however workshops will be open to the public.

City Hall Victory Garden (Summer, 2008)

During the summer of 2008, the Victory Gardens program is creating a quarter-acre, edible, ornamental landscape in front of San Francisco’s City Hall. The garden concept is a ‘Living Quilt’ of people and plants, a garden of community. In partnership with Slow Food Nation, City Slickers Farms in West Oakland, and numerous partners, we will garden, educate, and produce food for those most in need in the city. Groundbreaking is July 1st, the first community planting day will be held July 12th, the Slow Food Nation Event is August 29 – September 1st, and in mid-September the garden will be harvested, and the organic produce that we have grown over the course of the summer will be donated to the Glide Daily Meals and other City food service programs.

San Francisco Victory Garden City Farm Program (Future)

The SFVG City Farm program builds on the legacy of the Victory Gardens from the First and the Second World Wars and reinvents the original concept to meet contemporary needs – building community around local food production, providing food for the poor, mitigating the environmental impact of our current food system, and enhancing San Francisco’s food security & emergency preparedness. The project strategy is to create a network CSA model that maximizes productivity of urban lands while coordinating volunteerism and stewardship.

http://www.sfvictorygardens.org/about.html
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”Cheap Food in the City? Grow Your Own” ABC News Business Unit

City Dwellers Seeking to Save Money on Food Flock to Community Gardens

By ALICE GOMSTYN
ABC NEWS Business Unit
June 4, 2008

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=4991251&page=1
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The Rise of the ‘Locavore’ in “Business Week!”

How the strengthening local food movement in towns across the U.S. is reshaping farms and food retailing

by Pallavi Gogoi

Drive through the rolling foothills of the Appalachian range in southwestern Virginia and you’ll come across Abingdon, one of the oldest towns west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. If it happens to be a Saturday morning, you might think there’s a party going on—every week between 7 a.m. and noon, more than 1,000 people gather in the parking lot on Main Street, next to the police station. This is Abingdon’s farmers’ market. “For folks here, this is part of the Saturday morning ritual,” says Anthony Flaccavento, a farmer who is also executive director of Appalachian Sustainable Development, a nonprofit organization working in the Appalachian region of Virginia and Tennessee.

It’s a relatively recent ritual. Five years ago, the farmers’ market wasn’t as vibrant and it attracted just nine local farmers who sold a few different kinds of veggies. Today, there’s a fourfold jump, with 36 farmers who regularly show up with a dizzying array of eggplants, blueberries, pecans, home-churned butter, and meat from animals raised on the farms encircling the town. It’s a sign of the times: Hundreds of farmers’ markets are springing up all around the country. The U.S. Agriculture Dept. says the number of such markets reached 4,692 in 2006, its most recent year of data, up 50% from five years earlier. Sales from those markets reached $1 billion.

New Niches
The rise of farmers’ markets—in city centers, college towns, and rural squares—is testament to a dramatic shift in American tastes. Consumers increasingly are seeking out the flavors of fresh, vine-ripened foods grown on local farms rather than those trucked to supermarkets from faraway lands. “This is not a fringe foodie culture,” says Flaccavento. “These are ordinary, middle-income folks who have become really engaged in food and really care about where their food comes from.”

It’s a movement that is gradually reshaping the business of growing and supplying food to Americans. The local food movement has already accomplished something that almost no one would have thought possible a few years back: a revival of small farms. After declining for more than a century, the number of small farms has increased 20% in the past six years, to 1.2 million, according to the Agriculture Dept.

Some are thriving. Michael Paine, 34, who started farming in 2005 on just one acre in Yamhill, Ore., today has six acres of land and 110 families who buy his lettuce, cabbage, peppers, and eggplants. “I like to surprise my families with odd varieties of tomato or an odd eggplant variety, and they love it,” says Paine.

Patrick Robinette saw a growing interest among Americans in specialty beef, and in 2001 started raising 10 cows at Harris Acres farm in Pinetops, N.C. Soon his grass-fed beef was in high demand. He now raises 600 head of cattle and delivers beef to the North Carolina governor’s mansion. He has standing orders from 37 restaurants, three specialty stores, and six cafeterias.

Large Retailers Act
The impact of “locavores” (as local-food proponents are known) even shows up in that Washington salute every five years to factory farming, the Farm Bill. The latest version passed both houses in Congress in early May and was sent on May 20 to President George W. Bush’s desk for signing. Bush has threatened to veto the bill, but it passed with enough votes to sustain an override. Predictably, the overwhelming bulk of its $290 billion would still go to powerful agribusiness interests in the form of subsidies for growing corn, soybeans, and cotton. But $2.3 billion was set aside this year for specialty crops, such as the eggplants, strawberries, or salad greens that are grown by exactly these small, mostly organic farmers. That’s a big bump-up from the $100 million that was earmarked for such things in the previous legislation.

Small farmers will be able to get up to 75% of their organic certification costs reimbursed, and some of them can obtain crop insurance. There’s money for research into organic foods, and to promote farmers’ markets. Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said the bill “invests in the health and nutrition of American children…by expanding their access to farmer’s markets and organic produce.”

The local food movement has not been lost on the giants of food retailing. Large supermarket chains like Wal-Mart (WMT), Kroger (KR), and even Whole Foods (WFMI) depend on their scale to compete. Their systems of buying, delivering, and stocking are not easily adapted to the challenges of providing local food, which by its nature involves many diverse groups of farmers. People have gotten used to eating tomatoes and strawberries at all times of the year, and many parts of the country are too cold to produce them in the winter. Thus, even Whole Foods, which bills itself as the world’s leading retailer of natural and organic foods, has committed to buying from barely four local farmers at each of its stores.

Wal-Mart, which in the last couple of years ran a “Salute to America’s Farmers” program, says that buying from local farmers not only satisfies customers’ desires, but also fits the company’s commitment to sustainability and cutting down on food transportation. However, the company admits that local farms can never take over the produce aisle completely. “It gets complicated since not every state grows apples and lettuce, and even when they do, it doesn’t grow at all times of the year,” said Bruce Peterson, formerly Wal-Mart’s senior vice-president of perishables, in an interview 17 months ago. He has since left the company.

Broad Agenda

Nonetheless, all the giants are devoting a small but growing share of shelf space to locally bought produce. Some are even inviting the farmers into the store to promote their goods. “Obviously supermarkets don’t want to lose that business,” says Michael Pollan, author of the best seller The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Neither Wal-Mart nor Whole Foods will quantify how much business they get from locally grown food.

The very definition of “local” food presents a ceiling of sorts for successful small farmers. If they start shipping more than 250 miles or so, they cease to be local and their appeal vanishes. The optimal solution is to locate near densely populated areas, but that’s where acreage is scarce. “Land prices are very expensive around metro and urban areas, which is a barrier to entry,” says Pollan. He thinks the solution will be for farmers to look for ways to farm more varieties of food (BusinessWeek.com, 5/21/08).

The local food movement has many of the same hallmarks of the organic foods movement, which sprang up in the 1970s to place a premium on foods grown without pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. Indeed, almost all of today’s small farmers use organic techniques. But many consumers believe that organic foods, though seemingly healthy, may still damage the environment. For instance, organic fruits that are grown in Chile and Argentina and then shipped halfway around the world require fossil fuels and carbon emissions to power tankers and trucks thousands of miles. Instead of just focusing on pesticides and chemicals, consumers who have been educated by movies like An Inconvenient Truth now pore over “food miles” and “carbon footprints.” The message seems to be: If you buy organic, you care about your own body; if you buy local, you care about your body and the environment.

As more and more consumers take those values to the store with them, the impact is being felt far from the predictable centers of “green” consciousness. In Bloomington, Ind., supermarket chains such as Kroger still dominate, but an upstart called Bloomingfoods Market that specializes in local fare lately has been stealing market share. Today the cooperative has 7,000 shopping members, up from 2,000 five years ago. It works with 180 farmers to offer everything from strawberries and persimmons to squash and shiitake mushrooms. “We’re seeing a real renaissance,” says Ellen Michel, marketing manager for Bloomingfoods.

As the local food movement grows more mainstream, it’s showing up in unexpected places. Corporations such as Best Buy (BB) in Minneapolis, DreamWorks (DWA) in Los Angeles, and Nordstrom (JWN) in Seattle are providing local options in their cafeterias. “We try to purchase as much as we can from farmers in a 150-mile radius,” says Fedele Bauccio, CEO of Bon Appetit Management, which runs more than 400 cafeterias for companies like Oracle (ORCL) and Target (TGT).

Blossoming Interest
As many as 1,200 school districts around the country, from Alabama to Iowa, have linked up with local farms to serve fresh vegetables and fruit to children. Colleges such as Brown, Cornell, the University of Montana, and the University of California at Berkeley are buying from their state’s own producers. Last year, Iowa’s Woodbury County mandated that its food-service supplier buy from local farmers for places where it serves food, such as its prison and detention center.

And in hundreds of towns, people are signing up for CSAs, or community-supported agriculture organizations, where they pay a local farmer for a weekly supply of produce during the harvest season. In 2000, there were around 400 farms that had CSA programs; today there are more than 1,800 nationwide. Families typically pay a farm $150 to $650 each year in return for a weekly basket of vegetables, fruit, eggs, meat, or baked goods. In New York City, where 11,000 residents participate with 50 farms, the demand is so high that there’s a wait list. And in some inner cities, like the Bronx, a borough of New York City, organizations are training community gardeners to grow vegetables like collard greens, herbs, and beets for their community, changing food habits in the process.

“We are even teaching people how to prepare seasonal produce,” says Jacquie Berger, executive director of Just Food, a nonprofit that helps fresh-food growers sell to residents in the Bronx.

That may be less of an issue in more pastoral settings such as Abingdon. But residents of the Virginia town look forward to Saturday at the farmers’ market, mingling, passing out petitions, and letting the kids snack on berries while their parents shop for the week’s groceries in a fresh setting. “There’s a groundswell of interest not just for vegetables and fruits, but also eggs, poultry, and meat—people want it close to home, as fresh as possible, and produced sustainably,” says farmer Flaccavento.

Click here for the original article with investing links at BusinessWeek.com.
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Michael Pollan on the Farm Bill USA 2008 and Deb Eschmeyer Summary of the Same

Greetings.

I haven’t been in touch for a while, and some of you have written asking for an an update on the 2008 Farm Bill. After many, many months of wrangling, the bill was just passed by Congress, overriding a veto by the President. In my view, it is not a very good bill— it preserves more or less intact the whole structure of subsidies responsible for so much that is wrong in the American food system. On the other hand, it does contain some significant new provisions that, with luck, will advance the growing movement toward a more just, sustainable, and healthy food system.

You might rightly ask why there was so little movement on commodity subsidies, in a year when crop prices are at record highs and public scrutiny of the subsidy system has been intense. Indeed, the people on the Hill I talk to tell me they have not seen so much political activism around the farm bill in a generation. All the calls, cards, and emails sent by ordinary eaters clearly made a difference. So why so little change on the key issue? Why didn’t we get a food bill, rather than another farm bill?

Here’s what I think happened. Critics of farm-policy-as usual— and I count myself among them— did a much better job of demonizing subsidies than they did proposing alternative forms of farm support that would have won over some percentage of the farmers now receiving subsidies. The whole discourse depicting subsidies as a form of welfare — payments to celebrities, rich people in cities, mega-farms etc— convinced many farmers that the ultimate goal of the farm bill’s critics was to abolish subsidies, rather than to develop a new set of incentives that would encourage farmers to grow real food and take good care of their land. Had the reformers crafted proposals that were easy to explain and attractive to even just a segment of commodity-crop farmers, we could have made much more progress. Instead, faced with what appeared like a threat to their livelihood, the old guard hunkered down and defended the status quo, refusing even to negotiate on the central issues. Better alternatives could have split this block, and it was our failing not to devise and promote them. What the Old Guard did instead of negotiating a new system of farm support was what it has always done: pick off the opposition, faction by faction, by offering money for pet programs. The history of the farm bill has long been about such trade offs: Urban legislators support subsidies in exchange for rural support for food stamps. That Grand Bargain has now been extended to supporters of organic agriculture, local food systems, school lunch advocates, etc. The reason that, in the end, most of the activist groups wound up urging Congress to override the veto is that, by the end, they all had been given something they liked in the bill. You could put it more baldly, and suggest they’d all been bought off— that the $300-plus billion bill represents the exact price of buying off all the critics of the farm bill, plus the cost of maintaining the status quo. But this is how the game is played, and the fact is, some good will come of these programs, modest as they are— they will sow seeds of change and legitimize alternative food chains, or so we can hope.

The challenge for the next farm bill is clear: it’s not enough to engage the public, important as that is; we also have to get much smarter about both policy and politics, and craft some attractive proposals that will divide the farm block as well as move us to a healthier and more sustainable food system— economically sustainable for farmers and farm workers and environmentally sustainable. This is the project for the next few years. We’ve got our work cut out for us.

Below is a very good article summarizing what in the bill, for better and worse. It’s by Debra Eschmeyer, a farmer and activist who has been an important player in the reform movement. I pass it on with her permission. Best, Michael

Old MacDonald Has a Farm Bill

By Debra Eschmeyer

We’ve all noticed higher grocery bills, but did you know Congress passed a $307 billion farm bill in late May that has a much bigger impact on what you will eat for dinner tonight than what you chose to place in the grocery cart?

The farm bill has a hand in all that happens before the swallow. The bag of Tyson chicken wings (grain subsidies), gallon of Horizon Organic milk (forward contracting), and pound of Fuji apples (country of origin labeling) are all regulated in some fashion by this policy determining how our food is raised and who profits.

But does the massive legislation support family farmers? Increase food access in urban food deserts? Or feed the 40 million poor and hungry in the United States?

Yes and no. Reauthorized and revamped every five years, farm law has its roots in the 1930′s New Deal efforts to handle the overproduction of agricultural commodities while maintaining stable prices. Although most of the money in the current bill, around 75%, goes to nutrition programs such as food stamps, the politics of writing the bill is still driven by commodities such as corn, rice, wheat, cotton, and soybeans.

One way to interpret farm policy is to follow the money. According to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Cargill’s profits increased nearly 1000 percent from $280 million in FY1997−98 to $2.34 billion by FY2006−07. Add to that pile of profits the $35 billion in indirect subsidies that the industrial animal factories (owned and controlled by corporations like Cargill) reaped by being able to buy feed crops at 20–25 percent below the cost of production.

Farm-bloc legislators were challenged this time around to make the connection between the current farm policy’s cheap corn complex and the growing problem of diabetes and obesity. Unfortunately, prior policy plunders were not weeded out of the current farm bill. As the House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) explicitly stated that except for some “minor changes,” the new farm bill is “very much like the current law that we have been operating under.”

For those farm bill pugilists—sustainable agriculture groups, anti-hunger advocates, faith-based organizations, conservationists, community gardeners, and grassroots family farmer coalitions—that tried to have their voices heard above the industrial agriculture cacophony, the final 2008 Farm Bill is bittersweet. Bitter due to the numerous multifunctional reforms that never came to fruition while corporate agribusiness deepened their roots and sweet for the minor victories for sustainable agriculture, nutrition, and conservation.

The policies that survived through countless revisions, late night conferences, numerous listening sessions, lobbyist wrangling, and earmarks are far from the wish lists various groups envisioned. However, more than one thousand food and farm organizations came together and requested that Congress override the President’s promised veto. As stated in their joint letter to Congress:

“Communities across the nation, from urban to rural, have waited too long for this legislation. The Conference Report makes significant farm policy reforms, protects the safety net for all of America’s food producers, addresses important infrastructure needs for specialty crops, increases funding to feed our nation’s poor, and enhances support for important conservation initiatives. This is by no means a perfect piece of legislation, and none of our organizations achieved everything we had individually requested. However, it is a carefully balanced compromise of policy priorities that has broad support among organizations representing the nation’s agriculture, conservation, and nutrition interests.”

Passing through the House with a margin of 306 to 110 and the Senate 82 to 13, the votes in both chambers were far past the majority needed to defeat President Bush’s veto. Formally called the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, the 673 pages of legislative prowess represent a precarious balancing act of principles and politics.

Below are samples of positive seeds of change planted in the new Farm Bill:

• Community Food Projects and Geographic Preferences: The new Farm Bill provides $5 million in mandatory annual funding for innovative Community Food Projects for matching grants to community groups building sustainable local food systems addressing hunger, nutrition, and meeting food security goals. There is also new statutory language clearly stating that preference can be given to local purchasing of agriculture products for schools serving meals that receive federal assistance, resolving a conflict in USDA’s interpretation of the 2002 farm bill.

• Local Food Initiatives: Another provision provides funding for new local and regional food supply networks including $33 million in mandatory funds for the Farmers Market Promotion Program, $56 million for the Seniors Farmers Market Nutrition Program, and $1.2 billion to expand the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program that will enable 3 million low income children across the country to have access to healthier food options.

• GMO Oversight: New mandates to strengthen USDA oversight of GMO crops will help prevent the disaster that occurred when an unauthorized genetically modified rice strain entered the U.S. rice crop and caused massive losses to export markets. The new regulatory framework will reduce the potential for future GMO contamination events at field trial test sites.

• First Ever Livestock Title: Provides much needed protections for independent ranchers and farmers raising livestock under contract, which includes preventing mandatory arbitration clauses for livestock/poultry contracts; allowing a three-day period to cancel contracts; and requiring contracts to disclose the requirement of large capital investments.

• Diversity Initiative: The Farm Bill gives significant recognition to the importance of minority and socially disadvantaged farmers. There are specific targets for minority and socially disadvantaged farmer participation in conservation, farm credit, Value Added Producer Grants, and the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Programs. Minority Outreach and Education (Section 2501) authorized in the 1990 farm bill receives for the first time mandatory funding at $75 million over 4 years. This competitive grant program to community based organizations and educational institutions helps minority and socially disadvantaged farmers access USDA programs through effective outreach programs.

• Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program: Provides $75 million over four years in mandatory money for competitive grants to groups providing technical assistance and other services to beginning farmers and ranchers. This program was created in the 2002 Farm Bill but was never funded.

• Country-of-Origin Labeling and Interstate Meat Shipment: The Farm Bill includes language to implement long-awaited COOL requirements for produce, beef, pork, chicken, lamb and goat that will go into effect in September 2008. COOL was included in the 2002 Farm Bill, but food industry, USDA and meatpackers’ opposition have delayed its implementation. There are also provisions allowing for the interstate shipment of state-inspected beef that meets federal inspection standards. Both of these policies represent victories for consumers and farmers aiming to rebuild local food systems.

• Organic Agriculture: The bill provides $78 million in mandatory funds for the Organic Research and Extension Initiative, which enhances the ability of organic producers and processors to grow and market organic food, feed, and fiber. For those transitioning to organic production, $22 million in mandatory funding is provided for the next five years.

The above positive provisions represent alternatives to the current food system without replacing the industrial model, which will take even more advocacy for good food policy in the next farm bill and beyond.

On one of my farm bill lobby visits to Washington, DC, I spoke to several Congressional Offices advocating for fair prices on behalf of family farmers. After one of my meetings, a young amiable congressional staffer with a mixed countenance of pity and arrogance, proceeded to tell me, “We aren’t looking to revolutionize the food system, Deb, let alone the farm bill.”

Well, I am looking to revolutionize the food system, and I am not alone. Yes, we have an uphill battle. Biotech giant Monsanto Co. spent nearly $1.3 million in just the first quarter of 2008 to lobby on farm bill provisions to protect their investments, but there are thousands of grassroots organizations working for public policy that will protect and strengthen the future of our food supply, environment, public health, and communities.

I’m on the frontline of this food revolution as a beginning organic farmer and food justice advocate. Will this farm bill help me with the infrastructure I need to process my chickens? Or provide me with the confidence that my sustainably raised food will be price competitive so that all people with empty and deep pockets alike have access to good, fair, and affordable food?

I’ll let you know in five years, but in the meantime, I’ll keep planting those seeds of change and hope you’ll join me in cultivating more palatable food policy.

For more information on farm bills: http://nationalaglawcenter.org/farmbills.

Debra Eschmeyer is the Marketing & Media Manager of the National Farm to School Network and the Center for Food & Justice. She works from a fifth-generation family farm in Ohio, where she continues her passion for organic farming raising heirloom fruits, vegetables, and chickens.

Prior to joining CFJ, Debra was the Project Director at the National Family Farm Coalition in Washington, DC where she focused on U.S. agricultural policy and food sovereignty initiatives among grassroots domestic and international rural advocacy and other social justice networks. She was also the Asia Program Coordinator for the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund at Conservation International and the Humanitarian Grants Asia Coordinator for Rotary International.
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Where Industry Once Hummed, Urban Garden Finds Success

Charles Fox/Philadelphia Inquirer

Kacie King checked honey production at the North Philadelphia farm, Greensgrow, which provides fresh food where it is rare
By JON HURDLE
Published: May 20, 2008

PHILADELPHIA — Amid the tightly packed row houses of North Philadelphia, a pioneering urban farm is providing fresh local food for a community that often lacks it, and making money in the process.

Greensgrow, a one-acre plot of raised beds and greenhouses on the site of a former steel-galvanizing factory, is turning a profit by selling its own vegetables and herbs as well as a range of produce from local growers, and by running a nursery selling plants and seedlings.

The farm earned about $10,000 on revenue of $450,000 in 2007, and hopes to make a profit of 5 percent on $650,000 in revenue in this, its 10th year, so it can open another operation elsewhere in Philadelphia.

In season, it sells its own hydroponically grown vegetables, as well as peaches from New Jersey, tomatoes from Lancaster County, and breads, meats and cheeses from small local growers within a couple of hours of Philadelphia.

The farm, in the low-income Kensington section, about three miles from the skyscrapers of downtown Philadelphia, also makes its own honey — marketed as “Honey From the Hood” — from a colony of bees that produce about 80 pounds a year. And it makes biodiesel for its vehicles from the waste oil produced by the restaurants that buy its vegetables.

Among urban farms, Greensgrow distinguishes itself by being a bridge between rural producers and urban consumers, and by having revitalized a derelict industrial site, said Ian Marvy, executive director of Added Value, an urban farm in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

It has also become a model for others by showing that it is possible to become self-supporting in a universe where many rely on outside financial support, Mr. Marvy said.

Mary Seton Corboy, 50, a former chef with a master’s degree in political science, co-founded Greensgrow in 1998 with the idea of growing lettuce for the restaurants in downtown Philadelphia.

Looking for cheap land close to their customers, Ms. Corboy and her business partner at the time, Tom Sereduk, found the site and persuaded the local Community Development Corporation to buy it and then rent it to them for $150 a month, a sum they still pay.

They made an initial investment of $25,000 and have spent about $100,000 over the years on items that included the plastic-covered greenhouses and the soil that had to be trucked in to cover the steel-and-concrete foundation of the old factory site.

“The mission was: How do you take postindustrial land and turn it into some kind of green business?” said Ms. Corboy, an elfin woman with the ruddy cheeks of someone who works long hours out of doors.

She approached her early lettuce-growing operation with conventional business goals and little thought for what an urban farm could achieve.

“I thought you didn’t have to have a relationship with the community,” she said. “You would just be a business person.”

Customers said the farm was a breath of fresh air in a gritty neighborhood.

“It’s a little piece of heaven,” said Janet McGinnis, 47, who lives on nearby Girard Avenue. “We live in the city, and it makes me feel good to wake up and see flowers.”

Ms. McGinnis said she could buy herbs, bread and produce elsewhere but did so at Greensgrow because it is part of the community. “We’ve got to keep it in the community,” she said. “We have to give back.”

Despite the community goodwill, the farm lives with urban problems like theft and violence. “I have gone through every tool in the box eight or nine times,” Ms. Corboy said.

Although no one at Greensgrow is getting rich from the operation — after 10 years’ work, Ms. Corboy is making an annual salary of $65,000 — there is a sense that their time has come.

“Ten years ago when I said we were going green, people thought we were out of our minds,” Ms. Corboy said. “Now we are top of the party list.”
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Green Gulch Farm Zen Center: renowned for its pioneering role in California’s food revolution

Green Gulch Farm Zen Center, also known as Green Dragon Temple (Soryu-ji), is a Buddhist practice center in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition offering training in Zen meditation and ordinary work. It is one of three centers that make up San Francisco Zen Center, which was founded by Shunryu Suzuki-roshi.

Our effort at Green Gulch is to awaken in ourselves and the many people who come here the bodhisattva spirit, the spirit of kindness and realistic helpfulness. This is how we offer our understanding of Buddha’s Way.

Green Gulch Farm is located in Marin County, just north of San Francisco, in a valley that opens out onto the Pacific Ocean. In addition to the temple program of zen and study,it includes an organic farm and garden, as well as a guest house and conference center.

continued at their website
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What Is a “Food Policy Council?”

This are some of Jill Richardson’s notes on a food policy council training program led by Mark Winne and Keecha Harris. Complete notes at…

http://www.goldenapplepress.com/node/5

A food policy council is a group - which may or may not be officially part of a local or state government - that looks at ALL of the food issues in the area and recommends policy to improve the health of the food system.

What Sorts of Things Do They Do?
Step One for any council worth its salt is a food assessment, to determine what exactly is going on in their city, county, or state (whatever area the council represents). But after that, they advocate changing the rules to make fixing the food system possible.

They might:

• Help bring grocery stores or food cooperatives into areas that have none
• Work on farm to school programs to bring farm fresh food from local farmers into school cafeterias
• Get laws passed to allow residents to keep chickens for food
• Work to get farmers’ markets to accept food stamps as payment
• Change government purchasing rules so they give preference to local farmers over out of state food suppliers
• Work to preserve farmland from development into subdivisions
• Link up land owners with wannabe-farmers who can farm their land
• Reconnect with sustainable practices of Native Americans (in areas where many Native Americans live)
• Survey food prices in different stores so people can compare prices without driving around
• Remove junk food from schools
• Prevent the city from selling ads for junk on the side of city busses
• Improve access to school breakfast
• Expand the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (FMNP), a program that gives WIC participants vouchers to buy fruits & veggies from farmers’ markets

Mark defines their purpose as:

• Develop, coordinate, and implement a food system policy.
• Connect economic development, food security efforts, preservation and enhancement of agriculture, and environmental concerns.
• Ensure universal access to healthy and affordable food for all citizens.
• Support development and expansion of locally produced food.
• Review proposed legislation affecting the food system.
• Make recommendations to the government leadership.
• Employ research and information gathering, policy analysis, and public education methods.
• Serve as a public forum for a discussion of key food system issues…

How Do You Form a Food Policy Council?
There are three basic methods for forming a food policy council, and examples of each of the three are in place around the country. (Currently there are about 100 food policy councils in the U.S.) The three methods are:

1. Have your legislature pass a resolution or bill calling for a food policy council.
2. Have your governor make an executive order forming a food policy council.
3. Create a food policy council privately/independently.

Examples of councils started by city ordinance are those in Hartford, CT and Knoxville, TN. The Hartford council gets limited funding and support from the city and staff support from the Hartford Food System.

Those begun by executive order are the councils in Iowa, Michigan, and New York. The vulnerability of this method is underscored by the fact that the New York council was formed by Eliot Spitzer… and he ain’t in charge no more. Michigan gives us a more successful example, as Gov. Jennifer Granholm won re-election and stayed current with food policy council appointments. Unfortunately, Iowa can’t say the same - Vilsack forgot to re-appoint council members before leaving office and his successor isn’t doing much either.

The last type of council - independently formed councils - is exemplified by New Mexico’s food policy council. It was organized by a group called Farm to Table. The New Mexico legislature passed a resolution in 2003 calling for state agencies to participate in the council, but state government participation can be irregular.

One last type of food policy council to note - regardless of how it was formed - are dual-jurisdictional food policy councils. These tend to be city-county councils, like those in Portland, OR and Multnomah County and Santa Fe city and county.
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Great Lakes Water Institute & 10,000 Yellow Perch to Growing Power

Top: A few of the 10,000 yellow perch raised at the WATER Institute and released at Growing Power. Bottom: Two levels of plants and gravel sit atop a fish-filled trench in Growing Power’s fish-farming system. Fish waste provides nutrients for the plants, and the plants clean the water for the fish.

WATER Institute researchers arrived earlier this month at Growing Power, an urban farm on Milwaukee’s north side, with a special delivery: 10,000 young yellow perch.

Born and raised at the WATER Institute’s Great Lakes Aquaculture Center, the three-month old fish will help test the waters, so to speak, of a new indoor fish-farming system that aims to prove itself functional as well as environmentally friendly and affordable.

Developed by Growing Power, the system features an 8,000-gallon trench built into the floor of a greenhouse and topped with two levels of edible plants, including watercress and dandelion greens. Pumps circulate water from the trench to the system’s upper levels, where gravel filters out solids from fish waste and the plants absorb nutrients, using them to grow. The cleansed water then returns to the fish and the cycle begins again.

“It’s a system that closely replicates nature,” says Will Allen, Growing Power’s CEO and founder. “In this instance there is a symbiotic relationship between the fish and the plants,” he says, with waste from the fish providing nutrients for the plants, and the plants cleaning the water for the fish.

The materials to build the system cost around $1,500—about one tenth the amount of conventional commercial systems that use chemical processes to clean their water, says Richard Mueller, Growing Power’s aquaponics manager.

A future for fish farming

The 10,000-fish trial is a follow-up to a successful smaller trial that last year produced 800 plate-size perch. Allen hopes Growing Power’s approach to raising fish can one day be applied on a more widespread scale in rural Wisconsin, where fish farming—also known as aquaculture—could fill gaps left by a declining dairy farming industry and make use of vacant barn space.

WATER Institute scientist Fred Binkowski sees great potential for such systems in more populated areas as well. “There’s a trend going on now where people are growing their own food, better food, and safer food,” he says. “What we want to do is show that you can grow fish in an urban area, and put the food at the center of consumer demand.” Urban fish farming can also cut shipping costs, fill vacant buildings, and create jobs in economically deprived communities.

There is also a more global reason to develop the area’s rural and urban fish-farming industry. As the world’s population grows, worldwide demand for seafood will exceed the sustainable supply from the wild—meaning fish farming will have to meet the remaining demand.

What’s more, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the United States imports more than 40 percent of its seafood—making the U.S. trade deficit for seafood the second largest in dollars, after petroleum, of any natural product. About $1 billion of this imported seafood is farm raised; meanwhile, the United States ranks only tenth in the world in farm-raised food fish production.

That leaves room for growth of the industry at home, a point well understood by WATER Institute researchers and Growing Power staff, as well as Leon Todd and Jon Bales, Milwaukee business partners who hope to launch an urban aquaculture center that will utilize the Growing Power model. Through collaborative efforts, the three groups hope to build a strong foundation for fish farming in the Milwaukee area and help establish the city as a national leader in the industry.

In the meantime, Binkowski and his staff will keep a close eye on the perch at Growing Power. Over the next year, they will perform weekly water quality tests and regularly monitor the survival and growth of the fish.

And if the system works successfully? “A year from now,” says Binkowski, “these fish will probably be part of a Friday night fish fry.”

–Jennifer Yauck
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MBA’s Discover “Agriburbia”

The Agriburbia™ Concept

http://www.agriburbia.com/

Agriburbia™ is an innovative and growing design movement that integrates aspects of agrarianism with land development. Agriburbia™ includes characteristics of New Urbanism, modernism and historic preservation, and other environmentally sustainable principles of real estate development.

Agriburbia™ combines the positive social, cultural, physical and financial characteristics from both the urban and rural lifestyles to create an entirely new landuse concept. Agriburbia™ integrates food production as an integral element in the community design, social network, and financial viability of the neighborhood.

Agriburbia™ promotes and supports the following policies and principles in each mixed-use community:

• Agricultural Production: No loss of agricultural value or revenue (“Green Fields” development), or production of 30% of dietary requirements of the project or equivalent cash from sales crops, or combination thereof.

• Locally Grown Food: Production of a significant portion (30 to 50%) of dietary requirements grown within or in the immediate surrounding area of the community

• Conserves and Promotes Natural Resources: Appropriate and efficient use of natural resources to provide housing, transportation, recreation and fresh food through creative, harmonious land planning and landscape architecture for the community. This includes use of alternative energy sources as well as land and water.

• Self Sufficiency: Provide a commercially viable opportunity for enhanced self- sufficiency for community residents, tenants, and guests.

• Sustainable Energy Practices: Integrate solar and geothermal technology to provide sustainable energy sources for the community.

• Financing: Incorporate established entities (Metropolitan Districts, HOAs) to finance both traditional infrastructure (streets, water, sewer) and environmentally friendly agricultural infrastructure (drip irrigation)

Example Agriburbia™ Design Project

An example of the Agriburbia™ land planning design is this 640-acre parcel in Southern Weld County, Colorado. It includes for 980 homes, including multi-family town homes to two (2) acre permaculture home sites.

Each Agriburbia™ mixed-use campus is centered on an agrarian concept where traditional suburban landscaping and open space is replaced with orchards, vineyards, and other perennial crops for the benefit of the neighborhood and surrounding communities. A limited amount of active recreation area is provided. The balance of the open space is designed as productive organic agricultural landscape. These lands will be owned and actively managed by the Home Owner’s Association (HOA) or Metropolitan Districts. Private farm contracts will be awarded for these prime, organic agricultural parcels. It is anticipated that Agriburbia™ will provide agricultural opportunities within and outside the community.

In addition to this shared resource, each mixed-use campus is designed to have a significant number of home sites capable of useful agricultural production. Infrastructure such as non-potable water will be provided for these privates home sites. The home owner will have the option to participate in the community agriculture production. The positive and productive results of and Agriburbia™ mixed-use campus will be the combination of public and private production of agricultural products for the community and neighboring communities.

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Please send an e-mail to Bill Moyers exhorting him to devote a program to the idiocy of industrial agriculture and the promise of local, urban, and schoolyard farms and gardens.

“Bill Moyers” <moyersonpbs@thirteen.org>

and cc Moyersalert@milwaukeerenaissance.com, por favor
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Entrepreneurs See Opportunity Down on the Yard Farm

Posted by Kelly Spors
April 22, 2008, 10:31 am
http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2008/04/22/entrepreneurs

Think “farm,” and vast green pastures and red barns come to mind. Now erase that image, and think barbecues and garden hoses.
In the Journal today, I write about a new crop of suburban farmers plowing up their back and front yards to grow minifarms of bok choy, garlic and other veggies and fruits. These entrepreneurially-minded folks are meeting the demand for locally-grown organic food from neighbors and restauranteurs. And some are even finding neighbors glad to lend their yards to the cause — in exchange for fresh produce.

Kipp Nash of Boulder, Colo., grossed $6,000 from his yard farms last year. He’s expanding his venture and planting farms in eight neighbors’ yards