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What’s growing at the White House?By Ellen Goodman: July 4, 2008
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.
Farmers on YouTubePhilanthromedia, 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 Adler
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:
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
Embassy News & Events
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.
Leading Restoration Contractor and MPS Teacher Starting a Family Food Garden at Eastside HomeGodsil. You are a city family that has started your own backyard four season food garden, perhaps among the first l per cent of the population to undertake such a project. Might you share your reasons for doing so and the farthest reaching vision of where such a project might take you and your children. Josh and/or Jamie Fraundorf. We’ve always loved the city and all of the fun things to do. However, living in the city, you can get sort of disconnected from the environment and where your food comes from. Both of us had dairy farms in our families that we spent much time at growing up. We’ve always been outdoor people. Gardening for us is a fun way to be outside and “live greener” in our own small way. This year we expanded our garden about 18ft into our driveway to create three new raised gardens which we couldn’t be happier about. Some of our family members think we’re a bit crazy to get rid of some of our off street parking in the city but we think it’s a great use of space. The enjoyment after a hard days work to come back to my house and spend a couple hours in garden has been a great stress reliever. The long term vision of our garden plan is to have kind of an outdoor classroom for our family. Our raised gardens have been our own way of getting the organic foods that we desire as well as learning and teaching or children how they grow. Composting is kind of an experiment with chemistry to see what breaks down faster. It has been amazing how much garbage we have eliminated just by food scraps. Next, we’d like to try worm composting in the basement as well as a small fish farm. I really hope that in the future I’ll be able to spend just as much time doing roof top gardens as I do with roofing projects in Milwaukee. I believe this is just the beginning of great things to come in Milwaukee with urban farming and can’t wait to see what the future brings.
Largest Celebration of American Food Ever, Labor Day Weekend San Francisco(06–29) 16:10 PDT -- Pick up your forks and knives, and let the revolution start now. That’s the rallying cry of the organizers of Slow Food Nation, an event designed to change the way people eat. Fifty thousand people, including some of the world’s leading food authorities, health care experts, farmers and policymakers, are expected to attend the four-day exhibition in San Francisco over Labor Day weekend - what’s being called the largest celebration of American food in history. Their message: Americans need to fix the food system or risk destroying their health and the planet. “This impacts every single one us,” said Mayor Gavin Newsom. “No matter where we live or how we’ve been raised, this is a profoundly important issue.” Workers will break ground Tuesday on a vegetable garden at San Francisco City Hall, where the public can take free tours and taste fresh produce. In addition, Slow Food Nation, held at both the Civic Center and Fort Mason, will include lectures, workshops, cooking demonstrations, tastings, films, concerts, hikes, a farmers’ market and a “Slow on the Go” food court. Some of the programs are free; others require tickets that range in price from $5 to $65 (slowfoodnation.org) to help offset the $2 million cost. One highlight will be the pavilions at Fort Mason, which will be divided by types of food - chocolate, cheese, bread, honey and the like - showcasing American varieties and artisan producers. At the Civic Center, speakers will include “Fast Food Nation” author Eric Schlosser; author, farmer and cultural critic Wendell Berry; and nutrition expert and “What to Eat” author Marion Nestle. European influences Slow Food Nation is the first such event to be held in the United States, although it’s patterned after similar events in Europe. Slow Food, a philosophy that food should be not only savored, but also produced with a social and environmental conscience, started as an Italian protest movement in 1986. Furious that McDonald’s had come to Rome, political activist Carlo Petrini organized a demonstration against the fast-food chain. “Rather than take the French route - driving a tractor through the building - Petrini took a more Italian hedonistic tack,” said Michael Pollan, a UC Berkeley professor and well-known food journalist and author who, like Petrini, is scheduled to speak on several panels. “Petrini set up trestle tables in front of the McDonald’s, called upon Italy’s grandmothers to make their favorite dishes and served them to passers-by.” Since then, Slow Food organizations have formed in 131 countries, working to preserve local cuisine and lobby for more sustainable and fair-wage farming practices. Critics have denounced the movement, calling it elitist and accusing it of trying to stand in the way of farming and production methods that would make food cheaper. Proponents argue that eating local products grown and raised without chemicals, as opposed to nonorganic imported goods, will save the environment, lead to good health and save Americans money. “Unless we squeeze the fossil fuel out of our dinner,” Pollan said, we won’t be able to maintain a viable food supply. “We no longer can catch salmon in Alaska, fillet it in China and serve it in New York.” Food as a language Slow Food Nation founder Alice Waters, the Berkeley restaurateur who popularized the idea of serving food straight from local, organic farms to the table at her Chez Panisse restaurant, says the timing of the event, which kicks off on the eve of the presidential election, is no coincidence. “We want people to vote with their forks,” she said. “Food is our common language. The choices we make about what we eat not only affect our health, but affect our planet.” Pollan hopes the event will help galvanize the new administration to push for a better food agenda in this country. “There’s a real need for rethinking things,” he said, adding that the world is in the midst of a food crisis, with people either starving or obese. There’s something terribly wrong, says Pollan, when “it’s cheaper to buy a double cheeseburger than a head of broccoli.” Countries like Haiti and the Philippines have become so reliant on imported rice that they’ve stopped growing their own, said Pollan, who blames globalization. Now their citizens are going hungry. Back to basics Newsom’s worries are closer to home. “In the Bayview, the only produce being sold is at a liquor store, and it’s three days past its due date,” he said. “Instead, I see a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Taco Bell. Our fast-food culture is the primary contributor to the health care costs in this country.” Waters complains that people don’t even know how to cook anymore. “We used to know how,” she said. “We just got disconnected from it. The globalization of food took us by surprise. People told us, ‘It’s too hard to cook. Let us do it for you.’ “ She hopes that Slow Food Nation will motivate people to get back to the basics - “learn how to fry an egg or stir polenta.” She’s also optimistic that participants will be spurred to reject industrialized farming, persuaded to eat locally and inspired to fight for changes in food policy. None of this is far-fetched, said Waters, who has seen a significant shift in the public’s attitude in the last five years - especially in the 18-to-22-age group. “All of a sudden, it’s happening,” she said. “There are all these people who want to live off the grid. They want to farm. I see young people with their kids buying food at the farmers’ market.” She acknowledges that the Bay Area may be a bit ahead of the curve. “Next year,” she said, “we’ll take it to Washington, D.C., then New Orleans, then the Midwest.” E-mail Stacy Finz at sfinz@sfchronicle.com.
San Francisco/Aug. 29 - Sept. 1, 2008
Portland’s Urban Edible Foraging Maps
Disclaimer A New City of New OrleansGood morning, America, how are you?
I was down but now I’m back
There’s a train they call
Detroit, Old Milwaukee, and Chicago,
And on that train a rainbow throng is gathering,
Good morning, America, how are you?
I was down but now I’m back
Growing Round the Houses Paper From London International Urban Agriculture ConferenceI 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
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.
Press contact: Ben Reynolds, London Food Link project officer at Sustain, tel (work): 020 7837 1228, (mobile): 07939 202711, Ben@sustainweb.org
Citations
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.
21st Century Milwaukee Helps the World Feed ItselfNot Vast Wheat Farms But Square Foot Backyard/Rooftop Worm Depositories & Food Gardens19th century Milwaukee may have been the port
There is a lovely poster with a beautiful women
Perhaps the image for the 21st Century
With the help of worms and radiant waste,
Strategies to Mobilize the Food Justice CommunitiesHello all 2000 COMFOODers, Next Tuesday, 20–30 of our county community leaders are convening in a half-day “think tank” on how to step up mobilization for food justice in our county (Tompkins County, NY, which includes Ithaca). I’m warming us up with a short presentation on strategies other communities have used. I would love feedback on or additions to my short list of categories, below (drawn in large part from Winne’s Closing the Food Gap book). For some I’ve had to select from many examples, though some are ideas that I haven’t yet found fleshed out. (I’ve copied and pasted all the online references from my current presentation draft below, for those who want to follow links.) I welcome suggestions on examples too! For those comments made in reply just to me, I’ll compile responses for this list.
Thank you!
[As a side note, this ‘food justice think tank’ happens to be the same day that SF breaks ground on their city hall victory garden. In a funny confluence, Raj Patel (author of Stuffed & Starved) mentioned this garden and the associated food policy council when a fellow audience member in a talk he gave here asked for beacons of hope, and this gave me the idea to organize this meeting in the first place. I just realized though I didn’t know it was going to be on the same day.] Some of the Resources Mentioned
The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heartof 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
Food Policy Councils for Cities *updated*CFSC’s website on food policy councils: http://www.foodsecurity.org/FPC/.
T.V. Programs w. Celebrity Chefs Advancing Local and Organicfoodtv.com Also…from Hilde Steffey There was a recent article about celebrity chef Alton Brown from Good Eats on the Food Network bringing sustainability issues to the table in his show. (written by Roz Cummins, “Brown is the New Green”, Grist)… http://www.grist.org/advice/season/2008/06/19/ Also… from Marc Rumminger Rick Bayless (Frontera Grill and Topalombamo in Chicago) talks a lot about his backyard garden on his multi-year PBS series “Mexico: One Plate at a Time.” On several shows he has given tips on growing tomatillos, chilies and other vegetables used in Mexican cooking. Over at the Epicurious blog last summer, he wrote a post about how he grows tomatoes on a rooftop (http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/blogs/editor/2007/08/frontera-grows-.html). He even gave a tour of his garden a few weeks ago (info is somewhere on the Time Out Chicago web site). Also… from Scott Sawyer http://www.grist.org/advice/season/2008/06/19/index.html
Compost Tea Eliminates Need for Pesticides or Commecial FertilizerThank 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
Agroecological Strategies for Food SecurityFolks – 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
The New Trophy Home, Small and EcologicalBy FELICITY BARRINGER
For the high-profile crowd that turned out to celebrate a new home in Venice, Calif., the attraction wasn’t just the company and the architectural detail. The house boasted the builders’ equivalent of a three-star Michelin rating: a LEED platinum certificate.  The actors John Cusack and Pierce Brosnan, with his wife, Keely Shaye Smith, a journalist, came last fall to see a house that the builders promised would “emit no harmful gases into the atmosphere,” “produce its own energy” and incorporate recycled materials, from concrete to countertops. Behind the scenes were Tom Schey, a homebuilder in Santa Monica, and his business partner, Kelly Meyer, an environmentalist whose husband, Ron, is the president of Universal Studios. Ms. Meyer said their goal was to show that something energy-conscious “doesn’t have to look as if you got it off the bottom shelf of a health-food store.” “It doesn’t have to smell like hemp,” she said. That was probably a good thing. The four-bedroom house was for sale, with a $2.8 million asking price. Its rating was built into that price. LEED — an acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the hot designer label, and platinum is the badge of honor — the top classification given by the U.S. Green Building Council. “There’s kind of a green pride, like driving a Prius,” said Brenden McEneaney, a green building adviser to the city of Santa Monica, adding, “It’s spreading all over the place.” Devised eight years ago for the commercial arena, the ratings now cover many things, including schools and retail interiors. But homes are the new frontier. While other ratings are widely recognized, like the federal Energy Star for appliances, the LEED brand stands apart because of its four-level rankings — certified, silver, gold and platinum — and third-party verification. So far this year, 10,250 new home projects have registered for the council’s consideration, compared with 3,100 in 2006, the first year of the pilot home-rating system. Custom-built homes dominate the first batch of certified dwellings. Today, dinner-party bragging rights are likely to include: “Let me tell you about my tankless hot water heater.” Or “what’s the R value of your insulation?” But if a platinum ranking is a Prada label for some, for others, it is a prickly hair shirt. Try asking buyers used to conspicuous consumption (a 12,000-square-foot house) to embrace conspicuous nonconsumption (say, 2,400 square feet for a small family). Or to earn points by recycling and weighing all their construction debris (be warned: a bathroom scale probably won’t cut it). The imperatives of comfort and eco-friendliness are not always in sync. For instance, the Brosnans, environmental advocates who admired Ms. Meyer’s house, are now building a home of their own and “really want to do it green,” said David Hertz, their architect. Mr. Brosnan may adopt many environmentally sound building techniques, but he “is not going to live in a 2,400-square-foot home,” the architect said. Mr. Hertz’s complaint goes beyond size. He says the rating system is rigid and cumbersome, something that has been heard across the country as green building slowly ceases to be a do-gooder’s hobby. The ratings are now woven into building codes in Los Angeles, Boston and Dallas. The federal government and many states and cities use LEED standards or the equivalent for their own buildings. The system is based on points earned for a variety of eco-friendly practices; builders choose among them, balancing the goals of cost control, design and high point totals. Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia, not to mention Chicago, Cincinnati and Bar Harbor, Me., give tax incentives or other concessions, like expedited permitting or utility hookups, for construction that is up to the nonprofit council’s standards. And “LEED-accredited professional” is a new occupational status. Worries about climate change and rising energy costs are part of the equation: roughly 21 percent of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions come from homes; nearly 40 percent come from residential and commercial structures combined. As energy prices rise, the long-range economic value and short-range social cachet of green building are converging. More than 1,500 commercial buildings and 684 homes have been certified but just 48 homes have received the platinum ranking, among them a four-bedroom home in Freeport, Me., as well as homes in Minneapolis; Callaway, Fla.; Dexter, Mich.; and Paterson, N.J. The checklist for certification can be more daunting than a private-school application, which prompts many to abandon the quest. Mr. Schey is not seeking LEED certification on his next home (though the project’s architect, Melinda Gray, is seeking it for hers). Randy Udall, a builder in Colorado who wrote a piece critical of the process after building two accredited ski resort additions, said, “You’re happy when you’re released from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Abu Ghraib,” though he added, “You typically end up with a delightful building.” One requirement for getting a home certified is hiring an on-site inspector approved by the council to test the new systems and help fill out the huge amount of paperwork, which is reviewed by the nonprofit council. The organization charges from $400 for a home to $22,500 for the largest buildings to register and certify costs. Joel McKellar, a researcher with LS3P Associates, an architecture firm in Charleston, S.C., said that to earn credit for adequate natural light, “you have to calculate the area of the room, the area of the windows, how much visible transmittance of light there is.” Michael Lehrer, who designed the platinum-rated Water + Life Museum complex in Hemet, outside Los Angeles, said, “They have mundane things in there that are pretty nonsensical and others things that are pretty profound.” He added, “At a time when everybody and their sister and brother are saying ‘We are green,’ it’s very important that these things be vetted in a credible way.” To cope with the growing appetite for accreditation, the council this spring asked other agencies to help make LEED certifications. A new code, which addresses some of the criticisms, is at www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1849. Is LEED a useful selling tool? Offered with great fanfare last fall on eBay for $2.8 million, the Meyer/Schey home in Venice, which can be seen on their Web site, www.Project7ten.com got no bids at the time; it recently found a potential buyer, for $2.5 million. But Maria Chao, an architect in Amherst, Mass., said her new home’s certification rating had meant instant recognition. “This is a small town,” Ms. Chao said. “When I mention I live in the house on Snell St., people say, ‘Oh, the green home.’ ” Frances Anderton, a KCRW radio host and Los Angeles editor of Dwell magazine, longs for the day when LEED recognition is irrelevant. “Architects should be offering a green building service,” Ms. Anderton said, “without needing a badge of pride.” Click here for original article complete with links.
Home Neighborhood Where Kids Dramatically SaferOne time I designed a home neighborhood that had streets that were all dead end. In the Grand Commons were playgrounds, swimming pool, meeting rooms, reading room, volley ball, tennis and basketball courts, flower gardens, vegetable gardens, etc. In the front of all homes was the streets and behind all homes was the “commons” which connected to the “Grand Commons” connecting all the “commons”. No outlets so children could walk out their back door and be in the commons and meet other kids or go to the Grand Commons. Perfect safety. People walked, rode bikes, tricycles, etc. The only entrance to the commons was service vehicle gates which were locked at all times. Along one side of the development, facing the major road, would be offices, grocery, stores, etc [strip mall]. Entrance to them from the Grand Commons as well as the street side. Could not get anyone interested. Ken Hargesheimer
Milwaukee Inspires London International Food ConferenceThis 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
London Conference AgendaChair - Kath Dalmeny, Sustain 9.30 – 9.40 Chair’s introduction 9.40 – 11.10 Session 1 – Setting the scene
11.10 – 11.30 Tea break 11.30 – 13.00 Session 2 – Making growing economically viable
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch 14.00 – 15.30 Session 3 – Expanding growing to new spaces
15.30 – 15.50 Tea break 15.50 – 17.20 Session 4 - The future of community gardens, city farms & roof tops
17.20 – 17.30 Chair’s close Move to nearby pub for follow-up drinks and talking.
Outpost Natural Foods Thrilled w. Rooftop Farm of Artisan Turning Urban FarmerThis 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.
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…
 Urban Restoration Carpenter’s “Victory Garden” Atop Commercial Building 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
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
They’ll deliver this precious cargo of potency
The kids in the hood will gather buckets of compost material
Godsil
Will Allen Says “Don’t Let the Floods Get You Down!”Pictures of Will’s Farm Before and After the FloodA 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,
Growing Power
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!
And then… Just start growing something, anything,
Community Growers Recruiting Square Inch City Farmer Apprentices With Will Allen compost or homemade compost following Will’s methods,
From Pots to Plots The hypothesis is that 100 such pots will yield one or two
It will also yield returns for those offering the pots,
Hastening the Emergence of 10,000 Mini City Farms & Roof Top Gardens In each of our venerable industrial cities
Say… Permaculture Cities! What say? Godsil
Will Allen Personal Tour of Growing PowerThis coming Tuesday, June 24, at the Growing Power City Farm at 55th and Silver Spring, 4 p.m. Please send an e-mail to GrowingPower@milwaukeerenaissance.com if you wish to attend. Kitchen Gardeners International Newsletter June 2008Enjoy: http://www.kitchengardeners.org/newsletterjune08.html KGI Newsletter: June 2008 Contents: Spotlight on Africa:
Gardening:
Food and cooking
Food systems change
Just for fun:
Community blog posts:
Forum discussions:
Featured Network Members:
Popular videos:
E.F. Schumacher Society and Rodale Institute’s “New Farm” Offer Insight Into How to Develop Local Food MovementOne 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.
Christopher Bedford offered the above information. CENTER FOR ECONOMIC SECURITY
Montague, MI 49437
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
City Repair: Social Permaculture in PortlandTransforming Streets into Active Commons for Creating CommunityPosted by Jonathan Rowe <http://onthecommons.org/user/6> on Tue, 04/10/2007 - 3:06pm The drive from the San Francisco Bay Area to Portland Oregon, up Highway 5, passes through a splendid natural landscape and a diminished human one. There are islands of local particularity, yes. But along the highway one encounters an endless succession of Best Westerns, Taco Bells — you know the list. You drive six hundred miles and stay in the same place. After all those billions spent to defeat the Soviet Union, we have embraced its numbing uniformity, only with a higher entertainment quotient and a better paint job. Then there’s Portland, which is trying to resist this commercial Sovietization and the social pathologies that go with it, Downtown there is Pioneer Square, which set a new standard for urban commons, and a host of kindred spaces. In the neighborhoods, meanwhile, there is the City Repair project, which is resurrecting a commons consciousness block by block. “Turning spaces into places,” is how the people there put it. City Repair is not about fixing structures. It is about the life that flows through and between structures when they are intelligently designed. Mark Lakeman, one of the founders, calls it permaculture in an urban setting. “We empower local, urban communities (neighborhoods) to creatively interrupt the city Grid in order to transform streets into active, social commons,” he wrote with Lydia Doleman, his partner. The typical urban grid was designed for the ease of marketing individual lots - that is, for turning space into real estate. It is a geometric dictator that makes little provision for the contours of the landscape or the needs of human interaction. In Portland, however, someone had the foresight to modify the grid in ways conducive to neighborhood. Streets dead-end for a block or two, thus deterring through traffic. Small traffic circles at many intersections deter traffic further. City Repair takes that thinking to the proverbial next level. It starts with intersections, which today are dominated by automobiles, and reclaims them for human intercourse. Neighbors get together and build cob structures, paint bright murals on the pavement, and generally conjure life out of what now are social dead zones. Lakeman took me on a tour of several City Repair sites last week. (There are about fifty now and growing.) One featured a Poetry Plaza, with a cob bench, a solar-powered lighthouse, and a box into which people can deposit their own poems and read those of others. Elsewhere there were cob benches, tea houses, kiosks, bulletin boards with solar lighting, even a memorial to a young bicyclist who was hit by a truck that ran a stop sign at the corner (see photo.) The latter was on a private yard. When people get into the spirit of community place-making the boundaries between the private and the common - the /me/ and the /we/ — begin to soften. Residents have commented on how the structures, and especially the process of creating them, have been lubricants to community. People are meeting neighbors they never talked with in ten years of living across the street. Strangers have become neighbors; and not surprisingly, some neighborhoods have seen a measurable drop in crime. We need etiquettes of introduction in order to talk with strangers, and settings in which approach is okay. City Repair is providing those; and it is extending the concept to a larger scale. It helped to create Dignity Village, for example, which is a community of formerly homeless people. People there have built straw bale houses, a kitchen, solar/gas showers, and a garden. Lakeman says it costs three dollars a day for someone to live there, as opposed to sixty a day at a typical shelter. Deal with people as capable rather than defective, and as community builders instead of as isolated integers, and sometimes they will surprise you. City Repair also helped establish the Rebuilding Center, which is a kind of Home Depot for salvaged building materials, fixtures and the like. (It is built largely of such materials itself.) The Center employs some fifty people, all of whom live within a ten minutes’ walk from the store, in a neighborhood where people need these jobs. There are cob benches outside for meetings or just hanging out. This kind of social permaculture is as infectious as its opposite can be. Once people start doing it the idea just spreads. In the Sunnyside neighborhood, which is City Repair’s most active, the local elementary school decided that it wanted to get into the act and become an environmental model. Kids there learn about ecology at each grade, and practice it through the plantings on the school grounds. Other schools have gotten involved as well. There is a belief in America that everything depends upon personal virtue. Virtuous people will create communities, regardless of the physical setting. Megamalls, sprawling suburbs, the isolation booths calls cars - virtue will prevail over all. Virtue certainly can help. But community is not hydroponic. It does not grow in the gaseous air of speechifying about community, or in the virtue of isolated individuals. Community needs settings in which to take root in flourish; it needs commons structures, just as market behavior needs market structures. Some settings are more hospitable than others. Even healthy plants cannot grow in concrete. City repair is creating a new model for breaking up the concrete. If you are in the area and would like to take a look, an ideal time would be the annual Village Building Convergence, when neighbors undertake repair projects all over town. The VBC this year will be May 19–28. For more information check out www.cityrepair.org <http://www.cityrepair.org/wiki.php> and its VBC page <http://www.cityrepair.org/wiki.php/projects/vbc>, or call 503–235–8946. http://onthecommons.org/trackback/1131 Julie Ristau
Vertical Farms Discussed on Colbert ReportStephen asks Dickson Despommier if growing food in vertical towers is an elitist way to farm.http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=173624 London Urban Farmer’s Projects and Book “Edible Estates”proposes the replacement of the domestic front lawn in cities with “an edible landscape”.Edible Skyscrapers Become “Sky Farms”“The urban farmer: One man’s crusade to plough up the inner city” By Kate Burt
Fritz Haeg isn’t perhaps the obvious representative of a revolution in global farming. As an architecture and design academic and practitioner, the American has had his work exhibited at Tate Modern and the Whitney Museum of American Art, and has taught fine art at several US universities. Yet it is last year’s community-collaborative project on an inner-city council estate in south London that best showcases his current passion: the urban farm. Last April, in a discussion about the global food crisis, Gordon Brown announced: “We need to make great changes in the way we organise food production in the next few years.” High on the list of viable changes is the idea of inner-city agriculture. Which is the theory behind Haeg’s concept, detailed in his new book Edible Estates: it proposes the replacement of the domestic front lawn in cities with “an edible landscape”. Last year, to illustrate this point, Haeg was commissioned by the Tate to create a permanent “edible estate” on a triangle of communal grass in front of a housing estate near Elephant and Castle, bordered on two sides by a main road along which London buses thunder every few minutes. The aim was to engage and involve the local residents – and together they miraculously transformed a patch of grass previously favoured by dogs and drunks into a luscious agri-plot housing apple and plum trees, a “forest” of tomato plants, aubergines, squashes, Brussels sprouts, runner beans, sweet peas, a “salad wing”, herbs, edible flowers and 6ft artichoke plants. It is also quite beautiful: “The design was inspired by the ornate, curvy raised flowerbeds you find in front of Buckingham Palace,” explains Haeg. Interestingly, although this space is still accessible by passers-by – unlike the traditional allotment, which Haeg feels is outdated – there has been no theft or vandalism. The London project was mirrored in several locations around the US. “All the projects I do are rooted in the way that an architect thinks and works,” says Haeg. “How we live and the spaces we make for ourselves.” And right now, he believes, we need to re-evaluate exactly that, and urgently so – particularly in our overcrowded cities. As part of its “One Planet Living” initiative, the World Wildlife Fund calculated our average personal carbon footprint in Britain. Perplexingly, it found that food production and its transport accounts for our greatest use of carbon – 23 per cent per person – beating personal transport, home energy and even shared services (the running of schools, hospitals, banks and so on). These results, combined with food shortages and escalating costs – the price of apples and eggs has risen by 30 per cent in the past year – mean action must be taken, says Haeg. Ornamental urban space is a luxury we can no longer afford, he believes: we need to be growing food on our lawns, greens, driveways and even public parks. Haeg is not the only one to think it is time for change. The global Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) strategic alliance estimates that, by 2015, more than half the world’s population will be living in urban areas, provoking one of the greatest challenges in the history of agriculture as we try to find a way to keep a lid on food miles and produce enough food for everyone. “Now, more than ever,” urges Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, “we need to grow more food closer to where people live.” And in this climate, it seems that everyone from town planners to head teachers, TV chefs to agri-entrepreneurs are getting excited about farming food in the big smoke. But is it realistic to turn over our spare urban soil to the cause – and is there really enough of it to do so? Erik Watson, an urban design director at the town-planning company Turley Associates, strongly believes that inner-city agriculture is the future. As such, he is already advising his clients on ways to incorporate farming into their developments and is particularly excited about the potential for transforming existing space enclosed in the traditionally British city structure, the “perimeter block” (a row of buildings constructed around an enclosed, private square – typically divided into private gardens). “Look at an aerial view of London and you’ll see there’s an enormous amount of private open space contained within these blocks. It is perfect for this urban agricultural revolution,” he says. Re-apportioning private space might not be as far-fetched as it sounds. Later this month Sustain is hosting a conference, called Growing Food for London, where ideas to be aired include the possibilities of using derelict council facilities, social housing land and unused private gardens for commercial agriculture, as well as the planting of fruit and nut trees in parks and along roads, creating community gardens in public parks and replacing ornamental plants with edible crops. It will also look at alternative food production such as mushroom growing, beekeeping and planting edibles in window boxes, as well as ideas for the little-explored area of rearing livestock in urban areas. While beekeeping is on the rise in British cities – it is estimated that there are 5,000 beehives in London alone – other urban animal-based edibles are rare. Hunting might be the answer here – squirrel meat has already been seized upon as a sustainable, free-range delicacy in rural Cornwall – could it catch on in cities? Might pigeon pie become a Trafalgar Square speciality; has anyone thought of fox cutlets? Perhaps more realistic is organised urban livestock rearing. “There are issues with planning – noise pollution and so on,” says Zeenat Anjani from Sustain, “but you could definitely raise chickens and other small animals. We hope the Growing Food conference will open more people’s minds to these sorts of ideas and get the right people in the same room to talk about what they can do.” Many are already talking about it. Inspired by the “victory gardens” of the First and Second World Wars, when civilians were urged to “dig for victory” to survive the food shortages, Jamie Oliver’s newest venture is to inspire the residents of inner-city Rochdale to eat like our wartime forebears and grow their own, while Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s new River Cottage series challenges five Bristol familes to transform a derelict patch of land into a fruitful smallholding. In Middlesborough, the Groundwork South Tees trust has begun an urban-farming education programme to teach people how to cultivate herbs, vegetables and fruit even if they do not have a garden, by providing containers for patios, balconies and windowsills. There are also sustainable-food grants available to those who want to educate others how to produce their own food in cities, and how to compost effectively to improve typically poor-quality urban soil. ‘ If it comes off, perhaps one of the most high-profile initiatives – still at bid stage – is the Feed the Olympics proposal. It is a radical blueprint from several green organisations outlining how 6,000 acres of land in London could be put to work to grow enough food to provide the 14m-odd meals that will be needed during the 60 days of the 2012 Games, instead of importing it. This would involve creating 2,012 new food-growing spaces across the capital, including community gardens, allotments and roof gardens. Revolutionary? In this country, yes – but we’re lagging behind countries such as China, Japan and Cuba, which already have farms integrated into the social, economic and physical structures of their cities; as early as a decade ago Beijing town planners had begun to incorporate agriculture into the urban landscape. The Chinese government also offers courses to aspiring urban farmers and plans to cultivate gardens on nearly 10,000,000sq ft of roof space over the next 10 years. Similarly, Argentina’s Programa de Agricultura Urbana (PAU) was set up to support city-based farmers in the aftermath of the country’s financial collapse. And in Cuba, when the US-led trade embargo resulted in severe food shortages, the government responded by investing in urban farms, providing state-owned plots and teaching relevant skills in schools. But will it work in Britain? Carole Wright, who manages the |
