Green Options

I met several lovely chickens yesterday when I was in Oakland, and I am now quite smitten. They are truly engrossing creatures to observe; the animal’s social behavior is very complex, their vocalizations are both soothing and fascinating, to say nothing of the delicious fresh eggs they provide. More and more urban chickens are being raised in cities, as increasing numbers of people are growing their own food and trying to create a more locally-based, sustainable and self-sufficient food supply.

In my last post, I wrote about Nathan McClintock’s research on the potential of alternative food to enhance social justice in economically impoverished neighborhoods.

Here, I present a different perspective.

Julie Guthman, a sociology professor at UC-Santa Cruz, thinks that alternative food activism has a tendency to reflect white desires more than the needs of the communities these programs supposedly serve.

Guthman’s surveys of UC-Santa Cruz undergraduates who do six-month field studies with alternative food organizations as well as the managers of California farmers markets and CSAs demonstrate that alternative food is burdened by white rhetoric.

Permaculture expert Penny Livingston-Stark explains how natural systems can teach us how to make more informed decisions about how we live, what we eat, and the manner in which we interact with the world. By observing basic permaculture concepts, we can create a more sustainable existence. Ms. Livingston-Stark is also one of the co-founders of the Regenerative Design Institute in Bolinas, California.

Given all of the attention on alternative food right now – from backyard chickens to guerilla gardeners to illegal rooftop beekeeping – I decided to start a series of posts on research examining the sociology and ecology of this movement.

Nathan McClintock, a graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley, studies the potential of urban agriculture to enhance social justice for economically impoverished neighborhoods.

His research focuses on Oakland’s so-called “food deserts,” areas where healthy, fresh food is rare.  Cheap, industrial food such as fast food and heavily processed snack foods, however, is common in these neighborhoods.

Food deserts arise from difficulties developing and sustaining supermarkets in low-income areas or the net loss of supermarkets to the suburbs.  McClintock’s research investigates the potential for urban farming to improve access to affordable, healthy food in these areas.

Using spatial mapping techniques, McClintock inventoried vacant and underutilized public land in Oakland to assess these parcels’ potential contribution to urban food production.  He estimates that converting suitable spaces to agriculture could supply five to 10 percent of Oakland’s fresh produce needs.

McClintock’s field research also considers the influence of urban agriculture on the ecology of urban environments.  Urban farms can boost air quality, control flooding, provide a sink for urban wastes, cool cities, buffer against climate change, and increase the diversity of insect and bird species in urban areas.

He also proposes that the green spaces created by urban agriculture can raise property values and make communities safer.

His research is currently being used as reference by the Oakland Food Policy Council, of which McClintock is a member.  The council is trying to determine how to make urban agriculture in Oakland’s food deserts a reality.

I confess: rutabagas overwhelm me. Turnips come in a close second. As these hefty big root crops pile up on the counter here at Inn Serendipity, I realize I need an easy cooking plan.

Fall crops – from butternuts to beets – require taking out the big sharp knives, the cutting boards, and usually can’t go from garden to plate in ten minutes or less. (Case in point: the yummy, yet rather complex, Beet Burger recipe I wrote about last week). But there’s a reason for that: these types of fall vegetables are meant to store and be savored through the winter months, particularly here in through our Wisconsin winters. Tougher skins and harder insides hold up to seasonal and local eating booty through our lean Midwest growing months, providing the opportunity to still eat fresh year round.

Consider this Roasted Root Vegetable recipe my point of entry into the winter cooking season. Cooked in olive oil with some simple seasonings, this recipe showcases the distinct, hearty flavors of root vegetables. Potato recipes get temporarily bumped off the breakfast plate at Inn Serendipity this time of year as this flavorful, unusual recipe prompts folks to rethink their assumptions about rutabagas and other roots.

Roasted Root Vegetables (Vegan)

Fresh ingredients go a long way in adding flavor to any dish.  The same culinary theory holds outside of the kitchen in other contexts as well, as evidenced at the 13th annual Community Food Security Coalition Conference this past week in Des Moines, Iowa.  Over 500 activists from around the country gathered to connect, collaborate and challenge each other on ways to transform and improve our food system, including representation from young women dedicated to a farming career in sustainable agriculture.

As a female farmer myself, running Inn Serendipity farm and B&B with my husband, John Ivanko, in Wisconsin, this increasing blending and crossover between new women farmers with a passion for raising both cabbage and change cultivates a hefty serving of inspiration. These new women farmers grow more than food for our table; they rethink the status quo approach to our food system and provide keen insights into what needs to change.

“As one of the fastest growing groups of new farmers, women can be the change makers that transform our agricultural system into one that provides organic, healthy and fair food to us all,” explains Faye Jones, Executive Director of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), a Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) member organization that sponsored two women farmers to attend this conference. Wisconsin women farmers Jai Kellum of King’s Hill Farm and Erin Schneider of Hilltop Community Farm attended the CFSC Conference on behalf of MOSES.“It is important to keep the voice of farmers represented in the national discussion on food and agricultural policy and priorities,” sums up Jones.

Here are four of their tips for politicians to policy makers from Kellum and Schneider to improve our agriculture and food system:

Ask the average kid where milk comes from and he might very well say a jug. Bread? The grocery store. According to research by Kingston University in London, kids need more farm visits to dispel the ignorance and misconceptions about farming and where food comes from. Scientist Frances Harris, the author of the report, wants schools to take action to organize these visits.

Even if your child knows that milk comes from a cow, does she know that there is more than one variety of cow? A hands on approach at the farm could also help kids understand which foods are real and which ones are processed. They won’t see any Pop Tarts or red, blue and green grains that could make up their Fruit Loops on the farm. Showing your kids where food comes from could set them up for a lifelong, healthier lifestyle. And actually being able to reach out and touch a cow is invaluable compared to watching a farm DVD or playing a video game.

Who knew such a thing existed, but this weekend is National Alpaca Farm Days!

Sponsored by the Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association (AOBA), Saturday and Sunday you can visit a local Alpaca farm and learn more about these animals. Why would one want to learn more about them?

Well, if you haven’t been paying attention, Alpacas produce a super soft fiber that is perfect for spinning up into so, much, amazing yarn. And the AOBA wants you to know just how green these animals are.

“What’s on Your Plate?” is a compelling new documentary that follows two eleven year old African American city kids, Sadie and Safiyah, as they explore their local New York food systems over the course of a year. The film accompanies the two girls as they embark upon a quest to learn more about food politics and the origins of what they are eating.

Catherine Gund, filmmaker and co-founder of the feminist [...]

Talk about a recipe for potential disaster.  Combine a down economy, changing agriculture practices, rising unemployment and the end result looks grim.  But here’s the secret ingredient  revitalizing and greening our countryside:  young people under 35.

Profiled in the new book, Renewing the Countryside: Youth, this new generation is making their mark on rural areas, from starting new farms to putting out their own entrepreneurial shingle in small towns. Renewing the Countryside: Youth showcases fifty case study stories, one from each state in the United States, cooking up a super-size serving of inspiration for what can be done in similar communities throughout rural America.

Renewing the Country (RTC), a Minnesota-based non-profit organization, specializes in championing such stories, telling the story of the small-scale but big impact individuals and organizations that are creatively crafting livelihoods that positively impact their rural communities. While other RTC books focus on stories within specific states such as Wisconsin, this latest book project, published in partnership with the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), uniquely celebrates rural youth.

In addition to the case study stories themselves, the engaging writing and photography also came from a team young artists across the nation. But beyond the inspiring read, this book serves as a starter blueprint for others looking to either return to or plant new roots in rural America, no matter one’s age.  Looking at these case study stories collectively, five themes emerge that identify why this particular group of young people are succeeding in the countryside:

I feel like I’ve finally settled a little here in London now that I am the proud recipient of an organic fruit and vegetable box scheme from a local company called Growing Communities. These box schemes are the equivalent of what we call Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes in the States. As other writers have mentioned on Eat.Drink.Better, it’s a great way to support local farmers and have good produce around to eat!

I feel blessed to live in the same area as Growing Communities, because it means I get access to their boxes of local and organic fruits and veg (the nickname everyone gives to vegetables here). You have to live or work in the neighborhood of Hackney in order to be a part of the scheme, which I’ll explain below. Their box scheme is particularly cool for a couple of reasons: