Report from Georgia Organics on the urban farming phenomenon.
Urban Agriculture On the Rise – National Young Farmers’ Coalition : National Young Farmers’ Coalition
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Racial Justice webinars
One of the areas in which farmers market organizers need to examine their own biases and be open and honest about the barriers in our part of the movement is on racial equity. We should tip our hat to the community farm movement, because these issues are being raised in many more communities that work on urban ag and with immigrant farmers but unfortunately, in my experience it happens much less often in the general farmers market movement.
We can begin to learn how to address issues by attending webinars like this. This series was brought to my attention by my colleague Oklahoma farmer, market organizer and food activist Demalda Newsome who is leading the way in her own community and also throughout the U.S. as a board member of the Community Food Security Coalition and SSAWG.
Webinar Series Registration
Register now for both sessions, and save $5 per webinar!
“Changing the Conversation on Race”
March 15, 1pm ET/10am PT
Avoid circular conversations around race that only lead to frustration and hurt. This session will help you move the discussion around racial justice past stalemate and towards one that’s more productive.
Presenters Kai Wright, Editorial Director of Colorlines.com, and Terry Keleher, Director of ARC’s Racial Justice Leadership Action Network will use examples from the award-winning Colorlines.com on framing sensitive topics.
“Taking Real Steps Towards Racial Justice”
April 19, 1pm ET/10am PT
Most people want to eliminate racism, but are not sure what to do or how to do it. Racism often occurs without consciousness or malice, but creating racial justice requires clarity and methodology.
Presenter Terry Keleher, Director of ARC’s Racial Justice Leadership Action Network will draw on examples of legal, policy and budgetary initiatives that have changed communities across the country.
In this interactive training, you’ll get practical tools to:
Talk effectively about racism
Keep conversations constructive and productive
Move from conversation towards actions and solutions
In this webinar, you’ll learn how to:
Counteract unconscious bias
Identify everyday opportunities for advancing racial justice
Move from institutional racism to “institutionalizing racial equity
If you want even more in-depth learning, save the date for November 15-17. ARC’s 2012 Facing Race Conference brings the most exciting thinkers, leaders, and activists together in Baltimore, MD. Early Bird registration is open now!
Raw milk farmer closes dairy
“Allgyer operated Rainbow Acres Farm, a small dairy farm in Kinzers, in Lancaster County, Pa., that packaged raw milk and sold it to a group of suburban Washington, D.C., consumers called Grassfed On The Hill. FDA agents infiltrated the buyers’ group by posing as customers and placing orders for delivery across state lines.”
So glad they stopped that crime wave.
Tools for Living
A few years ago, a coworker of mine who was one of the best children’s booksellers I had ever encountered, told me she felt “without purpose” in her life. It occurred to me then that many of my female friends had said something similar while in their 30s. I opined that it had to do with the way that modern women had only recently stopped having to do any of the work that fed, clothed or housed them and so had just begun to feel the loss of a particular type of usefulness. It seemed that men had lost track of that a few generations before, but women had only fully moved away from it in the 1970s.
I said then that when young people felt it, something would then happen. Now. I don’t see myself as a seer, but it’s clear that humans want to be useful and work on things they need for their own survival. So, once again, there is a lesson for all of us in the alternative food system-add dignity and fun to the place to those seeking real connections to their own survival.
Tools for Living – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Food and parks
Great pdf on national parks working to add healthy, relevant food choices. These case studies are well done with product sourcing details and partner possibilities. I recommend all food systems organizers read this report and then email a copy to their nearest park ranger…
www.parksconservancy.org/assets/igg-assets/igg-pdfs-docs/food-for-the-parks-report.pdf.
Slow Food Replies
We’ll assume you have been following the debate between some long-term Slow Food leaders and the current leadership. If not, check out this link to an earlier story on this blog:
If you have, then you are probably ready to see this reply from Josh Viertel, Slow Food USA president.
The Soul of Slow Food: Fighting for Both Farmers and Eaters – The Atlantic.
Mushrooming diapers (or diapering mushrooms?)
Allowing mushroom vendors in markets can be more complicated than it seems to outsiders. Since many mushroom vendors forage their product (which in turn means markets cannot inspect their sites) markets have to be creative while they practice what they preach (producers only rules!) The growing practice in this article may address although it seems to increase the need for production of diapers!
“Oyster mushrooms, Pleurotus ostreatus, can devour 90 percent of a disposable diaper within two months, observed Alethia Vázquez-Morillas of the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City in the journal Waste Management. (1) What’s more, the mushrooms grown on diapers are edible. Vázquez-Morillas has dined upon them herself.”
Conservation Magazine
KSU Research and Extension 2012 plan
Kansas State University Research and Extension
Fascinating to see the body of work that Kansas Extension has for 2012. Targets like food security, childhood obesity, climate change. An ambitious and inclusive plan that other states should emulate.
The planning process for KState Research and Extension continues to be ongoing.
Within our seven planned programs, the plan currently includes seven strategic opportunities.
Those opportunities are as follows: Sustain Profitable Agricultural Production Systems;
Prepare People in Kansas to Thrive in a Global Society and All Aspects of Life; Ensure an
Abundant and Safe Food Supply for All; Enhance Effective Decision-making Regarding
Environmental Stewardship; Identify Pathways for Efficient and Sustainable Energy Use, Assist
Communities in Becoming Sustainable and Resilient to the Uncertainties of Economics,
Weather, Health, and Security; and Create Opportunities and Support People in Kansas to
Improve Their Physical, Mental, and Emotional Health and Well-Being.
K-State Research & Extension files a combined research and extension plan of work with the United States Department of Agriculture. The new 2012-2016 plan lists the seven planned programs that will utilize the work of 422 extension and 266 research employees. Within each planned program, there are specific knowledge areas that define the work, states the number of research and extension personnel for that planned program and lists the percentages of time given by research and extension employees on these knowledge areas. The 2010 plan of work had four planned programs while the 2012-2016 plan has seven planned programs: Global Food Security and Hunger; Food Safety; Natural Resources and Management; Childhood Obesity and Nutrition through the Lifespan; Healthy Communities: Youth, Adults, and Families; Sustainable Energy; and Climate Change. ‘We cannot be everything to everyone; therefore, we have to focus on serving the highest priorities.’ (2012 Plan – page 1)
Viva Farmers
Viva Farms tries to help new farmers overcome the many technical and financial barriers they face.
“There are five things every start-up farmer needs,” Mrs. Schaffer says. These include education in farm management, access to land, equipment (like tractors) and infrastructure (like irrigation and cold storage), start-up capital, and marketing and distribution support.
Viva Farms
Our season of sharing really starts now
For those deep in the market world, the year tends to go in patterns. Starting with workshops and meetings in the winter and early spring, we then gear up for the late spring season at market, then work madly throughout the summer, and end the year writing reports and attending to administrative needs.
Whether the market is year-round or your region has seasonal markets, it makes it hard to find the time to gain or share knowledge past those we see regularly at market.
As we start our workshop/conference season, I for one am looking forward to the Southern SAWG conference in Little Rock, AK. SSAWG functions as a regional entity, working with and through hundreds of associated organizations across 13 southern states. By building partnerships, sharing information and conducting analysis, they transform isolated ideas and innovations into practical tools and approaches for widespread use.
I have presented at past SSAWG conferences and am always energized by the farmer bustle and the very detailed assistance that is available to organizers across the South from this organization. We don’t have many large organizations down here, so we value each one we get!
There is still time to register for SSAWG; the information gained would be useful even if you are not a Southern farmer or food organizer. And if Little Rock is not possible for you to visit this year, at least sign up for their Newsletter.
extreme weather
This may cross farmers and market organizers minds at times, but in my experience few have prepared for the possibility of having interruption in the food system. Being a New Orleanian, I have personally experienced it twice, with the 2005 levee breaks and then the BP oil spill. Even after restarting the food system twice, we still have no master plan for another crisis, although a few organizations like marketumbrella.org have some systems in place.
If we are having such a difficult time, I can imagine what those regions who have not seen a crisis in the past 30 years have done in preparation! Do they have a back up plan for contacting farmers and producers when the internet and main phones are out? Do they know what their community foundations have planned? Is there any emergency funds built for food system people? Who are the state and regional government leaders they need to know?
Watching the informal sisterhood of food NGOs in Vermont recover from Irene has shown me what collaboration can do within a single political entity. However, I have heard little about what the multi-state approach has been to that same disaster.
Extreme weather is happening in more states and in more ways with the global weather instability that our carbon emissions have brought. What then is YOUR plan in YOUR region? Who are your key players? What is the sequence of events that will unfold if (or can I say) WHEN it happens in your food system?
North American Farmers’ Direct Market Association conference coming up
27th Annual Convention February 10-16, 2012 in Williamsburg, VA
Great place for farmers and direct marketing organizers to learn and share techniques.
Let’s retake ugly food too
This report makes a great point about our unease with ugly fruit. I believe that the entire responsibility DOES go to those supermarkets that started to stage light and wax fruit for display. They have lost the ability to lure people in with smells or bursting ripeness. Let me also say that the finger pointing to the consumer in this story as the culprit is unsubstantiated; we have become conditioned based how food has been presented in our lifetime, and it’s up to the farmers markets (once again!) to change that perception with gentle encouragement.
WE can bring back the ugly fruit too, by simply encouraging our farmers to bring “seconds” and then to promote them. Why not ask the farmers to bring a few boxes that are not perfect and do as the Monica family in New Orleans does- label the box “chef special” which, of course brings every serious home cook to peer in the box and then drop their jaw at the lower price.
report
WWNO: Louisiana Eats 12-28-11: Year In Review
Poppy Tooker is a favorite of every serious (and lighthearted) food organizer in my region – and if you want to get honest about it – those smart ones far beyond her beloved Gumbo Nation.
I could go on and on about her, but let me say this: Food organizers should be so lucky as to have a Poppy Tooker in their midst. She has done many things, including being largely responsible for the speed in which we rebuilt our food system after the federal levee breaks by alternately cheering, cursing and championing those producers (and market managers like myself) that needed to get back up and running, finding us money and support and the words to explain ourselves.
For many years, she has reclaimed food and its dignity in dozens of ways, with unique style and dedication, even while making everyone shake their head with laughter or hide it in fear of her righteous wrath at times too.
All as a VOLUNTEER.
She wrote the glorious Crescent City Farmers Market cookbook and now finds herself a radio star of the first order on the public radio station in New Orleans. Listen to her online now, here, because she is going to be heard a lot more places soon, and you can say, “Oh Poppy? I been listening to her for YEARS..”
Helping Farmers Markets Grow 