governments

Regulating the life out of community food systems

A link to an excellent opinion piece by Stacy Miller, project director at Farmers Market Coalition where the deep crisis of regulatory burden on small family farms is addressed. No question that the lack of clarity among cities, states and the federal government to write and administer common-sense regulation is one of the most important areas that all food system organizers and practioners need to work together to solve.

HuffPost piece

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Nearly 1 in 6 Americans Receives Food Stamps

This link sent to me by my Canadian colleague who said:
“It’s an astonishing figure…”

It certainly is, Helené.

And the graphic should be very useful to many markets and community organizers.

Nearly 1 in 6 Americans Receives Food Stamps – Real Time Economics – WSJ.

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Food & Farm Bill of Rights

This came up on a listserve today. Thankfully by opening that email I was reminded of this page’s existence and reassured by the possibility of a stray elected official doing something right for all Americans.

Food & Farm Bill of Rights | Congressman Earl Blumenauer.

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Creamery settles dispute with feds

“Randy and Karen Sowers will forfeit $29,500 to the government. U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein accused the couple in mid-April of violating federal currency reporting requirements — known as structuring — by depositing money in increments of less than $10,000 so they would not have to fill out forms required under the Bank Secrecy Act. The statutes are meant to curtail money laundering.
The Sowerses have owned a farm off Bolivar Road in Middletown for more than three decades and have operated it as the South Mountain Creamery since 2001. They have maintained their innocence and said they learned what structuring was only when Treasury Department officials showed up at the farm in late February to question them about the deposits.
The couple deal with a lot of cash at farmers markets, they said, and the deposits totaled similar amounts every time.”

Creamery settles dispute with feds – The Frederick News-Post : Archive.

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The Nature of Cities

A friend to New Orleans, Mary Rowe gives an eloquent description of the natural organizing within a city as seen when passing through a period of destruction. The lessons of city work can certainly hold a mirror to the lessons of food system organizing.

The Nature of Cities – powered by FeedBurner.

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USDA report: Nutrition Assistance in Farmers Markets: Understanding Current Operations

I have begun to take notes on the 799 page report released by the USDA last week (authored by Westat) on nutrition assistance programs managed at markets/with direct marketing farmers.
This (FM Ops) is the first completed phase of the 3 phases of research. Next will be a FM Client Survey, followed by a survey of organizations administering SNAP at farmers markets.

First, the data collection info:

2 parts to this research of FM Ops

First, 9 markets were interviewed in depth, picked by FNs based on their FNS regions and level of population below poverty level:
Eastern Market, Detroit MI
Peachtree Road, Atlanta GA
South Boston, Boston MA
Clark Park, Philadelphia PA
Market On The Square, Mobile AL
Fort Pierce, Ft. Pierce FL
Wytheville, Wytheville VA
Sitka, Sitka AK
Overland Park, Overland Park KS

Second, 1682 farmers markets and 570 direct marketing farmers were surveyed organized in 4 groups:
1. Those that were SNAP authorized and had redemptions between July 1, 2010 and August 31, 2011-77.4% (FMS) and 68.2% (DMFs) response among this group

2. Those that were SNAP authorized but had no redemptions between July 1,2010 and August 31, 2011- 69% (FMs) and 65% (DMFs) response among this group.

3. Those that were SNAP authorized and had redemptions between July 1, 2007 and August 31, 2010, but had no redemptions after August 31, 2010 – 56.8 % (FMs) response among this group -FNS did not differentiate FMs from DMFs until 2010 so there is no individual data on DMFs.

4. Never SNAP authorized- 51.8% (FMs) response among this group. Same issue as above in tracking DMFs so no numbers for that group in this stratum.

Westat also conducted focus groups with 2 markets in DC and Maryland, with some fascinating input from the participants:
“They don’t all make you feel that way, but sometimes you come across one that makes you feel a little bit like, ‘Oh, another EBT card.’ I don’t think they all do it and it’s not every time, but few and far between. They make you feel a little embarrassed, like a second class citizen.”

Much more to come…..

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Markets in Bogotá

As farmers market organizers, we get busy with our logistical work and our market aches and pains that come from growing too fast. As important as it is to remember what we have in front of us in the U.S., it is as important for us to remember what the rest of the world struggles with and how they see farmers markets as a solution too.
This piece from the Nyéléni newsletter (the Food Sovereignty newsletter for the international movement) tells an inspiring story about market organizers in Columbia that should be read by all North American organizers too.

www.nyeleni.org/DOWNLOADS/newsletters/Nyeleni_Newsletter_Num_13_EN.pdf.

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California legislation about farmers markets

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-market-news-online-20130322,0,4932509.story

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SNAP and SNAP-ED under fire

The Healthy Farms Healthy People Coalition is sharing the below information, that was distributed by Steering Committee member organization, Public Health Institute.

Public Health Institute Call to Action:
Tell the Senate: America Depends on Our Nutrition Programs

On Wednesday the Senate Budget Committee began considering proposals that would slash billions from our country’s nutrition programs-reducing funding that provides SNAP (food stamps) to over 47 million Americans, and completely eliminating the nutrition education program SNAP-Ed. As budget conversations continue over the next few days, a proposal on the table from Senator Roberts, to slash $36 billion, is expected to be the first of many misdirected attempts to balance the budget by literally taking healthy foods off of people’s plates. The proposed cuts could go even higher, if we don’t stand up for nutrition programs today.

On the heels of last week’s devastating sequester cuts, we can’t afford to sever one of the most important safety nets for our poorest families. Cutting nutrition programs won’t reduce poverty, stop children from going hungry or provide resources that improve diets.

Call your senators.

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Race, Class, and Community in San Francisco’s Mission District – “A Time of Skinny Cows”

Great article about the (negative) relationship of the food movement to gentrification and therefore culture. We have to know the entire history of our movement (including its elitist characteristics) and acknowledge how our work has positive and negative implications on the less fortunate even as we continue to push its boundaries.
Some quotes from the article that I found useful:

“We think of gentrification principally in terms of real estate, race, and class, but I more often find that food is the thermometer reading the temperature of gentrification.”

“Much of what we call food politics today—buying local, farming organic, eating vegetarian—originally came from collectives that wanted to raise awareness about industrially produced food. The People’s Food System of the mid-’70s was a network of community food stores and small-scale food collectives that organized to take back control of food from large agricultural and chemical companies; they built direct connections to farmers to establish the first farmers’ markets. Meanwhile, the Black Panthers were hosting free community breakfasts in their neighborhoods, and Alice Walters opened Chez Panisse partly as a space to talk about politics. Various collectives shared the urban farm known as the Crossroads Community (The Farm) on Potrero Avenue at the edge of the Mission.
All this activity resulted in a paradox: as radical food politics succeeded, healthy food became commodified as elite food, proving that successful social movements can be gentrified, just like neighborhoods. The best farmers’ market in San Francisco, at the Ferry Building, is also the least affordable, and Waters’ Chez Panisse, the standard-bearer of locally grown, seasonal food, has become one of the most expensive restaurants in Berkeley.”

Read more: http://www.utne.com/arts-culture/san-franciscos-mission-district-zm0z13mazwil.aspx?page=5#ixzz2LGcdfe6r

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A Load of Guac

As a citizen of the host city for Super Bowl 2013, I find the scale of this thing fascinating. In some ways, this event surpasses the festivities of Thanksgiving among some demographics. And of course, the two days are both about food and football and screaming (okay maybe that’s only some families)…

This article talks about the history of guacamole at Super Bowl festivities and how it is tied to the explosion of avocados grown and marketed in California starting in the 1980s according to the author:

In the 1980s, California saw a boom in avocado farm start-ups — a small-scale “green gold” rush, news outlets joked; easy avocado trees were the perfect crop for the gentleman farmer. More avocado farms meant a greater — and cheaper — avocado supply for the end user. This bounty, combined with the establishment of commissions to promote avocados and protect grower interests, triggered the classic feedback loop that mainstreams “exotic” food into American culture: The more visible and widely distributed a food becomes, the less strange it seems; the less strange it seems, the more widespread it becomes. You can see this cultural shift in a couple of banner years between the middle and end of the last century: A mid-summer bumper crop in 1960, two years before Jackie Kennedy served an avocado and crabmeat salad at a formal state dinner, cause the price per avocado to drop to 15 to 30 cents — roughly equivalent to $1.17 to $2.33 today, which we’d consider a bit high for a record low. In 1987, when Californians had been slicing avocado onto every burger and sandwich for about a decade, a similar surplus crop allowed New Yorkers to buy at 30 to 50 cents apiece (60 cents to $1 today).

So fascinating to think that for the next Super Bowl in New Orleans the state ag folks could start planning for a bumper crop of pecans and work to add roasted pecans, pecan pie to become the next tradition for Super Bowl Sunday.

The Smart Set: A Load of Guac – January 30, 2013.

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