On Being a Boss: Kristen Essig Takes Over at Sainte Marie – Eater Interviews – Eater NOLA

Below, is a link to an interview with a New Orleans chef who has embedded local purchasing into the very DNA of her kitchen.

The day I met Kristen was the day (2002? 2003?) that she interviewed to be our Crescent City Farmers Market (CCFM) Tuesday/Thursday market manager. She came to the interview with a slate of ideas and opinions backed up with a vitality that could not be denied. We were surprised that someone with her fine dining experience (and obvious ambition) wanted to work for our little organization, but she explained that she wanted to know all facets of the food system.
During her tenure, she can be credited with building our Green Plate Special program, which allows restaurants to come for a full month of Tuesdays to sell plate lunches to the shoppers at the CCFM and, of course, allows those chefs to understand the farmers and fishers better and to have long stretches to watch market vending in person.

As a chef, she came with a “shoot from the hip” framework and never stopped running the entire time she worked with us. Like anyone who has worked on the line at top restaurants, she was intimidating to some but we knew that she always led with what was in the best interest of our farmers and fishers. Through her, we understood the psyche of the chef better and started to realize that we should get to know the sous chefs and line cooks that were more often at the market and were on their way to the top position. Many of those have now become leaders of their own restaurant (why, like our friend Kristen Essig!) and almost all have become fierce supporters of those markets.

“As a line cook, you develop a relationship with vendors as they come in the back door, but actually working with the vendors at the market was a totally different thing. You’re working, really, with 20 small businesses, and they’re all trying to make certain quotas, and they all have certain amounts of product that they have to move. You develop strong relationships with these people—you learn that they have bills to pay, whose kid needs braces, etc.”

On Being a Boss: Kristen Essig Takes Over at Sainte Marie – Eater Interviews – Eater NOLA.

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Lifecycle of Emergence

For those organizing networks this theory can be very helpful, to have a strategy that allows for both short and long term. Cooperation and communication must happen at the precise moment(s) that networks are ready to emerge and to grow. For organizers, that means practicing patience and fortitude.

From The Berkana Institute:

…the lifecycle of emergence: how living systems begin as networks, shift to intentional communities of practice, and evolve into powerful systems capable of global influence.

This system of influence possesses qualities and capacities that were unknown in the individuals. It isn’t that they were hidden; they simply don’t exist until the system emerges. They are properties of the system, not the individual, but once there, individuals possess them. And the system that emerges always possesses greater power and influence than is possible through planned, incremental change. Emergence is how Life creates radical change and takes things to scale.

Lifecycle of Emergence.

the two loops visual is one that many of you have probably seen me try to draw (badly); here it is done well:

Theory of Change

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Australian Food Sovereignty

Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) is a growing national voice representing the community at large. AFSA emerged with the Peoples Food Plan as a response to the Governments National Food Plan, which in their analysis showed “heavy bias towards corporate agribusiness, large-scale food manufacturing, big retailing interests and a flawed public consultation process”.

AFSA

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News & Events | VEGGI Farmer’s Cooperative

This is a new Vietnamese-led growers initiative in New Orleans. I hope we begin to see more production cooperatives among farmers, especially urban and peri-urban farmers.

News & Events | VEGGI Farmer's Cooperative.

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Ask away…

To follow up on Monday’s post on excellent questions NEVER to ask farmers at a market, here is a great site full of questions once SHOULD ask a farmer. I can envision these on a laminated card at the Welcome Booth or maybe on Facebook with a few listed weekly. Questions for farmers

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Small-Scale Farmers Are Key To Economy

“…the report cites key studies, which show a positive relationship between agriculture and poverty reduction. For instance, one study has shown that for every 10 per cent increase in farm yields, there was a seven per cent reduction in poverty in Africa. In contrast, growth in manufacturing and services has not shown comparable impact on poverty.”

Small-Scale Farmers Are Key To Economy | The Star.

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Four Questions You Should Never Ask at a Farmers Market | Civil Eats

I agree with 3 of the 4. I think it’s okay to ask if you can buy something early-the market should have a way to answer that question, and sometimes it’s allowed. And yes, sometimes stores do let customers in early.

I also think when someone asks about a farmer’s life (like when do you get up?) it is only to learn and to connect. If it doesn’t offend you, you can use the moment to teach other people about the life of a farmer. But dear shopper, do beware the grumpy (tired) farmer!

Four Questions You Should Never Ask at a Farmers Market | Civil Eats.

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Vermont Law School Helps Farmers Markets and CSAs

Good overview of the new Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law School that Laurie Ristino is heading. I am honored to be part of one of their first grants to help markets, written in partnership with NOFA-VT. If the proposal is successful, legal resources will be written for markets and for CSAs over the next few years.

VT Law

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As Cost of Importing Food Soars, Jamaica Turns to the Earth – NYTimes.com

…officials across the region say more young people are getting involved, partly because food prices have soared, but also because governments have promised that agriculture means steady work, and not just in the fields.

The Bahamas is building a gleaming food science university to emphasize agricultural best practices.

Haiti, which experienced food riots in 2008, recently broke ground on a series of silos for a “strategic food reserve,” while Jamaica is considering investments in juicing and food preservation start-ups.

“We have idle hands and arable land,” Mr. Clarke said. “We are trying to see how we can bring those two together.”

As Cost of Importing Food Soars, Jamaica Turns to the Earth – NYTimes.com.

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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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Fishing for answers

Kevin M. Bailey, a senior scientist at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center and affiliate professor at the University of Washington has written a detailed explanation of the economic, scientific and political underpinnings surrounding the Alaskan pollock in his new book, Billion Dollar Fish. This is the product that makes up much of the school cafeteria/fish stick/filet o’fish market and therefore its demise or success has a far-reaching impact on commercial fishing policies. The study of fishing systems is helpful to anyone that is thinking of growing food systems into complete systems. In studying fishing/harvesting, other subjects such as pollution from industries such as agriculture, game fishers, border issues and the aftermath of disasters must be considered even as most Western citizens have grown deeply unaware of their waterways with the advent of the highway and railroad systems.
Ocean communities are complex. The fates of species are braided with feedback systems, complicated interactions, and co-dependencies. We don’t understand much about marine fishes because our ability to observe what really goes on in the ocean is limited, and because the lives of fishes are so foreign to our own existence. An incomplete understanding is not a good foundation for engineering solutions. Yet in harvesting them, we try to manipulate the productivity of fish stocks by setting harvests levels as close to the bone as we can cut.

Billion Dollar Fish

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111 Low-Cost or Free Online Tools for Nonprofits

This is an excellent list of tools of which many would be quite helpful for markets and other non-profit food system organizations.

I especially like
2, 3, 4, 14, 25, 29, 34, 44, 46, 50, 58, 71, 78, 84, 104, 110

111 Low-Cost or Free Online Tools for Nonprofits.

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