Parallel plazas

Having just returned from Oakland California where I was attending the Community Food Security Coalition’s “Honoring Our Roots, Growing the Movement” Conference, I think of my daily walk through the Occupy Oakland plaza, on the next corner from our conference. I mentioned to my old boss at marketumbrella.org (as we visited on our way to eat at the vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant) that it looked like the post-Katrina public spaces, with blue tarps and kitchens positioned almost exactly as ours were. He looked startled as he recognized the truth of that, and then we both smiled as we remembered how we all began to build something together from those tents.
Our deja vu is shared by those that are not necessarily from New Orleans but that reside in the food movement. They also recognize the configuration. Food organizers have a slightly different feel about Occupy than our neighbors that toil in regular work; its because we’ve been in the Occupy movement for a while, waiting under the tents for the others to join us.
And as we see our Occupy family growing as more realize that wealth needs to be generated and shared differently than it is currently, and that democratizing decisions by spreading the power around and collectivizing needs is easier than it seems, we know that it is only the beginning.
I also think food organizers will become more radicalized and savvy about tactics through our sisters and brothers occupying those plazas (often near our pop up tent villages) while Occupy will become more excited about the possibilities in the ebullient community that we know how to build in the food system.
So, welcome.
Farmers helping Occupy

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Oakland get together

If you haven’t been to the Community Food Security Coalition’s annual conference-well unfortunately, you’re about to miss another.

This weekend and early next week, hundreds of food activists will gather in Oakland (yes, right across from the Occupy protests) to discuss, learn and move forward.

As we grow our movement, the need to share grows as well. Spending time in hotel ballrooms can often seem like a cruel fate for active people, but that time together speeds up all of our strategy for implementation.
Do look at 2012 and see where you can put some time away from your important projects and see others important projects. And, if you can, join CFSC in listening to the movement.

About CFSC

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Drugstore shopping: Worse than you’d expect

On average, prices were 36% higher than supermarkets.

Drugstore shopping: Worse than you’d expect.

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Search for new Executive Director-CFSC

Over the summer, Community Food Security Coalition’s Founder and Executive Director for 17 years, Andy Fisher resigned his position. We expect Andy to continue his early groundbreaking food security work and will honor his and other leaders many years in the food security movement at our November conference “Honoring Our Roots, Growing The Movement” in Oakland CA.

We are also beginning our search for a new Executive Director and have a link to the job description. Please send the link to those colleagues that you feel could lead CFSC into its next iteration. The CFSC Transition and Search Committee has worked extensively on the job description and requirements, but if you have any questions, feel free to email me directly (I serve as a Board member) or find me or any board member at the Oakland conference to talk in more detail.
Job Posting

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Muddy fish tales

The world’s largest independent product-testing organization revealed last week that 22% of the seafood it tested at supermarkets, restaurants, fish markets, gourmet stores and big-box stores in three states was either mislabeled, incompletely labeled or misidentified by store or restaurant employees.

I would assume that this research does not include producer-only farmers markets that have seafood.
So its another example of how criteria at farmers markets helps consumers.

USA Story

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Fair trade; yes? no? not yet? too late?

As a market organizer that created and ran a fair trade market in New Orleans for 5 years, I researched the idea heavily, many times while sitting at my neighborhood fair trade coffeehouse, Fair Grinds. I did find the fair trade argument thin in places, as it seemed to be more about a fuzzy mostly environmental rating on a bag and less about the part that a market organizer would focus on: that it offers more direct relationships with farmers and allows for a fairer accounting of labor and resource use. The painstaking knowledge of what it takes to farm and to survive in colonial regions is often reduced to a sepia toned photo of a farmer and a name on a sign. What is also interesting is that fair trade has not spread past commodities such as coffee and chocolate. Where is the fair trade wheat or sugar for example? And as more and more distributors enter the game, everyone it seems has at least 1 fair trade coffee on the shelf, often with very little paperwork or knowledge to support it. So, it seems to me to be have developed as more of a brand for consumers than a new values-based set of relationships. I will say, I continue to support my fair trade coffeehouse and purchase it when I can find it.
This article explains some of the weaknesses that it has as a movement, but I will say, their argument that it lacks a “single issue” focus is, in my mind not one of them. In any case, I appreciate the article and the magazine that published it.
Briarpatch

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Fishermen in crisis

Disasters have a way of leaving spectators’ daily memory bank to make room for new ideas and sometimes, for trials that are closer to home. Unfortunately, those that experienced the issues firsthand stay there once everyone has moved on.
The Gulf Coast oil spill tragedy is really still in its early days. The impact of the water quality on the region is mostly unknown but the Exxon Valdez spill gave some hints as to the potential long term danger to the seafood system.
What’s causing these dramatic shrimp declines is still unknown, government officials say. Some blame the floods last spring for pushing high levels of water into traditional fishing grounds. But many fishermen don’t buy it; they blame the oil. Fish and shrimp can move, and they can survive inflows of fresh water. Fishermen say if they’re out there, they know how to catch them. But so far, most haven’t been able to.
Mississippi fishermen

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Farmers Market run by kids

What a great idea.

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Utne Visionary

Food hero Gary Paul Nabhan surely deserves this award since his “place-based” food research has been groundbreaking for decades. “Coming Home To Eat” was the first short mile diet I read and it is quite different from the rest (still), with the cultural reclamation context he shares in it. His Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) work was immensely useful for me and my fellow organizers; the RAFT map (see below) is a wonderful representation of how America should be seen. Gary’s books range from a leisurely walk through a Franciscan walk in Italy to why peppers are heaven to some to his essays on desert life. Treat yourself:
Book list

Utne award

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Utne Visionary #2

Another worthy person that Utne picked for 2011. Those of us involved in the conversation around living economies are lucky enough to listen in on this. What is money but a proxy for labor and resources? And how should we define wealth generation in our world? David Korten et al are bravely following these threads:
“Imagine an economy in which life is valued more than money and power resides with ordinary people who care about one another, their community, and their natural environment. It is possible. It is happening. Millions of people are living it into being. Our common future hangs in the balance”

Money Changer

New Economy 2.0

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Great video about the use of incentives to increase SNAP sales

One of my past colleagues at marketumbrella.org Emily Schweninger, is interviewed here about the pilot incentive programs done at the Crescent City Farmers Market that really changed the reach of their market system starting in 2007/2008. I will also recommend the other video on tokens found on the same marketumbrella.org YouTube channel called “FAQ-token systems.” I’m very proud of this series that I produced while at marketumbrella.org and hope it’s helpful for you.

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Occupy our time

The latest newsletter from the Farmers Market Coalition (FMC) came out last Wednesday and it strikes a whole bunch of the same notes as the orchestration being played by hundreds of thousands of individuals in Zuccotti Park and many other public spaces around the world these days.
FMC points out that economy of scale arguments (“Get Big or Get out” for those who know their post WW agriculture history) and words like efficiency and scale have (for years) been used against those of us who prefer to work towards diversity, shared wealth, sufficiency and innovation in our movement. And that human-scaled movements that work are messy and hard to quantify or even to see, but there they are, in booking places to stay or quietly sharing knowledge…
FMC inspired me and probably lots of you too while they reminded us to take the time to measure success in our world in accordance with the values we fight for and, as importantly, to keep at it. Sometimes those words are necessary even for zealots like food organizers…
FMC Newsletter

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Seed and Cycle

As the movement grows robust, many shoots are growing from unlikely and likely places to support local place-based organizers of alternative food systems. I myself have become one of those, and the folks at Seed and Cycle are there too, offering smart resources for urban growing. Goals such as extending the growing season and soil building are imperative for small space farmers to utilize, but reading books alone will not give you the skills needed. Look for your version of Seed and Cycle in your community or, maybe, encourage a market volunteer or partner agency to start one.
Seed and Cycle

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Women Farmers Feed the World

The Al­liance for a Green Rev­o­lu­tion in Africa (AGRA) is a Gates Foun­da­tion-funded ini­tia­tive based in Nairobi and spear­headed by Kofi Annan, for­mer sec­re­tary gen­eral of the U.N. It’s a mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar pro­ject that seeks to in­crease food pro­duc­tion in Africa by im­ple­ment­ing vig­or­ous West­ern-style agri­cul­tural tech­niques, promis­ing high-yield re­sults for food-in­se­cure pop­u­la­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to the Gates Foun­da­tion and other sup­port­ers, it’s an African-led en­deavor, mod­eled on the pre­vi­ous Green Rev­o­lu­tions of Latin Amer­ica and the In­dian sub-con­ti­nent but placed in the hands of Africans. It sounds like a good idea.

But a grow­ing move­ment of local farm­ers—largely led by women—argue that the surest path to food se­cu­rity is se­cur­ing food sov­er­eignty. It’s a con­cept that was put for­ward in the early 90’s by Via Campesina, an in­ter­na­tional al­liance of peas­ant, in­dige­nous, and women’s or­ga­ni­za­tions that ad­vo­cates for com­mu­ni­ties’ con­trol over how food is pro­duced, and who gets to eat it.
Women Farmers

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