Food Policy Council of San Antonio

E-N article on Herff Farm garden, Will Allen on "The Splendid Table"

While waiting for the food policy conference coming up next Thursday and Friday, here are some links to read and listen to, to get you into the mood.

The Express-News SA Life section today features an article on Herff Farm's sustainable "inspiration" garden next to the Cibolo Nature Center in Boerne. Tracy Hobson Lehmann writes about the Nature Center's project to demonstrate a variety of sustainable practices for our climate. These include organic soil-building, growing with compost and mulch, keyhole gardens, drip irrigation, and nontoxic pest control methods.

Also on Saturday, "The Splendid Table," airing on Texas Public Radio, featured an interview with Will Allen about the founding of Growing Power, and his book The Good Food Revolution. Find it here.

And while I'm at it, I'll repeat the Living on Earth link from last weekend that features Mark Winne, keynote speaker for the food conference, commenting on food deserts.

Food Desert commentator speaking in SA May 9 to 11

Noted food activist Mark Winne was interviewed for this week's environmental program "Living On Earth," for an update on food deserts. Recent reports in the New York Times have questioned accepted knowledge about areas lacking access to healthy, affordable food, and how large a role this plays in personal behavior and health outcomes. LOE had treated this topic before and interviewed Winne, and for this week's show he gives an update on the issue and puts the current controversy into perspective. It's 10 minutes of very worthwhile listening, or you can read the transcript.

Winne will be in San Antonio week after next, as keynote speaker at the Food Policy Council of San Antonio's conference May 10-11. Registration closes soon, if you want to attend. Follow the link.

For the community at large, he is also speaking at St. Mark's Episcopal Church Wednesday evening May 9 at 7 p.m. RSVP to the church office, 210 226-2426 for that. St. Mark's is at 315 East Pecan downtown, and has free parking in the church lot across Jefferson.

Both of Mark Winne's books (Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners and Smart-Cookin' Mamas, and Closing the Food Gap) will be available starting this week at The Twig Book Shop and the St. Mark's Bookstore. He will be signing them at the St. Mark's talk and at the conference.

Mark Winne spent much of his career in Hartford, Connecticut, first working for an anti-hunger agency, and then founding an organization to work on fixing the system that was producing so much inequity in access to healthy, affordable food. From that start, he has become one of our nation's leading voices on the causes of food inequity and the policies that are needed to correct it. His analysis and advocacy have influenced federal policy, and have led to the formation of food policy councils in many communities (including San Antonio). He continues his work these days from New Mexico, writing and traveling frequently for conferences, consulting, and speaking engagements.

Food Policy Council of San Antonio hosting conference

The Food Policy Council of San Antonio is hosting a conference next month.

The $60 registration fee is underwritten for the first 200 participants by the Communities Putting Prevention to Work Grant at Metropolitan Health District.
 
The conference will consist of three tracks, focusing on Producers and Markets, Community Food Systems, and Policy. Presentations will include Community Garden Initiatives, Food Waste Recovery, Federal and State Food Policies, and Food Justice.

Sustaining Our Food,
Sustaining Our Future
Thursday and Friday, May 10-11
Madison High School's Agriscience Magnet Program
5005 Stahl Road

See the full program and register through this website, either online or by paper form.

Mark Winne (pronounced "Winnie") will keynote the conference with a presentation on May 10. He is the author of Food Rebels, Guerilla Gardeners, and Smart Cookin’ Mamas: Fighting Back in an Age of Industrial Agriculture and Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty. Winne is co-founder of a number of food and agriculture policy groups including the City of Hartford Food Policy Commission, the Connecticut Food Policy Council, End Hunger Connecticut, and the national Community Food Security Coalition.

Talk and Book Signing
If you can't attend the conference but would still like to hear keynote speaker Mark Winne, he will also be speaking at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 315 E. Pecan, at 7 p.m. Wednesday May 9. Call the church office, 210 226-2426 to RSVP.

Both of Mark Winne's books will be available soon at The Twig and the St. Mark's Bookstore, and will be sold at the conference.

Conference Junkie is on the ground at SSAWG

Tonight at the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group conference in Little Rock, we are treated to virtual farm tours, via 10 DVDs produced by SSAWG to highlight several kinds of sustainable growers. Check out the descriptions here. Somebody needs to order these and kick off a regular foodie movie screening in SA.

Right now, I'm watching "Cut Flowers." The farmer is telling us that landscape fabric will last 5 or 6 growing seasons, versus black plastic which lasts for one, and it lets rain through. In another one, the farmer used black plastic to prevent too much rain from leaching nitrogen. That's not usually our problem! These diverse organic farmers have developed so many efficiencies and cool labor-saving tricks, and they've all had to learn it as they go along, for their particular farms and crops or animals. They are also intent on catering to their customers, whether at a farmers market or CSA (Community Supporte Agriculture).You will be amazed.

Next up are "Pasture-Based Dairy Farming" and "Artisan Cheese Production and Marketing." As the granddaughter of a dairyman, I've been waiting for these.

This conference draws sustainable farmers and food activists from all over the South, and beyond. Several Texans are on the program. More tomorrow!

Remember food labor today

Whatever you're eating today, stop to think and appreciate the people whose labor brought it to your table: growers, pickers, packers, processors, truckers, loaders, shelf stockers, checkers, cooks and chefs, servers, table setters and bussers, dishwashers, vendors, and every other category that I've overlooked.

With Cesar Chavez recently honored here by the renaming of Durango Street, farmworkers should be top of mind. And with the recent publication of Tomatoland, more people have become aware of the plight of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. CIW, formed in 1993, has fought for increased pay (a whole $.01 per pound, a 50% increase) by organizing against fast food restaurants purchasing tomatoes. Through persistence and networking, they gained enough public awareness and support to achieve their goal with several chains. The working conditions documented in the book reveal much more pervasive problems, including documented cases of slavery and being forced to work while fields are sprayed with pesticides. Who would have thought that winter tomatoes would have such a story?

As my incomplete list of workers shows, farmworkers are only a fraction of the people who work unseen to allow us to eat every day. Throughout the entire food system, people perform jobs that most of us don't recognize or appreciate. The Growing Food and Justice For All Initiative is a resource for anyone concerned with bringing about a just and sustainable food system.

As is often said, no food system is sustainable if it is not just. So think about what it took to feed you today, and resolve to make your own food system more just and sustainable.

Note: the photo above is borrowed from Slow Food Portland.

 

Agriculture, sustainable or not, in the news

Agro-ecology

Yesterday, there were news releases about a United Nations report saying that "agro-ecology" can feed the world far more reliably than industrial agriculture can.

Today, Mark Bittman, the food writer for the New York Times (who in January gave up his Minimalist column in the Dining section and moved to the opinion pages) spiffed it up for us, adding his perspective. He links to the press release, and the full report.

In places, he seems to lean toward GMO proponents' attempts to warp the sustainable-ag mission (co-existence, "we need to try everything," etc.) Overall, though, the report is pretty strong--we have to build the soil, let small farmers be small, and get away from reliance on petrochemicals in agriculture. Those steps automatically will make agriculture more nature-friendly.

N-P-ARGH

Leaving aside their current troubles with the Congressional majority (and their talent for shooting themselves in the foot), National Public Radio (NPR) has been running reports on agriculture, usually giving Big Ag the last word. Today, in "Agricuture Industry Seeks to Restore Its Image," reporter Frank Morris does a good job of getting various viewpoints in.

Secretary Vilsack admonishes farmers to talk to the cityfolk who will be formulating the next Farm BIll. A publisher talks about how our interest in local food is pushing agriculture onto the best-seller lists. Big Ag spokesman rhapsodizes about farmers. Farmers scoff at Big Ag's concern for "their" image problem.

And true to (NPR) form, the Farm Bureau, often aligned with industrial interests, gets the last word, saying. "Many believe [getting involved] is the best hope they have to keep the agricultural system they've learned to live with from becoming even more hostile to the family farm."

Eric Herm

Eric Herm, the West Texas cotton farmer and author of Son of a Farmer, Child of the Earth, would say, "Don't live with that system any more!" The link is to a podcast of an interview on TPR (our local NPR affiliate, and a member station that gets it right). Herm compellingly describes the plight of his fellow farmers, and also explains to us how agriculture has gone so wrong, and how we can all play a part in making it right again.

TCOOPS Report

As promised, here is my report from TOFGA's 2011 Texas Conference On Organic Production Systems (TCOOPS). It was held Friday-Sunday, January 28-30, at the Killeen Convention Center.

There were pre-conference farm tours, which I didn't attend this time, sorry! During the conference, there were producer sessions on pastured poultry, grass-fed beef, organic vegetables, insurance and other business matters. And much more.

Len Trevino of Metro Health, a founder of the SA Food Policy Council, spoke on a panel about Food Justice. He talked about the difficulty of undoing cultural changes in food choices among people who have chosen to assimilate into the unhealthy American diet. He also talked about the positive example of our City Manager pulling junk food out of vending machines in City buildings, and new rules that food purchased by the City and Bexar County must come from within 150 miles.

CFSC (the Community Food Security Coalition) held a Farm Bill listening session, a late addition to the program that was squeezed in between the afternoon session and the evening event. Between 30 and 40 people attended to give their input, fortified by non-chain pizza ordered in by the presenters. All the input was forwarded on to CFSC's Washington, DC policy office to be combined with that of other sessions being held around the country. The top 3 issues that TCOOPS attendees wanted to see supported in the next Farm Bill are: support for local food infrastructure, "stop the nutty loopholes," and support for new and transitioning farmers.

Friday evening's event was a screening of the movie "FRESH." This independent film was produced in 2009, and has become a phenomenon of local distribution and activism. While it lays out the same problems with our food system as Food Inc., its stories and solutions take center stage, with lengthy and inspiring segments on Milwaukee urban farmer Will Allen, and Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms in Virginia.

The vendor area had booths offering organic fertilizers and soil amendments, literature from Oregon Tilth, ATTRA, and other sources, chickens scratching on trays of sprouts (demo of an innovative growing system), organic treats, and more.

Topics on Saturday and Sunday included more on production and marketing, also soil fertility, compost production, pending legislation and advocacy, web-based tools for farm stores, rules on agricultural valuation of land, international topics, and the problems facing bee populations.

At lunchtime on Saturday were the regional meetings. San Antonio is in Region 2, along with Austin, and a committee of six or seven people stepped up to take leadership on increasing outreach and communication. If you would like to be involved, too, send an email from the About page.

On Saturday evening, there was a banquet of locally produced foods deliciously prepared by Amanda Love, the Barefoot Cook. Each dish was labeled with the ingredients and the farms who provided them. The Keynote speaker was Ana Sofia Joanes (at left), the producer of FRESH. She spoke engagingly about her challenges in making and distributing the film, and about her encounters with the farmers and others she had filmed.

The final session, at midday Sunday, was a business meeting. There were a couple of low-key elections, then board members spoke about last year's accomplishments, and priorities for the year ahead. Each region offered their own goals for 2011. Farm tours are high on the agenda for all the regions, to help bring producers and consumers together. Another topic of interest is new-farmer training. Watch this space!

Food segments on radio and TV

At last, something besides food safety and politics! (Unlike the last five posts.) It seems like every time I turned on the radio this week (to KSTX, 89.1 FM, the local NPR station), there was a feature about food. (Texas Public Radio General Manager Dan Skinner took the photo above.)

You can't swing a dead cabbage these days without hitting a story about food or farming. On All Things Considered, there was a feature about  higher crop prices being a welcome surprise for farmers. It was reported by Kathleen Masterson of Harvest Public Media. This group is a two-year, grant-funded project bringing together six public radio stations in the Midwest, to report on issues of "food, fuel, and field." The mixture and point of view in its stories reflect the tensions being played out in the Heartland between the farm lobby and community-based food systems.

Then, there were two Marketplace segments on food this week:

• How much does healthy eating cost? It's about much more than food costs. It also cites behavioral studies.
• The value of a dollar, interview and slideshow. A photographer captured a series of different food quanities costing a dollar.

On the locally produced weekly show Texas Matters, (Show 534, Segment 3), David Martin Davies interviewed West Texas farmer Eric Herm, author of the book, Son of a Farmer, Child of the Earth:A Path to Agriculture's Higher Consciousness. Herm is getting raves for articulating the problems faced by farmers in today's industrialized farm economy. While being deeply rooted in their land and its heritage, today's dwindling number of farmers have less and less autonomy over what they grow and how they grow it. The risks are all theirs, and the profits are mostly going to the corporate system. I had not heard of Herm or his book before. Now, I not only want the book, I want him to come here and speak.

And there was one on TV, on the PBS program Need to Know that airs Friday at 9 p.m. here. A good segment delved into the recently reported mixed messages from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Author, professor, and nutrition policy advisor Marion Nestle was interviewed and explained very well the origins of the contradiction, and why it will persist.

These are the stories I can find. There could have been more, it's been a long week!

How 'bout dem Saints?!!

Last night's Superbowl win by the Saints was not only great to watch, it is such great news for New Orleanians. As was their landslide mayoral election. Things are really moving now, and it's all to the people's credit.

Before this blog began, I spent three days in New Orleans, working in community gardens in Gentilly, Algiers, and the Lower Ninth Ward. That was three years after The Storm, as they call it. The people who are reclaiming that ground by growing healthy food and medicine--out of necessity--are so strong, resourceful, generous,and fun-loving, that I am often sorry I don't live there, too. That trip was one of the reasons I started this effort to change my own city with more urban agriculture and all the good things that can come with it.

King Corn to show at C4 Workspace

Our friends at C4 Workspace will show the movie "King Corn" tomorrow, Tuesday, July 21 at 6:00 p.m. at 108 King William. A discussion afterward will be hosted by Christa Emerick, San Antonio's only Certified Raw Food Chef. "A small donation at the door is suggested to keep this and other events ongoing," says the C4 site.

About the movie: "King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat—and how we farm."