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 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.

Courses and certificates in Urban Agriculture

Palo Alto College has a certificate in Organic Agriculture that has a focus on urban agriculture. It is great to have this resource so close to home. We have a strong community and yard gardening culture here, but there is untapped potential for commercial growing inside the city.

A faraway option for such study is see Ryerson University's (Toronto, Ontario). James Kuhns, Instructor in the program (and past president of the American Community Gardening Association), writes:

If you are particularly interested in urban food and agriculture issues, the following two courses are available:

Urban Food Security (CFNY408) – this important course has recently been completely revamped. It explores the factors that currently affect urban food security and how to work towards creating socially-just, sustainable, urban food systems. (Note: the prerequisite for this course has been waived)

Urban Agriculture Types (CVFN412) – this course explores the wide diversity of approaches one can take to developing urban agriculture systems. The course forms part of an Urban Agriculture course series of four courses.
 
If a student completes the four courses, they will receive a formal document of completion from the university. The courses also count towards attaining a certificate in food security should students wish to pursue the certificate as well.

Download an application form and FAX it to distance education at (+1)-416-979-5196. Alternatively, you can scan the application form and send it by email to distance@ryerson.ca. DO NOT MAIL THE REGISTRATION FORM.

If you have any problems over registration, please contact Reg Noble, the Academic Coordinator at food@ryerson.ca.

Free Greens

If you made New Year's resolutions about eating lighter and healthier (and who didn't?), here is some free help for your menu: edible weeds.You don't have to buy them; you don't even have to grow them. And you will no longer want to fight them after you pick and eat them. You will want to leave a few in spots where they can look intentional, or blend in with your veggies and ornamentals.

There are many edible weeds that grow in just about any yard or neighborhood, and you can look them up: dandelion, sowthistle, wild lettuce, henbit, chickweed, lambs quarters, and the list goes on. This photo contains the first three from that list, picked from my yard, rinsed, chopped a bit, and sauteed with olive oil. Delicious!

Most, including dandelion, can be eaten raw in a salad (even the flowers are edible). For the prickly ones like sowthistle and wild lettuce, you would want to cook them until they are softened. You can steam or saute, or choose any other cooking method that you like.

Even if you have mowed them down after the recent rains, these plants will be back up, since they grow faster than your lawn grass. Pick, rinse, cook or not, and enjoy.

If you are unsure of identifying a plant, look at Google images of the above names, for starters. When trying a new plant, be on the safe side and nibble a tiny bit without swallowing. If it tastes bitter or unpleasant, leave it alone. If it tastes good, you can try eating a small amount and see how that goes. You will come to know several common plants that are good to eat and highly nutritious. Look for further resources if you want to advance your foraging skills. Foraging Texas one such blog dedicated to that purpose. 

 

Food Hubs and Yard Garden Networks at Southern SAWG

Friday I went to four sessions and a screening of the film "The Greenhorns." On Saturday, I went to sessions on policy and activism, especially around the 2012 Farm Bill. I still had a chance to catch a fascinating presentation by a Harlingen farmer who is transforming her area, one season at a time.

Two presentations from Friday were about rebuilding community around food. One was titled, "Food Hubs: Moving Higher Volumes of Good Food to Local Markets." A food hub, in this case, is a business that buys local farm products and distributes to groceries and supermarkets. The presenters were very forthcoming about the nuts and bolts, and the challenges, of putting together this kind of distribution network. I have notes and contact information to share with anyone who is interested in trying this.

The other was by Paige Hill of Urban Patchwork Neighborhood Farms, an Austin nonprofit that helps neighborhoods put together cooperative yard gardens for the residents' use, for sale, and for donation. Rather than finding one big plot for a neighborhood or community garden, she says, you can create small plots throughout the neighborhood, with all the functions served somewhere. They work with each group's unique circumstances--some people have space for a garden but no time, and others want to garden but might have too much shade for some of the crops they would like to grow. Some want food for their own households and to share with neighbors, and some want to sell at a farmers market. Most also donate some to nearby food pantries. She told a story about a backyard tilapia pond that one neighbor wanted to build, to supply fish for the neighborhood. What seemed like a daunting task was done in an afternoon by a group of teenage boys who needed a service project.

These gardens reduce the cost of living for everyone involved, and also increase the quality of life and quality of food. We can do it here, too.

 

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!

Didn't believe me about the Farm Bill problema? Believe Bittman.

I mentioned the #secretfarmbill last post, and there was much talk and action about it at #cfsc2011. Now comes Mark Bittman, the Minimalist Cook and NYT goodfood blogger, to call it out. Here's the start:

The Republican-manufactured budget crisis of this past summer — remember? — resulted in a “solution” that’s hijacking what little representative democratic process we have left. Equally sad is that the so-called supercommittee — charged with creating an outline for reducing the deficit by $1.2 trillion over 10 years — may preclude full discussion of the farm bill. Read more. 

I've linked to Bittman's food advocacy pieces so often, he deserves his own tag. Done.

National Geographic on recovering our food heritage

National Geographic gets it. Read the featured article, and visit the sidebars and slide shows. Meanwhile, I shall digress.

Biodiversity is rapidly shrinking--no, has already shrunk dramatically--in the industrialized food system. Misapplied rules of the market don't favor our health or that of the planet. These flawed rules assume that food shoppers demand visual perfection and uniformity above all else. So fruit, vegetable, and meat varieties have been selected to withstand long transport and to look good. Nutrition and flavor have suffered along with biodiversity. Loads of small or imperfect fruits and vegetables are wasted in this system, while people go unfed. But back to the article.

Indigenous peasant farmers still grow most of the world's food, and that's a good thing. The devaluing of agricultural knowledge as people left the farm for factory or other urban jobs has resulted in a food system we're paying for with our lives and our children's health. Now, there is a deep hunger for recovering the connection to our food. My late parents would be astonished to see how farming is the chic new quest of many young people, and "farm tours" (there was no such thing) draw crowds every weekend. But back to the article.

We've been hearing the drumbeat from two different camps about "how to feed 9 billion people." Industrial-chemical ag says they must push more farmers off their ancestral lands (into factory jobs and food dependence) so their big machines and genetically engineered seeds can do it more efficiently. The UN and proponents of sustainable agriculture, on the other hand, say that organic and bio-intensive methods can double food production in 10 years. That's a stunning claim that is backed up in a UN report. By contrast, decreasing yields, soil erosion, chemical pollution of our food and water, and the ill treatment of farmers are the increasingly obvious legacies of the industrialization process in agriculture.

Increased food production is not the only requirement for our future in agriculture. We 9 billion folk will need food that is rich in nutrients and whose production does not erode soil, pollute streams and rivers, or depend on a volatile fossil fuel market. Industrial-chemical agriculture fails on all those counts; soil-building agro-ecology succeeds. But back to the article.

National Geographic is telling an important truth, with gorgeous photos and charming text. You will be looking for your nearest seed savers' exchange.

From Neighborhood to Nation and Back Again

 

National conference to spur local action

Three members of the San Antonio Food Policy Council traveled to Portland, Oregon this month, where 600+ people committed to a better food system converged.

The goals of the conference included:

• Information exchange among food policy councils, food system activists, elected officials, and others
• Build a network of individuals working in local food policy, for communication and coordination
• Identify connections between the 2012 Farm Bill and local impacts and priorities
• Promote local resolutions for a healthy Farm Bill
• Connect local, regional, state and national levels

For three and a half days, through field trips, short courses, plenaries, concurrent sessions, networking sessions, and hallway conversations, Portland buzzed with the energy of people learning from each other, inspiring through their stories, asking questions, and sharing ideas, contacts, and resources.

If you are interested in connecting with work that will be done locally over the next months and years, contact this blog or our Facebook page. We're taking names! There is so much to do, and so much information being shared. We will need everyone.

TDA posts video on organic farming in Texas

USDA Organic and Go Texan--can't beat that combination. You might be surprised to know how fast organic farming is growing in the Lone Star State. This video shows both rural and urban farmers, and some farmers market vendors you just might recognize!