College Students Learn Where Their Food Comes From (and Goes To)

by Terra Madre 2008 delegate Annie Myers

Some projects are inspired by enthusiasm, some by curiosity, or morality, ambition, passion, friendship, or obligation.  The inspiration for Radishes and Rubbish was born out of such a combination of these emotions that Carla and I never doubted our ability to draw others into our work.  We are both novices and experts, both endlessly enthusiastic and quite stunningly naive.  We had no idea what times were in store.

Radishes and Rubbish is (in elevator speak) a series of field trips to food production and processing sites and waste management locations within the New York City region.  The Green Grant program of NYU’s Sustainability Task Force provides the funding for these trips, during which my friend Carla Fernandez and I offer participants an adventure, education, transportation, and a meal, all for free.  The transportation may be by foot, by subway, or by boat, by the occasional rented van, or the rare and appreciated large comfy bus.  The meal is always made with ingredients sourced as locally as can be, grown organically if possible, and always made or sold by people or shops that we know and support.  The participants are ideally freshmen in college, though they have ranged from librarians to chemistry professors, from film students to food distributors to the curious and unemployed.  The destinations are up to us.

Carla and I came at the idea of our trips from slightly different perspectives.  I study regional food systems; she studies socially responsible supply chains.  She wanted to learn about the large-scale waste management centers where our trash so misleadingly seems to disappear; I wanted to share my friendship with and knowledge of several innovative and small food producers and processors in the region.  As students at NYU’s Gallatin School, we both proposed parallel “field trip” projects in April 2008, without knowing of each other’s propositions.  The Green Grant committee told us we would receive funding if we combined forces.  And thus Radishes and Rubbish was born.

We have led our fellow students (and students at heart) to one recycling center, one artisan baker, two urban farms, two slaughterhouses, three cheese shops, three farms upstate (of which one composts NYU’s organic matter), one importer’s warehouse, and the second largest wholesale fish market in the world.  We’ve just finished up the school year with two trips in one weekend: to a commercial rooftop greenhouse on the Upper East Side, and to the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island.

More after the jump

Building a Sustainable Community in Kentucky

We sat down with Terra Madre 2008 delegate Jim Embry to discus his perspective on sustainability, movement building and networks, based on his work as a community organizer in Lexington, Kentucky.

Q: You have a long and strong history as an organizer, dating all the way back to the Civil Rights movement.  Can you talk about any connections you see between that social movement and the emerging sustainable food movement?

I have been involved in probably every movement we’ve had in this country since my birth…and what I feel now is that the movement around sustainability encompasses all those other movements, because you can’t be sustainable if you’re abusing women, if you’re locking kids up in jail, if you are relying on fossil fuels for your energy.  That gives me a much broader sense of what we call this effort to transform the country; everything has to be reinvented. So that’s what I have grown into, and I was helped along the way by a whole variety of individuals.  Back in 2000 when I spent five years in Detroit, when I traveled around both nationally and internationally, my own understanding was enhanced around the need for a sacred earth connection and our integral role as members of the earth family. 

Also, I came to realize that… the foundation of our civilization is food, food systems. Only by virtue of growing food can there be engineers, artists, and teachers.  Only through food production can we have what we call human civilization.  Also, the foundation of our sense of earth connection comes through food.  Food is the foundation for how children can learn cooperation, civilization, tranquility, civility, cultural traditions and all that. 

And also, being grounded in the civil rights movement, I have come to realize that what is killing black people is what we eat or don’t eat.  It’s killing us physically—high rates of obesity and cancer, diabetes, etc—but also it is killing us psychologically.  Earth connection gives you a sense of connection, tranquility and peace.

I feel that this whole sense of urban ag and gardening and outdoor classrooms, are a way to better restore the sense of the American dream that we thought would be there in the large industrial cities, but the large industrial cities are so detached from natural surroundings that it has added to our insanity.

More after the jump

Slow Food Emory on CNN

Allison Archer, an Emory student, did her thesis project on sustainability initiatives at her school-- CNN saw it, liked it and condensed it into a 4.5 minute piece, all about how integrating sustainable food into the equation is an essential component of greening a campus.  This is just one example of how Slow Food on Campus chapters are beginning to take the nation by storm.  There are currently 20 Slow Food on Campus chapters, around the country, all working to address the need for a good, clean and fair food system in the United States and abroad.  Students who participate in Slow Food on Campus are passionately organizing their peers, faculty and greater campus community to organize around a fairer food system. 

Slow Food Emory is one of the newest Slow Food on Campus chapters, which makes it all the more impressive that they already gaining national attention for their initiatives.  As they explain, “Slow Food Emory hopes to heal ties severed by industrial fare and the campus meal plan.Ԡ The chapter has held potluck picnics, developed an edible school garden for the Captain Planet Foundation, and hosted a restaurant raffle that has introduced students to local, sustainable restaurants in the community. 

For more information about what other Slow Food on Campus chapters are doing around the country and how to start a chapter at your college or university, check out the Slow Food on Campus page on our website.

Towards More Sustainable Chocolate

by Slow Food USA Intern Carol Dacey-Charles

As reported in the Washington Post, Mars, Inc. has partnered with the Rainforest Alliance to ensure that its Galaxy line of candy bars sold in England and Ireland will be made from sustainable cocoa by 2010, with a higher aim of its entire line of chocolates to be Rainforest certified by 2020. Apparently pressured by its rival Cadbury, who announced that its Dairy Milk chocolate bar will be Fair Trade Certified by the end of the summer, Mars has made this push toward sustainability in order to compete in the more environmentally conscious British market.

The Rainforest Alliance accepted the Mar’s challenge to bring enough farms up to code so that 100,000 tons of Rainforest Alliance Certified cocoa would be available each year by 2020.  This will include education and support for thousands of family farmers—the largest growers of cocoa beans whose farms average 4-6 acres each.

This is not Mars’ first venture into sustainable agriculture partnerships.  As reported on their own websiteדIn 2008, Mars Drinks achieved Rainforest Alliance certification for three Flavia coffee offerings; and in that same year, we began the Mars Partnership for African Cocoa Communities of Tomorrow (iMPACT), through which Mars has been working with cocoa farmers alongside the Rainforest Alliance and other experienced development partners to support farm and community development in West Africa.”

More after the jump

Celebrate International Grandmother’s Day

This Saturday, April 25, the world will celebrate the first International Grandmother’s Day, a celebration that is the brainchild of Darina Allen, owner of Ireland’s Ballymaloe Cookery School. A grandmother of six, she had the idea to get children together with grandma for a day in the kitchen to pass along traditions.

When Allen mentioned the idea of an Irish Grandmother’s Day to Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement, Petrini said it was too good to restrict to just Ireland. The inaugural Grandmother’s Day will be celebrated in 132 countries.

“From a small budget, grandmothers were able to feed the family,” says Allen. “It’s a forgotten skill to be able to make a meal, something delicious and lovely out of leftovers. These are all the skills we really need!”

As a sample of some of the compelling events that have been created in Ireland and other countries to mark this day, check out Slow Food Ireland’s web site here.

Earth Day and the People’s Garden

Happy Earth Day, Everyone!

Here at the Slow Food USA offices, we’re planting our window boxes full of herbs, and beginning our office composting; around the country, Americans are planting trees and gardens; Obama will be visiting a wind turbine; over at the USDA, the People’s Garden is growing.  As stated in the USDA Press Release:

AGRICULTURE SECRETARY VILSACK EXPANDS “THE PEOPLE’S GARDEN” TO PROMOTE HEALTHY FOOD, PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE NATION

WASHINGTON, April 22, 2009 - In honor of Earth Day, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack declared the entire grounds at the USDA Jamie L. Whitten Building as ‘The People’s Garden’ and unveiled plans to create a sustainable landscape on the grounds.

“USDA is an every day every way kind of department and this garden will help illustrate the many ways USDA works to provide a sustainable, safe and nutritious food supply as well as protect and preserve the landscape where that food is produced,” said Vilsack. “The garden will help explain to the public how small things they can do at home, at their business or on their farm or ranch, can promote sustainability, conserve the nation’s natural resources, and make America a leader in combating climate change.”

To read the entire release, click here.

Grow a Farmer

by Slow Food USA intern Melissa Rosenberg

We read two blog posts lately that got us stewing about the task we have ahead of us.  That is, the task of helping to nurture, support, and sustain a new generation of farmers. One post was by Kerry Trueman about young farmers being our future, and one was by Leslie Hatfield featuring a young farming couple and the older couple who showed them the ropes.

One way to support this push is to contribute to the Grow A Farmer Campaign this spring and help to financially secure UC Santa Cruz’s six-month Apprenticeship organic training program . The campaign goal is to raise $250,000 by June 2009.  The funds raised will help build required apprentice housing on the UCSC Farm to keep the program affordable and accessible to trainees for generations to come.  You can help ensure that there will be a new generation of farmers dedicated to increasing ecological sustainability and social justice in the food and agriculture system.

By way of background: The United States is in dire need of a new generation of farmers.  According to the most recent USDA agriculture census, the average age of a U.S. farm operator increased from 55.3 in 2002 to 57.1 in 2007.  The census also conveys the number of operators 75 years and older grew by 20%, while the number of operators under 25 years of age decreased by 30%.  As the average age of farmers continues to rise, and these farmers retire, who will grow our food?

More after the jump

Meat and Morality

The title of Nicolette Hahn Niman’s compelling new book, Righteous Porkchop, is honest, and indicates one of the book’s strengths—its exploration of the moral issues behind our broken food system.  As a vegetarian rancher she is uniquely poised to be even more righteous than most.  Not only has she abstained from eating meat herself since young adulthood, she spends her days sustainably raising cattle for others to eat.  Who can top that?

Of course, this wasn’t always the case. Not even 10 years ago she was a young single gal in the city, recruited by Bobby Kennedy, Jr. to head up the Waterkeeper Alliance’s new industrial hog campaign.  With a background as a lawyer, she set out to take industrial hog farms (primarily in North Carolina) to task via the legal system for their gross environmental transgressions.  She worked crushing hours, giving up her healthy lifestyle and her social life.  But along the way, she won several important legal battles and put the issue of industrial hog farming on the map.  In addition, in a story line you just can’t make up, she met and fell in love with Bill Niman, an older-than-her sustainable cattle rancher and entrepeneur, and her life was changed forever.  P.S. he calls her “porkchop.”

In addition, her work with Waterkeeper led her inside the belly of the beast—or inside the poop lagoons of the beasts, anyway--and the book follows her journey.  The reader makes discoveries alongside her, experiencing her righteous indignation and disbelief upon seeing those farms, as well as her heartbreak over the treatment of the animals she meets.  As she explains, “the assembly lines of industrial systems function well for the mass production of inanimate objects.  But they are complete failures at respecting the individuality, instincts, and needs of living creatures.”

More after the jump

Welcome to Our New Biodiversity Experts

We’re pleased to announce the election of Anson Mills’ Glenn Roberts and agricultural ecologist Kraig Kraft to Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste Committee, the group that reviews nominations to Slow Food USA’s catalog of over 200 delicious foods in danger of extinction. By promoting and eating Ark of Taste products Slow Food is making sure these foods remain in production and on our plates.

Glenn Roberts is a natural fit for the Ark Committee. While he is best known for his small-batch, artisanal, heritage grits and polenta that appear on ingredient-conscious restaurant menus around the country, Roberts spends much of his time and resources on the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, which works to advance the sustainable restoration and preservation of Carolina Gold Rice and other heirloom grains and to raise public awareness of the importance of historic ricelands and heirloom agriculture. His work as an entrepreneur and as a seed-saver has made him absolutely essential in the preservation of Southern grain heritage. (to read more about Glenn and see pictures from his mill, click here).

“I love the challenge of making relevant nearly forgotten or little known aromas, flavors and textures of the extraordinary foods of America, both past and present,” says Roberts. “That these foods are without exception culturally vital, local, low input, low fuel and reach perfection only with careful and slow preparation seems astonishingly fitting for our time.”

Kraig Kraft’s expertise as a scientist and researcher make him a perfect addition to the Committee. Kraig is a PhD candidate at UC Davis, where he studies the genetic diversity of chile peppers, tracing the lineage of our domesticated peppers to their ancestral wild populations. His career has included education and program leadership for numerous international development projects in sustainable agriculture, technology transfer, and grassroots community development, and his expertise has been recognized and supported by numerous awards. He has a passion for not only food but the related traditions and landscapes in which they are rooted. For Kraft, “The Ark of Taste represents an important effort towards the conservation and preservation of agricultural diversity and their association culinary traditions. The stories of these foods and crops tell our own histories. They are part of our cultural heritage that we need to remember and renew.”

Slow Food Atlanta Finds Power in Collaboration

by Slow Food Atlanta Chapter Leader Judith Winfrey

Recently it seems like everybody is talking about food issues.  Thanks to the hard work of writers, farmers activists, and, of course, a certain first lady, our national consciousness seems to be shifting, and along with it, the focus of many individuals and organizations working on food.  Among the developments, we are seeing the definition of good food expand to include the food justice movement.  At Slow Food Atlanta, we’ve been thinking a lot about how to do the work to reflect this change, and improve everyone’s access to food that’s good, clean and fair.  This led to an exploration of the landscape, both physically and metaphorically.  What do we already have in place, and who’s already doing the work?  These questions led us to some dazzling people, places, and organizations, and forged partnerships that strengthen us all. 

In Atlanta’s historic West End neighborhood, we found Reverend Richard Bright at Good Shepherd Community Church’s urban farm --- a project, in it’s second year.  On five acres in the heart of the city, the Good Shepherd Garden has the mission of providing delicious, healthy food to congregants and neighbors alike.  Weekly harvest markets take place in front of the church where food is available to anyone for a donation.  Almost simultaneously, we found the Skillet Brigade, the Southern Foodways Alliance burgeoning service corps.

More after the jump