Archive for February, 2010

Posted by Liz Whitehurst | February 17th, 2010

I met Ibti at Rooting DC 2009. Last February, this plucky foodie had quit her job as an English teacher and was learning to ride a bike for the first time. A year later, she’s biked her way from DC to Vermont to Milwaukee to Seattle visiting sustainable farms and urban agriculture projects along the way. I’ve been following her on her blog, A Bikeable Feast, and as she heads towards Phoenix, I asked her to reflect on her experiences one year later and what she might bring back home with her. Here’s what she said:

I’ve been on the road for nearly 10 months now and seen quite a bit of the country’s diverse food systems. I do plan to make my way back to DC this summer and share what I’ve learned with those who might be interested in models for community-based food systems. As a sneak preview, Liz has asked me to offer a few thoughts on exceptional models that I have encountered thus far and how we might learn from them as we move forward with plans to make DC a thriving, community-based, food secure city.

The first example I would offer is The Intervale — the wildly successful farm community and farmer incubation project in Burlington, VT. During the growing season, community members gather at the farms each weekend to pick up their boxes of fresh, organic produce; Friday evenings offer live music, local brews, and flatbread pizzas; young farmers apprentice with experienced ones to learn the trade, share the cost of equipment, and develop plans for their own operation.

The site of the Intervale was actually a former floodplain and later a trash dump. It was cleaned out and cleaned up and now is in many ways the heart of Burlington’s burgeoning food system. Might we not develop a similar grouping of urban farms along the waterfront in, say, Southeast DC? I wonder. It could potentially turn this quadrant of the city from a food desert to a food haven. Just a thought.

Posted by Tambra Stevenson | February 16th, 2010

Safeway recently announced that it was closing its Rhode Island location – and Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. organized a rally in protest yesterday. The rally was organized quickly, but won’t be successful in keeping the store open. As Safeway has stated, it’s about the bottomline; yet the company has expanded other stores such as the Safeway in Ward 4 off Columbia Road in northwest Washington, DC, which is Mayor Fenty’s Ward when he was a councilmember. Coincidence?

With Valentine’s Day here and gone, the situation looks similar like the last plea in fading relationship; giving the roses and asking to stay in a toxic relationship. When we need to just let go and remember: “When one door closes, another one will open.”

While living in the Bloomingdale community of Ward 5, I never went to Safeway due to its tired appearance compared to the then-newly installed Giant right off the Rhode Island metro, which was just half a mile away. As the News8 story states, the Safeway was deteriorating. And the company purposefully let it waste away.

This Safeway incident reminds me of a partner with low self-esteem holding on his or her significant other who has been emotionally detached from the relationship for awhile. The therapist’s response would be: “Why keep fighting for someone who clearly doesn’t have your best interest in mind? Just let go and let live.” And yes, easier said than done, but you must have faith.

Posted by Kathryn Baer | February 16th, 2010

Cross-posted from Poverty and Policy.

Under TEFAP (the Emergency Food Assistance Program), the U.S. Department of Agriculture distributes food commodities to states, which then distribute them to food banks and/or directly to emergency food providers like soup kitchens and pantries. As I recently wrote, the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) is said to need a supplemental appropriation because it can’t otherwise provide enough food commodities to meet the increasing pressures on food banks.

Still on my learning curve, I contacted Marian Peele, the Director of Agency Relations at the Capital Area Food Bank, to find out what the situation is there.

CAFB is the Feeding America network partner for the greater Washington D.C. area. It uses federal funds channeled through the D.C. and Virginia state governments to purchase TEFAP food commodities. It also gets free TEFAP bonus commodities when they’re available and suitable to its needs.

Posted by Andrew Plotsky | February 15th, 2010

This is the second posting in a series about my internship with the Washington Youth Garden. You can find the first one on Field to Fork.

Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, seven minutes is not very many minutes. To the existence of dinosaurs, seven minutes would be a tyrannosaurus fart. Gone without acknowledge of its existence. Not even worth batting a limp, useless forearm at. To a third grader, on the other hand, seven minutes of direct eye contact and explicit questioning is an eternity. Like weeks of jury duty, hours sitting in traffic for you or me. There is little outside the realm of battery-operated devices these days that can hold a seven year old’s attention for that many minutes (which is another issue entirely).

This past week was our second of lessons with Garden Science, and we were studying the life cycles of plants. Namely, beans. Remember in elementary school when you put a bean in a cup with a wet paper towel, waited several days, and then wet yourself when the roots emerged? That’s what we’re doing this week.

Posted by Rhea Kennedy | February 13th, 2010

Anyone who thinks living in D.C. precludes any chance to influence national food policy should meet Kathy Ozer. Since 1987, this Adams Morgan resident has been representing farmers and fighting to fix what she calls a “broken” national food system. She currently serves as the executive director of the National Family Farm Coalition on Capitol Hill. Last month, she keynoted the Future Harvest conference, the annual gathering of the Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture. This year’s gathering also included a special presentation by Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan on the USDA’s Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative.

As a long-time resident of D.C., Ozer also strongly supports local initiatives to make healthy food accessible to low-income consumers in the District, and bringing fresh, nutritious food to the city’s school cafeterias. I recently spoke to Ozer about what she does, and how anyone—with or without a vote in Congress—can help put the pieces together.

How did you get involved in farmers’ rights?

I came to the coalition from the perspective of how important it was to have different voices represented on Capitol Hill, but I definitely did not grow up on a farm. I grew up in Bethesda, Maryland. In the 1970s and the 80s, my family was supportive of the Bethesda Food Co-op. So since then, I’ve always had a real interest in food access issues and where food fit into some of the broader sets of issues that we all confront.

What does your organization do, and how does it tie into local food issues?

One of the things that the Family Farm Coalition has done since it started is to connect groups around the country to organize and mobilize on a policy level. These are very important to the day-to-day lives of farmers and of consumers, as people who, hopefully, directly eat more of the food that is being produced.

Tell us about your keynote at the Future Harvest conference.

It was kind of a snapshot about why it’s important to be involved in policy. Many people at the conference seemed pretty interested in what they should do themselves at an immediate level. [I said that] one of those things is to participate in the USDA’s upcoming workshops on antitrust enforcement issues; also to answer action alerts and different messages when there are key issues coming up in congress, and not to be complacent just because there are people in these positions now who support these issues. They need the pressure from all of us.

I also spoke about some of the implementation issues of the Farm Bill. One has to do with ensuring that all the farm programs are able to be used by all farmers regardless of their race or their sex or what geographic area they may live in. So we need to make sure that something called the Diversity Initiative that we all fought for in the 2008 Farm Bill gets implemented as fairly as possible.

What pending legislation should food security activists be watching?

I think the most immediate opening is the whole rewriting of the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act. Our coalition is a part of the Community Food Security Coalition [CFSC], and in that role we’ve been pushing really hard for a program called Farm to Cafeteria, which would provide federal funds through grants to enable schools to better set up either the physical infrastructure or actual distribution networks to be better sourcing from local farmers. In [the Farm Bill of] 2004, we got this Farm to Cafeteria legislation into law, but it didn’t have funding attached to it. So one of the biggest requests is for there to be mandatory funding.

Also, there is a part of the TRADE Act that puts forward what a fair trade policy would be instead of the free trade and open markets we’ve had. It’s got a really strong agriculture, food security, and food safety piece to it. So our coalition, along with other groups have been pushing hard for that change in trade approach.

Many of our readers live in Washington, D.C. without a vote in Congress. How can we influence these discussions?

For national legislation, if people have moved here from other places and have family back in other parts of the country, engage them in the political process with their representatives.

Also, there are members of Congress who, even if we’re not directly voting for them, are either on the senate subcommittee on appropriations for D.C., on the House subcommittee that has oversight for D.C. operations, or are making policy decisions that directly affect D.C.  They need to hear from us too.

I think the most immediate role is weighing in on legislation like the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act and farm to school initiatives. The Community Food Security Coalition will be developing action alerts on these issues, and there are members of congress from the Washington area who can play a really important role in that.   The recent launch by First Lady Michelle Obama on tackling childhood obesity and the new task force is a very important initiative.  As a group that represents family farmers we want to be sure that the farmers who are growing our food and milking cows on a daily basis have access to the credit they need to plant their crops.  President Obama’s State of the Union announcement of channeling $30 billion to the community banks is a hopeful sign this winter.

I think what we can do right now as voters is to make sure as many members of Congress as possible have sponsored the TRADE Act.

You can also go to those USDA/Department of Justice workshops and take other opportunities to urge the government to take actions on behalf of consumers and in the public interest—not just agribusiness and other corporate interests—when they’re developing farm policy. With the Supreme Court decision about the role of corporations in the issue of campaign finance, I think that issue becomes an even bigger concern.

On the local level, there’s a proposal on the D.C. City Council for a farm to school program here. I think the importance of having some models here that could be replicated, and learning from other models, is critically important.

Posted by Brynn Slate | February 12th, 2010

Get ready to be rocked to your roots. Robert Egger has a record of putting ideas into action and after hearing his presentation at Rooting DC on February 20, you’ll be inspired to jump out of your chair and get to work. This dynamic go-getter founded DC Central Kitchen in 1989 by connecting the dots between food need and food waste—a landmark idea at the time. The organization now produces 4,000 meals a day for Washington’s hungry and provides cycle-breaking education and support through its Culinary Job Training program.

Egger knows DC’s foodscape intimately. In addition to furthering the success of DC Central Kitchen, he chairs the Mayor’s Commission on Nutrition and is actively working to get more local food into schools. His talk at Rooting DC (“Breaking through the Barriers—The Business of Better Food for All,” from 11:45 to 12:45) will spread his infectious enthusiasm for food equality by laying out ideas for what could come next—if we work for it.

As a frequent traveler, Egger speaks to groups around the country and observes other cities’ unique problems, as well as their bold initiatives. He started The Campus Kitchens Project as a replicable model that’s been implemented by 20 universities across the US. As he travels, he keeps an eye out for trends that could become lasting solutions. “Trends are potential. Trends are maybes,” he says.

Posted by Amy Johnson | February 11th, 2010

Amy Johnson is the Emerson Hunger Fellow at Bread for the City.

After the initial fun of our record-breaking storm (call it a snowpocalypse, a snowsplosion, a snowmageddon…) the reality of the aftermath is uncomfortable and even scary. With many streets un-plowed, power outages across the region, and public transportation running minimally, we at Bread for the City haven’t been unable to open for much of this week.

This year, we’ve been closed to client services on Fridays — but with some luck we’ll make an exception tomorrow, and open with as much capacity as we can muster. Many of our clients really need the help.

Consider Michael Mack, a gentleman living in Anacostia. “We’re in a community where the stores aren’t nearby. We have the corner stores to get what you need, but oh you pay for that.” Michael came to us last week to stock up on groceries in advance of the storm — since he figured it would be easier to wait out the weather. But that was before the situation stretched into a week and beyond. I called Michael yesterday, and he expressed frustration: “I’m out of food. I went last Friday to get food, but now there’s none left and there’s now way out. There are buses running, but not near me and where I need to go.”

Posted by Rhea Kennedy | February 10th, 2010

On Tuesday, sixth grader Tammy Nguyen brought down the White House with some choice words. Leading up to a much-anticipated announcement in the State Dining Room, Nguyen described how she helped grow a rainbow of vegetables in a kitchen garden on the “first lawn.”

“My friends and I have learned a lot about change, about eating healthy food, and making the right choices,” the former Bancroft Elementary School student explained. “My classmates and I plan to keep that color on the plate–and I don’t mean M&Ms,” she said.

Nguyen then introduced First Lady Michelle Obama, who summoned all hands on deck to bring the Bancroft students’ experience to every American child in the interest of better health. She outlined a detailed initiative, called Let’s Move, to curb the startling rate of childhood obesity (about one in three children is overweight or obese, she said), and save the nation’s kids from preventable diseases. Such an initiative can also create jobs and help fish the budget out of a deficit. That can only happen, Obama said, if many sectors work together and the action starts immediately.

“Instead of just talking bout this problem, instead of just worrying and wringing our hands about it, let’s do something about it,” said the first lady. “Let’s act…. let’s move.”

A new Task Force on Childhood Obesity will propel the initiative.