Posted by Cindy Wasser | May 20th, 2011
I grew up on a dairy farm in rural Pennsylvania. In my formative years, I saw how people could have a close connection with working landscapes and the earth. I learned to value food, because I saw first-hand the tireless hours worked out of passion.
I thought that I “got” the local food movement simply because I was farm-kid. I perceived an opportunity for suburban and urban residents to share in the lessons of knowing “where your food comes from” that were naturally built-in to my childhood.
I’m recognizing, more than before, the diversity and breadth of “access-points” that people can have with their local food system. The local food and food justice movements are not simply about creating access to healthy, fresh produce and traditional agricultural education, but about establishing opportunities for all generations and cultures to learn to tell their story of what food personally means to them.
On Thursday, May 12th, the 2nd installment of the Food Justice Series, Busboys & Poets focused on food access, with culture and education being key themes throughout. Each panelist shared stories of “re-teaching” food production and creating “empowered eaters” through education. (The series is hosted by the Accokeek Foundation in partnership with the Rural Coalition and the National Immigrant Farming Initiative. You can find a write-up of the first event in the series here.)
Don Bustos, Board Chair of the National Immigrant Farming Initiative and owner of Santa Cruz Farm in New Mexico, shared stories of New Mexican residents re-learning ancestral farming techniques to build a 3.5 communal vegan organic farm. Bustos discussed the opportunity for farming to be used as an empowerment tool in the fight for land and water rights. Through food, local residents were building a communal farming culture and fighting the local mentality of being a “conquered nation”.
Denzel Mitchell, a food educator/chef at Baltimore’s Montessori School described how he’s building connections between students and food. Mitchell has brought a new farm experience to the Baltimore students, who operate a “mirco-city farm,” complete with chickens and fruit trees. All students participate in growing and purchasing local produce and preparing healthy, vegetarian meals for the student body. Away from school, Mitchell operates 5 Seeds Farm across 7 previously-vacant lots in Baltimore and is slowly cultivating the idea among his neighbors that farming is an essential and exciting urban activity.
Michelle Levy of the Crossroads Farmers Market in the Langley Park neighborhood of Takoma Park, Maryland, a diverse DC suburb with a large immigrant population, is working to build connections for her neighbors with local food by breaking down existing price and cultural barriers. In the last two years, the Crossroads Farmers Market has increased the affordability of fresh, local produce by establishing a double-dollar program to match (over 100%) federal food assistance dollars (SNAP and WIC). Crossroads Market also seeks to build a lively, music-filled market akin to those in South American cultures.
The event concluded with a showing of a documentary made by the Capital City Charter School’s sixth-grade class, titled “Could Your School Lunch Kill You?” To create the documentary, the class explored their food system through visits to the local supermarket and to the Revolution Foods, the school’s lunch supplier. The documentary opened the students’ minds to new concepts, including food safety, industrial agriculture, and fair food pricing. The class expressed surprise at the care involved in food production and processing, as well as the number of workers involved.
From each of the panelists, I saw multiple avenues for a diverse population to “access” food and have a transformative experience of their own—away from the farm. Truly, the power of the local food movement is in the opportunity for individuals to
“know the story of what (food) means to them”, as articulated by the session’s facilitator, meanwhile building a strong community and economy, shifting long-held divisions of “urban” and “rural”, and re-creating familiar cultural experiences.
Strawberries and salad greens from farms of the mid-Atlantic region were incorporated into the lunch menufor the day in all 123 DCPS elementary, middle, high schools and educational campuses. Other schools in the city to participate included Friendship Public Charter Schools, CentroNia/D.C. Bilingual PCS, E.W. Stokes PCS, Cesar Chavez PCS (all campuses), Yu Ying PCS, Washington Jesuit Academy, Next Step Public Charter School, and The SEED School.
the process of how part of their lunch was planted, grown, and then harvested.
