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Need to stock up on staples for the winter? Olive oil? Maple syrup? Wine? Bulk nuts for baking cookies, perhaps? Chicken stock for savory soups to get you through the cold months? Start your list, but hold off until Dec 14th… that’s when Whole Foods is holding a “5% Day” at their P Street and [...]
This post is the fourth in a series from Bread for the City intern Allison Burket exploring the basics of food, hunger, and politics in the District.
In my previous post about food and hunger in the District, I began to explore the political landscape of DC’s food system. We learned there is no shortage of DC agencies that shape how we get food – at least 13 agencies deal with food in our city! – yet no one agency or governing body is responsible for ensuring that DC residents have access to healthy, affordable food.
Meanwhile, moving beyond the public sector, there are numerous efforts throughout the food system to ensure DC residents can enjoy healthy and affordable food.
What if they and others could work together better to tackle the interconnected issues of nutrition, employment, poverty, hunger, and the degradation of our environment? What if these groups had a unified voice in the halls of City Council?
A Food Policy Council in DC?
Cities across the country face similar challenges as those in DC – a fractured food policy-making environment, separate organizations addressing different pieces of a broken food system, and lack of transparency and community input in policy decisions. In response, many areas have brought together some combination of non-governmental organizations, citizens, advocates, and government, forming what are often known as food policy councils. (See this DC Food For All post about the Detroit food movement, and the policy council in that city.)
Food policy councils can serve as a forum for food issues, a network to coordinate community action, and a space to address some of the tangible injustices at work in our food system. They do a wide range of work in other cities, counties, and states — from gathering and communicating information about a food system, to crafting policy platforms, to developing collaborative projects to address immediate needs.
Bread for the City is interested in seeing something like a food policy council form in DC, but we also recognize that it will need to include more than policy wonks and non-profit providers if it is to be truly reflective of the interests of our diverse communities. A food policy council would ideally be born of a grassroots, city-wide movement for wellness and food sovereignty that includes residents who themselves have the most at stake in radically changing the food system.
That’s why we’re part of a larger conversation with groups like Groundwork Anacostia, the Early Childhood Obesity Prevention Collaborative, Ecolocity, and ONE DC. Together, we’re hosting a series of brainstorming sessions around the city, starting 3:30-4:30 pm this Saturday at Coolidge High School, as part of Rooting DC – an annual, free urban gardening forum. (Register for Rooting DC by calling 202-638-1649, or learn more about the whole conference by visiting the website.)
We’ll be discussing and envisioning: What would it look like for all DC residents had access to healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food? What is an idea you have for moving the city, your neighborhood, or your self in that direction? The hope is that the discussion generated from this and upcoming sessions can then shape the formation something like a food policy council – or something completely new and different – in DC. We hope to see you there!
Posted in Action, Community, Events, Food Security, Government Issues, HAFA, Health, urban agriculture
While this blog normally covers issues directly related to the District, we have recently discovered that dear friends of ours in Virginia are in trouble and need our help. Just a quick moment of your time can literally help save a farm!
Thanks to the process of “eminent domain”, these plans could easily become a reality whether the owners of Crooked Run like it or not. Not only will the highway divide the farm property in two, it will also completely destroy one of its barns, kill dozens of mature apple trees, and expose the remaining orchard trees to dramatically increased auto emissions. More importantly, it will completely upend the very way of life for proprietor Sam Brown, destroying a farm that’s been family owned and operated for over 200 years.
So what’s the trade off? What’s the benefit of the proposed new highway? As it turns out, a mere 2.54% reduction in traffic on Main Street. That’s right, 2.5 fewer cars per 100. Hardly a dent in the current congestion woes, and hardly worth the effort of bulldozing right through this property.
Each year, over 20,000 community members—families, friends, neighbors—enjoy Crooked Run Orchard for all its splendor: apple picking, hay rides, outdoor exploring, education about agriculture and nature. We wish for Crooked Run to be around next year and for years to follow. As such, we strongly urge Purcellville’s Mayor, Bob Lazarro, and Town Council to reconsider the current plans for their proposed Southern Connector Road.
You can help! It only takes a second to sign our petition.
This blog post is part of a series on the importance of safety net programs and the need for a more progressive income tax, to pay for the investments our city needs. Find out more here.
When I think about money and my childhood, I remember my parents talking about their credit card debt and being told at McDonalds that our family could not afford Happy Meals. I knew we didn’t have money for the extras like weekly trips to eat out, but it was only as a young adult that I understood just how little my parents were working with.
When I took a few classes at the local public high school, my Mom sent me to the school office to ask about Free and Reduced Lunch. I brought home the income requirements and found out that we were well within the limits for Free Lunch. Then, when my parents became pregnant with my little brother, we signed up for the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program.
Our family had just one income by choice — my father worked and my mother stayed home to raise and educate me and my siblings. Despite our economic situation, I have a lot of privilege — I have white skin, we were considered middle class because of my father’s job, and I received a fabulous education, among other things.
I’m deeply grateful for the food programs that helped stretch our budget. Thanks to the WIC program, Free Meals, and — as a recent college graduate — Food Stamps, I had a healthy, happy, parent-filled childhood, and the financial support to get started in a new city. It’s been four short years since I graduated from college and moved to DC, and I’m in a job that I love, doing good work and contributing to the tax base. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to share my privilege and help grow the investments that were made to get me where I am today.
Unfortunately, the support I received as a young adult is not guaranteed for all DC residents who need it. Funding has been cut for safety net programs like IMA Service Centers, where people apply for Food Stamps. At the same time, our income tax structure has stayed the same — the top tax bracket (8.5%) starts at $40,000/year. Save Our Safety Net and other groups are suggesting a better choice: the City Council should create a new tax bracket of 9.5% for income over $200,000. For less than the cost of a latte a day to most households in the top 5%, our city could bring in about $75 million in new revenue. If you agree that we need more investments in the safety net, take action by sending an email to Vince Gray today.
What kind of a safety net do you want to have, for yourself and your neighbors? What tax structure would help us make the public investments our city needs?
On October 10th, 2010, 350.org is calling upon people across the world to take actions that will make their communities more sustainable.
So on 10.10.10, 350 is organizing mass actions at the White House and the Washington Monument, designed to send messages to the White House and Congress, urging them to take the lead on stopping climate change.
Meanwhile, here in the District of Columbia, we are getting to work. Members of the DC Food For All are convening workdays at community garden sites across the city.
Then we’ll all join together at Bread for the City Northwest to celebrate with the Hip Hop Caucus, Roadside Organics, and Live Green. Local chefs preparing local food with local hip hop acts in the early afternoon, and a community potluck of sustainable food in the evening. Sneak previews of Bread for the City’s new facility, complete with green roof-top garden. 
See the Kickstarter page for the Sustainable Food Block Party here. The event is free, but donations will go to help build Bread for the City’s new rooftop community garden.
With that announced, sign up for one of the events below!
Groundwork Anacostia invites you to the Mayfair Community Center (3744 1/2 Hayes Street N.E.), a new community garden site, where volunteers will help build build raised beds, lay soil, and learn about community gardening techniques and strategies. They need 15-20 volunteers to get down and dirty. The action will be from 9am-12pm, followed by rides back to Bread for the City NW for the Sustainable Food Block Party. Contact Dennis Chestnut of Groundwork Anacostia or email dcfoodforall@gmail.com.
The Farm at Walker Jones needs 5 to 10 volunteers to help building a new compost bin. Come see our 3/4 acre farm in the middle of the city, check out our composting system and our large worm farm. 9-noon on 10/10/10. The Farm at Walker Jones is located at the corner of NJ and K Streets NW. Contact sidraforman@gmail.com for more information.
The Virginia Avenue Park Community Garden (corner of L St & 9th St SE) invites you to a fall harvest gathering! From 12-4pm, bring friends and family to learn how-to plant your own food, care for it, and harvest it. Get gardening tips and tricks and try them out in our garden! Volunteers will be needed before and at the event, for planting, harvesting, and compost-turning. Before the event, volunteers can help make, print, and hand-out flyers. Email Karin Edgett and check out their Facebook Page.
There will also be a big bike tour, sponsored by WABA, of most of these sites and more! Email DCFoodForAll@gmail.com for more info. And stay tuned…
The Social Forum — which convened in Detroit just last month — “is a movement building process… [that] provides spaces to learn from each other’s experiences and struggles, share our analysis of the problems our communities face, build relationships, and align with our international brothers and sisters to strategize how to reclaim our world.” It’ll be another three years before the US Social Forum convenes again, but in the meantime the process of the Social Forum is ongoing — as people from different movements, backgrounds and regions continue to deliberate and act upon solutions to the economic and ecological crisis.
An essential component of this process are People’s Movement Assemblies (PMA). PMAs are gatherings of people (25, 250 or more) that come together to collectively identify community issues, discuss solutions, and commit to actions.
Before the USSF2010 in Detroit, the Greater DC Social Forum (organized largely by attendees of USSF2007 in Atlanta) convened a DC People’s Movement Assembly. The Greater DC Social Forum will now convene another DC-area People’s Movement Assembly on August 7th, at 11AM at Plymouth Congregational UCC (5301 N Capitol Street NE). Attendees of USSF2010 will share the experience and ideas that they brought back from Detroit — however, this event is open to anyone who wants to work towards a better greater DC. (You can RSVP on Facebook here.)
At the pre-Detroit People’s Movement Assembly here in DC, some attendees had conversations about food justice issues—but there was not yet a PMA group self-organized around the subject. Well I am pleased to report that the signs of food justice movements across the country are strong! The challenges we face are great, but so are our opportunities. (I previously blogged about food sovereignty in Detroit here.) The USSF2010 Food Justice PMA assembled a diverse and exciting set of people, ideas, and proposals — consolidating it all into one statement to be shared with the broader Social Forum.
So, with hope that food justice/sovereignty will become an active thread of the Greater DC Social Forum process, I’m happy to share the Food Sovereignty People’s Movement Assembly resolution below. Let’s consider this document as we continue our conversation on August 7th and beyond.
Over a half-century ago, Mahatma Gandhi led a multitude of Indians to the sea to make salt—in defiance of the British Empire’s monopoly on this resource critical to people’s diet. The action catalyzed the fragmented movement for Indian independence and was the beginning of the end for Britain’s rule over India. The act of “making salt” has since been repeated many times in many forms by people’s movements seeking liberation, justice and sovereignty: Cesar Chavez, Nelson Mandela, and the Zapatistas are just a few of the most prominent examples. Our food movement— one that spans the globe—seeks food sovereignty from the monopolies that dominate our food systems with the complicity of our governments. We are powerful, creative, committed and diverse. It is our time to make salt.
A movement for food sovereignty – the people’s democratic control of the food system, the right of all people to healthy, culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems - is building from every corner of the globe.
{Read more below}
Ecolocity DC, a local community sustainability/food group, is holding a workshop on July 20 that draws on ancient traditions and yet is still socially relevant today. Seed saving is as old as agriculture, and yet large corporations are not allowing farmers both here in the U.S. and in the developing world to save their seeds. [...]
Local lettuce and berries for school lunch being prepared at CentroNIA If you walked into a D.C. school cafeteria on June 3rd 2010, you may have been surprised at what you saw on students’ trays! Over 150 schools in DC featured fresh, locally-grown strawberries and salad greens as a part of their school lunches. This [...]
