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.

Statement from the People’s Movement Assembly on Food Sovereignty, US Social Forum 2010

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.

We find that our work to build a better food system in the Unites States is inextricably linked to the struggle for workers’ rights, immigrant’s rights, women’s rights, the fight to dismantle racism in our communities, and the struggle for sovereignty in indigenous communities. We find that in order to create a better food system, we must break up the corporate control of our seeds, land, water and natural resources.

Because at a time of record harvests and record profits we have over one billion hungry people on the planet; because poverty is the root cause of hunger; because the world’s oceans are being polluted and plundered, because industrial agriculture contributes one third of all greenhouse gas emissions, because increasing inequality, poverty, hunger, a global land grab, and environmental destruction are threatening the livelihoods of family farmers, farmworkers, fisherfolk, and marginalized communities worldwide; and because community based food systems and agroecological farming can cool the planet, build resilience to climate change, and eliminate poverty;

We therefore commit to re-building local food economies in our own communities, to dismantling structural racism, to democratizing land access, to building opportunities for the leadership of our youth, and to working towards food sovereignty in partnership with social movements around the world;

We call on others in the US to demand an end to the global land grab, to end both corporate and military land occupations, to demand fairer trade, aid and investment policies, land reform, and support for sustainable peasant and community agriculture and sustainable community fisheries;

We endorse actions that include: the liberation of land and water resources for the production of food and sustainable livelihoods; the creation of new structures for cooperative ownership of land and food production, processing and distribution; the integration of labor rights, immigrant’s rights and food justice; the valuing of women as primary food providers, and the denouncement of false solutions and false partnerships addressing climate change, hunger and economic development;

We demand a world in which everyone has control over their food and no one has to put food in their mouth that hurts people or the environment.
Organizations and individuals among us have therefore committed to the following actions:

• Launching a campaign for food sovereignty as a right of the people
• Growing and harvesting as much food as we possibly can everywhere
• Liberating land through reclaiming urban and rural spaces for the production of food for communities; demanding the use of public lands for food production
• Participating in a global campaign against land grabs, in which corporations and governments grab up the lands of communities
• Carrying forward the people’s agenda coming out of the Cochabamba climate summit — including popular education around food and climate justice and promoting sustainable agriculture as a solution to climate change
• Standing with the people of Haiti, Palestine, Honduras, and other countries whose food sovereignty is threatened by political, military, and/or corporate occupation
• Hosting collective meals in our communities as a way of connecting people across generations and cultural backgrounds and as a tool for dismantling racism in the food system
• Forging new models of collective control of land and waterways; assuring legal protection of the commons
• Building the leadership of the next generation; providing opportunities for urban and rural youth to have a future in food and farming
• Rejecting GMOs and other forms of the corporate takeover of our food systems
• Creatively and strategically working to dismantle the corporations who have hijacked the world’s food systems
• Affirming the sovereignty of indigenous peoples in North America and throughout the globe
• Committing our food movements in the US to be active participants in the global movement for food sovereignty and to work to stop our government and corporations from practices that undermine food sovereignty globally.
• Challenging US food and agricultural aid and development policy (e.g., Monsanto and USAID’s recent “donation” of seeds to Haiti)
• Working towards a people’s food and farm bill based on principles of food sovereignty
• Hosting community seed exchanges
• Engaging communities in popular education on GMOs and the role of corporations in our food system
• Engaging communities in popular education on community nutrition and public health
• Creating more community farmers markets that are accessible and affordable to all; affirming everyone’s right to food that is good, safe, healthy, and fair
• Helping everyone understand where their food comes from and who helped bring it to their table
• Highlighting the common struggles between farmers and farmworkers in the US and their counterparts throughout the world

See the official page for this document here. And join us on August 7th to discuss what comes next.

The workshop will start with a short film about seed saving, include a bit of an introduction about its history, and then go into a practical, hands-on workshop. If all goes well, you should be bringing some seeds home to plant in the future. If you already have experience with seed saving, come along as well. We’d love for you to share your expertise.

Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Time: 7-9 PM
Location: Emergence Community Arts Collective, 2nd floor, 733 Euclid Street NW, Washington DC

Please contact ecolocitydc@gmail.com for questions or visit our website at ecolocity.ning.com. We hope to see you there!

Local lettuce and berries for school lunch being prepared at CentroNIA

If you walked into a D.C. school cafeteria on June 3^rd 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 was part of an event called Strawberries & Salad Greens, organized by the D.C. Farm to School Network and in partnership with participating schools and food service providers.  For a medley of pictures from the event in DCist, click here.

Breakfast on the line at Thurgood Marshall Academy – blueberry muffin and local strawberries!

About 40,000 students in all 8 wards of the District gobbled up juicy, red berries and bright green lettuce in their lunches.  Approximately 7,300 pounds of local strawberries and 2,400 pounds of greens were purchased and served for the event, contributing about $20,000 to our local food economy.  The produce was grown on farms in Virgina, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania (visit dcfarmtoschool.org/strawberries for more information about the local growers).

Westmoreland Berry Farm, which supplied berries for DCPS meals on June 3^rd

In addition to helping schools find sources of fresh, local produce, the D.C. Farm to School Network coordinated “Where Food Comes From” tables in 16 school cafeterias.  At these tables, volunteers and parents displayed plants, posters, pictures, and gardening tools.  As students enjoyed their meals, they were able to see, touch, and smell where their food came from!

Carl Rollins with Common Good City Farm shows a strawberry plant to a group of pre-K students at Simon Elementary School

In twelve schools, local chefs performed interactive cooking demonstrations using local strawberries and salad greens.  Kids were able to help professionals prepare recipes, taste samples, discuss the importance of eating fresh, local, healthy foods, and bring home recipes to try with their families.

Chef Oliver Friendly of Eat and Smile Foods makes home-made granola and local strawberry parfaits at Thurgood Marshall Academy Public Charter School

The D.C. Farm to School Network is a program of the Capital Area Food Bank that works to get more healthy, local foods into Washington, DC school meals.  Learn more at www.dcfarmtoschool.org.

Kacie Warner from the Washington Youth Garden prepares a strawberry arugula salad with students at Center City Public Charter School

This seems to be a sales tax, rather than an excise tax, because beverage bottles are not of uniform size and “The [Baltimore City] administration has insisted that the bottle tax — which would exempt milk, juice and two-liter containers, would not unduly burden on residents.”
Revenue from the DC soda tax is righteously targeted to towards helping mitigate the chronic health problems that increased sugar-sweetened beverage intake both causes and magnifies, particularly among its most vulnerable consumers: children living in low-income areas (for example, Wards 7 and 8).
Meanwhile our neighbors, in East Baltimore (socio-economically similar to Wards 7 and 8), express their support for the Baltimore City “bottle tax” as a way to save city services.

In Baltimore City, it is unclear if the revenue from these taxes would go towards helping consumers via social (city) services. In DC, however, it is clear (or much clearer) that the taxes would directly reach consumers by means of the DC Healthy Schools Act. This momentum needs to be seized. It was not in Baltimore City (interestingly, however, as the Baltimore City Council may end up re-considering the bottle tax). Today people are going to express their support for the soda tax to the DC City Council. But more rallying can always be done.
A May 19th Baltimore Sun article reports that the bottle tax in Baltimore City was ‘canned’ (pun intended, I think); and the Baltimore City Council would find new ways to address it’s substantial budget deficit.
Meanwhile, children and adults alike walk around in Baltimore and DC quenching their thirst amidst Maryland’s humid days. Heck, non-diet soda is cheap and better yet, it tastes good. But maybe one of the reasons it tastes so good is because our tastes are not used to eating vegetables and fruits? And one of the reasons this may be the case and why decreased vegetable and fruit and food consumption outside of the home has concurrently increased  is because to many it makes economic (and tasty!) sense.
As the pictures above convey, the soda and bottle taxes in DC and Baltimore City, respectively, also make sense. For it is not us who has consciously changed our tastes and food preferences, it’s the food environment that has changed our taste and food preferences. Thus, we must hold our society and environment responsible as a critical partner in helping to reclaim our diets and restore our health that have slowly and sub-consciously been taken from us.

And with that I leave you with some food for thought: did you know Baltimore City and Baltimore County used to have a beverage tax starting in 1989?

I wanted to let you know that the Kojo Namdi Show (WAMU 88.5) will be focusing on the growing Backyard Hen movement around the country tomorrow (Thursday) from 12:00 to 1:00. They will be interviewing Pat Foreman, the author of City Chicks, as well as an urban farmer from Brooklyn and myself. Let your friends know. It should be a good program. If you can’t listen to it live, you can always stream it online after the show.

In early June we’ll be setting up tables at a few farmers’ markets around the city to collect more petition signers. As a special treat, elementary school kids from 5 classes in Capitol Hill will be showing off their recently hatched chicks and talking about what they’ve learned by hatching and raising chicks. We’re looking for more volunteers to help man the tables for two hour shifts. Let me know if you want to participate and we’ll find a time and place that works for you.

Other good news on the chicken front is that we’re meeting with the Mayor’s Office next week to talk about how to move our legislative changes forward. We’ll let you know what comes out of that meeting.

Thanks,

Caryn

Email dcfoodforall@gmail.com for more information or to get involved!

Sowing Seeds Here and Now!: A Chesapeake Area Urban Farming Summit
Featuring Will Allen of Growing Power
Friday, June 18th, 2010 at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, 10300 Baltimore Ave., Beltsville, MD 20705

Urban Farming is a movement to return the cultivation of our meals to our neighborhoods and cities, revitalizing vacant lots and abandoned properties, productively employing local residents, uniting communities, and ensuring greater social justice. Urban agriculture efforts speak to the well-being and health of our bodies, our society, our environment, the Chesapeake Bay, and our County. It also speaks to our basic right to choose good and have access to good safe nutritious food.

What we put in our bodies is integral our immediate and long term health, and has also greatly impacts the world in which we live. Industrial agriculture has been implicated in many of the world’s ills, from reducing biodiversity due to corporate patenting and genetic engineering, water and ground pollution and contamination due to overuse of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, and depletion of forests, water and soil resources. Many express concern about working conditions of agricultural workers and the abusive conditions of raising and slaughtering poultry and livestock. Others wonder about the additional expenses and environmental costs of the transportation, packaging, and over-processing of many foods we eat daily.

With fewer than 2% of our nation’s people working as farmers, many people wonder how our food system got so far away from US. With the return of the urban agriculture and farmers market movement, we all are beginning to look again at creating a more efficient and ethical food system that can employ more people to sustain our basic needs by (re)turning to small scale safe and local production of food.

As more of us significantly question who decides and produces what we consume, we also see an escalation of food deserts in inner cities– places where food of any kind is hard to come by anywhere, other than a few limited convenience stores and fast food establishments.

We’re asking for three things of you:

• We are actively looking for the best presenters about food justice, public health, planning, and regulations in an effort to identify and break down the barriers to urban agriculture. Go to SowingSeedsHereandNow.com and on the right side of the front page is a little blurb and a link for presentation proposals. Go there, check it out. Consider being a presenter, and fill out that form yourselves. We have funding for travel costs, and would love for you to present and use your knowledge of the subject to lead a rich dialogue. If you’re not interested in presenting, please think for a second about the best presenters and session leaders that you’ve experienced at farming and food systems summits, conferences, or workshops. Let us know their names and contact information, we’ll gladly reach out to them to ask them if they want to present.
• We need your help getting the word out about this summit. Please consider posting a short blurb on your website, blog, twitter or facebook account. We are happy to write it or help you write it to best fit your audience. And, fill out this form and we’ll send you printed postcards to hand out to your friends or constituents.
• We are looking for sponsors for this event. Please contact us, we’d love to build this coalition!

All this is summarized on this page, which clearly details our needs.

If you have any questions, please email christopher@ecoffshoots.org.

The D.C. Guerilla Gardeners is brand new. I started it because I’ve been interested in urban gardening and guerilla gardening but there didn’t seem to be any groups in the area that were geared toward this type of activity.

I honestly think that my interest in urban gardening is the result of my love of graffiti and street art. I’ve developed a real interest in street art as I’ve walked through D.C. and discovered the work of local artists, such as Diabetik. I get such joy in seeing something creative where it, arguably, doesn’t belong. Seeing how a blank wall can be turned into a thing of interest, a topic of discussion, made me wonder about the other blank canvases in the city: empty lots, sidewalk cut-outs, abandoned garden beds.

My first experiment in gardening came in the form of the sidewalk cut-out in front of my boyfriend’s D.C. rowhouse. A sad tree grew there, buried in a dismal mound of depleted soil. Looking at that spot every day made my heart ache, so I marched myself into a local nursery, bought some things that looked interesting, and set off on a frustrating yet rewarding gardening experience. I watched my azaleas die and wondered why, when the succulents planted near them took so well. I cry when people tramp through my Coral Bells (Heuchera) and break their purple leaves. I sit and pick out discarded cigarettes, straw wrappers, and paper cups from between the fragile leaves of my sedum.

I love that little piece of Earth, and I’ve been told by my boyfriend’s neighbors that they do, too. Knowing that someone else enjoys seeing those plants grow despite the odds, has impassioned me to plant again. And it seems that I’m not the only one. The response to D.C. Guerilla Gardeners has been positive and sincere.

You can join the movement this Sunday:

* What: The FIRST-EVER D.C. Guerilla Gardeners Event! Woo!
* When: Sunday, April 18, 2010
* Time: 10am – Completion
* Where: T Street NW at Vermont Avenue NW
* More Where: Location is one block from the U Street/African American Civil War Memorial Metro stop on the Green Line.

* Bring: Bottled water (for yourself to drink), sunscreen (we like to make things green, not red), gardening gloves, your preferred garden tools (spade, trowel, shovel, etc.)*
* RSVP: If you’re so inclined, let D.C. Guerilla Gardeners know you’re coming so that we can be sure to bring enough snacks. Did I say, “Snacks?” I SURE DID! There will be snacks, oh yes indeedio.

We wrote letters to the City Council to express our support of this bill, a few of which you can read below. We will be submitting these letters of support to the DC City Council and will read a few of them during the public testimony period at the upcoming hearing on March 26.

[Cross posted to DC Food Not Bombs]

by Ethan Genauer

When I started volunteering this winter as a garden science teacher with Washington Youth Garden, entering one 3rd-grade classroom every week to help instill knowledge and enthusiasm by the children for the wonders of nature, I had no idea that this experience would inspire me to initiate a national call for Universal School Gardens.

But when I witnessed the children’s smiles and eyes light up in the course of planting seeds and watching them sprout into seedlings and grow, my appreciation deepened for the many reasons why school gardens are gaining popularity and have an excellent track record for enhancing the educational learning and natural curiosity of young people. “Every student should be free to enjoy the incomparable thrill of tasting fresh healthy food that he or she had a direct hand in growing,” I thought, “and every school in America should sprout a garden!”

That’s why this March 2010, as spring fast approaches, I am asking you to join me in expressing support for the mission of “Good Food For All Kids: A Garden at Every School.” Simply by casting your vote for the principle of Universal School Gardens in the 2010 Ideas for Change in America contest sponsored by Change.org, you can help move this idea one important step closer from inspiration to reality.

After voting concludes on Friday, March 12th, the 10 most popular ideas will then be transformed into national grassroots social change campaigns. The staff at Change.org will reach out directly to relevant decision-makers to engage them on the winning ideas, and they will work with each winner to create a grassroots campaign and promote their idea nationwide. Already, “Good Food For All Kids: A Garden at Every School” was one of the top 3 ideas in the “Food and Agriculture” category in the first round. Now, we are playing to win the final round!

Although my vision for Universal School Gardens is ambitious, I believe that now is indeed the ideal moment for a new nationwide mobilization of Americans dedicated to the common purpose of achieving this delicious dream. We have extraordinary political momentum on our side. For example, the Obama administration has stated its commitment to putting an end to childhood hunger by 2015, and First Lady Michelle Obama recently launched her signature “Let’s Move” initiative aiming to combat the nation’s crisis of childhood obesity through strategies for healthier schools and better children’s fitness. Establishing sustainable food gardens at schools across America should be a key component of both of these efforts.

And we have a clear legacy of success to build on: Thousands of edible gardens have already been established at schools in every U.S. state. Educators have produced an abundance of garden-focused curricular standards in all subjects, from science and math to English and art, as well as the empirical evidence to demonstrate why school gardens are a fantastic educational tool and define best practices. A wealth of school gardening websites and resources is available to provide practical instruction.

After experiencing one of the coldest and toughest winters in United States history, with countless families struggling in the grip of a severe prolonged economic recession that has caused a rising tide of childhood hunger, this year many American children are anticipating spring with special fervor. When the snow is all gone and flowers once again begin to bloom, why not celebrate all across the country by planting a wave of new school gardens?

Ultimately, committing to the realization of good food for all kids may be one of the best ways that we can rebuild local economies while proving that investment in the health, nutrition and future of America’s young people will no longer be sacrificed to the convenience of serving them the cheap, bland, uniform, unhealthy processed foods that have become the standard school menu. Only when each and every student has the unhindered opportunity to access the daily nourishment of healthy foods will we be able to honestly claim that no children are being left behind.

It is no longer a secret that the diet of America’s youth needs to radically improve. Hunger, bad nutrition and obesity among children are leading causes of health risks and often contribute to poor classroom performance. A study by Feeding America (pdf) asserts that “food insecurity and hunger, together with other correlates of poverty, can dramatically alter the architecture of children’s brains, making it impossible for them to fulfill their potential.” By planting a garden at every school in America, we will ensure that every child has the opportunity to benefit from eating more fresh healthy foods. Let’s make 2010 the year that the idea of universal school gardening takes off as a force for positive change in U.S. education!

Ethan Genauer is a volunteer with Washington Youth Garden, helping to bring garden science into DC classrooms. Before moving to DC in 2009, he lived in New Mexico for several years, where he worked with sustainable community farms and led activities to increase youth engagement with sustainable food systems. In addition to seeking your vote for school gardens in the contest at Change.org, Ethan is inviting folks to join the new “School Gardens Across America” group at Facebook.