Like many of you, I believe local food security to be one of the key areas we need to work on in preparation for the changes now beginning to occur. As my notes from the following article indicate, as we build sustainable local food systems -- and tweak our current systems in that direction -- we also have the opportunity to make our community more equitable and democratic. As good permaculture planners, we need to accomplish more than one goal in everything we do, and making all of our systems more participatorily democratic, equitable, and nonviolent is as important as ensuring that they're ecologically sustainable...because then, in working for all, they'll be socially and politically sustainable as well.

Notes on "Farming the Concrete Jungle" by Phoebe Connelly and Chelsea Ross, In These Times magazine, 9-07: Cultivating a Self-Help Ethos in a Democratic Space

A growing urban agricultural movement is showing that sustainable local food systems not only help ensure food security, but are a means of addressing social justice issues.

The 2007 farm bill just passed by the U.S. House of Representatives contains a $30 million appropriation for community food projects.

The Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) is a food policy organization with more than 200 member groups that promotes the growing, processing, and distribution of food and other products through intensive plant cultivation and animal husbandry in and around cities. (According to the 2000 census, 80% of the U.S. population lives in cities or suburbs.) It divides urban agriculture into commercial farms, community gardens, and backyard gardens.

Boston’s Food Project runs commercial farms, but also invests in communities to create local supply networks. Each summer the Food Project employs 60 kids to work on its farms, both urban and rural. After the summer, the youth can return as interns to learn how to run the project’s farmers’ markets and commercial kitchen.

In Oakland, CA, People’s Grocery operates five urban gardens in the largely black and Latino communities of West and North Oakland, as well as a youth nutrition program staffed by young people.
In Brooklyn, NY, Added Value has turned an old asphalt baseball diamond into a full-functioning farm. And in Philadelphia, PA, Mill Creek Farm is using storm runoff to irrigate its urban farm. Other community agricultural projects are in San Francisco, CA (Alemany Farm); Albany, NY (Massachusetts Avenue Project); Birmingham, AL (Jones Valley Urban); Chicago, IL (Growing Power); and Houston, TX (Urban Harvest). According to the USDA, the number of farmers’ markets has also grown by 50% since 1994, and the Federal Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program is funding more than twice as many groups as it did a decade ago.

Many urban agricultural programs are not certified organic because of the cost, but, as one gardener said, “People can just come by and see our practices.” People form relationships and learn to communicate through owning the food system. [Not to mention gaining indispensable control over their own lives...]

City Slickers and People’s Grocery are in West Oakland, CA. City Slickers has helped build 50 backyard gardens and has set a goal of 50 per year in the future. It buys excess produce from these backyard gardens at a premium organic rate, selling it at a lower price at its city farm stand. [As a community gardener who gave away a lot of food this year, often to people who didn’t really need it, I like this idea. I get paid for my labors, and people who really need organic veggies get them at a price they can afford.] Another idea from City Slickers is that every city park could include a farm.

Increased green space lowers the domestic violence and crime rates. The recognition that the urban landscape needs green space has opened the door to city partnerships. The asphalt lot that Added Value farms is owned by New York City, and the Brooklyn Zoo supplies compost. Chicago’s Growing Power has partnered with the Chicago Park District to operate two quarter-acre model urban farms in two different parks.

On a state and national level we must change what the government funds agriculturally. Seventy-two percent of farm subsidies currently go into dairy and meat production, with a smaller amount for grains for human consumption. Apples are the only fruit or vegetable subsidized.

In 2006, 26.7 million Americans received food stamps. The 2007 farm bill encourages them to shop at farmers’ markets by allocating $32 million to the renamed Farmers’ Market Promotion Program, by expanding eligibility for who can sell at markets [could backyard and community garden plot farmers in Eugene open a stand together?], and by using Electronic Benefit Transfer technology to process food stamps as a payment.

The House version of the farm bill also allocates $30 million over the next five years to the Community Food Projects Competitive Grants program, which, since its inception in 1996, has funded 240 programs to help low-income communities meet their nutritional needs. Funds are not guaranteed at the same levels each year anymore, however, and the bill still has to go before the Senate.

The massive federal subsidies received by Big Ag companies help keep food prices artificially low, forcing small-scale sustainable agriculture to self-subsidize in order to compete. Selling at high-end markets also conflicts with the goal of making nutritious food available to everyone in the local community.

Permanent land ownership is another road to sustainability. In Philadelphia the Neighborhood Gardens Association (NGA), founded in 1986, is a community land trust that holds land reclaimed by gardeners to save it from development when property values rise. The NGA currently holds 24 plots in trust. Neighbor Space, a similar program in Chicago, has been around since 1996. [We could do this, too.]

The goal is for everyone to have land, water, and enough food.

A couple more of my thoughts on this article are that we could:
• Involve youth, the homeless, Latinos, and any other “marginal” groups we can think of.
• Identify our low-income community or communities, and get grant money for garden projects.