Mark Winne's Blog, page 12

The Tortoise and the Hare

The newly elected mayor had picked up a dose of food-movement religion somewhere along the campaign trail. The exact source couldn’t be identified, but more than likely it was from those angry moms seething about the crappy food their children were eating in the schools’ cafeterias; or maybe those shaggy, shovel-waving urban farm advocates demanding more land and less rules; or perhaps it was that wild-eyed food entrepreneur whose harebrained job creation scheme sounded plausible though not remotely fundable. So from the exalted heights of his inauguration platform – already looking ahead four years to the next election – he crowned himself the city’s “Food Mayor.”

But like a high-strung colt not yet fitted to his traces, whose perspiring flanks betrayed his eagerness and lack of experience, the overheated mayor began to fade in the stretch. He grew impatient with the slow pace of the community food coalition which was attempting to present a unified food charter to the city. The rancorous public hearings on the new urban agriculture zoning ordinance had shaded the mayor’s prodigious coif from pepper to salt. So in a desperate attempt to burnish his waning Food Mayor image, he turned to his biggest corporate backer who was willing to expand his fast food empire. In return for some public cash and a suite of regulatory concessions, the city’s leading corporate citizen made the tantalizing promise of 500 new jobs.

On the eve of the mayor’s big announcement, the food coalition had finally, after many messy and excruciatingly long stakeholder meetings, put the finishing touches on their proposed food charter. Though it had engaged the community, including many elected and appointed city officials, the coalition’s document was dismissed by the mayor as taking too long and producing too little economic value. The following day the Food Mayor and Big Donor unveiled their plans for the spanking new, state-of-the-art fast food factory. Dismayed and brokenhearted, the food coalition watched the mayor sail on to an unopposed second term.

Swift and certain action producing immediate and precise results, or a slow but deliberative process producing uncertain but potentially wide ranging results? The tortoise or the hare? Participatory democracy versus executive action? Grass roots versus grass tops? Means versus ends? People versus Power? Maybe the question is how we can work most effectively in the chaotic sausage-making process that is community engagement and coalition building.

Our communities’ food systems need lots of things. At a local level we need good-paying jobs; at a global level we need to be able to feed the Earth’s population which is fast approaching 10 billion people. Whether it’s the ticking of the mayor’s election clock or humanity’s biological clock, time ultimately waits for no community process. In light of the many food-related threats we face, do we trust the masses or the mighty?

Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates have their plans to save the world, and they have enough money to avoid democracy when the people exert an excessive gravitational pull on their timetables. The high-tech billionaires aren’t into collaborating across multi-stakeholder platforms if the right app can’t produce the divine symmetry of many oars plunging and pulling together in perfect union.

If the peoples’ voices are going to be heard and not drowned out by itchy politicians and go-go technology titans, we have to perfect our organizing game. At present, I believe our group process muscles are weak and our facilitation tendons are stiff. We have grown flabby with soft organizational development work and phlegmatic coalition-building practices. Our physical profiles look like those of a 65-year-old man who can no longer conceal his paunch. We talk the talk of coordination, cooperation, and collaboration, but our walk has all the strength and sureness of a wobbly toddler.

It’s time to get back in the gym and out on the track. Take a class in group dynamics. Read a book or two about how to optimize the performance of your group or coalition. Hire a professional facilitator when you really need the time and space to get your people serious about their enterprise. Yes, we’re divided by so much and the task of getting us all on the same page is daunting, but the stakes of not doing it are too high. Benjamin Franklin, who may not have been the best looking of our founding fathers, got it right when he said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Fortune 500 companies can afford to send their up-and-coming young execs to the Wharton School, whose recent New York Times advertisement touted courses like “The Leadership Journey: Reinvigorate Your Leadership,” and “Creating and Leading High-Performing Teams.” They sound great, but I’m pretty sure my local food policy council is not going to pay for me to attend. More and more community foundations are supporting organizational capacity building, cultural competency training, and a host of other coalition and group development efforts. Seek them out, and if they aren’t investing in capacity building, tell them they should. If outside training resources aren’t available, you can always organize some study circles. One member reads an article on a subject such as facilitation, then leads a group discussion.

This is a plea for a more intentional approach to building the multi-stakeholder campaigns and organizations we need. I know how hard people work to juggle six balls in the air at once, only to have their success rewarded with a seventh. But we have to take leadership and group process more seriously if we harbor any hope of winning. The poor coalition member, for instance, who gets up near the meeting’s end to use the restroom shouldn’t necessarily be the one chosen as chairperson because he or she isn’t at the table.

And lastly, while we must be efficient, we shouldn’t cower before the taskmasters who crack their whips for results. Like the industrial food system that produces lots of empty calories, a rushed process with too few participants will ultimately satisfy no one. Nutrient-dense, community-centered initiatives have the ingredients to build strong food system bodies twelve ways. If we can eat smart, we should be able to organize smart as well.

The Color of Food Leadership

It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to be a part of America’s race story – it has a way of finding you. This came home to me recently during my morning practice of reading poetry, the purpose of which is to warm up gently to a wobbly world. Picking up from where I’d left the book marker the previous day, the first poem that gave itself to me was Audre Lorde’s 1978 “Power.”

A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens

stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood….

At his trial this policeman said in his own defense

“I didn’t notice the size nor nothing else

only the color.”

Today that 37 year old white man

with 13 years of police forcing

was set free….           

            (Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century American Poetry)

Coincidentally and astonishingly, I read this poem two days after the NYC decision to not indict the policeman responsible for the choke hold death of Eric Garner. Whether it’s 1978 in Queens or 2014 in Staten Island, criminal acts by those we pay to protect us confound our sensibilities, make us feel powerless in the face of power, and in the all-too-human urge to retaliate, threaten to compromise our moral standards. The never-ending story of American racism screams at us to do something, anything, to relieve the anguish.

But what? Choosing to act non-violently will always be my modus operandi. Yes, I can march, I can shout, I can commit (and have committed) acts of civil disobedience, but as I started doing 44 years ago, changing the food system will always be my battleground in the war on injustice and racism. Near the end of my first book Closing the Food Gap I said that, “As a person of privilege and power whose professional agenda has been to reduce the ill effects of the food system on people who bear little resemblance to myself, I have become intensely aware of what I can and cannot do.”

In other words, my conclusion was that food justice will not be attained solely through the efforts of well-intentioned white guys, no matter how good their work. Achieving food security, access to healthy and affordable food, and social and economic equity for all will only be achieved when a significant share of the movement’s leadership is assumed by those with a greater personal stake in the outcome, i.e. people of color.

To that end let me share a few words about some inspiring African-American food system leaders with whom I’ve had the privilege to work. The list reflects a distinctly Georgia bias because I was recently in Atlanta attending a board meeting of the African-American organic farming organization SAAFON.

Rashid Nuri and Truly Living Well Farm

“I used to protest, but now I build the future.” That was how Rashid Nuri, CEO of the Atlanta-based Truly Living Well urban farm (www.trulylivingwell.com) sized up his role in response to the Ferguson and Staten Island verdicts. Gazing over several acres of highly productive December vegetable plots, it was obvious that Rashid was building a very viable future. As we have all been reminded time and again, the world’s population is becoming increasingly urbanized. The effective use of undeveloped urban and peri-urban land for food production will no longer be considered a nicety but a necessity.

The kale, collards, onions, and broccoli were vigorous and awaiting their turn for future harvests that will be sold at TLW’s farm stand, the CSA, and area restaurants. Located barely 100 yards from Interstate 85’s eight lanes of rip roaring traffic, and just a few blocks from the peaceful oasis of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Historic Site, the farm also serves as a highly visible demonstration site for numerous food, farm, and sustainability initiatives. An aquaponic greenhouse, a state of the art “rocket heated” greenhouse, a model, large-scale composting site, and too many varieties of fruit trees and berry bushes to keep track of sprout from what used to a public housing site. This alternative urban landscape is the fruition of Rashid’s vision and leadership, and just as importantly, a powerful model for a robust urban agriculture presence that embraces the diversity of its place and people.

Cynthia Hayes and the Southeastern African American Farmers Organic Network (SAAFON)

About ten years ago Cynthia Hayes decided that African-American farmers were not reaping the benefits of the nation’s turn to sustainable agriculture and organic food. Teaming up with Owusu Bandele, a member of the agriculture faculty at Southern University, Cynthia went about the task of forming SAAFON (www.SAAFON.org) to ensure that black farmers in the American South, who have endured centuries of discrimination, had access to the growing market for sustainable and organic produce. (I first encountered Cynthia a few years ago while writing an article about SAAFON for Yes! Magazine: http://www.markwinne.com/black-farmers-and-savannah-foodies-join-forces/).

To pick up the beat of agricultural progress for black farmers, Cynthia steered SAAFON in the direction of farmer education and organic certification. She saw this as the best way to promote economic viability for SAAFON’s 130 farmer members. It was also, in her opinion, the best way to retain black-owned farms (now only 2 percent of American farms, down from 14 percent). With 8000 supporters, SAAFON has become the “go to” place for people and groups interested in nurturing the connection between black farmers and sustainably produced food.

SAAFON now has a full complement of 13 board members, who, with the exception of this writer, are all people of color, including several farmers. It was evident from the energy flowing at the board meeting that the group was passionate about SAAFON’s mission, determined to raise a budget sufficient for the huge challenge ahead, and excited about taking a seat at a national table set for food system change. As one board member stated, “I have no intention of letting another black-owned farm be sold on the courthouse steps.”

Kwabena Nkromo and the Georgia Food Policy Council

Food and agriculture policy is a murky area often overwhelmed by special interests and more money than principles. As subject matter goes, it’s often so dense that a bucket of it can stop a bullet fired at close range. But neither of these factors has deterred Kwabena Nkromo from taking the reigns of the Georgia Food Policy Council, a statewide organization founded in 2012 that has set its sights on the numerous food and farm challenges facing Georgia’s citizens.

Both policy work and leadership are natural evolutions for Kwabena who has played a major role in the social enterprise organization Atlanta Food & Farm, LLC (www.atlfoodandfarm.net). Organized as a social benefit corporation, Atlanta Food and Farm serves a growing niche as a consulting group for community food systems planning and urban agriculture development.

Though still a “newbie” in the food policy world (GPFC’s website is currently under reconstruction), the Council is moving ahead with the formation of a Georgia Farmers Market Association, and sees itself working with such partners as Georgia Organics and the Georgia Food Oasis for better policies from farm to plate. According to Kwabena, “These efforts will not only be focused on the Georgia General Assembly and other legislative bodies, but also through the influence of actions and choices each of us make as food citizens.” 

Where Do We Go From Here?

Circling back to the racism-inspired carnage that exacts such a heavy toll on the American soul, it’s worth asking if this nation’s food movement can’t take more concrete steps to stem “the blood-dimmed tide.” In 2010, fifty-five percent of shooting homicide victims were black people even though they only make up thirteen percent of the U.S. population. While people of color are far and away the highest percentage of victims of food and farm injustices, it is reasonable to say, even without the benefit of accurate data, that they are inadequately represented in leadership roles with groups attempting to address those injustices.

Again, what I said in Closing the Food Gap makes more sense now than when I wrote it in 2007: “As I use the talents God gave me…to make the lives of others at least a little better, I will…make way for, and get out of the way of those whose voices more genuinely call out for change than mine ever can.” It feels as if that time has come; I can be an ally, a teacher, a trainer, a donor, and a comrade-in-arms. But if the body count is to stop growing, and if “food justice for all” will no longer be “a dream deferred,” then the leadership of the food movement must do more to show its colors.

Appearances for Winter and Spring 2015

2015

January 14 & 15 – Mobile, Alabama – Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Annual Conference. Co-leading a 1 1/2 day workshop on food policy councils in the Southeastern United States. For more information contact Mark Winne at win5m@aol.com or www.ssawg.org.

February 3 – Frankfort, Kentucky – Presentation before the Kentucky State Legislature for a seminar on Building Strong Families for Kentucky: The Role of Food Policy Councils. For more information contact Nelda Moore at nmoore@uky.edu.

February 11 – Webinar Presentation: Food Policy and Regional Food System: Opportunities for Networking Across Jurisdictions. 1:00 to 2:15 ET. For more information contact Evelyn Kelly at ekelly@institutephi.org.

February 17 – Charleston, West Virginia – Keynote speech at the West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition annual conference. For more information contact Elizabeth Spellman at e.spellman@wvhub.org or at www.wvfoodandfarm.org.

February 18 – New York City – Presentation to the Drisha Institute. For more information contact www.drisha.org.

February 19 – New Haven, Connecticut – Presentation to the Yale University Sustainable Food Program. For more information contact Isabelle Napier @ isabelle.napier@yale.edu.

March 7 – Wiscasset, Maine – Keynote speech for food and farm event at the Chewonki facility. For more information contact Merry Fossel at mfossel@free.midcoast.com.

April 8 – Gunnison Valley, Colorado – Western State Colorado University. Presentation to the University community. For more information contact Stephanie Aubert at Stephanie.aubert@western.edu.

April 9 – Jefferson County, Colorado - Presentation for the Jefferson County Public Health Department on food policy and food policy councils. For more information contact Molly Hanson at mhanson@jeffco.us.

April 10 – Denver, Colorado – University of Colorado Denver. Presentation to the University community. For more information contact John Brett at John.Brett@ucdenver.edu.

May 1 – Seattle, Washington – Healthy Habits Conference (statewide nutrition conference). Keynote presentation. For more information contact Caroline McNaughton Tittel at events@nutritionfirstwa.org.

 

 

Taking Money from Wal-Mart

Is it time for the food movement to wade once again into the messy and murky world of ethics? To stimulate a little conversation over this season of gift-giving, I’ve posted this link to a recent article by Andy Fisher and Bob Gottlieb. In it, they note how Wal-Mart loves to put “a bit of stick about,” as the English like to say, to ho-ho-ho! their way into the hearts of America’s communities.

I must say that I’ve helped more than one colleague over the years polish off a pitcher of margarita to ease the heartburn they feel from taking Wal-Mart money. These raging debates of conscience, whether held between you and yourself or among a group of colleagues are never easy conversations to have. Is a greater good gained by “dancing with the devil,” or do we never retreat and never surrender to always stay true to our principles?

Speaking for myself, who at the moment is the only one who will listen, there are two masters I must serve. The first is an application of an imprecise kind of math that asks if the pain that a company may cause, such as treating its workers badly, is greater than the benefit derived from the good I might do for those same people by taking that company’s money. If the answer is “yes,” then it seems that at the very least I’d be wasting my time by taking their money, or at worst, I’d be shamelessly serving my own interests. The second master is far crueler than the first, because it comes from my parents who hammered home the simple notion that if something you’re doing feels wrong, then it probably is. When that happens and the gnawing ache of doubt robs your sleep and twists your stomach into knots, well, no amount of tequila will help.

Let’s see what Fisher and Gottlieb have to say.

http://civileats.com/2014/12/18/who-benefits-when-walmart-funds-the-food-movement/

 

Faith in a Seed

City Seed Mobile Farmers’ Market – New Haven, Conn.

Where and when did the food movement begin? Without consulting the Book of Genesis – and to avoid a protracted debate – let’s just say it wafted in on some twentieth-century breeze making landfall on a relatively undisturbed portion of the American coastline (specifying which one might also start a fight). There, it eventually found fertile ground in the warm heart of a young man disaffected no doubt by his mother’s cooking and a persistent bowel irritation traced back to a steady diet of Twinkies.

Finding a female companion whose soul was filled as much by a desire for joy as by the same simmering rage, the first revolutionary food couple turned their backs on the A&P and roadside diner. Somehow, they managed to stay warm that winter by feeding ripped pages from their mothers’ Good Housekeeping Cookbook into a rusty woodstove. Wide-eyed and innocent, they planned a spring garden, which to them was only a concept they had overheard from their grandmothers.

A Garden of Eden it wouldn’t be, but what did bear fruit that first season was less a story of bounty and nourishment than it was a story of human agency. Together, they had rejected a convention which, at worst, contained a destructive power that was only just becoming known, and at best was so overwhelmingly mediocre that acceptance would consign their spirits to the pale ash-bin of a paltry life.

This is my food movement creation story, and I’m sticking to it. Disgruntlement balanced against hope; failure offset by a fire in the belly and an untiring urge to innovate. The words of Mark Twain always ring true, “All you need is ignorance and confidence: success is sure to follow,” And we need faith in the seed.

That so much of our daily life is informed by a queasy acquiescence to society’s norms was brought home to me in a recent column by Vanessa Friedman, chief fashion critic for the New York Times. Of course, anyone eyeing me wearing one of my two standard outfits – unfashionably shabby and slightly less so – would certainly wonder what I was doing snooping around the style pages. On this particular occasion, however, Ms. Friedman was railing against what she called the “new mediocre,” the ho-hum, nothing-new-here trend in fashion design. But she wasn’t just referring to the uninspired collections from this fall’s designers; she extended her critique to politics, literature, and culture. With the exception of the field of finance, where greed serves as a constant grist for innovation (“Tried that new subordinated debenture hedged against Canadian cod futures yet?”), our world and its expectations have been down-sized, and, according to Ms. Friedman, “individuals tend to play it cautious, opting for incremental change…as opposed to radical change.”

I tend to agree, except in the case of the food movement. We abhor the mediocre, we flock to change like moths to light, and we worship at the altar of innovation. Passing through New Haven, Connecticut, last month, I had a chance to catch up with a young friend by the name of Caitlin Aylward who was managing the City Seed Mobile Farmers’ Market. In what now seems like an age-old battle to get good food to every underserved corner of America, the continuum of innovation has taken us from the development of cooperatives, supermarkets, and farmers’ markets to small-scale, laser-sharp methods of bringing food to the people. In New Haven’s case several lower-income neighborhoods continue to defy efforts to find cost-effective solutions to poor food access.

The mobile farmers’ market is nothing more than single-axle, 12-by-6 foot trailer that supports a perfectly adorable, custom-made farm shed whose side panels open up to a full display of Connecticut-grown produce. The farm stand finds its way to neighborhoods with insufficient density and dollars to support even a conventional farmers’ markets. It gets to these places by way of a dented, donated Honda driven by Caitlin, whose Wesleyan University education did not include even a minor in heavy equipment operation. For 15 weeks in the summer and fall, the farmer’s market makes it rounds to 16 different sites in the city where it takes cash, WIC and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program vouchers issued by the State of Connecticut, and EBT/food stamp cards whose value is doubled by foundation funding. The produce is sourced from several area farms including the Common Ground Charter School, which has a one-acre teaching farm, and Hall’s Farm, one of Connecticut’s oldest organic farms.

Having just finished its third season, the mobile farmers’ market sold over $17,000 of produce, 15 percent more than 2013. That represented 13,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables purchased from Connecticut farmers. The program includes cooking demonstrations and other food and health-related enrichment activities. And City Seed is even doing a program evaluation which so far shows that its customers give the farmers’ market a high rating (9.3 out of a possible 10), and that 66 percent of the respondents report eating more fresh, seasonal produce.

I don’t single out the City Seed project because it’s necessarily best in its class – there are hundreds of such ventures operating or springing up across the country – or because it’s the answer to all our access problems. As Caitlin willingly admits, “Yes, it’s a good project, but it’s still only a Band-Aid.” But what the mobile farmers’ market stands for is yet another progression in a long line of innovation, learning from others, and connecting the dots. It brings together knowledge of place and community, smart social enterprise thinking, and an aggressive use of public policy to level the playing field. The policies themselves are a product of a continuous evolution and innovation that began in the 1980s.

Some big projects are the culmination – though I suspect there are never any final culminations – of years of pilots, mistakes, and stumbling forward until some grand vision is realized. Such may be the case with a Louisville, Kentucky, food hub (http://civileats.com/2014/12/03/the-nations-biggest-food-hub-coming-to-louisville-kentucky/) touted as the largest in the nation that will provide a virtual one-stop selling destination for farmers and access point for restaurants, processors, and food banks. At the other end of the size scale is Aly Lewis in Del Ray Beach, Florida, whose up-by-the-boot-straps non-profit is turning surplus beeswax from a local beekeeper into lip balm sold in local drug stores. The profits will be used to start community gardens with SNAP recipients and a nearby food bank. “Let the shapes arise!” as Walt Whitman said.

We’re sometimes so caught up in the moment – jamming that next grant application out the door or dousing a dozen little fires – that we lose the historical connections that keep the food movement in perpetual motion. Consult Michigan State University’s Good Food Timeline found in the report authored by Rich Pirog, et. al. (http://foodsystems.msu.edu/resources/local-food-movement-setting-the-stage) and you’ll be astounded by how far we’ve come: 340 farmers’ markets in the 1970s – over 8,000 today; one food policy council in 1987 – over 200 today; the first pilot farm-to-school project in 1996 – over 38,000 schools involved with farm to school in 2014!

Because the Good Food Timeline wants to tell the whole truth, it also charts the astronomical growth in SNAP enrollment and the abject failure of the minimum wage to stem the growth in poverty or reduce hunger. But even here the food movement strives to keep pace by embracing the cause of low-wage food chain workers and passing innovative legislation such as the Food Insecurity Nutrition Initiative in the recent Farm Bill to provide more incentives to lower income shoppers to buy locally produced food.

The litany of programs and policies is endless, in part due to the openness of innovators and developers to share their wisdom with the next generation of innovators and developers. This diffusion of ideas and energy across a wide landscape has expedited the process of program reproduction without resorting to cookie-cutter approaches. Each person in their own way has assimilated the lessons learned from others and applied them to their own place and circumstances.

Even the Johnny-Come-Lately venture capitalists have climbed on the band wagon trying to cash in on the disaffection that propelled the First Foodie Couple on their journey. I couldn’t help but smirk at a recent New York Times story on Sweetgreen, “a fast-casual salad restaurant…that raised $18.5 million in financing.” Hip, healthy, and local, one of Sweetgreen’s investors, Steve Case (an AOL co-founder), said, “There’s clearly a revolution in food underway.”

Hmmm, where was Mr. Case fifty years ago when the revolution began? Where were the vegetable capitalists when thousands of little start-ups were hawking their lettuce in church parking lots? Oh well, let them make money if they can; maybe they’ll plow their profits back into the real revolutionaries, the next round of eager, bright, idealistic, fair-minded and far-sighted food adventurers. Be assured, the menu is ample, and there’s not a mediocre item on it.

Korea Goes Local

During a tour of the bustling Yangpyeong street market, I learned how food figures prominently in Korea’s creation myth. According to my guide, Dae-Han Song, Bear and Tiger had an irrepressible urge to become human, so the God Spirit instructed them to go into a cave together where the only food was garlic and the herb mugwort. Sadly, Tiger was not able to handle the deprivation and died. But as a reward for Bear’s survival, the God Spirit turned him into a beautiful woman whom he promptly married. Together, they set about populating what is today the Korean Peninsula.

Just as Dae-Han finished his tale, I was abruptly body-slammed by a miniature elderly woman lugging a large tray of whole mackerel. Spinning hard to my right, I found myself staring face-down into a wooden crate of mugwort. And right on cue, a small flat-bed truck packed to the gills with garlic entered the same stall. The act of creation was unfolding right before my eyes!

This was my third visit in eight years to this, the last divided country on earth. Besides being run down by relatively short people, it’s easy to be equally struck by the dynamic angularity of Korea’s urban spaces and the soft contours of its countryside. Because food security is a matter of utmost concern here, the intensive horticultural use of nearly every undeveloped nook and cranny is a natural and necessary fit for both city and country. And while small farms and greenhouses were an aesthetically pleasing offset to some cluttered, high density areas, food security was also the reason I had been invited to speak at Yangpyeong’s local food conference.

One thing I’d learned from attending previous events was the Korean love of ceremony. Imagine a July Fourth observance in a small American city with the mayor and other local dignitaries holding forth from a bunting-draped stage on the virtues of patriotism and independence. With even greater fervor a group of local dignitaries that included Yangpyeong’s mayor, the director of Local Food Korea, and representatives from provincial and national agencies welcomed the assembled crowd. Unlike similar American moments, however, the occasion of the Korean event, replete with flag-waving and the playing of the national anthem was the celebration of local food!

The hoopla, which included the firing off of rockets, and subsequent one-and-a-half days of presentations and meetings was more than symbolic. Because of Korea’s acute dependence on imported food, much of it now coming from China, the most quoted number throughout the conference was 7,200 kilometers (about 4500 miles), the average distance that food must travel to reach Korea’s consumers. Compare that to the often cited U.S. figure of 1,500 food miles and you can appreciate why Korea’s interest in local food is much more than a fad.

The path of local food (a phrase that acquired mantra status during conference deliberations) is similar to the one taken in the U.S. – a rapid growth in farmers’ markets, CSAs (box schemes in Korea), agricultural coops (akin to food hubs), and farm to school initiatives. There is a strong interest in organically produced food, but the tendency is more toward “environmentally friendly” agricultural practices rather than a strict adherence to national organic standards.

The Sisters’ Project is an example of how Korea’s local food movement draws on tradition and relationships as a way to address contemporary food issues. Founded by the Korean Women’s Peasant Farmers association, the Sisters’ Project is a CSA/box scheme that originated from the need for Korean women to have an independent source of income since they were formerly prohibited from owning land. The traditional box consisted of greens and 10 eggs assembled from the chicken coops of several women growers. But these schemes have grown in number and diversity in response to the perception that Korean women were losing their cooking skills. This producer/consumer connection – one founded as much on empathy as on economic need – undergirds many of the local food dealings in Korea. It is a hope that co-existence will lead to co-prosperity, and a recognition based on the belief – stated often during the conference – that food is a public good, not a set of private goods subject to commodification.

While Americans may teeter back and forth between their anti-government biases and an expectation that government should enable a locally based food system, the Koreans make no bones about it – they expect government to be at the table. Throughout the conference, presenters and participants called on government, from the national to the provincial to the local, to act aggressively in support of local food.

Nowhere was this sense of partnership and shared values more evident than with a national project that is simply called Local Food Stores. Typically, these retail food shops are based on a hybrid social enterprise model driven by public interest concerns and cooperative business practices (most of the inspiration for this model was acquired from Japan which has a robust history of local food stores). The LFS works with a prescribed set of farmers – now numbering 1200 nationwide, many of whose “farms” are not much larger than a big backyard garden.

As explained to me by Sang Hyun Yoon, Local Food Korea’s communication manager, participating farmers commit to taking six mandatory classes that cover “environmentally friendly” production methods. The classes also orient the farmers to the business and management practices of the LFS.

Though Korea’s institutions work hard to support farmers, they definitely don’t coddle them. If, after regular inspections, your farm violates the environmentally friendly practices three times, e.g. using insecticides, the LFS takes the unfriendly action of throwing the farmer out of the coop. And if you miss one of the six courses, you don’t get in at all.

I surmised that “tough love” like this was at least partially justified in a nation that survived near annihilation in the early fifties, and nuclear missile-waving nut cases just north of their 38th parallel. But the rewards appear commensurate with the rigidity of the requirements. Not only does a committee of farmers set store prices, member farmers reap 90% of the gross sales, reserving 10% for store operating costs (in other cooperative schemes described to me, farmers only received 60% of the retail price). Yes, the farmers must deliver their products to the stores early each morning, and then pick up unsold product in the evening (work is underway to develop “value-added” projects to utilize surplus product), but this is consistent with the LFS’s high quality, maximum freshness image that is currently contributing to their success. As best as I could determine from my interview with Mr. Yoon and my visit to one beautifully merchandised LFS located in the middle of the Yangpyeong street market, sales were brisk and consumer satisfaction was high.

Mr. Yoon told me that the role of government was key to the development of the LFS initiative. As part of the national government’s commitment to small farmers, it plans to add another 70 LFS to the current 50 that have already opened over the past two years. Wan-ju County, for example, has opened four stores which have already garnered seven percent of all county food sales. In a form of government action that sounded almost quaint to the cynical ears of this Westerner, Wan-ju has made LFS expansion one of the “five promises” that it has made to its people. “Is a ‘promise’ like an ordinance or statute?” I asked Mr. Yoon, trying to imagine a big city American mayor making any promise without a wink wink. While he couldn’t give me an easily translatable explanation, I was told that this promise yielded an annual county commitment of $1 million to LFS development in Wan-ju. In Korea, I guess, promises really matter.

From the opening ceremonial rockets to the earnestness of the hundreds of participants and presenters gathered in Yangpyeong, it was obvious to me that the Korean local food movement is marching forward double time. Is it increasing national food security? Has it made the lives of its much revered peasant farmers better? According to Korean University sociology professor Chul-Kyoo Kim, the evidence so far is slim. But as he put it, “with the economic difficulties Korea’s small farmers face now, CSAs, local food shops, and farmers’ markets will definitely help them.” In a nation where both history and culture inform present action, and where the threat of food insecurity is palpable, sometimes faith is the best master. Or as one Korean saying goes, “Food is heaven, food is life.”

Build It Right and They Will Eat

For a long time now I’ve wanted to share some thoughts on the relationship between our food system and the physical space where we live that has been awkwardly labeled the “built environment.”  I had the opportunity to start that reflection with a keynote speech at the recent Kansas Built Environment and Outdoor Summit Conference. It is excerpted below.

My task today – I will call it my passion – is to explore the connections between our food system and the physical place where we live.  Both are complex systems that are inextricably linked to each other as well as to the health and well-being of our bodies, communities, and natural environment.

The food system influences the quality of our water and air; it plays a major part in separating those who easily secure their daily meals from those who struggle to feed themselves and their families; it represents a very large part – often second or third in size – of our overall economy; it has an impact on how sick or well we are; and it relates in ways both obvious and subtle to our experience of the land, nature, and the place we live. 

And as critical as these connections are to our lives, they sometimes feel like they are out of our control, like somebody far away is making decisions for us and without us. This is as true for our built environment as it is for our food system. Two major forces – the marketplace and public policy – act upon us, usually without our explicit consent or participation.  The marketplace, often finding the lowest common denominators and cheapest efficiencies, sets a course where we are not allowed to steer, but only to paddle – ever harder, ever faster – to just stay afloat.

Just as remote from our control, but with ever greater mystery is the world of public policy. If the marketplace sometimes seems fickle, the houses of policy making often appear as lunatic asylums run by the inmates. Yet, from the Halls of Congress, to our state capitols, to county commissions and city halls, our food, our health, our land, and the place we live are subject to the actions of elected and administrative officials. And like the marketplace, policymakers too often want us to be complacent and not take democracy too seriously.

I reject both assumptions, and I hope you do too. To get the food system we want, to be sure that healthy and affordable food is available to all, to breath clean air and drink clean water, to ensure that everyone earns a decent living from their food system work, and to gather as much joy as possible from the physical and social spaces we share as a people, we must indeed be conscientious consumers, but even more important, we must be engaged citizens.

If you need reasons to actively engage your food system, consider the following:

Our global population is expected to reach 9 billion people by 2050. How will they be fed?
The Ogallala aquifer, responsible for 30 percent of all irrigation water in the U.S. and a critical part of Kansas agriculture, is being used faster than it can be recharged. The National Academy of Sciences reports that Kansas farming will peak in 2040 due to the aquifer’s depletion.
Similar to other states, 30 percent of Kansans are obese compared to only 13 percent in 1994.
Diabetes now affects over 240,000 Kansans and, at current growth rates, will affect 368,000 in only 15 years.
Kansas has many rural and urban food deserts; Wichita alone has 44-square miles of them.
Kansas agriculture tilts heavily toward the unhealthy side of the food chain – lots of beef, grain, and feed corn – but is decidedly lean when it comes to fruit and vegetable crops. Kansas may feed the world, but it doesn’t feed itself.

I know these are big issues that we struggle to get our arms around, but the place where you can make a difference is in your hometowns – if you learn to connect the dots.

And the dots are everywhere. I rode my bike a few miles the other day down a newly built trail which ended at the bustling Santa Fe farmers’ market and train station. Along the way I passed a couple of community gardens where plot holders were peacefully tending their vegetable plants. I bought a few pieces of fruit from a farmer at the farmers’ market to munch during the 60 mile train ride to Albuquerque. Before boarding, I stood next to a class of 3rd graders sampling tomato slices at a farm stand while the farmer patiently told the children about her farm, how tomatoes grow, and then asked the children a few nutrition questions to encourage them to eat more veggies.

One stall down a mother in the WIC program was using some of her coupons to buy fresh produce and getting advice from the farmer on how to prepare it. An older man was using his SNAP benefits to purchase local food as well, but in his case the amount of his veggies was doubled because of a special “double-bucks” program run by the market. As I turned to walk to the train, I saw an overweight woman using veggie prescription vouchers given to her by a community health clinic. The vouchers were an incentive to eat healthier.

Everywhere people were moving at an easy pace, greeting friends; the chatter was pleasant, the smells delicious, and the only security was a nice young cop eating a peach. Though the site was full of bodies, the parking lot was not full of cars. More people were walking to the farmers’ market because more housing was being built downtown, and because public transportation was doing a better job of bringing people to that area.

To casual observers this scene appears interesting and fun, but they are not likely to think about how these parts came together. Since you’re from Kansas, you likely know there’s a Wizard behind the proverbial curtain. In Santa Fe’s case there were many Wizards who each in their own way saw the wisdom in bringing people to a central location to buy locally produced food. One of the Wizards realized that energy use could be reduced with public transportation, walkable places, and bike paths. Another Wizard found money to enable lower income families to shop more affordably at the market.

Benefits accrued to shoppers who wanted great food and to farmers who needed high volume retail outlets to stay in business and keep their land open. There were many public investments along the way: for the new trails, rails, and trains; for the farmers’ market site restoration; for the produce incentives; for the food and nutrition programs being taught in the public schools; for the school food service that was now buying over $50,000 a year of locally grown food for school cafeterias; and even for the developers who realized that the population was getting older and didn’t want a suburban home 10 miles out of town from where there was no place to walk to.

The public good and the commonwealth were values that were enabled by public policy.

Many smaller towns and cities are making an economic comeback from a product they had never anticipated – retiring baby boomers – now retiring at the rate of 8,000 people a day. They have their own money; they don’t compete for existing jobs; they want to downsize; they want to be able to walk to stores, cafes, restaurants, and experience some cultural activity. They may want to take a course or two at a community college. The most successful towns are those that have figured out how to build their environments to match the needs of these retirees. And food is always central to those comeback stories.

This all makes sense, so why hasn’t this way of life become as common as toothpicks on shrimp cocktail? Well, I came across a survey just the other day that made me say “OMG!” Thirty-one percent of self-described liberals preferred a big house to a walkable community, while 69 percent of self-described conservatives preferred a big house to a walkable community. In other words, when the public purse strings are controlled by the “you-know-who’s,” the private interest will trump the public interest.

Now I suppose you might see similar splits if you compared Prius owners to mega-SUV drivers, microbrew drinkers to Budweiser quaffers, or vegetarians to beef eaters. Style, taste, and yes, a bit of snobbery can account for different choices. But I think the task ahead of us is not so much to persuade conservatives to enjoy a local IPA – though getting drunk together might be a good idea – it’s more about how we nurture everyone’s understanding, regardless of politics or ideology, of the common good.

If I can begin to see my well-being enhanced by public transportation that is affordable and attractive to all classes; if I can see that my personal health will be better if I walk and bike more and eat a little lower on the food chain; if I recognize that open space and regular contact with nature improves my happiness; if I’m reminded what a local summer tomato tastes like; and if I learn that the best way to reverse the out migration of young people from rural communities is to operate really great schools, maybe, just maybe, I will accept what Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “The man of genius apprises us not of his wealth, but of the common wealth.”

We certainly have ample evidence that Kansas is doing just that. The Lawrence Park and Recreation Department is requiring that their vendors offer at least 50 percent of their food as healthy options. With leadership from the Douglas County Food Policy Council, the city and county have funded pilot projects to bring more SNAP recipients to local farmers’ markets.

Topeka changed its zoning code to permit community gardens on vacant lots. In Cheyenne County the school district plans to integrate hydroponics into their greenhouse and build raised bed gardens, while the senior centers are working on buying locally produced food for their meal program.

And in Sedgwick County (Wichita) they are developing a food policy council that will join three other local food policy councils in Kansas that have received support from the Kansas Health Foundation.

Good work, Kansas!

Having effective projects like these are necessary to reshaping our food system and the place we live, but like water purified as it passes through a large bio-mass, decisions will be enriched by the hands of thousands of food citizens practicing their God-given right to democratic participation.

In light of the challenges facing our globe, we must develop new standards of community wealth that prize health, vibrant towns, democracy, justice, and quality education over the booby prizes of American commercialism. It will not be the size of the estate we bequeath to our children that matters, or that wide-screen TV slung from the living room wall that we’ll remember. It will be the legacy of healthy bodies, clean air and water, and resilient communities that our children will cherish.

Like building your own house or putting in a garden, none of you can be denied the right to shape your community’s physical space. Such actions strengthen our social muscles as well as our physical ones. They put the public interest before the private interest because they embody all interests. Their benefits are multi-faceted, multi-layered, and multi-generational.  They lift, they empower, they liberate. They fuse the mind, the body, and the spirit in tasks that enrich us all. They are the stuff that life is made of and the stuff that makes up our quality of life. Don’t be turned back from the simple democratic notion that you have the freedom to shape your food system and the place where you live.

Speak up, be smart, get loud, and stick together; I can assure you, you will win.       Thank you.

Mark Winne’s 2014 Fall Appearances

10/5 – 10/8 – Maryland. Chesapeake Bay Region Food Policy Council Training Institute. This first of its kind leadership training program for food policy councils is operated by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future’s Food Policy Networks project. The training institute is full, however, more information about the Food Policy Networks project can be found at www.foodpolicynetworks.org.

10/16 – Santa Fe, New Mexico – presentation on food and policy for the Food Depot, Santa Fe’s food bank. For more information contact Mark Winne at win5m@aol.com.

10/20 – Dartmouth University, Hanover, New Hampshire – 4 to 7 PM. Food Day presentation for the Sustainable Solutions Café. For more information contact KC Wright at kc.s.wright@dartmouth..edu.

10/22 – Food Day Webinar – Topic: Food Policy Councils. Sponsored by the Center for a Livable Future, Roots of Change, and Center for Science in the Public Interest. For more information on webinar registration contact Lila Smelkova at lsmelkova@cspinet.org

10/20 (the week of; exact date and times TBA) – Boston, Massachusetts, Tufts University.

10/29 & 30 – Gainesville, Florida – University of Florida – Campus talk and seminars. For more information contact Dr. Robin Wright at rowright@yahoo.com.

11/3 – Portland, OR – University of Portland – Campus talks and seminars. For more information contact Dr. Betty Izumi at izumibet@pdx.edu

11/4 & 5 – Skagit County, Washington – A series of appearances and talks as part of the “Skagit Reads Closing the Food Gap” events. For more information contact Jane Sandberg at janes@burlingtonwa.gov.

11/11 – Saratoga Springs, New York – Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group annual conference. Food Policy Council Workshop. For more information contact Kathy Ruhf at kzruhf@verizon.net or Mark Winne at win5m@aol.com.

12/12 – 14 – Sea Island, Georgia – Board Meeting and Retreat for the Southeastern African-American Farming and Organic Network (SAAFON). For more information contact Cynthia Hayes at info@sogreennetwork.org.

Skagit Reads “Closing the Food Gap” (and More News)

I was delighted to hear that Skagit County, Washington has decided to indulge in a community reading event that features my first book Closing the Food Gap as part of their October Food Day observances. Not only does this decision reflect the county’s good taste in literature, it demonstrates how a whole community can pause for a moment, contemplate the challenges and injustices in our food system, and hold a big conversation that may very well lead to action. I’m honored to play a part in that process. For more information on “Skagit Reads Closing the Food Gap” go to http://www.foodday.org/bplwa/skagit_reads_closing_the_food_gap

In other Food Day news, Dartmouth University has invited me to speak on October 20th as part of their week-long Food Day activities. This of course gives me an opportunity to hang with the smartest people in New England (if Harvard or Yale invite me to speak, I may modify my opinion). Just as important, however, a Dartmouth appearance will allow me to visit the world famous Hanover Food Coop which has done some courageous work in bringing healthy and affordable food to some economically challenged rural communities (see my June 2013 Food Coop blog at http://www.markwinne.com/food-coops-a-faith-renewed/).

And lastly, it looks like my unquenchable craving for really good kimchee will once again be realized by way of a visit to South Korea in September. I’ve been invited to present to the 2014 International Local Food Conference being held in Seoul from September 25th to 27th.  Details, websites, and other particulars will be forthcoming, but I’m looking forward to reconnecting with some wonderful Korean colleagues as well as that country’s very vital local food movement.

Oh, and if there are any other New England or New York colleges or universities that want a shot at being the smartest people in their region, I still have an open date or two during Food Day week. You have the number.

 

The Lost Garden

“God knows the law of life is death.”  John Pock, poet

It came suddenly the way weather does in New Mexico’s summer monsoon season. Not suddenly in the sense of unexpected – any sentient being out and about on this breathtakingly perfect Santa Fe day would notice the cloud funnels gathering force across multiple horizons. But suddenly like a panther that has silently stalked its prey from a high rock cliff, content to be still for hours, moving imperceptibly until the moment for the kill was certain, and death would arrive without a struggle.

The first hint came as the almost-always blue sky slipped into a muddy gray. Anyone observing the homestead from a nearby mountaintop could see a massive ice curtain descend across a mile diameter of landscape, obscuring even the silhouettes of homes. Outdoor thermometers would plunge from the high eighties to the sixties. And if you were unlucky enough to be caught outside with an unprotected head, you scalp would soon sustain lacerations.

For those inside homes now devoid of mid-day sunlight, they could no longer hear themselves talk as the wind screeched and a bombardment of ball-bearing size ice nuggets pummeled the metal roofs. Deafening and ultimately deadly, this hail storm would not be the 30-second burst we’ve come to expect this time of year, but a 15-minute onslaught that left foot-high ice drifts against outside walls and a mass of pulped vegetation in its wake.

When the furies had abated enough to venture outside, the first destination was the vegetable garden. The damage assessment would prove easy: a near total loss except for those root crops safely tucked beneath the soil.

Like Homer’s account of Greek warriors whose mangled corpses were strewn across the Trojan plain, the inventory of the garden’s dead was long and gory. The cornstalks’ golden tassels and elegant green leaves looked as if they had been shredded by some giant clawing beast; tomatoes, only days from setting fruit, were stripped bare of all their leaves as if an infantry division of horn worms had marched through them; the broad leaves of squashes were the executed victims of a mass machine gunning; the beans had been rubbed out as well, their crisp pods gnawed to nothing by the hammering blows of a thousand jagged ice edges. Hanging chads of vegetation dangled everywhere. The garden lay like the aftermath of a 17-car pileup on the New Jersey Turnpike.

There would also be losses not yet realized. They would include the dozen or so quart canning jars that would have been arrayed on the pantry shelf proudly displaying the year’s tomatoes; packs of green beans whose luster would have been carefully preserved in tightly sealed plastic bags; easy-pickled cucumbers (Mark Bittman’s recipe) packed in reused yogurt containers that would have lasted for two months in the refrigerator and shared with everyone in sight; and the extra corn and zucchini fashioned into calabacita that would have filled the freezer.

Yes, it was only a garden. The disaster didn’t rise to the level of public policy. USDA didn’t have a subsidy program for defeated gardeners, not even a “helpline” to provide grief counseling. No community-wide relief effort would be mounted. Fundraisers featuring our resident Hollywood celebrities would not be forthcoming. No compensation could be expected for the hundreds of hours of garden preparation and tending that started in February when the first black specks of onion seeds were nestled into moist potting soil and set under grow-lamps.

But perhaps the greatest blow of all was to my ego. Like a proud peacock, I had strutted my veggie and fruit self-reliance for years, bragging on the fact that we didn’t need to shop at the farmers’ market anymore. I removed my “Grow Your Own” badge of honor – burnished by the sweat of my brow and the grime of dirty hands – and concealed it shamefully in the seed box.

As in sports, there’s always next year. As in our food system, there’s always the supermarket. No shame, I suppose, in joining the ranks of adoring farmers’ market shoppers who utter no regrets over not growing such lovely produce themselves. Starvation is not looming, like that circling panther, to consume us. Our survival is nearly certain. My wounds can be licked, my ego salved, and the summer’s icy slaughter will make great compost for next year’s garden. Chin up, old man, there will be another season.