Mark Winne's Blog, page 5

The Julietta Market Brings the Community Together*(##)

Lexington, Kentucky – August, 2021. “Julia Etta Lewis was a very large woman and a hellraiser,” is how Obiora Embry, an area resident and naturalist, remembers one of Lexington, Kentucky’s legendary civil rights figures. “When she sat down to protest segregation in schools, buses, and restaurants, it took five cops to move her.” Given how Ms. Lewis is recalled (she passed away in 1998)—an indomitable spirit who galvanized Lexington’s Black community against the injustices of the day—it seems only fitting that today’s community would look for a way to memorialize her. So rather than sell the “naming rights” for a recently opened public market to one of the region’s corporations, neighbors came together and christened the new venture the Julietta Market.

Located on Lexington’s northside in the heart of what most people I talked to agreed was a food desert, the Julietta Market is housed in the GreyLine Station, named for one of its previous incarnations—a Greyhound bus terminal. Constructed in 1928, the building has gone through various uses, owners, and extended periods of vacancy. It’s shed all that history to emerge today as a beautifully restored space dedicated to supporting the development and operation of locally owned businesses, most of which are focused on food and beverages.

Formerly owned by the regional transportation district, it was purchased in 2018 by Needham Properties, a private developer. While several spacious, well-lit restaurants and cafes now rent space facing the street sides, the interior is largely devoted to the Julietta Market, itself a project of the non-profit North Limestone Community Development Corporation (“NoLi”). The Market’s giant “courtyard” accommodates 60 small business kiosks, 20 pop-up spaces, 7 food stalls, and a shared kitchen and event space. Nearly 70 percent of these spaces are occupied by minority vendors.

Even though most of Julietta’s activities have only been operational for just over a year, NoLi started planning the project in 2014. One key to its early success was an extensive community engagement process that, in addition to naming the market, defined the community venture’s goals as providing the surrounding neighborhoods with access to healthy food (particularly affordable produce), addressing inequities faced by food business start-ups, and providing food producers with equipment and residents with food education. This process and the build-out of the market space were supported by the Knight Foundation and USDA’s Community Food Project Grant Program.

My first reaction to such a project was to ask myself why I would want to eat food from a stinky old bus garage. But in the parlance of today’s imaginative new urbanists, GreyLine Station and Julietta Market are perfect examples of “adaptive reuse.” What else are you going to do with a building that has a footprint of over half-an-acre and a cavernous open floor space that soars three stories high? Tearing it down was about the only other feasible option. But in an interesting mixed-used neighborhood that was showing signs of revitalization without excessive yuppification, a food space that celebrated local ownership and entrepreneurship was a courageous, indeed necessary, choice. As Jim Embry, Obiora’s father and a long-time community activist who marched with Ms. Lewis, told me, “this market is a culmination and a knitting together of various community efforts, now under one roof.”

“Julietta is a creative space and a radical way of being a neighbor,” was how Christine Smith, the executive director of Seedleaf put it. They are a non-profit community gardening and education organization that oversees a dozen community garden sites including one, two-acre urban farm. They also operate numerous horticulture and food education programs for youth and Lexington’s schools. Along with several other Lexington food and farm organizations, Seedleaf sees itself as an innovative partner with Julietta. “If I have a wild-hair of an idea for an activity, I can come to Andrea,” Christine told me.

She’s referring to Andrea James, recently hired by NoLi to manage the Market, and more importantly, to bring dozens of ideas to fruition. One of those ideas was Christine’s desire to use Julietta as the site for their annual plant sale. “Last year,” she tells me, “We sold plants from one of our garden sites and didn’t make any money. This year we did it at Julietta, and made lots!”

It’s 93 degrees outside on a humid August day. But inside the Market we’re kept cool and comfortable without air conditioning by spinning ceiling fans the size of helicopter rotors. I’m sitting at a long picnic table having lunch with Christine, Andrea, and several other Julietta Market partners including Ashley Smith who heads Black Soil, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Black farmers in Kentucky. Black Soil serves as the main connection between local agriculture and the Market’s shoppers by aggregating produce from the region’s Black-owned farms for sale seven days a week at Julietta.

Many Black Soil farmers are too small or don’t have enough time to maintain a vendor booth. One of those is Carmella Conner whose Stoner View Farm I stayed at during my time in Lexington. She brings her eggs and sweet corn into the Market on Thursday for Black Soil to sell through the weekend. “It’s a huge benefit because the market gets so crowded, which is a good thing for the sellers but takes too much time away from my farm and business.”

Black Soil’s role is wide and deep. It maintains several booths at the Market featuring their locally sourced food which can be purchased with SNAP benefits, including Kentucky’s Double Dollars (SNAP incentive program). Currently, it’s providing about 100 bags of produce a week to subscribers in a modified CSA-format that uses EBT and P-EBT. On the Market’s short-list of new ventures is a shared-use kitchen that Black Soil will manage. According to Andrea, the kitchen should be open before the end of this year and eventually serve as “an equity facilitator in the restaurant/food truck sector of our city” by giving vendors and farmers opportunities to enter the prepared food arena.

Clearly, one very important player in both Julietta’s emergence and evolution is the City of Lexington. According to City Councilman James Brown, government agencies identified numerous food gaps, (e.g., “food deserts”) as far back as 2009. “Julietta Market is filling that gap with lots of healthy food and educational opportunities. The Market is heaven sent, and the Community Food Project grant made it happen!” He underscored the city’s on-going commitment to a just, local food system in the person of Ashton Potter-Wright, Director of Local Food and Agricultural Development who occupies a key position in Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton’s office. Ashton co-developed (along with Andrea James) the city’s Bluegrass Farm to Table initiative which secured maximum impact for farmers and consumers from Double (SNAP) Dollars, Senior Farmers Market Coupons, and GusNIP funds, all of which are accepted and used at Julietta. As Ashton described herself, “I’m a connector!”

While the strength of the local food network and its associated partnerships is undeniable to Julietta’s story, where the Market sets itself apart is the commitment to and support for local business development. Finishing up a delicious local lunch salad courtesy of Black Soil, I ask Julietta’s Director of Operations, Adina Tatum, to explain their relationship to their vendors. Adina, who previous to taking her current position only 8 months ago, ran a bridal shop for 14 years, does a lot of vendor training. “Since we’re an incubator for new and developing businesses, we have to assist them with details they’re not familiar with, like on-line sales reporting and securing a certificate of occupancy from the building inspector.” What might be described as adult hand-holding, Adina helps them navigate all the difficult business realities while remaining sensitive to the fact that her vendors have families and other jobs to tend to.

Though Adina has a charming personality and skill-set uniquely suited to her demanding responsibilities, she’s also passionate about Julietta’s mission. “My hope,” she asserts, “is that our vendors will source [all] their produce locally. That—not gentrification—will grow our community and our farms. That’s why I walk our shoppers around the Market so that they learn why local food and locally owned businesses are important.”

Enjoying a late afternoon cappuccino at the Market’s coffee shop, I couldn’t help but notice an old five-story brick warehouse across the street. Its windows were broken or covered in plywood, and it bore the name “Farmer’s & Builders Supply Co.” In giant, faded white lettering up and down its walls, like hieroglyphics from a previous industrial era, are the words “Hay, Coal, Oats, Corn, Blue Grass Tobacco….” How appropriate, I thought, that a new food and farm era, itself built on the bones of an old bus garage, should be ushered in across the street from this relic of the past. As Andrea put it, “CFP allowed us to root Julietta Market in access to healthy food and to put the quality of life of our residents front and center.” Health, community, and local producers first; that may be the guiding mantra of this new food and farm age.

*This is the third in what will be a series of five articles about the USDA Community Food Projects Grant Program that is celebrating its 25th year of operation. To see the previous articles about CFP projects in Montana and New Mexico go to www.markwinne.com .

##Commercial Announcement: Even though markwinne.com accepts no paid advertising (probably because none has been offered) we are not above scratching another’s back to soothe our own itch. To that end, the non-profit Island Press, the publisher of my latest book Food Town USA, is offering a one week only 50% off sale on all their books starting today, 10/4. Deals like this only come along once every century (or at least every two years). With only 82 shopping days left until Christmas, the time to act is now! https://islandpress.org/.

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Published on October 03, 2021 16:18

Blackberries, Bourbon, and Black Ownership

Leslie and Allen Carter – Lexington, Kentucky

Lexington, Kentucky—August 9-11 (the road trip continues)

Crossing the Mississippi River is always a thrill for me—so much water, so much power, so much history! The best place, of course, to leap across the Big Muddy is Hannibal, Missouri, the boyhood home of Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain, and his inspiration for my all-time favorite book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Acknowledging the volumes of argumentation about what Huck and his relationship with the runaway slave Jim means for racial issues today, I still have not found a better literary jumping off point for the encounter between innocence and our nation’s raw racial realities. Standing atop a dyke on the Missouri side, I saw the river’s stray, floating logs, and I imagined them lashed crudely together, bearing a white boy and a Black man talking of hope and freedom while trapped in an inescapable current of violence and oppression.

From that place and after crossing Illinois and Indiana, I entered the environs of Lexington, Kentucky as a decidedly older Huck—tape recorder in hand, notepad at the ready—with the hope of finding new keys to America’s oldest story. With the aide of Andrea James, director of the city’s Julietta Market (more on that wonderful project in a later post), I discovered the Blue Grass region’s Black Hamlets, a collection of 16-plus, small rural communities scattered throughout Lexington’s legendary horse country and beyond. Collectively, these places constitute possibly the largest area of continuously Black-owned land in America, in some cases dating back to the ante-bellum South.

As a so-called Border State during the Civil War, Kentucky had a contingency largely unavailable in the states that would later form the Confederacy. It allowed slaves to earn money and eventually buy their freedom enabling some free Blacks to buy land which would be sub-divided and sold to other Black families, and passed down from generation to generation. Hence, today’s hamlets. In light of the fact that Lexington was also the location of one of the South’s largest slave auctions, the rise and continuous control of Black-owned land was no small feat.

The power of that history is both softened and heightened when I sit down at Leslie and Allen Carter’s breakfast counter. They are a dynamic Black couple (pictured above) who bought and beautifully restored a 19th century house on 20-acres of land that is the historic site of the Silver Springs Distillery. Their lovely property is aptly named Silver Springs Eqwine and Vineyard because it breeds race horses, produces wine, and offers visitors a very classy AirBnB lodging. Allen, a former running back for the renowned University of Kentucky football team, dabbles in bourbon making as well, a fact that becomes more interesting as I learn about the distillery’s history.

Though the site now consists of only ruins and a spring, the original distillery was established in 1869 and was housed within a 12,000 sq. ft. building. Some years later it would produce a brand called Henry Clay Pure Rye Whiskey in honor of Senator (and later Secretary of State) Henry Clay, whose name is inextricably bound up in the Nation’s fraught racial history. In spite of his efforts to limit the spread of slavery (he is known in some history books as the “Great Compromiser”), Clay owned 60 slaves at the time of his death in 1852, all of whose freedom were provided for in his last will and testament.

Leslie, not to be out done by her husband, was a player and coach for the UK women’s basketball team (being from Connecticut, I naturally had to rib her as to why UK could never beat the UConn women). After a stint in a European professional basketball league, her sports career was capped off with an induction into the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame. She grew up in Lexington’s predominantly Black East End where her grandfather held the position of horse foreman, a prestigious job, but as far as a Black man could go at that time in Kentucky’s equine industry. Leslie’s father learned the art of horsemanship from him, and would go on to care for the famous Derby winner, Sunday Silence as a yearling. It is through that lineage and background that Leslie and Allen breed their own winning race horses today.

The couple’s athleticism is now channeled into their home and the farm’s ever-expanding activities. As I’m gobbling down farm-fresh eggs that Leslie had gathered this morning, drinking coffee that Allen roasts under his own brand, and scoffing down blackberry cornbread that won a recipe contest in Southern Living Magazine, Allen is gifting me a bottle of sparkling wine produced from a vineyard he was leasing at the time (they have a five-acre vineyard on their property that’s still in development). “It was the first wine I made, and I was thrilled when it won the ‘Double-Gold’ award at the state’s Commissioners Cup,” he tells me.

All this history, all this outstanding food and beverage, and all this love for a place are barely 10 minutes from downtown Lexington. But maybe what is most stunning to me is the enthusiasm that two people bring to an enterprise that sturdily reinvents, even leap-frogs at times, old traditions that now bear a new face.

Faith in a Seed

“Shag bark hickory, white yarrow, wild roses, wild grapes, chickweed flowers, blackberries, goldenrod, Granny Smith apples, dandelion, purple deadnettle, elderberries, persimmons, eastern redbud, bee balm, violets….” Like Homer reciting the names of the Greek ships or a devoted birder ticking off his lifetime of sitings, Obiora Embry gives me an oral recitation of the plants within his domain. But unlike the ancients or nature’s dogged cataloguers, Obiora’s list is comprised of undomesticated flora found within the boundaries of Martin Acres, the land he now stewards with his twin-brother, Irucka Ajani; land that was purchased before the Civil War by their great-great-great grandfather, Lourenza Dow Martin, who bought his way out of slavery.

Located in Greenville, Kentucky, almost three hours southwest of Lexington, Martin Acres is the place where Obiora, 42, became a self-taught horticulturist. As Henry Thoreau said of himself and his New England lands in the 1840s, Obiora has also “…been these forty years of learning the language of these fields that I may better express myself.” With the help of a trusty Peterson Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants, his own father, Jim Embry, and a botanist friend of the family, Obiora became a self-taught expert who holds an encyclopedia’s worth of plant knowledge in his head. Like Thoreau, not only can he tell you when a plant typically blooms, but also when they actually bloomed for each of the last five years. “I don’t write anything down; I just observe and recognize patterns in nature,” he tells me. “I also know when plants have been most fruitful. For instance, this has seen a bumper year for blackberries. I just harvested two gallons by hand, and boy, that’s a lot of work!”

But it’s work that is being transformed into an artisanal line of Martin Acres Jams and Jellies which are made in small batches by Obiora and Irucka exclusively from the plants found on their farm. They even make their own pectin from wild apples, and use raw cane sugar (the only “import”). “My mother taught me how to make and process my first jam when I was 16.” As one who has been lucky to sample some of their craft-made products—Goldenrod Jelly, Spring Flower Jelly, Wild Sumac Jelly—I can attest to their deliciousness which is enriched by the story of the place and its people. While their brand isn’t likely to give Smucker’s jellies a run for their money any time soon—JMSmucker is a mega-food corporation with Ohio roots and Kentucky-based operations—Martin Acres offers something a whole lot more soulful. In the meantime, Obiora hopes to produce enough jams and jellies to one day sell at the Julietta Market.

Like Leslie Carter, Obiora also grew up in the East End and experienced the various faces of racism. He tells me how his mother was denied the valedictorian designation because she graduated from a previously all-Black high school that had just integrated with a previously all-white high school that wasn’t about to bestow academic honors on a Black student. He’s also witnessed the decline in the number of Black-owned businesses during the 1980s and 1990s in parts of Lexington which he feels is a result of under investment in local businesses by the City of Lexington and other financing sources. “The economic strategy was too ‘developer-centric.’ The money didn’t go to the people who were already running businesses here,” he tells me echoing criticisms I’ve heard from activists in other small and medium size cities.

With a turn to supporting locally owned businesses—including the increasingly popular idea of locally grown, made, and prepared food—cities are discovering the potential within their own ranks for a form of economic growth that promotes equity, a higher quality of life, and a more authentic (and healthful) identity. In a city formerly known for tobacco and cigarette manufacturing, one particularly twisted form of “equity” was the practice of selling a single cigarette at a time to people who couldn’t otherwise afford a whole pack. Breaking that mold and reinventing itself are big parts of what people like the Embrys and the Carters are doing for the Lexington region.

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Published on September 12, 2021 16:45

Mark’s Big Road Trip

Shaking off a case of pandemic cabin fever, I packed my Subaru and set out in early August to see friends and family back East. Along the way, I was looking forward to encountering good, even off-beat food stories. Yes, I intended to report on a couple of communities that had received USDA Community Food Project grants. But before I tell those CFP stories—and I sure found some good ones—I want to share some discoveries I made on America’s funky back roads. Starting with this one, I will post three altogether, each about one week apart.

Rexford, Hoxie, and Atwood Kansas—August 6 & 7.

Bearing due east out of Santa Fe, Interstate 25 soon makes a long sweeping curve north before crossing into Colorado. About the time you reach Colorado Springs, the scenery has gone from inspiring to despairing, a mood shift that only deepens as you gradually escape that city’s soul-crushing outskirts on state route 24. Crossing into Northwest Kansas on Interstate 70, you know where you are without the help of the “Welcome to Kansas” sign. At least a zillion acres of corn dominate the landscape while a noticeable chemical smell (insecticides?) rises from the fields forcing me to roll up my windows. One roadside billboard that reads “Phosphate…Done Better!” does little to reassure me.

My first stop was Rexford where I was scheduled to stay at the historic Philip Houston House B&B (originally built by a Sam Houston descendant). I arrived at the appointed hour but there was no one to greet me. Rexford, whose literal translation is the place in the river traversed by royalty, was not only devoid of water and kings, but all manner of human life as well. There was no one in the house, not a single one of the town’s 200 inhabitants was on its streets, and all of the mostly vacant storefronts were closed this late afternoon. Standing on the sidewalks of what felt like a ghost town, it sure felt like an inauspicious beginning to my trip.

Just as I was about to give up all hope, an elderly man whose dogs were sniffing around the property’s edge, appeared. He told me he was sent to let me in to the stately Queen Anne hostelry that had apparently been moved 10 miles, intact, from Gem, Kansas to its present site by a wealthy Texas heiress. Not only did the dogwalker not apologize for his tardiness, he informed me that only one “B” in this “B&B” was currently working—there was a bed but no breakfast. However, that directive was countermanded an hour later by a phone call from a woman who informed me that breakfast will indeed be available at the Whistle-Stop restaurant directly across the street.

The following morning, I found myself being the only customer at the Whistle-Stop. The gracious lady who cooked for and served me also required me to pray before I ate. As I gazed at plates set before me containing enough caloric firepower to fuel a farmer for a fortnight, I folded my hands, lowered my head, and said to myself, “Please God, don’t let this meal kill me.”

But as I learned from the past, never give up on Kansas. In what can only be described as a whiplash culinary U-turn, I had dinner with JoEllyn Argabright at The Elephant restaurant in nearby Hoxie. “Jo,” as readers may recall, is the Kansas State Cooperative Extension Specialist who is also the dynamo developer of the Grass Roots Garden Hub in Atwood. According to her, The Elephant is the “go-to” eatery for any special occasion within a 200-mile radius, not only because the atmosphere, service, and food are off the charts, but because there is nothing else comparable for 200-miles. Imagine living in New York and having to drive to Boston for a good meal; not only would you experience FDT (Foodie Delirium Tremors), you would demand federal funding for the development of community culinary infrastructure.

Admittedly, any stranger who would suddenly find themselves driving through Hoxie would soon be looking for the nearest exit. They would never imagine that halfway down Main Street awaits the creation of founder and executive chef Emily Campbell, a young woman who returned to this, her hometown, a few years ago. What awaits, just to give a sample, is an awesome Signature Old Fashion, a feathery ‘Ville Raspberry Black Bean Dip, and a succulent, locally sourced bison steak, all intelligently served by a freshly pressed and bow-tied wait-staff. If you ever find yourself crossing Kansas on I-70 west of Salina, exceed posted speed limits, ignore stop lights and signs, and recklessly pass large livestock trucks to get to The Elephant. It’s amazing how one wonderful restaurant can light up a town.

But it is not only in pleasing the palate that Northwest Kansas has redeemed itself. The next day, Jo gives me a tour of the formerly down-and-out garden store she purchased barely one year ago in Atwood. Since her formal opening on May 1st, the Grass Roots Garden Hub’s sales are already twice that of the former store’s previous annual sales—in less than four months—and is already breaking even. With just the right amount of understatement, Jo says, “I’m learning that I don’t suck at business.” Indeed, with a new and attractive wooden fence and pergola to shelter plants, new landscaping, and a cleaned outside wall soon to become a major cool sign, the property has dramatically improved since my last visit. A small Saturday morning farmers’ market that just opened across the street is a welcome addition to downtown. Jo hopes to incorporate it into her larger food hub plan. With a genuine sense that the store is a shared enterprise, she credits the town’s people for her initial progress when she says, “I’m celebrating our success with the community.”

Jo has a long way to go before her vision for a for-profit and non-profit community food hub is fully realized. Though she has not purchased a single non-organic garden product since she took over, financial considerations required that she sell off the substantial inventory of chemical fertilizers and sprays she inherited from the previous owner. With a community beautification grant from Atwood, she will demolish two falling down structures next to the store and replace them with one, 80 feet by 120 feet building that will house a store room, community kitchen, retail greenhouse, and event and education space. As Jo puts it, “education is a mission builder and will stimulate sales.” So far, the destruction side of that equation is paid for; the construction part is still looking for money, a task she hopes to complete by year’s end.

Things are looking up in Atwood, but Jo’s days are long. She still works full-time for K-State and her two children, ages 3 and 5, see the store as their second home. Her father, who had been helping out in the store, has had recent health issues that need tending to. But with her long dark hair held back by a wide, red polka-dot headband, she radiates exuberance. She’s excited to show me a few paint flourishes on some shelving, a sheet metal sign made for her by the high school welding class, and a new wooden seed rack she loves. And just in case a few naysayers happen to walk through the door, she has a sign next to the cactus stand that reads “No Pricks Allowed!”

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Published on August 29, 2021 15:32

New Mexico Goes for the Whole Enchilada*

Santa Fe, New Mexico – 2001. Though the “City Different” has been a tourist mecca for decades, drawing devotees to its Southwest architecture and lively art and food scenes, there was a side to the region that visitors rarely saw. Yes, the ever-popular Santa Fe farmers’ market was the eclectic hub for transplanted Anglos, omni-present tourists, and Northern New Mexico’s small farmers. Jokes abounded such as “what is bearded, wears Birkenstocks, and carries a Caramel-infused latte? A Santa Fe Farmers’ Market shopper.”

But what was less funny for those who worked tirelessly for fair prices for family farmers, was the near total absence of Santa Fe’s lower income shoppers and even its larger Latino community. The farmers themselves came from generations of Hispanic families, some of whom traced their roots back to the late 16th century. As sellers, they benefited from the market’s reputation for high food prices, but ironically, many of those farmers still relied on food stamps to get by.

This desire for equity drove market organizers like Stanley Crawford, Pam Roy, Sarah Grant, and Esther Kovari to find solutions. But they faced a major conundrum: Fair prices for struggling farmers could not be achieved by selling “cheap food” to lower income families. Pam and her cohorts had partially breached that wall in the mid-1990s by convincing the New Mexico State Legislature to allocate $42,300 to match $87,000 in federal funds from the WIC/Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program which benefitted both farmers and low-income families. The results were encouraging but the overall impact was small. They needed to “go big” which, in New Mexico meant leveraging the power and the purse of public policy. That’s where USDA’s Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program (CFP) came in.

“CFP became the launching pad for all our community food initiatives,” Pam Roy, now executive director of the non-profit Farm to Table, told me. “With a 3-year, $300,000 CFP grant in 2001, we planted the food system seed in state government and its never stopped growing!” One could say it took two seeds that would fuse into one to grow food system thinking throughout New Mexico—one to promote food security for all residents—a particular challenge in a state with one of the highest food insecurity rates in the country—and one to support local farmers. In the words of CFP’s founding legislation, funded projects will “meet the food needs of low-income people…increase the self-reliance of communities…promote comprehensive responses to food, farm, and nutrition issues.” Farm to Table and the dozens of organizations that coalesced around this holistic approach would eventually fulfill all three objectives.

New Mexico’s work was exactly what Elizabeth “Liz” Tuckermanty envisioned for CFP. Liz was a National Program Leader for Nutrition at the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service from 1994 to 2012 (due to a reorganization in 2009, the agency was re-named the National Institute for Food and Agriculture). Liz was tapped by CSREES’s Administrator, Colleen Hefferan, to take charge of the Community Food Project program that had been authorized by Congress as part of the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (the farm bill).

For Liz, who possessed a “big picture” view of the food and farm world, this was a job made in heaven. “I said to myself, now we can finally talk about ‘food systems’,” she told me, bemoaning the fact that even in a 1990s Democratic administration, “every time I brought up the subject of food system programs in USDA, I would get push back.” Intellectually, CFP was liberating for Liz since it built on ground originally plowed by the regionally-administered Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SARE). This fairly new program made one-year, project grants that brought agriculture and the community together to promote sustainable farming. Liz said that, “CFP went beyond that; it was innovative; grants could run for three-years, and funded projects were required to have multiple partners. This approach gave communities a chance to look at a much longer horizon, and even dream a little.”

Another feature of CFP that Liz found attractive was its potential “to support nascent groups.” With a relatively tiny amount of federal money available annually—beginning at $2 million, growing to $9 million, and then falling to $5 million—Liz was very conscious, even fearful, of how these funds could be gobbled up in a few big bites by universities and food banks. Hovering at times like a protective mother, Liz did all she could within the bureaucratic and political boundaries of USDA to assure that CFP funds went to the so-called little guy. One example which she readily admits was one of her favorites, was an organization in Kansas “where women taught other women how to fix tractors.”

Pam Roy and the organizations that coalesced at the 20th century’s end were also the little guys. For the newly organized Farm to Table organization which grew out of previous work with the state’s farmers and farmers’ markets, CFP was their first significant grant. But as much as CFP favored local, small, and grass-roots, two stipulations in the grant program’s guidelines often bedeviled cash-strapped non-profits. One was that all federal funds must be matched at a ratio of one-to-one by non-federal funds, a requirement that could be met by in-kind support provided by many participating organizations. The other was a more philosophical criteria interpreted in different ways over the years: CFP grants should be a “one-time infusion” of federal funds designed to catalyze long term responses that would not require additional federal funds (applicants could apply for funds for new projects, but not funds to operate projects that had already received CFP grants). Raising the non-federal match can be a lighter lift when there are many hands from several participating organizations—even if your only “contribution” is a desk and a chair. But how do you solve complex problems like systemic food insecurity with only one federal grant?

For Farm to Table, the answer came by mobilizing communities, organizations, and even state government agencies to expand government’s role in food system work. With its “one-time infusion”, Farm to Table and its emerging coalition partners went on to launch dozens of ships for which the New Mexico legislature was often the first port of call. One of their first successful projects was the formation of the New Mexico Food and Agriculture Policy Council (NMF&APC) that would become the tip of the spear for tackling the state’s food inequities and engaging the state’s policymakers. As the years went on and its legislative campaigns became more effective, the NMF&APC would eventually secure hundreds of thousands of state dollars annually for such initiatives as farm to school and produce incentive programs for WIC and SNAP participants, and lower income senior citizens. Farm to Table also used some of its CFP funds to organize Santa Fe’s Southside Farmers’ Market (later renamed “Del Sur Market”) that provided a more accessible location for the city’s lower income families to shop. Today, that market is sponsored by the Presbyterian Hospital and offers three different produce incentive programs to area residents.

Similarly, CFP funds were set aside to develop a pilot farm to school program—one of the first in the country—within the Santa Fe school district. The pilot took root, and now the district spends over $70,000 per year of its own funds (as well as a smaller amount of state funds) on locally produced food. But taking the “one-time infusion” admonition to heart, Farm to Table targeted the New Mexico legislature as the source for long term funding support for what is now one of the more substantial farm to school programs in the country.

Looking back on 20 years of work one afternoon over lunch, Pam began to add up the total output of projects, policies, and funds that could be attributed, even indirectly, to CFP. The tally soon exceeded the back of the envelope she was using as a worksheet. For the 2019-2020 school year, almost $1.2 million was spent by 57 New Mexico school districts purchasing food from New Mexico farmers. That food was served to 171,000 students statewide. Of those funds, about one-third came from the state government coffers, and the rest came from local school food service budgets. Additionally, tens of thousands of New Mexico WIC, senior, and SNAP participants received hundreds of thousands of dollars in state and federal funds each year to purchase produce at farmers’ markets.

In the newest addition to the state’s direct from the farmer line-up of programs, nearly $150,000 in state funds are being used to purchase locally grown food for Senior Meal Programs. While the amount of funding has varied over the years—with steady increases from year-to-year being the norm—Pam’s ballpark estimate for two decades of work since the first CFP grant was well into the tens of millions of dollars. “CFP’s multiplier effect has been massive!” she concluded.

But state budget allocations rise and state allocations fall. Enlightened politicians are elected and, next term, low-wattage politicians are elected. Those who rely exclusively on a steady rise in public dollars to fund food system change may find themselves with nothing but pocket change at the end of the day. The smart money is on the institutionalization of innovative programs; that is, scrappy projects that struggle for funding, prove their mettle in the marketplace of ideas, and become part of the mainstream work of the public and private sectors. As Pam ticks off their achievements, a once blurry picture of what a sustainable and equitable food system might look like gradually comes into focus.

After many years of touting the value of farm to school to farmers and educators, Farm to Table and the NMF&APC convinced the NM Public Education Department to create a full-time position dedicated to farm to school administration. More recently, given the growing interest in the power of public procurement to serve nutrition program needs, support farmers, and grow rural economies, the state established the New Mexico Grown Interagency Task Force. Comprised of five state agencies, the task force will establish standard procurement procedures instead of what has otherwise been an idiosyncratic process (Pam referred to the Task Force as a “marriage that was a long time coming”). Staying in step with other agencies, the state’s senior nutrition services have committed to purchasing at least three percent of their total annual food needs from the state’s farmers. And while not yet rising to the level of a tangible proposal, a permanent change in the Federal SNAP program to build into each recipient’s benefits a produce incentive, may be in the offing.

While these actions might be viewed as mere baby steps, those who have been advocating for change and running pilot projects for decades see them as giant steps. To that end, the affirmation issued by the New Mexico Grown Interagency Task Force was viewed as something approaching a religious conversion: “New Mexico schools and school districts believe in local purchasing.”

Over the course of 50 years of community food system work—to say nothing of a few more years of just living—I’ve come to identify a phenomenon I call the Twenty-year Rule. While falling considerably short of the mathematical rigor of say Newtonian physics, my work and its attendant observations lead me to conclude that it takes about twenty years of concerted effort and sustained focus to achieve at least one substantial, “game-changing” goal. Climbing that mountain—one step at a time, one project at a time, one policy victory at a time—will get you to the peak if you persist, as they have done in New Mexico. Of course, once you reach that peak, you’ll be greeted by higher peaks beckoning in the distance, and likely to be scaled by younger ones who joined the journey more recently.

All the million-plus steps that those like Pam Roy and her fellow travelers began twenty years ago could never have been foreseen or planned in advance. A thousand detours and pitfalls awaited, but as the size of the team grew and their footsteps grew more synchronized; as the vision coalesced and the network expanded, the first mountain top became attainable. But what made a difference, what brought people together and gave them permission to imagine something different was that “one-time infusion” of CFP money.

*This is the second in a series of postings about the Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program which is recognizing its 25th year of supporting the development of just and sustainable local food systems. From here, this reporter heads East on a road trip in search of other CFP stories. Stay tuned!

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Published on July 25, 2021 10:13

Will the Real Mark Winne Please Stand Up!

I’ll readily admit to being as vain as anyone else. When I first started letting the world know that I existed with my initial blog posts (2007), first book (2008), and this website, I decided to Google myself to determine how “alive” I was to the larger world. My ego was pleasingly stroked when I discovered that I wasn’t entirely anonymous. An op-ed or two that I had penned for the Hartford Courant, a speech I had given to a New England agricultural organization, and even a photo of me popped up through the magic of digital storage and regurgitation. But imagine my surprise when my name also appeared under the photo of someone who didn’t look like me at all and, further, claimed to be an investigative reporter for Atlanta television station WSB. Who was this pretender with the unmitigated gall to encroach on the Google space reserved exclusively for me, the heretofore, one and only Mark Winne?

After my congressman told me that there wasn’t anything I could do about it—apparently, parents can name their children without consulting the person who claims to be the rightful heir to an uncommon surname—I slowly let go of my indignation. But without the power to license the Winne name, I had no choice but to engage in search engine optimization. My strategy was to shotgun blast as much mediocre content into cyberspace as possible to displace, erase, and efface all others who dare occupy my space!

The first evidence that my aggressive use of digital elbows was paying off came one day when I received a phone call from a woman who asked if I was Mark Winne. After responding affirmatively, she proceeded to tell me that her daughter was incarcerated in the Dekalb County jail and was suffering from an advanced form of cancer that the prison authorities were failing to treat adequately. She started crying half way through her account and begged me for help. I was stunned and began to think about what I could do. Then it dawned on me—Dekalb County was part of the Atlanta metro region, and I lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I said I was sorry for her daughter’s suffering, but perhaps she was trying to find the TV reporter? That was the case, she unnecessarily apologized, and I wished her and her daughter well. Apparently, the reporter Mark Winne had carved out a special news beat that exposed the wrongful actions and neglect by law enforcement and corrections against the region’s more marginalized people.

To my chagrin, my domination of the Mark Winne Google corner had become so complete that I started getting similar calls once a month, then once or twice a week, and then by email and texting. On one occasion, I just happened to be attending a conference in Atlanta. As I was walking down Peachtree Avenue on the way to my hotel, my cell phone rang and the caller asked, “Is this Mark Winne in Atlanta?” Since I’ve been programmed to mostly tell the truth, and afraid that my denial might be contradicted by a nearby security camera, I said yes. After listening to another tragic tale of police abuse, an incompetent public defender, and an excessive jail sentence rendered by an indifferent judge, I did my best to deny being that Mark Winne and to direct the caller to that Mark Winne. At this point, I wasn’t sure who I was.

In an attempt to disentangle the growing identity confusion and to smooth the path to justice for those whom, based on the region’s racial incarceration rates, were mostly Black Americans, I reached out to WSB-TV in Atlanta. My hope was the station would be eager to rectify the problem with some kind of publicity blitz, and maybe even get a laugh out of the Winne doppelgangers haunting the airwaves. But after leaving several voice messages, sending numerous emails, and even using their “News Tip Hotline” (I suggested a headline: “When Two Mark Winnes Are Not Better Than One”), I only succeeded in reaching a junior assistant producer who told me, “I’ll look into it.” An appeal to a couple of Atlanta area social justice activists I knew was greeted with a sigh. “That’s only one of the many problems we have with the Atlanta media,” I was told.

By then I had resigned myself to the steady stream of importuning, pleadings, and prayers that came my way from those in crisis. Had I saved all the one hundred-plus messages I received over the last seven years, including those I cut off in mid-sentence out of respect for their privacy and dignity, I would have a lengthy record of how the most vulnerable and powerless struggle with the mischief and misery of the judicial system. With no basis by which to judge the guilt or innocence of those whose Google-search led them desperately to the wrong Mark Winne, I have born accidental witness to how an inhumane system takes sadistic pleasure from an extra turn of the screw for those already on their knees.

To my point, I received the following email in June from an Atlanta-area citizen. It is typical of what has come my way but was intended for the reporter. Though I have removed the proper names, it is reprinted here just as I received it:

Mr Winne, I would like to remain anonymous at this time but later actually speak with you. I will give you a little information about this case. Sheriff ****** and the District Attorney indicted Mr ****** knowing the autopsy done by the GBI came back a suicide . They’ve had the results for months and have not released it to the public. His constitutional rights have been denied and evidence withheld. No bail, no vistation and they’re still holding him under an alias. Mr Winne, there is corruption going on in ****** County. Please investigate this case. Sheriff ****** rushed to judgement in this case. He has tunnel vision and disregarding all of the favorable evidence that Mr ****** is innocent. He is corrupt. Thank u so much and I pray you will investigate this case.

Though my efforts to abate the confusion and improve the flow of queries to the right Mark Winne have failed, I am, unbeknownst to him, proud of our de facto partnership. He is an advocate for the disenfranchised and a voice for the voiceless. If the number and severity of the stories I have received are any indication, there are simply not enough of him to do justice to those whose pleas are often stifled. Rather than trying to control access to the Winne name out of a misguided fear of diluting the “brand,” I will happily direct traffic to the correct Mark Winne in hopes that a righteous tide of justice will one day wash across the state of Georgia.

To that end and until then, Google is certainly big enough for the both of us!

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Published on July 11, 2021 08:56

Twenty-five Years of Food Security, Good Food, and Empowerment *

Missoula, Montana – 1996. The anchor institution for this small western city is the University of Montana, well known, among its other academic departments, for its forestry and sustainability programs in a region that had been known for agriculture. As the century’s end neared, the story of American food production was one of a declining number of farms, the survivors of which were growing ever larger by producing commodity crops for global markets. That trend left regions of the country like the one Missoula inhabited disappearing in agriculture’s rearview mirror. After all, who needs to grow food for their own region when the glittering lights of Big Food beckon and gleaming, one-size-fits-all supermarkets provide for everyone’s needs?

As it turns out, there was a parallel food narrative strongly suggesting that not everyone’s food needs were being met. A decade’s worth of cuts in the nation’s safety net programs accompanied by the falling value of wages relative to the cost of living—the early signs of income inequality—revealed themselves in USDA’s first survey releases of food insecurity among U.S. households. Depending on a number of factors and the particular year, anywhere from one in ten to one in six Americans faced food insecurity. This led to another disquieting trend, namely the growth in food pantries and food banks that grew in size and number in response to the increased demand for free food. This unfolding crisis, a foreshadowing of crises to come including the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, pushed thousands of communities back on their heels as they scavenged for local solutions.

“I was working at the Missoula Food Bank at that time,” said Bonnie Buckingham, long-time area resident and now the director of the Community Food and Agriculture Coalition, “when Josh Slotnick walked in with an idea. He wanted to grow food on some vacant land for the food bank.” In 1996, with two acres of donated land, Josh, a young but landless farmer, and a number of volunteers, students, and the university, started what would come to be known as the PEAS Farm. Even twenty-five years later, Bonnie remembers how excited she was when “2,000 pounds of amazing sustainably grown produce” showed up in the food bank’s warehouse that season.

But PEAS Farm wasn’t just a “one-off” attempt to close the local food gap. It was the beginning of what soon became the non-profit organization, Garden City Harvest (GCH) that got its financial start with a $50,000 grant from the brand new, USDA Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program. Better known as “CFP,” the federal program’s thirteen original 1996 grant recipients included GCH, and since that grant coincided with the organization’s founding, both GCH and CFP are celebrating their 25th anniversaries in 2021. **

“GCH is now an essential part of Missoula,” Bonnie told me. This is a statement that precisely reflects the intention of CFP, which is now administered by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), formerly the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES). Based on the program’s own grant application language, applicants will be required to demonstrate that their projects “increase the self-reliance of communities in providing for their own food needs…plan for long-term solutions…create innovative marketing activities that mutually benefit agricultural producers and low-income consumers.” There is no better evidence of what these achievements look like today than in GCH’s current line-up of activities: four neighborhood farms and 11 community garden sites that serve nearly 400 gardeners; 290 community supported agriculture shares; a robust farm to school and school garden program that serves thousands of school-age children every year. Not only is their food production output envious—over one-quarter-of-a-million pounds are grown and distributed annually—they touch the lives of nearly everybody in Missoula. Reviewing those 25 years, Bonnie said “Not only was GHC visionary and innovative, it has raised the potential for western Montana to feed itself.”

The Community Food Project Competitive Grant Program grew out of efforts by the Community Food Security Coalition, which itself was inspired by the principles of community food security. Recognizing that the success of local efforts to end hunger, reduce obesity, and promote sustainable food and farming economies was dependent on a food systems approach—acknowledging the relationship between all the parts of a food system, from seed to table (and now waste, the environment, and health)—CFSC felt that one way to advance community food security was through a dedicated federal grant program.

As an emerging food and farm coalition, CFSC and its members launched a number of initiatives in the mid- to late-1990s to support the work of grass-roots people and organizations that were committed to more holistic and justice-oriented approaches. But without the recognition and resources that federal policy provides, the ability to catalyze a community-based food movement would be a slow, hard slog. With the assistance of numerous supporters, both at the local level and on Capitol Hill, CFSC and its allies advocated for inclusion of a community-oriented federal grant program that would empower local food system stakeholders to choose their own path to food security and sustainability. Key among its Congressional supporters were Julie Paradis, ranking staff member of the House Agriculture Committee, and Representatives Bill Emerson of Missouri and Eligio “Kika” de la Garza of Texas.

Looking back on that period in the mid-1990s, it’s important to note how unique and innovative the CFP concept was compared to other very large federal food programs like food stamps and commodity support programs for agriculture. De la Garza said it best when introducing the bill that would later become the Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program: “The concept of community food security is a comprehensive strategy for feeding hungry people, one that incorporates the participation of the community and encourages a greater role for the entire food system…There is a need to develop innovative approaches…that foster local solutions and that deliver multiple benefits to communities.”

With its emphasis on community participation and decision making—what today goes by such terms as “food democracy” and “food sovereignty—CFP not only set the stage for a host of other locally focused food programs, like FINI/GusNIP and the FMLFPP, but gave communities an alternative to bureaucratic-heavy, top-down, and charity-driven hunger mitigation strategies. It has paved the way through nearly 650 grants totaling more than $100 million to all U.S. states and territories, for a deeper dive into the underlying causes of our Nation’s food problems. In turn, CFP unleashed a panoply of creative organizational and individual responses to America’s food security and sustainability challenges.

Josh Slotnick moved on from farming and GCH about three years ago to eventually become a Missoula county commissioner. In his 22 years at GCH, he expanded the PEAS Farm from two to 10 acres and helped to grow the organization overall. Jean Zosel was hired as GCH’s executive director ten years ago. According to Jean, GCH now has 21 sites totaling more than 20 acres throughout the community, including four acres that they purchased and that serve as GHC’s hub. There’s an office, a community barn and kitchen, an apartment for the farm’s caretaker, and an orchard in addition to other farming and gardening areas.

Over the course of expanding and diversifying their activities over the past decades, Jean makes it clear that they stayed true to their mission, one that she fully credits Josh for embedding in the community. “Addressing food insecurity is in our DNA,” she said, noting among other facts that 70 percent of their community gardeners are low to moderate income and that a substantial amount of their community farm production (20,000 lbs. of produce a year) still goes to the food bank. But over the past 15 months, GCH proved its meddle by providing a readily accessible and affordable source of local food during the pandemic. “Boy, oh boy! Growing food was a big deal last year,” she exclaimed, telling me that all their CSA shares sold out for the first time ever and their community garden sites generated long waiting lists.

Not to downplay the impact of the pandemic or the role that GCH played in stepping up to the plate, Jean says, “we were created (1996) in response to a crisis, so our response to the pandemic was just part of our job. After all, there are always people in our community living in crisis.” But both Jean and Bonnie reserve their greatest enthusiasm for what might be considered the least quantifiable or tangible influences of GCH. “We have literally grown thousands of environmental stewards,” Jean said, referring to about 1,200 University of Montana Environmental Studies students who have cycled through GCH over the past 25 years, as well as the 6,500 public school kids who regularly experience the farm and farm-to-school programs each year.

The community connections are infinite, and that so many of them can be attributed to food, Missoula’s two farmers’ markets, and GCH are undeniable. They are as unique and individual to Missoula as they are common to communities across the country. One small example that Jean cites concerns GCH’s youth-run, mobile market that sells their low-cost, sustainably grown produce to Missoula’s senior citizens. “These are young people who usually occupy Missoula’s margins,” she told me. “They are socially isolated but seem to connect with seniors who are also socially isolated. One of our young women told me, ‘I’ve got purple hair, and let’s face it, this is not normal. But the seniors think I’m wonderful!’”

Twenty-five years of tons of locally grown food, thousands of young people launched like bees across the community and countryside to pollinate sustainable agriculture and community food security projects elsewhere, and uncountable personal interactions that have enriched people’s lives in unimaginable ways are just some of the legacies of Garden City Harvest and Community Food Projects.

* With this post, I’m beginning a series of stories that celebrate 25 years of the Community Food Projects Competitive Grant Program (CFP). It is my hope that each one (I’m still clueless as to how many there will be) will weave together portions of the grant program’s history with tales of how specific communities and projects have bent CFP funds to their needs. My larger purpose is not only to illustrate what a “micro” federal program like CFP can achieve, but to share lessons learned by communities and Washington, D.C. policy makers alike. Fueled as much by that desire as I am by a pent-up pandemic energy that threatens to ignite another nuclear bomb over New Mexico, I will be driving to the Northeast in August by a yet-unknown route to, among other things, pay site visits to a few select CFP-funded projects. Know of any you’d like to see featured? Just send me a note. And stay tuned as I report back “on the road.”

** Full disclosure: In early 1996, I had provided some training and technical assistance to groups in Missoula who were organizing around a number of food ideas including the one that became Garden City Harvest. I advised them to submit a CFP grant application, which they did. A few months later, while serving on the first CFP grant review committee, I discovered there was no grant application from Missoula. I called them and was told they had indeed submitted the application and had a signed FEDEX receipt in their possession. After I inquired of USDA staff about the application, they searched their office and, lo and behold, found it under a stack of boxes. Subsequently, it was reviewed by the panel and chosen as one of the first 13 grantees.

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Published on June 21, 2021 12:23

Twenty-five Years of Food Security, Good Food, and Empowerment