Archive for the ‘Hot Off The Press’ Category
Shareable Food and the Law
From Shareable here’s a really comprehensive and interesting article on innovative ways that people are sharing food.
The Health Department didn’t show up when I made dinner for my neighbors last night. Fortunately, our health and safety laws don’t usually dictate how we prepare food in our personal and private realms. But humans have a natural tendency, an urge to feed each other, and the shareable food movement is taking that to new levels – levels that bring up some legal curiosities.
“The Underground Food Movement” has become a thing lately. It’s a foodie’s utopia in Oakland these days, where I’ve snuck off to meals at “underground restaurants” and sampled urban homesteaders’ goat cheeses and preserves.
But this movement goes deeper than its sheer yumminess. We thrive on food. When we share in efforts to grow, process, prepare, and serve food, we greatly enhance our abilities to eat well, provide for ourselves, and build livelihoods around food. Sharing food is particularly important during hard economic times and many small food projects develop out of unemployment.
The realm of shareable food is flourishing with community meal sharing, potlucks, gift-economy restaurants, community food growing projects, food swap events, pop-up stores, stone soup gatherings, food-buying cooperatives, goat-sharing, chicken cooperatives, events like The Big Lunch, and so on. Plus, restaurants step aside! A handful of start-up companies are creating peer-to-peer platforms to help people feed each other. Check out Grubly, Munchery, Gobble, and EatWithMe which connect chefs with foodies and/or catalyze community food events. More…
Portage Bay Grange welcomes urban farmers
Joshua and Annette make whole-grain waffles
Portage Bay Grange in Seattle’s University District recently welcomed The Urban Farm Handbook authors Annette Cottrell and Joshua McNichols to their first Open House on November 19. While we enjoyed fresh-pressed cider, Joshua and Annette described local grain sources, grain mills, and whipped up delicious spelt, sourdough, duck egg, and goat milk waffles.
Urban farming tastes great!
Portage Bay Grange hosts Seattle 4H at Open House
Portage Bay Grange sells small livestock, feed, and a variety of thoughtful urban homesteading mercantile including BPA-free Weck canning jars.
A great place to visit with young kids, the Portage Bay Grange Open House also showcased the very urban and active Cooped-Up in Seattle 4H Club.
I Like the Urban Farm Handbook
The Urban Farm Handbook is a really good book. I have read a ton on gardening, homesteading and cooking so when I got this manual in the mail my expectations weren’t all that high. But as soon as I read the phrase about Annette’s husband calling her plan to grow as much of her family’s food as her “Crazy Bus” I was hooked. This book weaves together practical knowledge on how to grow your own food with great recipes and wonderful stories on local urban farmers.
I like how the two authors, Joshua and Annette, have different levels of commitment, (an example is Annette kneads her own bread by hand, Joshua uses a bread machine.). So often people act as if it’s an all or nothing proposition; grow your own or you are not doing right by your family so this take what you want approach is really refreshing.
“These brussel sprouts are good!” said my daughter as she bit into another serving of the roasted brussel sprouts with bacon. This recipe and several others like the power pancakes made with freshly ground grain are sure to become family favorites.
I would like to write more but I want to try the sausage recipe on page 288. Homemade sausage just sounds amazing!
Hyper Local Brew
From the Globe and Mail here’s news on a super local brew. Hops grow really well here in Seattle and we do like our micro-brews? Anyone up for the challenge?
When an average Canadian beer-drinker hoists a pint at their local pub, they likely give little thought to where the ingredients come from. That’s something Michael Clark and Luke Pestl, co-founders of Toronto’s Bellwoods Brewery, are hoping to change.
Mr. Clark and Mr. Pestl launched their City Hops project this summer, an experiment in growing hops in eight different locations in downtown Toronto (hops are flowering plants that are used as flavouring agents in the production of beer). It’s the beginning stages of an initiative to create specialty craft beer made from local ingredients grown in the city, while creating partnerships with local businesses.
Fun with Seattle Farm Co-op!
Want to barter?
Please join Seattle Farm Co-op’s Inaugural Membership Party and Harvest Bartering Event!
October 23rd from 5:30 PM to 9 PM at the Phinney Neighborhood Center (6532 Phinney Ave N).
BARTER: Start filling your larder with stuff to barter! Non-food (handmade knits, jewelry, art) items welcome. Have a skill or services to trade? The only rule: no money!
POTLUCK: Bring something homemade to share for dinner!
SQUARE DANCE: Kick up your heals and swing your partner. No experience necessary. Hosted by the Seattle Subversive Square Dance Society.
BOOK RELEASE: Be the first to own The Urban Farm Handbook. A local how to book from local authors. The Co-op will sell the book.
KIDS CORNER: fun kid crafts and activities hosted by the kids of Seattle’s 4H Cooped up in Seattle
BEER FUNDRAISER: Purchase a collectable bottomless pint glass and enjoy local beers.
MEMBERSHIP ROLLOUT: Become a member of the Seattle Farm Co-op.
BACKYARD BARTER WEBSITE KICK OFF!: Want to barter your extra crafts, harvest and services year round? Check out Backyard Barter’s new website and service to help connect folks with too many zucchinis with others who don’t have enough!
Do Japanese Apple Bags Prevent Pests?
Japanese Apple Bags, Made in China
Yes, they do.
Emphatically, yes. But they’re a pain to apply and probably contain trace amounts of old-school fungicides that ought to give you second thoughts. If anyone locates a bag that’s truly “organic,” I’ll be happy to use these bags every year without reservation.
Most people around here use nylon booties to protect their crops from apple maggots. But I’ve found coddling moths can still sometimes get through the booties. And during a cool summer, booties provide no protection from fungi. Apples grown West of the Cascades tend to be ug-ly, grizzled and scarred like the face of a war hero, and the booties don’t change that. On the bright side, booties let the sunshine through, so the apples have plenty of time to develop a nice blush, like someone who’s spent the summer gardening and now has a nice tan to show for it.
Bootie Failure
I had hoped I could use my nylon booties year after year, perhaps running through the washing machine to remove any fungal spores before reapplying them next year. But unfortunately, as the apple grew, the majority of the booties were scarred and ugly by the end of the year. Reluctantly, I threw the used ones away.
Though nylon booties are wonderful, they are imperfect. So many backyard orchardists are on the hunt for a perfect mechanical barrier – something that will keep out insects and fungi without resorting to chemicals. Enter the Japanese Apple Bag.
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble Essentially, Japanese Apple Bags are paper bags with a small wire twist tie inside that you use to cover your apples when they’re about the size of a quarter. Technically, they’re made in China now so we should probably just call them “Apple Bags.” But their origin as a Japanese product says something about their association with a culture that values perfect fruit. Inside the cozy envelope, the apple is protected, like The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.
You can imagine what the boy in the bubble looks like when he emerges from his protective shell, probably to get his first kiss: healthy, in an unblemished sort of way. But pale, almost vampiric in appearance. This description also fits my apples, after I removed the bags.
A few apples, like the one on the right in the picture at right, had some fungal damage. That’s because if you don’t close the bags properly, they let moisture in and actually encourage the apple to rot. But in general, the bags protected far more fruit than they harmed. Around October 1st, I removed all the bags to give the apples a few weeks to “blush up.” I don’t know if blushing effects flavor, but it does make the apples look better. 
My neighbors complimented my apples this year, saying this was the first year they looked big and beautiful. I was prepared to call the Japanese Apple Bags a complete success when I learned, almost accidentally, that the bags are laced with Captan and TPN - chemicals that are suspected carcinogens. I have to watch my language here – read the science links if you want data. Personally, I don’t want these chemicals in my garden. Although the presence of these chemicals is limited to the bags – it’s not as bad as spraying a whole tree – I don’t want to worry about having to wash my hands every time I handle these bags. And so my search continues for the perfect apple bag. Something that will last year after year, without chemicals. You can order Japanese Apple Bags from Wilson Orchard and Vineyard Supply. They’ve been a little inconsistent about their information regarding pesticides in the apple bags, but the manager tells me it’s true and he doesn’t carry truly organic bags. I see that as a call to action! I mean, really, how hard can it be? There are plenty of durable, breathable materials out there, many of them designed for the construction industry! Entrepreneurs, I’ll give you a hint:
Tyvek! In the meantime, I’ll go back to experimenting. Next year I may try ziploc sandwich baggies. But it feels like a shame to introduce all that plastic into the world.
What organic pest control have you tried on your apples? Let me know!
Joshua is co-author of the Urban Farm Handbook and a frequent writer on the blog Sustainable Eats where this post first appeared.
Will Allen, WalMart, Winter, What Next?
The author at the United People Farm he manages
By Edward B. Hill
I was talking to a fellow farm manager last week at the Urban Agriculture Business Forum hosted by Council President Richard Conlin.
He had recently attended the Will Allen’s Growing Food, Growing Justice Initiative Conference this past August and commented on some of the good things that came from the experience. He praised the opportunity as helpful, educational, and all around great for networking and getting a different perspective on the Good Food Movement or the Good Food Revolution, as it is described regularly by Allen himself.
During our discussion we quickly arrived at the subject of the day; Will Allen’s acceptance of $1.01 million dollars as a donation from the WalMart Corporation.[1]
My friend said “We heard about it around the room, then they, (Growing Power staff), made it formal as an announcement. “ It was a bit of a surprise for him.
I heard it first from friends on Facebook and then from searching the interwebs for Grist responses, Community Food Security Coalition editorials, and blog conversations from writers in the “movement” about what this may or may not mean for the collective “we” in the food justice stream.
At the time I did not ask how it was received at the conference; we were talking about people who had sent their greetings back at Growing Power, his training around racism in the food system and how we were addressing the challenges of urban ag and the never ending tasks of running a farm program.
Since then I have had time to read, review, and reflect on the litany of articles across the internet about this acceptance of money. One, from the Community Alliance for Global Justice, stated that Allen’s move to accept the money and guide corporate dollars to the community is counter to mitigating corporate power. Dade and Day, writers of the article on their recent October 2011 Newsletter, say that, “…this movement is about creating new food pathways, not enhancing corporate domination of the food and agricultural industries. We’re afraid that Wal-Mart’s power is enhanced by their links to Growing Power, not distributed as some may hope.” Articles by food advocates and food leaders range from hesitant support with a hint of “money is money, as long as he does the right thing” to “Hell no, Growing Power and Will is off my list for Christmas presents forever!” Grist writer Michelle Simon’s September 19th posting, Did Wal-Mart Buy Urban Agriculture Groups Silence as well as others, including a forecasting article in the Nation[2] preparing us for the eventual marriage of corporate ability and non-profit or community-based organization’s needs.
What does all of this mean to the actual Food Revolution? Does it mean anything at all? Is this a sign of the Apocalypse? Or is it a non-issue? Move along, nothing to see here, these are not the droids we’re looking for!
Patterns of history and human behavior show that there is the chance that this is a “sell-out to corporate cash” move on Growing Power’s account. Or this might be a calculation on Will Allen’s part that making nice with WalMart, the White House, and the Politicos will provide the needed capital and power to take the food revolution to the next level. This next level is a radical redistribution of corporate food system profits through community grants to build needed urban and suburban food production farms and facilities.
Once the farms and facilities are built the next step in this food revolution is a marketing and distribution system, supported by a consortium of corporations, governments and funders, that builds an infrastructure resulting in a percentage of shelf space for local and regional products in stores from corner mom and pop’s to megachurch sized WalMarts in suburban fringes.
This shift would provide immediate jobs in environmental restoration, farm and facility construction, farm and greenhouse operation, processing, education and research. It could also provide training program connections for vocational, trade, and higher learning centers. This could be a balanced revolution where corporate concessions and agreements empower local economies and shift mega-business practices globally. It could happen.
Who is to argue with Will about taking money at a scale that he has been trying to get from the government or public entities for decades? These folks say they believe in what he is doing yet until now this level of funding and commitment has not been forthcoming.
Let’s all understand that because Will Allen is a former corporate executive, (Proctor & Gamble and Kentucky Fried Chicken), he is in essence a business man with fiscal needs that are not being met by the current slow-trickle of public and donor money. He needs capital to fund his ideas and reach a balance in his internal operations that provides for training, market food growing and a revenue stream that makes it all sustainable.
Growing Power as an organization is at a cross-roads. Will is the leader, father, and founder of Growing Power. Will traveled to the White House last year to talk to Michele Obama and WalMart to start this path, as well as came to Seattle to bless our Year of Urban Agriculture sparking an already on-fire push to change local regulations and policy.
Growing Power has been around for nearly 20 years and is making its move, with or without the “authority” of the Food Movement keepers and zealots. In taking this money Will knew that he would be openly challenged and in response he told us to generally shut-up and get to work (in a very nice way).
Growing Power needs the money. The question is will they use it to fix their machine? Regardless of how we might feel about the viability of many of the projects that Allen is going to be funding with the WalMart money; a six-story urban vertical farm with solar power, a grocery store, and training center at his current 2.5 acres site in Milwaukee or the proposed string of community-based grocery stores promoting Growing Power products with other local growers in the area of Milwaukee and Chicago, I get the sense that I should generally keep my thoughts to myself and wait and see. What do I know?
Growing Power’s Chicago operations, under the leadership of his daughter Erika, have been growing exponentially since the 2011 opening of the Iron Street Project, Chicago Avenue Bright Lights Farm expansion, programs with Chicago Housing Authority and Chicago Parks Department. With Erika’s recent power-capturing installation and as a member on Mayor Rahm Emanuels food systems team, Growing Power is a force to be reckoned with that is making liberal, anti-corporate partner/money advocates cringe and attempt to find ways not to scream “sell-out”.
Will is a down-to-earth African-American male; a rare leader of color in the environmental/food movement who is actually listened to and respected by the majority population. He has a fairly dynamic operation under his control that has proven itself as capable as any other non-minority owned and operated organization doing similar work.
What does it mean for our expectations or perceptions of this person? For those that know of him, they might be mildly to extremely altered because of his act of accepting a large sum of money from WalMart. Many feel that this company is a direct threat to workers’ rights, fair and equitable wages, sexual equity in pay, health and prosperity benefits for workers, community economy, and that WalMart operates counter to current best-practice concepts of ecologically and socially sustainable consumption.
As someone who worked with Will and listened regularly to his philosophies about corporate money, the rigors of public funding, the failure for the “public interest” (code-word for what Will calls the “Politicos”) to fund and invest in the food system as a critical infrastructure, etcetera, etc., this move is not a surprise, and sends a clear signal that, as my great-grandmother echoed down the halls regularly, “Things they are always changing, don’t be surprised, change with them, but don’t be a fool.”.
With calls for the rich to pay more, Wall Street to pay out on our public investment in their survival, and demands for a wealth redistribution in a fair, equitable and just manner, we may be observing the first in a new delivery of much needed funds.
Possibly we should all take a moment and reflect. The Phillip Morris Company was sued and made to pay for the Truth.com campaign. Okay, so now WalMart is taking a cue and not waiting until it is sued; somebody is getting smarter. Are we? Or is our need to be “righteous” going to kick us in the socks?
I don’t know and I am too busy to care much really. I know that regionally Growing Power does not have much influence directly. It is good to have speakers, keynotes, and national/international advocates come to town and spark the crowd in a manner of speaking, however the WORK of building our regional food system is OUR WORK.
What are we going to do in the Northwest, in King County, in the four county region as we grow, move, sell, and consume food? What investments are we looking for to make this happen?
The city and county and oh, include the state in that too, are generally broke. They are looking to the private sector and non-profits to provide solutions. Those entities are looking to grantors, funders, and eco-investors to direct their money. That money comes from donations from private and corporate entities. Aren’t we all using each other’s resources and revenue anyway? The actual “Revolution” may be at our fingertips and we are refusing to accept its existence.
Regionally we have more than most of the country; we are a blessed and well placed location on planet earth. Our municipal governments have material resources; trucks, tractors, chippers, tools, and empty buildings and land on which to provide public assets for public benefits. Our well educated employed professionals have money, the existing corporate and private investor in this area understands whole systems and environmental sustainability (generally) and need to be told where and what to invest in. We have immigrants and refugees and veterans ready to work on farms, in food centers, in local processing, at mini-portable grocery stores, and yes at mega-stores that provide fair wages and benefits. And we have an already active and galvanized active engaged farm to city movement fully engaged in planning, acting, building, testing, and producing results.
What is our answer to the challenge? If we are not to “give-in” what is the alternative that provides real change, not limited impact volunteerism give-away actions, but real game changing, economy building, capacity building, meaningful sustainable, and equitable deliveries?
That is a real question. Answer it with your next action.
[1] Wal-Mart to donate $1M to Growing Power The Business Journal – http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2011/09/06/walmart-to-donate-1m-to-growing-power.html
[2] The Nation – http://www.thenation.com/article/163396/walmarts-fresh-food-makeover
Jonathan Chen Chosen by Change by Us Seattle
Check out this new site to promote community building ideas via the web. On this post they feature Jonathan Chen from the Danny Woo Garden.
Today the Code for America Seattle team has two big announcements.
The first is that this morning we launched a beta version of Change by Us Seattle, a new application to support volunteerism.
Change by Us is an online marketplace for community projects. The idea behind Change by Us is to empower neighbors in Seattle to coordinate offline efforts to make their city better — from building a skate park to cleaning up their street to hosting a block party. The site allows you to build teams, promote your project, and connect with other community leaders who can point you in the right direction — to the right grants, resources and people.
Change by Us originally launched in New York in July as a project by Local Projects, a New York-based media design firm, and CEOs for Cities, a national urban advocacy non-profit. Code for America fellows are helping to standardize the site to bring it to more cities and add new features, the first of which, “needs,” a way for organizers to post requests for people and stuff, made its debut this morning.
Beacon Food Forest Celebrates!
More fresh tomatoes
Here’s great news from the Food Forest team – a huge congrats!
Celebrate the final design for the Beacon Food Forest:
Tuesday, September 20, 20ll
6:30pm till 8:30 pm
Jefferson Park Community Center (3801 Beacon Ave. S.)
Background
Community design of the Food Forest began in June and was supported by funds from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods Matching Fund. Beacon Hill residents and other local advocates of urban agriculture worked together on a design for up to 7 acres of land owned by Seattle Public Utilities. The Beacon Food Forest is located directly west of Jefferson Park
Nearly 100 folks worked to supply designers of the Harrison Design Team with a long list of features to include in the Food Forest. Fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, herbs, snack fruits and arbors of grapes, hops and kiwis all had strong support. These will be grown to demonstrate the principles of permaculture and showcase the high yields that can result from intensive plantings of selected edibles.
The Food Forest will also feature a community gathering space and children’s’ area and room for native varieties of food bearing plants. Community support for traditional gardening resulted in the design of many individual p-patch plots, larger allotment plots and a community growing space for single crops like corn or pumpkins.
Beacon Hill is a diverse neighborhood and organizers of the Food Forest look forward to learning more about the traditions of growing food from our neighbors and friends.
To learn more, visit our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/beaconfoodforest
If you would like to schedule a personal tour of the Food Forest site or need more information, please contact:
Glenn Herlihy, 206-251-9814 or glennherlihy@speakeasy.net
Jacqueline Cramer, 206-526-5660 or rockit99@wildmail.com
Jenny Pell, designer, jennypell@gmail.com
A Future Day in the Life of an Urban Farmer
I was recently asked what a day in the life of an urban farmer in the year 2016 would be like. This is what I envision:
I was awakened by the chickens again today at home. I should probably take these over to the Rainier Beach Farm, but I have been slow to move them yet. I stopped and got my coffee at the corner bakery, they are donating 20 lbs of coffee grounds a day and it is really helping the community worm production bins at the site! We are selling worm tea and castings at a pretty good rate now, about $150 a week, not bad for a small operation.
After picking up the produce, we got to the Rainier Farm and put it in our cold storage which has grown from a small fridge into a 1200 sq. ft. building that houses two types of storage; cold and colder, as well as dry storage and a washing-packing station. The “elders program” members were there as always ready to wash, chop, and pack boxes of produce for our delivery route in the afternoon around South and Central City.
We have about 25 micro-farmers growing in various parts of the City on roofs, large gardens, and greenbelt buffers. It was great when the City opened up available lands for production, with the agreement that 25% of all the food would supply the local food banks at a highly subsidized rate. We are actually getting some of that back directly from City funds to cover the gap between what the farmers need to make to live and the price the corner stores and ethnic markets can pay. We are almost done with that funding and profits have grown from about $5,000 a year in 2011 to nearly $500,000 last year, just from produce.
Classes and workshops are running all the time now, we even have other cities coming in to train and learn how we do it here. After the system was highlighted by the USDA two years ago and promoted by the new President, things have been moving up.
We now have 3 acres at UW, an acre at Seattle University, 17 acres of City property managed by 4 different community urban ag groups, and the Rainier Beach Farm. Oh, yeah, I forgot the 48 acres we have with King County working on green job development. The seasons have been changing ever since 2011, it hasn’t gotten worse, but I am sure glad we integrated hoophouses and greenhouses into the program early, they are paying off now.
I am harvesting food on 3 acres today for the new Rainier Beach Farmers Market, and we have about 16 teens working the booths around the City making a livable wage for that demographic, $11.00 an hour including basic health and groceries weekly; veggies, fruit, and eggs.
The usual meetings and planning sessions are still taking a lot of my time, however with all of the new staffing and employee support, things have gotten easier over the years.
We are working on a new project, actually finishing up, in the SODO district. After the earthquake, they spent a bunch of money fixing warehouses and decided to install roof-top farms on some very large buildings; Costco, United Steel, Boeing, and Cisco. So far production is good, especially the heat needy crops. We thought we would never grow corn again in the Puget Sound!
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