We wanted to learn more about the inspiring people who motivate us to go green, so we're featuring these environmental leaders and their good work. Have a suggestion for a Going Green Hero? Let us know!
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This month's Going Green Hero is |
> Tell us about yourself! How did you become interested in local food and gardening?
I planted 5 tomato plants the summer of 1993 and got addicted to foraging in the garden, eating warm tomatoes straight off the vine. After 10 seasons of backyard and window box gardening, I happened to read the Essential Agrarian Reader and Wendell Berry's The Unsettling of America. It was like stepping outside of the Matrix for the first time. Wanting to learn more, I joined the Community Food Security Coalition. I began to understand how the American industrialized food system, shaped by billions of dollars of federal funding and controlled by a shrinking number of multinational corporations produces enormous amounts of calories, but at staggering environmental, public health, social justice, cultural, and spiritual costs.
The more I learned about our current food system, the more I began to see urban agriculture and backyard gardening as strategies to decentralize our food supply and build a more sustainable, healthy, and just society.
> What is Urban Tilth all about?
Urban Tilth's mission is to cultivate urban agriculture to help our community (West Contra Costa County in San Francisco's East Bay) create a more sustainable, healthy, and just local food system. We work with schools, non-profits, government agencies, businesses, and individuals to develop the capacity to produce 5% of our own food supply. As West Contra Costa County moves towards some measure of food independence, we plan to share what we learn with other communities.
> Why is it important for us to start thinking about producing our own food supply?
Eighty years into the experiment in a chemical/fossil-fuel based agriculture, it is becoming increasingly clear that this system is unhealthy for individuals, communities, and our environment. Here are just a few ways local, sustainable produce is better for individuals, communities, and the environment:
(a) Industrialized produce is less nutritious. You can't compare apples to apples when it comes to industrialized versus sustainably-produced foods. An industrially-grown apple, carrot, or beet has fewer phytonutrients than a local, organic apple, carrot, or beet. The synthetic fertilizers and pesticides used in industrialized farms diminsh the biodiversity of our farms and soils; the crops which grow in these systems contain fewer nutrients. Michael Pollan's latest book, In Defense of Food, explains a new theory that the obesity epidemic may be linked to widescale micronutrient deficiencies due to the diminishing nutrient quality of our industrialized foods. Even though we are getting more than enough calories, we cannot eat enough to satiate the hunger for the complex mix of nutrients lacking in industrialized foods.
(b) Industrialized produce contains pesticides. A recent study confirmed the presence of organophosphate pesticide residue in the saliva and urine of groups of children in suburban Washington state and urban Atlanta, Georgia. The study linked the presence of these toxic chemicals directly to the children's consumption of conventional produce because when the children were switched to a diet containing only organic produce, the levels of pesticides in their urine and saliva began decreasing immediately. Detected pesticide residue returned to previous levels when the children resumed eating conventional produce. This study suggests that anyone who consumes conventional produce also receives a steady dose of low-levels of organophosphates. Eating only organic produce is not currently a financial option for most Americans; but if we converted just half our lawns to sustainable food gardens, we'd create a cheap, steady, local supply of pesticide-free produce.
(c) Our industrialized food system reinforces societal inequalities. The quality of food American children have access to tracks closely with their race and wealth. There are huge and growing racial and ethnic disparities in diet-related public health statistics. The federal government directly subsidizes the production of corn and soybeans. Corn and soybeans are most easily converted into cheap, unhealthy snack foods, soft drinks, and fast food. Cheap prices combined with a 10 billion dollar a year marketing effort targeting children, ensures that the most accessible, familiar foods for many poor children are the most unhealthy foods. Working to create local foodsheds and ensure that all children in your community have access to chemical-free produce is one way to address pervasive and growing inequalities in American society.
(d) The global, "industrialized-organic" system is bad for the environment. Yes, that's right, the organic food industry is bad for the environment. Because of the price incentives organics provide, the organic food industry as a whole has a significanly greater carbon footprint than the equivalent sized slice of the conventional food market. Much of our out of season produce is shipped or flown in from overseas. What's a Going Green Family to do? Rebuilding local food systems is the only way to ensure low-carbon, high-nutrient, pesticide-free produce.
(e) If we don't want to think about producing our food locally, we need to get comfortable with what it means for large corporations and the federal government to run a system to produce it for us. Without a cheap supply of fossil fuels most of us would starve in the current food and agriculture system. Being happy to rely on our current food and agriculture system means that we tacitly agree to a wide range of political, economic, and even military strategies to ensure a measure of control over the world oil and natural gas supplies. If we are uncomfortable with the current politcal and military strategies to maintain our food and agriculture system, then we can start building local food systems as an alternative.
Families and communities which work to re-localize food production can begin to take greater control of their local food systems. Production gardening embedded in the school curriculum could be an effective way to ensure all children have access to chemical-free produce. Backyard gardening is a cost-effective way to avoid the pesticides on conventional produce. And, learning to eat from a local foodshed allows you to stop supporting the negative side-effects of our industrialized food system.
> What are the benefits of gardening in our lives?
I believe there are many, many benefits to gardening in our lives. Aside from the obvious benefits such as being physically active, producing healthy fresh food, and creating beauty, I'd like to highlight a more intellectual/spiritual side to gardening. The practice of gardening teaches us important lessons about our place in the world at multiple levels. On a personal level, gardening connects us daily to the natural cycles which sustain us. We participate in a very tangible way in the flow of nutrients and energy which is the basis of life. As we work to create a society which functions in balance with our ecosystem, it's important that more people have this first-hand experience as being creatures within an ecosystem. At a larger scale, the practice of gardening provides us a lens by which to view bigger social, political, and economic trends which define our society. As a gardener, involved in the long-term project of building healthy soils, our country's rush to develop corn-based ethanol as an alternative fuel seems more like an industry-inspired, short-sighted pipe-dream than a sustainable solution to our energy and greenhouse gas problems. As a gardener, the whole roasted chicken for $5 or $6 at a grocery store, a $1 hamburger at a fast-food restaurant, or a $2 dollar basket of strawberries seems impossibly cheap. (It is, of course. Our grandchildren are subsidizing our "cheap" industrialized food---we have taken out a loan from future generations against soil fertility, a stable climate, and healthy waters, to name a few.) As a gardener, new studies revealing low-nutrient density of conventionally-grown produce comes as no surprise.
> Growing food can seem intimidating, especially for those of us who kill houseplants. What are the
easiest ways to get started and keep going with our own gardens?
My advice is to not get bogged down in advice about gardening. There are so many different approaches to gardening with detailed, intricate techniques that many beginners get paralyzed. There are so many rules that novices feel certain that they are bound to make a "mistake".
Instead, I encourage you to develop the practice of gardening. Trust that if you commit a small amount of time each week to messing around in the garden, you will eventually learn what different plants need to produce delicious, abundant food. Seeds and plants are miraculous, resilient things, designed to convert sunlight, soil, and water into leaves, tubers, fruit, and more seeds. Ancestors of all of our food crops got along fine for millenia without any help at all from humans.
To start, choose five or six crops so that you'll be sure to have some initial success even if you lose a few. Select easy, resilient crops. Plant mint under a leaky hose bib. It spreads anywhere moist and just a small patch can provide tea every night. Chamomile and calendula look cute, self-sow (garden-ese for plant themselves) once established, and go well in the mint tea. Forgotten potato chunks discarded in a cold compost pile wait to start growing until the conditions are to their liking and can surprise you with a surprise crop. Rosemary likes poor soils, drought, and wind. Brassicas like mustard greens, radishes, turnips, arugula, and collard greens are barely-tamed cousins of the wild weeds you see growing along highways up and down the West Coast. All of these plants are meant to grow on their own and we just happen to eat them. Remember, as long as you are planting crops faster than you kill them, you will come out ahead in the end. And as long as you are paying attention in the process, you'll learn everything you need to over time.
I also want to encourage new gardeners to plant at least one fruit tree and a couple of berry bushes. (You can fit dwarf fruit trees into even the tiniest backyard or containers on a patio or balcony). Developing a relationship with a fruit tree over many years adds texture, dimension, and a deeper rhythm to your gardening practice. As for berry bushes, I could only diminish the delight they provide with words; just trust me and plant a few.
> How does composting food waste help our gardens?
Healthy soils produce healthy plants. Every cubic inch of healthy soil contains millions of microorganisms;a robust and diverse soil ecosystem provides plant roots everything plants need to create nutritious crops. By adding composted food "waste" to our garden soils, we are feeding the soil ecosystem which in turn feeds the plants. There is really no such thing as food waste, just leftovers waiting to turned back into food.
I highly recommend worm composting for beginners. It's an easy way to deal with the daily flow of small amounts of food scraps generated by most families. Plus, its both fun and profound. Managing a worm bin to feed your garden soil allows you to participate in nearly the full cycle of nutrient flow through your household. (There are, of course, age old, completely healthy ways to participate in the full cycle of nutrient flows which sustain us, but you have to compost more than your food scraps. I recommend starting with just food scraps).
If you have the space, you can make even more efficient use of the nutrient resources in your food scraps by keeping a couple of hens to convert your food scraps into eggs and chicken litter. I have found that chickens will eat almost anything coming out of our kitchen and most of our weeds, too. Well-composted chicken litter does wonders to garden soil.
> Anything else we should know?
I feel a little sheepish being called a hero; I have benefitted from tremendous privilege in my life. However, I am very grateful for this opportunity to share what I have learned---thank you Going Green Family. All across the nation there are grassroots groups working to rebuild local food systems as part of the larger effort to create a more sustainable, healthy, and equitable society. I encourage everyone to find a group in your own foodshed already doing this work and to get involved. And, of course, to convert part of your closest patch of lawn (be it your own or in a city park) to food production.
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Thank you, Park, for spreading the good news about urban agriculture! |