Food, Inc. And Local, Affordable Food

Last night I went to see Food, Inc.
In my opinion the movie did not have anything new to say about Big Agribusiness but it was well worth seeing, to see how many key people in government that have determination over our national food policy have previous relationships with companies like Monsanto, as well as reaffirm the fragility consumers have over their food choices.



The panel discussion that followed the movie included friends Lisa Taranto of Tricycle Gardens and Lisa Dearden of The Center For Rural Culture and The Goochland's Farmer's Market. The audience participation was lively- I particularly liked a cardiologist who said, "Everyone complains about the high cost of eating better, but don't understand that the medicine to treat the ailments caused by poor health and not eating well are more expensive. We all need to understand that we, individuals, need to be responsible for our own health."

One question asked repeatedly was "How can we make good food affordable for those that need it most and can't afford it?"

We rely on the grocers, the farmers. We can vote with our purchase dollars, telling these businesses that we, as consumers, want humanely raised, pastured meat, and fresh, local vegetables. But what was not discussed was that not only should you take responsibility for your own personal health (eat well, work out, to prevent sickness and disease), but that each person should have the RIGHT to responsibly grow their own backyard (and frontyard) veggies, that each person should have the RIGHT to responsibly have a few laying hens and mini-goats for (here's where I reel it back to economics) AFFORDABLE fresh eggs and milk for their family.

Have you seen the statistics on childhood diabetes and obesity lately?!?

Address affordability, health, passing on a sense of connection to animals and land to our children while providing them exercise:
If you have a back yard: Get some frickin' chickunz.
I promise you, your children will chase and play with those chickens allllllllllllll day long, while teaching them about animals and where their food comes from.

For those (including zoning) that feel chickens are messy and smelly, I offer up an urban coop for your inspection.

Chickens naturally want to be in the brush, scratching for grubs while being protected from predators. So in your average residential back yard, they will be eating the japanese beetles from underneath your rose bushes, hiding in the acuba, pecking through your ivy. Therefore, their "mess" remains in areas that are not trafficked by the rest of the family.

...If only the dogs behaved so!

Unfortunately, many counties and cities have forbidden responsible urban farming.
Did you know that a pair of mini-goats, each about 50 pounds, can provide your family with a gallon of fresh milk a day? Both of my dogs are larger than that. My local zoning says I have have three dogs - so I could have three 200 pound mastiffs - yet won't allow a few laying hens in the same back yard?

This is where we, as consumers, need to not only buy locally, eat well, but tell our local government that it should be everyone's right to be sustainable, to have, if they choose, those affordable, healthy options for their family.

P.s. If you like, join our FaceBook urban chicken group, CHICKUNZ, and if you're local, sign the petition for urban chicken in Henrico!

 

Land Sharing Is The New Trend: Thoughts on TreeHugger's Article

TreeHugger's Land Sharing Is The New Trend, though focusing on the UK, interests me because there are so many ways it could be applied to our own towns...

This is certainly not a new trend- people have been working collectively for local agricultural benefit for eons. My family farm had such a relationship - when we no longer had horses, we allowed a neighbor farmer to regularly cut the hay in the fields and roads. The hay was then his, and used to feed his livestock, and we didn't have to spend the hours bush hogging the trails or mowing the fields. It was a great relationship that worked for us all!

Where we live in the city is in an old urban neighborhood that has nicely sized back yards. We have always had a productive garden, but there are many here who are in their eighties and nineties who can't garden any more... And this is really where the TreeHugger article hits home to me.

How wonderful for an older person, often alone, no longer out and about, to have enthusiastic younger people working their back yard plot? Think about all the great things that could come from this, taking the community garden a step further from the median strips and publicly owned city land, into the private realm... mutually beneficial.

Wonderful! Just some... food for thought. : ) And smart growth!

 

It's always the zoning.

Nationally, we have seen the resurgence in the past few years towards education on how to build better, and green, and how to eat better, and green. Following that sentiment, there has been a rise in urban sustainability, and with that, a surge of interest in urban farming.

As a green building business owner, I have become knowledgeable in all sorts of codes and successful standards that other cities and leaders are achieving throughout North America. Ask me who the leaders in greywater are- or rainwater filtration, or what states are not only supporting but offering incentives for their residents to build green...

What I have repeatedly said is this: we have the educated industry, we have the educated consumer. What lags is outdated and non-reconsidered zoning laws and construction loans.

Here I face it again, in the issue of sustainability, locally.

Now I'm no hippie. But I do grow lettuce and spinach attractively in my front yard.

I watch what we eat, I have always had a vegetable garden in an urban environment, and now I would like some eggs without traveling to our friends' farms.

After watching other cities nationally see a reconsideration and support of urban farming, I just have to shake my head when encountering my local government representatives that won't even discuss rethinking their policies towards limited livestock in a sub/urban environment.

I've sat in zoning meetings. Most of the people before the board of supervisors are there to rezone agricultural to "mixed-use." And without too many questions, they stamp their approval readily. But ask them to consider two laying hens within an enclosed yard with a 6" high privacy fence? They won't even bring it to the table for discussion.

Normally I would dismiss them for what I assess them as (Which assessment I will refrain from sharing- I did not immediately come to that conclusion; it came only after much interaction and experience with said officials.); but as someone who volunteers a lot, who is aware of the critical point that those less fortunate are suffering in our area, the low reserves of stock in the local Food Bank, the rising costs of food... I say, "How DARE you?"

How DARE you not support your area in sustainability, in giving local children, your constituents, fresh eggs and milk?

I went to register my child in our local kindergarten last week, and it was clear to me that many of these families, a good percentage immigrants, came from large urban cities where livestock and poultry were successfully raised in urban environments and on whom families depended upon for their own food source, were now here and denied that same self-sufficiency and sustenance. And less fortunate people here have done so, for generations, and depended upon it, but just never cared as to the legality of what they did.

But I do care about whether it's legal, because it's not just a matter of myself, but to assure others they may do so. I certainly don't intend to sneak around with my laying hens.

I'm not asking for roosters, I'm not asking for meat production, hence large quantities of fowl. But allow hens, responsibly; allow two 50 pound mini-goats for milk. In my county you can have three 200 pound mastiffs, and that would be fine. But a chicken? Not possible.

Make it possible.

These officials are denying their citizens a very basic right, and I can not understand how they think it is ok to regulate it down to a ban on poultry. (Oh, disclosure: they say it is ok if you can have the coop 400 feet away from the residence. How big is your back yard? And yet the average chicken run on a farm is ten feet by three-ish feet?)
How big is MY back yard? Plenty large for mastiffs, but too small for a... HEN?

Any neglected and un-picked-up-after animal will cause a stench. Imagine yourself living next to neighbors who did not pick up after their dogs within their own enclosed yards, and there you are on a happy spring morning in your yard, and that's what wafts over to you on the sunny breeze. Is that pleasant, is that right? No, but it's legal.

Can't we instead reconsider responsibility for all animals, and restrict all breeds to a certain, responsible number?

I'm asking for eggs and milk, fresh organic veggies not sprayed by my neighbors' Chemlawn, and the right to bring my own eggs to my table.

It just doesn't feel right that a board of supervisors, so remote from my reality, should have the right to disagree with what my family decides to eat. Good food, raised ourselves, affordably.

For those that would like to learn more:
Here are a bunch of urban farming links and zoning information:

• http://home.centurytel.net/thecitychicken/chickenlaws.html
  
• http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003900621_minigoats25m.html
  
• Seattle's Food System Sustainability and Security Resolution
• Atlanta: http://www.cifalatlanta.org and http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/living/homeandgarden/stories/2008/05/01/hgchickens_0503.html
  
• http://www.wikihow.com/Keep-Chickens-in-a-City
  
• I mean, good grief. You can have chickens in L.A.! http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/05/roosters.html
  
• http://duluthcitychickens.org/DuluthCityChickens_FAQ.html
• http://myurbanchickens.blogspot.com/2008/05/ann-arbor-urban-chickens-are-one-step.html
• http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/dining/19yard.html?_r=4&pagewanted=2&ref=dining&oref=slogin
• http://www.cityfarmer.org/deskSmit.html
  
• And so many more, I just need to add them... or just google "urban farming," "sustainability," "mini-goats" or "urban chickens" yourself! : )
  

 

Garden Revenge.

Garden Revenge.
The endless battle of the weeds.

So this year, I decided to eat them.

For three years I have been pulling daylilies and planting them in the alley, the ditch, the land, giving them to friends... But it's never enough. And I hate to just throw out anything, much less a living plant.

Then last year I planted a bunch o' medicinal plants, just to see what they looked like, and discovered several of them were invasive.

So this morning I harvested the burdock, the daylilies.
And ate 'em.

And I feel smug.

I got the recipe for the burdock here:
http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Web%20Recipes/Recipes%20Page.html#Anchor-Burdock-23240

Now there are several tips: After scrubbing, boil the burdock a good long time. Then you can peel back by hand the outer layer of the root, revealing the inner root. For the daylilies: wash thoroughly outside, then keep rinsing in a pot inside, even more than leeks. Cut both in 1/2 inch pieces after cooking, as they are fibrous. Seriously, eat like this often and there's no need for store-bought fiber!

**Note: It has been said that daylilies cause upsets in 1 of 50 people, just to warn you.**