Save Money While Eating Locally

As a person committed to changing our food system by voting with my fork, I allocate more of my income on food than your average person. In the U.S., the average income spent on food is considerably low, 10%, compared to our European food aficionados, 30%. But until the Farm Bill catches up with the growing demand for sustainably grown and raised foods, we will have to pick up the extra charge on our bills and continue purchasing food that is good for our health, our communities, and our environment.


The topic of eating sustainably on a budget is not only timely, but it's something I've been chewing on for the past few years. After all, as a writer, nonprofit professional, and consultant, my financial times have their ebbs and flows. So, in thinking on how to save money on the thing that I value the most - what I eat - I decided to share what I've learned with others.

This past weekend at the Green Festival in San Francisco, I spoke about Eating Locally: Save Money While Saving the Planet. The presentation was chalk full of ways that people can reduce their food budget while keeping their dedication to sustainable food intact. (These are tips that I use and am constantly refining.) By walking the audience through the grocery store/farmers market and providing tips, everyone walked away with something new to chew on.

Right after finishing Farmer Jane, I had the fortune of having New Year's dinner in the company of Paul Hawkin along with a few of my closest friends. He asked three times, "What's your next book?" At the time it was hard to consider as Farmer Jane is just getting released in May, but the question stuck. What I came up with was a handbook for eating sustainably and locally. A little quick research on the internet and lo-and-behold! I found Leda Merideth's book:The Locavore's Handbook: The Busy Person's Guide to Eating Local on a Budget. Not only does she cover the many considerations of how to conserve while eating locally but she also includes some recipes, and other how-tos of eating locally. It's a great read and I'm excited that Leda, Deborah Madison, Jessica Prentice, and I will be talking about the subject on June 30 at the Common Wealth Club in San Francisco. Mark your calendars! It's going to be good. In the meantime, follow me on Twitter and FaceBook where I'll post some of these tips and tidbits.

An Office of Urban Ag in the USDA?

HR 4971 may sound like the next version of swine flu, but really, it's the new "Greening Food Deserts Act," and a testimony that sustainable food and farming systems have hit the White House full-force.

There's a great write up about it on La Vida Locavore's blog, where you're encourage to call, email, and write your representatives to have them sponsor this bill. After being introduced by Marcy Kaptu (D-OH) there are already twenty three co-sponsors in the House!

The bill would support urban food projects that are working to help people become more food independent; food banks woud teach food growing skills; schools would be encouraged to teach gardening skills; grants would be made to organizations that are fostering urban agriculture; but most importantly, the bill would create and Office of Urban Agriculture within the USDA. This is big news!

MONSATANO

I'm really tired of Monsanto. The name, the logo, and the website; how they take, and are given, political seats that determine food and ag policy; the endless battles they wage globally to patent our food and life itself; but what makes me really livid today is how they've stolen sustainable agriculture language and have spun it for their profit driven cause. And look, there's Bill Gates fiscally sponsoring them and supporting their agenda, parroting how biotech will save countries like Africa. (If India is any indicator about how farmers and growing populations will be "saved" by biotechnology, then he should think again. Two words, farmer suicides.)

Since being copied is a sign of success, we could assume that the sustainable food and ag world is doing something right. However, it means we have to pick up our game, and continue lobbying our representatives to ensure that Monsanto and the relatively few others (DuPont/Pioneer Hi-Bred, Syngenta, and Dow) are challenged every step of the way. We need to continue to make their lives annoying; to hurt their stocks; to educate about the true dangers of these untested and unregulated technologies; to pressure our electeds to speak on our behalf and that of future generations.

They may have the lingo down, and are heavily using the words "sustainable" and "family farmer," but what they don't have is me, nor the "Millions Against Monsanto," fooled.

But Civil Eats did fool me (for a second), when they posted the following: "Monsanto Discontinues MON810, CEO has Change of Heart on How to Feed the World," Sadly, I see some grains of truth to their April Fools post. While they certainly would never cut seed stock that makes them money, they do cut seed stock that they've patented that aren't creating returns for their stockholders. You see, seed is expensive "stock" to carry as the varieties have to be grown out in the field every couple of years. And since they've been busy over the last decade patenting every variety they can get their hands on in nature, this should be deemed a criminal act against humanity. You would think that the USDA would be the stewards of our agricultural biodiversity, but that is simply not the case. They've left the vitality of germ plasm up to the seed and chemical corporations. If a particular stock is not be profitable by the corporation, it gets junked. This is (obviously) a problem since we need to maintain access to genetic diversity to continue to develop a diverse food system that can continue to produce with climate change happening. Seeds hold the answers.

I'm glad to say that lately there have been a few harbingers of change. Like this post in the New York Times: "Many biotechnology stocks fell on Tuesday as investors struggled to understand the impact of a ruling that threw out parts of two gene patents and called into question thousands more." Or that the USDA is finally looking into Monsanto's violation of anti-monopoly laws that are even starting to get the corn growers upset. The first hearing in Iowa drew the interest of an estimated 15,000 farmers (read post by clicking here). There will be more hearings to come, mostly where corn growers have been hurt (in the Midwest) since the company has raised their corn seed prices in their forecasting of the profitability of biofuels. DuPont, a competitor, has started the claims. When the big guys duke it out, things get interesting.

Until we regain our seeds for the commons (this is really getting into some Amendment language now!), communities are starting to have seed swaps and groups like the Organic Seed Alliance are building seed interchanges among farmers to regain our hold on what should be a common good.

Keeping up With Your Food

While sadly there is no single news source for finding all of the current sustainable food and farming news (I have to visit at least three sites to stay current), the Community Food Security Coalition's listserve called COMFOOD, hosted by Tufts University and part of USDA's Community Food Programs, has over 3,000 food aficionados posting everything from jobs and action alerts, to requests for information. Throughout the day, innumerable interesting topics from "know anyone starting a community kitchen?" to the following listing of the U.S. legal definition of Sustainable Agriculture all come direct to you:

Just in case you're wondering what ‘sustainable agriculture’ really is, The National Agricultural Library gives this definition as well as definitions of almost all of the other alternative approaches as well - www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/terms/srb9902.shtml#toc2

The site says, that ‘sustainable agriculture’ was addressed by Congress in the 1990 ‘Farm Bill’ [Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 (FACTA), Public Law 101-624, Title XVI, Subtitle A, Section 1603 (Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1990) NAL Call # KF1692.A31 1990]. Under that law, ‘the term sustainable agriculture means an integrated system of plant and animal production practices having a site-specific application that will, over the long term:
• satisfy human food and fiber needs;
• enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agricultural economy depends;
• make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls;
• sustain the economic viability of farm operations; and
• enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.’

Click here to sign up for COMFOOD. (You can even choose to receive a daily bundled email to save inbox space.) But back to my original statement that sadly there is no one place for finding all the current sustainable food and farming news – there are just so many special interests within the sustainable food movement that it’s become hard to stay up on all the haps. The Institute for Trade Policy, Grist and the Civil Eats blog are your best bets to stay current (and entertained). But to get private sector news on organic consolidation, food safety, and alerts such as new bans on raw milk, you’ll have to go to Sustainable Food News and glean info from the right hand column and search for the press releases online, or cough up the $300+ yearly membership.

To further information overload and find organizations that might resonate with your “circle of concern” check out the "Resources" section on the Farmer Jane website. It’s current and includes the following categories of resources:
- Farm to School
- Farm Worker Organizations
- Food Policy Councils
- Local Food
- Native Foods & Indigenous Knowledge
- Organizations Promoting Sustainable Food Business Practices
- Seeds, Heirloom Foods & Organizations Against GMOs
- Sustainable Food and Farming Organizations
- Urban Farming & Gardening
- Women Focused Sustainable Food and Farming Organizations
- Young Farmers

What would you, reader, add to the list?

USDA Making Some Food Ground

It's exciting that the USDA is starting to recognize - nay value - the importance of farm direct foods. This week, Kathleen Merigan, Undersecretary of Agriculture announced an investment of $5 million this year in the Farmers Market Promotion Program and potentially $10 million next year if the coffers don't get gutted in this economic decline.

In addition, late last year, USDA announced its "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food", campaign. (It's as if the local food movement is truly pulling agencies into action.) And while Obama wonders if there is a "local food movement" out there, the latest urgent call for write ins against the approval of GE Alfalfa, garnered the biggest response they've seen since USDA was making amendments to the organic food standards. In just one week, over 200,000 people wrote in to voice concern; we can only assume that the number of people that care about their food, and food safety, is only growing.

Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign with a bold mission to end childhood obesity within a generation, was launched this February. The campaign has four primary tenets: helping parents make healthy family choices, serving healthier food in schools, improving access to healthy, affordable food, and increasing physical activity of kids. Already, the administration has announced its plans to improve school meals, a financing initiative to reduce food deserts, new research tools that detail local food environments and health outcomes, including grocery store access and disease and obesity prevalence, and a broad range of public/private partnerships to solve America's childhood obesity epidemic. The food system in America is certainly getting some attention these days.

But despite all of this new support from the USDA, the nonprofit sector of the sustainable agriculture and food systems groups have been gutted by the economic crisis laden with foundation fallout. Their programming which arguably fills in the gap of government responsibility (think food banks and other emergency food programs in particular), means that an estimated hundreds of thousands of people will be struggling for their own food security.That's why it's so great to finally see some movement on behalf of the USDA, a big bloated elephant trudging through post industrial/green revolution muck, start to get re-involved.

In addition to the struggles of nonprofits, our farmers have been forced to compete on the global market for the past few decades and has been to the detriment of America's small, diversified farms. Consolidation to increase scales of efficiency to compete with China, Mexico, and South American countries (in addition to many others!) has led to the environmental degradation that we are seeking solutions for today. The dead zone, dead soil, contaminated water, and dependency on cheap food resources that depends on an ample supply of inexpensive oil. Our farmers, with higher labor and environmental standards cannot compete with food coming in from countries that have lower labor and environmental regulations. There is just no way.

I'm hoping that the "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food," campaign will evolve into more than just a positive PR spin for the USDA to quite the local food movement and that we continue to pressure for more assistance to our countries farmers, our stewards of the land, and our keepers of nature. While this issue certainly is complex (i.e. don't the developing countries need our markets?) the movements that we are seeing are pointing us in the right direction. In this economy, with small businesses and the American people struggling, the sustainable food movement's ask that eaters continue supporting local foods, even if it costs a little bit more, is a hard sell. We need more government incentives for sustainability. We need Green Collar jobs that pay people honestly for producing food. We need the "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food," campaign to get some teeth.

One of the best books I've found about the take over of the global food supply is Raj Patel's "Stuffed and Starved," also author of "The Value of Nothing". You can also check out Food First's website.

While the economy "recovers" people are using their extra time to plant gardens, eat with family and friends, and hopefully, read about all of the ways out there to stay engaged with the food system - the most intimate thing that we "do" every time we eat.

For a more political breakdown of the Washington scene, this post from the Ag Observatory, does a great job at shedding light on the Obama Administration's, what they call, "schizophrenic" approach to agriculture.

"Women in Green"

Working to suss out the role of femininity in the sustainability movement, I constantly discover new threads from literature I'm finding that ties it all together. Most recently, my architecture savvy boyfriend gave me "Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design."

What Kira Gould and Lance Hosey answer in their book about women and design is, why women? and, how? The book looks at whether gender is a determining factor of a sustainability mind set and acknowledges that there are certainly men out there that demonstrate the values of systems thinking, and environmental stewardship. However, they found that it is women, overall, that are more likely to base their decisions on environmental values and in prioritizing future generations. Through their jobs and vocalization of environmental priorities, to their "green consumerism," controlling upwards of 85% of the household spending decisions, they are at charge at home and at work in the outcomes of the developing green economy. As Hunter Lovins says in the book, "I keep hearing from male business leaders that the presence of women in the room, their energy, makes a difference in the outcome. I don't know what that means, but I keep hearing it."

Beyond just gender relationships, the book delves into the shape and influence of a woman's agenda that has been growing the sustainability movement over the years. Arguably launched by the feminist movement and Rachel Carson's book, "Silent Spring," women continue to apply their energy and enthusiasm in fighting for justice and environmental stewardship inside and outside of the business world. Whatever tactic they take, they are most likely to argue for an end to business as usual practices that value the bottom line over future profitability. Profitability of our streams, our oceans, our soil, our air. A new definition of profitability is clearly in order and has been written about by Hunter Lovins in "Natural Capitalism." A joint project between her, Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins. While during the '80s and '90s women were encouraged to "act like men" in the business world, women will hopefully start to be encouraged to be women in the business world. To bring their nurturing to business and influence the practices of industry. What the book tackles are the squeamish responses, the fact that nobody wants to talk about heart, and the other elephants in the room that are preventing us from all coming to the table.

When I talk to people about my interest in elevating the visibility of women in the sustainable food movement some get squeamish (leaders that don't want to be associated with gender issues), some get defensive, and others immediately delve into conversation. As the book points out, men are starting to join in the conversation. Ray Anderson, Interface chairman (a company that creates biological solutions to our modern world's design challenges) opening acknowledges women's contributions. He explains that, " A new day is dawning that will build on the ascendancy of women in business, the professions, government, and education. This is one of the most encouraging of all trends, as women bring their right-brained [emotion], nurturing nature to bear on the seemingly intractable challenges created by left-brained [logic] men and their pre-occupation with bottom lines and other 'practical' considerations. After all, it's the practical and pragmatic that got us into this mess. Surely, a different kind of thinking is needed to get us out ("Women in Green" pg 1)."

As we watch women excel by leaps and bounds in both business and activism for a more sustainable planet, one of women's next biggest challenges will have to be to work to change the structure of business itself to allow women (that want to) to continue their familial lives while succeeding in their careers. As our culture does away with bottom lines, and thinks more about long-term relationships with people and the planet, women's place in decision making and business will continue to thrive.

If you're interested in reading more, check out "Women in Green," a book that speaks to gender, women's roles, business, heart, and community; making the beautiful tie-ins between femininity, environment and our future.

Onward!

After a conversation in fall of 2007 at Bioneers with publisher, Gibbs Smith, "Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat," is finally coming out. It's been a journey that has allowed me to talk to some of the most active, influential, and inspiring women that are changing how America eats and farms. This blog is dedicated to the theme of women in the sustainable food movement - heroes with shovels, wooden spoons, cameras, and pens - working for a different kind of food future. In addition to this inaugural post, a few exciting developments are in the mix:

1) The website - farmerjane.org - will be up in the next few weeks.

2) Planning, plotting, and networking for book release events. So far I'm helping plan a panel series at Commonwealth Club, a food and farming literary fest in collaboration with Eat Real, and numerous book readings throughout the Bay (Omnivore Books, Point Reyes Bookstore, etc).

3) "The Queens of Green," a new radioshow co-hosted by Deborah Koons Garcia and I will start on March 6. The show will run every Saturday morning (green960.com) and will be podcasted as well. A few of the first guests we're working on are Andrew Kimbrell and Raj Patel to cover GMOs and seeds - the theme of our show during March.

I've been blessed by book endorsements from the following people whom I admire. Paul Hawken says, "As night and day are fundamental to our survival, the leadership of women is absolutely essential if we are to have a livable and sustained planet earth. With respect to agriculture and sustenance, the 20th century has been called the 'locust years,' a time when the industrial logic of machinery and chemicals supplanted the mythos of life and stripped away complex webs of family farms under the moniker of husbandry. Farmer Jane heralds a growing "womandry" movement that restores people, place, and nurturance back into the heart of our culture. It is a scrumptiously written testament to the role of women in bringing back the life of our soils and daily fare— a roll call of pathfinders, a heralding description of how women are stepping forward to cultivate biological farming, vibrant communities, and meaningful livelihoods."

One of the most delightful advocates for sustainable food that I've had the pleasure to meet, Raj Patel, offers, "Personal, political, practical and powerful, Farmer Jane is beautiful field-guide to the future paths of the food movement. It works so well because it brings together everyone from farm worker organizers to fresh food activists and, with wit and wisdom, sparks the conversations and concrete actions that we'll need to transform our food system together. A wonderful book."

What book about women and food could be complete without a word by Alice Waters? Indeed, I nodded to her contributions to sustainable foods in the introduction, but as a woman that has been instrumental by increasing awareness of the farm to school movement all over the country, I am humbled by her words, "Temra Costa is a tireless advocate for small-scale and sustainable farming in California. It is through this work that she has met and worked with the collection of inspiring, unrelenting women featured in this book. Farmer Jane is a work about good stewardship of the land and it is a joy to see so many peers, collegues and friends honored in this wonderful anthology."

Tom Philpott of Grist and co-founder of Maverick Farms acknowledges the role of women in the food movement by saying, "The sustainable food movement is largely a women's movement--women run many of the farms, staff the non-profits, provide the vital intellectual and physical energy that propels the movement forward. This has been a largely untold story--and Costa has provided a critical corrective by documenting, at long last, to the massive contribution women have made to transforming our food system."

While all of these aforementioned super-stars have inspired me over the years, NPR's The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva), have taken investigative journalism, field visits, food and media to the next level with their "Hidden Kitchens" series. I feel all around honored that they love my book saying, "They say women hold up half the sky. They also hold down half the farms. Temra Costa's look at the growing sisterhood of women farmers and land activists is a revelation. Full of passionate, eccentric, off-the-chart kitchen visionaries, these resilient and outrageous women light the path for us to think about who is growing the food we eat and how they tend to the land and their communities. Even if you never thought of farming, or even gardening, it's full of tips on how to eat well, and make your community thrive."

I hope you'll enjoy the blog full of food, farming and activism, the book, and the events (if they happen to land where you live).