Another Win for the CIW and SFA

by intern Lila Wilmerding

This morning foodservice corporation Aramark signed a significant agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW).  In a joint statement, the two parties announced that Aramark has decided to “pay a 1.5-cent premium for every pound of tomatoes picked, with the premium to be distributed directly to harvesters.”  In combination with other conditions of the agreement, this is a great step towards fairer wages and labor conditions on US farms.

Aramark’s pledge is the eighth agreement that has resulted from the Student Farmworker Alliance’s “Dine with Dignity” campaign.  Sodexo is the only major food service provider yet to sign.  Now that the four biggest fast-food companies and two biggest food service companies have made agreements with the CIW, supermarkets will hopefully be the next to follow suit. 

The agreement comes at an exciting time for the CIW, as their Farmworker Freedom March (a 22-mile march between Tampa and Lakeland, FL from April 16-18) is quickly approaching.

Iron Chef, whole grains edition

by Robin Kerber, CIA Student and volunteer with Slow Food Hudson Valley

As I sat in the car, waiting for my friends, I was thinking about a recipe for winter barley vegetable soup: butternut squash, roasted beets, celeriac, and barley.  After spending all day making pastries in class, nothing sounded more satisfying than a bowl of warm soup made with fresh, local ingredients.  But I wasn’t making the soup for me.  I was about to travel to the Mount Kisco Child Care Center to help with a friendly “Iron Chef” whole grains themed competition.

The first time that we—six students from the Culinary Institute of America—had traveled to Mount Kisco to plan our meal with the kids, I had had no idea what to expect.  What do children know about cooking let alone designing a dish?  It turns out they know a lot.  At least the children of The Mount Kisco Child Care Center do.  They have their own edible schoolyard, which produces a huge variety of fresh fruits and veggies.

My friends and I arrived with our knives sharpened and our whisks in hand.  My team came up with a recipe that sounded delicious and hearty, with flavors like thyme and parsley.  I’m fairly certain I didn’t know what thyme was until I was much older than these kids but the experience made me realize that something remarkable was spreading slowly but surely across the nation: initiatives to teach children how to live sustainably. The children were gathered around a table, carefully cutting vegetables into chunks.  We immediately got to work in the kitchen, helping the excited children prepare a tasty meal.  And, as dinner - time rolled around, the Center was packed with friends, family, and local purveyors.

Many of the courses featured wheat, oats, and cornmeal that were grown and milled in the Hudson Valley.  Local honey sweetened whole wheat bread and polenta with I&Me Farm pea shoots setting the stage for a fantastic meal.  My team’s vegetable barley soup and an entrée of quinoa pilaf with local apples helped make the meal a celebration of winter flavors.  By the time apple crumble was served, the consensus was clear: local food is simply great.  But it wasn’t just the food that made the night unforgettable.  It was the feeling that we were working as a unified group, rather than as individuals.  By the end of the evening, most would have to agree that life feels more meaningful when you understand the connection between land, food, and community.

Final words from the Mt. Kisco Child Care Center kids-Stephanie, Paulina, Sabrina, Vincent, Benji, Emily, Sam, Nitza, Jocelyn, Emma, Clara and Zachery aged 5-11:

“Everyone got to practice their knife skills.  We ran back and forth from harvesting fresh pea shoots to the busy kitchen.  Yummy taste of peas.”

“Maybe we’ll go to school to become chefs one day, but even if we don’t, we’ll be healthy eaters.”

Drake Forum discusses getting new farmers on the land

I just spent an invigorating 2 days in Washington DC at the Drake Forum, a gathering intended to “identify innovative policies and projects at the federal, state, and local levels to support new and beginning farmers.”  Right now the average age of the American farmer is 57, a statistic we bandy about without really knowing how to correct it.  I mean the answer is simple: get more young people on the land! Make farming a cool, viable career again! But easier said than done.

Jane Black covered it anecdotally in the Washington Post today, capturing just one of many of the fascinating stories shared with the 200+ group.  We heard stories of frustration—navigating the confusing maze of USDA programs available; stories of renegades succeeding despite the obstacles—Hmong farmer Susane Moua in St. Paul MN, turning backyards into a CSA program. 

The strength of this gathering lay in a few key places:
1. The focus on discussing real, possible solutions, especially in the policy arena
2. The presence of US Agencies, especially the USDA (including Secretary Tom Vilsack delivering the opining keynote)
3. The focus on bringing together big ag and sustainable ag (though the deck was a bit stacked towards the sustainable ag folks)

The conference was organized by Professor Neil Hamilton, Slow Food chapter leader in Iowas as well as the head of the Drake Agricultural Law Center.  Attendees seemed extremely energized following the final session today—one in which “policy reporters” from each panel summarized the potential policy solutions that arose on their panel as well as posing the essential remaining questions.

More after the jump

Chicago Students Cook Lunch for Congress

by intern Christine Binder

Earlier this week, a team of Chicago high school students traveled to Washington, D.C. to speak up for better school food, but they did not come empty-handed. The students, from the Tilden Career Community Academy, brought along their award-winning recipes. Back in October, the team of six won the Healthy Schools Campaign’s 2009 “Cooking Up Change” competition. Their chicken-vegetable jambalaya, jalapeno cornbread, and cucumber salad were served to Congress in the Longworth House of Representatives cafeteria and also at a Capitol Hill briefing on the future of school food.

The students specifically designed the menu to exceed current nutrition standards for school lunches and fall under a budget of one dollar per serving, which is the same amount that school districts around the country have to spend on ingredients for each school lunch. Meeting budgetary and nutritional requirements was the most difficult part of the competition, according to the Tilden students.

Cooking up Change gives students a forum to present their creative ideas about what healthy school food can be,” said Rochelle Davis, the founding executive director of Healthy Schools Campaign. “And while the contest is fun, it carries an important message: schools need more money for better food.”

More after the jump

Middle School Slow Food clubs meet with Josh Viertel

by Daniela Salazar Monárrez, 8th grader at Hillcrest Academy and Slow Food Club founder

Yesterday the Slow Food clubs of Van Avery Prep and Hillcrest Academy got together with the Slow Food USA president Joshua Viertel. Josh kindly came to Temecula to meet our two Slow Food clubs, which are the first middle school clubs in the country. We had prepared our questions and were armed with freshly picked lettuce, organic salad dressing, and lemonade made from school grown lemons. With tasty food and our questions ready to go, both schools felt comfortable for the arrival of our Slow Food celebrity.

Josh was tall. He was warm and friendly, greeting with a smile and handshake. All the members of both clubs got to shake his hand and listen to some information about the Slow Food Organization. The younger members got to ask a few questions, then the twelve chosen representatives went to the round table (which was really squared). The smaller group settled down and got ready to ask questions.

After an introduction by yours truly, the questions began. They ranged from personal specific things like “Do you have a garden?” to bigger more general things like “What would you change about food in the world, and why?” but each student got a chance to ask a question.

We learned about how he believes that the fact that some people don’t buy good food doesn’t mean they have bad morals. “... It says something bad about our society, that people don’t have enough money to buy good food for themselves,” he told us. We discovered that even Josh has bought fast food, when he was stuck at an airport, hungry, and had only fast food available. “No one is perfect,” he said “the main thing is how you act most of the time.”  Josh explained his interest in slow food and how he believed in the concept before he heard about the organization.

More after the jump

Youth food summit discusses food justice

by Slow Food on Campus member Julia Yerkovich

I have a confession to make:  I am not an activist.  I read my local Edible magazine and Michael Pollan’s books, and I shop at farmers markets.  But I am not an activist.  Because activists don’t buy, read, or eat their way out of their problems; activists, well, act.

This notion was probably the most important thing I realized this weekend at the “Strengthening the Roots” Convergence at UC Santa Cruz.  At first I was content with my self-contained actions of buying and eating local, and being a self-proclaimed escapist with ideals of aiming to live a self-sustaining lifestyle on my family’s farm.  I was satisfied with claiming the impossibility of toppling our capitalist government-run food system as a reasonable excuse for my refusal to act. I was frustrated with the isolated success of the food and health movement as being one that was possible only amongst those with the good fortune to have read the right books and buy the right foods. 

Then I met someone who told me of a place called the People’s Grocery in Oakland whose goal is to make healthy clean food accessible to ALL people.  And I met others who had organized against their campus food service providers, or had installed a campus garden, or student run food co-operative.  All of a sudden my actions of buying and eating local and my goals of escaping seemed selfish.  And I no longer saw the status quo as something discouraging, but as the exact reason for action.

And then I realized it is imperative to hear and tell success stories throughout this movement; without them we lose hope.  We have to be reassured that our efforts can lead to change. It is so easy to be inspired, only to choose not to act because of all the “realistic” roadblocks that stand in our way.  After hearing stories of students pairing up with farmworkers through the Student/Farmworker Alliance or the success of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, I was reminded that no one is ever too powerful, not even government or big business, to silence our attempts to improve our food system; because, after all, we are the ones who grant them their power, and without our support, they are nobody. 

On that note, I would like to leave you with a quote I heard this weekend, originally spoken by Lila Watson, an Australian aboriginal woman.  It’s a quote that truly illustrates the importance of community outreach in the success of the slow food movement: “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us walk together” What will move the sustainable food movement beyond being a trend is encompassing all classes.

Julia Yerkovich is a Nutrition Science Major, in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition in the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Sciences at California State Polytechnic University, in San Luis Obispo California.

Michelle Obama Launches Childhood Obesity Effort

by intern Julia Landau

Calling the childhood obesity epidemic “eminently solvable,” today the First Lady rolled out her plan to eradicate this serious health threat within one generation. Her take-home message? Let’s move!

Before unveiling the exciting project, Michelle Obama invited Will Allen, farmer and founder of Growing Power in Milwaukee, and Dr. Judith Palfrey, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics to talk about their work. The launch was also preceded this morning by the signing of an executive order creating a childhood obesity task force.
Approaching childhood obesity through four main avenues, the initiative (called “Let’s Move”) will focus on: helping kids and parents make healthy choices, providing healthy food at school, encouraging physical activity, and making healthy food accessible and affordable. Combining personal choice and public access, the initiative seeks to tackle the issue through “waves of efforts” across the country – starting right now. You can learn more at the Administration’s brand-new website, LetsMove.gov.

Speaking of cross-country-school-food-healthy-children efforts, Slow Food USA’s Time for Lunch campaign is doing just that – and giving citizens an opportunity to speak up. In her speech, Michelle Obama called for Congress to swiftly reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act and “get healthier food into our nation’s schools.” As the First Lady said, an investment in child nutrition pays for itself many-fold in the long run. To learn more about Slow Food’s efforts to give kids America’s kids a healthy future, check out the newly updated Time for Lunch Campaign web site.

Interested to hear more but didn’t catch the webcast? You can read the full transcript of the First Lady’s speech and, as always, check out the ObamaFoodorama blog for great updates on White House food initiatives.

Let’s keep moving!

Flagstaff Youth Garden

by Alaine Janosy

Youth gardens have become an integral part of spreading Slow Food USA’s message of good, clean, and fair food to young people throughout the country. Conserving and promoting a biologically diverse food system is a critical element of this message so those managing such gardens are encouraged to plant crops found on the Slow Food USA Ark of Taste. This year, Slow Food Northern Arizona co-leader, Gay Chanler, was instrumental in ensuring US Ark of Taste foods were part of the Flagstaff Youth Garden at the Museum of Northern Arizona.

The garden has been experimenting with the three sister crops of the Southwest—corn, beans, and squash—since it began in 2002. This past summer, Anna Normandin, garden coordinator and undergraduate student at Northern Arizona University, wanted to expand the diversity of the garden by growing out eight varieties from the USA Ark of Taste. Her goal was not only to increase the number of heirloom varieties in the garden, but also to find out how these varieties would grow in an arid environment 7,000 feet above sea level.

Anna and Gay worked together during the seed selection process, using information from the Native Seeds/SEARCH catalog to select varieties most likely to flourish in the Flagstaff climate. Native Seeds/SEARCH donated the seeds selected for the garden, including L’Itoi Onions, Palomas de Chihuahua Popcorn, Nambe Supreme Chili and Valarde Chili, Amaranth Paiute, New Mexico Tomatillo, Colorado Bolita Beans, Hopi Red Lima Beans, and Hopi Yellow Pole Beans.

More after the jump

Young food activist looks back on 2009

by Sam Levin, one of three coordinators of Project Sprout. Project Sprout is a student led and inspired onsite garden that supplements food served in the Monument Mountain High School (in Great Barrington, MA).

Exactly 365 days ago I sat down at this same computer and wrote a New Year’s Resolution piece for the Slow Food Blog. I said that my resolution was to inspire six other schools to start organic, student-led gardens. But do you ever tell yourself you’re going to do something, say, run 5 miles, but it’s really not until you stagger back into your house panting and dripping with sweat that you actually believe yourself? I guess I forgot how much can happen in the 8,760 hours that make up a year, because I did not really believe that my resolution would come to fruition.

However, one month after I first made that resolution we traveled to Martha’s Vineyard to speak at the schools there. My friend Luke had put together a video about our project, and we presented it to the public high school and the charter school. Within days after we spoke at the high school, a Facebook group of 90 kids had formed to start a garden. I wasn’t able to make it to the groundbreaking at the charter school that happened a few months later, but apparently the kids were ecstatic.

More after the jump

National Young Farmers Coalition

by Severine von Tscharner Fleming,
founding member of NYFC + director of the Greenhorns

Your farmer’s body needs protection.

Making it together.

The young farmers movement is growing, and the circle of caring continues to expand. As we work to build a business around our love of farming and a family alongside our practice, we encounter one scary part of growing up: Realizing how deeply critical our own health is to the viability of the farm. As young farmers with brave muscles and big dreams, we invest our best physical years in finding, setting up and capitalizing a farmstead. As entrepreneurs, we take tremendous risks and reinvest the earnings in service to a new small business. As citizens, we commit ourselves to place and to the performance of an ancient and sacred duty: providing sustenance to our community. But when the operation of all these interlocking systems relies for its longevity on the physical strength and resilience of an individual body, the body of the young farmer turns out to be one of the weakest links in the new food system.

We need healthcare. Many of us cannot afford it. Farming is physical labor with physical risks and with great demands on performance over time. As a nation served by many workers, some unionized, some wearing uniforms, we recognize the importance of retaining skilled practitioners with benefits. Our firefighters, coast guards and electricians are all provided with benefits, and healthcare. Why not farmers? Our enlisted soldiers and their families are provided with coverage for their service. Why not our farmers?

The reclaiming of our local economy will hopefully, in the next decade, be characterized by greater institutional regionalism. This means schools and hospitals buying food from local farms, this means deep partnerships of commerce within residential districts and within agricultural districts. In order to succeed at this level of engagement, the farmers will negotiate the hurdles of liability, red tape and logistics of rescaling. We’ll be operating forklifts and mid-sized delivery vans; we’ll be scaling up production. We will spend a lot of time resizing, retrofitting and rethinking systems of food production and distribution, in real time, and at real physical risk to ourselves. This is important work. We cannot lose the hardworking members of the team to illness and injury. We cannot lose any fingers or toes. We cannot afford for our farmers to be distracted by financial worry associated with the birth of a child or the infection of a blister. We need to provide health coverage for farmers, young and old, owners and workers, for the longevity of the sector and of the nation.

Are you interested in joining our National Young Farmers Coalition and working with partners to figure out possible solutions to the affordable health care situation? Please join the Greenhorns mailing list so that we can keep you in the loop.

Thank you.