Thoughts and Actions

On Monday of last week, my office held the annual benefits meeting. All of my colleagues, managers and peers crammed into our small conference room. Sales people, well dressed and glued to their Iphones, and warehouse employees, still strapped into their stretchy back supports, all together to hear the changes we will experience this year. My company has great benefits and the $1 per month raise in my insurance deduction was hardly worth even holding a meeting over. But one slide in particular stood out to me.

It read:

By 2012, 70% of Americans will be overweight.

My hand shot up as the presenter sped past this statistic.

“What does that mean?” I asked. “70% will be obese or just overweight?” He shifted his weight a bit.

“You know, I’m not sure” he replied.

“Do you know what percentage will be children?” I went on. Again, he shook his head “no”.

This overwhelming feeling came over me just then. I have to do something, I thought to myself. This is too important.

But what can I do? Where do I even start? Yes, I can cook a meal that’s healthy and have a kitchen garden and chickens in my yard. But what am I really doing? And why am I not doing more?

I don’t have the answer yet. But I intend on doing my part to find it and to bring awareness to the people who are actually doing something.

So, I spent today at the Port City Development Center urban farm. A truly joyful and inspiring experience to say the least. Port City is a center for adults with disabilities, a place where they go to work and to learn. As part of this program, they began a CSA and community garden in March of 2009. The $600 fee that is paid to join the CSA goes to paying the wages of the clients who work in the gardens and with the farm animals. The remainder is funded largely by donation. Here a couple photos from my visit today. Can’t wait to go back.

Foodprint

There are so many things to consider when it comes to the impact we, as individuals, have on the environment. Transportation is one consideration. The additions we make to landfills is another. What about the food we eat? Is this something we should be taking into consideration? The Foodprint movement is saying that we do.

A Foodprint is,  ”our food system’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change through the production, processing, packaging, shipping, storage and disposal of food,” according to the Foodprint USA website.   In a study done by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, it was found that “globally one-third of all GHG emissions comes from agriculture and land use changes, and that approximately 12% of the total GHG emissions per U.S. household result from growing, packing, preparing and shipping food nationwide,” the website also reports.

Somehow, statistics bring validity and reality to facts that I’ve pushed to the back of my mind. A couple years ago I read a report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about the impact that animal agriculture has on climate change and air pollution.  The information was a bit overwhelming but the ideas stuck with me. But, it’s still easy to ignore something though when it’s not staring you in the face everyday.

How do we determine our Foodprint? Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer yet. But through out the country, many local governments are on the push to get “green food resolutions” put into place. The resolutions are still pretty vague and non-binding but at the core the goal is to make fresh local food accessible to all.  They are encouraging local governments to establish climate friendly food policies and encourage urban farms and farmers market. The resolutions will also encourage public awareness campaigns about the health and environmental impact of our food choices.

I’m not sure where this will lead but both Chicago and New York City are in the process of reviewing resolutions. A big push is coming from campaigns by the Farm Sanctuary, a farm-animal protection group. According to Meredith Turner, spokesperson for Farm Sanctuary, Signal Mountain, a small town in Tennessee, is the first town to approve a green food resolution. Awareness never hurts, that’s all I can say.

Check out the Foodprint NYC here.

 

Fall Vegetables Oct. 30, 2009

The fall vegetables are making good progress. This bed is new and a bit of an experiment. With a late start on getting the fall crops in, I used larger starts which were on sale at Garden Fever. The bed and plants went in around the second week of September. With a mild fall, they could hold up through November here in Portland (we are climate zone 6). But, if we get an early frost, chances are I could lose some crops before we can harvest. Good news is, we have been eating the kale for a couple weeks now. It really thrived in this partly sunny spot, who knew?  The bed contains broccoli, cabbage, kale, leeks and onions.

I am in the process of researching a cover for this particular bed. Something to protect it and hopefully trap in some warmth.  I’ve noted that this particular spot gets hit pretty hard when the wind is blowing.

If anything, my first fall garden has been fun and beautiful to look at. The purple cabbage and kale mixed in with the various shades of green from the onions and the variegated kale leaves, it better than any landscape in my opinion. Plus, it gives me a reason to get out there and play around.

 

An Edible Yard

When I finally bought a house of my own, in an urban neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, I couldn’t wait to get my hands in the dirt. I pictured tomato plants, salad greens, maybe some beans. A garden I could actually harvest something from, but still presentable and easy to maintain.  While walking my dog in my new neighborhood, I came across a series of three houses that shocked and confused me. These three homes were grand in stature, well taken care of and completely lawn free. In the place where a lawn would normally be, there were carrots, kale, spinach, artichokes, zucchini, green beans, peas, sunflowers and more. Upon closer investigation, I realized that there were no clear definitions between these neighbors’ yards. Rows of vegetables crisscrossed all three properties, gutters from each house lead to joint rain catching barrels and rows of berries were lined up where a fence might normally go. I walked home equally inspired and defeated.

As a child, my playground was the garden. Experiments and adventures, of the fresh food variety, filled my life like a never ending fruit bowl. I would lay beneath the rows of marionberries for hours, my fingers and lips dyed purple from taste testing. Or spend entire afternoons attempting to eat an ear of corn kernel by kernel. I both initiated and accepted any edible challenge that was presented to me.

Growing up in the country, having a garden made sense. We had space to put in large beds and were part of a culture that nurtured farming. But, I eventually settled in the city, moving between apartments where the outdoor space included concrete balconies and well manicured common lawns. Gardening remained just a memory. Sure, I had a couple house plants that I kept in a constant state of near death but the thought of actually growing so

mething edible hadn’t yet occurred to me. Until one day, while perusing the grocery store, I bought three small plant starts and put a tiny herb garden in my kitchen window. My intentions in buying them were purely aesthetic, “How cute will these guys look in my window?” I thought, grinning at my new found domestic side.

To my surprise, pasta with fresh basil and rosemary red potatoes had never tasted so good. Potted tomato plants on my balcony soon followed. I’m not a gardener. The skills I gained as a child centered mostly around eating. Learning to grow vegetable has been a series of trials and mostly errors. Balcony farming had it’s limitations, but it brought me a lot of joy and a little bit of actual food. I never dreamed, living in the city, gardening would ever provide more than that.

After seeing the lawn-free houses in my neighborhood, I knew I could do more, but how would I find the time or the skill to create something of this magnitude? And after I created it, how would I maintain it?  Oh, and what about the part where I would actually have to talk to and get to know my new neighbors? Talk about overwhelming. Would the woman next door with the shiny blue tensil and abnormally large starfish hanging in her window really embrace me growing raspberries in her front yard? And could my gentle sloping, grassy front lawn actually be transformed into an edible oasis? My mind was racing.

I’ve come to find out that I am not alone in my concerns or desires. With the downturn in the economy and a nutrition crisis staring us in the face, urban farming is becoming an increasingly popular solution. With the limitations of time and space, people are using creativity and resourcefulness to bring fresh food to the city.

In North Portland, Alice Lasher’s front yard spills over with edible items. At her day job, she works at the fire department and is often found teaching and discussing topics related to food security.  At home, she answers her concern for these issues with a local approach.

Her yard speaks directly to my stomach: Asian pears, tomatoes, broccoli, kale, strawberries and so on. Every inch of earth is growing something. She started her personal “Food Not Lawns” endeavor at this house just over two years ago and since has expanded her efforts to include two other garden spaces in her neighbor’s yard.

**continued