Encouraging school, home and community gardens!
- Author: Rose Hayden-Smith
Published on: May 16, 2009
The governor has released a list of state properties that might be for sale in this time of unprecendented budget crisis. On that list are a couple of fairgrounds, including the Ventura County Fairgrounds.
The Ventura County Fairgrounds is actually California's 31st Agricultural District, and is under the oversight of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. You can visit that website to learn more about our Fairs and Expositions; they represent a great, and perhaps underutilized resource in our state.
Per a report produced under the leadership of Gray Davis (remember him?):
"The network of California fairs is an economic, social and cultural bonanza that enriches the lives of Californians from every background and walk of life. California’s fair network dates back to before the Civil War as a way to advance public knowledge of agriculture and provide a community gathering place. That tradition continues to this day, but with modern innovations that bring home the importance and reality of agriculture to an urban population that may have little contact with farms, ranches and agribusinesses."
The full report is at: http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Fai
The full report is at: http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Fai
We know that the mission of fairs has grown to include commercial ventures that hold little relation to agriculture (such as car races). But I also know that the Ventura County Fair is one of the last great fairs in California, one that truly evokes the spirit of agriculture, past and present, and helps people to understand more about those who work to feed us.
California legislates by ballot box. Competing initiatives and propositions from different election cycles make it difficult to develop and provide a coherent and sustainable roadmap for the state. The passage of one ballot initiative, for example, may rule out another.
California's initiative law was passed in 1911, during the Progressive Era. Ballot initiatives provided an instrument that enabled 'the people' to check excesses during a period when there was little regulation of industry or other aspects of American life (call it the Gilded Age). Peter Schrag, a columnist with the Sacramento Bee, has written about this in "Paradise Lost," which is available at
http://www.amazon.com/Para
(Schrag has also written a book more recently about California as America's "high stakes" experiment. He generates interesting and thought-provoking work that will challenge your thinking in any number of ways. If you hold the view that the beginning of the budget crisis in CA dates back to Prop 13 in 1978, Schrag's work may resonate with you. Even if you don't hold that view, you'll find his viewpoint worth considering, and he's a lively writer).
We are in a world of budget trouble in California. I have been sharing this with the many Mid-Westerners that I speak to on a daily basis. I don't know that my out-of-state friends fully comprehend the size of the state, and the implications for the nation if the experiment here fails. Per 2008 census estimates, 36,756,666 Americans live here...that's nearly 1 in 12. We have more than 6 MILLION students K-12 enrolled in our public school system; that's greater than the entire population of some other states. We're a MEGA state by nearly every index, including the challenge index.
We're also a mega agricultural producer. In 2007, California was the number 1 state in cash farm receipts. The state produces about half of U.S.-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables. Many crops are produced solely in California. Bring this down to a smaller, local level, and California is still a leader: we are also home to some of the most productive agricultural counties in the U.S. Per 2002 Ag Census figures, 9 of the nation’s top 10, and 12 of the top 20 ag producing counties are in California. Ventura County is one of them.
So what does this have to do with the sale of state property? Agriculture is not just something that's part of our past, as in some other places. It's vital to California's future, and the state's current economic health. And the kinds of foods we produce are vital to human health, which ought to be a national priority. This is important and heady stuff, the stuff of a nation's food security, a nation's future.
How do we preserve this and assure agriculture's vitality for future generations? We continue to educate the public about the importance of agriculture, no matter how deep the budget cuts go. If anything, we do MORE. Agricultural education is our seedbank; it is where we should be sowing more now, to reap future benefits. Not just in California, but nationally.
So what does this have to do with the sale of state property? Agriculture is not just something that's part of our past, as in some other places. It's vital to California's future, and the state's current economic health. And the kinds of foods we produce are vital to human health, which ought to be a national priority. This is important and heady stuff, the stuff of a nation's food security, a nation's future.
How do we preserve this and assure agriculture's vitality for future generations? We continue to educate the public about the importance of agriculture, no matter how deep the budget cuts go. If anything, we do MORE. Agricultural education is our seedbank; it is where we should be sowing more now, to reap future benefits. Not just in California, but nationally.
How do we do this? For example, we could lose No Child Left Behind and replace it with education about agriculture. When we don't educate youth about the food system and healthy lifestyle, we leave all children behind. Substitute it with a national curriculum that incorporates food systems education, environmental awareness, and human health. Teach children about agriculture, where their food comes from, about the importance of healthy soil in producing healthy food and healthy communities. That's a good start (and my next public policy agenda item).
But we also need to keep the Fair and Exposition system intact in the Great State of California. If anything, we commit to pumping into that system more money, resources and a real MANDATE to improve and increase the focus on agricultural education, making it once again the primary mission of these public venues. We develop a coherent educational and outreach plan that involves all stakeholders, including agricultural interests (who, in Ventura County, do a great job of educating the public about their work at the Fair). But we don't sell fairgrounds, which sometimes provide the only link between consumers and the agriculture that feeds them.
The threat to sell state properties such as fairgrounds may be a publicity stunt on the part of the Governor. He is clearly trying to let citizens know that we are in a dire situation, and that whether these ballot measures pass or not in the upcoming special election, that there is going to be a lot of pain to go around. He is daring us to consider what might happen if we fail to approve these measures. Double dog dare the voters.
But talk about selling fairgrounds? If we value the future of agriculture in California, this is not a dare any of us should be willing to take.
The threat to sell state properties such as fairgrounds may be a publicity stunt on the part of the Governor. He is clearly trying to let citizens know that we are in a dire situation, and that whether these ballot measures pass or not in the upcoming special election, that there is going to be a lot of pain to go around. He is daring us to consider what might happen if we fail to approve these measures. Double dog dare the voters.
But talk about selling fairgrounds? If we value the future of agriculture in California, this is not a dare any of us should be willing to take.
"A Garden for Everyone. Everyone in a Garden."
csaboxes2008
Tags: 31st Agricultural District (1), agricultural education (1), CDFA (2), Fairgrounds (1), Peter Schrag (1), Progressive Era (2), Ventura County Fairgrounds (1)
Comments: 0
- Author: Rose Hayden-Smith
Published on: May 10, 2009
I’ve been pondering a lot the last three weeks, trying to think outside the box, and trying to proceed as if there is no box at all. Two weeks of conferences in a row, one the Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Conference, the second sponsored by the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Very different conferences, but a common theme: Food Systems All the Time.
At the UC-sponsored professional conference that I recently attended, I had the opportunity to hear historian James McWilliams speak. I have read some of McWilliams’s work previously and greatly admire his research and work. (He’s also an incredibly likable and humorous man on a personal level). Like me, McWilliams is an historian attempting to use the past to inform current public policy in the nation’s food system. (I like this. We need more historians informing public policy in general, and particularly vis-à-vis food systems). Our research focuses on different areas; we agree on some things, but disagree on others. I will be reviewing his upcoming book, Just Food: How Locavores Are Endangering the Future of Food and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly (Little Brown, June 2009), for this blog.
The title of McWilliams’ talk was “Business, But Not Business as Usual: A Proposal for the Future of Sustainable Agriculture.” It was offered to academic and program staff affiliated with UC’s Agriculture and Natural Resources Division, some of us working with Extension, others with campuses. For an organization charged with working with all aspects of the food system, we don’t actually talk about it at the systems level much. This conference was different: McWilliams offered the plenary, and spoke directly to the topic. There were also two other sessions/workshops that discussed these sorts of issues; they were very well attended, and have provoked discussion and conversation that is continuing in post-conference settings. Not just nationally, but in my own institution, forces and issues and needs and agendas are converging in a perfect storm of interest in the food system. Change is inevitable; nearly every institution is going through a period of “creative destruction” due to budget constraints. There are new challenges and opportunities for all of us.
McWilliams’ opened his talk by asserting that fixing the food system is one of the most pressing tasks we face in this country. Agreed. Nearly every problem we face as a nation can be addressed in some way – and in some big ways - by improving the current food system. But McWilliams made a statement with which I heartily disagree: essentially, that the Locavore movement seeks to “banish to the dustbin” other models.
I’ve never termed myself a “Locavore,” although I’m a strong believer in the value of strong local and regional food systems, and actively promote them. I believe that multiple food systems exist – and probably always will – and that most of us participate in several kinds of food systems simultaneously. I don’t seek the destruction of any food system. I seek instead, the room and opportunity to develop alternatives for the places and situations in our country where the predominant, or meta, food system is not working effectively.
McWilliams argued for a kind of pragmatism that I find appealing in a general and theoretical sense…work within the system rather than against it. There’s a certain logic in that…perhaps…sometimes. Using the success of Forest Ethics as a model, McWilliams argued that those of us advocating for local food systems should be more pragmatic, reconsider working with agribusiness, find common ground, seek real solutions, and be prepared to compromise some, to seek evolution in the food system rather than revolution. McWilliams presents a persuasive model, in a persuasive way. Evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
But I’ve had other people to persuade me, too, to remind me that real change is needed, and needed now. Will Allen is someone I admire immensely. I heard him speak (again) the week before McWilliams made his presentation at UC. The creator of Growing Power, a MacArthur genius grant recipient, and a national leader in the sustainable food systems movement, Allen provides eloquent testimony about the kinds of changes needed to make the food system more effectively meet the needs of some parts of urban America. In his case, that has involved creating a new kind of food system model. What he has done in Milwaukee within a framework of urban agriculture is simply astounding. There is a lot to be learned from this work. Allen is a big man, physically; he also has big ideas. What I love about his work is that he applies his visionary ideas in ways that are highly impactful on the local level. I believe his work has the ability to be scaled up, which could have positive implications for other urban areas.
Allen has recently published a manifesto proposing a novel and worthy public policy idea, suggesting the creation of a “public-private enabling institution" called the Centers for Urban Agriculture. Per Allen’s document, “It would incorporate a national training and outreach center, a large working urban farmstead, a research and development center, a policy institute, and a state-of-the-future urban agriculture demonstration center into which all of these elements would be combined in a functioning community food system scaled to the needs of a large city. We proposed that this working institution – not a “think tank” but a “do tank” – be based in Milwaukee, where Growing Power has already created an operating model on just two acres. But ultimately, satellite centers would become established in urban areas across the nation. Each would be the hub of a local or regional farm-to-market community food system that would provide sustainable jobs, job training, food production and food distribution to those most in need of nutritional support and security.”
Allen is not only proposing a new kind of model for urban food systems…it seems to me that he is proposing a (largely) new location for Extension work and new kind of Extension model. Allen’s proposal seems to combine elements of working both within and outside of the system. Especially because I’m familiar with his work, I find it compelling and thought-provoking. It is clear to me that our current land grant system – in a national sense – has not put enough muscle into urban agricultural and local food systems efforts. We have made many notable contributions, to be certain, but our institutional resources have not flowed into this area in the large way that would be needed to effect national change. There are many reasons for this: years of declining funding; the relative dearth of funded research opportunities in this area, at least until recently; political pressures; lack of mandate; lack of understanding of the interconnectedness of our work in agriculture and human areas; a failure to fully anticipate the converging crises and challenges facing us; and perhaps even a lack of awareness of how large, mainstream and dynamic the interest in sustainable foods systems has become.
I’d suggest that everyone reading this blog read Will Allen’s proposal and James McWilliams’ soon-to-be-released book. Their work represents stark differences in opinion on options for local food systems. Point and counter-point.
A final note: As we participated in this UC conference, which was focused on creating implementation strategies for a Strategic Vision plan UC Cooperative Extension and its related components have developed relating to our work for the next 15 years, we were initially told to “think out of the box.”
Then a better framing statement was offered…”There is no box.”
McWilliams’ ideas actually retain the box - or framework - of the existing national and largely industrialized food system. Allen’s work assumes no box.
“A Garden for Everyone. Everyone in a Garden.”
goodfoodsystemboxcrop
Tags: Extension (1), food systems (6), Growing Power (1), locavore (1), McWilliams (1), public policy (2), urban agriculture (3), Will Allen (2)
Comments: 4
- Author: Rose Hayden-Smith
Published on: April 21, 2009
I'm at the Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Conference in San Jose, where several hundred indivdiuals interested in all aspects of the food system are convening. It's busy and hectic and wonderful.
This evening, The Washington Post published a story by noted writer Jane Black about a USDA announcement important to all Victory Growers.
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announces the expansion of The People's Garden...and more. Per Jane Black at The Washington Post, "The garden now will encompass all of the agency's property on the Mall, and the department will work with organizations across the country to encourage individuals, schools and communities to establish gardens." Victory Grower here. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a formal encouragement for a national gardening movement. Those of us working in this area know the movement has already started, and the interest around gardening is a tsunami. Would I have liked a stronger, bolder and more emphatic nudge? Probably. Do I love this? Absolutely! Am I eager to partner with and support the USDA's effort? I will and do...24/7. Am I thanking Secretary Vilsack? From the bottom of my heart! Shovels ready, America? Be a Victory Grower!
This is just the beginning....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/04/21/ST2009042102803.html
I'll post more on this in the next few days.
- Author: Rose Hayden-Smith
Published on: March 14, 2009
Recently, to mark the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birthday, Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack broke ground on The People's Garden at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In his speech, Secretary Vilsack set a goal of creating a community garden at every USDA site in the world.
It is fitting that the USDA should choose to honor President Lincoln through the creation of a People’s Garden. When Lincoln established the USDA in 1862, at a time when more than half the population of the country was involved in agriculture, he referred to it as "The People's Department." It’s a description that is as true today as it was then.
What has always moved me to tears about Lincoln’s legislative work in 1862 is the breathtaking optimism required to be able to envision and enact it. 1862 was a year when the success of Union forces was mixed at best. In May, Union troops were forced to retreat across the Potomac to protect Washington, D.C. In August, about 10,000 of the 62,000 Union soldiers fighting were wounded or killed in the bloody and horrific Second Battle of Bull Run. Military leadership was replaced more than once. Support for the war in the North was not solid.
Despite these challenges, Lincoln had an unshakeable belief that the Union would prevail. He knew that a united America would need new farmers to homestead the vast continent that held so much promise. He knew that educational institutions – land grant institutions that literally arose from the land itself – would be needed to train a new generation of American farmers in a nation no longer divided by civil war.
Lincoln’s vision was audacious, and the legislation it inspired transformed America.
The Morrill Land-Grant College Act, passed in 1862, authorized public land grants to create colleges that would teach agriculture, home economics and “mechanic arts.” The Morrill Act mandated that colleges of agriculture be established in all U.S. states and territories and the District of Columbia, totaling 59 colleges known as "1862” institutions. (A second Morrill Act in 1890 addressing racial inequities established 17 additional land-grant colleges known as “1890” institutions.) Another piece of noteworthy legislation that passed in 1862 was the Homestead Act, which provided 160 acres of public land to settlers, and which gave many family farmers their start.
As a result of Lincoln’s vision, a national department of agriculture was formed, land grant institutions were created, and the vast reaches of the continent were populated with the sturdy yeoman farmer of Thomas Jefferson’s musings. Lincoln’s ability to inspire a nation to change amidst a war that threatened its very existence should inspire us today.
The People’s Gardens proposed by the USDA have the potential to demonstrate to a new generation of Americans the power of the simple act of gardening to transform a nation. President Lincoln would be proud to see his legacy to the land continue to endure through the People’s Garden. Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack should be congratulated.
But we, The People, could do more. The establishment of a People’s Garden at each USDA site in the world is a wonderful goal. But a truly visionary goal – one of Lincolnesque proportions – would be for our nation’s leadership to encourage the establishment of millions of “people’s gardens” across the nation. And for us, as engaged citizens, to answer the call to service. How could this be done? Simply by encouraging Americans to cultivate gardens of all sizes at schools, homes, in the community and at workplaces, through a revival of the successful and iconic Liberty/Victory Garden campaigns of WWI and WWII.
In a speech he delivered to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society in 1859, President Lincoln shared his feelings about how the cultivation of land – even “the smallest quantity of ground” - supported freedom and independence. He said, “…and ere long the most valuable of all arts, will be the art of deriving a comfortable subsistence from the smallest area of soil. No community whose every member possesses this art, can ever be the victim of oppression of any of its forms. Such community will be alike independent of crowned-kings, money-kings, and land-kings...."
“…whose every member possesses this art.” Lincoln’s words still hold true.
The USDA should lead the way in reviving a national gardening effort, now. And we should all answer the call to service by participating. A People’s Garden is the first step. But a garden for everyone - and everyone in a garden - is a better goal, a needed goal, a worthier goal for our nation in this time of hardship…and opportunity, if we can envision it.
Tags: 1862 (1), Abraham Lincoln (1), Homestead Act (2), land grant institutions (1), Morrill Act (2), People's Garden (3), Tom Vilsack (2), USDA (8), Victory Gardens (7)
Comments: 0
- Author: Rose Hayden-Smith
Published on: March 3, 2009
Eck, Joe and Wayne Winterrowd. Our Life in Gardens. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009.
Practical and prophetic, particular and poetic, and entirely personal, Our Life in Gardens is a book well worth reading. Part memoir, and part garden book, it is a completely engaging and riveting book to enjoy, perhaps while sitting in a favorite chair in the garden on a sunny afternoon, or by the fire on a cool, wet day, when gardening might be more of an intellectual pursuit. Composed of nearly 50 essays arranged in alphabetical order, the book is termed by its authors a “gypsy trunk of this and that.” I’d think of it more as an old-time curiosity cabinet, a curio full of treasures to be pulled out and carefully savored, one by one.
Our Life in Gardens is written by Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd, founders of the Vermont garden design firm North Hill. They are also the authors of two other collaborative works, including A Year at North Hill: Four Seasons in a Vermont Garden and Living Seasonally; The Kitchen Garden and the Table at North Hill. (Each has also written books individually). North Hill, which is a primary topic - but not the exclusive subject - of this book, is the creation of nature and Eck and Winterrowd. It is regarded by many people as one of the finest private gardens in the United States.
This book reads like an iterative conversation occurring during a friendly visit, incorporating a fine meal, and an informative (and informed) walk around the garden at North Hill. I often felt as if I were in the garden with Eck and Winterrowd. While the book is co-authored, it appears to be penned in a single, unified voice, the result perhaps, of the authors’ lifetime of shared personal and professional experiences, many of which have occurred within the context of the gardens they have cultivated together.
Again, the book is a highly practical gardening guide, which provides incredible detail about different kinds of plants and Eck and Winterrowd’s experiences with cultivating them. The authors are incredibly observant and provide much valuable information about garden design, as well. Descriptions are complete, Latin names are provided, and the illustration provided at the beginning of each essay is handsomely rendered.
Recently, I have been writing about the ephemeral nature of gardens. Eck and Winterrowd also note this in several places in the book. There is a certain poignancy to Eck and Winterrowd’s writing about the passage of time, an intimacy that is both heart warming and heart rending, the sharing of something as personal as a garden made together…a life made together.
As I read, I was with Eck and Winterrowd as they enjoyed their early gardening efforts in a “grand” apartment located at 89 Beacon Street, across from the Public Garden, sharing their joy in the chickens they raised there. (Chickens in a Beacon Street apartment…see, you must read the book). I learned about their Xanthrorrhoea Quadrangulata, an Australian native they acquired during a visit to the Los Angeles Arboretum, and which has grown into “a great potted ox of a plant” at their home in Vermont. They note and carefully (lovingly) describe the growth of individual plants, including a Japanese apricot, the way I note and describe the growth of my daughter.
Eck and Winterrowd have produced an extraordinary book that provides valuable and practical information about any number of plants, and about gardens, their design, and their value in our lives. This book moved and humbled me, because of its incredible combination of all things practical and the personal experiences it shares. For Eck and Winterrowd have written with an authentic voice about the sacred and ordinary act of gardening, about home, their favorite tools and things, domestic life, vocation and avocation, seasons, and journeys they have taken, together.
Eck and Winterrowd understand something key that draws so many of us into gardening: that fact that “gardens are infinitely imaginable.” But Eck and Winterrowd have also provided a window into the other kinds of journeys that we as gardeners take when we carefully, lovingly cultivate gardens, stepping into possibility, the journeys of the heart that all true gardeners – and those who aspire to garden – know.
"A Garden for Everyone. Everyone in a Garden."
Tags: book review (3), Eck (1), gardens (2), Los Angeles Arboretum (1), North Hill (1), Winterrowd (1)
Comments: 0
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