Urban Farming Ignites Thanks to Alice Waters: Return to American Roots

Everything old is new again, at least in U.S. urban farming.  A much-needed return to American agriculture roots. 

And that's very good news for tens of millions of city dwellers today, especially school-age children. 

Alice Waters, innovative chef and leading real food activist, is credited with igniting America's return to urban agriculture by founding her Edible Schoolyard Project two decades ago. 

The White House staff, led by First Lady Michelle Obama, stylishly reinforced the principles of the Edible Schoolyard Project by replanting and publicizing a vegetable garden on White House grounds. 

Before the 20th century, Americans grew much of their family food supply. During both World Wars, U.S. presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt urged Americans to cultivate backyard produce gardens to ameliorate food shortages. At its height, the National Victory Garden movement produced 9 million pounds a year of fruits and vegetables during World War II, about 44% of the nation's produce. 

Urban agriculture largely died after World War II, as U.S. households eagerly bought the new ultra-convenient industrial-made foods filling supermarkets and sold by a rapidly expanding new breed of restaurant, the fast food joint.  The rest is American fake-food history...

In 2013,  a remarkably powerful resurgence of urban farming has been fueled by Alice Waters' pioneering 20-year-old agenda to restore "edible education" to urban school children and their families.  

Per a report released last week by the UCLA School of Public affairs, Los Angeles County, home to 10 million residents, boasts...

"... 1,261 verified urban agriculture sites — categorized as school gardens, community gardens and commercial primary growing sites... School gardens make up the majority of L.A. County's urban agriculture activity, with 761 sites. Commercial agricultural operations (nurseries and farms) total 382 sites, and the researchers documented 118 community gardens."

Los Angeles' tally of localized farming operations hasn't surged this high for nearly one hundred years, when midwest farmers were famously drawn west to California for its fertile land and fair weather. (See ad at right, circa 1929.)

The revitalized push to bring fresh produce to urban dwellers via local agriculture isn't confined to greater Los Angeles, which is uniquely suited in its vastness to accommodate growing crops.    

Similar projects proliferate across the nation, including in...

Seattle, where the city Office of Sustainability and Environment vigorously fosters urban farming, even declaring 2010 the "Year of Urban Agriculture." In 2008, the Seattle City Council passed the Local Food Action Initiative "to improve the local and regional food system."

Detroit, where urban farming has boomed as the sole source of fresh produce for a plethora of residents of the financially battered city. 

Chicago, where city zoning ordinances were elaborately amended to "allow agricultural uses like community gardens and urban farms in many parts of the city." 

Atlanta, where the Urban Agriculture Training Program has met massive statewide response in its program of "cultivating urban farmers and gardeners to build healthy, vibrant local food communities."

New York City, which is "starved for space, but increasingly, residents are filling every last inch they can find with (healthy) things they can grow and eat," notes WellandGoodNYC.com in an article on New York City's Biggest Urban Farms. "When The Design Trust for Public Space released its Five Borough Farm report last year, it found more than 700 food-producing sites within the five boroughs..."

The urban agriculture trend has exploded worldwide, as well. And just in time to partially meet demands of both American and worldwide hunger and healthy-food-shortage crises:

• 50% of the world's population lives in cities.
• By 2015, 26 cities in the world are expected to have a population of 10 million-plus.
• 250 million hungry people in the world live in cities. (Source - Wikipedia)

Thanks to one low-key meeting between Alice Waters and a public middle-school principal in her Berkeley neighborhood two decades ago, one acre of blighted school yard was tilled, seeded, and tended into a glorious vegetable garden that transformed those students' lives... and transformed our national mindset about urban farming.

Or rather, reawakened Americans to the empowerment of growing our own produce, just as our families did before the powerful rise of industrial fake-food mega-corporations. 

Everything old and valuable and healthy is new again in U.S. urban farming. 

Farmers Markets, CSAs: A Blow for American Freedom of Choice

Farmers markets and farm coops, such as CSAs, are delicious antidotes to industrial fake food products. 

And both provide a powerful marketplace for people to directly support family farms, gardeners, and local communities. (CSA is an acronym for community supported agriculture.)

 August is the gloriously perfect month to enjoy... or begin to enjoy... fresh produce. Farmers' markets are open across the country in mid-summer, and bursting with freshest goodness... with melons, corn, tomatoes, zucchini and summer squash, peaches and nectarines, bell peppers, blueberries and strawberries, eggplant, and much more, depending on the U.S. region.

This week, my CSA carton will include a watermelon, two varieties of peaches, two lbs of tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, baby broccoli, a bunch of basil, potatoes, bell peppers, and a unique red romaine lettuce. (All for $38!) All was grown, harvested, and distributed by small family farms in Central California. 

To locate a farmers market, call or check the website of your local city government or Chamber of Commerce.   Or search here using the USDA's comprehensive "Farmers Markets Search" database. 

To find a CSA that serves your community, search here at Local Harvest's database. At Local Harvest's website, you can also learn about the workings of CSAs, and about the advantages for both farmers and consumers.  

One more reason I urge everyone to shop farmers markets and CSAs: freedom. 

Freedom from the unhealthy industrial fake foods that dominate supermarkets. Freedom from supporting major industrial corporations rather than local entrepreneurs.  Freedom from the federal government's funding agenda (via the farm bill) of genetically-modified foods teeming with chemicals, additives, fillers, and artificial flavors and colors... fake foods manufactured by political donors.  

Besides being sunny fun, think of shopping farmers markets and CSAs as striking a blow for American freedom of choice. 

Farmers Markets to Multiply, Expand in 2013, Thanks to New California Law

In 2013, Californians enjoy new access to millions of handcrafted, artisanal "real" foods, thanks to the Homemade Foods Act signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown. 

California is the 26th state, to date, to join the cottage-food movement, which eliminates most red-tape blocking micro-businesses and home cooks from selling their chemical-free deliciousness directly to the local public. 

As the nation's largest state, California is estimated to boast an astonishing 11.5 million home-kitchen entrepreneurs... all now newly freed to earn a living from their homes, with minimal regulations. 

Under state law before 2013, it was a misdemeanor for Golden state home-cooks to make money off their culinary creations, except on a small-scale to benefit charities. 

I wish this smart legislation had occurred in the late 1990s, when I naively started a fledgling home-business baking and selling our family's in-demand caramel fudge brownies, created with the finest, purest ingredients. One holiday season, we worked tirelessly to bake, package, and deliver our divine goodies to friends, family, neighbors. We made decent money for a brand-new product, and our customers were happily sated. 

Then the county health department came calling... and for lack of minimum $25,000 to lease or build a commercial kitchen, we were out of business:

• A small business squashed. 
• Sales and income tax revenue for the state ended. 
• A product free of chemicals, additives, preservatives, and fillers killed. 

Like our caramel fudge brownies, most home-made foods offered for public sale are devoid of the chemicals, emulsifiers, fillers, additives, preservatives, artificial colors and flavorings commonly found in highly processed, modern industrial Fake Food products.   

California's Homemade Foods Act excludes only foods containing cream or custard fillings, or meat, all which require refrigeration. Foods newly eligible to be created and directly sold by home entrepreneurs include breads, jams and preserves, fruit pies, cookies and cakes. tortillas, honey, dried fruits, roasted nuts and nut mixes, chips, and granolas.  

A few important, necessary rules do apply, including:

• A county "Class A" permit
• Enrollment in a food handling course
• Adherence to basic food-handling procedures (hand-washing, hair nets, etc.)
• Only one non-family employee
• Creation of the food products in the primary residence kitchen
• Maximum gross sales of $35,000 in 2013, $45,000 in 2014, $50,000 in 2015.
• Items must be sold from the home or at local events as farmer's markets, bake sales, or agricultural subscription sales such as CSA services. 

A Class B permit requires an inspection, but also allows for sales to restaurants, food trucks, and retail grocers.  

Cottage food laws, such as California's Homemade Foods Act, are tremendously empowering to the American people to...

• Buy handcrafted, artisanal food products, unadulterated by chemical-laden industrial processes
• Support small, family-owned businesses 
• Allow small farms to supplement crop incomes with additional food products
• Inject more commerce into local economies
• Generate more taxes for state coffers

As a result, farmer markets are expected to gloriously multiply and expand in 2013 with enticing new products. Who knows? Maybe we'll revive our unbelievably scrumptious caramel fudge brownies.