April 2012

It’s 7am on a rainy Thursday morning when Brooke and I meet up with Dayne, Heather and some dedicated volunteers at Community Services Unlimited‘s Mini Farm at the Expo Center in South Los Angeles.  We’re just in time to help finish up with harvesting carrots, kale, collard greens, strawberries and a variety of herbs that will be distributed, same-day, to local residents through CSU’s Farm Fresh Produce Bag Subscription Program.

For as little as $40 a month, neighborhood residents can receive a grocery bag of fresh, local and organically grown fruits and vegetables once a week.  To supplement and add variety to the produce grown at Expo Mini Farm, CSU partners with small local family farmers growing in both rural and urban communities.  Each week CSU distributes 70-80 Farm Fresh Produce Bags at designated pick-up sites or directly to residents by bicycle delivery.

We are visiting partners in Southern California this week; in addition to CSU, we spent time with Social Justice Learning Institute in Inglewood and Food Forward in North Hollywood. We’ll share more pictures and stories in the coming weeks – stay tuned!

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by Peter Mann, Director Emeritus of WhyHunger’s Global Movements Program

This is an exciting time for those of us who work in local food systems!

Whether we are involved in fighting hunger and poverty, joining the Occupy movement, tending community gardens or supporting family farmers and fishers, many of us are coming together to create a more unified and more effective food movement. In the new book Food Movements Unite! Strategies to Transform Our Food Movements (Oakland, Ca: Food First Books, 2011), editor Eric Holt-Gimenez creates space for dynamic conversations about this exciting movement.

Food Movements Unite! makes it clear that the corporate food regime is dominating our planet’s food system  as well as being “environmentally destructive, financially volatile and socially unjust.” The book is “a window into the thinking and actions of the social movements fighting to bring our food systems under democratic control. It is about the emergence of alliances for the transformation of our food systems.” Social movements supporting family farming, agroecology and food sovereignty not only support farmers, but also describe a political platform to roll back the neoliberal assault on our food and farming systems.  Food Movements Unite! features voices of community food security activists, farm and labor leaders, feminist thinkers and prominent analysts to lay out the strategies for the convergence of organizations within the global food movement.

Tonight in New York City, WhyHunger, in partnership with the Brecht Forum and others, will host a panel discussion on the book’s themes. Eric Holt-Gimenez, local NYC food activist leaders Karen Washington and Ray Figueroa, leaders of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, members of Occupy Wall Street and others will be part of the discussion.

Come be part of the dialogue and grow the movement!

Co-Sponsors:

Food First, Food Chain Workers Alliance, Occupy Wall St. Food Justice, Friends of Brook Park, Black Urban Growers, the Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle of NY, the Brooklyn Food Coalition, and more.

 

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Yesterday over 40 youth from a local Salvation Army after school program participated in the launch of the Bushwick Campus Farm and Greenhouse Earth Week Celebration.  After quick introductions and a bit of practice with basic farm tasks, they were soon running the show. The youth worked collaboratively in teams to weed and add compost to the raised beds, plant seedlings, and water the new starts.  With their help the Bushwick Campus Farm is off to a great start for the 2012 growing season.

The Earth Week Celebration at Bushwick Campus Farm and Greenhouse is a collaborative project of EcoStation:NY, G-Camp, Boswyck Farms, Chrissy’s Cooking Club, Make the Road NY, El Puente,  and Bushwick Campus Food Fighters.

The Celebration continues on Sunday, April 22, from 12:00-5:00pm with an Earth Day Work Party at Hope Gardens Community Center and Woodbine St. Block Association Garden.  If you’re in New York and want to volunteer, email sean[at]ecostationny[dot]org.

How are you celebrating Earth Day?  Share your snapshots and a brief caption here!

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Urban Roots Youth Farm Interns

Each spring, Urban Roots hires on 24 youth farm interns between the ages of 14-17 to work on their 3.5 acre urban sustainable farm located in East Austin.  In addition to providing paid internships, during the 25-week paid internship program the youth farm interns participate in several different workshops covering a wide range of topics including sustainable agriculture, healthy lifestyles, life and job skills, and food justice issues.

For more information about Urban Roots visit them at: http://www.urbanrootsatx.org/.

 

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