There are a number of reasons why folks don’t think about the nitty-gritty. One is the idea that the food movement isn’t about money. It’s about going beyond the bar code, making economic transactions the result of relationships, and turning away from the money-grubbing multi-national food corporations.  This is all well and good, but local food needs money too. Some programs have stepped up to the plate to address this need, and the gap between consumer conscience and consumer pocketbooks.  The campaign for 10% Shift showed folks that shifting 10% of spending to local/independent businesses would produce 48,000 jobs in New England.  Slow Money, on the other hand, is an investment fund to start-up new food businesses, investing as if food, farms, and fertility matter.

10% Shift and Slow Money are taking a step forward and scaling up. The symbolic expression of foodiedom is all about being small. Thinking about production, marketing, and distribution, words created by our big ol’ capitalist system about big ol’ corporations, cuts into the image of farmers talking directly to consumers, artisanal foods, and community-based economics.  Obviously scale and locality are important parts of this movement.  Economy should be too, if we want it to survive.

The food movement can be about changing economic relationships AND efficiency; I argue that it must merge those two ideas.  Growing the movement is about finding ways to create change at the same time we are developing staying power in the economy.  Staying power and growth in the economy comes at a cost to the ego of symbolic expression: we have to look to corporate capitalism for advice.  We’ve got to scale up.  We aren’t going to change the way food is grown and distributed in this country through farmers markets, individual by individual.  We have to take bigger strides: institutions like schools and hospitals, restaurants, airports, businesses, and grocery stores. To expand to this level we need something big food is great at: efficient distribution channels and central aggregation facilities.

These assets are developing on the local food scene with what are known as food hubs. The USDA defines a food hub as “a centrally located facility with a business management structure facilitating the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution, and/or marketing of locally/regionally produced food products.”  There is a lot of room for growth in this industry and recent research (USDA, CIAS)  has worked to spell out the benefits and challenges of food hubs and extended distribution networks.  Certainly, with increased demand for local food beyond the individual consumer level, there is a need for larger scale growing and distribution (NPR).

A bump up in scale could be great for farmers. With skilled, like-minded distributors some weight can be lifted from farmers, who are often solely responsible for marketing and distributing their food. Farmers will have more time to grow food (or, god forbid work less), and distributors can help grow the farm business.  Farmers to You, what I’d call a “like-minded distributor”  or a “good middleman” considers growing their Partner farm businesses a part of their mission. Another important aspect of their business model is working with consumers to rethink their connection with food, the Earth, and money (see their blog).  Part of this is asking Families to make a commitment to the company and to the farmers, $30/week every week.  Farmers to You distributes Vermont-grown food to Boston area people.  Folks come to neighborhood driveways to pick up their food each week.

Although this is not institution level distribution, it is one scale step up from farmer markets.  Farmers to You has a pretty good balance going between staying power and  encouraging change. However, they are running into problems trying to support small, beginning farmers at the same time they are trying to provide consistency and fair prices to their Partner families.  The company sure won’t be changing customers minds if they are unhappy or dropping out of the service, nor will any farmers be supported in that scenario.  A balance is developing where Farmers to You offers business advice and counseling to farmers as they grow, giving them a market for their products as they reach the appropriate scale.

Another distribution company on this scale is Graze, also based in Vermont.  Their approach almost ensures more success in the marketplace, but the company shies away from being agents of social change. Graze delivers prepared foods, meat, cheese and value-added items to homes in suburban Boston and Connecticut. They’re marketing image is CONVENIENT, high-quality, local food.   Since its start the company has responded to consumer demand and shifted its focus to prepared foods and dinner kits, a smart move when your customers can afford to live in Weston, Lincoln, Wellesley, and Concord.

Unlike Farmers to You, Graze does not have a newsletter or blog and doesn’t require any commitment week to week.  They aren’t trying to challenge notions of economy or encourage people to rethink their relationship with food.  Instead, they are buying into the capitalist idea of convenience….and it’s working. They are filling a demand that Farmers to You perhaps couldn’t by supplying people with local food who don’t want to rethink economics, and why would they?  Instead, Graze makes choosing local, sustainable foods easier by making the option ultra-convenient.  If all the people who could afford it had convenient access to local food, farms would grow! Maybe even enough to reduce the price for less well-off folks.

Even though Graze is taking a more capitalist-driven approach they still have community-oriented goals and generate some of the benefits I talked about above. They are supporting local farmers and making farmer information available to their customers, much more than a conventional distribution company would do.  Some customers are changing their minds even without a push from the company.  In a holiday card one customer thanked Graze for offering her busy family healthy food every day. “The Graze delivery has really changed the way we eat!”   This is great news!

Farmers are also seeing benefits from Graze’s business model. Although Monument Farms Diary has been selling milk in Vermont for 3 generations, head farmer Bob James had never thought his milk would leave the state.  “It was so rewarding to hear Mr. James excitedly tell the farm crew that we [Graze]  were the ones bringing their milk to Boston and Connecticut,” said Marcia Pomerance, Boston-area Market Director for Graze.

I brought up Graze and Farmers to You because we need models going forward, especially as bigger distribution companies enter the market place. Establishing meaningful, lasting relationships becomes harder the more separation there is between farmer and consumer, between consumers, and the more farmers are involved with the distribution company. For instance, both Graze and Farmers to You are able to tell people exactly what farm their food is from, an important part of their models that could be lost as distribution scales up.  Another important message from analyzing these two distribution companies is that we will likely need many different types of larger scale distributors: ones that are really working with restaurants and schools to rethink food and ones that cater to institutions that focus on convenience.  Larger scale distribution companies are already developing: Food EX, Market Mobile, Blue Ridge Produce…  I don’t know enough about these companies to discuss them here, but I would love to learn how they balance economy with social change.

How can we iron out the inefficiencies of local agriculture while redefining the social meanings of efficiency, economy, and food?

“So you’re organizing a cooperative, but you need to make sure you aren’t replicating capitalist models.”
Ria argued back, ” Of course we’re replicating capitalist models.  How are we supposed to pay ourselves? Do you have a better plan?”
“I saw that Mao jacket you designed.  You’re creating bourgeois fashion.”
“Yeah, and we’re turning Maoism into an exotic commodity.”
“That’s right. And that’s because you have no clear line.”
“Show me a clear line, and I’ll show you the tension on a zigzag.”

(Yamashita 2010: 388)

There is no clear line! There never is and there can’t be. There is a continuum from purely capitalist, profit-driven, individualistic business to totally cooperative economics. Businesses and individuals are constantly sliding along this continuum, never stopping. You have to settle somewhere on it yourself, and continually question your opinions against the reality of your economic situation.  It is much easier for Olivia to say that capitalism is bad than it is for Ria to create a socialist business in a capitalist country. At some point, idealism must be sacrificed for practicality. The hope is that not everything has to be sacrificed and that somehow a balance can be found so that folks can both make a living and change the world a little bit.

My thesis explored how farms can survive in the economy while also working to change it. Reading about the food movement that took place during much of the same time that Yamashita writes about, it became clear that surviving in the economy has been a major struggle for revolutionaries and farmers. In Appetite for Change, Warren J. Belasco describes how the most radical foodies, the ones who moved to communes, realized they were dependent on the very model they tried to undermine.  They could not produce everything they needed and had to turn to industrial food as a safety net.  Just as for Ria, the revolutionary drive was not backed with an economic plan.

In a way, economy is the perfect place to start for a revolution. First of all, on capitalism rest many things revolutionaries stand up against: inequality, imperialism, racism… Second of all, economy is what binds people together. We all depend on others for the material needs of our existence and happiness. This is the basis of all economic activity and the division of labor that has happened since the dawn of culture!  Capitalism masks mutual need and today products are not produced because they satisfy human needs, but because they can make someone money. However, there are people in capitalism who do not want to take advantage of others to get rich. People like Ria and Olivia, and many people of the food movement.

Foodies attach much more than a monetary value to food. The value is in the farmers, the local land, sustainable farming practices, sharing meals with friends, jump-starting farm businesses, feeding healthy food to children, regaining control over something dominated by big business, outdoor education, and the list goes on. Business models that put these types of values into the system can help change notions of capitalism, commodities, and relationships between people. These types of businesses can help build a new capitalism if we can begin to see capitalism as a tool to make change.

It is silly to deny dependence on capitalism and that capitalism works as a business model. Even as revolutionaries try to undermine it, they are dependent on it. Even as Ria developed a cooperative, it was reliant on the capitalist model for its business.  Instead of trying to uproot the system, we can work to create (and are creating), through successful, value-driven business, a revolutionary capitalism. Just as Ria and Olivia fight in I Hotel, entrepreneurs of this revolutionary capitalism need to debate about sliding too far to either side of the capitalist/cooperative continuum.

More practically, for CSA farms and other forms of local food distribution this means adopting some qualities of the capitalist market to keep customers happy, whether it be choice, convenience, or economies of scale. In addition though, revolutionary food businesses must work to change consumer notions of what food, farming, and economy are. CSA works to do this with the newsletter, sharing with folks the challenges of farming. A new distribution company Farmers to You does this through customer blogging about the transformative effect of their delicious food and model. The ways to approach this are endless, and I know the passionate, and smart foodie entrepreneurs will come up with things we cannot imagine. Importantly, the movement cannot just focus on the success of new local food businesses in the market, though that is incredibly important. It also cannot just be about revolutionary protest or symbolic expression of foodiedom, though those are important too. Crazy as it is, we need capitalism in a Mao jacket.

Efficient body knowledge became ingrained throughout the season as we learned to double task in the wash station, separate into pullers (who yank storage roots up from the ground) and cutters (who cut off the tops for storage), and dig potatoes. This body economy worked its way into my mode of thought.  What is the most efficient way to finish the crop’s harvest? To help others finish their beet bands or pick up the beets already bunched? It depends on the number of bands on everyone’s wrists, the number of bunches on the ground, how many other people have finished their bands as well, what crop is next, and where the other crew members are.  This type of thinking came up in conversation with fellow apprentices as we discussed the best ways to get the work done, questioning and also praising our farm manager.

I think about it in my every day life too — how to efficiently clean a room, prepare for a party, or can food. The other day I had to make an emergency spinach delivery to Henrietta’s Table in Harvard Sq. I had my boyfriend along. There were two totes of spinach behind each of us and one in the trunk. Without consciously thinking about it, I had already reasoned the best way to grab the totes. Open the trunk. Grab the two totes from the back seat and stack them on the one in the trunk.  No big deal. But when Seth got out of the car he kind of stood around…came back to the trunk…got a little confused that I hadn’t grabbed the totes from the backseat, and walked over to my side of the car. Seth probably wasted very little time not executing my plan on the passenger side, but the point is that my body (and mind) have been conditioned to behave this way while his haven’t been farming for a season. This type of conditioning is very important in farming, especially as a manager. Matt thinks seriously about how many labor hours each job will take and splits us up accordingly, even considering the personality and body advantages of the crew members.

The apprentices have caught on a little.  We know what a one-woman job looks like, and how to divide the labor among more people right at the point where there is room. Here’s a funny example. Three of us were washing vegetables. Seth and I were spraying roots and Abby was dunking greens. Once the greens were clean Abby had nothing to do, really. She laughed as she turned diakon radishes for me, so as not to be standing around. And it went faster! Ideally, it would have just been two people in the wash station so no one had to think too hard about how to be useful.

Everyone has an economy of movement in their bodies. It shows in walking, crossing the street, folding laundry, resting…in everything. The efficiency of our organs interacting, our fingers typing, of preparing food….are all cultivatable though hardly thought about.

I know I’ve got to pay my dues, get more skills under my belt, take instructions.  I know how important it is to work quickly, and the importance of efficiency on a farm. That is my job and I am proud to do it. But it is also impersonal and humbling. Sometimes I feel that any person could do my job, that I could be easily replaced, save for the learning curve. Nothing on the farm is my responsibility, stems from my creativity, or is an expression of my agricultural dreams. I long to write CSA newsletters or start a mushroom growing operation or plant an apple tree. I want to direct a harvest. I want to be included in farm decisions.

I had a chance to carve out my niche at the beginning of the season. We needed a flower girl. Someone to direct the harvests, arrange and sell flowers at the market, and perhaps expand the operation. I didn’t step up to the plate.  I didn’t want to step on the toes of another apprentice who also found the responsibility appealing. More than that, I wanted to be awarded the position because I deserved it, not because I egotistically chose myself. Alas, it passed me by. For weeks after it was hard for me to be with the flower girl, who does a great job and is a wonderful person. I was devastated.

Sometimes on Sunday  afternoons and after arduous days on the farm, my emotional weariness comes to the surface. I love my job, honestly. I’m lamenting the coming of fall and frost, the down-shifting gears, the close of my greenhorn season. But I expect the winter will be a time of rejuvination, of coming to terms with what I need and how I can be me farming.

Did you know that the CSA concept itself is a local product? In 1985, CSA started right here in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, with just 2 farms and a little over 100 shareholders. Robyn Van En, a young mother and gardener, launched Indian Line Farm CSA.  She opted for community-engaged agriculture, a significant departure from conventional and more anonymous models of growing, finance, and marketing still employed by most farms today. Her shareholders appreciated the CSA share as an unconventional product. They envisioned their participation as casting food dollar votes for the local economy and for their local, living soil. They voted for a farmer with a face*, and agreed that the risks of the weather should be balanced between growers and eaters. They voted for growing seasons to come, since their share price included long-term goals of the farm. Our current system dangerously excludes matters of sustainability from the price of food, calling them externalities.  With committed consumers, CSA farmers can think about long term land use, maintaining fertility, environmental stewardship, ecological pest control, and growing the right food for their members, instead of only worrying about the bottom line. Shareholders can take pride in the healthy land and farmers that support them, leaving the untraceable items stocked at the grocery story.

To its founders, CSA was not just a marketing device.  It was a means to rethink food economics entirely. The hope was for farmers and consumers to consider each other dependents, and for their relationship of exchange to be a social one, full of trust, understanding, and communication. Together, we can carry on the mission of CSA! We grow this food specifically for you. Thank you for supporting sustainable agriculture at Drumlin and a sustainable economy for the planet.

All the best,
Signe

*”Farmer with a face” is the translation of “teikei”, a Japanese version of CSA that started around the same time as the European model, which inspired Robyn Van En.

Influenced by Michael Pollan, The Farm as Natural Habitat, and The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible, my beliefs about managing pests are mostly idealistic and not backed by practical, especially commerial farm scale, experience. That being said, what I’ve come to understand is that pesticides in general are a way to control nature, rather than working your farm into its folds.  I find the agroecological techniques of controlling pests through biodiversity much more attractive than spraying for potato beetles, though I admit sometimes it must be necessary.  There are a diversity of ways to control pests to reduce the need to spray. I was excited to learn about them from Ruth Hazzard, an entomologist at UMass Extension who ran the CRAFT.

In the pouring rain I could barely hear the buzz words that I needed explained: Integrated Pest Management, organic pesticide, among others. The whole group seemed to feel comfortable with the terms, but when the Drumlin apprentices debriefed on the way home we thought they probably weren’t. We couldn’t imagine that other folks didn’t also want a groundwork laid before jumping into the complicated tasks of calibrating back pack sprayers and calculating what fraction of an acre needed what concentration of a chemical. With the focus on pesticide application the talk breezed over ethical concerns, whole farm ecosystem approaches to pest management, and prevention.

As I watched the sprayer tractor implement drive slowly down the flower field as a demonstration I had the unsettling feeling that we’d missed the boat. I was excited, but also a bit disappointed to have to find the missing pieces in my home library. Excited at the ecological ideas forming in my head about pest management on the farm, but disappointed that a network of farmers, together in a CSA distribution hut, didn’t even discuss them.

Right off the bat Edward Smith, author of The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible declares that  pest management is really about ecological robustness. The question should be: What ecological problem is causing this pest problem? Not, how can I spray Surround through a backpack sprayer? Smith offers a number of techniques to increase biodiversity in a way that decreases susceptibility to pests. Admittedly, he writes about personal consumption growing, where intercropping won’t decrease efficiency drastically and where attention to detail is a much smaller job than on a 12 acre farm.  Nevertheless,  I thought the CRAFT we have been a great opportunity to talk about how larger scale growers are adapting garden-scale companion planting, which could significantly reduce pests. I’d also like to hear how farmers encourage disease-fighting soil microbes and if they use nematode sprays.

I learned some exciting things in The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible. Onions and other plants in that family can deter pests by masking the smell of their preferred crops. Many flowers and herbs drive off specific pests in the same way. Beans and potatoes together can stand up better to Mexican bean beetle and Colorado potato beetle than when they are planted farther away.  Keep plants in the same family separate from one another to avoid host plant buffets. Trick the pests with time: if you plant crops a little later than usual, their pests will emerge before their food source is in the ground and they’ll be forced to move on.

When I read “Like many predators in nature, garden pests tend to attack the easiest prey. They’ll even bypass the healthy, vigorous plants to attack the stressed ones (158)” I started getting ideas. How can these tips come together? I thought up a sort of sacrifice zone, an area at the end of the bed with plants that are purposefully weaker than the rest. These plants would not be fertilized or weeded.  They could even be a different plant than the crop, perhaps one in the same family that the pests prefer.  Also in this no-harvest zone could be a mixed seed of an Allium and flowers/herbs to mask the crop’s smell. This zone could have productive as well as protective power, since flowers and herbs have economic value.

Agroecological techniques to pest management have an ecological return on investment. The loaded question I should have asked Hazzard is: How can we be sure pesticides are truly worth it? The short-term suppression of pests through sprays, organic or not, is a reflection of the lasting paradigm of farming as the human control over nature. But when the beetles and fleas and mites, maggots, miners, and borers march into the fields any farmer will tell you, we live in the hands of the gods.

Spinach and lettuce are more difficult. Matt, farm manager at Drumlin for the past 8 seasons, had us re-harvest 200 heads of lettuce because the first round wasn’t up to standard. There is a lot of Boston Bibb in our compost pile!  It is truly amazing how many decisions, inspections, and thoughtful planning goes into serving our shareholders food.  All of that is also a lot of learning. Developing a consistent standard of quality is one of the hardest bits to grasp as an apprentice.

A standard of quality is also a standard of efficiency, not sacrificing too much time for flawless produce.  As the more experienced farmers work in my peripheral vision, never wasting a movement, I often wish I could suspend time or acquire x-ray mathematician super powers so I could make the layers of spinach float in the air and calculate the percentage of weeds, leaf mined pieces and long stems that accidentally made it through and divide all that by time.  Before harvest Matt tells us all to constantly push ourselves to go faster, but it is as much about inner drive as it is about comparing the self to others. Efficiency is subjective too, though surely thought about less than beauty by shareholders and market goers.

Efficiency is a driving force on the farm.  There is an optimal condition for every task. Hot and sunny is for killing weeds. Wet or expecting rain for thinning. Afternoons for planting. Mornings, before the hot sun beats the turgidity out of leafy greens, is for harvesting. In reality, the weather could care less about our repeating schedule. By the time I’ve finally posted this Greg has already sent out the newsletter for the next CSA distribution.  Share is the same as last week plus cilantro, bok choy and pick your own herbs. Like juggling beauty with efficiency, there is a similar sentiment and balancing act with my time as a farmer–trying to savor it all and soak up as much knowledge as possible while the season ticks by.

Brought my family to the farm grad weekend.

Swamped with thesis writing, moving out, and finishing up work with theMOVE, I forgot to mention something big. I’m a beginning farmer now. I just had my first full week on Drumlin Farm and it feels amazing. I came back to Somerville last night to eat with friends and pick up the rest of my scattered belongings. Looking around at the urbanites I felt so lucky that I had touched the Earth and let the sun dye my arm hairs. I felt indestructible. I could see the week of planting and wheel hoeing ingrained in my body, in my knees, my biceps, my soul.

A kids group guided by a Drumlin staffer stopped to watch the crew thinning and weeding carrots as the unobstructed sun dried up the soil. “Who can tell me what the farmers are doing?” she asked the youngsters. That gave me such joy. All the apprentices were invigorated by the words. I was finally a Greenhorn, a member of the irresistible fleet of bicycles. Irresistable, but incredibly demanding, exhausting.

I was thankful for the dusty heat of the past week, even as it hit my eyes and formed hard, dark boogers in my nose.  The week before was Octobery, cold with constant mist and frequent rain. We were doing a restaurant harvest in a field of over-wintered spinach. Its big, tasty leaves were wet and surrounded by weeds. We cut them at their bases and filled dirty bins that would turn into clean plates at fancy places in Cambridge. By the time we moved on to the parsley my hands were numb and tingling. While the other farmers ripped the stalks of the fragrant greens, I used a knife, which my hands would cooperate to do.  At the wash station my fingers were lifeless, the skin canvas-like and discolored. I did the work, dumping the greens into the big wash basin filled with cold water, submerging the leaves, and lifting them into the spinner. When asked to move the big PVC pipe to the basin’s plug to empty the water I was horrified that it was physically impossible. I realized how for granted I take having control over my body. These appendages that always follow orders, that I can use without thinking, were suddenly unintelligible. Think of a sudden inability to chew or to walk.  When a fellow apprentice cupped my hands in hers they stung at the touch of her warm blood, like putting snow-covered feet into a hot tub. Pinching was out of the question the rest of the day. It wasn’t until the next morning that my hands finally felt like my own again.  Days later I removed the rings that defined my right hand for four-years. This is not work for jewelry.

So it’s not all festivals or digging in the dirt. It’s hard, and that’s fine, good even.

Hi, I’m Erin McCluskey, a gardener, apple-lover and student at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. About 18 million years ago, the author of this blog asked me to write about the Food Justice Alliance, the student organization I’m involved with at GW. Today, I am finally breaking down.

The Food Justice Alliance at GW was founded about 2 years ago this spring by a few members from the Fair Trade group on campus. Since that time, our group has started two gardens, introduced 3 colonies of honey bees, and started the much-needed discussions of food justice, quality, and sovereignty on GW’s campus.

We’re a pretty small group of about 7 people, some with leadership positions. And we’re a relatively new group with much potential for growth. Fortunately, we’ve found that these factors are not inhibitive to what we can accomplish. This past semester, we were awarded the best student group of the year for sustainability and have received press from around the District. People are taking notice of our momentum and are looking for ways to get involved.

One of the ways the community is getting involved is through the gardens we started on our two campuses, Foggy Bottom and Mount Vernon. GroW Community Garden on the Foggy Bottom campus is our flagship project and was started in the Fall of 2009. We were able to start this garden through a Fulbright grant and donations from the GW School of Public Health and the Foggy Bottom community. One of the goals in planning this garden was to include the surrounding community as much as possible in the process. The garden itself was designed by the Landscape Design Graduate Program at GW and is maintained through a network of GW and DC volunteers. This spring, we challenged members of the GW chapter of Engineers Without Borders to design a drip irrigation system for the raised beds and established fruit and nut trees. This grew into a competition with four student teams competing. The winning design ranked high in its innovation, sustainability, and durability and the system is expected to be implemented in the coming weeks, just in time for the spring growing season! As the garden manager, I could not be more excited about this project. All the hours spent watering and water wasted will be spent on more important things like developing a children’s garden or playing with the worms in a vermaculture compost bin.

We donate about 80 percent of the produce we grow to a local soup kitchen. Located about a block away from the garden, Miriam’s Kitchen strives to bring healthy and fresh food to the people it serves. They have been involved in the planning of our garden beds this past season, requesting many a kale and tomato plant. The members of FJA volunteer regularly at the soup kitchen as well, creating a community joined in real and nutritious food. The rest of our harvest goes to the volunteers and our hungry compost barrel.

The garden on the Mount Vernon campus was established over the summer of 2010 and was designed by a class in the Landscape Design Program. This garden is rooted in ideas of permaculture, using native plants in synergistic arrangements. GW has featured this site as a demonstration of sustainability on campus and we hope it will be come a place to celebrate the region’s native plant life.

Also on “The Vern” are our famed honey bees. Sequestered behind a small chapel, these bee hives are invisible to any passerby. The results of their presence, however, is clear to the surrounding neighbors.  Residents have claimed a significant improvement in their garden production this past season. We have, I admit, exploited these bees for the educational value. Many people have dawned the space astronaut bee suit (including news crews and photographers) and watched the bees in action. We want people to recognize the crucial part bees play in all life and that currently there is a very serious bee population crisis due to Colony Collapse Disorder happening around the world. Through our volunteers we hope to address this issue by creating the next generation of urban bee keepers to ensure the survival of these vital pollinators. Our bees have also started a buzz around the Foggy Bottom community as well. The Biology Department started their own colonies on the roof of their building and have goals to start a bee research initiative. A local restaurant near campus is also interested in starting their own hives as is the International Monetary Fund (IMF) located next to campus. Riding the momentum, we are hosting “Colonial Swarm,” a community bee box painting day to get ready for our new additions (3 more hives!) coming next month.

To compliment our efforts on the ground, FJA frequently sponsors events to increase awareness and advocacy of food issues in the District and beyond. Once monthly we host “salons” in one of our volunteer’s residence. We designate a discussion topic for each month as a theme and create a themed potluck to match. For example, one month we discussed the issue of migrant labor in the agricultural sector; everyone brought their favorite Mexican dish. We even figured out a way for the University to pay for these salons through co-sponsorships! We watch documentaries, read each other articles and debate the issues. It’s just one of the ways we are trying to create a community around food. In addition to the salons, we have held seasonal cook off competitions, hosted speakers and held screenings of documentaries. For future advocacy, we hope to start a campaign addressing the problem of food deserts in DC.

What we hope to establish at GW are connections. To start, we are working to build the connection between the broader food system and how students understand their role in that system. Through events that promote healthy eating and food awareness, we strive for students to challenge themselves in adopting a more sustainable lifestyle. We also hope to address the current campus food system. We maintain an on-going relationship with Sodexo to continually improve campus dining by looking at where campus food comes from, how it is produced and lastly, how students consume it. Food Justice Alliance was born out of the need to address issues concerning food that were not really addressed before at GW.

GroW community gardens are the first student-led gardens at GW and they attract the interest of faculty, students, parents, and other members of the GW and surrounding community. One of the main things that makes our project different from others is the fact that were doing something visible. People can grasp the idea of our mission because they can see the kind of food we promote growing in our gardens. In addition, our outreach efforts have created a community of partners that use each other in addressing issues of sustainability. We have found that the “green” groups on campus were not really collaborating in their efforts and so we have sought and continue to formulate partnerships with other groups to maximize our impact in making GW more sustainable.

Through our advocacy we want people to understand the inequalities in the food system. These inequalities are especially apparent in DC. Real food is not finding the people that need it most. Often the poorest are left with the least nutritious option, which is a result of policy and inaction. Our projects seek to address these issues by making changes at the roots. Through our efforts, we promote the benefits of “real food” and its accessibility for all. Our gardens and bees continually demonstrate that healthy, sustainable, organic food can be accessible for all and that through food production communities can connect and grow.

Our future plans include starting a CSA drop off location on campus. This is already set in stone, we are just figuring out logistics. And we plan to open a student run food cooperative cafe, which I will post about later. This project seemed like a natural progression in our efforts in FJA and has gained a lot of momentum this past semester. You can check out our progress at http://gwfoodcoop.org/.

For more information on FJA’s current projects check out our blog at http://gwfoodjustice.org/ or email us at gwfoodjustice@gmail.com.

You can also check out our bee mentor’s website at Sweet Virginia: http://www.sweetvirginia.com/

Signing off,

Erin

March with farmworkers from Immokalee, their families and allies through the heart of Boston! Marchers will gather in Copley Square for a peaceful rally featuring live music and addresses from CIW members and allies, then march accompanied by colorful art and music to the Brigham Circle Stop & Shop. There, the march will culminate in a spirited action calling on Ahold USA to do its part to end farmworker abuse and exploitation! Join us for the entire family-friendly march and rally, or for the culminating action at Stop & Shop!

One more penny per pound!

Click on the picture for details.
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