Category — action

This poster was made by Veritable Vegetable for the Wild Farm Alliance.

It’s a spoof on food safety regulations that make it very difficult for growers to maintain ecologically sound growing practices (like buffers and vegetation that might provide habitat) and nudge them towards less desirable habits — like using fences, traps and poison to keep wildlife away — that undermine biodiversity and may not actually have the desired effect on food safety.

If you can’t read the tiny print. The top three read left to right: “Toxic Pesticides, Toxic Fertilizer, Fueled by Fossil Fuels” “Unknown Food Value” and “Unknown Pathogens”

The blue part says “Please grow only between the red and yellow flags. The food is patrolled for the safety of YOUR food system.”

To read a great article on alternative strategies to improve food safety while maintaining biodiversity and supporting small farms with good stewardship practices, check out this awesome report by Food and Water Watch.

If you care about the issue and want to act, consider calling your senator and asking s/he to support Senator Stabenow’s Food Safety Training bill that would help deliver training and technical assistance to small farms to help them provide safer food.

Funny how much the poster reminds me so much of these (real) signs in Singapore. But I’ll have to leave those thoughts for another post!

I’m not sure who to blame for my historic lack of interest in politics or public policy. I’m loathe to admit that until (very) recently I contributed to the dismal statistics of “young apathetics.” Like many, the 2008 election piqued my interest, but the effect was dampened by distance and humidity — watching events unfold from rural Cambodia just wasn’t the same as dancing in the streets in the Mission in SF.

But now, I’m starting to understand and really care. I’ve seen small policy take shape first-hand and it’s exciting. And I’m starting to see how much policy matters in the issues that move me.

While on the farm, Peter and Susan invited me to come along to a meeting of the Agricultural Resources Committee — a group which advised the County government on agricultural policy. The ARC was discussing farm intern policy in response to a situation in which the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) began to audit local farm’s internship practices. The state’s labor law does not currently recognize farm internships as a valid worker category unless interns are registered students at a recognized educational institution.

Thanks to work by local farmers and activists, that first conversation eventually developed into a bill sponsored by Senator Kevin Ranker, a major small farm advocate in the state. The bill will establish principles for small farm internships in the state, and will allow farms to offer internships at less than the minimum wage, given specific requirements including an internship agreement signed by the farmer and the intern which includes some sort of record of the educational/vocational component of the arrangement.

The law will make it possible for small farms to continue to hire and train a new generation of young farmers without undue financial burden. This is not meant as a way for farms to dodge the law or gain unfair advantage, but rather as a way for them to provide a much-demanded public service of educating young would-be farmers.

Now, the bill’s having its public hearing:

“Senator Ranker’s SB 6349, establishing a farm internship program, has been scheduled for public hearing before the Labor Commerce & Consumer Protection Committee on January 28th at 3:30 pm. The Senator hopes that he has several farmers and interns at the hearing. The latter will be critical in order for the bill to pass. Please pass this along to stakeholders and those who are willing to provide testimony during the public hearing.”

The tool stand in Synergy Farm’s barn

I can’t make it to Seattle, but I did write a letter of support:

Dear Senator Kohl-Welles,

I am writing in support of Washington State Senate Bill 6349, the proposed law on farm interns. As a farm intern in the San Juan Islands, I participated in the early stages of development of the bill within the San Juan County Agricultural Resources Committee and am very excited to see it move forward in the Washington state legislature.

From April to September of 2009, I apprenticed on Synergy Farm on San Juan Island with Peter and Susan Corning. During my six months at Synergy, I gained hands-on experience and knowledge about sustainable farming, plant cultivation, and the business of running a small farm.

I came to my interest in agriculture through work in Cambodia, and the experience at Synergy has been an invaluable step in my career and personal development. Now I plan to return to graduate school to study sustainable business, with an emphasis on developing local economies and food systems. I would eventually like to run my own farm and value-added food business, very likely in Washington State. The season I spent at Synergy laid a strong foundation to pursue these goals and strengthened my desire to farm in the region.

This bill would make it possible for small farms like Synergy to continue to offer hands-on technical training for a future generation of farmers and I hope you support it in the upcoming hearing.

Very sincerely,

Jess Daniel

I’ve been stressing about my graduate school applications and Christmas and my impending move to DC. All actually very happy things, but I’m finding it all overwhelming.

Thankfully, I have these little guys to put things in perspective.

We picked up a new batch of chicks at Kruse’s Feed this weekend. They were the first chicks they’ve had in in a long time because the hatchery has been running out. My dad talked to the manager who explained that backyard chicken raising has become so popular that they just don’t have enough (girl) chickens to keep up.

Last month we processed 10 of our chickens who had stopped laying so that we could get started with another group. It seems somewhat morbid to consider the death that these adorable little creatures might someday end up in the pot too, but I eat meat and I know that whatever meat I eat was once, at some point, a cute animal, so I try to take good care of them and be properly thankful for what they provide for me.

I’m going to go out to the garage right now to say hi to them, and then it’s back to personal statements. What matters most to me and why — in 750 words or less. Oh. My. Lord.

I miss working on the farm. I miss being outside and working and getting really dirty and tired doing things. I miss looking scrubby and frumpy and not minding because I was watching things grow. I’ve only done a little bit of gardening since getting home. My dad and I made some flatting boxes so I could start some seeds, and I had some healthy chard, little broccoli and random Asian greens going.

Sadly, my lettuce never germinated… I think it was too hot even though I kept them in a shady spot. I’m going to try again now that it’s cooled down.

But anyway, I prepped a bed to take the baby brassicas. Not quite double-digging, but loosening up the dirt to about 12 inches with a spading fork and adding in some sifted compost from a batch I started last time I was home in December.

I transplanted forty or so seedlings — chard and a bunch of brassicas — late in the afternoon, optimal time, and gave them a good sprinkle. I came back the next couple of days to check on them and they seemed to be adjusting very nicely to their new surroundings.

Then just before Thanksgiving, I went out to the garden to behold carnage…

Something nasty had gotten to my little plants.

My first thought was DEER. Then I remembered where I was… in the middle of suburban Orange County. We barely see squirrels. I wondered if opossums ate broccoli? My mom guessed it was a bug, but I wasn’t convinced. I hadn’t seen any snails or slugs or really anything much other than pill bugs and earthworms and the damage was so fast and so total. Plus, whatever it was was discerning. They ate all the tender baby mustards and left the chard. Picky pests.

On Thanksgiving, I brought my grandma out to see the carnage. She didn’t have a clue, so I asked her to do some sleuthing next time she was on a volunteer shift at our local arboretum. By Saturday I had my answer.

RABBITS

WASCALY WABBITS

The plant expert said that a snail or bug would eat the plant down to the roots, not just the leaves. And immediately, I remembered riding my bike down the street early in the day a while back and noticing a cute little bunny. Now, not so cute.

So today, I made a fence.

Makeshift, but I think it’ll do the trick. If not, I can always go collect some cat pee to sprinkle around the perimeter.

I wonder if rabbits like spinach or arugula?

Or little pea shoots? They are pretty gourmet. I guess I have to go on a little scavenger hunt for materials for a second fence!

My first article in the Fullerton Observer was about gleaning: gathering leftover crops (or forlorn backyard fruit) to reduce waste and feed ourselves. After my granddad Tom read the article, he sent me a short note of grandpa praise and mentioned that gleaning was a biblical term and the act of gleaning was something that came up more than once in that Good Book. I was raised a Catholic, and Catholics don’t read the bible, so this was news to me. Upon further investigation, I found this passage:

Leviticus 23:22:

And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger.

Pretty straightforward, eh? If you’ve got a lot, you can spare a little for those who have less.

I separate gleaning into a couple of categories: the large-ish organized operation that rescues otherwise wasted food and distributes it to those who need it (more biblical), and the self-serving, recreational kind (more hedonistic). Thus far, I’ve mostly participated in the latter.

I gathered some fruit on the island — figs and plums and blackberries and such. I love the treasure-hunt-ish-ness of it all. Seeking out the perfect berry patch or serendipitously falling on a pear tree and coming back week-to-week to check on its progress. One might think that Orange County isn’t the place for such things, but in fact, there’s a surprising bounty of delicious fruits just crying out to be picked. Just here in my neighborhood, there are avocados, grapes, all kinds of citrus, plums, apricots, apples, figs, guavas, pomegranates, and persimmons.

A friend, Rory, passed on a map he started of some good picking sites in Fullerton. You can visit his version here. Or, I’ve added his entries to some of my own on the Good Food OC map.

Yesterday was my first time foraging in the suburban jungle. A family friend, Lynne, who’s well-apprised of my crazy food tendencies, invited me and my mum to go pick a friend’s Meyer Lemon tree. We got more than 50 lbs and left plenty of ripe and ripening fruit. It was fun.

My pretty mom picking lemons.

Lynne putting a few into the basket, and the haul, back at home.

Later, mum squeezed a bunch for lemonade. Then we made a batch of ridiculously delicious lemon marmalade. The entire house smelled like lemon drops for the rest of the day.

It’s a wonderful recipe from Elise at Simply Recipes. You can get her step-by-step instructions here. All it takes is lemons, water, and sugar in a 1:1:1 ratio.

It’s a two-step cooking process, and then there’s the canning… in all, it took us about 2.5 hours to make 10 jars 8oz jars of jam.

First you prep the lemons…

Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum!

Sites to check out about gleaning:

• Neighborhood Fruit — A site to help find and share fruit locally on public and private land — over 10,000 trees registered.
• Fallen Fruit — An activist art project dedicated to public fruit gleaning and sharing. They do exhibits, public action and mapping public fruit in the LA area.
• Second Harvest Food Bank Gleaning Volunteers — Orange County Food Bank that grows food on donated land and uses volunteers to help harvest; also does gleaning of commercial operations, though it’s more rare since there aren’t so many local farms anymore.
• How-to Guide to Setting up a Gleaning Project from Relocalize.net
• Society of St. Andrew – Huge church-based gleaning network that distributed over 12 million pounds of fresh produce in 2008.

Tomorrow my third column in our local city paper hits the news stands. The Fullerton Observer is a wonderful not-for-profit pub run basically as a one-woman show by a local Fullertonian, Sharon Kennedy.

I called Sharon up one day a week or so after I got back to the OC to ask if I could write a Good Food Happy Planet column. “Well a lot of people want to write columns,” she said. “What did you have in mind?” I explained about the whole farm bit and gave a little pitch. “I just think the people in Fullerton might be interested in reading about where their food comes from. It’s a timely issue, plus good food’s trendy,” I ventured. Sharon agreed, and the column was born.

Week one, I wrote about gleaning. Week two, the Fullerton Farmers Market. And this past time, I wrote about processing ten of our backyard chickens. I left out most of the more specific details — still not sure what level of information is TMI versus just right for the Fullerton audience.

I know it’s a small step, but it’s fun to be writing for a different sort of crowd — not necessarily just my friends and fellow foodies, but folks who just happened to pick up a copy in the local coffee shop or at Ralphs. It forces me to be accessible, and also not take anything for granted.

Sharon came to the potluck on Wednesday and while we were waiting in line for the spread, she told me that I received my first mini fan note for the column! Woohoo!

Here’s the article from this time ’round… or you can download the PDF for the full experience:

Chickens

Down the slope away from our house, underneath a couple of huge eucalyptus trees, sits my dad’s chicken coop. There’s a structure with nest boxes that opens our onto the pecking yard which is enclosed with chicken wire to keep our the coyotes and our little terrier Duncan. The coop houses a dozen or so proud hens: some black and white Barred Rock beauties, Araucanas that lay little turquoise eggs, the regal Polish Crested with their big fluffed white hairdos, and some unidentified buff-colored girls.

This summer on the farm, I learned a lot about chickens. We kept around 60 laying hens — all Rhode Island Reds — and around 120 Cornish Cross broiler chickens which we raised for meat. Prior to the farm, I hadn’t ever thought about the difference between laying hens and meat chickens, but it turns out they’re very different creatures. Broilers are bred to grow larger, faster and to have a greater breast-to-body ratio than other breeds. They only take about 12 weeks to grow to a marketable size. Layers on the other hand take about 6 months to start laying, and continue to lay eggs at a constant rate until they are around 2 years old.

On the farm, I learned all about feeding and taking care of hens, protecting them from predators, collecting, washing and packing eggs, and finally about processing the chickens for meat.

My mum with 10 of the chickens we processed last weekend.

Processing chickens is hard, smelly work. I’m not squeamish; I participated in every part of the process: the killing, dunking in hot water, plucking feathers, eviscerating and cleaning. I grew up eating meat and intend to keep eating meat, but now that I’ve participated in the full process, from chick to chicken enchilada, I have so much more appreciation for the energy and care it takes to bring meat to the table. It’s so easy to forget, when I’m buying a clean plastic-wrapped package of pre-cut chicken tenders, or picking up a chicken burrito at Chipotle, that this was once a living, breathing animal. It’s easy to take for granted the resources it took to hatch and feed and raise a chicken for my table.

This weekend, we processed ten of my dad’s hens in the backyard. They were getting older and were no longer laying, and we needed to make way for a new batch of chicks. Between me, my parents, my aunt and a friend, I was the only one who had done this before, so I organized the different stations and showed everyone the ropes. It didn’t take more than a few hours, but afterwards, I crashed on the couch in front of the TV for the rest of the day, totally drained.

Now, the chickens are curing in our refrigerator, and I’m contemplating what to cook. Needless to say, whatever it is, I will savor it to the last bite.

Wednesday night the Daniel Family hosted our first Real Good Food Potluck. It was a smashing success — over 50 folks made it out, the living room was full to the brim with family, friends, and many new faces.

Mum and I spent the day shuttling to the farmer’s market on the scooter and cooking up a storm. We made chicken enchiladas from a couple of our backyard chickens (more on the processing soon!), pumpkin gnocchi from the Halloween pumpkin I picked with Christina (I owe a post on this too!), a couple of persimmon cakes, and pumpkin & white bean chili. Very seasonal. Very delicious.

It was especially awesome to have a couple of people there who I’d never met (Jessie, Sharon, Carolyn, Gabe, Tod), folks I hadn’t seen in forever (Derek,  a few new friends (Jorge, Janet) who I’d just met the previous week.

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Pumpkin gnocchi in the pan -- 5 minutes to showtime!

As the night kicked off, I was a smiling dervish, pulling hot lasagna from the oven and jumping at the doorbell, and digging up serving implements, and hugging my Godparents as they walked in. People just kept coming and coming with amazing food. There were beets and beet greens and slaw and paella and spinach ricotta pasta and homemade tomato pasta; teriyaki chicken and shepherd’s pie and grilled veggies and crudites and baguettes and guac and salsa. Not to mention the glorious desserts. At one point, I ran out to the garage to grab another folding table to hold the bounty.

A little after 7, we screened Food Inc. Only 2 folks other than my family had seen the movie before. Everyone gasped and “wow”-ed and a number of folks came up to me afterwards and mentioned how much it moved them. I’ve now watched the movie 7 times with about 60 different people and I have to say it’s a pretty darn effective tool for getting people to start thinking about what they eat.

I was especially happy because at least 3 people visited the Fullerton Farmers Market after I suggested making a visit to get potluck supplies. Of those, at least two said they’d definitely be making the trip weekly from now on. Hooray!

I got a few questions afterwards of the “well, now-what” variety. People were moved by the film, but were wondering what to do next. I mentioned eating local, seasonal, and organic foods, talked about buying “whole” foods and shared some of the places we shop.

But people’s questions really got me thinking again about how important it is to have a combination of consumer education driving demand and values-based businesses supplying alternatives to the everyday obvious options. Here in Fullerton for example, we really only have one truly organic cafe option and only one big natural food store, not that close to many neighborhoods. The farmers market is wonderful, but not huge. In general, it’s not that easy to get organics or local produce. The markets — Stater Bros, Albertsons, Ralphs — don’t carry any sustainably raised meats; Stater Bros doesn’t appear to carry any organics at all. A shopper really has to go out of his or her way to do things differently.

But for those of us who want to try, here are some great resources for North Orange County:

• Directory of Orange County Farmers Markets
• Ecology Center – educational organization dedicated to teaching and learning about sustainable agriculture located near South Coast Farms in San Juan Capistrano
• Fullerton Arboretum ‐‐ often hosts classes on growing your own food, also provides community plots for a small annual fee
• Fullerton Certified Farmers Market
• Henry’s Farmers Market ‐‐ Grocery store (1447 S. Harbor) sells a wide variety of natural & organic products
• OC Abundance Organics ‐‐ Cooperative buying club for organic produce, located in Fullerton
• OC Organics – Farm and Community Supported Agriculture program, delivers in OC
• OC Slow Food – Orange County Chapter of the Slow Food organization, lists of recommended restaurants and some events open to non‐members
• South Coast Farms – Farm and Community Supported Agriculture program, delivers in OC
• Tanaka Farms – Farm and Community Supported Agriculture program, delivers in OC

Tonight I gave a presentation at the Fullerton Public Library all about my experience farming, a few facts about our current food system in the US, and some practical ideas for how to eat better without necessarily up and moving to the farm.

The audience was small but enthusiastic — people seemed to learn some new things — they were especially shocked by the NY Times graphic illustrating the amount of food waste produced by a family of four in a month.

It’s so interesting what parts of our broken food system tug at people. Most studies seem to show that people care most about their health and about animal welfare. Makes sense I guess — they’re the two most personal and emotional aspects of the food we eat.

Anyway, it felt really really really good to be out there talking about these issues and to have people respond so positively. I wonder how much this kind of talk really inspires people to action?

You can get the PDF of the presentation here and the handout here.

I’m still here, I promise.

I’m back in Orange County — for over a week now, my God! And it’s weird. So so weird. I love being with my family, but I’m not used to the freeways and the smog and the lawns and the hot hot heat.

Not to mention the pollen.

For the past four days, I’ve wiped my nose raw, I’ve sucked down Sudafed till no longer qualified to operate heavy machinery, I’ve hacked up green phlegm which seemed to smirk up at me and say “Welcome Home.”

But despite all that, I’m excited because I’ve got plans for this here OC. I want to shake things up — take what I’ve learned and plant it in the ground here and see what sprouts.

More on all that soon enough! For now, to bed and to recovery…

Tonight Pritha and I are giving a presentation at the San Juan Island Library: an intro to Community Supported Agriculture and a farm-fresh cooking demo.

We’ve got a powerpoint.

But don’t worry, it’s mostly pictures like this:

If that’s not enough excitement for you, click here to download all the slides. They really are spartan, though! Our notes are where the substance’s at.

None of that nonsense of slides dripping with words so small they can’t be seen. We’re trying to keep it simple and charm people with our enthusiasm for small farms and chard and community love.

After we do a little indoctrination on the wonderfulness of community-supported agriculture, we’ll try to further ingratiate ourselves by appealing to the audience’s stomach.

Pritha’s making a simple summer squash soup, and I’m going to do poached eggs on kale and tomatoes, and green beans in thyme and butter. I devoured my test run on the eggs as I started this post — just a little tomato splashed on my screen as I shoveled from plate to mouth.

It’s been such a very long time since I’ve done anything like this. I was over in the tackroom at Heritage Farm last night where Pritha works, both of us huddled over my little black macbook, walking through our “talking points” and feeling like we were in college again.

This morning before we headed out for the Friday harvest, I blanched the green beans and chopped the garlic and started to put together my bag of supplies:

• knife? CHECK
• cutting board? CHECK
• veggies? CHECK
• utensils, plates, napkins? CHECK

and so on and so on.

I love that it was so easy to make this happen — all it took was an email exchange with the lovely library’s programs coordinator, Adrienne. She even offered to pay for the supplies for the class. Only on this island!

Or maybe not? I should try to do this again when I return to Orange County. I feel like they would cite health code and tell me the fire marshall wouldn’t allow an electric burner. Am I too cynical?

With all these foodalicious sustainabodacious, socially aware thoughts crowding my brain it feels good to force the thoughts into action and do something, not matter how small.

What kind of little actions have you taken lately on something you care about? Change a lightbulb? Plant a tomato? I’d love to know.