The essay below represents a mid-point in the evolution of my research to where it is today. When I first moved to Detroit to live and work and pursue a graduate degree, I thought I’d focus on alternative food distribution/delivery models that were getting produce and other healthy foods directly to consumers in Detroit: things like the Fresh Food Shares, Healthy Corner Store initiatives, and mobile produce trucks. Folks in town who were doing the work wanted more information on which of these models were most effective and which if any could become financially self-sustaining.

The evaluation project I was going to join never really panned out, so I continued working on my own little project related to food distribution and in the meantime, started a small project-slowly-evolving-into-an-enterprise which put me smack in the middle of a whole bunch of folks who were trying to start food businesses in Detroit. Lots of these people were not starting businesses just to create something or to make money or to have more freedom or to fill a need for some specific yummy food they couldn’t get (some primary reasons entrepreneurship lit mentions), but also because they thought of their business as a means of some kind of social change or transformation.

Soon all I could think about was how to support these businesses. I wanted to be in Detroit and I wanted to eat good gelato and bagel and pickles and I also wanted to see what other kinds of cool things these businesses could make happen. Could they really support more urban market farmers? Reinvent Jewish culture? Increase awareness about healthy eating and our bountiful SE Michigan foodshed? Could they do these things while making a profit?

I started to wonder, what resources were out there to help people like me and these others get started? Detroiters were super supportive and there were ostensibly resources in town for small businesses and entrepreneurs, but nothing seemed like a good fit. What was missing? I started looking into kitchen incubators and then began to wonder — how effective are they in actually getting businesses off the ground? Food businesses are fun and trendy, and they provide opportunity for self-employment and self-determination for folks who might not start other kinds of businesses (see, for instance, how involved immigrants are in a the retail food economy in major cities), but can spending on incubators be justified? How and when?

I still think these are interesting and important questions, but a few things happened that changed the directions of my questions. More on that to come… for now, some thoughts on incubators…

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Small business incubators have become increasingly popular economic development tools over the past 25 years. More recently, groups focused on community development and local food systems have developed kitchen-based incubators to foster food processing and specialty food entrepreneurs.  These spaces generally provide shared-use commercial kitchen facilities, marketing, operations, and technical training, and opportunities for networking and cooperation on logistical details like procurement or distribution.

While research on small business incubators is relatively robust, little formal research has been conducted to assess the economic and social impact of kitchen incubators, or to come to conclusions about factors for their success. Most of the existing literature exists in the form of case-studies, feasibility studies (e.g. Sakakeeny, 2007), technical guides (e.g. Wold & Sumner, 2002), or project reports to funders, and most of this literature tends to focus on particular kitchens within particular contexts.

This dearth of academic literature make sense for a variety of reasons: as of 2007, UK researcher Benjamin Dent (2008) identified only 57 kitchen incubators in the US. Many of these were still within the first few years of operation, and they varied in terms of location, size, services, organizational structure, and other criteria. Thus, the sample has been small and diverse, so it may not have been practical to develop generalized conclusions. Also, the impact of kitchen incubators can be difficult to measure because many espouse explicit social goals including poverty alleviation, “empowerment” or quality-of-life, in addition to economic development goals (Sakakeeny, 2007).

However, as demand for locally produced goods continues to grow (King, et. al., 2010), it appears that local communities and organizations are increasingly looking to kitchen incubators as a tool for local economic and local food systems development. As of October 2010, the University of Wisconsin Extension’s Food Business Incubator Network lists sixteen projects in Wisconsin alone. As private organizations and policy-makers consider investments in local food systems work, it will become more important to measure and describe the potential impact of kitchen incubators relative to other tools, as well as outline the internal and external factors that determine the success of a project.

There are a number of elements to this question, but one in particular stands out in current literature:  to what extent is the success of a kitchen incubator dependent on demand for local specialty products in the region and a marketing and distribution system, and to what extent can incubators take a role in helping to develop this market demand and distribution infrastructure?

An Iowa State University study of 3,500 consumers in the US showed that consumers are willing to pay a premium for place-based products regardless of origin, and that they are willing to pay even more for products from their state (DeCarlo, Frank, & Pirog, 2005). This study did not analyze the data by region, but it would not be surprising to find disparities between individual consumers’ willingness to pay. Despite national trends, research makes it clear that overall demand for local food varies both by region and by the product in question (King, et.al., 2010). Would these differences affect the success of a kitchen incubator project? In the evaluation of a pilot incubator project in New Hampshire, Sakakeeny (2007) notes that “an incubator will not succeed if the tenants do not have a product that will sell or a market to sell to” (p.46). This seems like common sense, but to what extent can an incubator overcome an ostensible “lack” of a market by making connections with local retailers and helping entrepreneurs develop their brands?

Similarly, what role does distribution infrastructure have to play in the success of kitchen incubators? According to Dent’s (2008) survey of 57 incubator managers, distribution is the most significant for micro-scale food enterprises, even before access to facilities. The Economic Research Service’s report on local food supply chains sought to understand local food supply chains in order to identify barriers to expanding markets for local foods (King, et.al., 2010). The existence of adequate distribution infrastructure and logistics may be intimately tied to the size of the market for locally produced goods, and both may play a major role in whether or not a particular kitchen incubator is successful. In order to better direct public dollars and to help guide the development of incubator kitchens, we should examine the role of market demand and distribution systems in the success of existing kitchens, and also seek to understand to what extent kitchens were able to play a role in that success by actually developing demand and/or distribution capabilities.

Works Cited

DeCarlo, T.E., Frank, V.J., & Pirog, R. (2005, October). Consumer Perceptions of place-based foods, food chain profit distribution, and family farms. (Report prepared for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture). Ames, IA: Iowa State University College of Business,.

Dent, B. (2008). The Potential for Kitchen Incubators to Assist Food Processing Enterprises. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business. 6(3). 496-511.

King, R. P., Hand, M.S., DiGiacomo, G., Clancy, K., Gomez, M.I., Hardesty, S.D., Lev, L., & McLaughlin, E.W. (2010, June). Comparing the Structure, Size, and Performance of Local and Mainstream Food Supply Chains, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.

Sakakeeny, Kria (2007, April). The Common Kitchen: A Culinary Incubator. Unpublished Masters Thesis.  Manchester, NH: School of Community Economic Development, Southern New Hampshire University.

Wold, C. and Sumner, H. (Eds.). (2002). Establishing a Shared-use Commercial Kitchen, Revised 1st ed., United States: NxLevel Education Foundation.

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A (partially) annotated bibliography

Case Studies, feasibility studies, and technical reports on kitchen incubators

Buckley, J., Peterson, H. C., & Bingen, J. (2011). The Starting Block: A Case Study of an Incubator Kitchen. Michigan State University.

A case-study of the Starting Block incubator kitchen facility in Hart, Michigan, based on 15 semi-structured interviews with incubator staff, clients, and community partners. The case-study covers kitchen startup, general operations and some detail about the participating businesses.

Clark, S., Howard, H., & Rossi, V. S. V. (2009). Exploratory Study for a Kitchen Incubator in West Memphis, Arkansas. University of Arkansas: Clinton School of Public Service.

This exploratory study was conducted by a team of students from the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas in order to provide background data for a local development agency to understand the potential benefits and risks of establishing a kitchen incubator in West Memphis, AR. The report mostly draws from technical literature on establishing incubator kitchens in order to provide recommendations for further project development. The recommendations do an excellent job of drawing together best practices from multiple technical sources, many of which are provided in the appendices. Unfortunately, none of the recommendations include an academic citation, likely because little academic research has been done to demonstrate the effects of these best practices on success of a kitchen. The report does not direclty address the distinction between a rurally-based and urban-based incubator kitchen. .

Dent, B. (2008). The Potential for Kitchen Incubators to Assist Food-Processing Enterprises. International Journal of Enterpreneurship and Small Business, 6(3), 496-512.

Dent’s peer-reviewed article appears to be the only academic study in the literature which surveys a large sample of incubators in the US (57). The author uses data from the survey and financial projections of a “model incubator” to determine the financial feasibility and potential impact of a rural-based incubator in the UK. The study determines that most kitchen incubators do not break even on operating costs, do not tend to attract farmer-clients, and often attract clientele who are not interested in expanding beyond the capacity of a shared-use kitchen space. According to Dent, incubators may be more likely to achieve financial sustainability in urban areas where the concentration of entrepreneurs is greater and there is greater potential for a diverse clientele base, or if they employ alternative strategies like co-packing arrangements to increase profitability. The author concludes by noting that incubators must be seen as one part of a complex food system. They must take into account marketing and distribution challenges in addition to business planning and capital access, and economic and financial indicators may not be sufficient measures of the true impacts of an incubator.

Hall, E. (2007). Measuring the Economic Impact of the Nonprofit Small Business Incubator: A Case Study of Nuestra Culinary Ventures. Masters thesis, University of Pennsylvania, Urban Studies Program (Senior Seminar Papers).

This undergraduate senior thesis attempts to analyze the economic impact of a non-profit urban incubator kitchen in Boston, Massachusetts. The researcher began the study as an intern at the incubator, Nuestra Culinary Ventures (NCV), and developed her research questions based on her experiences there. Analysis is based on six months of financial statements and survey results from 17 current incubatees and three former program participants. The study concludes that NCV is financially “unsustainable” because it does not generate enough income to cover operating expenses and recommended that NCV either close or seriously overhaul its program structure to more effectively meet its goals of creating employment opportunities and economic benefit to local residents. It does not explicitly generalize these results to apply to other non-profit kitchen incubators, but does tend to employ strong polarizing rhetoric that implies that kitchen incubators might be poor choices as tools for economic development. While the study’s analysis seems accurate, it falls outside the scope of the paper to explore the reasons for NCV’s failure to achieve its goals. Besides a perfunctory nod to measuring the effect of the incubator on ‘”diversity,” the paper also does not go into metrics beyond a few direct economic measures: full-time-equivalent jobs created, sales, expenses versus income, and finally cost-per-job-created. The limitations of the study speak to the need for a mixed methods approach to research on kitchen incubators. The recommendations presented at the end of the study (increasing staff, diversifying the base of entrepreneurs, improving the screening process, and expanding NCV’s network) give useful clues for areas of future research.

Hollyer, J., Castro, L., Salgado, C., Cox, L., Hodgson, A., Thom, W., Yurth, C., Kam, P., & Kwok, M. (2000). Some Costs and Considerations for Establishing an Entrepreneurial Community Shared-Use Kitchen or “Test-Kitchen Incubator”. Cooperative Extension Service, College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Sakakeeny, K. (2007). The Common Kitchen: A Culinary Incubator. Masters thesis, School of Community Economic Development, Southern New Hampshire University.

This report details the background, objectives, design and implementation of a pilot culinary incubator at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) and provides recommendations for the continuation of the program. The author, a Masters student in community economic development at SNHU, was not only a researcher, but also one of the three main project organizers. The study does not attempt to generalize its findings to other incubator situations, but is intended to inform local stakeholders. The most useful sections of the report are the detailed descriptions of the management challenges associated with a part-time incubator staff and the in-depth profiles on each of the incubatee firms. Different from other case studies on kitchen incubators, Sakakeeny also introduces the concepts of place-making and cultural development and cultural education as outcomes of culinary incubators beyond traditional economic metrics.

Wold, C., Sancho, M. F., Schubert, K., Wojtacha, J., & Hobbs, L. (1997). Establishing a Shared-Use Commercial Kitchen: A NxLeveL Guide.

This manual, edited by Cameron Wold is the “bible” of best practices for establishing a kitchen incubator. Wold has over 25 years of experience providing technical assistance for the establishment of shared-use commercial kitchens in a variety of settings. Cited in nearly every feasibility study and evaluation of community kitchens, this book provides a comprehensive guide to setting up a kitchen incubator from developing a local project team to writing a budget to kitchen design, all the way through to marketing specialty food products. The full second half of the manual is dedicated to appendices which include practical tools like sample tenant application forms and kitchen rules, a case study and sample feasibility study from the Denver Enterprise Center Kitchen Incubator, and a “primer” on the specialty foods market. The report does not draw from academic research, but rather from the lived experience of the six authors.

Impact Analysis, performance evaluation, and best practices for business incubators

Bearse, P. (1998). A Question of Evaluation: NBIA’s Impact Assessment of Business Incubators. Economic Development Quarterly, 12, 322-333.

Hackett, S. M. & Dilts, D. M. (2004). A Real Options-Driven Theory of Business Incubation. Journal of Technology Transfer, 29(1), 41-54.

Lyons, T. S. (1990). Birthing Economic Development: How effective are Michigan’s Business Incubators. Center for the Redevelopment of Industrialized States, Social Science Research Bureau, Michigan State University.

Markley, D. M. & McNamara, K. T. (1994). A Business Incubator: Operating Environment and Measurement of Economic and Fiscal Impacts. Purdue University: Center for Rural Development.

In this study, Markley and McNamara evaluate the impacts of a traditional business incubator in the Midwest by means of personal interviews with the incubator tenants and analysis of each firm’s financial data. The incubator studied was not a kitchen incubator, so the actual numbers were not relevant to my research; however, the authors outline a simple, useful methodology for calculating direct and indirect economic benefits and state tax revenue benefits for the incubator’s operation. The study does not attempt to compare the local economic situation with and without the incubator, but rather uses the economic impact analysis to compare the cost of creating jobs through the incubator with the “cost per job associated with the recruitment of major manufacturing plants.”

Voisey, P., Gornall, L., Jones, P., & Thomas, B. (2006). The Measurement of Success in a Business Incubation Project. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 13(3), 454-468.

The authors of this study employ a single case study methodology to evaluate a business incubator project in Wales with the explicit goal of establishing a more well-rounded set of metrics than the typical “statistical outputs” used to measure regional economic development projects. Based on a review of the existing literature on business incubators, and responses from 30 incubatees, the research concludes that “soft outcomes” such as improved business skills, increased networking, and positive PR should be taken into consideration in addition to the hard measures of profitability, enterprise growth and graduation rates. The study provides an excellent discussion of the difference between “hard output,” “soft outcome,” “hard outcome” and “distance travelled” metrics and includes an excellent graphic that lays out examples of metrics within each of these categories as they apply to business incubators.

I wrote this paper for a class on participatory action research that I took last semester — it ranks among my favorite courses. Rather than focus on practice or methods, this was a review of different strands of participatory research, action research and community-based research, with an emphasis on understanding the similarities and  differences between different approaches situating our own approaches and philosophies.

The concept of “validity” is a tricky one for action researchers and something I’ll continue to grapple with as I embark on my dissertation. I do the work that I do because I’m part of a movement that wants to change our current food system to be more diverse, locally-integrated, environmentally resilient, and equitable. I happen to think that a combination of informed action/experimentation, and rigorous documentation/analysis/evaluation is part of the way to effect that change. But what makes this “research” research? By what criteria should my “results” be judged and deemed “valid”?

Written for a “mini-paper” reading response 4/13/11:

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The concept of validity in social science research originally developed within a positivist paradigm. Since the advent of new approaches to human inquiry that challenge positivist assumptions about the nature of reality and the purpose of research (such as critical theory, constructivism, and participatory research), the concept of validity has stretched beyond its original meaning.
The positivist approach to inquiry assumes truth is observable and testable, that the purpose of research is to explain and predict, and that social science should be objective, value-free, and clearly separated from practice. Within this mode of thinking, asking about the validity of research means asking whether our tests or methods accurately measure “whatever it is that is supposed to be measured” (p. 343, Wolcott, 1990). On the other hand, “transgressive” forms of validity like the crystalline or situated validity embraced by researchers like Laurel Richardson and Patti Lather, seek instead to intentionally “problematize reliability, validity and truth” (Richardson qtd in Guba & Lincoln, 2005). In an article examining both contradictions and blurring between old and new research paradigms, Lincoln and Guba (2005) suggest that in all cases, validity seeks to address the question:

Are these findings sufficiently authentic (isomorphic to some reality, trustworthy, related to the way others construct their social worlds) that I may trust myself in action on their implications? More to the point, would I feel sufficiently secure about these findings to construct social policy of legislation based on them? (p. 205)

Lincoln and Guba (2005) separate validity into two parts: validity of method and validity of interpretation. They posit that traditional positivist definitions of validity like the kind described by Litwin (1995) in “How to Measure Survey Reliability and Validity,” deal mostly in the “rigor in the application of method” (Lincoln & Guba, 2005, p. 205). While critical theorists, constructionists, and other “new-paradigm” researchers are not exempt from questions about their methods of observation, they also grapple with questions of how, what, and why we interpret observations.

Wolcott’s 1990 article, “On Seeking – and Rejecting – Validity in Qualitative Research,” is an early example of a struggle to look beyond a concept of validity tied to methodological rigor or procedure and get at valid interpretation, or rigor “in ascribing salience to one interpretation over another and for framing and bounding an interpretative study itself” (Lincoln & Guba, 2005, p. 205). Wolcott starts off describing the tactics he employs to “satisfy the implicit challenge of validity” and “not get it all wrong” (1990, p. 347). He then pushes beyond the concept of validity tied to criteria like internal consistency and the capacity to predict, and proposes instead that ethnographic research should seek to understand social structures that we humans construct. In 1990, Wolcott calls this a ‘rejection’ of validity, but fifteen years later, Lincoln and Guba describe how other new-paradigm researchers have chosen to stretch rather than reject the concept of validity and ask not only about what constitute valid methods of measurement and observation, but also what constitutes valid interpretation. “Can our cocreated constructions be trusted to provide some purchase on some important human phenomenon [what Wolcott might call understanding]?” (2005, p. 206)

The shift in focus from methodological validity to questions about interpretive validity is ultimately rooted in a shift in the ontology and epistemology of new modes of social science. In order to determine whether research findings are authentic to ‘reality’ and to know whether and how our findings engage with ‘reality,’ we must first understand how we view the nature of reality (ontology) and how we acquire knowledge about this reality (epistemology). For example, foundationalists who believe in a transcendental reality might say “real phenomena necessarily imply certain final, ultimate criteria for testing them as truthful” (Lincoln & Guba, 2005, p. 204). On the other hand, antifoundationalists who refute the idea of a truth separate from human perception might argue “agreement regarding what is valid knowledge arises from the relationship between members of some stake-holding community” (Lincoln & Guba, 2005, p. 204). In the latter case, what is valid must always be negotiated because reality only exists as it is constructed between people.

Certain definitions of what is valid go beyond questions about the nature of reality and knowledge into the purpose and ethical obligations associated with inquiry (axiology).

When social inquiry becomes the practice of a form of practical philosophy – a deep questioning about how we shall get on in the world and what we conceive to be the potentials and limits of human knowledge and functioning – then we have some preliminary understanding of what entirely different criteria might be for judging social inquiry. (Lincoln and Guba, 2005, p. 206)

Ontological, educative, catalytic and tactical validities, for example, ask about the outcome of inquiry; specifically, increased awareness or increased capacity or tendency for individual or collective action. These types of validity play a major role in participatory research and action research because these modes of inquiry tend to make social transformation or change their explicit end-goal. Here what research is ‘valid’ becomes less about what mirrors reality and more about what has the capacity to change, form or shape reality.

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Works Cited:

Guba, Egon G. and Lincoln, Yvonna S. 2005. Paradigmatic Controversies, Contradictions, and Emerging Confluences. In: Handbook of Qualitative Research, Third Edition, edited by N. Denzin and Y Lincoln. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Litwin, M.W. 1995. How to Measure Survey Reliability and Validity. In The Survey Kit, edited by Arlene Fink. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Wolcott, H. F. 1994. On Seeking – and Rejecting – Validity in Qualitative Research. Chapter 11, in: Transforming Qualitative Data: Description, Analysis, and Interpretation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

I’m trying to get in the habit of posting academic writing to the blog so I can hold myself (somewhat) accountable for not writing BS that I don’t believe in, that doesn’t really matter to me, or that I’d otherwise be embarrassed to have associated with my name.

Here’s a first go, and one that might be considered somewhat brave — this was a short final in-class essay that I wrote back in December for a required survey course in my department that I didn’t particularly enjoy. It’s not really meant as a standalone paper, but I think most of the concepts are decipherable.

Written for a one-hour, in-class final essay, December 8, 2010…

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The role of systems thinking in combating mistrust in the service of community betterment

Key Focal Area: Betterment
Problem: Mistrust
Solution: Systems thinking

In the field of community development, “betterment” must be considered a fluid concept, subject to the time, place, and situation in question, the values of the stakeholders, and the known solutions. In the beginning of the course, we discussed two scenarios: the Alaskan salmon fishery and a community on the Florida panhandle. In both cases, we discussed the multiple scenarios, including some scenarios of “improvement.” A seemingly simple task unearthed some of the complexity that exemplifies the questions we grapple with regularly in CARRS: What is “improvement” or “betterment” in an increasingly connected, increasingly diverse, and increasingly complicated world? Improvement of what type (economic, social, political, environmental)? At what level (individual, community, region, national, international?) Improvement for whom? Over what time frame?

Dr. Paul Thompson introduced us to the critical concept that a person’s values or ethical norms frame their definition and conceptualization of sustainability. Similarly, a community’s values and norms frames its concept of betterment, and even more fundamentally, its view of itself. Situating himself in his local coffee shop, Orum (2005) describes the way that people shape their ‘places’ through their actions and their values, and are in turn shaped by their ‘places’ and their physical, social, and other characteristics. Herein lies the concept of “second order cybernetics” which asks the critical question:

“Am I apart from the universe? That is, whenever I look am I looking through a peephole upon an unfolding universe. Or: Am I part of the universe? That is, whenever I act, I a changing myself and the universe as well?” (Foerster 1992, p. 15).

In this class, we have recognized how our own worldview and the worldviews of multiple stakeholders affect the way that we define and address problems. We have recognized the inherent complexity in the “wicked problem” of community betterment in a diverse society where we have “nothing like the indisputable public good” (Rittel & Webber 1973, p.155). Yet in many cases, ‘normal’ science fails to take into account the fact that traditional approaches might no longer be sufficient (Batie 2008). Similarly, many theorists portray contemporary positivist policy analysis, which also eschews discussion of values in favor of a one-size-fits-all model of ‘betterment,’ as “intellectually bankrupt” and an “impediment to democracy” (Fischer 1993, p. 165).

Mistrust by public citizens, by policy makers, and by other stakeholders may stem from this application of traditional, scientific solutions to situations for which it is not well suited. In a situation where so-called “experts” dictate the terms of betterment without considering the implications of their decision outside of their realm of expertise (including the ethical, religious, and justice-related concerns of stakeholders in addition to the oft-highlighted economic, environmental, and social concerns) it is not surprising that regular citizens can become disillusioned and mistrust the motives or abilities of the very people who they may have appointed as the authority.

The application of systems thinking may be a partial solution to this issue; however, there are two distinct types of systems thinking, both stemming from very divergent epistemologies (Ison 2008). “Hard” systems thinking still largely falls within a positivist paradigm, which assumes a common goal. “Soft” systems thinking, or “systemic thinking” assumes that the boundaries of systems are permeable and determined by those who participate in their definition, that feedback within a system may not be linear, and that systems must be examined in context. The second type of systems thinking lends itself particularly well to action research, which by its nature, includes the perspectives of the communities who have the most stake in defining and achieving “betterment” of some kind (Ison 2008). The value in this type of thinking and research is that it allows us to manage or “tame” problems that might breed mistrust if tackled with more traditional approaches.

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Works Cited

Batie, S. S. (2008). Wicked Problems and Applied Economics. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 90(5), 1176-1191.

Ison, R. L. (2008). Systems thinking and practice for action research. In: Reason, Peter W. and Bradbury, Hilary eds. The Sage Handbook of Action Research Participative Inquiry and Practice (2nd edition). London, UK: Sage Publications, pp. 139–158.

Orum, Anthony M. (2005, Summer). All the World’s a Coffee Shop: Reflections on Place, Community, and Identity. Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture. 5.3.

Rittel, H., and Webber, M. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences. 4, 155-169.

Von Foerster,H.(1992) ‘Ethics and second-order cybernetics’,Cybernetics and Human Knowing,1:9–19.

For those of you who read this and aren’t in Detroit, you can get some background on the situation here or here. Basically, a random bloke from Massachusetts suggested to the Mayor that the city erect a statue of RoboCop. The mayor said ‘no thanks,’ some crazy kids threw up a facebook page, a website and a kickstarter campaign, and $50K later, Detroit’s  citizenry are in an uproar.
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I don’t care if Robocop gets built or not, I watched the movie for the first time just last week and mostly felt confused.

But after some contemplation, I realize I’m solidly a fan of the campaign and less of a fan of Captain Complainers who whine that the money should/could be spent some other way. If you think the statue will be ugly, or you hate it as a symbol, I can feel you. Argue on aesthetic merits. But getting upset that a few people raised money for something crazy and whimsical (but not harmful), when in some ideal world, they could have raised that money for something more worthy, seems silly.

I understand the frustration of seeing money go towards something you don’t think is worthwhile when there’s so much that needs doing. I guess I’ve dealt with a different, but related situation in Cambodia and in other nonprofit work since. In Cambodes, specifically, upstart grads from fancy schools in the states with connections, marketing abilities, and good intentions tended to raise all kinds of money (much much more than $50K) from angel investors and individuals and foundations back home mostly because they called their work “social entrepreneurship” and had fancy websites and made it seem cutting-edge and innovative. They would then use this money to do projects that came out of ideas they learned at school, but didn’t always align with what was actually needed, and sometimes forced the people they were trying to help to take a step backwards. Sometimes these organizations would be on the right track, but wouldn’t know how to do the work themselves, so they’d take a big cut of the money and then pay local organizations (like the one I worked with) to do the real work (or in egregious cases, ask us to do it for free). They weren’t building statues, but sometimes they were doing more expensive things like creating new facilities that were used a handful of times. Obviously it would have been much more awesome if local organizations doing the “real,” “important,” “effective,” unsexy work could get the money directly, but it wasn’t the way things worked.

Yes, this was annoying, but I eventually realized that these folks were raising awareness among people who might never have even considered entering a conversation about Cambodia and its problems. Same deal with Robo & Detroit — look at all the people it’s riled and mobilized. Also, these masterful marketers (like the RoboTeam) were explicitly in the game of finding ways to circumvent & invent alternatives to traditional funding streams with all their requisite bureaucracy and strings and power dynamics and look for ways to tap into a more democratic, values-based sense kind of money (for others thinking about this, check out the Future of Money).

In this case, instead of complaining, we went and cultivated relationships with these folks and started to educate them about how they could help my organization do our work better and how they could use the resources they were able to garner  more effectively. These people had connections and skills we could use, and while their lack of humility and often frightening disconnectedness from reality could be galling, in the end, they shared a lot of our values. If we weren’t quite teammates, we were at least rooting for the same side to win.

This doesn’t always work when egos can’t be tamed and people have personal agendas they aren’t willing to give up, but it worked in our case, and it seems like the RoboCrew is pretty aware and very involved in the community and pretty committed to using the momentum from this for good in Detroit. It wouldn’t be my choice to build a statue of RoboCop, and maybe it wouldn’t have been theirs either (it wasn’t really their idea, after all), but they took advantage of an opportunity. And I’m not totally sure I see anything wrong per se with being opportunistic. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to hurt anyone to put up a statue, and it’s not as if the money would have existed at all had it not been for this campaign.

I think a lot about this too in relationship to my work in food. There is this foodie scene — folks who care a lot about specialty foods and sometimes about the environmental stuff, but tend to be pretty separate from conversations about food justice as it relates to access or structural racism or farmworkers rights. This scene is trendy, it is growing, it’s sophisticated in its use of Twitter, it shops at the same Whole Foods with rich VCs in Palo Alto and Seattle. People who work on less trendy issues can get their panties in a bunch talking about elitism and greenwashing, and while I think it’s an important conversation to have, as long as no one’s getting hurt by fancy food and expensive organics (it’s important to acknowledge that sometimes people do get hurt), I’m more interested in figuring out how to take advantage of and channel this momentum (both its people and its financial power) to promote other related issues that may be less sexy, but related and within the same range of values.

Anyway, others have said it (more than once) and I agree that more than anything, this RoboBusiness seems like a kick in the pants (or maybe a lesson in genius marketing) for those who care about doing good work in Detroit. Get out and DO IT (and maybe enlist the help of RoboPosse on your marketing & fundraising committee).

Sometimes folks ask me why I find social networking tools useful.

There was the time when I was up on the farm and posted a note asking if anyone wanted to drive my car from California up to Washington. My old friend Sean from Catholic kids choir days had just finished up his time in the navy and was looking for something to do. He saw my note and voila! a few weeks later, I had my car, and he’d had a nice road trip.

Then there are things like this:

JUNE

• Ag of the Middle Briefing
• Meeting karl kupers!
• Meeting kathleen merrigan!
• Bates byebye BBQ bash
• NSAC goodbye lunch at White Tiger
• Beck, cam, and marianne’s graduation party
• Beach house for Becky’s birthday & next day’s breakfast
• Weddings!
• Grandma Evie, Grandad Tom, Grandma Sharon, Kong Kong Ron, Ah-Man, Kong Kong, all my aunties, Christina, Greg, Laura, Jen Jen, and all my other awesome awesome awesome friends.
• Submitting AFRI grant proposal

JULY

• 4th of july
• Roadtripping with my mum
• Missouri cousins
• Iowa with Jerry — ATVs and tractors!
• Madison with Kara
• Arriving in Detroit
• Roy Ayers up front!
• Lots of thrift stores and craigslist fun
• Cooking for friends
• Brother Nature + The Pink FlaminGO
• Canoeing

AUGUST

• Blueberry picking & swimming in our underwear
• Lots of hanging out with new Detroit friends
• Yo Yo Ma!
• Preserving foods
• E. Market Welcome Center
• Noodle commences
• Korean BBQ party
• Swimming in the lake

SEPTEMBER

• More noodle and noodle and noodle
• Awesome new Lansing crew
• Spring Green for Labor Day: camping, crackers, pizza, drama, farmers
• Classes! Reading! Thinking! Talking!
• Dally.
• Chopping things in the big farm kitchen at Harvest Gathering
• lots and lots of heirloom tomatoes
• First CARRS potluck success

and more to come!

Part of my work at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) has been to report on happenings and announcements at the USDA and on the Hill. Here’s a repost of a quick update I wrote on the most recent House Ag Committee hearing for the 2012 Farm Bill. Check out the NSAC blog and other articles here, or sign up for the Weekly Roundup and you’ll receive regular updates to your inbox.

Thursday’s hearing in the House Agriculture Committee brought in two panels of farm and food policy experts to continue the conversation kicked off on late April in preparation for the 2012 Farm Bill.

As in the first hearing in late April, the witnesses’ testimony and Representatives’ questions covered a wide range of topics, but consistently came back to two underlying themes.  First, the 2012 Farm Bill will need to shift “business as usual” especially with regards to farm safety net programs like crop insurance; and second, Congress will need to make these changes within a tough budget context.  Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) has been calling the 2012 Farm Bill a “baseline” bill, but in the hearing, it was apparent that even a baseline level of funding is not guaranteed.

These themes played out in a back-and-forth on approaches to rural development.  Professor Neil Hamilton of Drake University testified on the importance of continuing to support federal programs that promote the development of local and regional food systems alongside existing national and global commodity agriculture.  This analysis was in line with prior comments from Chairman Peterson and Secretary Vilsack, but with overall funding for the Farm Bill likely to be limited, some in Congress feel threatened at what they perceive as an increasing emphasis on new and alternative markets.

In response to Professor Hamilton’s testimony, Rep. Jerry Moran (R-KS) expressed concern over what he saw as a “growing emphasis” on “lifestyle” agriculture over “production” agriculture and said that “a prospering mainstreet” would not come as a result of this “lifestyle” farming.

Hamilton countered by citing the potential for local and regional production to keep more dollars  in rural communities and keep farmers on the land.  In his written testimony, Hamilton also emphasized support for  “Agriculture of the Middle” – farmers and ranchers who rely heavily on farming income, are too large to sell into direct markets, but too small to compete effectively on the commodity market but are finding new high value regional markets.

Fellow Iowan Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA) reiterated that there was room in the tent for everyone: ‘There is not a threat to production agriculture,’ he said. ‘There’s room for both.’”

I’ve been doing a lot of yoga lately. There’s a studio called Yoga District right down First Street just a few blocks from my house. It’s simple, spacious, unpretentious, affordable. There’s a place to leave your mat and the same folks come around again and again so that you get to know faces. People ride their bikes and walk to class. “Interns” from the community help clean the place and sign people in, in exchange for free classes. The whole ethos of the place manifests most clearly in the studio’s outreach arm, YogaActivist.org, which helps bring yoga into communities that might not otherwise experience it.

I love this place. It’s kept me grounded over the past few months, and I’m going to be sad to leave it.

I’ve heretofore been a little skeptical of yoga. Classes I’d taken in San Francisco left me feeling self conscious, like I didn’t fit in among the lululemons and raw foodists. A friend took me to a bikram class in Orange County where a wiry black haired Chinese goddess barked at a room of slick, dripping, bendy people as they twisted and pressed and squeezed every last toxin from deep inside out their pores. It was an experience, but not of calm.

The classes I’ve come to love at this place are athletic. I move and bend and sweat. It’s not easy, but it feels really really good, and by the end, my body feels at once relaxed and also tighter, my mind is open and I’m ready to take life in stride.

Just yesterday I did a headstand on my own for the first time since I was a kid. I’d tried a few times against the wall, or with a spot from a kind instructor, but yesterday I felt courageous and powerful so I nestled the crown of my head between my palms, walked my feet up towards my face till I was on my tippy tip toes, and then gave a slight -push- and bent my knees and then I was up.

Judge not… but sometimes I’m curious when I twist around in some funny pose and see the full room behind me. I’m curious whether people’s posture in yoga belies something deeper about them. The ones that get me most are slouchers, people who turn languidly and poke their arms in the air halfheartedly at the beginning of each sun salute. I wonder if these people would make good coworkers.

Or the overachievers (who, me?) who lunge much deeper than is necessary and push and strive and breathe too loud and glance at their neighbors (I try hard to resist). But the people I want to be friends with (and strive to be more like) are the people who are strong, but calm. Straight, but contained. They sometimes shake, they sometimes fall, but always with grace.

This guy is a rockstar. Everything he says resonates.

What inspires you to do your work? “Problem solving… Creating interesting, innovative, and efficient solutions”

“I think we miss opportunities to connect food advocacy and other fields of interest because the nature of the work (and the method of funding) breeds specialization rather than integration.”

“I don’t know one initiative in any field of interest that has been able to create sustainable, game-changing outcomes within 12 months… But in the food movement, we overpromise and underfund, then get mad when we don’t change the world after a year.”

“Investing in communities to create things. Be a part of the creation movement.”

And yet another reason to move to Detroit:

“In two weeks Detroit will launch its Green Grocer Project, which is a grocery expansion and attraction program to help with operations, financing and giving them a direct liaison housed in the City for anything they need. To create a space in the city for a grocer at any level to get involved and give them a contact for anything they need: bookkeeping, accounting, store design, product handling, you name it.… the Mayor will make an announcement on May 17th and it’ll be like watching my baby be born.”