by Kerry Trueman, Eating Liberally

With beehives, chicken coops, and rooftop farms popping up all over Brooklyn, it's high time us city folks revived that end of summer ritual, the county fair. After all, the county of Brooklyn--Kings County, to be precise--is a hotbed of horticultural happenings. Why should blue ribbon pies, pickles and produce be limited to rural regions when we're growing great stuff and baking up a storm right here in our neck of the not-so-woodsy woods?

Just in time for the harvest, Derek Denckla, an eco-preneur and champion of urban ag, has addressed this void by collaborating with Crossing the Line, a cross-cultural project of the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), to launch the Farm City Fair, which takes place this Sunday, September 12th from 11am to 5pm at The Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn, NY.

The Farm City Fair kicks off a series of events over the next three weekends devoted to celebrating urban agriculture. The series, entitled "Where are You Growing?" will explore "a new agrarian future within the current urban reality." Derek kindly took time out from gearing up for Sunday's extravaganza to answer my questions about the Farm City Fair via email:

KT: What inspired you to create the Farm City Fair?

Join us for  "The New York City Climate for Food Enterprise," a talk and tour of The Entrepreneur Space, a kitchen incubator in Long Island City (www.mikitchenessukitchen.com).

Topics will include markets, regulations and finance. Featured speakers will include Katherine Gregory, founder of the Entrepreneur Space.  Tour will begin at 12:00 p.m.

Directions:

The Entrepreneur Space, 36-46 37th St., Queens  11101

Take the M or R train to 36th st  in LIC, traveling in the first or second car.   Cross Northern Blvd. and take 37th for 1 ½ blocks.  The facility will be on the left.  For more information call 718-392-0025.

For more information, contact kristin@foodsystemsnyc.org.

John Tesvich, CEO of AmeriPure Oysters at Franklin, La., is ceasing operations as one of America’s largest suppliers of half-shell oysters due to sharply reduced supplies caused by the BP oil spill.  Hear from him about the uncertainties he faces moving forward. From the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board.

Join us this Sunday, August 22nd, Noon to 3 p.m., for the Food Systems Network's celebration
of the glorious TOMATO at the New
Amsterdam Market! The Market is located on South Street between Beekman Street and
Peck Slip [For map and directions, click here].
Tomatoes are being supplied by farmers and purveyors from the market,
including the Queens County Farm Museum, Zone 7, Basis Foods and more.

Taste
and compare fifteen varieties of tomatoes. Sample heirloom tomato
comfit by Chef/Owner of Inatteso Eric Lind, heirloom tomato salad with
cucumber, juniper & pumpernickle by Chef Meg Grace of The Red Head,
and other dishes by restaurants including Harry's Italian Pizza Bar. Bid on tomatoes, dinner at The Green Table, Provision's Stone House Oil and Vinegar and more in the Silent Auction.

Ticket Price: $20

by Viktoriya Syrov

by Ed Yowell, Slow Food NYC

Jurrien Swartz’s day job is as a financial consultant to Credite Suisse.  His other job is that of CFO (Chief Farm Entrepreneur) of Holton Farms, which, as summer is upon us, is his other day job.  Holton Farms, the motto of which is “Good earth. Good eats,” is implementing a unique farm-to-city distribution model to serve two distinct New York City populations, CSA subscribers and food desert residents.

Holton Farms, in Bellow’s Falls, Vermont, near Westminster, has been in Jurrien’s family since the mid-1700s.  Until 2007, it was a conventional, specialty crop farm, selling produce to local supermarket chains.  In 2007, Jurrien and his cousin, Seth Holton, decided on an alternative business plan – one that would help get more fresh, regionally grown food into New York City.  

To meet the demands of New York City eaters, they  have developed relationships with other Vermont and New Hampshire farms and specialty producers (a Fair Trade coffee roaster, a creamery and a bakery) and are beginning to raise livestock (Black Angus beef cattle, chickens and turkeys now, pigs and sheep later).  They started turning Holton Farms organic in 2008 and are transitional now.  And, they have acquired a facility for aggregating produce prior to delivery to New York City.  They are ready for us now and their three-pronged distribution strategy is in play.  

by Ed Yowell, Slow Food NYC

Join us MONDAY, August 9th, from 12:30-2:00 p.m. in the amphitheater of garden at the Union Settlement Association for a meeting on "Community Gardens -- Community Assets."

Community gardens (and their gardeners) provide healthy fresh foods; educate residents of all ages on their environment, local agriculture, and nutrition; strengthen social connections and fill a critical need for open space in the city’s most underserved communities. Did Liz Christy, the mother of the community garden movement, know back in the early 70s when she threw the first seed bomb into a vacant lot and founded Green Guerillas, that her efforts to improve the safety and beauty of neglected neighborhoods, would spawn over 700 gardens, a nearly 40 year-old movement, NYC Parks & Recreation’s GreenThumb program and a NYS Office of Community Gardens?  The story of New York City’s community garden movement has been one of growth, change, hard fought victories and loss.

The hardest won victory was the 2002 agreement between the city and the New York State attorney general’s office that settled a lawsuit in which the attorney general’s office sought to stop the Giuliani administration from selling city-owned gardens to developers.  That agreement is set to expire in September.  NYC Parks & Recreation and Housing Preservation and Development have publicized draft rules to replace the Agreement.  On August 10th there will be a public hearing on these rules.

As part of our continuing effort to educate members on pressing food systems issues and opportunities, we are pleased to highlight community gardens.

Where?: 237 E. 104th St., NY, NY. Walk through the office of the Union Settlement Association and head out the back to the garden, which can be seen from the street.  We will be in the amphitheater in the back, past the playground and garden boxes. 

Somewhere in Detroit, orange braceleted activists were discussing the rights of domestic workers, pushing for more transparent democracy, and taking breaks to eat ice cream in support of rural farmers while serenaded by a radical marching band protesting the current prison system to the tune of a Lady Gaga hit. It did, in fact, seem like another Detroit was happening, as promised in the addendum to the week’s slogan: “Another World Is Possible, Another U.S. Is Necessary.”  This U.S. Social Forum, which took place June 22nd through June 26th, was the second time such a gathering has happened in the U.S.  The first occurred in 2007 in Atlanta, growing out of the World Social Forum movement.  According to its website, “The World Social Forum is an open meeting place where social movements, networks, NGOs and other civil society organizations opposed to neo-liberalism and a world dominated by capital or by any form of imperialism come together to pursue their thinking, to debate ideas democratically, to formulate proposals, share their experiences freely and network for effective action. Since the first world encounter in 2001, it has taken the form of a permanent world process seeking and building alternatives to neo-liberal policies.”  As a result, over 15,000 activists and organizers had descended on venues throughout Detroit to discuss, build, and act.  

The Food Systems Network NYC is recruiting members to serve on several of our committees.  We are excited to work with friends new and old to keep FSNYC as an active, member-driven organization.  

The Communications Committee contributes to and assembles this newsletter, and provides links or articles for the Food Systems Blog.  If you are interested in keeping informed and informing others about what is happening in the healthy and sustainable food world of NYC, please contact kristin@foodsystemsnyc.org.

The newly-launched Public Policy Committee will educate our members about timely policy issues related to food and farms, and to provide a networking platform for anyone interested in
these topics.  Contact hjdolnick@gmail.com to join this committee or with questions.

The Development Committee works on building a financially sustainable Food Systems Network NYC.  Upcoming projects include planning our late summer Tomato Fest and a quarterly series of evening screenings concerning the many aspects of the NYC food system and the global, national, and regional influences on it. These screenings, benefiting the projects and activities of FSNYC, will be accompanied by panel discussions, Q and A periods, and networking opportunities.

The FSNYC Development Committee needs volunteer film curators, guest panel organizers, and event coordinators.
This is an exciting opportunity to meet the people who are building the better food system FSNYC supports.

Youth, Summer Jobs, and Food

This summer several New York City organizations are building the next generation of leaders by training and employing young people as urban farmers, food educators, and marketers of locally grown produce. At the July 13th FSNYC Open Networking meeting we’ll be discussing how some of these programs operate, whom they serve and the challenges they face.  Our panel will include adult and youth representatives from Culinary Kids Farm, FamilyCook Productions, GrowNYC’s Youthmarkets, Added Value’s Red Hook Farm, and the NYC Dept. of Youth and Community Development.

Time: 12:30-2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 13th

Location: The Fund for the City of New York, 121 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor

Courtesy of WhyHunger

The Food and Climate Connection from WhyHunger on Vimeo.

 The Food & Climate Connection: From Heating the Planet to Healing It highlights how our food system is both one of the greatest contributors to climate change and one of its greatest potential solutions.  By some estimates, the food system is responsible for fully one-third of greenhouse gas emissions. Global warming is, in turn, contributing to rising rates of hunger and food insecurity.  The good news is that communities around the world are showing another way forward!  By practicing sustainable, community-based agriculture, which holds carbon in the soil and reduces dependence on fossil fuels, they are feeding themselves while cooling down the planet.  The film brings viewers into this growing global movement and invites them to take part.

by Ed Yowell, Slow Food NYC

To paraphrase Arlo Guthrie in “Alice’s Restaurant” - “if one person does it, they may think he is really sick..., if two people do it...they won’t take (it)... if three people do it...they may think it’s an organization.  And can you... imagine fifty people...they may think it’s a movement.”

This is not the story of fifty, but four, vegetarians; actually, two vegetarians and two vegans, who, after years of eschewing animal-based food, adopted omnivorous ways.

The omnivores are: Mike Betit, pig farmer of Tamarack Hollow Farm in Vermont; Josh Applestone, butcher and co-owner, with his wife Jessica, of Fleisher’s Grass-fed and Organic Meats, a butchery in Kingston, New York; Tom Mylan, butcher and partner at the Meat Hook, a butchery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; and finally, George Weld, chef and owner of Egg, the breakfast-all-day, southern restaurant in Williamsburg.   

Mike sells his pastured, heritage breed pork at the Wednesday Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan.  He and I have chatted over pig parts and sausages for several years.  During one such chat, he told me that he had been a vegetarian, and, in fact, cooked at a vegetarian restaurant.  Interesting career move I thought.  

by Ed Yowell, Slow Food NYC

In April 2010, you were introduced to a panel of farmers: Jen Small of Flying Pigs Farm and Pat Sheldon of Sheldon Farms, both in Upstate New York Washington County; as well as Charles Massoud of Paumanok Vineyards and Karen Rivara of the Aeros Cultured Oyster Company, both in Suffolk County on the East End of Long Island.  This series began when the panel answered the question, “What’s the problem with farming and government, anyway?”  In May, we explored with them “Food Safety” and in June, “Farm Labor.”  This month, July 2010, you will hear about farming and regulation - and, more about the alienation between farmers and the rest of us.    

Charles Massoud and his wife Ursula are proprietors of a small (9,000 cases per year) family-operated vineyard and winery subject to the regulations of the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) and the New York State Liquor Authority (NYSLA).  

At the end of Prohibition, the federal government left regulating alcoholic beverages to the states.  Prior to 2005, 24 states had laws prohibiting state residents from buying wine directly from vineyards in other states.  In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that states could not allow residents to buy wine directly from in-state wineries while prohibiting them from buying wine directly from out-of-state wineries.  But this boon to vineyards and drinkers across the nation was soon tempered in New York State.

by Andrew Wolf, AmeriCorps VISTA with the Children's Aid Society

I started teaching food justice at the Children’s Aid Society Go! Healthy program a year ago this June.  As I think about the lessons I’ve learned, I’ve found that my experience has been a lot like gardening: I plant the seed of an idea at the beginning of the class and hope it grows.  There are many dangers to over-caring for your garden, just as there are problems with trying to push my own idea of food justice on students.  If you water too much, the plant isn’t going to be able to survive and if you don’t let students discover what food justice means to them, there is no way they will stay interested.  Put a few stakes in the ground for support, but the plant has to do the work of growing itself.  

One of the most successful methods of exploring food justice in our classes has been providing students with a camera and some questions.  Asking what healthy food is available in the neighborhood, what people are eating, what food costs, and what advertisements line the streets are just some examples of the investigating that students have done.  Asking these questions and documenting them on film allows students to come to their own conclusions and to share their work with others.

By Kerry Trueman, Eating Liberally

First came King Corn. Then, Big River. Now, get ready for Truck Farm--the latest vehicle, literally, from Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, two of the good food galaxy's brightest stars. Truck Farm is a work-in-progress featuring an ’86 Dodge pick-up whose bed has been converted into a traveling mini-farm delivering fresh produce to a 20-member CSA.

The produce-filled pick-up truck is the centerpiece of this 40-minute documentary devoted to the growing NYC urban farm movement. Curt and Ian are in the process of editing the film, and they need your help to meet their goal of raising $15,000 via Kickstarter to finish Truck Farm this summer, and launch it in film festivals this fall. The deadline for their goal is June 10th, so please check out the video, and consider kicking in what you can to Kickstart the Truck Farm. For more on this project, read Lorna Sass's recent blog post.

The post below is by Glynwood President Judith LaBelle, from Glynwood's new blog, The Glynwood View.  Check it out for more news about their work with Hudson Valley Farmers.

Canning, fermenting, freezing, drying – home food preservation is an economical, enjoyable, and delicious way to savor local, seasonal edibles all year round. Join eater and author, Sherri Brooks Vinton, as she demonstrates a variety of these techniques with recipes from her new book, Put ‘em Up! Eaters will walk away with all the knowledge they need to safely and confidently put up their own tomatoes, pickles, jams, jellies, salsas, chutneys and more.  Books will be  available for sale at the event.

Proceeds from this event will benefit The Food Systems Network NYC. 

Tickets may be purchased here: http://www.nycharities.org/events/eventlevels.aspx?ETID=1559

Location: Jimmy's No. 43

43 East 7th Street

New York, NY, 10003

Time: June 21, 2010 - 6:00pm - 7:30pm

Please join us on June 15th in Queens for a meeting on SchoolFood's Summer Meals Program.  Billy Doherty of SchoolFood, a new member of the FSNYC Leadership Committee, will be present to discuss the program.  Also on the panel will be Lorraine Burke, Deputy Director of Operations for NYC SchoolFood

and Kathy Goldman of Community Food Advocates, NYC and former founder and executive director of Community Food Resource Center (later FoodChange).

Time: 12:30-2:00p.m. on June 15th

Location: SchoolFood Offices
44-36 Vernon Boulevard
4th Floor - Resource Center
Long Island City, NY 11101

Afterwards, please join us for a Program Committee meeting beginning at 2:15 to talk about the content of future meetings!