ColumnAre oysters cruelty free? That’s up to you.

There are few things more guaranteed to spark controversy than a discussion about personal dietary choices. You want to get people riled up? Start making a case for or against pretty much any dietary regimen.

It seems that nobody likes to be told what to eat, while lots of people feel entitled to tell others what to eat. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking about high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, meat, or oysters; the same people who will hang onto their own arguments with the tenacity of a barnacle are the ones most determined to get others to come over to their way of thinking on all matters dietary.

Can’t we all just agree over a nice platter of chilled, shucked oysters that the fact that we can have these arguments at all means we are sitting in an enviable place of privilege? Please? I’ll even throw in a glass of champagne.

Abilgail Wick’s recent piece on veganism sparked a swirl of commentary here on EcoSalon. To wear vintage leather or not? How bad, really, is that processed faux meat?

All valid questions, but I’m going to focus on the oyster question.

I’ve talked about the sustainable credentials of oysters here on EcoSalon before, and after taking another look at the existing information, I have to stand by my analysis that oysters are a terrific conscious choice.

Oysters are filter feeders, meaning they feed on algae and other plant life that is already present in the water. They don’t require inputs like other types of aquaculture or even crop farming does, making oysters a highly efficient form of food. When you look at the farming of carnivorous fish like salmon, oysters look doubly good. Farmed salmon requires more protein to produce, pound for pound, than it provides back in food, resulting in a wasteful net protein loss—indefensible in a hungry world.

Oysters, by feeding on the algae, actually filter the water in which they live. Get this: one healthy adult oyster can filter as much as 50 gallons a day. Simply by being, they can actually improve the health of the environment in which they are farmed.

According to Food & Water Watch, it is estimated that in 1870 there were enough wild oysters to filter and cleanse the entire volume of Chesapeake Bay in three days. Unfortunately, the country’s wild oyster populations have declined due to excess nutrients, chemical contaminants, sedimentation, over-harvesting, domestic sewage and disease.

It is sad to see one of the last remaining wild foods disappear, but nowhere is there credible evidence to suggest that the farming of oysters has had a deleterious effect on wild oysters. The wild oyster’s enemies are many, but farmed oysters are not among them.

If you are like many people, you might consider oysters to be one of life’s greatest pleasures. They are compact, easy to prepare, and delicious with nothing more than a squeeze of lemon, or nothing at all. And they are sexy, even notwithstanding their reputation as an aphrodisiac. Can you think of any other food that is more fun to feed by hand to a sexy companion?

They are also low in fat and sodium, high in Omega-3 fatty acids, and protein, and contain many essential vitamins and minerals, including lots of B-12.

But are they cruel? There is no evidence that bivalves feel pain, and some scientists think that oysters are closer to plants than animals. Even ethical thinker and animal rights activist Peter Singer has gone back and forth on the issue. First advocating for eating oysters, then against, and finally settling on “probably ok”.

Experts say that since pain is a physiological and emotional reaction, and oysters don’t have a central nervous system, they can’t feel pain, as we understand it. Is that enough for you to decide they are cruelty free? Maybe. It’s your choice. I don’t call myself a vegan or even a vegetarian, but I do try to be conscious of everything I eat. Oysters are certainly cruelty-free enough for me.

I might not go so far as to declare oysters a suitable choice for a vegan diet, like Christopher Cox did in a much talked about article on Slate, last year. But what business is it of mine? He’s a vegan and he’s decided he feels ok about eating oysters, who am I to say?

Wherever you come down on the oyster question, it is about conscious eating. Anyone who truly thinks about what they eat, instead of just mindlessly filling their bellies. Anyone who goes through the exercise of deciding what they are ok with, and what they aren’t, is doing the right thing as far as I’m concerned. Billions of people are not lucky enough to be able to think so hard about what they will or won’t eat. They just need to eat. So can’t we all just lay off each other?

Go forth and slurp…or not. It’s your choice.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Fotoos VanRobin

The post The Green Plate: Dare to Eat an Oyster appeared first on EcoSalon.

A weekly roundup of EcoSalon’s top stories.

Places & Spaces: Canvas Hotel is a visual vacation, never mind a cyclist’s dream hideaway. Based in Southern Norway, the adventure starts the moment you arrive.

Lady Gaga on EcoSalon? In Shade Grown Hollywood: The Conscious Mind Of Lady Gaga, writer Kathie Butler says “Lady Gaga is on the way to becoming an icon of post-feminist sexuality. But is she a confident cultural attaché to our own fantastical fantasies? Or she is more of a mouthpiece of modern times, a voice raging against homophobia and discrimination?” We explore Lady Gaga, aka Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta’s level of consciousness.

With Japan still reeling in the wake of an 8.9 magnitude earthquake that sent a 30-foot wall of ocean water onto the Fukushima-Daiichi plant on the coast of Japan, we find ourselves asking if there are more viable options than nuclear as we watch radiation leaking from core reactors. In The Nuclear Option, writer Stephanie Rogers reviews the pros and cons.

In her weekly Green Plate, writer Vanessa Barrington’s column Is Urban Farming The Next Green Cottage Industry? asks if urban farming is a viable career for our younger generation and a dependable source of food for city dwellers.

This week, our editor’s column The Insider’s Guide To Life: Bite Me dives into female bullying, giving important tools to empower one to bite back. Ost writes: “Who on earth are these people? Tina Fey called them Mean Girls, and they are everywhere, no matter how grown up we get. Naively, I had approached my very first bully with the plucky optimism of a community fundraiser. Soon, she needed me and my reliable niceness, and when you get to that point it’s a short trip to toast. I was but the earnest wheat germ, she, the flaring toaster.”

EcoSalon was just nominated for Best Style Twitter Feed! Like us enough to cast a vote? Then go here!

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A weekly round-up of EcoSalon’s top stories.

Take five. Here’s an at-a-glance chance to reconnect with or catch top stories you might have missed this week at EcoSalon:

1. Fashion writer Kelly Drennan thinks We Can All Afford To Slow Down, asking us to consider why it is we need so much in our wardrobes. Investment dressing, slow fashion and an awareness of clothing production are highlighted.

2.Frenzied marketing campaigns to move out excessive SUVs are the target of senior editor Luanne Bradley’s article on Greenwashing The Beast. Says Bradley: “While the sticker deals appeal to all consumers, the language lauding eco-flavored 2011 models is shamelessly aimed at a specific audience: The responsible buyer who might break down and crossover to a road hog at last.”

3. Is it possible to disappear off the grid and do it in style? Writer Leigha Oakes says yes with her article on an Australian eco-friendly retreat in No Water, No Electricity, No Roads. Architect and owner Rob Brown, of Casey Brown Architecture says: “You can stay and be at one with nature on a mountain. The ability to go to a place and be in solitude in today’s over-scheduled urban lifestyle is romantic, something perhaps we all long for.”

4. Food expert and chef Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate: Street Eats, shows how you can virtually travel all over the world eating street food from the comfort of your kitchen. From Banh Mi in Vietnam to Falafel in Israel, Barrington has even gotten you all the recipes.

5. Ever open your bedroom’s closet doors and realize your wardrobe is less than interesting? Writer Rowena Ritchie asks you to take a New York Fashion Week challenge in her Catwalk Considerations: ‘Why Not?‘, implementing five quick wardrobe fixes to make your closet runway worthy.

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Pets or meat? You decide.

According to The Guardian, baby bovines may be poised to be the next, er, small development in sustainable animal husbandry. Good for the environment, good for consumers, good for farmers, and local economies.

Evidently, cows were once more diminutive than today’s cows. This was back when farms were smaller and family run, particularly in Britain where small landholders were the norm. In the middle of the last century, U.S ranchers began breeding for fast growth and size, translating to larger cattle.

But smaller cows are greener cows. Here’s why: Smaller cows actually need less land and are more efficient at transforming feed into flesh. The breeder referenced in the Guardian article found that he could raise 10 mini cows on just five acres, which would only hold two average size cows. That translates to 6,000 pounds of beef versus 3,000 pounds. That’s a lot more burgers per hoof.

Not only that, but cow belches and flatulence emit methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas. Astonishingly, it takes 10 mini cows to produce the methane of just one larger cow.

In addition to the environmental benefits, certain traits of mini cattle make them a better product for today’s meat eaters. A faculty publication from The University of Nebraska, Lincoln, published in the 2008 Miniature Cattle: For Real, for Pets, for Production article by Dana W. R. Boden notes that mini cattle produce a more petite cut of meat – useful during these times of conscious meat reduction by environmental and health conscious consumers. However, proportionally, the best cuts from mini cattle are larger than in conventional cattle. For example, the rib-eye from a mini cow is 25-50 percent larger than in a full-size cow. So people who like steaks get more of what they like.

Another trend that points to the future success of tiny cattle is the rise in meat buying clubs and meat CSAS. Smaller animals make sense for families buying and freezing a whole animal. Larger cattle are just too much for most freezers and most family’s eating habits.

Back to the pets or meat question. Are people really raising these novelty animals for food? Another article on the subject notes that hobbyists are raising mini cattle for small-scale milk and meat production, but most are purchased as pets. An exotic possession for the well heeled? Perhaps. The mini cows are more expensive due to their rarity but prices should come down once the supply balances out.

Once prices drop the baby bovines could be a boon not just for the environment and consumers, but also for the less well-capitalized smallholder farms and farmers in urban spaces. According to the 2002 U.S. Census of Agriculture, the number of small farms has increased by over 46 percent since 1974. Among the small farm categories are retirement farms and residential/lifestyle farms. These are the types of operations that can support stronger regionalized and local food systems and the infrastructure that accompanies them, as well as feed the public hunger for locally produced food.

First we’ll need some work on the legal side of things. Thus far, chickens and rabbits are legal in many cities (with restrictions) and small goats are becoming more commonly accepted, but as far as I’ve been able to find out, cows (however tiny) are prohibited most everywhere urban or suburban. If you believe, as I do, that the blokes across the pond are way ahead of us in most things environmental and forward thinking, we have some good news from that quarter. Plans are ahoof in Bristol (England’s 6^th most populous city) to graze a herd of cattle on a 200 acre park parcel. The meat will be used for local schools. According to an earlier article on the subject, the plan is not “about using local businesses and suppliers, but creating a more localized supply and trading network that benefits and involves businesses and citizens of Bristol.”

The plan is also to increase public use and enjoyment of parklands. According to one Councilor, “[the cows] are rather more attractive than the average lawnmower, and use less diesel.”

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: JoePyreks

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A funny thing happened on the way to the local food movement. Just as small segments of the population have taken up the local foods cheer, family farms and the infrastructure that supports them continue to dwindle daily. Even as we’ve begun to realize what our addiction to convenience in the form of processed, packaged foods and cheap meat is costing us, we are in danger of losing even more sources of real food.

Hopefully we have not gone too far toward mass consolidation to dig ourselves out, because many people think that local foods are a path out of many of both our economic and environmental woes. They certainly provide a way to eat better (as in healthier and tastier), reduce one’s impact on the environment, and support local, resilient economies.

Consider this: In 2005, the year that the term “Locavore” was first uttered by Jessica Prentice we were continuing the loss of farmland that began in the 30s and accelerated in the 70s and 80s. Between 2005 and 2006, the U.S. lost 8,900 farms (a little more than one farm per hour) The American Farmland Trust estimates that we lose one acre of agricultural land per minute to development.

With the farmland goes infrastructure like feed stores, slaughterhouses, tractor dealers and the jobs go with them. Between 2001 and 2005, 200 federally inspected meat processing plants disappeared. Most were very small plants. Today, four corporations slaughter 80 percent of the cattle in the United States.

But even as we continue to lose farmland and infrastructure, like slaughterhouses, there’s a nascent movement toward re-localizing. It’s driven by the small but real demand for local foods and also, in response to that demand, by the new USDA.

As the Ethicurean reported recently, the USDA has published a study on the impact of local food dollars called “Local Food Systems: Concepts, Impacts, and Issues.” Though direct-to-consumer sales from farmers markets, farm stands, and U-pick were only 0.4 percent of the total food economy, the numbers are growing. Local foods are growing at a rage of 10 percent per year outpacing the rest of the food economy’s growth rate of five percent.

As with other local foods, there’s a growing demand for small-scale, local meat production. The people driving the demand want to know where their food comes from and they don’t want to contribute to the devastating ecological impacts of CAFOS (confined animal feeding operations).

The USDA is supporting this movement in a variety of ways. One of the more creative is its funding and support of mobile slaughterhouses. These facilities are just coming online in several areas around the U.S. and allow smaller farmers access to USDA inspected facilities. If we are to re-localize meat production away from the four giant corporations, the small farmers will need processing facilities appropriate to their scale of production and feasibly near enough to local markets.

This move is necessary because, as the Washington Post article above points out, the barriers for small, ecological farmers in getting their product to market are incredibly high. Big slaughterhouses require appointments far in advance, are spread out and consolidated across the country, and may not want to deal with small herds. The USDA is helping small meat producers stay on their land farming by supporting the development of more mobile slaughterhouses. They provide funding, USDA inspectors, and a help line for small producers.

Though this is a tiny segment that only affects a few farmers and consumers, it is a creative strategy for reducing animal agriculture’s impact on the environment and perhaps even saving rural economies from extinction.

Environmentally, smaller scale animal operations produce fewer impacts. According to a report by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the animal waste from factory farms is produced in such large quantities, it is impossible to deal with in a responsible way and use as fertilizer, which is a role that animal agriculture has always played in row crop farming. Not to mention, the manure excreted by animals in factory farms often has a range of toxins including antibiotic-resistant residue and endocrine disrupting chemicals. These and other pollutants can get into water and airways, negatively affecting nearby communities. However, the waste created on smaller, more environmentally sustainable farms raising both crops and animals, can be dealt with effectively and used to fertilize crops.

Recent studies are starting to point to local foods as a way to jump start sagging economies. According to The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), a typical farmer gets paid 10 cents of each retail food dollar, but farmers who sell direct to consumer get more money to invest in their farm and support their family. Strengthening rural communities is the key to a healthy and diversified economy. While dollars spent with large corporations almost immediately leave the community, dollars spent on local food products circulate within the community eight to 15 times, drastically improving the value of your purchase.

A local food economy study conducted by Sustainable Seattle found that locally directed spending by consumers more than doubles the number of dollars circulating among businesses in the community. Put quantitatively, the study found that a shift of 20 percent of food dollars into locally directed spending would result in a nearly half billion dollar annual income increase in King County alone and twice that in the Central Puget Sound region.

If re-localizing food production really is a way to work toward a more economically and environmentally sustainable future, than mobile slaughterhouses can be part of a larger rebuilding of the infrastructure of community-based agriculture.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Hans S

The post Mobile Slaughterhouses Promoting Local, Sustainable Meat Production and Stronger Local Economies appeared first on EcoSalon.

While we become sick to our stomachs watching the spreading plumes of oil in the gulf, viewing photos of oil slicked birds, and footage of oil covered beaches in Florida and Alabama, let’s take a step back and think about the cycle of life. The reason disasters like this happen is due to a lack of understanding that, though we may be at the top of the food chain, we are not separate from it. Even though this is a lesson we were supposed to have learned in the first grade, we have separated ourselves from nature in an attempt to manage it and use its resources without a thought for how this impacts the entire system. The oil spill is a 12,000 mile wide, 50-million gallon proof point that we have been wrong.

The oceans are engines of life for the entire planet. Scientists believe that all life on earth began in the sea about four billion years ago. Our ancestors were the first tiny creatures that crawled onto the land. Today life depends on the ocean. Oceans are where life originated and hold the keys to our survival.

Half of the world’s oxygen is produced in the ocean. The BP oil spill is the largest in history. How far will it go? How much of the world’s oceans will it affect? All of this remains to be seen, but we do know that each tier of the marine food chain is affected by the oil spill. The only thing we don’t know yet is how widespread it will be.

Oiled birds and the closure of the fishery are dramatic and immediate effects of the spill, while vulnerable marshlands and the tiny creatures we cannot see are the engines of the entire ecosystem. According to this article in Nola.com – the online version of The Times Picayune – the thin layer of marsh mud is home to an entire valuable community of nutrients that feed the whole system. If the marsh is covered in oil, it will suffocate, and every creature that depends on it will suffer. According to the article, “half of the all the life created takes place in this slimy zone just seven-hundredths of an inch thick. It’s a world too small for the human eye to detect and involves creatures few people have ever heard of, but one that looms huge for the larger critters in the system.”

Here’s how it works: At the bottom of the chain are the phytoplankton. They live in the vulnerable marshes and near the surface of the water, obtaining their nutrients from organic matter in the marshes, sunlight, and water. In return they convert carbon dioxide to oxygen – oxygen that all of the rest of the food chain needs. In addition, phytoplankton provide direct nourishment to many sea creatures higher on the food chain. And some of those animals actually begin life in the marshlands, too. Shrimp mature in the marshlands, and then migrate to the ocean where they become food for fish. These fish provide nourishment to birds and animals, like us. It’s not hard to see what happens if the base of our food chain collapses. Where will the food for the other fish come from and how will we replace that oxygen?

According to this article in The Palm Beach Post, instead of the oil rising to the top where it can be easily tracked, the use of dispersants caused the oil to mix with the water and there are now giant plumes of oil traveling through the ocean. Nobody knows where they will end up or how much damage they will do to wildlife, but many scientists think that the oil is now more dangerous to filter feeders and larvae than if dispersants weren’t used. As one official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service was quoted as saying in the article, “This is just a giant experiment going on and we’re trying to understand scientifically what this means.”

Scientists are currently studying three different types of mollusks from the Gulf Coast to try to determine how long it takes for the toxic compounds in the water to work their way through the food chain. Because mollusks are constantly building their shells, they incorporate heavy metals and other toxins from the environment into their shells. An article from Science Daily details how scientists study growth rings in the shells of oysters, tellinid clams, and periwinkles. Each one of these mollusks feeds on different organisms at different levels in the sea, so scientists will be able to determine if the mollusks are acquiring contaminants from their food sources or the water directly by measuring the rate at which toxins accumulate in the shells.

As we all learned as children, the food chain begins with plants that get their energy through photosynthesis, which are then eaten by herbivores, and later consumed by carnivores. We eat and we are animals. Therefore, we are part of the food chain too. Just because we can drill wells, drive, and cook our food on a stove does not mean we are outside of this circle of life. We are as vulnerable as those oily birds. We just don’t feel it yet.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Kissyface

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Something has always kept me from going to Maker Faire. Partially due to the fact that it’s in San Mateo and I’m in Oakland. And the fact that I just don’t feel cool enough. What can I say? I’m a blocked crafter and I feel woefully inadequate in the face of all these clever people who can create sculptures of felt, make things run with steam, and invent solar powered robots – all while dressed in Renaissance Faire meets Burning Man costumes.

But as the author of an upcoming cookbook called DIY Delicious, I figured I had to go this year. I resolved to make the trip, provided I could avoid driving a car to get there.

The website helpfully provided directions for biking from BART. All I had to do was get on the train in Oakland with my bike, stay there for 50 minutes until the final Millbrae stop and then bike five suburban miles to The San Mateo County Fairgrounds, where The Silicone Valley Bicycle Coalition would be offering free valet bicycle parking. The Faire also offered a $5 discount in admission for individuals biking to the event. Bonus points!

The Faire was different than I imagined. A little more Burning Man and a little less Mother Earth News than I expected. The home-oriented DIY activities – things like gardening, raising chickens, making food products, canning, herbal home remedies, etc. kind of got lost among the blingy fire and steam arts, art cars, and sculptures, but there were definitely some fun things to do for those with an interest in the arts of the home.

Here are a few of the highlights of the day:

The Homegrown Village was where those interested in living more sustainably and self-reliantly could go to learn skills. Over the two days, there were demos on yogurt, fermentation, beekeeping, sprouting, installing greywater systems and more.

On Sunday, I attended a bacon demo by Karen Solomon, author of Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It. She did a great job of demystifying the process, all while keeping the audience laughing. I especially love that she teaches how to do it without a fancy smoker. All you need is a small grill. The bacon was delicious, by the way. And she shares the recipe on her website.

Mini Mushroom Farms from Far West Fungi. These not only look incredibly cool, but also are especially wonderful for people with shady yards or no space at all.

Plants on Walls lets you grow food in tiny spaces, or create a living wall of greenery. They are economical and easy to install. The panels are made from recycled/recyclable materials, are non-toxic and water efficient.

Got a tool that hurts your hand, or simply doesn’t quite work right? Sugru is an insanely simple material for helping you hack things better. It’s brilliantly green because it extends the life and usefulness of things you already own. And it’s empowering to be able to take charge of making things in your home work for you. Check out the website. There are tons of great ideas for hacking things better.

Rock the Bike, a group of inventors and bike advocates in Berkeley, California, whose dream is to help spread the spirit of the bike into the broader culture, was powering a band called the Fossil Fool.

Harnessing the power of technology to help facilitate local economies and bring people together to share skills can absolutely lead to more sustainable lifestyles. I discovered two new technological tools at Maker Faire.

Local Dirt, founded in Madison but with a national reach, is a brilliantly designed online database to help farmers sell their products to local buyers and help buyers find local products they wouldn’t otherwise know about or have access to.

Consumers can search by location, venue, or product. Farmers can use a simple blog interface to add products easily. The key thing here that makes this tool different from other online ethical sourcing tools is that it scales up to large institutional buyers including schools, grocery stores, and hospitals. This is where its huge potential lies in rebuilding a more localized and regionalized food system on a larger scale.

It’s also a great business model that looks like it could be financially sustainable. Use of the site is free for individuals, buying clubs, farmers’ market managers, and small farmers, while yearly membership costs are scaled for businesses, larger farms, and distributors. It also makes small farmers lives more sustainable by freeing them up to farm instead of driving to numerous small farmers markets that take up their precious time and are often not cost-effective.

Unclasses is a site that connects people who want to learn something with those who can teach it. Anyone at all can add a class and teach it themselves. Users can also browse the site and join any of the numerous classes on everything from handyman skills to making a Persian stew. It’s a young site that is mostly San Francisco Bay Area focused because that’s where the founders are, but I can see it growing. Classes are free with some donations for materials.

When you sign up for a class or to teach a class you can share it on your Facebook or Twitter page so your friends can join too. The idea behind the site is casual learning. According to the website, “Casual learning is for people like us, who have hectic lives and struggle to find fun and interesting ways to satisfy their intellectual curiosity in the limited free time they have. Think of it as educational snacking, a low-touch way to explore topics that interest you.”

All ages, learning to knit.

All in all, I’m happy I went to Maker Faire. One of the coolest things about it from an eco-perspective, is seeing so many people with children at the site. Children were building things out of recycled materials, tinkering, sewing, knitting, and exploring a whole world of things that you can’t buy at a suburban shopping mall. And that’s the real beauty of Maker Faire – showcasing the ingenuity of us humans, while teaching our children and reminding ourselves that we can use what we already own to make something new and that great things don’t always come from stores.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images: Vanessa Barrington

The post Maker Faire 2010: Mashup of Crafters, DIYers, Geeks, and Costumers appeared first on EcoSalon.

Urban farming has the potential to help us take charge of the foods we eat, green our cities, build community, and increase food security for urban residents.

Everyday, there’s articles about backyard chickens, bee keeping, or urban yard sharing. Clearly urban agriculture is at the top of the trend pile. But is it just a trend, or a part of a sustainable future?

Last week I attended a panel discussion in San Francisco at The Commonwealth Club (presented by INFORUM), about how today’s urban farming movement began and where it’s going. Attendees were treated to a variety of perspectives from four pitchfork-toting farmerpreneur leaders of the urban farming movement in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Panelists included Jason Mark, co-manager of Alemany Farm; editor-in-chief, Earth Island Journal, Novella Carpenter, author of the book Farm City about her farm Ghost Town Farm, Christopher Burley, founder, Hayes Valley Farm, and David Gavrich (aka The Goat Whisperer), founder of City Grazing. The panel was moderated by Sarah Rich, writer; editor; co-founder, The Foodprint Project; and co-author, Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century.

The panel started off with a discussion about the most recent “back to the land” movement and how it differed from today’s urban farming movement.

Back in the 60s and 70s young people migrated back to the countryside to make a go of farming. Novella Carpenter’s parents were part of that movement. But it didn’t last. People found that growing food is very hard and rural life can be extremely isolating. The motives of today’s generation of farmers are different, and more communitarian. They’re not trying to drop out. They’re trying to engage more fully with the world around them.

“We’re realizing that maybe there is a different way. We can stay in the cities and grow food where we live and it can serve as a model for sustainability, said Jason Mark. “There’s not enough room for all of us in Sonoma.”

“We’re all trying to find balance and bring the rural environment into the urban environment. We’re trying to find that niche that we live in. Everyone who plants a seed is sowing a bit of sustainability,” added Chris Burley.

Though the movement is young, things are changing rapidly. According to David Gavrich, the goat whisperer. When his business, City Grazing, put an ad in Craigslist for “goat herder, San Francisco,” they got 200 applications, and half of the applicants actually had goat experience. According to Gavrich, “people are yearning to get away from their desks”.

Urban farming does seem to be helping to revitalize neighborhoods and foster community. For example, Burley, of Hayes Valley Farm, who was featured here in a Q & A a couple of weeks back said that he was amazed to find that 50 people will consistently show up on a Thursday to shovel horse manure for four hours. Sunday work parties regularly attract 100 folks.

Jason Mark says, “community is what distinguishes this from the back to the land movement.” Alemany Farm is completely volunteer run and over the years has built up a core group of volunteers that are friends and together make up a vibrant community.

For Novella Carpenter, the community happened more by accident. Her farm begin as a personal project but has evolved into one in which neighbors are involved in various ways. The involvement started with people picking her produce without permission. Describing herself as “not a do-gooder” but saying that. “If my neighbors are hungry and I know how to grow food how can I not feed them?” she says, “everybody gives what they can.” This includes everything from the wagon proffered by the neighbor who likes her mustard greens to goat butchering lessons from the Yemeni liquor store owner.

What about bureaucratic hurdles to farming in urban areas?

They do exist but each panelist had different experiences. Gavrich has said he’s had no problems in enlightened San Francisco but recommends anticipating problems and getting everything in writing. He has a “goat clause” in his agreement with the railroad line he maintains stating that all landscape is done by natural means.

Mark echoes that San Francisco has been extremely supportive and that the mayor has laid out a food policy proposal that is sweeping and visionary. He does cite “getting the city staff to connect with the mayor’s policies” as a hurdle.

Burley said that the city came to his group to develop Hayes Valley Farm, so they have the full blessing and support from the authorities. He also said that a bottom- up approach to urban farming that utilizes people’s backyards has worked.

Most of the panelist agreed that policy changes that support urban farming are important because (though many of the non-profit farms and farms located in private backyards don’t run into problems) when an urban farm is commercialized, all it takes is one neighbor to complain about commercial activity in a residential area for a farmer to get cited.

And as Burley said, “We need to advocate for farms in residential areas because 60 percent of land is in people’s yards.”

Can urban farming help us rebuild our food systems and increase food security?

Urban farming can certainly increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables to city dwellers but we need to look at how the food is distributed and find creative ways to get the food to the people who most need it. The most sustainable way of all to provide food is to teach people how to grow their own.

For example, Alemany Farm is right next to public housing. The farm runs youth programs and provides plots to nearby residents where they can grow their own food. The farm once held a farmers market where nearby residents could purchase produce on a sliding scale. The farm is no longer allowed to sell the food, which means they have to give it away. Yet all the panelists agree that a charity model is too top-down and not sustainable.

Things are shifting as policy makers realize that urban farming can be both a green solution to city ills and perhaps even a green jobs solution. Novella Carpenter is working on a project in San Lorenzo that is part of the city’s green job training program and is funded by the sheriff’s department.

All panelists agreed that the movement needs to network, share information and resources and build the system from the ground up.

According to Chris Burley, an urban agriculture alliance is forming. And indeed for urban agriculture to ever become more than isolated individuals working on scattered city plots, we need concerted organization efforts that can both demand and work with government backing.

Panelists were asked what role education plays in the movement

Chris Burley says it’s crucial. In fact Hayes Valley Farm’s mission is not even so much to produce food, but to serve as an urban agriculture resource that provides education and advocates behavioral changes. “We can’t change what we don’t know. We need to become more aware of our impact. Food is the gateway drug to a more sustainable lifestyle. Through learning about food, little by little, we’ll become more connected and thrive as a community,” said Burley.

Novella and her co-worker/owners run an urban farming store at Biofuel Oasis in Berkeley. All day they educate people on beekeeping, chicken coops and more. They teach classes on bee and goat keeping, preserving, and other topics as well. With a trend like urban farming, it is necessary to make sure people know what they are getting into or the movement will not develop in a sustainable way.

I wonder if the Internet existed during the 60s and 70s, giving people access to information and ready support from fellow travelers, if the back-to-the-land movement might have survived.

In conclusion: here are the panelist’s best 60-second ideas to change the world.

David Gavrich – “Get leadership and political people to think holistically. Think about the impact beyond what we see. Look at externalities. If we do that, it will be clear that we’ll be better off farming in our communities.”

Chris Burley – “Crop mob. Get together and transform a backyard. Have a potluck.”

Novella Carpenter – “Every city should have a demo farm. It could be a cool tourist thing with a person managing it and showing people how to raise chickens and bees and how to can and process vegetables. There should be an “˜office of urban farming.'”

Jason Mark – “Find a little bit of land and a little water, find a friend and find someone to help. Connect with you neighbors doing the same thing. Personal actions alone don’t do it. Progress happens collectively.”

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Jessica Reeder

The post Is the Urban Farming Movement Here to Stay? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Imagine this: You’re having a normal day until you gradually notice a little sore throat and begin to feel a tad feverish. You assume you must have the flu. You go to bed and rest. The next day, you can barely breathe, and you rush to the hospital. Things go quickly downhill and soon, you’re trying to write down your last wishes – your body riddled with an aggressive infection – while the doctors put you in a coma to save your life. You may or may not make it. Sounds like something out of a made-for-TV script, right?

Now consider: The U.S death rate from the staph infection MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) surpassed the death rate from AIDS way back in 2005.

And MSRA is just one of the antibiotic resistant diseases that can infect people. Others include food-borne bacteria such as e-coli, salmonella, and still others that are associated with poverty and crowding, such as tuberculosis and typhoid.

These “superbugs” I’m concerned with today are the ones associated with food and farms and – though the drug industry and some farmers won’t agree – the evidence is overwhelming that they are at least partially a result of dosing farm animals with subtherapeutic doses of antibiotics added to their feed.

I used to think this was done to keep the animals healthy. And that’s part of it. But the reason it’s necessary is because most farm animals live in such crowded, filthy conditions. What I didn’t know until recently is that farmers also administer antibiotics to help the animals grow twice as fast. This boosts production and their bottom line.

In fact, according to Pew, up to 70 percent of all antibiotics consumed in the U.S. are given to healthy farm animals, not people.

(note: the above statistic was found on the Pew website but it is actually from the Union of Concerned Scientists from a 2001 report titled Hogging It! Estimates of Antimicrobial Abuse in Livestock, Mellon, Margaret, Charles Benbrook & Karen Lutz Benbrook, Cambridge Mass)

The problem with these practices, aside from the harm done to the animals themselves who have to live under such conditions, is that these superbugs, which at first only occurred in hospitals, have been unleashed on the community at large.

It used to be that MSRA was commonly found only in hospitals and nursing homes, but recently, another type of MRSA has occurred among otherwise healthy people in the wider community. This form, community-associated MRSA, or CA-MRSA, is responsible for serious skin and soft tissue infections and for a dangerous form of pneumonia.

Though MSRA can be related to farming, it isn’t a food-borne illness. But salmonella and e-coli both are, and today there more aggressive forms than in the past, making these diseases more harmful. Both can be caused by poor farming practices, as can their drug resistant mutations.

There have been multiple studies, farm surveys and stories that make the link between antibiotic use on farms and increases in drug-resistant diseases look increasingly apparent, including in the Academy Award nominated documentary Food Inc. It’s only been recently that the mainstream media has acknowledged the link between animal husbandry and the rise of “superbugs.”

Katie Couric took on the story last month for CBS News. Bravely slogging through pig farms (while remaining perfectly groomed), interviewing farmers and victims of drug resistant staph who worked on farms or lived in farm families, she presented problem clearly: These bugs are being spread through air, water and food. We know our food contains e-coli and salmonella, and MSRA has also been found in our meat supply. Nobody knows how prevalent it is because, as Couric said, “A very small amount is actually tested for MSRA.”

Couric also reported that the exact same drugs used to treat human disease are also used on animals. Her piece also presented Denmark’s experiment with administering antibiotics only when the animals actually become sick and interviewed farmers in the US who don’t use antibiotics as a regular practice.

One poultry farmer admitted that he’d been using them so long “they didn’t work well anyway anymore.”

He also said his Pennsylvania poultry farms are more profitable than when he used antibiotics and the cost to consumers was only about 20 cents per pound higher.

Though the prevalence of these diseases may be new to many Americans, the problem of antibiotic use on farms has been well understood by the science community for a long time. Researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have done numerous studies. In one, they collected flies near 8 poultry farms and then collected samples of poultry litter (a mix of manure and bedding materials) from three large-scale, conventional poultry operations in that same area. Both the poultry litter and the flies were found to harbor antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. When you think about the flies buzzing around the casserole dishes at your next get together this information lends new meaning to the word “potluck,” doesn’t it?

In another Johns Hopkins study, we learn that simply being in a car driving behind open-crate poultry trucks may expose you to harmful, drug-resistant strains of bacteria. Who knew rural life could be so dangerous?

But wait, there’s more: Barry Estabrook (formerly of Gourmet) reports on his blog, Politics of the Plate, that a new study has found low levels of antibiotics (such as those administered on farms) actually create free radicals in the bacteria, leading to a supercharged mutation rate, resulting in a heavily populated “zoo of mutants.” Good grief.

What can you do? There is a bill in Congress right now called the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. Contact your representatives and ask them to support it.

Take it further, though: stop buying what we are being sold. There are other options out there made by producers doing the right thing. Support them by looking for meat and dairy labeled antibiotic-free.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: James Jordan

The post Rise of the Superbugs appeared first on EcoSalon.