2010 August | Center for a Livable Future

Tour dem veggies: An East Baltimore bicycle garden tour

starting the ride from Duncan St Miracle Garden

Fueled by cherry tomatoes and lemonade, three-dozen bikers (this blogger included) hit the pavement last Saturday afternoon for a seven-mile tour of seven great community gardens in East Baltimore. We started the ride at the 22-year old Duncan Street Miracle Garden, a one-acre fruit and vegetable haven. Along the ride I was searching for secretes to a successful community garden, but it turns out there are no hard-and-fast rules; gardens are themselves heirloom varieties, each unique and charming.

Some community gardens had neatly arranged raised-beds, such as Montessori gardens beds built from old book shelves, or the checkerboard pattern beds of the Homestead Harvest garden. Montpelier Orchards, the newest garden on the tour, had a neatly mowed lawn between rows of trellised young raspberries plants and a small olive tree dwarfed by a tall garden gate with arbor. Others took a wild and free-form approach with natural reseeding tomatoes and sunflowers, making every step a delicious adventure.

Montessori School Garden; raised beds made from old bookcase

I had always believed Robert Frost’s line “good fences make good neighbors,” that is until I learned that many community gardens benefit from the opposite philosophy. Participation Park steward Scott Berzofsky said “the fact that there is no fence was important from the beginning… we wanted to have a commons.” Brentwood Gardens also lacks a fence, and encourages neighbors to glean on a regular basis. Cucumbers were free for the taking; just one example of the “gift economy” at work.

Several gardens gave animals a prominent role, such as the chickens and bees at the Montessori School garden. Apparently playing with chickens during recess is a favorite activity. Brentwood is preparing for chickens this summer by building a coop and purchasing permits from Baltimore City. For more on chickens in Baltimore see my previous post. Brentwood also raised goldfish in modified rain barrels to eat mosquitoes. I’ve never heard of this use, though I didn’t get a single bite while standing next to the barrel in ankle deep grass.

Our last stop was Real Food Farm, where three hoop houses sit peacefully in a grassy field in Clifton Park.Head farmer, Tyler Brown, gave an impassioned pitch for urban commercial farming that grabbed the crowds’ attention.Leaving the farm hungry and tired, the bikers headed back to the Duncan Street garden for a great spread of food donated by leading Baltimore restaurants, live music, and lively conversations with new acquaintances and old friends.

sunflowers at Participation Park Garden

Gardens in the tour:

Duncan Street Miracle Garden :: 1800 North Duncan Street
Participation Park :: 1100 Forest Street
The Montessori School Garden :: 1600 Guilford Avenue
Brentwood Garden :: 1700 N. Brentwood Avenue
Homestead Harvest :: 632 Homestead Street
Montpelier Orchard :: 918 Montpelier Road
Real Food Farm :: 2706 St Lo Drive

Congratulations Parks and People, the Community Greening Resource Network, and any other volunteers for turning a hot, muggy Saturday into a memorable event!

- Dave Love

CLF generated map of Baltimore community gardens

Richmond’s Urban Agriculture Institutes: A First Stage Impact Study

I wanted to post an impact study that I performed this year of the Urban Agriculture Institutes that I used to run in Richmond, Calif. This paper represents the first step in a program evaluation of Urban Tilth’s Urban Agriculture Institutes. While this study had an intervention/control cross sectional design, with no baseline data it cannot make any causal claims. The data for the full program evaluation does have a pre/post element and is being currently analyzed.

The program that Urban Tilth is now running is a mature, well conceived model that I believe has replicable qualities for schools throughout the country. The idea is fairly simple. An urban agriculture program at the high school level, that gives high school graduation credit, provides food system education, cooking and tasting demonstrations, community and service learning all under the larger focus of intensive urban food production. Students manage their own school garden or farm, and create a working Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) business model to provide produce to the community. During the summer when school is out (and school gardens become abandoned) Urban Tilth hires the trained Urban Aggers to continue their training, and manage many school and urban gardens throughout the summer. Students return next year as leaders in the continuing work of producing food for the community.

I hope you enjoy reading it and I’m getting excited about putting together the final program evaluation to show a national audience what Urban Tilth is doing…

Students Growing Food: A Study of a Food-Production Focused Intervention in a California High School

Response to “Math Lessons for Locavores” op-ed

Grist.org recently invited bloggers through it’s Grist Talk: Food Fight series to respond to an August 20th op-ed piece, “Math Lessons for Locavores,” by Stephen Budiansky in the New York Times. What follows is my response:

“I agree with Mr. Budiansky that freight is by some measures cheap, and that the interstate system and trains are convenient conduits from farms to distributors to markets, although this idea is not so new.

community garden in Waverly neighorhood, Baltimore, MD

A more interesting question to tackle is: what does the desire to be a locavore say about our disjointed food system, and is there room for improvement by developing regional food systems?

Mr. Budiansky’s argument runs thin when we take a hard look at what consolidated industrial farming and food animal production “return to our land,” as he puts it. It is difficult to be in favor of a farming approach that relies upon mono-cropping using genetically modified seeds and synthetic fertilizers. Likewise, food animal production facilities make for poor neighbors when their (virtually unregulated) wastes and associated land application and spray-field sites spread allergens and antibiotic-resistant bacteria throughout farming communities.

So why pick on locavores? Because when they seek local food, they may also be seeking to buy organically grown or raised foods, from small to mid-sized farms, which can impact entrenched agribusiness interests. Changing food preferences and buying habits may be changing the way food is grown, distributed, and consumed.

For example, the American Meat Institute was defensive when the Meatless Monday campaign, for which Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future serves as a scientific advisor, suggested on NPR that reducing meat consumption one day a week could be good for your health, by potentially reducing saturated fat intake. It isn’t surprising: the average American spends about $550 annually on meat. If the conventional food-animal industry improved production methods by removing growth-promoting antibiotics and recognizing animal welfare, both the quality of their products and the perceptions of their customers may increase.

Food decisions carry weight, and so the lesson here is to speak with your fork and the farms will follow!”

- Dave Love

[This post originally ran Monday, August 23 on Grist.org]

Exposing the role of the food industry in conditioning us to overeat, but calling on individuals to change?

Book Review: The end of overeating. By David Kessler, MD

David Kessler the former FDA Chief under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton has written a very important book in the evolution of public thinking about food, nutrition and the obesity epidemic that is gripping our nation. The basic premise of this book is that the triad of fat, sugar and salt used by the food industry through sophisticated layering techniques are hitting the neuro-chemical, evolutionarily sensitive portion of our brain leaving some of us battling what he calls, conditioned hypereating. It is a fascinating look into the science of our own brain and yet the book is digestible for the average American. I found myself throughout the book linking his explanations to real life experiences that I have had with food, and I think most Americans that wade through our current food environment will have similar experiences.

Kessler seems to be laying the ground work for claims that hyper-palatable foods make by fast food chains and the industrialized processed food system are addictive. There is science behind the idea of compulsive eating as an addictive behavior, but I think the science is not fully there concerning the link between industry’s use of fat, sugar and salt and those addictive behaviors. However, I think even getting the idea out there to the public that the food companies are targeting consumers with these techniques and not for simple manufacturing or efficiency reasons, but really to target the consumer with little to no regard for the health of the nation could be a stepping stone towards a sort of “Truth” campaign against Big Food.

What I found disappointing about the book came in the way he addressed what should be done with all of this new revelatory information. One of our jobs in Public Health is to combat the idea that the responsibility for the solution of the obesity epidemic lies solely with the individual. That is the rhetoric of the food and beverage industry. They want us to absolve them of any responsibility because it’s your “choice” in deciding what to eat, and it’s your “fault” if you can’t control what you eat. What Kessler does, magnificently, is turn that argument on its head, revealing the true intentions of the food industry and exposing the industry for its “puppet-master” role in attempting to hit all our craveable taste points with no regard for its impact. However, after exposing the industry throughout the book, Kessler still comes back to putting the onus for change on the individual. He spends pages documented plans and ways for individuals to deal with these conditioned responses, but gives only lip service to regulations like menu-labeling, new nutritional labeling and public health educational campaigns. He should know that these educational expansions of information for the consumer, while incredibly necessary, won’t convince a conditioned American who is being pulled by the layering of fat, sugar and salt. It is definitely part of the solution, but it’s not enough. Read More >

Government officials sent ‘clarifying’ letter from CLF

Congressional testimony by two high-ranking government officials in April revealed some misconceptions about the mounting evidence over the use of antibiotics in industrial farm animal production and links to antibiotic resistance in humans.

To clarify the case, Keeve Nachman, PhD, MHS, and director of CLF’s Farming for the Future Program, and Robert Lawrence, MD, director of CLF, wrote to Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH, director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Anthony Fauci, MD, director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Both Frieden and Fauci provided testimony before the Subcommittee on Health of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the second of three hearings examining antibiotic resistance. A third committee hearing on Antibiotic Resistance and the Use of Antibiotics in Animal Agriculture” was held July 14.

“We reviewed with great interest your testimony and Q&A session,” they wrote. “What we’ve found in our review of the transcript underscores the need for the public health community to ensure that findings of our research are effectively and accurately communicated with those responsible for legislative and regulatory policy.” Read More >

Maryland public hearing on proposed oyster policy draws a crowd

Citizens descended on the small town of Wye Mill, Maryland at Chesapeake College Thursday, August 5th to attend the final public comment period for Maryland’s sweeping new oyster policies. The overcast and muggy weather provided a sober backdrop for intense discussions on how Maryland will manage the future of the Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica)— a bivalve mollusk central to the culture and livelihood of generations of watermen.

Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) staff reviewed a package of eight regulations, ranging from expanded oyster sanctuaries, changes to public shellfish fishery areas, leasing for shellfish aquaculture, to a study of power dredging. According to the Southern Maryland Online, more than a thousand people have already commented on these proposed oyster policies, which were posted on February 2010.

Tom O’Connell, Director of DNR Fisheries Service defended the plan saying “there is broad stakeholder agreement that the status quo is not acceptable” and that the policies as presented will “make it better for the oyster, the oystermen, and aquaculture.”

Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica). Image by Tony Weeg/Creative Commons

One of the main points of contention was over expanded oyster sanctuaries. Conservation groups see these sanctuaries, instead of lost resources, as preserves where oyster populations can grown and evolve natural resistance to menacing oyster diseases. An appropriate analogy is the creation of “national parks” or sanctuaries for oysters where they can flourish, in addition to “national forests” or public waters where oysters can be selectively, commercially harvested. Signs of natural disease resistance have been reported in Chesapeake Bay oysters, which highlights need for increasing oyster sanctuaries.

There is a growing sense of urgency to approve the state’s plan. Stephanie Westby, a fisheries scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation called for “ new management strategies while we still have something to protect.” A member of the Queen Anne’s Conservation Association echoed support for the new DNR plan and pointed out that rockfish and blue crabs have both rebounded from overharvesting following management the state, and oysters are next on the list of species that need saving.

Questions about the plan to increase oyster sanctuaries from 9% to 25% of remaining oyster beds and carve out private lease areas drew sharp criticism from one oystermen who asked, “why take my bottom from me?”

Marylanders have historically regarded oyster bottom— sea floor capable for growing oysters— as public property, while most other states on the East Coast, including Virginia, consider oyster bottom as privatized, leasable land. Transitioning from public oyster grounds to leasable plots in selected areas is a first step in developing oyster aquaculture in Maryland.

More than 90% of oysters consumed in the US are raised by aquaculture, so Maryland’s latest decision to promote aquaculture along with wild harvesting is consistent with, if not somewhat lagging national trends. Read More >

NPR’s Morning Edition Focuses on Meatless Monday

Some 14 million listeners tuned in this morning to hear National Public Radio’s most popular program, Morning Edition, give extensive coverage to the Meatless Monday campaign. The 8-1/2 minute segment, “Campaign Aims To Make Meatless Mondays Hip,” included an interview with Meatless Monday Founder, Sid Lerner. Reporter Allison Aubrey accompanied Lerner as he visited Dovetail, a popular New York City restaurant that has adopted Meatless Monday, and interviewed patrons sampling the offerings on the meatless menu.

The Meatless Monday Campaign was developed in 2003 in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Center for a Livable Future. The goal of the campaign is to reduce saturated fat consumption by 15 percent by forgoing meat one day a week.

Biogas digesters for industrial agriculture in China

Biogas Digester for 8,000 pigs in Zhejiang Province

While researching meat consumption and production in China last month, I visited two farms that have installed large-scale biogas digesters. These intriguing, bulbous contraptions capture animal waste, prevent pollution, make use of a renewable source of energy (methane), and transform the icky stuff into a rich fertilizer for crops. Biogas digestion has not been widely used by farmers in the U.S. (for reasons I’m still trying to understand) but has long been part of China’s rural energy strategy: the government estimates that today some 35 million small farmers have small-scale digesters installed in their backyards, a figure reflecting decades of work to distribute them. China has been called “biogas capital of the world” and now is making another big push to encourage large-scale farms, which are a key part of the government’s agricultural intensification strategy, to install them too.

How does it work? Well, biogas is a byproduct of the fermentation of waste. Micro-organisms go to work in anaerobic conditions, though I understand some digesters operate under aerobic conditions. As the bacteria work their way through the waste, they kill off the pathogens, and release a mixture of gas heavy on methane with a touch of carbon dioxide. That gas can then be used to power a stove, a farm, and can even go back into the grid if there’s enough of it and the transmission lines are set up.

In my conversations with Chinese farmers and even officials from the Ministry of Agriculture it was difficult to get a handle on exactly how many biogas digesters are in use on industrial-scale farms in China. This is an important question as small farms are increasingly replaced by big farms and farmers grapple with mounting piles of waste that can pollute waterways and contribute to dead zones in the ocean. (According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the volume of livestock and poultry manure increased from 3.8 billion tons in 2000 to 4.8 billion tons in 2008 and is responsible for much of the phosphorus and nitrogen discharges into waterways.) But an article recently published in China Daily cites a discouragingly low number: less than one percent of the 4.2 million large-scale farms for pigs, cattle and chicken use biogas digesters to dispose of livestock waste. I learned that some provincial governments are offering a number of incentives and subsidies — up to 50 percent of the cost of installation in some places — but apparently this coupled with the myriad environmental benefits of using the digester is not enough to lure most farmers.

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