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April
2006 |
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Wycoff Farm House. Photo
courtesy of Just Food
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Just Food was established in
1994 to develop a just and sustainable food system in New York City.
At the time, activists were meeting as part of the Big Apple Sustainable
Agriculture Working Group, trying to address three major trends in
food production. First, the number of small farmers in the New York
region was drastically declining; they were losing markets and not
getting fair prices for their goods. Second, there were looming concerns
about environmental issues affiliated with large-scale industrial agriculture.
And third, hunger continued to be on the rise. Just Food sought to
promote a holistic approach to food, environmental and hunger issues.
Today they are doing this by promoting community supported agriculture
and urban farms in New York City.
Over a cup of tea in a small Brooklyn café, I met with Ruth Katz, the
Executive Director of Just Food to discuss her take on just and sustainable
food. Katz spent nearly three years living and working in Central Africa where
her interest in the connections between agricultural issues, hunger and nutrition
first piqued.
We started out talking about the film Darwin’s Nightmare and its poignant
portrayal of the fishing industry on Lake Victoria, representing some of the
horrors of a globalized food system. It reminded Ruth of her stay in Kenya
many years ago during a period of extreme food shortage. While people were
struggling to find food to eat, tea plantations were lush and thriving creating
cash crops for export—a result of the structural adjustment policies
of the World Bank. Those resources could have been spent growing sukuma wiki,
the local collard greens. She comments that many of the factors disempowering
farmers and creating hunger in the global South are affecting farmers and perpetuating
hunger here as well.
Ruth notes that most people—even progressive activists—“don’t
often think of food as a social justice issue.” While awareness of sweatshop
conditions and fair trade is growing, most people aren’t thinking about
fair trade on domestic issues, particularly with respect to their food and
farmers in the U.S.
When I asked her what many small farmers think Americans should know about
their food, Ruth replies, “high prices don’t mean that farmers
are getting a fair share.”
Just Food is helping regional farmers get markets and a fair price for their
produce, as well as ensuring NYC communities have access to affordable, healthy
food. What worries Ruth is the “gentrification” of the organic
and natural market sector. In many instances, healthy foods are marketed to
niche communities and sold at a premium price. And while a large number of
New Yorkers have little access to affordable fresh produce, Just Food seeks
to prove that doesn’t have to be the case. With their Grow More Food
campaign of their City Farms program, urban farmers are actually encouraged
to grow food. Today, hundreds of gardens throughout the city provide open space
and food for neighborhood families. Some of these urban farms are also getting
their own urban markets.
Community supported agriculture in New York is another example of a successful
win-win situation for local farmers and urban consumers. When Just Food first
started, there was only one functional CSA in the city. Now there are over
40, with two or three providing produce year-round. The growth of CSAs in New
York is very exciting for Ruth. Now about 10,000 city folks are supplied food
from CSAs. “That might not seem like a lot compared with the eight million
residents, but when you think about the neighborhoods many of them serve—many
are predominately low income and communities of color that don’t have
much access to affordable fresh produce—it is a big deal.” Just
Food helps make CSAs more accessible by promoting use of different payment
plans and accepting food stamps.
Educating adults and children are part of
Just Food’s mission. Jumping jacks, strawberries and pennies are
how Katz explains the importance of buying local produce to kids. In
one workshop, children evaluate strawberries from different parts of
the world in terms of food miles and the energy required to get berries
to their tummies. Kids do more jumping jacks to demonstrate energy used
to transport fruit from far away and quickly discover the value of local
produce. In the same activity, kids get to play farmer and experience
how different market models affect farmers’ profits. They also
realize that the locally supported farmer takes home the most pennies
at the end of the day.
For educating adults, Katz thinks everyone should read Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers
published by the Center for Food Safety, highlighting one of the injustices
of genetic engineering. “Monsanto has around 100 cases against farmers
for patent issues. There is something wrong with the patent law or the way
it is being interpreted.”
Furthermore, Ruth notes that “more than we’ve ever done before
we need to really look at the research infrastructure because it is unjustly
impacting our access to healthy food.” Land-grant universities should
use public funds for agriculture that is beneficial to the public; but this
is often not the case, as they too often support big business profit over our
public good. “It’s almost like we are nibbling at the edges by
focusing on markets. We really need to get to the core and that would be looking
more at where this all starts in the first place. Why does that lead to us
not having access to organic, local food?”
Ruth dreams of a day when our government and research institutions address
the environmental and justice issues related to our food infrastructure, and
she envisions a New York City in the foreseeable future where farmers markets
and CSAs are the norm. And better yet, a CSA for every city building.
To learn more about Just Food and NYC’s city farms, greenmarkets
and CSAs visit www.justfood.org.
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