A crash course in changing the world.
Imagine1 - feeding everyone
The year is 2020, the place is California, where our budget woes have increased, our schools have gotten worse, and like the rest of the country, we are all operating under deficit. Social services have been chopped, traditional jobs are slim. It's time to find, borrow, lend and make for ourselves, time to alter our thinking when it comes to how we meet our goals.
The town I live in is situated in a pocket of idealistic sprawl. Technically we are rural, but we have a major university less than an hour away. Our largest employers are agriculture, the university, the local school districts and one manufacturer. For those who hold a sought after job the median $600,000 home prices are not an issue, but for the thousands who survive on seasonal farm work, the poverty can be inescapable.
I am as caught in the lower-middle (economically) as I have ever been. My family still lives almost paycheck to paycheck, but we're living on more than money. I now work for a new incarnation of the farm company start-up I worked for in the years leading up to 2010 (or a similar company). As people have continued to be interested in the ingredients and processes that create their food, there has been a growing movement to eat healthier, to make food an integral part of life, not just the thing that fuels you. I now work as a consultant for the farm, dealing with the practical and regulatory technicalities of the ever increasing federal food safety guidelines. I also make food - the growing, gathering, cooking, nutrition, education, pleasure and eating of it - a daily part of my life. I no longer play one part in the process (the bureaucracy of big business farming), I have educated myself, grown out of my somewhat black thumb, and work as an integral part of the wh*** process on a local level.
I have helped build a set of community programs aimed at feeding people locally and sustainably as well as educating them about nutrition and cooking skills:
- My small community has set aside a long empty lot to create a successful community garden that provides a variety of seasonal staples and specialties. Part of this program includes an internship for kids as a way to teach them the skills of growing, understanding seasonality, and as a way to help them provide for their families. The community garden also has a barter partnership with certain commercial stands to fill in our supply gaps.
- Part of the program helps neighborhoods turn their yards (or a part of them) into sustainable gardens. This is done on a single family level, as well as block levels. We are teaching people to feed themselves within the space, time, resources and other constraints them have. We place a huge emphasis on social capitol, using community resources.
- I have started a website to network all the local farmers markets, produce stands, community gardens and residential gardens so that we can all find the freshest produce available and no produce goes to waste.
- As businesses look more to local resources a couple of the supermarkets have added larger deli areas, health clinics and one or two focus on interest in nutrition and cooking as a way to draw customers in. I work with these supermarkets to offer hands on cooking cla**** that emphasis in season produce.
I'm also a lifelong student, keeping up on the latest tech innovations, eating up history (no pun intended) and getting back to making things when I have free time. I keep sewing, and have gotten back to making pottery. I don't believe our society will survive if we rely on big business to simply provide us with the things we need.
When I get the call I'm a little nervous. Tokyo is huge, completely urban, has different taste expectations, climate and resources, but the need is the same. They need to eat. It will be a challenge, but we've worked short on resources before. We've planted gardens in containers, created elaborate drip irrigation systems and worked with almost barren soil. Maybe others in the community will have other solutions. We'll work together. I know I don't have the short term answer for feeding Tokyo, but I can help them help themselves with the long term.
The town I live in is situated in a pocket of idealistic sprawl. Technically we are rural, but we have a major university less than an hour away. Our largest employers are agriculture, the university, the local school districts and one manufacturer. For those who hold a sought after job the median $600,000 home prices are not an issue, but for the thousands who survive on seasonal farm work, the poverty can be inescapable.
I am as caught in the lower-middle (economically) as I have ever been. My family still lives almost paycheck to paycheck, but we're living on more than money. I now work for a new incarnation of the farm company start-up I worked for in the years leading up to 2010 (or a similar company). As people have continued to be interested in the ingredients and processes that create their food, there has been a growing movement to eat healthier, to make food an integral part of life, not just the thing that fuels you. I now work as a consultant for the farm, dealing with the practical and regulatory technicalities of the ever increasing federal food safety guidelines. I also make food - the growing, gathering, cooking, nutrition, education, pleasure and eating of it - a daily part of my life. I no longer play one part in the process (the bureaucracy of big business farming), I have educated myself, grown out of my somewhat black thumb, and work as an integral part of the wh*** process on a local level.
I have helped build a set of community programs aimed at feeding people locally and sustainably as well as educating them about nutrition and cooking skills:
- My small community has set aside a long empty lot to create a successful community garden that provides a variety of seasonal staples and specialties. Part of this program includes an internship for kids as a way to teach them the skills of growing, understanding seasonality, and as a way to help them provide for their families. The community garden also has a barter partnership with certain commercial stands to fill in our supply gaps.
- Part of the program helps neighborhoods turn their yards (or a part of them) into sustainable gardens. This is done on a single family level, as well as block levels. We are teaching people to feed themselves within the space, time, resources and other constraints them have. We place a huge emphasis on social capitol, using community resources.
- I have started a website to network all the local farmers markets, produce stands, community gardens and residential gardens so that we can all find the freshest produce available and no produce goes to waste.
- As businesses look more to local resources a couple of the supermarkets have added larger deli areas, health clinics and one or two focus on interest in nutrition and cooking as a way to draw customers in. I work with these supermarkets to offer hands on cooking cla**** that emphasis in season produce.
I'm also a lifelong student, keeping up on the latest tech innovations, eating up history (no pun intended) and getting back to making things when I have free time. I keep sewing, and have gotten back to making pottery. I don't believe our society will survive if we rely on big business to simply provide us with the things we need.
When I get the call I'm a little nervous. Tokyo is huge, completely urban, has different taste expectations, climate and resources, but the need is the same. They need to eat. It will be a challenge, but we've worked short on resources before. We've planted gardens in containers, created elaborate drip irrigation systems and worked with almost barren soil. Maybe others in the community will have other solutions. We'll work together. I know I don't have the short term answer for feeding Tokyo, but I can help them help themselves with the long term.
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Tags: Imagine1, community, food, sustainability
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