food justice

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The Garden: The Fight for Community Agriculture in South Central LA

The fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles was the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community.

Then, 12 years later, real estate developers and bulldozers moved in - poised to level the 14-acre oasis. Why was the land sold to a wealthy developer for millions less than fair-market value? Why was the transaction done in a closed-door session of the LA City Council? Why has it never been made public? The documentary film is The Garden, and it's just been short-listed for an Academy Award.

Tonight on GRITtv ARUN GUPTA, MARION NESTLE, and PETER HOFFMAN discuss the politics of food, why what we eat matters, and how community gardens are changing the urban landscape. You can see the full program, including a taste of The Garden at 8 pm.

How to Eat Well Without Going Broke

Over the last decade the politics of food has become, well, increasingly political. From Fast Food Nation to Whole Food Nation a lot has changed. So what should we eat, especially on a limited budget? If we can’t shop at Whole Foods (some call it Whole Paycheck) can we still eat well? And what about the rest of the world? Food is connected not only to our own wellbeing (we are what we eat) but also to the fate of nations. Bio-fuels, GM crops, food miles and global warming, and the growing gap between the global south and north have have all contributed to a sense that what we eat and how we grow our food has an impact far beyond our own backyard.
If it is true that we’ve become more aware of what we eat and where it comes from, what difference does it make?
On GRITtv Arun Gupta, a former chef, and a writer and editor at the Indypendent, Marion Nestle the author of What to Eat, and Peter Hoffman, chef and owner of Savoy and Back Forty in New York City sit down at the GRITtv table to discuss the politics of food, why what we eat matters, and how community gardens are changing the urban landscape.
Then . . . not so long ago, in a supermarket not so far away... an intergalactic parody of the Organic Rebellion...Grocery Store Wars.

land of sunshine: strategies for urban agriculture

Local food distribution and infrastructure
Even if there were more community gardens and urban farms (or even sky farms) in Los Angeles, we would still need to look beyond the borders of the city to get food. It’s critical to start rebuilding local food distribution networks and the regional food processing industry that has largely disappeared with the rise of national and global agribusiness. My colleagues Vanessa Azjfen and Moira Beery have spent the last two years investigating logistical models for distributing more locally grown food to institutions like schools and hospitals in southern California.
They recommend three models for rebuilding these local food connections. One is a ‘local food line,’ a set of produce items that institutions tend to need and that can be procured from local farms. By identifying local sources for all of these items and branding the set or package, a local food line could be sourced and offered by a variety of brokers who tend to sell to medium and large sized clients. Another model for local food distribution is the farmers market hub. Some specialty food brokers, restaurants, etc already source food at farmers markets. The farmers market manager could help facilitate more of these connections so that institutional clients or food brokers wouldn’t have to contact numerous individual farmers every time they need items. The third model that could work well in the region is a farmers collaborative approach. In this model, farmers join together in an arrangement to provide a variety of food items and also possibly jointly operate a delivery truck or storage facility to allow them to sell a greater volume of food.Honestly? Just go read the whole goddamn thing