I’m so pleased to present tonight’s episode of A Growing Passion on food justice. It’s an issue that has been near and dear to my heart for many, many years.
What is food justice? My definition is this: food justice is the right of all people to grow, sell, and otherwise have access to sufficient, healthy, fresh food. Food justice is a component of self-reliant communities, healthy ecosystems, and food security.
One afternoon’s tomato harvest in Nan’s garden. © 2007 Nan Sterman
Food justice came onto my radar screen in the 1970s with the publication of Diet for a Small Planet, the bestseller by Frances Moore Lappé. Lappé was the first author to shine a light on the environmental and social impacts of eating high on the food chain. She wrote about how our society’s overemphasis on raising and eating meat contribute to environmental degradation and a global inequity of food distribution.
As I remember it, Lappé’s presentation was not one of emotion and drama but rather facts and figures that spoke for themselves. They spoke so strongly and convincingly that I quickly eliminated red meat from my diet. Mine was a a small personal sacrifice to eat lower on the food chain. It’s been many, many years since I made that decision, and my actions clearly have not solved the problem, yet my commitment to the practice remains unwavering.
My interest in food justice propelled me to spend the summer after my sophomore year of college in Washington DC where I worked for an NGO called The Action Center. The organization placed college students in internships that promoted food justice. We placed students on organic farms, at food coops, working on issues of food access in underserved urban communities – ironically these places all did the same kinds of work as you’ll see in our episode on food justice. The issues have not changed.
The next summer, I decided on hands-on work rather than coordinating others’ hands-on efforts. I came back to the west coast and spent several months in Berkeley, interning at the Integral Urban House. “The House” was run by the Farallones Institute, founded by then California State Architect Sym Van der Ryn with the pioneering couple of agriculture, Helga and Bill Olkowski.
The house was a demonstration of urban self-reliance. It was an old Victorian on an eighth acre in a neighborhood that was transitional industrial (in my memory, the images in this article are a slightly romanticized image of the reality…).
The Victorian had been modified and adapted with features that were unusual in those days, not so much today. Water was solar heated. There was a composting toilet. The stove was gas on one side and wood burning on the other. Outside, the street-side landscape was all edible, while the former backyard was dedicated to food production.
For one long summer, I was the gardener. I learned to grow vegetables in raised beds, make compost from garden waste and kitchen scraps mixed with rabbit and chicken manure. I cared for the chickens and rabbits (the latter grown for their meat – something I could not come to terms with).
There was a small pond of tilapia. A platform above the pond held a beehive. The bees drank from the pond. When bees died, they fell into the water and became fish food. Today, we call the approach Permaculture but in those days, we referred to it as Radical Agriculture.
Nan’s vegetable garden planted with tomatoes, onions, eggplants, potatoes and so much more. © 2011 Nan Sterman
I had always been a gardener – I even grew tomatoes the summer before, in a parking strip behind the row house where I lived in Washington, DC, and much to the amusement of my older housemates.
In Berkeley, however, my gardening skills were raised to the next level. Actually, raised by several levels in order to meet production goals. It was a huge lesson on exactly what it takes to “grow your own” and feed a family from an urban lot.
Since those days, I’ve planted vegetable gardens and composted in every place I’ve lived. For years — decades even — people thought I was an oddball for doing so. Today, ironically, it’s the cool thing to do.
I chuckle, but in truth, it touches me deeply. To see the Leichtag Fellows have the same passion and drive that I had at their age – that I have today, too – is just thrilling. Their starting point and the resources available to them, not to mention the support of the Leichtag Foundation, are way beyond what I ever could have imagined.
Student interns at the garden at Crawford High School in San Diego.
Thank you Leichtag Foundation for taking this issue so seriously, and for literally putting your resources where your mouth is.
And thank you to Backyard Produce Project, Olivewood Garden and Learning Center, North County Community Services, Crawford High School. San Diego Unified School District, and the International Rescue Commitee along with all the other organizations in our community that have taken on the battle for food justice.
May all of us, everywhere, be the winners.
