Episode 1 is a conversation with Mother Jones Magazine reporter Josh Harkinson, who has written extensively about water availability issues in California’s Central Valley, including The New Dust Bowl, an article on how water scarcity is affecting farm workers in Mendota.

Episode 2 is a conversation with Susana de Anda, co-director and co-founder of the Community Water Center, an advocacy organization that works to promote community access to safe, clean, and affordable water in California’s Central Valley.

“Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the State like a great sorrow. …and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.” – John Steinbeck, “The Grapes of Wrath”

In “The Grapes of Wrath” the Joad family went to California for the promise of jobs resulting from new irrigation projects. In the 1920s through the 1950s California’s newly built pipelines moved water south to arid land with fertile soil. Unfortunately, that infrastructure was designed around conditions that no longer exist.

California might be in a drought or we may be seeing a new – significantly lower – “normal” for precipitation in the state. It could be that the type, amount and location of rain and snowfall no longer match California’s infrastructure. In any case, I have to wonder why we are growing rice and cotton on land that receives such limited rainfall, regardless of how fertile the soil is.

Those whose lives and livelihoods depend on California water and agriculture are stuck in the middle of this debate. If you’re dependent on fields receiving water in order to pay back loans and feed your family, the distinction between drought and a “new normal” isn’t as important as knowing that water will get to the fields. Lately, due to various forces of nature and human activity the water hasn’t been getting there.

Recent rainfalls notwithstanding, we have engineered a system in California that won’t survive unless we change the ways we use water. People point fingers at who is to blame or who has control or whose facts are more accurate than others, but the reality is that Americans have come to rely on water-intensive California agriculture. In addition, California’s water crisis is fueled by poor water management and explosive population growth and sprawl. Now the governor has proposed a massive bond measure to add to the state’s infrastructure and exploit new water sources, but the measure has received only mixed support and a fair amount of opposition.

Water rates are (or are supposed to be) set to cover the cost of the infrastructure built to treat and move the water; however, rates don’t typically include a cost for the actual water itself and water for agriculture is often subsidized significantly below market value. In addition, prior appropriation water rights typically have a “use it or lose it” feature that discourage efficiency and conservation in agriculture.

The rest of the nation should closely watch the results of that bond vote in November because the problems in California have an awful lot to do with our expectations as a nation. We expect that California produce will be there when we want it and water will keep flowing as it has for the past 80 years.

Of course there may always be water flowing in California, but “normal” is definitely in flux and we can’t control the weather. Before we construct massive new water delivery systems that encourage waste and consume large amounts of energy, perhaps we should consider adjusting our expectations about what can realistically be grown, when and where. Maybe it’s time to stop creating fruits that are too expensive or too complicated to be eaten in good conscience.

The proposed permanent market would host all types of vendors from regional farmers to artisan producers. “We need to revitalize food markets, and have a permanent food market at South Street Seaport that meets the needs of residents, brings in tourism and jobs for New Yorkers,” said Quinn. The project would be less like the ever-popular NYC Greenmarkets and more akin to the Pike Place Market in Seattle, which sees nine million visitors each year – an exciting prospect from an economic revitalization standpoint.

Quinn made certain to emphasize the economic benefits of developing this market, one being potential job creation, explaining that “the food system is an economic engine that can put people to work”. Regional producers and small businesses would surely benefit from the platform of a permanent market, but it would also contribute to the economic growth of the South Street Seaport area.

The Fulton Fish Market site received some attention over the past few years when the New Amsterdam Market emerged, a monthly market showcasing regional farmers and artisan producers. The New Amsterdam Market comprises over 120 producers- from farmers to butchers to cheese mongers. Now a 501c3, they fought hard to establish their presence as a monthly market on this site.

Quinn has been a staunch ally in the effort to make the New York City food economy a priority of the city council, constantly advocating for “food that’s nutritious and affordable in every neighborhood in New York City.” Most recently, Quinn was integral in the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, which invests $1 billion to help build grocery stores in underserved neighborhoods around NYC. In fact, she mentioned that some of these funds could also potentially be used to develop the permanent market.

The creation of a permanent market at the Fulton Fish Market site would serve New Yorkers in countless ways. The most difficult to measure, but perhaps most important, would be building community. In city as large and bustling as our Big Apple, this prospect excites us most of all.

Earlier this month I ventured down to the nation’s capital to attend Meeting the Demand: Growing Markets for Sustainable Meat and Dairy Production, a conference organized by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR).  Turned out to be well worth the epic all-in-one-day roundtrip subway/train ride; ICCR managed to cram the schedule full of speakers, panels, and workshops like pork in the farm bill.  Lots of big ideas; lots of inspiring solutions.

Rather than burden you with a whole lot of extra words, I have compiled a list of 31 facts/thoughts/themes from the conference.  Why 31?  Because it’s a prime number, silly.  This should satisfy your sound-bite appetite – but if you hunger for the hearty stew of detailed description, leave questions in the comments section and I’ll write more.

1. There’s Money in the Food Business: just count all the private jets at a Grocery Manufacturers Association conference!  Unfortunately, farmers don’t get much of the dough.
2. Not-So-Fun Fact: while industrial dairy producers receive about 30% of the retail dollar spent by milk consumers, organic dairy producers receive about 26%.
3. Weird Economics: when the cost of producing a good increases, consumers typically pay more for the good – but farmers face the unusual situation of having to absorb increased costs without being able to raise their prices.
4. Obstacle to Sustainable Ag: lack of new farmers.  It’s tough to convince young people to farm; land and equipment are expensive, markets are unstable, and it’s difficult (and sometimes impossible) to make a living.
5. It’s Expensive to Do Things Right: Organic livestock producers incur many additional expenses: e.g., organic certification costs, organic feed (~30% more expensive than non-organic), cost of labor, marketing expenses (necessary to distinguish organic from conventional), and the additional time required to develop the fertility of organic fields and the health of organic herds.  Oh, and organic farmers don’t benefit from all the big government subsidies doled out to industrial producers.
6. Bright Idea: Western Sustainability Exchange hosts “speed dating” sessions to pair sustainable producers with prospective sustainable meat buyers.
7. An Offal Lot of Waste: 40% of a beef cow is offal (fat, hides, bones, trim); if unused, processors often have to pay to dispose of it.
8. Tip: before establishing a farm-to-institution food-purchasing program at your school/hospital/restaurant/cafeteria, develop a purchasing policy, be prepared to pay a premium, train wait staff (they’ll need to explain why the sustainable burger doesn’t cost 99 cents), and focus on products that have an impact.
9. Quality, Not Quantity: meat is typically the most expensive item in the institutional food budget.  So how can a food service program switch to sustainable without breaking the bank?  Easy – use a smaller amount of higher quality sustainable meat.  (FYI – you can use this technique even if you aren’t running a cafeteria.)
10. Balanced Menus Challenge: created by Physicians for Social Responsibility, this project challenges participating institutions to reduce meat purchases by 20% within a year and to start buying sustainably raised meat.
11. Race to the Bottom: US schools are usually required to award food contracts to the lowest bidder.  A preferable method (which is currently used in Europe) is the 100-point system: 51 points are awarded for price and 49 points for other important factors (sustainability, distance to school, etc.).
12. Fun Fact: US schools typically spend about $1 per meal served.
13. Take Back the Kitchen: many US schools haven’t replaced cafeteria appliances since the ‘80s – so kitchen infrastructure upgrades will likely be necessary to shift from the heat-and-serve industro-meal model to menus with fresh, healthful, sustainable foods.
14. More Weird Economics: to receive reimbursement from Uncle Sam, school cafeterias must maintain a certain level of food sales – this provides an incentive to offer popular, but unhealthy menu options (e.g., fast food and flavored milk).
15. Bright Idea: institutional food service programs can offset the higher cost of sustainable foods by increasing the price of unhealthy options.
16. Tip: high-quality food is a selling point for universities (apparently my alma mater never got the memo).
17. Best New Term Award: “Pawprint” – the total animal welfare impact of producing a given good.  The term was coined by Ellen Kennedy of Calvert Investments.
18. Unsolicited Personal Opinion: Slow Money is a bad name for a good concept.
19. Obstacle to Sustainable Ag: lack of food-processing infrastructure for non-industrial producers (e.g., slaughterhouses, mills, creameries, etc.).  Potential pitfall: these facilities are expensive and operate with slim margins – so it’s important to avoid overdeveloping processing capacity.
20. Another Hurdle: lack of distribution networks for non-industrial foods.  Existing networks need to be scaled up to include grocery stores, etc.
21. Can’t Get Enough Statistics? Check out the USDA’s Organic Production Survey (released last month).
22. Can’t Get Enough Onlinesocialnetworking?: Check out PASA’s Good Food Neighborhood for “informed, involved eaters.”
23. Local vs. Sustainable: what do these terms mean?  How should they be measured?  Which is more important?  The good food movement needs to address these questions before big ag starts touting the benefits of local CAFO burgers.
24. From the Top: food service directors play a key role in establishing farm-to-institution programs (at a hospital, for instance, patients and visitors have little influence on food policy since they’re short-term consumers).
25. Good News! the 2008 Farm Bill allows schools to implement maximum farm-to-school distances, making it easier for schools to buy from local farms!
26. Bad News! most schools still go with the cheapest bid.
27. Progressive Procurement: a few states have created pro-local school food policies – e.g., Maryland: schools are able to pay slightly higher prices for foods from MD farms; Rhode Island: gives a tax credit to farmers who sell to RI schools.  Find more progressive purchasing policies on the Community Food Security Coalition site.
28. Prudent Recommendations From Patrick Martins (Cofounder, Heritage Foods USA):
    

    To Farmers: provide reliable services; collaborate with other farmers to solve problems and share costs; don’t fear middlemen.

    To Corporate Chefs: remember your oath to your craft – don’t let emphasis on cost savings overshadow the quality of food!  Start by sourcing 5 or 10% of your ingredients locally.

29. To Investors:  Invest in individuals.  Trust these individuals.
30. Stimulus: economic recovery policy has excluded agriculture.  But the Fay-Penn Economic Development Council is on it – their Federal Agriculture Economic Stimulus Program describes policies to create a new generation of farmers while simultaneously stimulating the national economy.
31. Policy Proposal: forgive small farmers’ debt service requirements when commodity prices dip below 75% of production cost.
32. Unsolicited Personal Opinion about Transportation: train travel is fantastic.

Want more details about any of the points above?  Leave requests in the comment section and I’ll elaborate.

For $164, you get a vacuum-sealed tube of PVC pipe filled with enough seed “to feed friends and family forever,” because, “in an economic meltdown, non-hybrid seeds could become more valuable than even silver and gold!”

But hang on to your credit card! It turns out that the folks flogging the Full Acre Crisis Garden are nothing but horticultural hucksters, as Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas revealed.

The Survival Seed Bank claims to offer “the peace of mind knowing that if things were to get scary, that you and your family could still eat.” But those vacuum-packed seeds “will be dead within the first year,” according to Seed Bank Scams, because “seeds need an airtight, but not airless environment…if you take away all the air, you will kill the seeds.”

Glenn Beck has made a fortune by stoking his viewers’ sense of persecution and their fear that shadowy, corrupt forces are hard at work conspiring to rip them off.

And he’s right, of course; there’s no shortage of greedy, dishonest individuals and companies eager to profit by preying on people’s worst instincts. Take Bill Heid, the guy behind the Survival Seed Bank. The Federal Trade Commission fined him $400,000 “in consumer redress” back in 2005 for making “false and unsubstantiated claims for the “Himalayan Diet Breakthrough.”

Heid made $4.9 million in sales off The Himalayan Diet Breakthrough, a dietary supplement containing “a paste-like material” called Nepalese Mineral Pitch that “oozes out of the cliff face cracks in the summer season” in the Himalayas. Heid promised buyers that this miraculous product would enable them to achieve rapid and substantial weight loss without dieting or exercise, while still consuming unlimited amounts of food.

Who could possibly buy the notion that you could sit on your ass all day eating crap and still lose weight by ingesting some mysterious substance harvested in the Himalayas?

Maybe the same folks who think that slashing taxes and shredding regulations is a dandy way to shore up our crumbling bridges and highways, boost our children’s flagging academic performance, clean up our environment, guarantee affordable health care, protect consumers from makers of defective products (like, say, cars that accelerate unexpectedly, or a diabetes drug that’s known to cause heart attacks); and prevent financial institutions from ripping people off through fraudulent, predatory practices.

If you buy into all that, I’ve got a seed-filled PVC tube to sell you.

The Full Acre Crisis Garden is a twisted variation on a victory garden, tailored to folks who fear a laundry list of perceived threats: a “world wide government agenda;”; “a belligerent lower class demanding handouts”; “a rapidly diminishing middle class crippled by police state bureaucracy”; “an aloof, ruling elite that has introduced us to an emerging totalitarianism which seeks control over every aspect of our lives;”; and the ever popular “Big Government.”

It would be bad enough if the folks who wrote this stuff actually believed it, but Heid’s history proves that he’s just a cynical con artist looking for suckers to help him make a quick buck. And he’s found them in Beckistan.

The Survival Seed Bank gets one thing right: seeds are “more valuable than silver or gold in a real meltdown…” After all, they’re the source of all life.

To us sustainable ag advocates, seeds are sacred. Ken Greene, co-founder of the Hudson Valley Seed Library–note that it’s a library, as opposed to a bank–said it best:

Seeds are, by nature, about sharing. They are community resources. Saving seeds is about survival, both of the plants and people who depend on them, but this is survival through cooperation, not competition. Through the Seed Library we are trying to change the way people think about and treat seeds. We are trying to move seeds from being seen as commodities to be traded or profited from, to cultural and nutritive resources to be protected, shared, and celebrated.

As opposed to, you know, making them the foundation for your get-rich-quick scheme to pick the pockets of paranoid Tea Partiers. Not to get all biblical, but as ye sow, so shall ye reap. So skip the fear mongering fraudsters and get your seeds from the companies and collectives dedicated to promoting kitchen gardens as a source of empowerment and abundance. In their search for suckers, the swindlers at the Survival Seed Bank have apparently sucked the life right out of their seeds.

Leasing Land In a questionable scheme to localize food production, land-rich, capital-poor Ethiopia, a major food importer, is leasing large tracts of agricultural land to foreign companies. H/T to the Food Times.

A Lasting Legacy? A year into her husband’s first term, First Lady Michelle Obama said Wednesday that she wouldn’t rule out testifying on the Hill if it would help curb childhood obesity.

Axing an Aquatic Agreement California courts have all but killed a landmark agreement aimed at curbing California’s over-consumption of water from the Colorado River.  The deal will continue to stand during the appeals process.

Creepy Corn A new study released by the International Journal of Biological Science links Monsanto’s genetically modified corn to organ damage in rats.

FDA Fail After releasing a new report acknowledging the harmful effects of BPA, the FDA said today there is little the agency can do to curtail the use of the substance in food containers.  Grist’s Tom Laskawy reports.

Peter Hanlon is the Outreach Associate for Network for New Energy Choices, a program of GRACE.

As 2009 drew to a close, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) quietly issued a decision that will dramatically decrease the destruction of fish within Long Island’s south shore estuary.  Tucked into the large expanse of salt marshes there, the E.F. Barrett Power Station can silently kill more than one billion fish and other marine life specimens every year.

Of the billion killed each year by the five-decades-old power plant, more than 30 million are winter flounder, a species whose numbers are today at a fraction of their historic levels due to habitat loss and overfishing. In fact, the stocks are so decimated that last year the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission required New York and other Mid-Atlantic states to impose drastic reductions to their commercial and recreational winter flounder harvest.  Meanwhile, the owners of antiquated power plants have been allowed to recklessly destroy aquatic life, virtually thumbing their noses at the highly regulated commercial and recreational fishing industry, and at taxpayers who have invested billions of dollars in the restoration of the nation’s rivers, lakes and oceans. The Barrett station alone accounts for 40 percent of the winter flounder destroyed by New York’s power plants.

So we were thrilled to learn on December 23 that Barrett’s owner – currently National Grid – will be required to install equipment that will drastically reduce the plant’s harm to marine life.  The bad news is that Barrett is not the only culprit on Long Island; the region’s five thermoelectric power plants together can destroy 10.6 billion marine organisms every year, or more than one million every hour.

So how is it that a power plant can so efficiently devour fish?  It all comes down to cooling.  Power plants must cool the steam used to turn their turbines and produce electricity.  As a result, they require large quantities of water to cool the equipment and keep everything running smoothly and safely.  For example, the E.F. Barrett plant sucks in nearly 300 million gallons of estuarine water brimming with microscopic life every day.  Fish eggs, larvae and plankton, all of which are essential to the aquatic food chain, are vacuumed into intake pipes, exposed to extremely hot water and toxic chemicals, and battered about by mechanical equipment.  Few, if any, survive.  Larger fish and other marine life that drift into the powerful currents rushing into the plants’ intake structures become trapped on screens intended to keep them out of the cooling system, and are injured and sometimes killed as a result.

For some it’s easy to dismiss the death of billions of eggs and larvae because the fact is that very few survive to adulthood.  Most fish in their early life stages are eaten by other animals, starve, or die from exposure to pollution or shifting water temperatures.  But just because an egg doesn’t grow to eventually end up on the end of a fishing line doesn’t negate its importance.  Eggs and larvae are a critical source of food for birds, mammals and other fish, and eggs that survive to hatch as young fish not only serve as prey for other wildlife, but become important predators themselves.

The solution is simple: destructive, antiquated cooling systems that simply withdraw and then discharge water – called “once-through” cooling – can be replaced by systems that recycle their used cooling water in what’s called a “closed cycle” system – much like a car radiator.  The result is a stunning 95 percent drop in the amount of water that the plant needs to withdraw and, in turn, a 95 percent drop in the amount of aquatic wildlife harmed and killed by the plant.  In fact, if any of the Long Island power plants were built today, they would be required to use this technology.

The primary reason the carnage has been allowed to continue is a lack of federal leadership. According to the Clean Water Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should have created regulations that require all existing power plants to use the “best technology available” to minimize the destruction of aquatic life.  In other words, the EPA should require closed cycle cooling.  However, weak draft regulations and a resulting series of lawsuits have left us where we are today: with the EPA trying, once more, to piece together a new set of rules to compel power plants to end their environmental destruction.

But on Long Island, local groups aren’t waiting for the EPA to act.  Organizations including Citizens Campaign for the Environment and Network for New Energy Choices (the group I work for) are spearheading a campaign to stop the slaughter of Long Island’s marine life by all five of the region’s power plants.  Using New York’s ongoing wastewater permit renewal review of the plants as an opportunity to demand change, we have called on the DEC to require National Grid to replace its plants’ antiquated once-through cooling systems with closed-cycle cooling.

Clearly DEC is listening.  With its year-end decision to require closed cycle cooling at the E.F. Barrett plant, the state may save over a billion Long Island fish every year.

Or Not Many are disappointed by the results of the World Hunger Summit in Rome this week, where few leaders from wealthier countries showed up, and the leaders who did show up declined to commit to the FAO-recommended $44billion per year, or to pledge to end hunger by 2025.

Avoiding Pesticides? There’s an App for That It’s a new one from the Pesticide Action Network and it’s called What’s on My Food? and unlike the Environmental Working Group’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides, (also a great app) this one breaks down exactly what kinds of chemicals are likely to be on different kinds of foods and explains their implications for personal health. (hat tip to Take Part).

Safety First If you have questions about how to prepare your Thanksgiving dinner safely, tune in to the Consumer Reports Safety blog Tuesday at 1pm eastern for a live chat with food safety expert Urvashi Ranvan.

Academy Award Dreams Food, Inc. is in the running for an Oscar nomination!

Jamie Oliver, Matchmaker The foodist formerly known as the Naked Chef is playing cupid with his new business venture — an online dating site for foodies.

Fishing for Answers As catfish farmers struggle to maintain control of US markets, the state of Alabama has banned untested fish imported from China and Vietnam after catfish from both of those countries were found to contain residues of banned antibiotics.

When I got there, I took a “field trip” out of Des Moines to a number of farms and I was struck by the conflicting feelings that the visual of miles upon miles of corn evoked in me.  On the one hand, a pastoral wholesomeness that rang with my heart, though not with my head.  On the other, the cliche: Children of the Corn.  To be sure, while the Midwestern landscape is bereft of the overstimulation of the city and full of some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, there is also some creepy stuff going on there, namely an unhealthy amount of genetically modified corn and soy, a staggering number of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and a lot of industry influence.

Before flying out, I’d been thinking a lot, as usual, about food production and the controversies that surround it.  Michael Pollan had just been lambasted in Wisconsin by what felt, to me, not unlike the anti-healthcare reform “tea parties” we saw earlier this fall.  Yes, there were real people, real farmers in fact, and yes, they were likely genuinely threatened by Pollan’s message, but the fact that they were reportedly organized by a Madison-based feed company to protest Pollan’s appearance cost them in credibility.

These were not the farmers I’d been hanging out with.

Last spring, Smithfield CEO Larry Pope, seeking to deflect blame after H1N1 appeared to have originated in a Smithfield operation in Mexico, said in an interview that family farmers stood to suffer from the massive hit the pork market took when the outbreak first occurred.  While that may have been true, Smithfield’s strategy of vertical integration has done more to put small producers out of business than have…well, the factory farming practices that almost surely created the breeding grounds for the swine flu.

And yet, industry would have those who follow such things believe that it’s activists who create problems for farmers, and they are eager to pit them against one another.  Talk about “sustainable” agriculture or “swine flu” and you hate farmers.  Ask too many questions about GMOs and you’re a science-hating elitist who doesn’t care about the hungry.  It seems to me that agribusiness has used farmers as human shields to deflect the claims of activists of all stripes — animal welfare, labor, environmental, social justice, etc.

Let me go on record here and now.  I don’t hate farmers. 

I do hate the fact that many of the farmers I met in Iowa raise GMO corn, but visiting with them confirmed what I had long known: that they have reasons for what they do.  One farmer I met cited subsidies and futures as his reason for growing commodity crops.  Indeed, if you were to watch your fellow farmers lose farms and land over the years as you struggled yourself to stay in business, would you dare gamble on growing anything that the government didn’t guarantee you a price for?  Would you plant non-GMOs, knowing that if whatever you plant isn’t Roundup Ready and a neighbor accidentally sprays your field — or their spray just drifts on over — your crop is lost?  For that matter, would you go through the trouble of that risk knowing that your more sustainably-produced product was going straight into a silo with the mountains of GMO corn produced all around you, anyway?

I also hate that so many farmers have found, over the years, that the only way to raise livestock and stay in business is to raise ever-greater numbers of animals in ever-smaller spaces, and deal with manure in unhealthy ways.  I hate that companies like Cargill and Smithfield have managed to trap farmers and their animals between a rock and a hard place, where the farmer incurs all the risk, the animals suffer more and the company makes all the profit.  I hate that traditional methods of raising livestock, along with concerns for animal welfare, workers rights, public health and other social and environmental justice issues have fallen victim to vertical integration and unchecked free market capitalism, in essence, forcing farmers to be complicit in a dangerous system that puts eaters, workers and the environment all at risk.

I know that there are farmers who will find something here to disagree with.  I’m not saying that we all can or should get along, but I did meet several conventional farmers in Iowa with whom I’d love to grab a beer.  I hope they felt the same way.   My guess is, without the twisting of words provided by industry shills, most activists and most farmers would find they have much more in common than either of them do with any multinational corporation, or even with seemingly farmer friendly front groups, like the Farm Bureau.

Speaking of the Farm Bureau, a few states over, in Ohio, an “issue” is on the November ballot which illustrates industry’s attempt to lock environmental and animal rights advocates out of any future conversation about farm policy, in this case, regualations that apply to livestock production.  Issue 2 would allow the governor of Ohio to appoint members to a “Livestock Care Standards Board,” which, if I’m getting this right, would give the group unchecked power over all future decisions on the care of farm animals.  

Proponents of the measure are framing it as a food safety issue, but opponents are calling it a corporate, special interest takeover of the Ohio constitution.  In fact, Ohio ACT (Ohio Against Constitutional Takeover) have put together an analysis of the funding (PDF) behind Ohioans for Livestock Care, less than 8% of which came below the $1,000 mark and over 66% was in chunks of $20,000 or larger.  Far and away, the Ohio Farm Bureau was the largest contributor, but the twelve largest donations all came from either corporations or industry groups.  Not exactly a grassroots effort.

So, who’s scarier?  The people, like Michael Pollan, who would speak out about the problems with our food production, or the people behind a measure to cut them out of the conversation completely?

I’m always amazed by the number of folks who think that most of Central Park is some kind of natural habitat of indigenous plants, a pristine terrain onto which we plunked our bike paths, boathouses and pretzel vendors.

In reality, nearly every square inch of Central Park was painstakingly landscaped back in the mid-nineteenth century to the specifications of Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux. A massive public works project, it required some 20,000 workers to subvert existing swamps and blow up bluffs to create a soothing pastoral landscape in the English romantic tradition.

Oh, and there was the little matter of evicting the Irish pig farmers and German gardeners who’d built shantytowns on the land. And destroying Seneca Village, the “first significant community of African American property owners on Manhattan.” The five acre settlement, which included three churches and a school, was seized through eminent domain and demolished.

All this, so that cooped-up city dwellers could get their fix of “nature.” Our civilized way of life is so removed from the natural world that Central Park’s manicured, manipulated acres are as close to a bit of wilderness as we can hope to get within the borough of Manhattan.

But you can catch a glimpse of what Manhattan was really like before we invaded it and tamed it by watching the fascinating video that architect/educator Fritz Haeg’s created in collaboration with the Mannahatta Project. The video documents Haeg’s Lenape Edible Estate installation, which was designed to “provide a view back to the lives of the native Lenape people, how they lived off the land 400 years ago” on the island that was then called Mannahatta.

The Lenape project was installed back in June when Haeg and a team of volunteers descended with shovels and soil on a triangle of uncultivated land in front of a Chelsea housing project to plant the beans, corn, squash, berries, and other edibles that the Lenape tribe lived on centuries ago.

The project offers a “meditation both on the historical facts and the future possibilities for our occupation of the island,” as Haeg notes. He hopes that it “may also serve as a model for modest small scale urban edible landscapes and as a possible prototype for future green spaces on similar housing sites across the city.”

I’m delighted to see Haeg bring his verve and vision to an American urban setting. His U.S. plantings have been primarily in the ‘burbs, as documented in his book Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn (which also includes an installation at a London housing project). Edible Estates, written in 2007 and published in the winter of 2008, anticipated–and surely helped inspire–the recent kitchen garden renaissance. Haeg’s book sold so well that it’s now out of print.

Happily, a new edition will be released next spring. The new Edible Estates will include more stories of lawn-to-lettuce conversions and an expanded preface from Haeg on how the edible landscape scene has changed since the first edition. Urban ag genius Will Allen’s contributing a piece, and there will be a nod to the White House kitchen garden, whose role in helping to inspire millions of new gardeners this year is indisputable.

As Haeg noted in an op-ed this past spring in The Guardian, the First Family’s 1,100 square foot patch of veggies is “not just a pretty garden, or an empty symbol, but a place for a family to grow the food that they like to eat, on the land that is around them” (that’s why there’s plenty of cilantro and tomatillos, for salsa, but no beets– Obama doesn’t like ‘em). Haeg adds:

Many American children today do not see evidence that food comes out of the ground or experience the pleasure of eating food fresh from plants. Instead their diet is causing epidemic childhood illness. The introduction of a food-producing garden into their early lives is our best hope for changing the situation in a meaningful way.

But there’s another compelling reason to start growing some of your own food, whether it’s in your yard, on a rooftop, or in a window box: it’s one way to help curb your carbon footprint, or, rather, foodprint. No one is seriously suggesting that city dwellers can produce all our own food in our yards, community gardens, or urban farms, but it’s just one of the many steps that we can take to lower our impact.

During World War II, planting a kitchen garden was pitched as our patriotic duty. Isn’t it time we made growing your own food a civic virtue once again? Only this time, the fight is against the fossil- fueled American life that’s given us an increasingly unhealthy populace and an overheated planet.

And we’re in imminent danger of losing that battle. “Current emissions trajectories” are hurtling us towards the point of no return, i.e. “the worst-case scenarios” of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, according to the New York Times.

At a daylong conference on climate change held Tuesday at the United Nations, Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, told the world’s leaders that “Science leaves us no space for inaction now.”

This bleak pronouncement comes on the heels of a headline blaring “We’re Screwed” on the front page of Monday’s New York Post–or, rather, a remarkably New York Post-like publication that was passed out to unsuspecting commuters by activists. The hoax was orchestrated by the Yes Men, that pair of pranksters who’ve so masterfully manipulated the mainstream media, as documented in their upcoming film, The Yes Men Fix the World.

It looked an awful lot like the real thing and fooled a lot of folks. But on close inspection, you could tell that it was a fake because, unlike Rupert Murdoch’s publication, “the faux Post is filled with factual information on the threats posed by climate change,” as USA Today observed.

You’d never see an article in the real Post touting the potential of rooftop farming to help curb New York City’s carbon foodprint, or a shout-out to an upcoming presentation hosted by NYU on Food and Climate Change: The Meat of the Matter, that explores the significant contribution that meat and dairy production make to rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile, Monday’s edition of The Daily News ran an article about the 18,000 pounds of fresh produce that inmates on Rikers Island have grown this year to supply the city’s soup kitchens and food pantries–further proof of the tangible, quantifiable benefits of urban agriculture.

Monday’s Financial Times also echoed the Yes Men’s “We’re Screwed” headline with an article entitled “Scientific Consensus Over Dire Consequences,” which noted that:

The gap between the glacial pace of negotiations and the rapid progress of global warming is now endangering the safety of the planet, scientists are warning. Martin Parry, of Imperial College, London, says: “That is what is at stake. I don’t think people have realised [sic]. We are nowhere near tackling this.”

Can we muster the collective will to alter the way we live in order to avert the worst repercussions of climate change? Those of us who live in densely populated cities already have the advantage of mass transit–and, ironically, greater access through farmers’ markets and CSAs (though not nearly enough in many communities) to the freshly harvested plant-based foods that form the cornerstone of a low-impact diet.

I don’t know if we’ll ever manage to liberate ourselves from the petroleum-based processed foods that currently dominate our food chain. But I’m heartened by the sight of so many New Yorkers attempting to grow food, whether it’s on the roof of a Brooklyn warehouse or the back of a Brooklyn-based pick-up truck, behind the barbed wire of Rikers Island, or in front of a housing project on the island formerly known as Mannahatta. Let freedom spring!

As I type up this post, I imagine Roger Doiron, a man I’ve only met once or twice in person (we’ve exchanged quite a few emails), is just walking out onto the White House lawn.  Roger’s been invited to tour the White House garden today, which is auspicious, because it’s also his birthday.  But he’s the one coming bearing gifts.

Let me back up.  Last fall, just after President Obama won the election, I published a blog post titled “Now, Vote for Veggies,” in support of Roger Doiron’s Eat the View campaign, which encouraged the Obamas to revive the tradition of an edible garden on the White House lawn. Doiron’s campaign, which consisted entirely of online promotion (first in the form of the winning “idea” at ondayone.com, followed by several smart videos and some brilliant Photoshop endeavors), was one that tens of thousands got behind, and the garden, planted this spring, may be one of the most unequivocally supported actions that the administration has taken (unless one counts the consternation voiced by the CropLife Association, who took issue with the fact that the garden, though not certified organic, doesn’t make use of chemical pesticides, and let their opinion be known. As Daily Show enthusiasts may recall, hilarity ensued).

Back to the gift.  Today, Roger plans to present a compost-able list of signatures — some 110,000 — from people who supported his campaign and/or wanted to thank the first family for their efforts. Doiron was also the mastermind behind the Food Independence Day campaign; he heads up Kitchen Gardeners International, is also an IATP Food & Society Fellow. While he may have brought the most to bear in terms of encouraging the first family to break ground, his fellow fellows are doing amazing work too, and as such, they’ll serve as his entourage during his moment in the sun.

While breaking ground on the White House lawn may not have seemed too groundbreaking to some, for the rest of us, it signaled a larger shift in consciousness, and demonstrated Michelle Obama’s willingness to lead the way toward a tastier, healthier future.  And since then, it’s gotten even better.

Rumors began swirling recently that the Obamas might go one step further when the President made some off-the-cuff remarks about a farmers’ market outside the White House. These rumors gained traction when White House chef Sam Kass made an appearance at a community meeting to support the efforts of Fresh Farm Markets, a DC-area nonprofit group that was seeking to open a market in the vicinity of the White House.  Then, earlier this week, Fresh Farm Market, now officially supported by the First Lady’s Office, applied for a permit to close Vermont Ave. between H and I streets on Thursday afternoons to make space for the market.

These events bring hope to even Tom Philpott, another food activist I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a time or two, and one who I imagine sitting behind a laptop on his North Carolina farm right now.  Tom’s posts often tend toward the macabre, so when he blogged last week about the hopeful nature of the White House garden, it meant something.

Here’s hoping it all means a lot for the future of our food system and, by extension, our health, because, as Michael Pollan pointed out today (it’s kind of crazy that this needed pointing out), the two are connected.

In terms of hopefulness, though, Philpott’s got nothing on Doiron, who had this to say about today’s garden party:

To borrow a line from the Obama campaign last year, I am “pumped up and ready to go” to the White House to visit the garden that the good food movement helped dig.  To be able to see it at all is a dream come true, but to be able to see it on my birthday with some of my favorite people from the movement is beyond words.  I have profound gratitude for what First Lady Obama and Chef Sam Kass have done and are doing.  They haven’t simply planted a garden, but have added some rich and timely compost to the home-grown revival taking root in our country and around the world.

Happy Birthday, Roger!!!