Food in Boston

Tuesday’s local food forum at Lucy Parsons included a ton of information, questions, and ideas crammed into 90 minutes. Rather than try to capture it all, here’s a few snippets that stuck with me.

I don’t think you need an excuse to hold something like this, but a nominal reason for the event was the recent release of Vandana Shiva’s new book from South End Press, which includes a troubling-but-inspirational essay from James Lionette of Lionette’s Market, who kicked off the night’s discussion. Other panelists were Adrieanna Bozeman & Kettia Louis, interns at the Food Project; Matt Kochka, grower at ReVision House; and Jean Claude Bourrut, grower at the Farm at Long Island Shelter.

Economics

It still doesn’t sound like anyone’s getting rich around here producing or selling real, local food. That said, some of the panelists see potential for a better economic picture, especially if the proximity of producers and consumers in local food systems can be better taken advantage of.

There are certainly innovative arrangements being made already to get good local food to Bostonians in an economically sustainable fashion. For example, ReVision House does some interesting collaboration with local farms, including redistributing food from Drumlin Farm in their CSA, and from Allandale Farm at their farm stand. These have both been successful ways of getting local food to people in their part of Dorchester.

The Challenge of Winter, and Limited Land

This came up a number of times: how can we feed ourselves locally through the winter? A decentralized root cellar network could help. James Lionette argued that there’s a gap on the demand side: too many people still act like children and turn their nose up at turnips & cabbage, but those are what were traditionally eaten around here in the winter (along with meat & other animal products, of course). Jean Claude Bourrut’s farm feeds 2,000 shelter guests daily; there’s no way they could produce enough food on their 2 acres to store a significant supply for that many people. ReVision’s Matt Kochka ran the numbers and came up with ~900 farms within 40 miles of Boston, which still don’t produce enough to feed everyone in the metro around the year. Jean Claude followed this up by reiterating that there just isn’t enough farmland to support the people in & around Boston as long as we’re going to use it for golf courses & the like.

A farmer from Lincoln’s Blue Heron Organic Farm shared some thoughts about how much potential suburbs have for producing food. The main barrier has to do with the relative market values of real estate and of food. Suburbs can overcome this using conservation policies, as is the case in Lincoln where they and many other farms are located.

A recent emigrant from the Berkshires pointed out that there is, in fact, a thriving local food system there, and it’s an easy trip from Boston for anyone who’d like to get a bit of the experience.

Things aren’t all bad; we can always make sprouts in our kitchens, and can & otherwise preserve food during the summer. Getting through the winter in these parts has traditionally been done by preparing in the harvest season.

Local Grains?

A little (expensive!) spelt & bulger is produced in the Champlain Valley, but generally the economics of producing grains in the NE are much less favorable than for veggies or animal products. There was some confusion about King Arthur Flour being owned by one of the big agribusinesses; it looks like they’re actually a 100 percent employee-owned business. Maybe the point was more about their grain coming from industrial producers?

Farm Bill

We talked about the general situation with the farm bill, as well as its impacts on our local food system. People from the Food Project who had recently visited Senator Kennedy’s office heard that nobody had been in touch with the senator about the importance of preserving the Community Food Projects money — if I understand correctly, this helps keep the Food Project running in Boston, and similar initiatives throughout the country. More info at the above resource, and at Slow Food USA. It looks like the bill is about to hit the Senate floor, so there’s still time to contact Senators Kennedy and Kerry & let them know about our needs here in Boston.