Hey there, Internet! It is a lovely day just outside the WOYP windows and I can’t think of anything substantive to blog about, yet I feel the need to share. The sun is shining, the plants are growing, the CSA is up and running. The CSA is the best part of the summer, Internet. I just made some lunch from the WOYP fridge, which is packed with incredibly fresh, green vegetables, and oh-muh-gawsh it smells so nice in there. The CSA is cool for two very good reasons: it brings wonderful fresh food (which is what summer is all about – seriously, Internet, I dare you to think of a single great summer memory in which there was not delicious fresh food) from the farm to the city, and it’s given us some totally excellent, totally unexpected recipes. Sometimes we get foods we’ve never heard of in our CSA shares, but it turns out that someone always seems to know what to do with them. We got a recipe for purslane potato salad! Wild! That’s pretty much all I had to say, Internet, that and playing in the dirt is scientifically good for you, so act accordingly. I’m going out into the sun now.
Hi! I’m Bridget, and today I’m taking part in a one-day internship at WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE? I’m actually in NYC for a week-long feminist intensive program, and have been very excited to come to WOYP? since I found out that I would be coming here as part of my week, because food justice and social justice are very much connected. Everyone should be able to find healthy, good foods! At a meeting earlier this week at Sista’s On the Rise I told some of the women there that I would be at WOYP? and they told me about the excitement in their community and around NYC to create community gardens so that healthy food that is accessible to everyone. They then told me about the urban rodent problem in the gardens and how much of the food is being compromised due to the rodents burrowing into the gardens and eating the crops. There are about 600 community gardens in NYC and rodents often thrive there because humans aren’t in the gardens often enough to scare them away, and the crops and seeds are easy for them to find and eat undercover. It seems that the rodents are ruining individual’s gardens as well. I could really relate to this problem because where I’m from, in a more rural area, we deal with other animals such as rabbits and deer eating the crops! So, the fact that animals are invading gardens is not just a New York problem, they just happen to be rats rather than bunnies! But, I’m really enjoying my visit to NYC and was saddened to hear about this problem that the farmers and communities are facing. Hopefully, more strategies and more groups such as Green Guerillas (a group that helps people cultivate community gardens,) will be developed to protect the gardens from rodents and to keep opportunities for healthy, fresh food available to everyone!
What do you think? Are rats our neighbors? Do they deserve to share some of our food?
courtesy of http://tastytufts.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/ratatouille.jpg
The kids of East Harlem in New York have something to look forward to this summer.
The NYC Strategic Alliance for Health, the Harvest Home Farmer’s Market and Transportation Alternatives plan to open up a new playground in Harlem on the East Side. The goal is to give kids in that area access to fun physical activities and educational programs (arts, health, nutrition, for example) during the summer. The PlayStreet is going to be located on E. 104th St between 2nd and 3rd avenue. The NYC Strategic Alliance for Health is being sponsored by many great organizations, including Union Settlement, NYC YMCA, Communities IMPACT Diabetes, New York Road Runners, and Grow NYC! However, they still need all the help they can get.
They are inviting you to the upcoming meeting taking place Wednesday, June 16th at 10 am, where you can give programming suggestions, develop a schedule activity, and go over the details of PlayStreet. The meeting will be located at the Union Settlement Association on 237 East 104th Street. To confirm your attendance please email garroyo@health.nyc.gov. We hope to see you there.
Here at WOYP? we think that this is a great opportunity to help kids grow and have fun in a productive way. We can’t wait to see the results.
New York City schools are trying to change the way lunches are eaten.
Approximately 25 schools are taking an initiative. They vow that their kids will not only eat all organic goods but also grow the food in the soil. The program – Green Thumb – also offers workshops about nutrition for people of all ages. Sure, this might not be the first time schools have produced cafeteria lunches in their own backyards, but its never happened on such a large scale in such a big city.
Here at WOYP? we are participating with a new program focusing on child fitness and nutrition. The Highway to Health Festival and Youth Forum is a community dedicated to youth empowerment and making healthy choices. It will take place June 12, 2010 in P.S. 64 in The Bronx. The goal is to improve kids’ lifestyles and promote a healthy living among their peers. The event will showcase a youth led workshop, fitness activities, entertainment, cooking competitions, as well as fitness activities.
Everyone is invited, so we hope to see you there!
Please visit there website and register here.
I’m talking about chickens, Internet, keeping ‘em, caring for ‘em, making ‘em part of our lives. Regard, if you will, this sad tale from Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore (a top-notch blog about folks living the locavore lifestyle all over this great land, with loads of great stories and information useful to any locavore). The condensed version of the story is that Jill woke up one morning to an email about two chickens free to a good home, and of course she thought “Yippee! What on earth could be better than two chickens of my very own!” (I’m paraphrasing). The chickens had been found in the street by someone who was not up to caring for them, but wanted to see them taken care of, and Jill was just the woman for the job. Unfortunately, the plot thickens: chickens are illegal in Jill’s town, and her boyfriend, who is running for city council, does not want his ambitions to serve his community dashed by a potential chicken scandal (though he would love to keep chickens once they are legal).
Internet, I’m sure you’re as confused here as I am: what the heck is so wrong with keeping chickens in your backyard? I mean, I can understand a regulating how many chickens you can keep, and I would actually support laws regulating how much space you need per chicken, but a chicken ban? Exiling chickens? What gives? Well, something must give because it turns out that chickens are pretty highly regulated in these United States. And that totally sucks! Keeping chickens in your backyard is pretty easy and very excellent. Plus, they eat weeds, bugs, and maggots in your yard. Could it get any better? It does. Chickens that eat weeds and bugs lay healthier eggs, eggs that you can give to your neighbors for a healthier, happier neighborhood (stronger communities are a real, wonderful benefit of local food in any form, but neighborhood eggs are just about the best thing ever). And really, why not keep chickens in your backyard? True, roosters can be aggressive (confession: I was attacked by a rooster at a young age and I still don’t trust them) but really, you run the same risk having kids or a dog.
There’s more, Internet. Witness this blog post from Slow Food USA (warning: the video on the post is very sad, and not really kid-friendly). The post is a dispatch from the Department of Justice/USDA hearings in Normal, AL about competition in the poultry industry. The gist of the hearings is that big poultry companies, which run huge monopolies, in which individual farmers are basically serfs, are accused of threatening and intimidating farmers, and finally sending them into financial ruin. Those familiar with stories of depression-era tenant farmers and sharecroppers will find a similar story: chicken farmers are given non-negotiable contracts by companies that are the only game in town (contracts which are often replaced a few years on by new ones with worse terms) and end up forced to spend huge sums of money on farm “improvements” (some of which are real improvements, some are debatable). To spend that kind of money, many have to take out loans, put their houses up as collateral, and few ever make the money back. This cycle of ever-increasing input costs and diminishing returns could actually be disrupted, at least a little bit, with a few backyard chickens. The reason that chicken farmers are forced to work for these companies is that we are used to getting our food from huge, global production structures. There simply aren’t ways for farmers to sell chickens close to home without huge companies as middlemen (or, at least, there aren’t enough ways). But what if the model for chicken farming was a little more “backyard”? Farmers closer to their customers, raising fewer chickens, spending less on raising them, cutting out the terrifying corporate middle-man. It’s not so far-fetched, Internet. Hopefully, Jill’s husband isn’t the only city council candidate who wants to raise chickens, because we could use more of them in our backyards.
That’s all it takes, a simple chicken coop. It doesn’t even have to be painted to look like a barn either, though that’s pretty cute. And the whole thing looks like it’s 8-feet long, max. Doesn’t even need a big yard.
This picture isn’t real. It is totally possible for humans and chickens to live together in harmony in urban areas.
