Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "urban agriculture"

The Fight for Community Gardens: The Proposed Ordinance and The Right to Land

2011-05-13T21:24:49Z

On Thursday, May 12th, 2011, the proposed Community Garden Ordinance was reviewed at the City’s Planning Commission Meeting. The discussion on community gardens was first presented to the Law and Legislation Committee in August of last year. Since then, it has moved forward due to general support for urban agriculture in Sacramento. The current ordinance is a proposition to amend the zoning law, which prohibits agriculture in residential or non-agriculture zones. The new amendment extends only to private property and does not apply to city-owned land. The public land issue has currently been tabled but is nevertheless pertinent to the future of sustainable urban agriculture.

Let’s take a look back to 2004, the last year of The Ron Mandella Community Garden. The garden was formed under a joint deal between residents and the city. For thirty years, the garden spanned the entire Q Street block between 15th and 14th. In 2004, CADA (Capitol Area Development Authority) decided to conduct a soil test at the garden. The results found toxins and gardeners were promptly evicted. Conveniently, this allowed CADA to push forward the Fremont MEWS project to develop 118 new condos on the Q street corridor. Gardeners requested CADA present a Human Health Risk Assessment to show what the actual effects of the toxins were. After refusing, the gardeners filed a lawsuit that required CADA to produce an EIR (Environmental Impact Report) and, according to some, was never fully completed.

In an interview with City Gardener Bill Maynard, he reflected on the events that followed, “That same year, Sacramento hosted the WTO meeting but the city didn’t know what it was getting into.” Maynard is referring to the lockdown that occurred at the Mandella site in concurrence with protests downtown against the WTO’s Agriculture Ministers Meeting. The Mandella garden had been locked since the eviction. Local activists and supporters from Sonoma County’s Green-Bloc initiated the occupation on the weekend of June 22nd. Ten members of the Garden Board strapped themselves to the fence with metal boards and refused to leave. From 4pm until midnight, riot police and helicopters hovered over the scene, while a similar situation played out at the Ministerial Meeting. Eventually the protestors were arrested and taken to jail in Stockton. In July, the garden was bulldozed and a mere 1/3 of the land was preserved for it’s original purpose.

Today, The Mandella Garden has morphed into two well-established community gardens in downtown Sacramento, The Fremont Garden on Q Street and The Southside Garden on 5th and W. The 5th Street plot, located under the highway, was given to the gardeners as a concession by the city. Still, let this piece of history be a lesson as we move forward with the current ordinance. Supporting sustainable urban agriculture in Sacramento will mean dealing with the realities of redevelopment, public land, and people’s rights.

On May 4th, council representatives hosted an informational meeting for residents to learn more about the ordinance and receive community input. Three of these meeting were held and another will be hosted on May18th at the Boys and Girls Club. At the May 4th meeting, residents had many concerns about the equity and sustainability of the law. The Department of Utility fee for water access and services is $6400 per year and is required for all proposed gardens. A six-foot high solid fence is also a requirement for properties with no current fence. These requirements seemed anathema to the idea of a “community” garden for many. And for those without the money, it is completely out of the picture. Paul Towers, from Pesticide Watch commented, “We need to make the law so people can maintain their garden and allow folks to sell their harvest to pay for all these fees and make the operation more sustainable.” A community member who goes by the nickname “Rev” stated that “all this is talking about is how much money the city can make and how much control they can have over a community-run operation. Our forefathers would have took their shotguns out if there land kept on being taxed like this.” The passion over land is a righteous one. City-owned or not, the laws that govern our access to land are undeniably strict. While the current ordinance is definitely a step-forward, it still sets-up a situation where the demands of the law are out of touch with people’s needs. If the city really wants to create equitable and sustainable laws for community gardens, it will have to rethink both the questions of right to land and affordability. The question of community gardens on public land will no doubt have to re-evaluate the Mandella incident. The biggest threat to community gardens on public land is redevelopment. Grocery stores like Fresh n’ Easy or other redevelopment projects will compete with community gardens for land.

After Thursday’s meeting, the Planning Commission will make a recommendation to the City Council. The Law and Legislation Committee is expected to vote on the recommendations in June. While we move forward, let’s continue to remember the past and hopefully create policies that reflect the needs of community gardens on private and public land.

Farmstand to open in Mckinley Park

2010-07-05T06:49:48Z

Starting this coming Saturday, Soil Born Farms will operate a farm stand in front of the library at McKinley Park in East Sacramento. The stand will sell fruit and vegetables grown by farmers in Sacramento, Yolo, Placer, El Dorado, Yuba, Sutter, Solano and San Joaquin counties.

Randy Stannard, Soil Born's food access coordinator, is heading up the stand. It is one of many food-delivery models that the farm is using to bring healthy, locally grown food to the community.

"Instead of bringing ten to 20 farmers to one spot, we go to the farms and we basically buy and resell produce as well as our own," Stannard said, comparing the stand to a farmers market.

The stand is one component of several projects managed by Soil Born through a Community Food Security Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Soil Born sought a location people were familiar with and that was central to the community. McKinley Park seemed to be the right place, given the number of activities already taking place there. The farm was was embraced by the East Sacramento community, with assistance from City Councilman Steve Cohn and the East Sacramento Chamber of Commerce.

The project has taken a lot of work, and has posed some challenges.

"I think the biggest thing is getting people to want the food. We can put the food right in front of people but it doesn't mean they're going to buy it," Stannard said. "We always have to have an eduction component as a huge part of what we do."

Another challenge with the stand has been pricing. It is difficult for smaller farmers to compete with larger retail locations, but Soil Born is committed to making the stand successful.

"We want to make that connection for people so that they realize there's people growing this food that live in the community," Stannard said.

In certain respects, the stand is a tool for market research. Soil Born is hoping to develop a successful model to buy and sell local produce that can be replicated in multiple locations throughout the city and beyond.

"Either that, or we can come up with something that works and somebody else can replicate it," Stannard said.

The proceeds from the stand will go toward subsidizing other food-access projects. Stannard indicated that this could materialize in collaborative Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes.

This is not Soil Born's first food-access project. They have worked with Head Start centers to distribute produce through its locations, but the effort wasn't as successful as hoped.

"It was a good idea in terms of putting the food right in front of people we're trying to impact," Stannard said. "We found that when people were coming to pick up their kids they weren't in a shopping frame of mind."

Soil Born has established a successful farmers market in Del Paso Heights and is looking for another location in South Sacramento for a farm stand.

Weather permitting, the stand will be open through October, but Stannard said Soil Born hopes to find an indoor location and operate throughout the winter as well.

"Ideally, threes things need to happen year round," he said.

Photos courtesy of Soil Born Farms.

Changing bad habits one recipe at a time

2009-10-01T22:03:51Z

Joanne Neft is on a mission to change the poor eating habits common in many households today.

"We're eating really inappropriately," she explained to dinner guests at her home this past week.

She pinpoints Americans' "inappropriate" eating habits to the cause of many problems. "We eat subsidized food because it's cheap, forgetting the huge price we pay for the resulting obesity, diabetes, cancer, and coronary problems. Americans pay a high price for cheap food."

She is currently self-employed and owns a couple of commercial properties but these days she is putting most of her energy and passion into a crusade against poor eating habits found in the form of a cookbook.

Neft and her close friend (and chef) Laura Caballero are in the process of compiling around 300 recipes made up of locally-grown ingredients.

"I've always cooked from scratch. It's easy, it tastes better, and it's good for you. So here we are writing a cookbook -- the next logical step in a long love affair with food," Neft said.

The cookbook is based on a unique and interactive, original concept.

Every weekend, Neft and Caballero shop the Auburn farmers market and purchase ingredients that are abundant and in season. They constantly find new fruits and vegetables, such as the spiky jelly melons (pictured below) they found last week.

On Monday evenings, the meal they have designed is prepared for six guests at the home Neft shares with her husband. Their home sits high atop the Auburn hills and guests are treated to a spectacular view of the hills during dinner.

Neft thinks the most important part of their project is the interaction of the community. "To our knowledge, this is the first cookbook written over a 52-week period using all the food grown in a single area. This is the first time community members are actually participating in the process of writing a cookbook," she said.

The guest list changes every week and by the year's end, they will have hosted and cooked for around 300 guests. The guests are made up of both acquaintances and friends that responded to an invitation email Neft sent out in January.

The weekly tradition began in January and will continue until December for a total of 52 weeks. The recipes will be in chronological order, ensuring all of the ingredients are in season and can be found in local markets. Special meals for holidays, such as a grass-fed turkey for Christmas, will also be included.

Depending on the type of meat served, meals for eight end up costing anywhere from $65 to $120. Instead of paying for their meal, guests are asked to make a donation of $20 per person that will go towards the printing of the cookbook.

Spots at the Monday night dinners have been booked through the end of the year so it's rare that a guest cancels. However, in the case of an emergency, a neighbor or friend is more than happy to sit in.

"The food is already purchased and we expect to prepare eight dinners so we appreciate having eight people around the table," Neft said.

Neft believes that it is more powerful to have people taste nutritious food instead of telling them how great or beneficial it is. She stresses that, because they are cooking with the freshest food available, there is not a lot of preparation involved or ingredients that need to be added.

"When we see guests at the following farmers market, then it's obvious they liked what they tasted and are there to learn what else is available. Most of the guests are people we don't know, so the dinners are definitely making a difference," Neft said.

The dinners not only allow guests to taste great food but give Caballero and Neft a chance to try out their recipes. Some recipes become surprising favorites, like the lamb neck slices that were cooked in dark beer, coffee, paprika, and a mandarin grilling sauce. Others, like the mini grilled artichokes, won't make it into the cookbook. If they are unsure about a recipe, they might try it out beforehand but generally dinners are cooked for the first time the evening of the dinner.

"If you start out with fresh food picked that Friday, you'd have to try really hard to mess it up," Neft explained.

Her passion for food began when she was young. She spent many years on farm land that was homesteaded by her great-grandfather in Minnesota and grew up with the importance of healthy food instilled in her. Her father always maintained a vegetable garden and started a large community garden in Santa Barbara in the 1960s.

She says that as she grew older, she noticed more people becoming overweight and sick and began to question why obesity was such a problem.

"People don't realize that 90 percent of foods available in supermarkets are corn-based and/or pumped with too many sweets, oils or salt ... Americans are unwittingly poisoning themselves," she explained.

She credits activists like Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, and Eric Schlosser with bringing light to the importance of good food but thinks there is still much room for improvement.

"Most people still aren't connecting the dots," she said. "It really boils down to a health issue ... we are what we eat and the majority of people are not paying attention and haven't taken the time to inform themselves."

Twenty years ago, Neft opened the first Foothills Farmers Market. The following three years, eight more markets popped up throughout Placer County.

Other highlights of her food activism include heading up the first Mountain Mandarin Festival in Newcastle, preserving farmland, and working open space and scenic vistas as a chairperson of Placer County's Citizens Advisory Committee. She also served five years as Director for the Placer County Agricultural Program. Most recently, Neft has been involved with Sacramento's Regional Food System Collaborative.

"Once I learned of the massive amounts of money the government spends on healthcare and the potential of enormous costs in the years to come, I decided to take some action. There are two generations of people who don't know how to cook a meal from scratch."

Neft is doing her part to change that, one meal at a time.

On Monday night, Neft cooked two angel food cakes using the exact same recipe with eggs from the farmers' market and eggs from the supermarket. She believes the difference in sizes speaks volumes. The scenery behind is the view from the Nefts' back porch.

Sample menu served on September 28

Appetizers:
Chilled cucumber soup
Fresh brick-oven bread

Dinner:
Tomato, jelly melon and arugula salad with a vinaigrette laced with fresh pesto sauce
Swiss chard sauteed and topped with bacon crumbles
Mashed German butterball potatoes
Lamb stew with okra and diced tomatoes

Dessert:
Angel food cake with strawberries and homemade bittersweet chocolate sauce
Homemade vanilla ice cream

Placer County Real Food will be completed by Mother's Day 2010 and will be available for purchase at the Auburn farmers market or pre-order by contacting Mercedes Sinclair at Mercedes@EastWindQuantumWellness.com or at 916-412-2622

To contact Laura Caballero about her professional chef services, email her at laurak928@hotmail.com

All photos taken by Jonathan Mendick

CLUCK presses for changes

2009-08-07T05:36:59Z

Sacramento gardening activists want to take urban agriculture to the next level and legalize raising chickens in your back yard.

"It's really been a hot topic lately," said Jaclyn Hopkins, volunteer coordinator for Environmental and Agricultural Taskforce Sacramento. "A lot of cities are changing their regulations to allow chicken-keeping, and Sacramento's on it's way."

EAT Sacramento and its partner group Campaign to Legalize Urban Chicken Keeping (CLUCK) were founded this year to advocate for more sustainable and organic gardening in the city. To promote the cause of backyard chicken coops, CLUCK will be hosting screenings of the indie documentary Mad City Chickens at the Guild Theatre Friday at 7:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., and again at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $5 and available at the door.

Mad City Chickens is equal parts entertainment and educational outreach. The film is an intelligent, sometimes-comic look at the relationships between city-dwelling humans and the chickens they raise, following the intersecting stories of various families, professionals and birds. The plot centers around the grassroots movement to legalize chicken-keeping in Madison City, Wisconsin, which successfully changed its city code in 2004. The film's two directors, Tashai Lovington and Robert Lughai, are on tour with the film and will host discussions after both screenings on Friday. They will have moved on to San Francisco by Sunday.

This screening is part of a concerted effort to change Sacramento law on behalf of the birds.

Under current city law, clucking, flightless egg-layers cannot be kept as pets due to an ordinance that bans the non-agricultural raising of any livestock. City laws for the city were changed to prohibit chickens in 1989. The same language that bans chickens also bans most other barnyard animals: horses, mules, sheep, goats, etc.

"It was part of a sweeping ban to make Sac look like a modern city," CLUCK coordinator Abbie Crouch said. "But nowadays, people want to get back in touch with their roots."

After researching the ban for months, EAT Sacramento is still unsure why city government chose to outlaw chickens specifically. Perhaps it was, as Crouch said, to solidify Sacramento's development from a 'cow town' to a metropolitan urban center. Alternatively, it could also have been intended to deal with occasional complaints about noise, odor or chicken mistreatment.

Whatever the case, the ban hasn't stuck. Rogue Sacramento chicken-keepers still hatch, feed, house and learn to love their feathered friends in spite of the law.

"There's a surprisingly large chicken underground, "Crouch said. "A lot of people don't mind breaking the law." CLUCK estimates there are hundreds of backyard chickens in the city.

It's legal to raise chickens most anywhere else in California. San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Jose have all okayed backyard cooping, as have our neighbors in Roseville, Oakland and (of course) Davis.

Sacramento County code allows anyone to raise chickens as long as they have a yard larger than 10,000 square feet, which closes off most city residents but allows folks in Fair Oaks to raise chickens with much gusto.

Regulations usually place a cap on maximum number of chickens (about four to six per family) and add that chickens must be kept at least 20, 25, or 40 feet from neighboring structures. Los Angeles has no limits on how many hens one family can raise. Hens are tranquil, quiet and well-mannered, but their boyfriends can present a problem. Roosters are almost never legal, as they tend to pick fights and crow at godawful times of the day, and even after all that they don't contribute anything toward egg-laying. Slaughtering chickens is also illegal almost everywhere, as some serious health concerns start to enter the picture.

If chickens could talk, they'd be vocal supporters of backyard raising. Animal rights activists brought new attention to the relative brutality of factory farm conditions with the passage of Proposition 2 in the 2008 general election. Prop. 2 will require significant improvements in animal treatment for California meat and poultry industries in 2015. Those improvements reveal how constrictive factory cages are; Prop 2's requirements were simply for animals to have enough space to stand up and turn around.

Comparatively, backyard chickens have massive coops and a great deal more TLC. "Backyard chickens tend to live pretty sweet lives," Hopkins said.

It doesn't take much to really spoil a chicken. A little space to scratch around, a comfy enclosure for laying, feed to peck at, and as a treat, some grass to gobble from time to time. These are simple pleasures that anyone with a backyard can provide.

"Everybody could raise a chicken or two," Crouch said "They're easier to take care of than more conventional pets like dogs."

Raising chickens can enhance life for you and your chicken, according to new scientific studies. Chickens get an easy, comfortable living and you get fresh eggs that knock out the supermarket in terms of quality. Two recent Penn State studies have shown that free-range hens produce healthier eggs, richer in nutrients and Omega-3 fats, and studies of a less-academic nature have confirmed that free-range eggs taste terrific.

Crouch said that chickens can make great pets, too. "Not only do you get delicious food, you get some evening entertainment."

Even though they may have brains more like dinosaurs than like cats or dogs or hamsters, chickens can be a kind of companion animal. Chickens can hop on your lap and get friendly, and they generally like being petted. "And it sounds silly, but you can have a beer on the porch and watch your chickens be cute and do stupid stuff in your back yard," Crouch said.

Legalizing and regulating chicken culture in Sacramento would have benefits across the board, CLUCK members surmise. Documenting the number of chickens in the city is one perk, and increased attention could also allow for better disease control or donation of deceased chickens to local colleges.

"When we talk to city council, we usually keep things loose to allow for the development of regulations," said Hopkins. At present, CLUCK is looking at a six chicken maximum and a mandatory distance between coop and home.

The eggs of reform are incubating, according to EAT and CLUCK representatives.

"It's now just a matter of when," Hopkins said.

For information on CLUCK and EAT Sacramento

•Campaign to Legalize Urban Chicken Keeping, a subsidiary campaign of EAT Sacramento
info@EATsacramento.org or 916-551-1883

•Mad City Chickens on Friday, 7:00 and 9:30 and Sunday at 7:00
Guild Theatre
Post screening discussion with independent filmmakers Tashai Lovington & Robert Lughai, of Tarazod Films

Freedom Farms

2009-07-27T18:18:16Z

With the prices of groceries on the rise, one local Sacramentan is planting his economic vision directly in the ground. Kory Grant Clift of Freedom Farms isn't your typical farmer. First off, he doesn't charge money for his fresh organic produce. Second, he's African American, and less than one percent of all California farmers share his ethnicity.

Clift's vision for Freedom Farms is to create a nutritious sustainable food system for South Sacramento. In order to build awareness of locally grown food, Clift has set up over 30 community gardens for Oak Park residents. He provides cooking demonstrations for local schools, and he's trying to get Sacramento school boards to use more local produce for their school lunch programs. If you're interested in Freedom Farms, you can catch Clift every Saturday at the McClatchy Park Urban Farm Stand from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Food advocates come together for change

2009-07-25T05:05:58Z

Mark Winne, author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty, opened Thursday morning’s Sacramento Region Food Collaborative (RFC) conference with a powerful message of hope.

“The loss of land, hunger, insecurity, obesity are real…but so is the opportunity for change," he said.

The guest list for the four-hour brainstorm session, coordinated by Valley Vision, included more than 70 movers and shakers in the food and urban agriculture industry plus representatives from congress and environmental agencies.

Held in TV station KVIE’s community room, Winne began the collaborative by asking the audience for general feedback, both positive and negative, on the state of Sacramento’s current food system (see below for highlights).

Winne, the headlining speaker for this month’s meeting, is a nationally recognized leader in food policy, local agriculture and hunger and food insecurity. He has co-founded a number of food and agriculture policy groups across the nation and is a recipient of the 2001 U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary’s Plow Honor Award.

Throughout his presentation, “Leadership for Healthy Communities: Advancing Policies to Support Healthy Eating and Active Living,” Winne discussed existing successful food policies, community projects and strategies that can be used as models for our region and solutions to putting talk into action.

Many attendees echoed a common frustration of the pace of action taking place in the region, with some having devoted almost their entire lives to food policy and providing healthy food choices to the community. One audience member aptly described it as “pushing a rock uphill.”

Winne acknowledged that change might occur slowly, but reassured the audience, saying, “I maintain that you have the expertise in this room to solve most of the food problems in the region.”

Two of the strongest themes that emerged from the convention were the need for greater education efforts and access for communities to various food programs throughout the region. Some of the solutions that Winne suggested that could build steps toward an improved food system included:

-Zoning laws, buffer zones around schools
-Not just providing healthy food choices but equipping children and adults with education to make them
-Example: Happy Kitchen adult cooking program
-Focus on change at a local level
-Community development as area for opportunity
-Example: Pennsylvania’s Fresh Food Financing, which added 2,500 new jobs
- Farm-to-school programs (currently 10 percent of nation’s schools involved)

During last month’s RFC, Valley Vision surveyed attendees to get an idea of their priorities and focus. A list of 15 priorities was formed, the number one priority being “taking action to overcome policy barriers to local food access” . Bill Mueller, this month’s RFC facilitator, accepted critique of the survey and, based on a majority of comments, fine-tuned the results to include that education and communication should always be a cornerstone of the project in addition to other priorities.

To close the meeting and prepare for September’s conference, facilitators asked that audience members review a spider chart of stakeholders in the RFC project, grouped into categories like community development, social economy, charity and policy advocacy. Attendees were asked to consider who has been left out and to leave suggestions of additional targets of the project.

As outlined in a one-year meeting plan timeline, RFC has developed an action plan and is currently in the "convening/agenda setting” stage. Beginning with September’s planning meeting, the collaborative will enter the "action” stage that will continue through a series of priority action meetings until February 2010.

Based on the discussion and exchange of ideas that took place Thursday morning, attendees are more than equipped with not only the passion but the tools, power and innovative thinking needed to improve Sacramento’s food system.

Valley Vision’s Bill Mueller closed the collaboration with a reminder that the power for change lies in the hands of the attendees.

“At the end of the day, this is your project, and we‘re the container," Mueller said.

RFC gatherings began in May and will continue on a monthly basis. For complete information about the project, visit valleyvision.org.

To learn about future collaborative meetings, contact Robyn Krock at robyn.krock@valleyvision.org

Current food system audience commentary highlights (positive)

-Sacramento is one of the best stone-fruit agriculture regions in the nation
-A vast number of farmers markets in area
-Many farmers markets and stands accept Electronic Benefit Transfer cards
-Programs like Meals on Wheels offer healthy food choices to seniors
-Many marketing opportunities available for food programs

Current food system audience commentary highlights (negative)

-Sacramento is a food “desert” (Read USDA’s study on this theory)
-Lack of education and access in certain communities (example Oak Park)
-Price per dollar of fruit and vegetables at markets is on the rise
-There is still a lot of room for improvement with marketing methods
-Only around 2 percent of area residents attend farmers markets
-Regulations sometimes make it difficult to run stands or markets
-More focus is needed on children making healthy choices
-Many neighborhoods are forced to choose supermarkets and fast food because of lack of options

Take Action, Get Inspired: Programs and Resources

Mark Winne: mark@foodsecurity.org

Community Food Security Coalition

Farm to School Network

Oakland's People's Grocery

Leadership for Healthy Communities

Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Cleveland's City Fresh program

Philadelphia's Food Trust

Food Policy Council

UDA Design Dialogue: Community garden challenges

2009-07-24T03:17:18Z

On Wednesday night around 40 urban agriculture advocates, gardeners and Sacramento residents gathered at the Sacramento chapter of the American Institute of Architects to discuss a subject that has been on many Sacramentans' minds lately.

This month's topic for the 4th Wednesday Urban Design Alliance (UDA) Design Dialogue was "Design Challenges in Urban Agriculture." Those who attended were divided into groups for an interactive workshop that involved designing a faux-garden despite a list of challenges given to them. While mulling over the different scenarios and solutions, participants snacked on fresh fruits provided by Soil Born farm, appropriate fare given the night's theme.

Bill Maynard, of the Sacramento Area Community Garden Coalition, opened the lecture with his own thoughts about urban agriculture and discussed several community gardens he believes are good models. He reminded the attendees that two goals of community gardens are edibility/sustainability and visual appeal. A facilitator sat in on each table to guide the 20 minutes they were given to discuss and sketch their designs.

The group that I sat in on was given the task of creating a vegetable garden in a 20-foot by 330-foot alley along a residential and commercial block. Some of the challenges they faced were the alley being paved with concrete, the need for automobile and garbage collection access throughout the alley and a possible need for topsoil in raised beds for sunlight. They were reminded to use sustainable gardening practices such as using rain runoff, selecting appropriate plants and food crops and pest management while also focusing on the visual aspects of the garden.

In response to the various challenges, the team came up with several ideas that would work in an actual community garden given the same scenario. Members decided to make the garden a communal one so that everyone could share in the vegetables. Containers would be placed along the edges at different points so that they would be raised enough to receive sunlight and would stay clear of any cars or service vehicles that might need access. Seasonal vegetables would be planted as well as trees to provide shade. Trellises would be positioned across the top for even more planting opportunities, and vacant lots along the edges of the alley would be used for tool storage and sitting areas. To ensure visual appeal, flowers would be included throughout the garden, and artwork would be placed at both ends. Lastly, water containers would catch rain runoff and double as both a water source and decorative art atop roofs.

After 20 minutes, variations of those solutions were reflected in the other groups' presentations. Other garden types that were designed during the workshop included a temporary community garden, a Fab-40s front yard garden, a vacant lot used by a chef, a lawn with a giant tree in the center, a school garden and rooftop garden. Solutions to design challenges included raised ponds for drainage, drought-tolerant herbs, turning a large industrial building wall into an art mural and installing water sources for easy relocation, among many others.

Maynard commended the groups, most of them made up of team members who have never been involved in community gardening and noted that many of the ideas the participants came up with are actually used in community gardens across the nation.

Before the gathering came to a close, the UDA leaders reviewed results of surveys that were handed out at the beginning of the meeting, which doubled as a lesson in California's urban agriculture. Survey takers were asked how many farms are in the state (75,000), if growing veggies in front yards is illegal (it's not) and if water use for gardening is regulated in Sacramento (only the hours are). In addition, they were asked to guess the second and third states in the United States that produce the most agriculture, with California being the first. Some were surprised to learn that Iowa came in third, after Texas.

In closing, Maynard encouraged the audience to think outside the box when it comes to designing urban agriculture spaces and pointed out that the Sacramento region requires considerations such as a lack of rain in the summer months.

Of special importance, he also reminded attendees that August is National Community Garden Awareness Month. To help out on several community garden projects Maynard has planned for the month, contact him at saccg@ulink.net.

For more information about community gardening, visit the Sacramento Area Community Garden Coalition

Front yard ordinance allows DIY food

2009-07-17T21:17:38Z

This is the second growing season that Sacramento residents have been able to grow vegetables, fruit trees and other food plants in their front yard thanks to a revised city ordinance. After a three-year effort by food activists, the city's Front Yard Ordinance was reworded in 2007 to specifically allow veggie gardens in that soil near the sidewalk. That change has enabled more and more Sacramento homeowners to grow their own food in an edible landscape, mingling [with] or replacing decorative foliage. Blueberries with your zinnias, perhaps, or tomatoes with your chrysanthemums, or lettuce where that brown scrubgrass used to be.

The original FYO was written into zoning code in 1941 and actually banned the growing of edible plants. Vegetables were confined to the backyard and growing any food plant on the front lawn was an offense punishable by a fine. This may seem like an unusual law, considering that homeowners own their lawns. The main concern of the old FYO was preventing overgrowth of plants, whether food or otherwise. It didn't explicitly forbid food plants, but didn't list them as legal either, whereas perennial grasses and decorative plants were listed as legal groundcover.

Sacramento resident Karen Baumann brushed up against that little-known ordinance when she planted tomatoes and a fruit tree on her front lawn in 2004, according to a city official. A neighbor reported her garden to city authorities, who then notified Baumann that she would have to pull up the plants or face a $750 fine. This was a surprise to Baumann, who asked folks at local gardening groups what she could do to save her leafy comestibles. Before she could act, an unknown party sprayed Baumann's lawn pretty heavily with RoundUp, a Monsanto-brand herbicide, and killed off most of Baumann's plants, as well as some nearby lawns.

Food activists citywide responded to Baumann's plight and petitioned the city council to revise the outdated law. "There was a tremendous amount of community pressure," Paul Towers, a Sacramento resident and state director of Pesticide Watch said. "There were articles in the News & Review, The Bee. Organic Sacramento got involved. It was everywhere."

This grassroots effort to make Sacramento lawns more than just pretty finally achieved their goal in April 2007. Baumann's war-torn lawn was later restored. Capitol Nursery donated a bundle of plants to replace her sprayed veggies.

The new FYO changed key wording to more explicitly allow food crops on front yards. There are still requirements for maintenance, but no limitations on what can be grown. There are limits on what you don't grow; the law requires that landscapes must be "landscaped, irrigated and maintained," and there can be no dead plant matter taller than 4 inches. "Basically, you can grow all you want," said Community Garden Coordinator Bill Maynard. "But make it look good."

A tricky segment of the FYO still causes some concern amongst front-yard growers. It reads: "All landscaping materials shall be mowed, trimmed, and/or maintained as often as necessary to prevent overgrowth and blight."

But Towers said "blight" is a vague term that city authorities would be hard-pressed to enforce. The FYO lists no definition of "blight," only the word. Fortunately, the city is presently uninterested in enforcement.

"The city sent around a code enforcement memo that said not to bust food landscapes," said Towers, and Maynard corroborated that the city isn't cracking down. Unless a withering garden is a clear fire hazard, then dried-out or overgrown lawns aren't a problem. In a dry season, water conservation is at a premium, and accordingly the city has revised its enforcement plan.

Growing a plot of vegetables can actually reduce a front yard's water consumption and benefit the community in drier times. "A lot of edibles are drought-tolerant plants, so people can tear up thirsty grass and replace it with food." Maynard said. "[The FYO] provides a whole 'nother way to think about your yard."

The FYO places no restriction on fertilizer or pesticide use but Maynard hopes that Sacramento residents will pursue 'river-friendly' practices to reduce chemical runoff.

A front yard garden offers advantages that a backyard garden might not have. More sun usually hits a front lawn, and backyards might be covered with a patio or a pool. The FYO benefits homeowners almost exclusively, though, as landlords would may be unreceptive to suggestions of tearing up grass for greens.

Still, the FYO allows Sacramento city-slickers double the opportunity to turn their lawn into a bountiful foodscape.

"Our mission is to make all landscapes more healthy and sustainable, and we always put food first," Towers said.

Slow Food educates, raises awareness on Urban Ag Day

2009-07-13T03:55:45Z

In a celebration of Urban Agriculture Day, Slow Food Sacramento hosted a series of workshops and tours throughout the day Saturday to benefit Sacramento Hunger Coalition and Sacramento Area Community Garden Coalition (SACGC).

For $25, ticket holders were able to choose from an itinerary of workshops, tours and movie screenings after either touring Soil Born Farm or cycling around town on the "What's 'Growing' On" Bike Tour.

The morning cycling tour led roughly 25 cyclists on a 10-mile guided trek around local community gardens, starting at Southside Community Garden and making stops at McClatchy Park Farm Stand, David Lubin School Garden and the Sacramento Food Bank's garden along with other residential and community gardens from Downtown to East Sac.

For those looking to get their hands dirty, Soil Born gave an exclusive peek into the inner workings of its 20-acre organic farm. Attendees were given a tour of the farm and had the opportunity to participate in harvesting and planting as well as snack on organic treats at its farm stand.

"I was so encouraged that there are people in and around Sacramento willing to learn and talk and share and work for the benefit of the local food system. Every day more Sacramentans learn about how the industrial food system is making us sick and how it is not serving our most marginalized residents," said John Schmidt, who attended the Soil Born tour and workshops.

Midtown's Fremont Community Garden hosted a Composting 101 class. Gardening guru Bill Maynard (of SACGC) taught both aspiring and seasoned gardeners how to turn kitchen waste into a valuable garden resource.

A couple blocks away, at Fremont Park, Pesticide Free Sacramento hosted Organic 101 and organic advocate Steve Zien discussed the benefits of organic fertilizer and pesticides over synthetics. Zien promised that organic gardens will lead to more nutritious and better-tasting food. The location for the workshop couldn't have been more fitting as the park has been pesticide-free since March 2009.

To help understand the daily battle that the hungry in Sacramento face, the Sacramento Food Bank put on an interactive workshop with speakers Nisha Kapadia of the Hunger Coalition and Dawn Dunlap from the Health Education Council.

The group of 10 were given characters to role-play with and information sheets with monthly expenses, income and calorie requirements for their individual characters and families. Tables were set up as a bank, grocery store, food stamp office, Woman Infant and Children office as well as a hot meal site and summer food program.

Participants were given the challenge of meeting calorie needs while struggling with a lack of income, being denied food stamps, inconvenient office and bank hours, and less-than-helpful workers at each station

After the role-play, participants discussed either how they met the calorie requirements they were given or why they fell short. Obstacles that arose during the exercise included rent and miscellaneous expenses, making too much money to qualify for food stamps or working hours that weren't conducive to waiting in lines to receive aid. These problems accurately echoed real-life challenges faced by the hungry.

Dunlap and Kapadia proposed not only feeding the hungry but encouraging nutritious food choices.

"At the end of the day, we're still up against people eating unhealthy," Dunlap said. To battle the problem, the council hands out lists of community gardens that accept Electronic Benefit Transfer cards (food stamps). Dunlap said that another part of the solution is encouraging families to garden, buy in bulk and cook at home to meet nutritional and caloric needs while still staying within financial means.

Organizations like Soil Born, Slow Food, the Sacramento Food Bank and the Health Education Council are all teaming up to battle the ongoing problem and educate local families.

Further down the road, two movies pertaining to the day's theme were screened as an ending to the days activities. At the Guild Theatre FRESH a documentary about the current state of our food system and what is being done to reinvent it, was shown and The Garden told the story of the effort to save Los Angeles' South Central Farm at Ooley Theatre.

For an additional $100 for non Slow Food members amd $75 for members, the evening continued with a three-course dinner catered by Magpie Catering, a local company that reflects Slow Food's beliefs of locally grown, nutritious food. Diners were served fresh and seasonal food at Fremont Community Garden while surrounded by the day's focus -- organic fruits and vegetables. The spotlight of the evening's dinner was speaker Brahm Ahmadi of Oakland's Peoples Grocery, who discussed solutions for providing food for low-income residents through the use of urban and community gardens.

Conveniently held on the Second Saturday Art Walk, many continued the celebration of Urban Agriculture Day in The Grid after dinner came to a close.

Get Involved:

Slow Food Sacramento

Soil Born Farm

Health Education Council

Pesticide Free Sacramento

Sacramento Hunger Coalition

Community Information Hotline: 2-1-1

City plants seeds for new gardening opportunities

2009-07-10T08:07:20Z

The Sacramento Parks and Recreation department has responded to local calls for more community gardens by slating two new sites to be publicly cultivated , bringing the total number of city community gardens to seven. One of the fresh gardening plots is on the downtown grid - E and 8th in Zapata Park - and is planned to be opened to the public by the end of the year. The other is in North Oak Park and will be sprouting next spring.

Locally grown produce is a burgeoning attraction for Sacramentans and Community Garden Coordinator Bill Maynard has taken note. "We've seen a dramatic increase in interest recently," he said. "In a 2008 Master Plan Development survey, more than 10 percent of suggestions were for new community gardens." The Sacramento Parks and Recreation department responded to these suggestions by evaluating potential plots and eventually settling on the two most viable. There still remains a waiting list of roughly 40 other potential gardens.

The Zapata Park garden was originally a planned expansion of the J.Neely Johnson garden on 11th Street, but has now developed into a project of its own. It measures about 40 feet by 60 feet. The actual development of the park will be going out to bid and will be adopted soon.

The site in North Oak Park lies between Martin Luther King Boulevard and 12th Street and is significantly larger than the Zapata garden. It's about 150 ft by 250 ft, so there's space for a good number of garden plots. The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency donated the land and funds for cultivation.

Once they're opened, the two new community gardens will offer chunks of land for low annual prices. Available plots range from 10 feet by 10 feet to 20 feet by 20 feet and prices run from $25 to $50 per year. Aspiring gardeners are limited to one plot per family, but even then the space is expected to sell out quickly. "There's only one or two plots left in all other community gardens," Maynard said, "so we don't really have to worry about unused garden space."

As reported earlier this week, Parks and Recreation has experienced an $8.3 million budget cut, but this doesn't hinder community gardens. "We don't have much budget to cut," Maynard said, "our budget is very low, and after the gardens are built, they're basically done." Aside from tools and small repairs, community gardens have an extremely low maintenance cost.

Funding for gardens comes from various sources, one of which is the Community Development Block Grant. More resources come from the little-known California Quimby Act. The 1975 act requires developers to set aside land or money equivalents for every project they undertake, and the donations scale up with the size of the project. This is intended to counterbalance buildings with attractive public spaces to be enjoyed by the community.

Community gardens are maintained entirely by volunteers. Plot-holders come by the gardens regularly, so gardens are usually watered twice a day. Second Saturday Art Walk volunteers also take part in garden upkeep during their bimonthly activities.

Garden operations place an emphasis on organics and conservation. "Gardeners don't take any more water than they need," Maynard said, "so very little is wasted." Small-scale fruit and veggie plots will of course not be treated with synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, meaning growers will end up with much healthier produce.

The recent upswing in community garden interest comes at a ripe time - Saturday is Sacramento's first 'Urban Agriculture Day,' as recently introduced by City Council. Festivities will be held tomorrow at several existing community gardens during Slow Food Sacramento's AgFest.

Also, the present economic slump has strained everyone's food budget, so a low-cost garden plot could well be an answer to some grocery worries.

Gardens can provide innumerable benefits to the community at large. "They can get neighbors to know each other, so it builds a stronger community," Maynard said, "and parents and kids will be working side by side, so it's an educational venue as well."

The problem with community gardens? "Some people still don't know about them," Maynard said.
For more information, check out the community gardens website or contact Bill Maynard at wmaynard@cityofsacramento.org

Saturday festival on Sacramento's first 'Urban Ag Day'

2009-07-09T18:55:41Z

Whether you've got drip-irrigated corn in the front yard or just some potted mint on top of the fridge, the Common Table agriculture festival has something for you. Slow Food Sacramento, the local chapter of the worldwide food community Slow Food, is offering city residents the chance to spend this Saturday getting green at their first AgFest workshop series, called the Common Table.

Saturday's AgFest is taking place on the Sacramento's first Urban Ag Day. The Sacramento City Council recently adopted a resolution to make July 11 an annual citywide celebration of local gardening.

Starting at 8:30 AM, AgFest activities include lectures on how to grow and manage food crops at home, tours of local farms and Sacramento community gardens, screenings of documentaries and opportunities to get your hands dirty at Soil Born Farms. The workshops are spread all over the Sacramento area and attendees are encouraged to check out as many as they like.

For those hungrier for ag knowledge, a separate set of evening activities will be held at the Fremont Community Garden, including a charity auction, a lecture from local food activist Brahm Ahmadi and a three-course dinner of seasonal foods from local business Magpie Caterers.

Admission to the daytime workshops is $25, and the evening entertainment runs at $75. Half of ticket revenues will go toward the Sacramento Community Garden and Sacramento Hunger coalitions, who are working with Slow Food to put on the event.

As the charitable fundraising would suggest, the workshops have a focus on community outreach and will address the question of how to keep all members of our city healthy and well-nourished.

"Slow Food has always had the mission of increasing the availability of good, clean and fair food," said event coordinator Charity Kenyon. "In this economy, we're emphasizing the 'fair' part of that mission. That's food justice." 'Food justice' refers to the equitable distribution of food in a society, or in simpler terms: feeding the poor and homeless.

One of the more experimental workshops, Hunger 101, places participants in the role of hungry Sacramentans who have to learn to cope with limited food availability. This hour-long simulation at the Sacramento Food Bank seeks to raise awareness and understanding of the difficulties of stable food sources for low-income families.

Other workshops offer lessons on composting, organic soil management and a variety of other green subjects. You can also get tips on how to give back to the community through gardening, crop-swapping with your neighbors and "gleaning" excess fruit from unpicked trees to donate to local food banks.

If you're up for a bike ride, you can visit Sacramento gardens on a guided cycle tour to check out "what's 'growing' on" in your neighborhood (pun courtesy Slow Food).

Two films will be screened in the afternoon: the critically acclaimed documentaries The Garden and Fresh. The Garden documents a neighborhood's challenge of maintaining an urban garden in East L.A., while Fresh critiques mainstream fast-food and educates about healthy alternative diets. They will be followed by question-and-answer sessions.

Those attending the evening festivities will be able to place bids in a charitable auction for a variety of green goodies. Auction items range from professional cooking lessons, countryside getaways and gardening consultations to "the best damned pie you've ever tasted" prepared by pastry chef Kira O'Donnell.

A full listing of the times and locations of each of these workshops is available at Slow Food Sacramento's website.

Slow Food Sacramento and its allies are seeking to educate Sacramentans on the viability of being more self-sufficient when it comes to food.

"In Moscow, 56 percent of food comes from urban agriculture," Kenyon said. "Here in Sacramento, we're in one of the richest ag regions in the world, yet not very much of our food is locally grown. We want to show that this is more possible for more people."