People Putting Food First #118

New at www.foodfirst.org
U.S. Family Farmers Applaud Demise Of Doha Negotiations
http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2208
New e-book includes an article by Eric Holt-Gimenez—Hungry for Justice: How the World Food System Fails the Poor
http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2202
Summer 2008 Food First Backgrounder—New Era for Agriculture
http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2201
Summer 2008 Food First News and Views—Hunger, Crisis & Business: The Perfect Storm of Food Aid
http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2200

Urgent Action—Help protect the life of a Mayan Guatemalan lawyer who narrowly escaped assignation
http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2207

REAL FOOD NOW!—A national month of action for a just and sustainable food system

September 21 to October 21
Go to www.realfoodchallenge.org to find out how to get your school involved.

Join South Central Farmers in their fight to regain their garden

For more than a decade a 14-acre plot at 41st Street and Alameda in industrial South Central Los Angeles was utilized as a community garden feeding over 350 families, until it was bulldozed by the new owner, Ralph Horowitz, of Libaw-Horowitz Investment Company (“LHIC”). The farmers formed “South Central Farmers Feeding Families” (“SCFFF”) to battle to regain their land, arguing that it was illegally sold to Horowitz by the City of Los Angeles. SCFFF has filed suit against the company, extending the timeline for the sole public hearing which was held on July 23, 2008.

By July 23rd the significance of the issue and the strong support for the SCFFF was bolstered by 1,700 signatures (including 130 letters from local residents) insisting that an Environmental Impact Report be submitted to the City Planning Department. The South Coast Air Quality Management District had already determined that the proposed warehouse would be extremely polluting and hazardous to the health of both nearby residents and those upwind of the site. This clear message from the District to “specifically prohibit” the construction of this operation cannot be ignored by the City. The 350 families who were suddenly left without their primary source of sustenance now face blatant health risks, all with the signature of the City. Jan Perry, their city councilwoman, is a proponent of this poisonous warehouse in her district.

Tezozomo, who is one of the organizers of the SCFFF, declared, “It has become clear that we must be demanding more than just the Environmental Impact Report. We need to demand that the warehouse be shut down! Under no certain terms will the community accept 2700 trucks daily spewing diesel particulate matter that can kill us! Under no certain terms will we accept our children, our schools; Nevin, Carver, Jefferson, our parks; Ross Snyder Recreation, our pedestrian areas; Vernon Metro Station, Alameda Swap meet to be 'exhausted by diesel' particulate matter."

Supporters of Shut Down include the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, The Green Party USA, the Bus Riders Union, The Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, and Communities for a Better Environment. To join this growing list, sign up and donate at www.southcentralfarmers.org, spread the word by posting links to that website and to www.southcentralfarmers.com, and call or email Jan Perry, councilwoman for South Central at jan.perry@lacity.org asking her to SAVE THE FARM.

Sources:
Southcentralfarmers.org
Southcentralfarmers.com

Claremont Middle School Garden

Lush green vegetables with high-reaching tomatos, collard greens, and more thrive on top of asphalt at Claremont Middle School. The Claremont Middle School Garden, only a year and half old, is a testament to the power of PTA and community outreach, and a devoted faculty. Garden Teacher Aysha Massell runs a garden class which 6th and 7th grade science students participate in every other week, an after school program, and a summer school class. With an end goal of promoting nutrition, the program allows students to learn about healthy eating options and eat healthy, locally-grown, sustainable produce.

Resources and materials for the garden came from a $2,500 dollars instructional school grant by the California Senate. With this small budget, it was the dedication of the PTA, backing by Principle David Chambliss, and staff that pushed the garden into existence. The limited resources, yet success of the garden, demonstrate the possibility of affordable local gardening. The garden was built with many recycled materials; bicycle wheels for the bicycle arbor, tree stumps for the outdoor learning circle, and an impressive grey-water system made of herb spiral, a sink and a bathtub.

This fall the Claremont Middle School garden program will offer farm internships for middle-school students who want to earn up to $200 a semester for working in the garden for five hours a week after school. Claremont’s students are learning to plant, pick and eat produce from the gardens. They have also cooked and done all of the carpentry. The students even hold a farmer’s market in the garden where they sell some produce to the community and report receiving a great community support and financial donations.

With 450 students at Claremont, the garden isn’t enough to feed all of the students, but it provides some nourishing fresh tastes while demonstrating the link between food and learning. Massell notes that when students come to school hungry they cannot learn… At the Oakland School District level, a new garden council is working to promote more direct links between farms and schools and get salad bars into school cafeterias.

Defending the Human Right to Water—Saving Water in Brazil

There is a growing movement to defend water as a fundamental human right. Water is part of the global commons, provided freely by nature. But since the early 1990s the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) have promoted privatizing water services around the world through European and US corporations. Access to clean water is also threatened by deforestation, poor agricultural practices, pollution and drought. Globally, 20% of people don’t have access to clean drinking water, and in rural Brazil that number approaches 90%. The lack of water also harms agricultural productivity, leading the malnourishment and starvation.

The Brazilian Agricultural Ministry’s Embrapa program has developed a simple system to collect rainwater from the roofs of rural households and store it in cisterns—to be manually pumped out when needed. Embrapa is now exporting this knowledge to other Latin American countries and Africa. A similar program—called “One Million Cisterns”—is funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Social Development-Hunger Zero, The Brazilian Banking Federation, and Oxfam. It has built 195,441 cisterns at US$567 each. One Million Cisterns has also started a public information program to help families conserve cooking and drinking water. By capturing rainwater, 96% of the families in Brazil’s semi-arid zone can potentially collect eight liters a day per family member.

Josefa Cabral, a very happy recipient of a cistern system says "I spent my whole life carrying water in the drought season. If I counted the hours spent coming and going it would be days, weeks, and months of my life. Coming and going with a can of water in my arms, stealing my time, wasting my energy, my youth, breaking down many dreams—undermining our hope. But I never gave in."

Embrapa’s simple irrigation system is simply a deep ditch, or barragem, 525 feet wide and lined with tarpaulin next to the fields. Each barrage supplies irrigation for two hectares during the dry season—water that would otherwise be lost.

Cisterns and holding ponds allow peasants to save water without external fees for water services. This contributes to food security for many small-scale poor farmers.
There is so much interest in saving rainwater that The International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance is a thriving Association of organizations, governments, and individuals sharing what they know and promoting greater use of rainwater.

http://www.irha-h2o.org/
http://www.social.org.br/relatorio2004ingles/relatorio013.htm
http://www.brazzil.com/articles/181-july-2007/9926.html
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=3057
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/VANOVEDR/
http://www.northplattebulletin.com/index.asp?show=news&action=readStory&...
http://www.cfra.org/resources/i300.htm
http://www.cfra.org/node/1292
http://www.p2pays.org/ref/21/20027.htm
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Articles in this edition of People Putting Food First were written by Madison Sheffield, Juliana Mandell and Rick Jonasse