Food security organizations

[Crow]

As I stated above, community gardens play a huge roll in the structure.

 

[Deadman]

So if they have community gardens why do they need you?

 

[Crow]

An important part of my plan is to establish community gardens. Working with extension agencies and master gardeners, initially two community gardens will be established. Unfortunately, with local and state regulations, and preparing the land, the establishment of gardens takes over three years. I've been involved in this process twice in the city where I live. Once established, master gardeners will provide workshops on how to grow food. Amazingly, the target clients do not know how to cook. Most eat crap. Also, they live in run down mill house slums - not open farm land. The preconceptions of rural poor amaze me. A lot of times no running water or electricity.

So there's a three prong approach. Providing quality food to meet immediate needs. Creating community gardens (and hopefully that will feed over to household gardens). And education both growing and cooking.

Not everything can be done at once. Nothing works by magic. Nothing just poof appears. Slow steady progress addressing immediate needs and skills and growing from there.

 

[Deadman]

Look at it from another point of view. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of organizations world wide that give food away. None of them have improved food security. Food security comes from being able to grow/raise your own. It means having enough food on hand to keep your family alive even after the hurricane, earthquake, ice storm, wipes out the road network and Wal-Mart runs out of Snackwells.

If I need someone to come from outside to give me food I am not food secure.

 

[Deadman]

So there's a three prong approach. Providing quality food to meet immediate needs. Creating community gardens (and hopefully that will feed over to household gardens). And education both growing and cooking.

I'd say skip the first part unless people are likely to die in the next couple of months.

The problem I have with community gardens is that most of the time they are resource intensive. Bored, affluent people spend excess cash to import soil, fertilizer, seedlings etc so they can grow food that they give away. The cost of inputs outways the cost of outputs and is its not sustainable.

I'm all for teaching people how to grow their own food and be self sufficient.

 

[Deadman]

And for the record I have no preconceptions on what it means to be rural poor. All my predecessors were rural poor. And I'm this close to joining them.

 

[Friday]

@Deadman.. While I tend to be a teach a man to fish kind of chick... If someone has access to organic food surplus & is looking at a way to donate it to needy communities, rather than say sell it further on, or limit production to keep steady with demand? Seems like quite a worthwhile thing to do, yeah? Much like a restaurant donating their leftover food in-city, but this is trucking it from farms to local rural communities in need. Sure there are other things a person can do, but if they've already got the foundation & are looking at how to best handle the logistics? An entirely separate program might be a good idea to add on later, once the surplus is taken care of & there's interest & involvement to support growth; but it seems kind of silly to just scrap what they already have and start something completely different. Sure the restaurant could hold cooking classes, (although that's a huge undertaking), but meanwhile they've got this daily surplus from their pre existing organization that's going in the trash.

 

[Deadman]

@Friday I don't have any moral objection to handing out food. I'm just saying in my experience it has little or no long term positive impact. Aid organizations have been handing out food since before I was born and we are still not food secure.

What's the definition of insanity? Repeating the same actions over and over and expecting a different outcome?

I love @CrowFeather 's intent. I respect the desire to do good. I would just like to see people younger and smarter than me do better than I did. Its time to make real change.

 

[Fadeaway]

@Deadman, have you ever started a garden or tried to produce your own food? I did. It is more expensive than buying organic. I had that craptastic red clay soil which meant composting and raised garden beds. Lumber and soil? $ As it takes several years to produce enough compost. I made use of asking local coffee shops to save their used grounds and went to my local dump who made compost from peoples green waste, but they still charged. Seeds? Sure, I saved seeds but also had to by many at around $50 a year for non gmo seeds.

Raising chickens? Really expensive. I tried to grow enough corn and grain to feed them, it lasted about a month. So feed + lumber + chicken wire $$$ Not to mention my town didn't allow roosters unless you got your neighbors permission, which is the law in most places now. So buying baby chicks every years was not sustainable. Don't get me wrong there is nothing better in the world than fresh eggs and chickens you butchers yourself that have never been frozen. But I was paying more for up keep than I would have if I purchased organic at the store.

Lets not mention my water bill.

Cows? I wanted one, I even looked into a cow share program where you split the cost. Once again fencing was beyond my means. $1,000 at least, not mentions several $ per person for splitting the cow. Butcher costs? $$ I certainly didn't have the tools necessary to do it my self although I am not squeamish about such.

Milk cows are not reasonable unless you you have more than one cow. There is the little problem of the fact they have to have recently given birth to produce milk. If you miss one day of milking because you have the flu? Milk dries up. I figured out long term it would be cheaper to have 5 cows than one, when taken into account seed for pasture and stud fees for a cow that stoped producing. I figured 3 females and 2 stud. would produce enough milk plus the babies when they got old enough for meat.

We did goats when I was a kid. We could never keep the milk supply going for more than a week or so after the kids were weaned. Actually, we ended up bottle feeding the kids, because even before we started milking them, they couldn't produce enough milk.

Your thought is nice, but to tech people to do that, you are going to have to invest thousands of dollars more to help with start up, and get them though the first several years before it is sustainable. Small scale production done by one person is expensive. At the very least you need several people working on one project if it is to be sustainable.

Why not invest that money into one farm that can produce enough food for dozens of households for the same cost it would take to establish one or two private farms?

So long story short, a medium sized far is going to be more efficient $ and labor wise and a personal farm. Especially over the long term.

 

[Crow]

@Fadeaway thank you for the incredible input. I'll be inheriting a good amount of acreage in the next few years. You've given me ideas about some long term possibilities. Appreciate it!

And @Friday , thanks for explaining this so much better than I could. This is exactly it.

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

I just recently happened upon an amazing story out of Australia regarding folks who rescue the leftover foods from restaurants,caterers, etc. and distribute it.

They grew so much they were able to also open a grocery store. You give money if you can, but it isn't required. They even accept hugs.

Made me think of this thread and what all you're trying to do, @CrowFeather . The website is ozharvest.org. If I'm not mistaken, that would be illegal, or some sort of major food policy violation here in the US since food establishments are required to dispose of all leftovers. Grrr

 

[Crow]

Thanks!