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Growing Power 
Sat Oct 08, 2011 at 23:29:32 PM PDT
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I expected that Jennifer Cockrall-King, author of an upcoming book on urban agriculture, Food and the City, would write a great book, but she exceeded my expectations. I also expected I might learn a thing or two about urban ag that I did not already know, and here Jennifer exceeded my expectations as well. The irony is that - as we discussed before the book came out - Jennifer wanted to appeal to the U.S. market in addition to the comparatively tiny Canadian market with her book, so she researched and wrote about U.S. cities in addition to Canadian, European, and Cuban ones, but it's the chapters on non-U.S. cities that are by far the most interesting.
Food and the City will be out in early 2012.
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Tue Feb 23, 2010 at 16:33:46 PM PST
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Last week I attended a screening of the excellent new movie Food Fight. This documentary recounts the rise of our industrial food system after World War II, along with countervailing efforts to keep our food safe, local, and tasting good!
The star of the film is the Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse, and its founder and owner Alice Waters. During the riotous Sixties, she was appalled by the poor diets of her fellow protestors, and started the restaurant to provide high quality food in a "dinner party" environment. Over time she developed her own sources of local and organic food, avoiding more commercial sources in an effort to provide the most delicious food possible.
A number of other chefs are interviewed, including Wolfgang Puck and Ann Cooper (recently described here). The rise of farmers markets in many cities, as a source of local fruit, vegetables, et al. for both restaurants and individuals, is also an important story line.
Several organic farmers make an appearance, and describe their struggles to do more than produce low-cost and high-calorie commodity food stuffs. Some time is also spent recounting recent attempts to reform U.S. agriculture, focusing on Congressman Ron Kind (D-WI/La Crosse).
The movie also documents the efforts of MacArthur Fellow Will Allen of Growing Power in Milwaukee, and his daughter Alice in Chicago, to provide good-quality, low-cost food to the residents of inner city neighborhoods with few options besides the local mini-mart full of junk food and fast-food restaurants. The new wave of schools growing their own gardens is also highlighted.
Other interviewees describing the big picture include Michael Pollan of Omnivore's Dilemma fame, and academic Marion Nestle.
All in all, Food Fight is a thoroughly enjoyable film that uses humor to chronicle the absurdity of our food system and emphasizes the slow but revolutionary changes taking place at its margins. My one complaint about the film is that it completely ignores the parallel rise of food cooperatives as a source of good, whole, organic, and local food, an important complement to farmers markets in both availability and necessary staples such as grains. The same rebellious spirit embodied by Alice Waters gave rise to hundreds of small co-ops across the country, so I was quite surprised that they were not even mentioned. It seems that even they are still on the periphery in some parts of our alternative food economy.
Food Fight has been making the rounds of various film festivals, but will receive its theatrical debut on March 24 in Los Angeles, and will hopefully follow soon at a theater near you.
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Mon Oct 05, 2009 at 06:00:00 AM PDT
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Yesterday, I wrote about Growing Power's urban farm in Milwaukee, focusing on the demographics of the neighborhood and the food sold in their store. This diary shows how they produce a lot of food on a very little space (2 acres) in a climate that is cold for much of the year.
I don't think it's possible that anyone could see what Growing Power does without feeling inspired. After coming home from my visit to Growing Power, I immediately got a worm bin. You'll see why below...
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Sun Oct 04, 2009 at 13:46:51 PM PDT
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Last week, I visited Growing Power, the urban farm started by Will Allen. If Will Allen's name sounds familiar, that may be from his appearances on Good Morning America or in the New York Times, or from his Macarthur Genius Award, or from a few days before I visited Growing Power, when President Clinton called him "my hero." Growing Power's amazing, and I am absolutely not the first person to discover it. However, even though I was already well acquainted with the work of Will Allen and the success of Growing Power, I came away from my tour of the small Milwaukee urban farm absolutely inspired. Indeed, I think it would be impossible NOT to be transformed by it. I've always been amazed by the fervor of urban ag advocates, and now I feel like I understand. If Will Allen can do what he's done at Growing Power, then there is untold amounts of untapped potential in cities across this entire country.
This diary will give a description of the neighborhood where Growing Power is located and the food that is available in the Growing Power store.
A view of Growing Power's store
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Mon May 11, 2009 at 16:00:00 PM PDT
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If you've been in the sustainable food or food justice movements for any length of time, you know who Will Allen is and you know about the miracles he's worked on his small farm in Milwaukee, WI. Will Allen, a former professional basketball player, founded an urban farm in an area of Milwaukee that lacked access to healthy food. It's a small site, but since then he's expanded to other sites in Wisconsin and an edible garden in Grant Park in Chicago. Despite the cold climate, Will and his "youth corps" and staff raise livestock and grow fresh food year round. They aren't just growing food, they are Growing Power (which is also the name of the organization, of course).
As one of the most admired figures in our movement, Will has written up a Good Food Manifesto, which I am excited to share here. You can also find it as a PDF on the Growing Food and Justice site.
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Wed Mar 18, 2009 at 10:00:00 AM PDT
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Fri Sep 26, 2008 at 19:00:00 PM PDT
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Tonight's happy story is about Will Allen, former pro-basketball player, urban farmer, activist, and now winner of the 2008 MacArthur Genius Award! Way to go Will!!!!
From the MacArthur site:
In 1995, while assisting neighborhood children with a gardening project, Allen began developing the farming methods and educational programs that are now the hallmark of the non-profit organization Growing Power, which he directs and co-founded. Guiding all is his efforts is the recognition that the unhealthy diets of low-income, urban populations, and such related health problems as obesity and diabetes, largely are attributable to limited access to safe and affordable fresh fruits and vegetables.
Grower Power is a role model to other communities interested in urban agriculture - not only for its sustainable methods (including an innovative aquaponics system used to raise tilapia), but also for its involvement of children. They have operations in Milwaukee and Chicago and they have trained urban agrarians all over the U.S.
With this award, Allen was given $500,000. I can't imagine a more worthy recipient!
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Fri Jul 04, 2008 at 06:17:13 AM PDT
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This is the story of how the Sufi mystic poet Rumi was a key figure in the chain of events that led to the London International Food Conference this past week and, quite possibly, to the acceleration of the day when thousands of urban agrarians are in daily contact across the planet.
When introduced a few years ago to the Coleman Bark's renderings of the 12th century Afgan Sufi mystic poet Rumi, and then Hafiz, I was burning with a desire to "bathe Milwaukee in Rumi"--both because this poetry is sublime but also because its ironic, bawdy, tolerant themes afford us a chance to go beyond the stereotype of Moslems as fundamentalist thinkers.
I began sending forth Milwaukee Renaissance Dot Com broadcasts and organizing Rumi/Hafiz poetry readings at Club Timbuktu, an African pub and culture venue, run by Omar Gagale and Youssouf Komara, from Somalia and Guinea respectively.
Whereupon I received an e-mail from a U.S. State Department cultural attache, Michael Macy, then stationed in Saudi Arabia, asking if I would help organize an event in which he would present his favorite Rumi poems.
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