It Turned into a Different Kind of Talk

Last week, after a day of marathon business meetings, I headed to Soho to catch a talk hosted by Phaidon Press to promote a new book they published called, "Vegetables From an Italian Garden".  The panel discussion was supposed to be based around the topic of "Growing Your Own Produce in Urban Environment", so I was pretty excited about it.  The press release said the talk would include a panel discussion on urban farming and sustainable agricultural practices.  I went to the discussion thinking that I would come away from the talk with some interesting tips and advice on growing produce in an urban environment like NYC.

Participating in the panel discussion were the following folks, from left to right, Michael Grady Robertson (former Director of Agriculture for the Queens County Farm Museum, currently the owner of Grady’s Farm), the Moderator (Bad on me, I can't remember the name of the moderator of the discussion), Ian Cheney (co-creator of the documentary film King Corn and Truck Farm), and Eric Demby (Brooklyn Flea and Smorgasburg). 

My favorite speaker on the panel was Ian Cheney.  He showed us a slideshow of images, among them were a "Truck Farm" he created.  I wouldn't call it a farm, it's more of a mobile garden.  He created a garden in the bed of a pickup truck.  He explained that he came up with this idea when he moved to Brooklyn and lacked any space to grow fresh produce, so he had this idea of converting an old truck given to him by his grandfather, into a garden plot.  He retrofitted the back of the truck by drilling drainage holes and added a lightweight soil mixture to grow the plants.

The Truck Farm became the subject of a documentary, and quickly became a traveling exhibition for educating urban youths about gardening and farming.  The garden in the truck bed idea spread and now there are 25 fleets of mobile gardens around the country.  What a cool idea for getting the word out about growing your own fresh produce!  Ian admitted that growing produce this way isn't going to produce high yields, and isn't very practical for the everyday urban gardener.  However, it's become a great learning tool to teach others about where your food comes from.  As an educational tool for demonstrating the process of seed to edible plant to urban youth who don't normally have access to farms or gardens, it's pretty darn amazing.

I must say however that the rest of the panel discussion was a bit of a disappointment because it wasn't what I expected.  I thought it would be a dialogue mostly about urban farming practices, but it quickly became a discussion about Food Justice and the importance of buying local and organic.  Michael of Grady's Farm talked about the hardships of running an independent farm.  He practices organic farming but said that the farm is not profitable because of the high costs of organic feed, the costs to run the farm, and the property taxes on the farmland, he is lucky to break even.   He talked about selling his organic eggs at $6 - $8 a dozen.  I'm all for buying locally and organic, but at that cost, who can afford to eat organic?  In my mind, its not affordable to all, and therefore very elitist.  My in-laws also own an independent farm and they too practice organic methods, but where they are located, selling eggs at that price is out of the question, not only because where they live no one would buy eggs at that cost.  But also, they believe that healthy food shouldn't have to come at a high cost.  Which led me to make a statement and ask a question to the panel discussion.  I told the group that I felt that we as a society had to do more to level the playing field for independent organic farmers. In my opinion, the public needs to be more vocal about demanding safe farm raised food.  We need to demand livestock that is raised ethically and produce that is safe and void of toxic pesticides and is non-GMO.  There should be more government subsidies for the independent farmer to offset the high costs of farming organically.  It's difficult for these farmers to compete with the larger farm conglomerates.  Do we have to sacrifice food safety because it is cheaper?  I think as a society, we should demand that our produce and livestock be safe to eat.  Since buying organic isn't as affordable as I would like it to be, (I can't afford to buy organic with those prices) I'll continue to maintain a backyard garden and grow my own organic fruit and vegetables.  I want to be able to have access to healthy food, even if that means I have to grow my own.

I realize that I am pretty lucky in the fact that I have the yard space to have such an extensive garden despite living in an urban environment.  And that not many urbanites have this luxury.  However, even if I didn't have this space, I would have to seek out ways to have a garden like in a community plot or do container gardening.  What's your take on this issue?