Please come! Rooting DC is an annual, FREE, community and urban gardening focused forum, with over 500 attendees! Come, attend sessions to learn and get information about what is going on in your communities and how you can get involved. Want to know how you start your own garden or how to compost? Come to Rooting DC 2012!

Please feel free to pass this information and flier along to others – Hope to see you all there!

Follow us on Twitter @RootingDC as well as on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rootingdc

Click here for more information and to apply.

In case you haven’t heard, the Food Council aims to bring together a diverse representation of stakeholders in a public and private partnership to improve the environmental, economic, social and nutritional health of Montgomery County through the creation of a robust, local, sustainable food system.

The Council will be comprised of 13 – 17 diverse stakeholders including individual members, professionals, private businesses, government officials, community organizations, and educational institutions that represent and/or work on food issues in our county.  We would particularly love to see council members who represent urban/suburban agriculture and community food production, so if you are involved in any of these, please consider applying!

The first meeting of the Council will be on Wednesday, February 15, location to be announced; all meetings will be open to the public, with community involvement encouraged.

Again, Council member applications are being accepted through next Friday, January 13.  Click here for more information and to apply.

Where: Madam’s Organ, 2461 18th St NW in Adams Morgan

What: Neighborhood Farm Initiative fundraiser to support Rooting DC 2012. Suggested donation of $15 includes entrance see and a Rooting DC t-shirt. Come to Madam’s Organ to eat, drink and enjoy the company of fellow RDC supporters. Madam’s Organ will graciously donate $1 per drink (including soda and juice) that is sold during happy hour, as well as 20% of all food sales! As always, seeds will be available from NFI!

Arcadia is a new non-profit organization serving the Washington, DC area. Arcadia’s programs raise awareness about healthy food and its sources, and establish innovative connections between sustainable local farms and consumers.   We’re a small staff, so we truly rely on great interns and volunteers to make our programs run and our farm grow.

The deadline for applications is January 9, 2012.

And currently this bill is being discussed in Congress behind closed doors and possibly will be enacted without any legislative debate.

So what are we, as consumers, supposed to do about this? First educate yourself. Know what the Farm Bill is (a challenging task, I know) but there are many resources and websites which have done a great job at unpacking the legislation into manageable bites of information. Second, write to your Congressman or Congresswoman. Already there has been a bipartisan group that has spoken out against this “secret” Farm Bill, but there needs to be more support. Third, continue to support your local farmers and urban growers. By supporting the local food system, we keep money in our communities as opposed to in the pockets of large multinational agribusiness corporations. As Wendell Berry is often quoted: “eating is an agricultural act.” It is true: where you choose to purchase your food is an agricultural choice as you are choosing to support a farmer and her/his agricultural practices. It is also a political one as well, as you can help to shape the kind of agriculture that U.S. policy supports and funds.

A few resources to help understand the Farm Bill:

Food and Water Watch’s Fair Farm Bill webpage.

Also the Facebook page Understanding the Farm Bill is an excellent wealth of news and information.

Understanding the Farm Bill Starts Here: All Our Articles in One Handy Place, May 25, 2011, by the Simple, Good and Tasty blog

An EXTENSIVE list of readings, articles, reports and explanations of the history of the Farm Bill, the programs within the omnibus bill, from the Community Alliance for Global Justice (CAGJ) out of Seattle, Washington. I would go here first for information.

Article on commodity subsidies (i.e. corn, soy, rice, milk) is a required read as well. By the Northwest Farm Bill Action Group.

and

An amazing website on the Declaration of the Youth Food Bill of Rights,  which was the product of this summer’s Rooted In Community (RIC) Leadership Summit. The Summit was hosted in Philadelphia, PA and attracted 37 different groups of youth gardeners, food justice advocates and urban gardeners from across the U.S. This raises the question of is our Farm Bill supporting the people’s right to food access and security? If not, then perhaps it needs to.

A few recent articles on the “Secret” Farm Bill. A quick search online will turn up many more.

Budget cuts could be recipe for change or disaster, October 24, 2011 & Digesting OWS: Why Food Lovers Need to Come to the Table, October 29, 2011, by Slow Food USA

27 Bipartisan Members of Congress Unite to Oppose “Secret Farm Bill”, November 3, 2011, by Oxfam America

Memo to Congress: No Secret Farm Bill, November 2, 2011, by The Nation‘s Mark Hertsgaard

And for some satire via political cartoon (thank you www.MisaSaburi.com and Slow Food USA):

If City Blossoms gains the most votes by the end of this week, the $500 awarded by Deals For Deeds will go towards the materials needed to create a “creative, colorful and informational” bilingual sign for their Marion Street Intergenerational Garden. The sign will be made by youth volunteers.

VOTE FOR CITY BLOSSOMS HERE!

(Excerpt from cityblossoms.org)

About City Blossoms:

Once, there were two girls in high school, Rebecca Lemos and Lola Bloom, who wanted to start a volunteer project in Columbia Heights as a way to deal with youth and gang violence, as well as other connected issues. We wanted to help our neighbors feel proud of where they lived, starting with the children and youth. In 2003, we took on the name City Blossoms and began teaching year-long workshops in schools, after school programs, and in summer camps. Today City Blossoms works with over 800 children and youth in eight different gardens (about a total 40,000 square feet).

At Busboys & Poets

14th & V Street NW.

6:30 pm

(From the Busboys and Poets website about the film):

6:30 PM (Langston Room) – Following the screening, Marsha Weiner of Food Muse Media will moderate a panel discussion with filmmaker Cintia Cabib, Alice Kamps, curator of the National Archives exhibit “What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam?”, and several community gardeners. // FILM SYNOPSIS: Throughout Washington, D.C., people of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities are gardening side by side, growing vegetables, fruits and flowers in community gardens. Some are looking for basic sustenance, others for a way to remember their homelands, still others for a place to find a respite from their troubles. Through the voices of young people, senior citizens, immigrants, garden volunteers and educators, “A Community of Gardeners” explores the vital role of seven urban community gardens as sources of fresh, nutritious food, outdoor classrooms, places of healing, links to immigrants’ native countries, centers of social interaction, and oases of beauty and calm in inner-city neighborhoods. The film also looks back on the history of community gardens in the United States, from the potato patch farms of the late 19th century, to the victory gardens of World War II, to community gardening’s current renaissance. // FREE & OPEN TO ALL. http://communityofgardeners.com/

Next week will mark the first Food Day celebration with events occurring across the United States. According to the website FoodDay.org, Food Day “seeks to bring together Americans from all walks of life—parents, teachers, and students; health professionals, community organizers, and local officials; chefs, school lunch providers, and eaters of all stripes—to push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way.”

It is a “people-powered” movement that provides the avenue for celebration, education and access to food and nutrition-centered events, cooking demonstrations, volunteer (and eating) opportunities. There are numerous events planned, taking place all across the Washington Metropolitan Area for you and your family to be involved in Food Day 2011. Please ask your local church, school, farmers’ market or town hall for more information about what will be going on in your area.

Another great place to go for resources is the Food Day website, FoodDay.org. Here you can search for events near your neighborhood, whether you live in Washington DC or outside the beltway. There are also resources for you to get an event started if you want to do something yourself. Take a moment to check out the website and see what will be happening near you!

The purpose of Food Day is to promote six central principles:

1. Reduce diet-related disease by promoting safe, healthy foods

2. Support sustainable farms and limit subsidies to big agribusiness

3. Expand access to food and alleviate hunger

4. Protect the environment and animals by reforming factory farms

5. Promote health by curbing junk-food marketing to kids

6. Support fair conditions for food and farm workers

(for more information on the 6 Principles, please refer to Food Day – 6 Food Day Principles)

By conducting a quick search for the Washington, DC area, I was able to find almost an endless list of events that are planned including speakers, neighborhood garden open houses, food truck culinary appreciation, nutrition education, university sponsored events, and the list goes on! If you go to the FoodDay.org events page, enter your zip code or address to find something that is going on within your neighborhood. Among a few of my favorites include:

- Food Day Proclamation

- Food Day Food Truck Festival (13th-17th St and K St NW)

- Food Day Extravaganza

- Inaugural Bike Blender Smoothie Sale

- American University’s 3 Day Celebration also click here for more details: AU’s Food Day 2011 Celebration AUFood Day

And so many more!!

Check out the website, find what is going on in or around your neighborhood, and go celebrate Food Day 2011!

Here is a little more information on the story and the project from the fundraising website:

the story

// natasha bowens // writer / farmer / activist

My name is Natasha and I am a writer, food justice activist and farmer…a young, brown, female farmer. I put emphasis on those things because of all I’ve learned throughout my journey of growing food.

A desire to feed my community sustainably and give back to the land led me on an eye-opening journey full of history, culture and self-discovery. I not only learned how to grow food, but I was reminded of those that came before me – and shared the same skin color as me.  Those who dug the very first furrows of our fields and who poured sweat, blood and tears into the foundations that make up our agricultural system today. These communities are now, shamefully, on the brink of extinction. Farmers of color hold the dual titles of making up the majority of farmers worldwide, with the shittiest end of the stick in the global agribusiness industry. (this is especially true for women)

I saw these faces and voices missing from the movement to change our food system which has recently been picking up steam in the aisles of Whole Foods and with films like Food, Inc.

So I set out on a mission to find fellow brown farmers and hear their voices for myself. I began documenting my farming journey on my blog Brown.Girl.Farming. and subsequently wrote a series entitled The Color of Food for Grist.org. The response from this community was overwhelming and The Color of Food documentary project became the inevitable next step.

the project

The Color of Food tells the stories of our Black, Latino, Asian and Indigenous farmers and the history, fight for survival and beautiful culture that makes up our agriculture.

While revealing the intersection of race and food through the personal stories of farmers of color, this project will also explore the agricultural history and traditional food and farming knowledge passed down within in each community. This photo documentary will also address the movement for food sovereignty and issues with land loss which we see taking place globally today.

These stories and images will be captured with my lens and pen, and published in a photo-essay book, posted via photo/video blog, and exhibited at food justice and food sovereignty events around the country. The documentary will live on and enhance the network within the COLOR of FOOD directory – the global map and directory of farmers of color I founded in 2010.

**This fundraising campaign aims to support the project across North and South America over the next year, further travel and documentation will have to come later with more funding!

Community Education Group (CEG) has been awarded funding through the US Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and DC Community Health Administration, to support a new and innovative Capacity Building Program, offering free hands-on technical assistance, individual organizational consultants and relevant trainings to eligible community and/or faith based organizations in Wards 7 and 8.  CEG’s Fresh Start wants to help build a brighter future for our organizations, our community, and our people.

While CEG’s Fresh Start is a Capacity Building Program, we take into account your busy schedule and strained budget.  Our services are FREE and RELEVANT.  CEG’s Fresh Start will be at no cost to you, offer our experienced consultants to support your organizational growth and development to increase your ability to meet your agency, client, and community goals.

There are three levels of participation, with one micro-grant award of $5,000 in each category, allowing guaranteed inclusion for your organization.

Category 1:   Provide community garden space to needy individuals and publicize the free/reduced fee.

Category 2:   Make available free, locally grown food in Wards 7 and 8, using a “learn for food” model.

Category 3:  Provide regular physical activity in group settings through classes timed so that potential participants are already on site.

Please see below, links to the Overview of the program, requirements, and application.  The application should be submitted to emily@communityeducationgroup.org or fax: 202 543 9146 due by 5:00, October 21, 2011. Please forward on to those organizations who might be eligible to participate in this exciting program.

Community Education Group Fresh Start Overview of Program

2011 CHA Application

Emily Weaver, Executive Assistant
Community Education Group

Phone: (202) 543-2376 x107 • Fax: (202) 543-9146
emily@communityeducationgroup.org • www.communityeducationgroup.org

Emily Weaver

Executive Assistant

Community Education Group

3233 Pennsylvania Ave, SE

Washington, DC 20020

202-543-2376 x107 (phone)

202-543-9146 (fax)