Real Food Nation

Lately, the monikers have been piling up to describe the preferred food list: gourmet food, slow food, local food, organic food, etc. My guess is that most of you grew up eating what I will simply call "real food"...in other words, food your mother cooked. Now, I know we aren't all blessed to have the experience of growing up in a family where good old fashioned home cooking is the norm, but I'll venture to guess that most of us have a few favorite foods associated with our family, or perhaps with our larger community or cultural group. Now please, don't get me wrong--I think we should all be eating the healthiest, toxin free food possible. This is not a reactionary rant to the wave of healthy food consciousness that is sweeping the nation. Just a reality check--a real food reality check that is!

My thoughts about "real food" have percolating in my crock pot of a brain since I attended the Slow Food Nation event in San Francisco in September.

The first phase of our food system change work in East Palo Alto has focused on establishing a farmers' market in a community that has not had a major source of fruits and vegetables for two decades. While farmers' markets may seem ubiquitous in many communities today, there are some very unique challenges associated with establishing a farmers' market in a low-income community such as East Palo Alto. In 1979, I was fortnunate to serve as a community organizer, working to establish the very first Certified Farmers' Markets in the Los Angeles region, all located in low-income communities. Thirty years ago, when this movement began in California after establishing the Direct Marketing Regulations, farmers' market organizers could advertise a net savings of 30-40% over retail. What has changed over the last few decades has been the wildly successful expansion of farmers' markets into wealthier communities. The market for fresh fruits and vegetables has driven prices up to the point now where one can easily expect to pay more at farmers' market than what one might pay in typical retail venues.  For low-income communities this presents several problems, including the fact that farmers will naturally gravitate toward markets where they can command the highest return for their produce.

A graphic example of this is Happy Quail Farms, the last commercial farm left in East Palo Alto. Happy Quail owner and producer David Winsberg grows his gourmet chilies and other items on six separate sites in East Palo Alto. One of his farmers' market venues is the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market in San Francisco where he sells chilies for up to $8.00 per bag. Consumers who come to the East Palo Alto Community Farmers' Market might be looking for chilies at the price point of .80 cents per bag. Despite David's interest in supporting the goals and vision of our work, he cannot afford to participate in our market if he is going to survive in the competitive field of urban agriculture that typically involves higher expenses than growers in more rural areas.

When we set out to recruit farmers to participate in the East Palo Alto Community Farmers' Market, we discovered that most farmers in San Mateo and surrounding counties were influenced by similar market dynamics. We discovered that local growers were already committed to selling their produce at many of the farmers' markets serving some of the wealthiest communities in the Bay Area. Consequently, we were forced to look for farmers coming from as far away as Fresno. The goal of eating locally grown organic food is at risk of being one that only wealthier communities can afford.

So much of the food system change movement is now driven by the unintentional food-elite. An example is the recent Slow Food Nation event held in San Francisco. People living in communities like East Palo Alto don't have a lot of patience for gourmet food experts and health food advocates telling them to slow down to eat locally grown, organic food that they can't afford. Gourmet food pavilions and dinners at the Slow Food Nation event excluded the working class that might be interested in food system change for reasons that have more to do with survival than upgrades in the menu. Rent control is under attack in East Palo Alto, a community that has the highest density households in the Bay Area, the highest unemployment in San Mateo County, and no major grocery store located here for decades. The constituencies we serve face multiple challenges that wealthy communities are unaware of. How can the people we serve slow down to eat when they are running as fast as they can to survive? There are two McDonalds a mile apart in EPA, but if you need to visit a grocery store, you need to travel 5 miles outside of the community. We don't have much hope in food justice trickling down from the Slow Food Nation movement...it will need to come up from the grass roots underlying the real food nation. Perhaps we can nurture these grass roots by bringing together some of the food justice groups in Bay Area and beyond. We are past due for this next phase of the movement.

-Wolfram Alderson