Hi Gang,
For information on the Farm Bill, link from -www.justfood.org
Grover
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To: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
Sent: Saturday, May 26, 2007 12:01:36 PM
Subject: Community_garden Digest, Vol 170, Issue 1
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: ACGA seeks co-sponsors for Local Food and Farm Support
Act (Don Boekelheide)
2. ACGA seeks co-sponsors for Local Food andFarm Support Act
(Dorene Pasekoff)
3. Re: ACGA seeks co-sponsors for Local Food andFarm Support Act
(Cynthia Price)
Hi, all,
Betsy, could someone please direct us to an analysis of the bill? The link in
the post takes you to Rep. B's opposition to the war - can't complain about
that, but there's no obvious way to get to the Local Food bill. It isn't listed
on his site as HR 2346. Googling leads you to the text you posted, but no bill
number shows up.
I found the Senate version at
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s110-1432. The two are pretty
different, to my layman's eye.There are some promising statements of goals
under the food stamp provisions, but reading on it doesn't seem very community
garden friendly.
Neither Rep. B's list nor the Senate bill mentions community gardening by name.
For me, an objective analysis for community gardening purposes would need to
include a clear-eyed view of what the bills say about _community gardening_. We
aren't talking Dan Glickman here, are we? (Not that that initiative went
anywhere...)
Of course, community food security is an important and invaluable insight, both
theoretically and practically. Advocates of that position have been dedicated,
organized, and highly effective, indeed. I've long been a strong supporter of
involving small farms and CSAs with community gardens, and I'm trying to
encourage that here in Charlotte. Of course, again, community gardeners are
experts at using the hot issue of the day to obtain funding and support - from
feeding the hungry, to improving youth, to winning the Great War, to hort
therapy, to environmental protection, to job creation and training, to
beautification, to community economic development, and now "community food
security". We haven't met a buzz word we couldn't coopt yet. <:)
But, honestly, at some point shouldn't we be advocates for COMMUNITY GARDENING?
As in the simple act of providing every person who wants to garden a place to
garden? As in what Tommy Thompson was talking about all those years ago in
Burlington, Vermont, where Jim Flint is still keeping the faith today?
I certainly agree we need to unite with like-minded folks, whatever their focus
issue. At the same time, it is important to speak up for active and implicit
inclusion of the term community gardening in the language of such bills. Isn't
it? With no apologies, and no excuses.
Don Boekelheide
Charlotte, NC
1. ACGA seeks co-sponsors for Local Food and Farm Support Act
(Betsy Johnson)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 23 May 2007 14:38:19 -0400
From: "Betsy Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Community_garden] ACGA seeks co-sponsors for Local Food and
Farm Support Act
To: "ACGA listserv" <community_garden at list.communitygarden.org>
Message-ID: <001c01c79d69$89639440$8a01a8c0 at IBMLaptop>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Over the past two years, ACGA has been working to get specific funding for
urban agriculture, including community gardening, in the Farm Bill that is
being reauthorized at this time. ACGA asks listserv participants to ask
your Congressional representatives to co-sponsor the bills just introduced
last week by:
Representative Earl Blumenauer's (D-OR) Bill, Local Food and Farm Support
Act, HR 2346,
and its companion bill, introduced by Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Hilary
Clinton (D-NY), Food for a Healthy America Act, S 1432.
Call your Representatives and Senator's offices today.
The following is a summary of the Blumenauer bill provisions or go to
http://blumenauer.house.gov/Issues/Issue.aspx?SubIssueID=177 or
Urban Agriculture Production Program: Helps improve food security and
enhance urban sustainability by providing grants and technical assistance to
promote agriculture in urban areas, particularly food insecure communities.
Community Food Project Competitive Grants: Helps increase food security in
communities by providing $60.5 million a year in grants to support projects
that bring the whole food system together to create systems - including
production, processing, transportation, and retail - that improve the
self-reliance of community members over their food needs.
Value-Added Producer Grants: Helps increase farm revenue by providing $60
million a year for grants to help farmers and ranchers take advantage of
marketing opportunities in value-added agriculture.
Healthy Food Enterprise Development Program: This new program helps enhance
producers' share of the retail product price by providing $5 million a year
in grants for feasibility studies and $25 million a year in loans and loan
guarantees for infrastructure and equipment to improve farmer access to
processing and distribution systems which help deliver local foods to
consumers and underserved communities.
Direct to Consumer Marketing Assistance Program: Helps to promote new market
opportunities for farmers and ranchers by providing $25 million a year in
grants to establish and promote farmer's markets and other direct to
consumer sales activities.
WIC Farmer's Market Nutrition Program: Helps promote good nutrition and
increased market opportunities for local farmers by increasing funding up to
$75 million a year for this program to provide fresh, unprepared, locally
grown fruits and vegetables to low-income women and children.
Senior Farmer's Market Nutrition Program: Helps promote good nutrition and
increased market opportunities for local farmers by increasing funding up to
$75 million a year for this program to provide fresh, unprepared, locally
grown fruits and vegetables to low-income senior citizens.
Farm to Cafeteria Program: Helps promote child nutrition and increased
market opportunities for local farmers by increasing funding for farm to
school cafeteria programs, including providing local fruits and vegetables
as part of school meals, up to $20 million a year.
Local Food Preferences: Helps promote local food production by allowing
government agencies, including schools, to use geographic preferences in
their bidding and procurement programs and providing start-up grants for to
help promote the purchase of local food.
School Food Preference Study: Helps promote child nutrition and ensure fair
treatment for Oregon farmers by requiring a study of schools' preferences
for commodity distribution and a report on ways to increase the distribution
of fresh fruits and vegetables for schools.
Food Stamp Fruit and Vegetable Incentive Program: This new program helps
promote child nutrition and increased market opportunities for farmers by
assisting states to provide an incentive program for food stamp recipients
to purchase additional fruits and vegetables.
Independent Evaluation of Commodity Purchase Process: Helps ensure fairness
for Oregon farmers by requiring an independent evaluation of the Department
of Agriculture's commodity purchase process and the inclusion of perishable
specialty crops.
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_______________________________________________
The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's
services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out
how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org
To post an e-mail to the list: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription:
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End of Community_garden Digest, Vol 169, Issue 1
************************************************
Hi, Folks!
I agree with Don -- I'm not seeing anything that's going to help community
gardening in anything that I've read -- the Community Food Security Grants
are already overwhelmed -- we haven't a chance of getting funding there.
Nearly all of us garden with the threat that when a developer comes by who
wants our land, we're toast -- Dan Glickman wouldn't even agree to my letter
saying that community gardens need to be recognized as a legitimate
permanent use of land.
I'm in the fight for my life to keep my community garden going after 17
years -- and the only thing that's helping me are thelocal and state
political contacts this list taught me were vital to make and the personal
e-mails from folks on this list.
I'd LOVE to have some national help -- as I'm sure other gardens who are in
the same fight would appreciate. Will the Farm Bill help purchase land for
community gardens, pay staff to manage them and provide funds for
improvements for irrigation systems, etc? Will the other national NGOs
advocate on behalf of community gardens at risk -- or will they just shrug
that "people need affordable housing, too" and walk away?
If ACGA is going to help other NGOs with their issues, there needs to be
some quid pro quo with help flowing back from these NGOs to the community
gardens that need it.
Dorene
Dorene Pasekoff, Coordinator
St. John's United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden and Labyrinth
A mission of
St. John's United Church of Christ, 315 Gay Street, Phoenixville, PA 19460
There's a simple solution to the problem: the bill number is 2364
rather than 2346. If you go to thomas.loc.gov (no www) and type in
that bill number, it will come up, and Section 13 is the Urban
Agriculture Production Program that Betsy and others -- including to
some degree myself -- worked so hard on.
Also, as far as the Community Food Projects grants (an earlier section
in 2364), the added wording:
"(5) serve special project needs in areas of--
...
`(C) integration of urban and metro-area food production in food projects; and
...."
is intended to put a priority on urban ag/community gardens. However,
the wording is quite a bit different than that recommended by the Food
and Farm Policy Project. In the original recommendations, there was a
specific pot of funding earmarked solely for urban ag projects. This
wording is nowhere near as strong -- but it is a step in the right
direction.
The Healthy Food and Communities work group of the Food and Farm
Policy Project, a Kellogg-funded initiative to make
food-systems-friendly changes in the Farm Bill, was spearheaded by the
Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC). Betsy and I were on that
work group along with others from CFSC's Urban Ag Committee, which
also includes active ACGA members Rodger Cooley and James Kuhns (who
of course being Canadian didn't participate much in the Farm Bill
stuff). Anyway, CFSC then had to find someone who would incorporate
all or part of the Farm Bill recommendations developed in a bill. I
can't even imagine how difficult that is, but Blumenauer apparently
stepped up to the plate. It's just that things get lost in the
"translation" to legislative language.
In answer to Dorene's question, "Will the Farm Bill help purchase land for
> community gardens, pay staff to manage them and provide funds for
> improvements for irrigation systems, etc?" my understanding is, yes if
> Section 13 passes -- certainly yes to staff and irrigation-type stuff, maybe
> a little more iffy on the land acquisitions. It would be a competitive grant
> process, but I believe if the provisions in this bill are included in the
> final Farm Bill, it would be a great step forward for community gardens. So I
> think the more support people can drum up, the better. Please look it over
> and see what you think when you read the actual text.
On the other hand, that's not to downgrade the invaluable assistance
this list-serve provides. I tell every community gardener I run into
to sign up (and to join ACGA!).
Cynthia Price
Greater Grand Rapids Food Systems Council
On 5/24/07, Dorene Pasekoff <garlicgrower at green-logic.com> wrote:
>
> Hi, Folks!
>
> I agree with Don -- I'm not seeing anything that's going to help community
> gardening in anything that I've read -- the Community Food Security Grants
> are already overwhelmed -- we haven't a chance of getting funding there.
>
> Nearly all of us garden with the threat that when a developer comes by who
> wants our land, we're toast -- Dan Glickman wouldn't even agree to my letter
> saying that community gardens need to be recognized as a legitimate
> permanent use of land.
>
> I'm in the fight for my life to keep my community garden going after 17
> years -- and the only thing that's helping me are thelocal and state
> political contacts this list taught me were vital to make and the personal
> e-mails from folks on this list.
>
> I'd LOVE to have some national help -- as I'm sure other gardens who are in
> the same fight would appreciate. Will the Farm Bill help purchase land for
> community gardens, pay staff to manage them and provide funds for
> improvements for irrigation systems, etc? Will the other national NGOs
> advocate on behalf of community gardens at risk -- or will they just shrug
> that "people need affordable housing, too" and walk away?
>
> If ACGA is going to help other NGOs with their issues, there needs to be
> some quid pro quo with help flowing back from these NGOs to the community
> gardens that need it.
>
> Dorene
>
> Dorene Pasekoff, Coordinator
> St. John's United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden and Labyrinth
>
> A mission of
> St. John's United Church of Christ, 315 Gay Street, Phoenixville, PA 19460
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's
> services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out
> how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org
>
> To post an e-mail to the list: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
>
> To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription:
> http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
>
_______________________________________________
The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's
services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out
how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org
To post an e-mail to the list: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription:
http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
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