The Jewel of Lisle: A Garden Provides

The Lisle Community Garden.

by Barbara C. Harrison

“Traveling to Apalachin, NY in June 2011, I came across a community garden. I stopped and walked the area. I was so taken with the size and beauty of the garden. This was not a community garden as we would characteristically think of a community garden, divided into individual plots and worked by individuals. It was one large plot gardened by the community. There was no one around, just a sign saying, ‘Take what you can use for the next two days,' ” recounts Jodie Van Wert, founder of the Lisle Community Garden.

A seed was planted. As she drove toward home, Jodie began thinking about how this kind of garden could become a reality in the Village of Lisle where she resides and works as a postal employee. “I deliver the mail. I see how people live. There is a huge need in this area for fresh vegetables and food. It is not available,” states Jodie.

A few months later, Jodie contacted Jerry Mackey, the Mayor of Lisle about the concept of a garden for the Village. He agreed, and her idea began to take shape.

Lisle is a small town located in the Southern Tier of New York State where everyone knows everyone else. All you need to do is mention your idea to one person. Word of mouth will spread it around town and bring to the table a group of interested people that have a passion, in this instance for gardening and/or giving.

Leading scientist says agroecology is the only way to feed the world

There is much discussion today about the need to “feed the world” because of the growing global population. What do you think needs to be done in order to ensure there is adequate food for everyone in the world?

HH: The issue is less on how to feed the world than how to nourish the poor and hungry. Today we produce 4600 calories per person per day, so there is enough food to feed twice the present population. The problem is that we produce mostly cheap commodities rather than quality food. These cheap products, in addition to being of low nutritional value, are based on a few crops that carry a large ecological, social, and economic footprint. What is needed is to support farmers in developing countries to grow their own healthy food by providing information, know-how, financial support for inputs, and support for them to access markets, among others.

Read the full article

Ithaca Community Harvest: Get Involved in Food Access & Equity

A letter from Ithaca Community Harvest's Lara Kaltman on how you can support ICH's work in the coming year:

Dear BJM, GIAC and SSCC Families & Friends,

I'd like to first thank you for supporting Ithaca Community Harvest during the holiday season, whether it’s been through making a donation at the Ithaca Alternative Gift Fair, stepping in to help with the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program at BJM when the college students went home for winter break, or simply inspiring us with your stories about our children learning to love and appreciate local fruits and vegetables.

Here's another opportunity to express your interest in introducing more local produce into our schools and healthier school meals. This link connects you to an online survey on ICSD school district budget priorities, in which we are asked to identify other essential needs we'd like the Superintendent to consider as he develops the 2011-2012 budget.

What do we mean by a "sustainable" food system?

Food activists often say they work for a "sustainable," "healthy," "fair," and "diverse" food system. These words sound good enough. But what exactly do they mean? Clarifying our terms is an critical facet of making a coherent statement and a measurable impact on our communities. As organizations and individuals, we would do well to sit down with our colleagues and elucidate our mission statements to ensure that we are all on the same page when it comes to envisioning a better future.

Last summer, four major public health entities- The American Dietetic Association, American Nurses Association, American Planning Association, and American Public Health Association- did exactly that. They worked together to develop seven principles of a healthy, sustainable food system that they could use as a "shared platform for systems-wide food policy change." Groundswell joins them in affirming these vitally important tenets of a food system that works for everyone. Thanks to Groundswell advisor Gil Gillespie for sharing this important message.

Principles of a Healthy, Sustainable Food System

We support socially, economically, and ecologically sustainable food systems that promote health — the current and future health of individuals, communities, and the natural environment.
A healthy, sustainable food system is:

Health-Promoting

• Supports the physical and mental health of all farmers, workers, and eaters
• Accounts for the public health impacts across the entire lifecycle of how food is produced, processed, packaged, labeled, distributed, marketed, consumed, and disposed

Sustainable

• Conserves, protects, and regenerates natural resources, landscapes, and biodiversity
• Meets our current food and nutrition needs without compromising the ability of the system to meet the needs of future generations

Working Toward Food Security in Ithaca: An Interview with Jemila Sequeira

Last week the Ithaca community held a Community Food Security Dialogue to discuss what a food system that works for everyone would look like, and how Ithaca can begin moving toward that goal. We caught up with Jemila Sequeira, Groundswell advisor and Community Food Security Dialogue organizer, to ask some questions about this important work. 

Jemila Sequeira

Groundswell: How did the Community Food Security Dialogue begin? What events led up to it?

Jemila Sequeira: In 2009, the Cornell Public Service center appointed myself and Bethany Schroeder as Civic Fellows. My fellowship focused on recognizing my work with Gardens 4 Humanity; Bethany's for her work with the Ithaca Health Alliance and the Ithaca Free Clinic. This gave rise to two civic dialogues in 2009 on health and food security. My fellowship ended in the spring of 2010, but I felt I had a moral obligation to continue this work. After the civic dialogues, many people- landowners, farmers, food preservers, and others- were looking for a way to bring cohesiveness and a sense of purpose around the creation of a healthy food system for our community. The Community Food Security Dialogue was a way to keep the conversation going.

I was also concerned about including people who, historically, haven't been part of the discussion. Conversations around food in our community are often fragmented and top-heavy, with disproportionate input at the academic and institutional level, while those usually most profoundly affected by these issues of food and well-being are not at the table. I didn't want to close out the year without a chance for those people who were not being represented to have a voice. I also had been inspired by my recent trip with other Ithacans involved in the food movement to the Community Food Security Conference in New Orleans earlier this year. The dialogue here was a way to begin to examine how the ten square miles around Ithaca fit into the global movement around building a healthy food system.

GS: Who has been working with you on this project?

JS: Logistically, to hold this dialogue, I worked with Joanna Green, Kirtrina Baxter, Elan Shapiro, Sarah Reistetter, Cornell students Meredith Palmer, Zackery Murray, and Ben Pinon, and several community representatives. But people have been working on and thinking about this project begun long before I came. It always has been, and will always be, a project of the whole community. This work is cross-generational, and spans the entire socioeconomic, political, institutional, and community spectrum, and so many people have been involved. In particular I want to recognize Tony Petito of the new Neighborhood Pride grocery store, and his role as part of a group of elders that are still active and committed to their community, with their hearts centered in the neighborhood.

Lessons from New Orleans

Groundswell Community Liaison Kirtrina Baxter describes her experience at last month's Community Food Security Coalition conference in New Orleans.

The role of black people and folks of color is greatly documented and heralded in the food justice movement and it was one of the reasons I was so excited to go to the 14th Annual Community Food Security Coalition Conference. There were several other reasons for my going as well. I wanted to connect with other food workers of color in this movement and talk with them about their experiences of growth, connections and allyship, inform myself about other work going on in the food justice and farming movement, visit and learn more about the local history of New Orleans, and answer a main question always on my mind which is, how do we engage everyday folks in our communities and get them to understand the positive impact of “real food” in their diets and lives?

As I planned for my first trip to New Orleans there was a mixture of excitement and nervousness. Not only was this my first trip to the famed city of Jazz and center of African American culture in the US but also my first time at a conference related to food justice. I would be expected to network with farmers and other food workers in the country as well as gain a working knowledge of practices and procedures that would assist in the work that I am doing in the Ithaca area.

Arriving at the conference, I noticed there were many more people of color than I had expected to find attending the conference. The more people I ran into, thinking they were perhaps just guests in the hotel, the more at ease I felt with the representation of folks who looked like me and had contributions to give at this conference. In my first workshop alone, there were at least ten people of color in a room of about 40 participants. This was inspiring in itself, considering I had been reading and researching about programs with black farmers and urban gardeners for quite some time but had very little personal contact with these groups of folks.