Things are cooking on the Washington food front.

First, Tom Vilsack, our new Secretary of Agriculture from the big farm food factory of Iowa, had pavement torn up outside departmental offices to create a “people’s garden.” His announced goal: community gardens to promote “green” concepts at all USDA facilities worldwide.

Next, Michelle Obama, accompanied by a band of local fifth-graders and White House staff, broke ground on the White House lawn for an 1,100-square foot kitchen garden. It’s to grow no less than 55 varieties of vegetables, fruits and herbs–lettuces to berries, cilantro and hot peppers. The plot, in clear view to passerbys, is being fertilized with White House compost and Chesapeake Bay crab meal. Mrs. Obama promises her entire family, the president included, will help out pulling weeds–and of course enjoying the fresh goods from their efforts.

There’s strong precedent: the fabulously successful nationwide Victory Garden campaign Eleanor Roosevelt kicked off from the White House in 1943. By the end of World War II, some 20 million American home gardeners were supplying 40 percent of the nation’s fresh produce.

The new administration’s move on fresh food is no accident. Demand for local produce is on the rise nationwide. And the reasons are so many you can name your own–complaints about taste and nutrition in mass-prepared foods, obesity becoming a national epidemic (especially alarming among youth), climate change suggesting less long-distance food supplies, worry about loss of open farm fields around our cities, and revolt against federal subsidies to multi-millionaire commercial farmers.

We may even be witnessing a reversal of a near-century of disappearing small farms. Vilsack recently released a new census of agriculture indicating more than 100,000 new small farmers. Some of the growth may be due to new (and often quite profitable) organic farms.

Up to now, the federal government has given little more than weak lip service to small-scale local farming. Last year it appropriated just $15 million to support organic and other local foods–compared to a massive $7.5 billion for subsidies focused on big-time commodity crops. Local food evangelist Michael Pollan notes federal law has even prohibited farm operations receiving commodity subsidies from growing “specialty crops” of fruits and vegetables.

And there’s another problem: While small farms may be on the rise, they lack sufficient infrastructure, on a regional level, to get to scale and be truly sustainable. While American food systems (and government support) got hijacked by the major commodity producers and processors, virtually nothing was done to promote the storage and packing, distribution and marketing necessary to connect the farms of metro regions with potential customers.

The recent proliferation of farmers’ markets shows strong local interest in locally produced food, and they play a valuable role. But we’ve had to wait years for actions like the $250 million that the Agriculture Department plans to spend on local and regional food systems with funds from the recently-passed economic stimulus bill. Let’s hope it’s just the start.

The benefits of a regional food system are clear. With a system of warehouses and commercial distribution, for example, local farmers are better able to meet the growing institutional demand from hospital, military bases, prisons and schools. A 2006 study by the Michigan Food Policy Council showed that the state’s net farm income could be boosted by $184 million, or 16 percent, by a strong support system. In turn, it was claimed, the new income put back into the economy could generate up to nearly 2000 new jobs.

Some schools in Michigan and Wisconsin are even using their economic stimulus funds for converting their kitchens to accommodate locally grown goods–replacing yesterday’s proliferation of deep fat fryers (that cook artery-clogging food) with walk-in coolers, mechanical slicers, produce washing sinks and salad bar equipment.

The decentralization of our food production will also provide a buffer to any shocks to the system such as e.coli scares and energy price spikes. It adds to our biodiversity with plant varieties attracting a wider array of insects, birds and other wildlife. It provides valuable open green space and offers more manageable way to curb environmental harms from greenhouse gas emissions to water run-off, pesticide use to animal wastes.

On top of all that, it’s en enabler of, a metaphor for community–the “we” President Obama speaks of so often. It’s something we all can do. Growing food (whether on small farms or garden plots) engages the body and the mind. It generates a sense of well-being, satisfaction, even pride. It produces food that is nutritious and tasty. And it saves on the grocery bill–a potential boon in hard times. Digging in the dirt is a great and basic way to dispel built-up anger and frustration. Gardens may be for food–but they feed the mind and the spirit too.

A Way To Start for Everyman (and Woman) – SPIN-Farming

SPIN-Farming is a non-technical, easy-to-learn and inexpensive-to-implement vegetable farming system that makes it possible to earn significant income from land bases under an acre in size. Whether you are new to farming, or want to farm in a new way, SPIN can work for you because:

• Its precise revenue targeting formulas and organic-based techniques make it possible to gross $50,000+ from a half- acre.
• You don’t need to own land. You can affordably rent or barter a small piece of land adequate in size for SPIN-Farming production.
• It works in either the city, country or small town.
• It fits into any lifestyle or life cycle.

SPIN is being practiced by first generation farmers because it removes the two big barriers to entry – land and capital – as well as by established farmers who want to diversify or downsize, as well as by part-time hobby farmers.

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Largely invisible during the general election fray, the abortion issue surfaced suddenly during President Obama’s first days in office as he revoked the so-called “gag” rule that has prevented the United States from funding family planning services around the world in cases where agencies offer abortion services or counseling of any kind.

Additionally, Mr. Obama declared his intention to restore American funding for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA)–a collaboration of 180 other donor nations that have been providing family planning assistance in 154 countries in need, the goals ranging from cutting back on the need for abortions to reducing poverty to improving the health of women and children, including prevention of HIV/AIDS.

These actions were read by many to be a revival of partisan divides that have played political football with women’s lives and their reproductive rights since the first imposition of the gag rule by President Reagan in the 80′s.

But there is a huge difference today. We have entered into a deeply imperiled century–environmentally, economically and demographically. This new president was making an urgent and humane effort to position the United States as a responsible global partner and leader.

Think of the stakes. The earth’s population has tripled to 6.7 billion from its 1950 level of 2.2 billion. The mass of humanity of which we’re all part is expected to reach a stunning 9.2 billion in 2050. Much of that growth will be rural inhabitants, seeking opportunity, pouring into the “smaller” cities and towns of the developing world, the 500,000-to-1 million range–a category of cities that often lack the most basic infrastructure, in parts of the world most likely to be severely affected (and afflicted) by climate change. Natural increase in population will intensify given the massive numbers of young people migrating.

If we keep on this path, New York City-based demographer Joel Cohen told a gathering at the Rockefeller Foundation’s “Global Urban Summit” in Italy, the world will have to build one city of 1 million people every week for the next 43 years. “Is this,” he asks, “feasible– physically, environmentally, financially, socially?”

Even seemingly modest shifts in birthrates, Cohen noted, can have momentous consequences. If women, on statistical average, have half a child more than now predicted, then the world population by 2050 would soar to 10.6 billion. Conversely, if they choose to have a half child less, then the global population will rise to a comparatively more manageable 7.7 billion.

Cities, with their steep population ascent, seem to epitomize the quandary of the century. Yet if cities are the problem, they’re also the solution. Typically fertility rates are lower in urban areas. Services of existing government services and non-government organizations can be leveraged to reach more people more easily. Cities are early adopters of change. They offer greater access to jobs and income, education and health care. And they offer better opportunities for social mobilization and empowerment.

Indeed, central to the challenge of successful cities–and taming global poverty and population growth–are the rights of women and girls. Their access to family planning services not only contributes to their own health and future, but is central to social stability, to overcoming poverty, to economic vitality and managing limited resources. With education, greater opportunities and independence, women organize communities, find work, provide better lives for their families.

Yet according to the UNFPA State of World Population report, 60 percent of the world’s poorest people are women and girls. They represent two-thirds of the 960 million adults around the world who cannot read are women. Seventy percent of children who do not go to school are girls.

In her Senate confirmation hearings to become Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton spoke of her “particular concern” for “the plight of women and girls who comprise the majority of the world’s unhealthy, unschooled, unfed, and unpaid. I say,” she added: “When the world takes care of women, women take care of the world.”

According to Guttmacher Institute and UNFPA statistics, expanding reproductive health counseling to some 200 million women who currently lack it would avert 23 million unplanned births, 22 million abortions, 7 million miscarriages, 1.4 million infant deaths, 142,000 pregnancy-related deaths, and 505,000 children from losing their mothers.

If there ever were a deep moral issue–showing how grievously mistaken our “right to life” advocates have been in using their anti-abortion mantra and political muscle to hobble critically needed international funding–this is it.

With the brand of American leadership President Obama has already taken on this issue, this country can again be the friend of women across the globe, and help lead humanity, toward a more sustainable future.

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