If food insecure populations can\'t make it to food markets,  bring it to them. With this idea and a grant from the California Department of Agriculture for a Farmers Market Food Truck, this is a dream come true in West Sacramento. Sara Bernal is the program manager for the West Sacramento Urban Farm Program and now with a vehicle the size of a traditional U Haul moving truck low income communities are able to shop for farm fresh foods in their own neighborhoods. “With the seniors particularly but also these affordable housing complexes with families, it can be exceedingly hard if you don’t have a car to get groceries,” Bernal said. “So the whole purpose of the truck is to get produce to people where they live in the easiest way possible and then to make it affordable.” Sarah Bernal and Rodger Wasson visit in the parking lot of a low income housing community while customers bring their Cal Fresh/SNAP EBT cards for discounted purchases of healthy foods. www.landbasedlearning.org

Farmers Market On Wheels – Sara Bernal

Is it best that our food is Local and Organic or Big and Conventional? Our view is “Both, and..” We don’t come to the table with a bias, except that good farming like good food comes in all shapes and sizes. Farm to Table Talk explores issues and the growing interest in the story of how and where the food on our tables is produced, processed and marketed. The host, Rodger Wasson is a food and agriculture veteran.  Although he was the first of his family to leave the grain and livestock farm after five generations farming in America,  he’s continually worked for and with farmers though-out America and around the world. From directly managing commodity boards and councils to presently building the strategic consultancy, Idea Farming Inc., the Farm to Table Talk podcast has been created to satisfy the curiosity of today’s engaged consumers.

Many Farm To Table Talk listeners somehow got a version of the Barons podcast that had the right intro but with a different podcast.  We're sorry about that and  just in case here is the real interview with Austin Frerick. Rodger Wasson

Barons, Really – Austin Frerick

Local agriculture has become an extraction economy and to change there will have to be change in who has power. Food system power is largely in the hands of 'Barons' according to Austin Frerick, the author of "Barons - Money, Power, and The Corruption Of America's Food Industry."   The case is made by examining powerful barons in grain, grocery, dairy, berry, coffee and meat industries. Domination is not a new story and it has been blunted in the past such as the reining in of the "Robber Barons" of the late 1800's. Solutions can be found again by actions such as resisting the 'southern model', institutions prioritizing local, resisting mergers and acquisitions and leadership from the USDA. @austinfrerick   austinfrerick.com

 

Barons Power – Austin Frerick

Knowing what we're really hungry for depends on becoming the authority in our own body, empowering us to eat what we love . Kim Shapira, M.S., R.D. is a renowned celebrity dietitian, nutritional therapist, and author holding a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and a Master's degree in Human Metabolism and Clinical Nutrition. In her new book, This Is What You're Really Hungry For: Six Simple Rules to Transform Your Relationship with Food to Become Your Healthiest Self, Shapira has developed six rules to change our relationship with food - breaking down the science to get our brain and our body on board; replacing fad diets that do not last with a sustainable method that encourages us to eat what we love; and empower us to be our own champions.

What We’re Hungry For — Kim Shapira, MS, RD

Houses of faith are becoming powerful agents and actors of improving food security in their own community in ways that go beyond charity. It is organizing the hungry and not just feeding the needy.The largest institution in the Black community, the Black church, replete with offerings to fill multiple needs., from the physical grounds, to classrooms, kitchens, to church vans and buses, to the land, and the people. Pastor Heber Brown III,  launched the Black Church Food Security Network (BCFSN) in 2014 with a garden at his own church, Pleasant Hope Baptist Church in Baltimore,  now they have 250 in the network. BCFN was founded  after he noticed a pattern of hospitalizations related to diet and other issues and was determined to change health outcomes for his congregation. What began with encouraging churches to start gardens on church premises, has since grown to include encouraging congregations to make institutional purchases from Black farmers, host farmers markets, preferably on Sundays after church, and arrange tours of Black farms.

www.BCFSN.org

 

 

 

Organizing the Hungry – Pastor Heber Brown III

Farmers have the support of customers who want to be a part of something sacred, noble, righteous and healing. Joel Salatin has experienced that first hand and has helped thousands of farmers all over the world discover it for themselves.  Although it is daunting to start farming and encourage a more viable local food system, it is happening because of those connections. Joel Salatin hears all about it and shares the excitement he's discovered at his farm, on the road speaking and in his latest of 16 books, Homestead Tsunami. In 2006 Another author, Michael Pollan, featured Joel in a key chapter of Omnivore's Dilemna titled All Flesh Is Grass.. When critics of the modern American food system are challenged to offer a better way the answer is often Joel Saltin's family's Polyface Farm. www.polyface.com

Farmers Market On Wheels – Sara Bernal

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