food and energy self-sufficiency

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Hazelwood Harvest
bioeverything.blogspot.com/2008/11/declare-your-freedom-grow-food.html
pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A56756
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biofuels, bioplastics
petrosuninc.com/algae-biofuels.html
...algae is capable of producing in excess of 30 times more oil per acre than corn and soybean crops...
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To
Danae Clark, Allegheny Greenworks
cc Joni Rabinowitz, Just Harvest
Barbara Williams, Hazelwood Harvest

Danae;
Thank you for your urban farming work and your letter to the editor. I didn't know that Lawrenceville also had lost a grocery store. Your description of a needed Food Policy Council is exactly what we had for several years. Joni Rabinowitz garnered support for it's establishment by having hearings at Pittsburgh City Council. I spoke in favor at the Council by referring to the terrible unemployment in Germany pre WW2 which favored both scapegoating (e.g. on the Jews) and rationalization. Poor people - with lower nutritional status being more likely to become ill - were quarantined in ghettoes to prevent spread of disease. I said then, and say now even more so, we have these same conditions. I agree with you that it is vital to all that all have access to good food.

The Food Policy Commission was composed of Food Bank, Just Harvest, Giant Eagle, and other community leaders. We learned a lot about the difficulties in assuring elderly, disabled, underemployed, car-less people access to good quality food (with contamination via chemicals and processing and microbial aspects briefly considered). We mapped the Pittsburgh area as far as what neighborhoods had available as far as large and small grocery stores. We managed a win-win by arranging nominal cost van service to some housing projects which delivered and returned residents to supermarkets.
I hope another food policy commission could get started up again, and quickly. Convinced as I am that we are in a moment of historic abrubt climate change, the added flexibility given by food gardens to handle loss of food outlets - permanent or temporary caused by weather events - I think will be starkly clear.

If we were able to have a cooperatively or city-owned, or for that matter owned by anyone, grocery stores which focused on low-cost fresh local organic, with of course WIC and food stamp EBT card, we could get going in the Spring.

Jim

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post-gazette.com/pg/08363/937917-110.stm
Letters to the editor
Sunday, December 28, 2008

Pittsburgh should have a food policy council

The anger and frustration Lawrenceville residents are experiencing over the loss of their neighborhood grocery store is understandable ("Please Notice Lawrenceville Residents' Needs," Dec. 21 letters). Food is a basic need, and residents of all neighborhoods, regardless of income or age, should have access to it.

Other cities, such as Portland and Chicago, recognize the importance of this need and understand the vital role that food systems play in local economies. They have established food policy councils and adopted food policies that guide their cities' planning and development. The policies include everything from supporting the growth of urban agriculture to promoting the purchase of local food in city schools to requiring that all community master plans include a consideration of food production, distribution and access.

It would not be difficult to create a food policy council in Pittsburgh. There are numerous individuals with knowledge of our regional food system who could serve on the council, and the policies of other cities could serve as models. The Urban Redevelopment Authority has begun to take steps in this direction by initiating conversations with local growers and planning farmers' markets in select neighborhoods. But with a more balanced and comprehensive commitment, the URA/city could work toward providing food security for all Pittsburgh residents.

In an era of fast food, contaminated food and diminishing family-owned markets, access to affordable, nutritious food is imperative to our economic health and quality of life.

DANAE CLARK
Point Breeze

The writer is director of Allegheny Greenworks
Danae Clark
Phone: (412) 244-3435
danae7@gmail.com

Office location:
1129 Braddock Avenue
Braddock, PA 15104
alleghenygreenworks.com
, a green consulting business.

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Garden opportunity
Editor;
Regarding "Thieves Cause Hazelwood Grocery to Give Up" (Dec. 23) and "Market Collapse: The Neighborhood Loses a Grocery, and Part of Itself" (Dec. 24): As difficult as it is to see, I believe there is opportunity in every crisis.

For many years I have advocated what is being called "relocalization" of food production with individual and community gardens. With inflationary pressures adding to the cost of food, and federal bailouts likely to greatly further increase these pressures, it seems to me that we should be going full scale toward as much locally grown food as possible.

With the help of the city, the Penn State Extension Service and volunteers, some of us have begun to turn empty lots into gardens. Next year, with the continued help of the Hazelwood Initiative, Hazelwood Harvest hopes to take up some of the added burden of providing food.

As the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank is receiving more calls for help along with fewer donations, organizations like Meals on Wheels are increasingly strapped because of higher food and energy costs, and everybody is feeling pinched at the checkout counter, it's clear that working together to grow food is becoming a necessity. To the extent that we can all enjoy growing food together, sharing with each other rather than stealing from each other, we can maintain the whole community's nutritional status and a civil society.

JIM McCUE
Hazelwood
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