2pm- 2:45pm

• Gleaning good short-run but not long term solution
• Urban food forestry may be better than gleaning
• food systems are complex but society’s solutions tend to be linear and patch up one niche at a time rather than looking at interactions among niches.
  • solutions may be useless if patch up one hole but other unaddressed holes prevent solution from impacting whole system
• Alameda Point Collaborative: Commercial nursery and straw bale greenhouse and community garden
  • Lease to farmers > looking at this process holistically to help farmers, people who distribute to farmer’s markets, etc.
  • no indigenous farms in Alameda so this was created from scratch
  • info on them is available online
• Lack of household economies and other small-scale economies in favor of large-scale all-encompassing has been detrimental
  • but new cottage industries are popping up in response to this (local food, urban agriculture) and could be huge opportunity to grow
  • as an example, local chicken industry is growing rapidly where there was no market two years ago
  • these local systems distribute money better locally as well
  • some backlash: people often complain that the fruit doesn’t look “perfect”, but… we can change this mentality
    • people with fruit trees see them as a nuisance but this is changing too w/ gleaning efforts that show people value of their trees.
    • varieties of fruits in supermarkets are ones that may be less nutritious but “look better”
• Most organic agriculture efforts are “less bad” rather than being truly sustainable
• “Tending the Wild” – book about indigenous peoples’ management of ecosystems
• in areas where paving new roads could plant something living right alongside (since doing new building anyway)
• in places like Alameda where there’s large continuity of real estate, there’s a big opportunity to sell the idea that they could so something more productive/sustainable with their backyards
  • and we’re in an ideal climate
• planting trees allows us to think long-term (which historically has been the majority with perennial, only nomads thought one year at a time)
• victory gardens making a comeback (first appeared in recession, but became liability post-war when people started going to supermarkets)
• permaculture slogan: “should be in danger of falling fruit”
  • allows for tithing: neighbors who need fruit can pick from your tree without shame
• community gardens can turn into commons that provide for all neighbors when start to ignore share lines and yields are more than any one neighbor can eat.
• gangster gardner Michael Finley in LA: takes gangsters off the streets and gets them gardening
• Seattle has created edible municipal parks
• Sacramento is mapping all vacant lots and brown fields where gardens could start
  • may have tax breaks for these
  • planning for perennial gardens rather than community gardens with individual plots.
  • large upfront cost but sustainable long-term
• Historically diet tied to place > transportation of non-native food largely energy intensive but people have come to expect it
• with “global weirding” creating vulnerabilities, we need to build in resilience.
• Guerilla gardening takes some getting used to > very easy to start feeling protective when people start to take the stuff you’ve grown.