Will Allen Workshop

What a workshop!

Man in Overalls standing in the shadow of Will Allen

Will Allen, pre-eminent urban agriculture leader, MacArthur Genius presented, Sunday, Mar. 6th, on the work of his Milwaukee-based non-profit, Growing Power. Additionally, he led a workshop on how to develop a compost-producing/food-raising initiative to address the ills of urban decay-- including a hands-on composting and worm composting segment that involved over 75 participants.

Here are a few notes:
-Every year Growing Power diverts 22 million pounds of food (waste) residue from landfills and uses it to grow compost for their Milwaukee, Madison and Chicago sites.
-Vegetables today are 50% less nutritious than those of the 1950's due to agricultural soil degradation and depletion. Thus, the need to grow healthy soil (i.e. compost).
-Growing Power started as a youth empowerment organization: when they found that the kids in their Youth Corps struggled in school, they implemented a reading/writing program wherein participants began reading and writing about the subject area they were engaged in, for example: seed-starting, soil micro-biology, worm life-cycles, plant/pest relations, etc.
-Their budget is $4.1 million a year; half is earned-income. In the beginning "No one would give us any money, so we had to make it through providing goods and services." They continue the tradition by earning revenue through sales of micro-greens, sprouts, vegetables, fish, goats, chickens, honey, worm castings, compost, consultation services, workshops, tours, publications, educational programing, and more. Twenty revenue streams in total. Social entrepreneurship for sure.
-Each year they earn $5 per square foot from field production; $50 per square foot from their green houses.
-"We need 50 million additional growers to fundamentally change this [food] system."

After the close of the official workshop, per our request, Will met with the 20 of us young folks so we could a)meet each other, b)exchange contact info, and c)share stories about current projects we're involved with and/or dreams that we hold for Tallahassee's future food system. There was energy in the air about a cooperative compost operation. Folks were also strategizing to bring together area teacher-gardeners with students from FAMU, TCC, and FSU for an idea and story sharing session to explore the successes and challenges of local school gardening efforts. There's already a FB Group.

Why Can I Eat Bread in France, but not the USA?

Updated 10/31/2017 as the National Organic Standards Board meets in Jacksonville, FL. This may well be the most important thing you read this year for your health. (Originally written in 2015 while I was traveling-- and eating bread-- with my wife in France.) I've got a food riddle for you from Paris, France: Why can I eat bread over here when it makes me sick at home? I'll share my best guess in a minute, but first, a little personal background. Since my senior year of high school, I've not been able to eat much bread at all. For five years, I was severely hypoglycemic, and everything I ate had to have more protein than carbohydrates. That meant, in effect, that I spent my years of college beer-less and eating lots of salad with meat on top. I ate tons of vegetables, very little fruit, basically no carbohydrates to speak of, meat, nuts, eggs, and cheese. If I accidentally ate, say, meat loaf that was, unbeknownst to me, made with bread in it, I'd spend the n

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