BJ Hazorim: When Everything Goes Wrong
GUEST BLOGGER: Susan Bodnar is the Lead Coordinator at BJ Hazorim, a new CSA at B’nai Jeshurun synagogue on the Upper West Side. She is also a New York City-based psychologist who studies how the environment affects the psyche.
Part 7 of a bi-weekly series chronicling BJ Hazorim’s first CSA season.
Hazorim, the B’nai Jeshurun CSA is in its sixth week. There is nothing like trying to plan a meal around farm vegetables for an understanding of the complex relationship between certainty and uncertainty. Farmers don’t know what to expect from each planted seed. Yet, when something goes wrong, they know exactly what it means.
First the cold rain and unseasonable temperatures challenged the germination process of peas. Maryellen and Ken knew right away – no waiting – that there would be no crop from this batch of seeds. “Pray for some heat and sun for us! It’s ridiculously wet and cold here right now,” Maryellen implored.
Adventurous mice broke into the greenhouse early on. They ate the squash seedlings. Maryellen and Ken knew – without doubt – that the mice feast would compromise early summer squash shares.
Then the walk-in cooler broke. Maryellen and Ken knew – immediately – that there would be some problems getting the shares in order for delivery. They were right. No eggs arrived that day.
Then they had to replace their driver. Maryellen and Ken knew – instantly – that the share delivery would be compromised that week. It was. The vegetables arrived ½ hour late.
Now, it’s hot. Very hot. Too hot, the hottest it has ever been in the eleven years Maryellen and Ken have been farming. Once the heat climbed into the nineties, Maryellen and Ken knew – with certainty – that the temperatures would stress the lettuce and broccoli. They harvested all the fennel, along with basil, so they wouldn’t go to seed and also be ruined.
BJ Hazorim CSA: First Distribution is a Success
GUEST BLOGGER: Susan Bodnar is the Lead Coordinator at BJ Hazorim, a new CSA at B’nai Jeshurun synagogue on the Upper West Side. She is also a New York City-based psychologist who studies how the environment affects the psyche.
Part 6 of a bi-weekly series chronicling BJ Hazorim’s first CSA season.
It was the first week’s distribution at the BJ Hazorim CSA. The wide open synagogue doors beckoned the CSA members inside. Boxes atop a table waited for the vegetable recipients to arrive. Farmer Ken from the Freebird Farm explained, “Yea it was a hard week. All the broccoli went to seed because of the warm weather. We included extra salad greens.”
It had been a hot week in NYC as well, but no one “went to seed”.
After piling and lining up crates, the volunteer worker smiled, “We’re ready.” At four o’clock the CSA members arrived with their cloth bags. Starting at the registration table, each member went from station to station bagging first their spinach and arugula, then the salad greens, scallions, radishes, and at the last table romaine lettuce and bok choy. Finally, they reached the egg share table. Muttering and laughing, excitement punctuated everyone’s gestures.
Stress
At first there weren’t enough tables. Then, the laminated cards that labeled the veggies went missing. One of the volunteers called in late. Two people came for shares they hadn’t ordered. Someone else looked for a missing egg share. One member rushed out of a meeting to arrive in time only to find out she was early. Someone else said, “What? Only greens? How much did I pay for this?” The CSA was a microcosm of everyday life, little things going wrong, unexpected responsibilities, not enough time or room. Now this was New York.
Solutions
The synagogue maintenance worker found another table. Makeshift cards replaced laminated signs. Arielle collected the names of the people missing egg and vegetable shares. Jill repeated the CSA distribution times. One volunteer worker figured out that they could bag greens ahead of time to move the line along faster. Tajlei and Paulette explained that shares were less full early in the season. In fact, a quick calculation suggested that everyone saved money. Everybody collaborated, shared, contributed.
One man explained while scratching his beard, “As long as its healthy it’s worth the extra-cost.”
“Cost? Healthy? You wait. These vegetables will taste better,” commented the tallish grey-haired woman with a long neck.
One man with a little belly and his arms clutching his produce commented, “Now this is something I can believe in.”
Was this New York?
Farmer Ken looked around, “You guys look good.” Then he shook everyone’s hand with his own firm calloused one, and climbed into the truck for the long ride back to the farm.
Home
On the way home a woman admitted, “I was thinking on my way over to the CSA that I needed this like I needed a whole in the head. But now I’m happy, it was very relaxed hanging out with people, putting these vegetables in a cloth bag. Very communal.”
Once inside the apartment the kids immediately took the bag and sorted through the vegetable.
“Radishes!”
“Bok Choy!”
“Spinach!”
No TV chatting in the background. No video or computer. The wide open windows welcomed an early summer breeze. Slish-clunk, slish-clunk, shlish-clunk, the knife sliced radishes. The family set the table, simmered scallions in oil, and rinsed greens. Then, they heard the low groan of a cow mooing . . . . no. It was a truck in the wrong gear. Or was it?
Eat seasonal to detox your body
Eating seasonally and locally means eating only the produce and fruit that’s in season where you live. It’s not only good for the environment, but its the best way to boost your body and keep it running smoothly.
According to Yonnette Fleming, an urban farmer and community food educator, the human body is synced with the earth’s seasons, so that seasonal crops best address the body’s needs particular to the time of year. Last week she taught a group of eager foodies just how to take advantage of the local food that’s blooming around New York this spring.
“When we go to the supermarket in December and buy a watermelon, there’s something wrong,” said Fleming. While watermelon is a summer crop, the majority of people in the city may not know they’re doing anything “wrong.”
“What happens in the spring?” Fleming asked the class. “What is it that makes us want a fresh start?”
Students shouted out words like, “renewal,” “fresh,” and “energy.”
Perhaps that’s why she decided to teach the students how to make a fresh spring salad filled with detoxifying fruits and veggies like mesculin and strawberries. Click the graphic below to learn how a salad like this benefits your body.
The students eagerly volunteered to help Flemming make the salad – they chatted and laughed while cooking, just like your own family’s kitchen.
“You get to a point where you have to get accustomed to eating well,” said a 40-something student as Fleming and her two volunteers pick the lettuce.
“Its like when I was younger and thought I would never date an ‘old man’ who’s 40,” she said. “Now that I am 40 and grown into it, 40 isn’t old at all! It’s the same with your taste buds.”
“We will be studying food for all our life,” Fleming said as the class began to eat their hard work. “How do we eat? How do we get it right?”
Play the slideshow and read the recipe below to learn how to create your own healthy salad.
Strawberry spring salad:
1 pint sliced strawberries
2 cups mesclun salad
1 cup toasted pecans
Goat cheese (optional)
1 sprig of thyme
Dressing:
2 tablespoons apple cider
1 spoonful of fresh lemon juice
2-3 dabs of honey
The Hidden Cost of Local Food: The Fate of Farm workers in Upstate New York
Green markets and CSAs throughout New York City may provide some of the best food our money can buy. It’s fresh. It’s local. It’s often organic. Plus, we get to meet many of the actual folks who operate the small, family-owned farms that grow, raise and produce it.
But many of us don’t know, however, that New York State has few labor protections for those who work on farms.
Librada Paz, a former farm worker, now works as a farm worker advocate in Rochester. She picked crops like cucumbers, strawberries and apples for over 10 years in New York.
Right now farm workers in New York do not have the right to collectively bargain. They do not receive overtime pay. They do not have unemployment insurance or workers’ compensation. And farm workers are not guaranteed a day of rest throughout the workweek.
Most of the workers who work on New York’s farms – the state’s largest industry – are undocumented Mexicans, according to the Rural and Migrant Ministry and other advocacy groups. They are often forced to work more than 10 hours every day and do not have access to adequate housing.
Listen to the clip below to hear Librada Paz talk about why Mexican workers are easily exploited:
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A bill currently before the legislature in Albany would grant these labor protections to farm workers. The Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act has passed the Assembly this year but continues to stall within the Senate, mostly because of strong opposition from business groups and most big and small farms.
The New York Farm Bureau, Business Council of New York State and most small farms oppose the bill. They point out that 99 percent of New York’s farms are family owned and operate on very narrow margins. They see the bill as adding unsustainable costs, forcing many farms out of business.
The dilemma for many conscious consumers becomes quite clear. How can we support small farms and local agriculture and support farm workers at the same time? Is it even possible to do both?
Last Thursday, local farmers, farm workers, scholars and advocates for both sides of the issue gathered at the Church of the Holy Trinity on the Upper East Side to see if some common ground could be found.
Jody Bolluyt runs a small farm upstate that deals mostly with community supported agriculture groups.
The panelists all agreed that the agricultural industry in the United States benefited large, corporate farms over small farms. Corporate farms get massive subsidies from the government, interest free loans and get to set crop prices. Small farms do not.
Small farmers, represented mostly by Jody Bolluyt, who farms in the Hudson valley, pointed out that while she and her partner provide workers with safe and clean housing, and don’t force them to work more than they can, it’s so hard to make a living farming that it would run farms into debt if they had to pay overtime.
Click the audio below to listen to Bolluyt talk about paying time and a half to workers.
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Others pointed out that no matter how unfair the agricultural system is to small farms, it’s more unfair to the workers who harvest our crops. “U.S. farmworkers subsidize the industry with their poverty,” said Dr. Margaret Gray, a professor at Adelphi University who has devoted her career studying labor and farm workers.
The Rev. Richard Witt, who regularly ministers to migrants upstate and in the Hudson Valley, said that it was a moral issue. He pointed out that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to leave farm and domestic workers in order to satisfy Southern Dixiecrats and pass the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. Farm workers have been exploited for too long, he said.
“For me, it’s not about good farmers and bad farmers,” said Witt. “It’s about the law.”
Robert Lewis, special assistant for market development in the New York State Department of Agriculture, worked to develop green markets across New York City and says that they are a good solution to farmers' increasing costs and decreasing revenue.
Everyone on the panel agreed that comprehensive agriculture and immigration reform should be enacted in order to take the burden off small farmers. No one had concrete ideas for how exactly to go about getting those massive reforms implemented. Some, including those in the audience, had some smaller ideas.
Listen to Robert Lewis, who works in the NY State Department of Agriculture, talk about how green markets help small farmers.
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A community gardener’s tale
Community gardener and food justice advocate Karen Washington shares the story of how an empty lot in the South Bronx became a thriving community garden with dozens of individual plots, a greenhouse, and a chicken coop.
Untitled from Daniel P. Tucker on Vimeo.
Organic ice cream truck business booms
Van Leeuwen Ice Cream started selling homemade, organic ice cream with artisan ingredients two summers ago, and this summer the business is poised to do even better with five trucks roaming the streets of New York and its first shop, located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Ben Van Leeuwen talks about the success of his unique, family-run venture in the video below.
Organic Ice Cream Truck Business Booms in New York City from The City Greens on Vimeo.
Union Square Farmers Market
Union Square Farmer’s Market is a well-known market in New York City. But, what some may not know is that the market also accepts food stamps/EBT cards so that everyone in New York can have the chance to eat better, fresher food.
This move is also another step in getting rid of food deserts.
Check out my video below and let me know what you think:
Union Square Market Doing Their Part from Courtney Carter on Vimeo.
Video: fresh, local fish!
For those of you looking to reduce your carbon footprint–and increase your Omega-3 consumption–check out how the fish mongers at Grand Army Plaza Green Market keep it local.
Fresh, local fish in Grand Army Plaza Green Market from The City Greens on Vimeo.
An attack on the farm. Fox? Weasel? Coyote?
GUEST BLOGGER: Susan Bodnar is the Lead Coordinator at BJ Hazorim, a new CSA at B’nai Jeshurun synagogue on the Upper West Side. She is also a New York City-based psychologist who studies how the environment affects the psyche.
Part 5 of a bi-weekly series chronicling BJ Hazorim’s first CSA season.
Attacked!
The Gulf oil spill leaks endlessly. The stock market zig-zags. Suspicious vehicles command helicopters, ambulances, fire engines and hazmat vehicles. Here is New York City we are held hostage, attacked by the complicated urgencies of the dangerous socio-political clouds hover over the landscape.
Predator on the Loose
On Free Bird Farm, their villain was a mysterious predator who has managed to attack 50 meat birds and a dozen hens. Is it a fox? Weasel? The assailant succeeds despite precautionary measures. With farmer Ken putting in 80-hour weeks, having to sleep outside a chicken pen is not what he would wish for just now. Plus, after a warm spell that welcomes even early weeds, the recent days have brought freeze warnings. Farmer Maryellen said “We’re hoping for the best and trying to let go of feeling angst over something that’s out of our control.”
Green carts missing in Hunts Point – The irony and the cause for concern
Food inequality in NYC: click to enlarge
In 2008, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a program that would bring green carts overflowing with fruits and vegetables to food deserts–city neighborhoods with few supermarkets, greenmarkets, or fresh produce. Residents in food deserts have high rates of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and other diet-related ailments. In the neighborhood we visited last week–Hunts Point in the Bronx–16.9 percent of residents had diabetes, according to recent city statistics. The rate on the Upper East Side? Just 5 percent.
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