Farmers ‘Feed the Movement’
2011-12-15, The Randolph Herald, Columns, Our Farms, Our Food, By Josey Hastings
http://www.ourherald.com/news/2011-12-15/Columns/Farmers_Feed_the_Movement.html
Feeding A Movement: Farmers And Occupy Wall Street, Indiana Public Media's Earth Eats Blog
By
Sarah Gordon, Posted November 23, 2011
http://indianapublicmedia.org/eartheats/feeding-movement-farmers-occupy-wall-street/
The Occupy Wall Street movement has had both positive and
negative relationships with small-scale farmers. Here's a sampling of
the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Occupy Wall Street in New York City receives donations from small farmers in the region, and provides facilities for composting.
The Occupy Movement remains in full swing and a number of factors have contributed to its continuing existence. In October, we reported
on the connections between food co-ops and the goals of the OWS
movement. Farms have had a hand in extending the life of the prostest in
two cities, but the love shown has not always been requited.
New York: Protest Drives Out Zucotti Park Farmers’ Market
For the first few Tuesdays of the OWS encampment,
the protesters share Zucotti Park with another tenant. Or perhaps it
would be more accurate to say the other tenant shares the park with the
protesters.
That tenant is the Zucotti Park Farmer’s Market.
Foodies among us would expect that the OWS occupation, with its
desire to support small businesses over corporate interests, would mean
booming sales for the market vendors.
But that’s not the case.
Protesters were shunning the market in favor of free food given by donors, including mostly items of corporate cuisine like Polar Springs bottled water, Campbell soup.
Not only weren’t the protesters buying the food: they were deterring
regular customers who didn’t want to walk through the camp to get to the
vendors.
Two weeks after the protest started, vendors reported a 25 percent decrease in sales, and relocated to a new spot six blocks away from the protest.
“Feed The Movement” In New York, Boston
Not all views of the Occupy Wall Street’s eating habits are quite so cynical.
New York’s public radio station, WNYC, reports that local farmers have been donating food to the Occupy Wall Street kitchens.
Heather Squire, full-time Occupy Wall Street volunteer in Manhattan, explains
that “[The donors] all had this related thing: They’re small organic
farmers competing against big commercial and industrial farmers. . . .
The kitchen became a place for farmers to come together. It represented
that place to take their issues to.”
A similar slew of donations from small farmers have largely fed the Occupy Boston movement. A new organisation, Feed The Movement, emerged to coordinate the donations from various New England farms.
In Boston, farmers have sent weekly shipments of about 500 pounds of produce, which drivers deliver for a nominal fee.
Many of these small farms can barely afford the donations they make. “It has just been a terrible growing season,” says Vermont’s Fair Food Farm Emily Curtis-Murphy. “Our crops have suffered a lot from the flooding.
But farmers make the donations because they support the cause, and
many feel personally impacted by reckless spending on Wall Street.
“It’s the fact that the economy tanked due to the reckless lending
activities of these big corporations that then got bailed out by the
government and are again making record profits,” says Curtis-Murphy.
“Meanwhile, we’re probably facing having to shut down our new business
this winter.”
NPR, All Things Considered. Bailey White's Thanksgiving Story: 'Call It Even' By Bailey White. November 24th, 2011
Vermont Farmers Help Feed Occupy Wall street, Boston. The Burlington Free Press, November 15th 2011
The Free Press does not keep archived articles on their site, so no link for this one.
Dinner at Occupy Wall Street and the Farmers Who Grow It, WNYC Blog. By
Jennifer Hsu, Thursday, November 03, 2011
Every night at Zuccotti Park, dinner is served around 7 P.M. What
protesters may not realize is that their meals are made from fresh,
organic produce donated by a dozen or so small farms located throughout
the Northeast.
Since the early weeks of the protest, regional farmers have been
coming down independently to Occupy Wall Street to donate fruits and
vegetables. In those days, meals were prepared in volunteers' homes.
Yet, as the protest quickly gained momentum, food preparation needed to
get more organized, and Occupy Wall Street set up a daily dinner
operation out of a soup kitchen in East New York, Brooklyn.
Once they got use of this professional cooking space, groups of
farmers from different regional areas—from upstate New York, Vermont and
western Massachusetts—started making regular trips down with produce.
"They all had this related thing: They're small organic farmers
competing against big commercial and industrial farmers," says Heather
Squire, the full-time Occupy Wall Street volunteer who manages the
space. “The kitchen became a place for farmers to come together. It
represented that place to take their issues to."
Now, participating farmers from Massachusetts and Vermont make deliveries twice a week, and they've created an organization to represent their efforts and raise awareness of issues affecting the rural small-farm community.
Watch a video of life behind-the-scenes at the Occupy Wall Street kitchen.
Honest Meat: A New Kind Of Small-Town Grocer: Fair Food Farm, Vermont. By Rebecca Thistlethwaite. July 25th, 2011
http://www.honestmeat.com/honest_meat/2011/07/a-new-kind-of-small-town-grocer-fair-food-farm-vermont.html
Farm Profile: Fair Food Farm and Farm Stand. By Rachel Schattman. Cultivating Connections, Summer 2011.
The Montpelier Bridge, Energy Special Supplement, August 18, 2011
Barre Montpelier Times Argus, September 6, 2010
