Starting the Conversation: Sacramento's Food/ Agricultural Systems

It might be more correct to say continuing the conversation. In a recent absolute privilege, I was able to see local icons of the California culinary world Chef and restaurateur Patrick Mulvaney and Shawn Harrison, executive director of Soil Born Farms, talk about local agriculture, local restaurants and various issues tied to farm-to-table dining. If you're into the local food and dining scene, this was an incredible installment of the excellent ongoing series called Sacramento Living Library.

The Living Library series, curated by Time Tested Books' owner Peter Keat and hosted by Tim Foster of Midtown Monthly, has been a big success. The talks are casual, wide-ranging and thought-provoking, all in the cozy setting of a well-stocked shop of used and rare books. Recent food-themed talks have featured chocolatier Ginger Elizabeth Hahn and grocer/wine expert Darrell Corti. 

Though farm-to-table cooking has become more and more common in the city's restaurants, Mulvaney is perhaps its most visible practitioner, if not its most devoted. His eponymous restaurant on 19th Street is well known for sourcing local ingredients and celebrating the area's farmers.

Soil Born Farms is a remarkable and enlightened undertaking that not only grows food, it has an educational mission for youths and adults that provides classes, workshops, tours and job training. The farm also targets under-served areas in the community with alternative food distribution and food donation programs.

 While the conversation stirred between these two locavore titans of Sacramento quite a few facts were reveled about the culinary/ agricultural landscape of Sacramento - 98% of the agriculture in the Northern California area leaves the area headed for other destinations - usually exported abroad, and only 2% stays = we are feeding the rest of the world with incredible produce/ meats, and feeding ourselves with processed foods from abroad or middle America. 

As this is a major problem for most of America it hits home as a huge problem specifically for Sacramento, as we have so much available and it's not utilized here, where it grows. Another voice in the crowd commented on Sacramento's lack of food processing systems (meat processing plants, vegetable processing facilities) over the last 50 years. Sacramento used to be a huge hub for Northern California railroads because this was where all the agriculture came together and was shipped out to the rest of the county, over the years this has very much changed. Unlike what Sacramento was before, an agricultural epicenter of California, if there's one industry that Sacramento's known for now it's politics. 

Sacramento is a hard place to do business as there are so many regulations, but when our only industry (politics) is constantly facing furlows and budget cuts our main industry cannot continue to be politics, especially with such a wealth of raw goods surrounding us - which keep getting shipped to a location to be processed, exported, and sold. 

Another hot topic among all the audience and speakers was the consistent issue of the obesity of America's, California's, and Sacramento's children. Shawn Harrison has a great quote about this problem, "We are caloically obese and nutritionally deficient." This problem has been attacked on many fronts from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and Michelle Obama's Let's Move Campaign on a National basis - to Jon Bays, former Executive chef from Rio City cafe an Morton's, now the District Chef at Sacramento City Unified School District - he started out with a pilot program of 5 schools with and completely changed the menu from processed to natural foods. 

This is outstanding as it will be from the bottom up not top down that this concept of healthy eating will come from. But what happens after the elementary schools? It turns out middle school kids are some of the worst eaters - it's a transitional age, and unlike high schools or elementary schools this is such a short time period (3 years) that there's been less emphasis on making healthy eating programs in this age than in others. Happily it turns out that there is agriculture/ healthy eating programs at Grant, North Highlands, Sacramento, Burbank and Rancho Cordova High schools. 

At the end of the talk many people wanted to know what they could do to embrace the urban farming movement, and the schools efforts to help this greater cause?

• Shawn's response: start growing something in your own backyard, or indoors - from a tomato plant to herbs, the change begins with every individual person. 
• Go to farmer's markets, buy local. 
• Find out WHO your local farmer's are, engage in the process- find a local farmer you love and buy their products - this helps re-emphasize the need to buy/sell local vs. exporting
•  Learn how to cook vegetables/meats - every way possible - know the life-cycle of the food cooking process - raw, undercooked, cooked, overcooked, burned - every life-cycle tastes different
• Eat around the table - simple solutions have a surprising impact

Help Sacramento re-create it's food culture

In my own efforts embrace a more food centric world I've gotten back into the food game by taking the Wine, Beer and Cheese clerk position at Sacramento's Natural Food Co-Op - Here's to embracing Urban Agriculture!