Please vote for Long Beach Grows' Seeds of Change project to receive a 20k grant.

Dear Friends of Long Beach Grows,

Please vote once a day as often as possible through April 21st, at this link.

Long Beach Grows has served the Long Beach community as a resource on all things urban ag in our city for >4 years. We are all volunteers-we receive no salaries or stipends to do what we do. 

LBGROWS began Long Beach’s first community farm co-op, Unity Farm, to grow food together on shared land for a shared harvest—shared among the growers and others in the community, including homeless. We believe the local food movement should be about food for people, not for profit. We advocate for what we think is best, growing food locally—in a manner that fosters cooperation and sharing of resources—such as we accomplished at the original Unity Farm.

We will be relocating the farm co-op and ask for your daily vote so that we might get this grant, much needed financial assistance. A Seeds of Change grant will also help with our educational mission and with ours and Long Beach's first heirloom vegetable seed library, freely available and shared at workshops and community events.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED INTEREST AND SUPPORT OF LONG BEACH GROWS, INCLUDING YOUR DAILY VOTE IN THIS CONTEST.

Best wishes,
Donna Marykwas
Long Beach Grows
Growing a more sustainable future
Long Beach's urban agriculture resource hub for >4 years
562-912-3364

Long Beach Grows Goats

Our goats Dinkey & Bumper are symbols of food justice in our community. Read more about them here.

Announcing a new community farm in Long Beach: Unity Farm

Long Beach Grows (aka LBGROWS) is a grassroots organization that advocates for a just and equitable food system that includes food security through urban agriculture. The group is building a network of urban farm co-op sites where people can grow food together while building community. LBGROWS has recently partnered with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach on Atherton Street to use some of their land for their first site. Food grown will be shared among the gardeners and with the homeless and other underprivileged Long Beach residents.

Unity Farm, as it is called, is not your typical community garden. The operative terms are community and co-operation. In a typical community garden, individual garden plots are rented to and tended by individuals on a seasonal basis. Some community gardeners make better use of their alloted land than others. Some community gardeners never even meet the person gardening right next to them. Where is the community in that?

Long Beach Grows’ community farm co-ops promise to be different. Members will work together in teams on land that they all grow together. There will be scheduled work days, scheduled harvest days when crops ready to be picked are divvied up amongst co-op members and the underprivileged of the community, and other scheduled gatherings, celebrations, and fundraisers.

The Farm Coordinator, Steve Passmore, who helped start the farm, says

“We will strive to keep the division of labor as equal and fair as possible, while trying to accommodate the special strengths, interests, and assets that individual members have to offer.”

All members are asked to pledge to uphold and abide by the mission and vision of Long Beach Grows.

• Organization mission. LBGROWS’ mission is to promote green, healthy, sustainable urban agriculture in Long Beach, CA & other activities that educate, enhance & grow our communities by ensuring & safeguarding local food security.

• Organization vision/goals. LBGROWS is the first organization of its kind in Long Beach, with a mission to advocate for change & to educate the public on issues of local food security & urban agriculture. The current food system in Long Beach, particularly as it pertains to local food & real food, really caters to the wealthy of our residents. LBGROWS plans to change this. The ultimate goal of LBGROWS is to grow a network of urban farm co-operatives for food production in the heart of urban Long Beach, with at least one community kitchen and urban farm site per city district, where people can grow & harvest real food together while building community & relieving hunger.

The goal is for everyone to work in harmony together as peacefully, joyfully, and stress-free as possible, for the benefit of all.

There will be a modest fee to join Long Beach Grows to farm at The Unity Farm. People will be contacted to join in the order they have signed up on the LBGROWS co-op wait-list. To join, add your name here. Volunteers are also welcome.

More farm co-op sites are in the works. The group is actively seeking other underutilized properties in Long Beach that LBGROWS could transform into productive community farm co-op sites to help relieve hunger in our community.

Youth unloading mulch to prepare a vegetable bed
at Unity Farm.

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You might also be interested in Donna’s other work as Long Beach Urban Agriculture Examiner, National Food Policy Examiner, National Science News Examiner, and founder and director of Long Beach Grows™.

Copyright © 2011 Donna Marykwas; All rights reserved.

Government raid of Rawesome food club in Venice

For the second time in two years, the Rawesome raw foods buying club was raided and ransacked, the morning of August 3, 2011.

This was a multi-agency sting that involved the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the California Franchise Tax Board, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Milk and Dairy Food Safety Branch, the CDFA Division of Measurement Standards, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, the Ventura County Department of Public Health, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety.

James Cecil Stewart, the owner/operator of Rawesome, was arrested and charged with seven misdemeanors and six felony counts of conspiracy. His bail was set at $123,000.

Sharon Palmer, who operates Healthy Family Farms, LLC, in Santa Paula, Ventura County, CA, was arrested and charged with three of the misdemeanors and the six conspiracy charges. Her bail was set at $121,000.

Eugenie Victoria Bloch, LA chapter leader of the Weston A Price Foundation and part-time employee of Healthy Family Farms, was arrested with three counts of conspiracy. Her bail was set at $60,000.

All for daring to sell Healthy Family Farms’ raw goat milk and raw goat milk dairy products (and raw cow milk from Pennsylvania) to their loyal club members and shareholders.

People who belong to the “Right to Choose Healthy Food’s Rawesome Club” sign a membership agreement that states

“I completely reject and refuse all governmental food standards. I fully trust the board members of this club to properly oversee and manage the preparation, handling and packaging of the food in this club, including but not limited to raw meat, raw eggs, raw produce, raw juices, raw dairy...”

The FDA sent a message today, this is not the land of the free, certainly not when it comes to deciding what healthy food one consumes. The “officials” threw away $10,000 worth of food, not only the raw milk and dairy products but also fresh fruits and vegetables, just to send this message. They also confiscated cash, computers, and more.

Besides the felonies “to conspire,” the misdemeanor charges were for processing milk without pasteurization, operating an unlicensed milk plant, selling milk or milk products that don’t “conform to the standards,” selling milk that had been produced or handled using unsanitary conditions, operating an unlicensed milk business, operating a food facility without a permit, selling unlabeled and improperly labeled food, selling food from unapproved sources, failing to store eggs at the proper temperature, and removing a notice of closure.

But it is legal to sell raw milk in California. Organic Pastures in Fresno sells throughout the state and online.

And with the evidence now down the drain, is there any physical proof that the milk had been contaminated, as surely it must have been had it been treated without concern for sanitation?

Have there ever been any cases of illness due to consumption of raw food products from Rawesome? If not, this is all a big show.

Note the identity of the second official stakeholder, the California Franchise Tax Board. That’s the real story. Money. The money it takes to comply with all these licensing requirements. Money the state wants but hasn’t received because the farm has been operating without a license since 2007, and Rawesome for more than six years.

Licenses and permits are supposed to protect the public health, for example by requiring proper cleaning and sanitizing of equipment and proper veterinary care for animals. It seems clear that Rawesome and Healthy Family Farms have been breaking the laws requiring such licenses. However, the absence of a license does not make food prepared without one inherently unsafe. It is unconscionable to dump $10,000 of food for a technicality. If this was to punish Rawesome and the farm, at least the food, including the milk and other dairy products, could have been donated to a food bank.

The Felony Complaint for Arrest Warrant reveals some details of the undercover investigation that led to this arrest, involving informants disguised as buyers. Healthy Family Farms and Rawesome were set up. Isn’t this entrapment?

One person at the recent raid told the raiders:

“Drink your milk from Monsanto and poison your own children.”

I say “survival of the fittest” will determine who is right and who is not.

There was a Rawesome protest at the LA Courthouse this morning at 8:00 AM. The three “co-conspirators” had their day in court. Victoria Bloch was released without bail, still charged with one felony count. James Stewart’s bail was reduced to $30,000 provided he doesn’t sell unpasteurized milk without a license. Sharon Palmer will be arraigned Friday 8-4-2011 in the same courthouse. Rumors have it that her pro bono attorney will be Christopher Darden who worked on the prosecution side of the O.J. Simpson murder case.

More Information

Government Data Proves Raw Milk is Safe. June 22, 2011. Press Release by the Weston A. Price Foundation

Three Arrested on Charges of Illegally Producing, Selling Unpasteurized Milk. August 3, 2011. Press Release by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

Rawesome Farm Buying Club Raided Again. August 3, 2011. Press Release by The Weston A. Price Foundation.

Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. Defending the rights and broadening the freedoms of family farms and protecting consumer access to raw milk and nutrient dense foods. website

Ann Marie Michaels. Weston A. Price Foundation Activist Award 2010. Cheeseslave on Facebook

Enjoy this? Then share the link and comment below, even if only to say "Hi!"

You might also be interested in Donna’s other work as National Food Security Examiner, National Science News Examiner, Long Beach Urban Agriculture Examiner, and founder and executive director of Long Beach Grows.

Copyright © 2011 Donna Marykwas; All rights reserved.

Jamie Oliver’s food revolution victory with Los Angeles Unified School District sets a national example

From  Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution is transforming the food security scene in Los Angeles and by extension the rest of the nation and the world.

Tuesday June 14, 2011, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board voted in favor of eliminating flavored milk from the city’s public schools. This school food policy goes into effect July 1 to improve the nutrition of the 680,000 students in the second largest school district in the nation. LA students will be drinking real unflavored milk with their meals from now on.

This change is in response to Jamie’s Food Revolution efforts that currently have LA in the spotlight and his Milk Day of Action campaign that inspired food revolutionaries across the nation to demand only fresh wholesome food for schools, starting with real milk.

In Jamie Oliver’s TED award speech given February 2010 in Long Beach, California, Jamie highlighted flavored milks in schools as an issue “epitomizing the trouble that we’re in." He said,

“School food is something that most kids, 31 million a day actually, have twice a day, more than often, breakfast and lunch, 190 days of the year, so you could say that school food is quite important,really, judging the circumstances."

After dumping a wheelbarrow of sugar, the amount consumed by a single child during 5 years of elementary school, just from milk, Jamie said,

“Judging the circumstances, any judge in the whole  world would look at the statistics and the evidence and they would find any government involved guilty of child abuse, that’s my belief.”

In response to his recent LAUSD victory, Jamie said,

“With flavored milk, kids are getting loads of sugar and other food additives they simply don’t need to grow and learn. In the Food Revolution the little battles set us up for the next win. All these little battles count; they matter. It’s not just milk. It’s caring about what we feed kids 180 days a year.”

Perhaps your school district did not get on the Milk Day bandwagon this year. That’s OK. You can use your summer away from school to organize your school food policy campaign. It’s never too late to make our schools accountable for the good or bad food choices they offer our children.

More Information


Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution milk factsheet

Jamie Oliver Foundation website

Join the Food Revolution Community on facebook

Watch Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, season 2, Fridays at 9PM/8C on ABC. This Friday’s episode is “Feed them healthy food with 77 cents,” June 17, 2011.

Books by Jamie Oliver


Enjoy this? Please share the link and comment below, even if only to say "Hi!"

You might also be interested in Donna’s other work as National Food Security Examiner, Long Beach Urban Agriculture Examiner, Long Beach Restaurant Examiner, National Science News Examiner and founder and executive director of Long Beach Grows.

Copyright © 2011 Donna Marykwas; All rights reserved.

Join the Long Beach Grows™ real food security coalition to help fight hunger in Long Beach

Long Beach Grows™ is a grassroots organization that promotes food security through urban agriculture. The current food system in Long Beach, particularly as it pertains to local food and real food, really caters to the wealthy of our residents. Long Beach Grows plans to change this.

We are in the midst of one of the worst recessions ever. A recent report prepared by LAANE for the Coalition for Good Jobs and a Healthy Community indicates that one in five Long Beach residents are living in economic hardship and over 50% of our children are living in poverty. HealthyCity.org, an authoritative source of demographic data, indicates that 62.3% - 66.19% of LA county residents cannot afford enough food to eat. The remaining 33.81% - 37.7% remain hungry.

Long Beach Grows recently established the LBGROWS™ Real Food Security Coalition to advocate for a just and equitable food system in Long Beach, and to empower the low income Long Beach communities to establish their own food security, independence and freedom from hunger. The Coalition will work to identify Long Beach’s populations at greatest risk of food insecurity, the reasons for this, the strengths and weaknesses in our food system, and long term solutions to create a future of food security for all. While the main focus of the Coalition is community organizing, outreach may influence positive change on regional, state and national policy and will include reporting and documenting on food issues.

The Coalition will attempt to connect all sectors of the community and local food system.   All Long Beach residents are encouraged to join. Low-income residents who need access to better food are especially welcome. So whoever you are, whether you are rich or poor, an adult or youth, an individual with only personal interests or a community organizer leading a group with a mission, your input and help is wanted. Local growers, environmentalists, non-profit food distributors, grocers, restauranteurs, dieticians,  artisanal food crafters, city employees, big consumers such as Long Beach Unified School District or Long Beach Memorial, all are invited.

The Coalition will assemble at least once a month and is currently scheduled to meet the first Thursday of each month from 6 - 8 PM at the Catalyst space at 430 East 1st Street in the arts district of downtown Long Beach. Mark your calendars. As the Coalition grows, so will the venue.

Spread the word. Join the Coalition today.

Enjoy this? Please share the link and comment below, even if only to say "Hi!"
 
You might also be interested in Donna’s other work as Long Beach Urban Agriculture Examiner, Long Beach Restaurant Examiner, National Food Policy Examiner, National Science News Examiner, and founder and director of Long Beach Grows™.

Copyright © 2011 Donna Marykwas; All rights reserved.

What is food security?

Community Food Security Coalition

Our government* defines food security as "affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food for all people at all times."

For some people, food security means to not have to worry about where their family's next meal is coming from, whatever that meal might be and for whatever reason, including poverty, homelessness, or absence of food even if money is no object.

Some communities are considered food deserts because they lack access to grocery stores. A food desert could be a small town in a remote rural location, or it could be a neighborhood within a big city.

However, food security is not merely freedom from hunger. One's diet might fill the belly but still be nutritionally inferior and actually cause harm.

Even access to a full service grocery store does not ensure food security, if one takes into account whether the food is stripped of its nutritional value by over-processing, whether it contains antibiotics, hormones, drug-resistant bacteria, or other contaminants that don't belong in our food. Food security requires that our food be safe.

Long term food security on a global and even local scale requires that we preserve the natural resources necessary to sustain our food supply.

With food insecurity comes serious health problems and other socioeconomic issues.

Food insecurity has been responsible for the demise of entire civilizations.

Without food, we die.

Earth is fast approaching its capacity to feed a global population expected to reach 9 billion people in just under 40 more years.

Thus, food security is the most important social issue of the 21st century.

I will address these and other issues relevant to the loaded term "food security." Stay tuned for more details to come.

*The U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture


More information

Community Food Security Coalition
Food Deserts
USDA Food Desert Locator
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You might also be interested in Donna’s other work as National Food Policy Examiner, National Science News Examiner, Long Beach Urban Agriculture Examiner and founder and executive director of Long Beach Grows.

Copyright © 2011 Donna Marykwas; All rights reserved.

Japanese Garden green generation mixer focused on “Redesigning CSULB, the renaissance of Long Beach and Southern California”

The beautiful Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden on the Long Beach CSU campus was the perfect setting for the third in a series of Student Sustainability Task Force (SSTF) green mixers designed to foster dialogue and collaboration to unite the campus and local community on issues of environmental sustainability that affect us all.

Held April 13, this prelude to Earth Week 2011 featured guest speakers spotlighting green efforts on and off campus and representing the city, the university, and other community groups. Jeanette Schelin, Director of the EBM Japanese Garden, and Tracy Gorden, Program Assistant at the Garden, presided over the event and introduced the speakers.

Whole Foods sustains local & ethical healthy food choices!

Adrienne Peters, the marketing supervisor at the Long Beach Whole Foods Market that sponsored this event, spoke about Whole Foods’ green mission and commitment to local healthy food and environmental sustainability. She introduced Whole Foods’ Health Starts Here program to help people make healthier food choices, and the store’s participation in Global Animal Partnership (GAP) which she described as “beyond organic.” GAP is a 5-Step animal welfare rating standard used to rate and certify meat producers based on their animal welfare practices.

Donnie Bessom, the SSTF Project Coordinator, asked Ms. Peters to consider bringing Whole Foods to campus because as he said,

 “right now food on campus is pretty bad.”

The snacks Whole Foods shared at the event were pretty good,

“Especially the cheese,” says the cheese lady*.

Green Long Beach! shines a spotlight on the green community!

Tiffany Chen, recent CSULB alumna, current sustainability assistant in the city’s Office of Sustainability, and co-Catalyst of Green Long Beach!, highlighted the evolution of the Green Long Beach! festival. First held in 2009, the festival attracted >1,000 attendees and 100 participants. The theme of this year’s festival is Ignite Change! and is expected to draw > 5,000 attendees and 400 participants. It will take place Saturday June 11, 2011 from 10 AM - 8 PM at The Promenade between Broadway and 3rd Streets.

City of Long Beach sees a greener future!

Larry Rich, who has worked for the city in various positions for 20 years, became one of the city’s sustainability commissioners in 2008 the year the Office of Sustainability was formed to develop and implement green initiatives throughout Long Beach. He describes himself as the most sustainable of the sustainability commissioners, since he is the only one of three remaining.  His office currently oversees 10 part time interns (8 who are paid) and 17 youth workers from the Workforce Development Bureau’s green jobs program.

In what Larry describes as a soft sell (of green awareness) some of the interns act as one-on-one field supervisors of the youth workers, working on projects such as planting native drought tolerant plants at city installations, and delivering mulch to vacant city lots as part of Project Mulch-A-Lot and to residential applicants as part of a new Mulch Delivery Program. In collaboration with West Coast Arborists, the Office of Sustainability diverts ~6,000 tons of green waste per year from the waste stream.

Larry explained that the city’s solid waste reduction program does not include green bins (such as are offered in neighboring San Pedro) because Long Beach has the largest of the only three California Southeast Resource Recovery Facilities (SERRF) where solid waste is burned for energy. This is considered diversion, not incineration.

CSULB facilities are green behind the scenes!

Jon Root, the campus manager of integrated waste management and waste services, spoke about the university’s recycling efforts that mostly go unseen. The mulching mowers used on 60 acres of campus turf divert ~400 tons a year of grass from the waste stream, The tree trimmings from the 7,200 trees on campus are saved and re-used in the landscape. The university’s recycling efforts include not only paper and plastic recycling (see these images from last year’s CSULB Earth Week fair) but also a scrap metal program and an Associated Students Recycling Center that is operated by student employees.

Long Beach Grows plans for local food security! Grow Beach!

Long Beach Grows promotes food security through urban agriculture. Donna Marykwas, the Executive Director of Long Beach Grows, spoke about her plans and vision for a Long Beach with at least one community farm co-operative per city wide district, where people can grow and harvest real food together while building community. Donna has gardened at various community gardens throughout the country since 1985, first at Cornell in upstate NY, then in Cambridge, MA, Lincoln, MA, and Long Beach, CA. Describing the major differences between typical community gardens versus community farm co-ops, she envisions truly cooperative sites where people share in the work, share the rewards of their efforts, and share the bounty with the community. There are over 100 families on a waiting list to grow food with Long Beach Grows. Donna expressed serious interest in growing food security through urban agriculture on the CSULB campus, preferably at the site where there once was a community garden in the past. She thinks that growing food for the present on the Native American Indian ancestors of the past is a way to honor, respect and preserve their connection to the land.

CSULB faculty designs green phones!

Department of Design Professor Wesley Woelfel spoke about design methods to divert cell phones from the e-waste stream, citing statistics that with 1.2 billion cell phones sold globally per year, only 10% of obsolete cell phones are e-cycled. This is the motivation for his life cycle analysis of ways to design sustainable cell phones. Some ideas that he and his students have come up with are to encourage the design of new phones that are modular, easier to repair, upgradable, and did I hear him say biodegradable? We’ll see.

Industrial designer dreams green transportation!

Max Beach, a founding partner of Impact Design Associates in Culver City, teaches part time at CSULB. He wowed the audience with a futuristic animated video that brought to life his dream of an alternative transportation system based on inductively charged solar-powered CSULB streetcars.

Go green!

Connect with the green community at the next mixer to be held Wednesday, May 4th, 4:30- 6:30 PM, also at the Japanese Garden.


 
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You might also be interested in Donna’s other work as  Long Beach Urban Agriculture Examiner, National Science News Examiner and founder and executive director of Long Beach Grows.

Copyright © 2011 Donna Marykwas*; All rights reserved.

Earth Week 2011 Open Letter to First Lady Michelle Obama

Two full grown Nigerian dwarf goats and one 8 year old girl.

April 6, 2011

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC  20500
FAX: 202-456-2461

Dear First Lady Michelle Obama:

It has been over a year since I first wrote to you about how you can help people throughout our great nation advance their local food security efforts. My original letter can be viewed here. I am writing to you once again in light of the upcoming Earth Week celebration (April 16 - April 22)  to ask for your action.

I am a mother, a wife, an educator, a scientist, a community gardener, and a practitioner of nourishing traditions that include urban agriculture as part of my back to the basics philosophy of feeding and nurturing my family.  I am trying to teach my daughter about healthy food choices, local and sustainable food security, and self-sufficiency while respecting the animals and the earth that provide for us.  I no longer allow my daughter to eat the food provided at school because it is overloaded with fat and carbohydrates and contains minimal fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet she begs me to allow her to eat the school "food" because she sees her friends eating it and this is what the Long Beach Unified School District offers; what kind of nutritional message is this teaching our children? In addition, it is amazing to see how many children have no idea where their food comes from. Every school (not just a handful, and particularly in the city) should have an organic vegetable garden that is incorporated into the K-12 curriculum to teach our children about real food, nutrition, healthy lifestyle choices, sustainable agriculture, and even science. Moreover every urban center should develop a demonstration urban farm to serve as a positive example that educates the children and adults of our community while providing them with another source of local real food and life skill training opportunities. I believe this is our only hope for a sustainable future.

I applaud you for setting a positive example by planting a food garden at the White House. I am writing to ask that you please take the next step in educating the public about the benefits and suitability of urban agriculture by adding egg-laying poultry but especially miniature dairy goats to your White House urban yard. Other great cities allow this type of urban agriculture, including San Francisco, Seattle, Portland OR, Pasadena, Oakland, and even NYC (which allows poultry and recently honey bees). Small scale urban agriculture is beneficial in so many ways, not the least of which is in allowing us to reconnect with the earth that provides us sustenance.

I wish to legalize miniature goats in the city of Long Beach, CA. Two or three female Nigerian dwarf goats can provide a year round supply of milk to a family, perhaps with enough to spare to make yogurt and cheese. Goat milk is more nutritious and less allergenic than cow milk, more people in the word drink goat milk versus cow milk, and since goats were domesticated about 10,000 years ago (about the same time as dogs) many cultures throughout the world including immigrants to the US are quite familiar with raising goats. Not only could goats provide a renewable source of food to nourish a family, they could also provide a renewable source of fiber and fertilizer. They can be put to use to clear brush, to mow pesticide-free lawns, and to compost kitchen waste. On top of all these “uses,” they make great pets; they are friendly, quiet, relatively docile animals that are great fun, providing hours of wholesome  education and entertainment for the family and neighborhood children. Contrary to popular belief, they do not stink (except for in-tact males), they do not attract flies and vermin, and they do not pose a significant health threat to the public, certainly compared to dogs that can transmit rabies or compared to cats that can transmit toxoplasmosis, to name just a few.

To celebrate this year’s Earth Week, I urge you to add 3 or more miniature goats to your White House urban yard, breed them, and make the birthday a public event and celebration for a sustainable future. Once the mothers give birth, they will provide milk (and public education) long after the babies are weaned.

For more information about urban agriculture and its many benefits to your personal well-being and to the well-being of our local and global communities, please visit my website at www.longbeachgrows.org. In addition, I urge you to show your support by signing my online petition in favor of urban agriculture in Long Beach, California (www.longbeachgrows.org/LongBeachGrows/Please_sign_my_petition.html). It would mean a great deal to me.

Yours sincerely,

Donna L. Marykwas, Ph.D.
Founder and Executive Director
LONG BEACH GROWS
Growing a more sustainable future

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You might also be interested in Donna’s other work as National Science News Examiner, Long Beach Urban Agriculture Examiner and founder and executive director of Long Beach Grows.

Copyright © 2010, 2011 Donna Marykwas; All rights reserved.

Suggested Reading

Creating Livable Communities in Long Beach on this evening’s City Council agenda

Long Beach City Council meets this evening beginning at 5:00 PM. Council Chambers are located in City Hall building at 333 West Ocean Boulevard. The 16th agenda item out of 27 total is a

“Recommendation to request City Manager to conduct community meetings to discuss ways that residents can become involved in making Long Beach a more livable, mobile and desirable place to live.”

Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, our 2nd district council representative, is co-sponsoring this  request for Creating Livable Communities, along with Councilman Robert Garcia of the 1st district, Gary DeLong of the 3rd district, and James Johnson of the 7th district. The idea, though, is that residents from ALL Long Beach Communities, not just those represented by the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 7th districts, be given the opportunity to become

“more involved in the planning of local projects that enhance community character and reflect a broader group of citizens’ input” to create “more mobile, sustainable and livable communities.”

Tell your City Council representative to mandate this type of community dialogue, including not just a few community meetings but regular meetings on a continuing basis. If you don’t know who your City Council representative is, you can find out here. It is highly recommended that as many interested residents attend.

As an individual citizen of Long Beach, and as the founder and executive director of Long Beach Grows, I agvocate for and work towards a greener, healthier, more sustainable Long Beach that supports local food security through urban agriculture.

Urban agriculture is about building healthy communities in Long Beach. As is the case in San Francisco, the city of Long Beach should embrace urban agriculture into our culture’s mainstream approach towards food security.

A walkable and bicycle-friendly city is only livable if the people who walk and bicycle as their primary form of transportation have equal access to nutritious, affordable, real food. Urban agriculture within the city (not just peripheral to the city) and within all zoning districts will allow this to happen.

In addition to waiting to be heard at one of the community meetings, please voice your opinions here. What does a happier, healthier, more sustainable and livable Long Beach mean to you?

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You might also be interested in Donna’s other work as National Science News Examiner, Long Beach Urban Agriculture Examiner and founder and executive director of Long Beach Grows.

Copyright © 2011 Donna Marykwas; All rights reserved.

Will Long Beach follow San Francisco’s lead towards local food security through urban agriculture?

San Francisco is leading the way as an example of a big city successfully embracing urban agriculture as part of its approach towards food security.

Urban agriculture in San Francisco’s mainstream began as a vision of former Mayor Gavin Newsom, who in January of 2009 issued an executive directive “Healthy and Sustainable Food for San Francisco” in which he declared

“Access to safe, nutritious, and culturally acceptable food is a basic human right and is essential to both human health and ecological sustainability.”

In his directive, Mayor Newsom essentially mandated permitting backyard urban agriculture. An outcome of this executive directive was an audit of unused land that can contribute to urban agricultural practices including gardening and farming. The directive stated

“Food production and horticulture education will be encouraged within the City and to the extent feasible, on City owned land, through urban agriculture including community, backyard, rooftop, and school gardens; edible landscaping, and agricultural incubator projects.” 

 The directive further stated that residents must be allowed

“the opportunity to make healthy food choices and reduce environmental causes of diet and related illnesses.”

Since the directive, the city of San Francisco has updated its zoning code to be more compatible with urban agriculture. Most recently, at a hearing held February 17, San Francisco’s planning commission voted unanimously to support an urban agriculture zoning proposal that allows Neighborhood Agriculture activities ≤ one acre in size to grow and even sell produce in all city zoning districts. Neighborhood Agriculture is defined to include backyard gardens, community gardens, community supported agriculture, market gardens and small private farms.

One “healthy food choice” that people might want is to raise one’s own poultry and other small livestock such as dairy animals. Indeed, San Francisco is also leading the way in this aspect of local food security. For example, the San Francisco municipal code allows residents to keep two female goats per any city lot. There are no lot size restrictions, no setback restrictions, no zoning restrictions, and no special permits or exceptions are needed. 



In an interesting interview embedded here from YouTube, Rebecca Katz, Director of San Francisco's Department of Animal Care & Control, illustrated how mainstream urban agriculture including small scale animal husbandry is becoming in her city. When asked about the future of home farming of small livestock in the Bay Area, and whether it's here to stay, Rebecca Katz, Director of Animal Control in San Francisco, said

"I see it growing, certainly with vegetable gardens. The Mayor [former Mayor Gavin Newsom] has called for this here in San Francisco and he had the garden at the Civic Center Plaza for quite some time and he has asked people to do this and it seems that it's a growing trend, it's not a fad. AND AS FAR AS ANIMALS GO THEY ARE GOING TO COME WITH IT [emphasis added]. Like I said, people are coming to take chickens out of our care all the time, they want fresh eggs."

Author of "Farm City" Novella Carpenter's response to the same question

"It's a growing trend and its gonna be building community."

Interviewer Leslie Sbrocco's summary

"Absolutely here to stay.

The Long Beach municipal code currently has several provisions that stand in the way of urban agriculture in our city. However, recently the Sustainable City Commission unanimously supported a recommendation by the Office of Sustainability “to forward a report on Urban Agriculture Ordinances to the appropriate City Council Committee for consideration.” Also forwarded was an independent report prepared by a Long Beach resident who has been working to change the code of Long Beach to allow backyard urban agriculture including chickens and goats. For more information, view her [my] presentation that was entered into the record on December 1, 2010.

Long Beach is one step closer to food security through urban agriculture in Long Beach. Hopefully, the city’s leaders will agree with all of the other major cities who have seen the benefits of urban agriculture and with a recent signer of the pro urban agriculture petition who said that

“Now is the time to think about the future.”

Presentation to Long Beach, CA Sustainable City Commission December 1, 2010

Highly recommended additional reading:
Urban agriculture zoning proposal hearing February 17.


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You might also be interested in Donna’s other work as National Science News Examiner, Long Beach Urban Agriculture Examiner and founder and executive director of Long Beach Grows.

Copyright © 2011 Donna Marykwas; All rights reserved.

What is permaculture? An introduction for beginners

A Google Earth view of the Dervaes family's urban homestead in Pasadena, CA.

Long Beach residents who wish to contribute to their own food security might consider a permaculture approach to growing their own food. This term, permaculture, has been bouncing around lately. But what does it really mean?

The simplest definition, literally, is permanent agriculture. That is, the cultivation of our land to meet our basic needs in a way that is permanently sustainable. The grander vision, though, is that we sustain not just our immediate personal needs to get through this life but the capacity of this Earth to sustain future generations (of humans and ALL of Earth’s creatures), at least until the next big asteroid hits.

Thus permaculture, if successful, means permanent culture. This will require species conservation, resource conservation, and responsible, low-impact living, not just for those who live in rural locations, but for those who live in urban human settlements called cities as well.

In essence, the practice of permaculture doesn’t really sound like a choice, as was offered to Long Beach residents at the start of this article, but a necessity if we are to conserve our culture. The alternative is dire. Conserving our culture mandates a shift from our current, selfish, resource-greedy lifestyles to a more conscious, conservative way of living.

The permaculture philosophy is based on lessons learned from nature, from those ecosystems that haven’t yet been tampered with by man. These natural ecosystems are balanced, diverse, resilient, stable, yet living and thus evolving.

Most of the food that feeds the world is grown NIMBY on rural land set aside for agriculture, in most cases big ag. Large tracts of land are planted with a single crop, one variety of a particular genus and species, for as far as the eye can see. This is the antithesis of diversity. There is no ecosystem involved. The soils may even be sterilized by chemical fumigation before the mono-crop is installed. This type of agriculture is unstable and lacks resiliency. If afflicted with an infectious plant pathogen, the whole crop will be susceptible since it is all one and the same clone. It will die without constant human attention because it lacks the self-supportive infrastructure of a diverse ecosystem. And with the exception of perennial crops like fruit and nut trees and grape vines, the vast field must be replanted year after year. Farming is inherently labor intensive, but it is made even more so when it includes labor to kill the soil of all life, labor to deplete the soil of fertility, and labor to chemically supplement the soil with nutrients, a destructive rather than sustainable cycle.

The world’s population is expected to approach 9 billion people by the year 2050. How are we going to feed everybody? It seems that it is our personal and global responsibility to break this cycle in part by taking responsibility for our own food security. The more we can do to feed ourselves and to teach others to feed themselves, the less burden there will be on big ag to use unfriendly practices that might temporarily increase yield but ultimately defeat the principles and practices of permanent agriculture.

This of course is going to mandate an attitude facelift and land use reform so that anyone, regardless of where they live and whether they are vegetarians, flexitarians, or omnivores, can grow their own food at home, in their backyards, front yards, rooftops, parkways, and other under-utilized spaces.

In practice, a permaculturist need not merely replicate a natural ecosystem but can apply an understanding of basic principles and work with nature to design a homestead supported by an intentional ecosystem that includes plants and animals that supply his or her needs.

While this article focuses on food, other cultivable resources include plants for building materials, plants for energy generation, and plants for other uses. Learn more about permaculture here.

Enjoy this? You might also be interested in Donna’s other work as Long Beach Urban Agriculture Examiner,  Long Beach Restaurant Examiner, National Science News Examiner and founder and executive director of Long Beach Grows.


Copyright © 2011 Donna Marykwas; All rights reserved.

Top 12 New Year’s resolutions for a happier, healthier, greener, more sustainable Long Beach

1. Instead of using the words my, mine, me, and I, try substituting the words our, ours, us, and we. 
2. Grow some of our own produce, at our own homes or at a community garden or community farm co-op. Local food is food security!
3. Source and buy the rest of our produce from local growers, preferably at one of Long Beach’s numerous farmers’ markets to show our support of a local food economy.
4. Eat more greens. They are good for us. Here is a great recipe to try.
5. Share our excess with those who are less fortunate than we are. Excess food can be shared via SoCal Harvest or other local sharing resources. Other items that we no longer need can be donated to charity or exchanged for items that better meet our needs at the Seven-Ten Swap and potluck held on the third Friday of each month at the Catalyst Space, 430 E. 1st Street, Long Beach.
6. Share our time, knowledge, skills, and expertise by joining the Long Beach Time Exchange. Encourage others to too.
7. Become a catalyst for community action. “Connect and Affect” by joining the Catalyst Network of Communities.
8. Join LONG BEACH GROWS to help grow our urban community farm co-op.
9. Explore our neighborhoods and meet our neighbors while getting some exercise. Some say that a simple half hour walk once a day is all it takes to keep our hearts healthy. Our dogs will appreciate the walks too. But please scoop the poop and throw it into a trash can!
10. While taking that daily walk, be on the lookout for under-utilized space such as vacant lots, relatively open land, and sizable flat rooftops in Long Beach. Please share this information with LONG BEACH GROWS.
11. Sign the petition to permit urban agriculture in Long Beach.
12. Make an effort to attend some of the monthly meetings of our city’s Sustainable City Commission, the City Council, and other committees. We can use these opportunities to make our voices heard. Attendance at these meetings is instructive to see how things get done and to learn about who is making what decisions that impact us all.

Copyright © 2011 Donna Marykwas; All rights reserved.