San Diego Roots: Food for All
posted 5/5/09 by John
After a moment’s hesitation, I walk into the meeting for San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project. Once more, I’m late, unprepared, and a bit frazzled from getting lost. I managed to get turned around on the way here (about a mile from our hostel), overshoot the food co-op where the meeting is being held, and then have trouble finding the meeting room. And this time, I have to do it all alone. I left Julia sleeping at the Ocean Beach HI hostel, trying to get over feeling ill.
I pull a chair up to the table and sit down. One guy looks at me quizzically, but then a woman gives me a smile. Fifty percent isn’t bad for starters.
Once I get oriented, I realize they’re going over workshop ideas, as well as reviewing recent successes. Ideas are being thrown around for wild foods, animal husbandry, and tool building workshops. It all sounds very cool, but I’m still trying to get a grasp on what’s going on. I’ve walked into something unexpected. I’m first struck by the people present: the age range is huge, but they are all healthy and attractive people. Nearly everyone is dressed professionally; there’s even a man in a suit, and one of the women looks like the uptight redhead from Sex in the City (which Julia’s made me watch a few times). What’s more, they’re all smart, articulate, and talented: they document everything, one’s in video production, and another is an established holistic health practitioner. I’ll overlook the use of words like “foody” and their steel water bottles and bottles of Kombucha, but suffice it to say that this was not a cross section of the San Diego populace (they were all white, for one). But that turned out not to matter.
Everyone in the group seemed sincerely dedicated to creating and encouraging local, sustainable food sources, as well as creating education opportunities related to sustainable foods. Over the course of the meeting, they talked about the Food Justice Conference, community gardens, victory gardens, a sustainability-oriented art show, gardening classes, Food Not Bombs, and their dream of opening an organic educational farm just outside the city. And the thing is, they were earnestly trying to make all these things free and working to encourage all San Diego residents to attend. They’re looking to buy land for their farm in south county, so they can be accessible to people who don’t have an organic farm in their area.
Just like every other sustainability-oriented group we’ve seen, however, there is pushback. Roots wants to start as many community gardens as possible, since there’s now a two year waiting list for just about every existing one in San Diego. The city government, on the other hand, is not interested in seeing any more gardens. No one really knows why, but it’s assumed that the attitude is, “we’ve done enough to show that we’re catering to this movement, so it’s time to stop.” There’s talk of Silver City, NM, where they’re establishing community gardens in any public place that’s already irrigated. Roots would need a little more leverage to convince the San Diego government of that, though.
Additionally, the members of Roots feel they have to censor themselves to some degree, since their main sponsor is the swank Ocean Beach Organic Foods Co-op, where the meeting is being held. They want to show a film about sustainable local food harvesting in Alaska, but this gets to be a problem when there’s a long sequence about killing and gutting a moose. It’s sustainable, but too many people associate killing animals with things like the outright slaughter of the American Bison (not to mention the mental image of Sarah Palin shooting moose out of a helicopter). Matt, who seemed to be in charge, said, “sustainability is a term seeking definition.” Roots doesn’t want to take sides, but to show the community their options and let them decide. They’re discovering, however, that money and bias go
hand in hand. That doesn’t mean they’re going to give up, though.
* * *
When the meeting ends, no one leaves; they all break into groups and talk. The man in the suit starts talking to me and it turns out that he’s there representing a business that’s interested in partnering with Roots. We exchange business cards, and I lose his soon after.
We stop talking, and I move over to introduce myself to Em, who is in charge of the Growing Places art show. They’re trying for a 3 or 4 day exhibition with workshops, hoping to get San Diego’s creative scene hooked up with Roots. The problem is that the show’s in July and they don’t have a space yet. We talk about Growing Places a bit, and I give her a few tips on getting space I learned in the DC art scene. She asks about the OGA trip (wanting to know if we’re going to write a book, like everyone else does), and what else we’re looking at in San Diego. I tell her that we haven’t found much, and she agrees that sustainable action is pretty sparse here. It’s just hard to keep the worries of the world in mind when you’re living in paradise. When I mention the City College Urban Farm, she points out Julia, who is in charge of the farm. This proves to be a great connection, and Julia is very excited to have us visit during their work hours tomorrow. Eventually, the conversation leaves me behind and I leave.
* * *
Ocean Beach is a cute town, like Ocean City, Myrtle Beach, or the Outer Banks before they got tons of attention and the massive building started. The shops are funky and there’s a hand painted roadside hotdog and smoothie stand. I walk out to the beach and put my feet in the water. There’s a cold to the water here that’s different than the east coast, even in winter. The Pacific Ocean is anything but pacific when it reaches the coast. Wave piles on wave until the entire breaking surf is well over my head. The water is steely and turbulent. Someone told me that Ocean Beach is a great place to swim. She must have been hit on the head with one too many breakers. I saw one surfer out, and even he seemed to be having trouble. I saw two new seagulls during my walk, something that excites me inordinately, since I have an affection for just about anything from the ocean.
On my way off the beach, I run across the local Food Not Bombs on a little lawn with palm trees overlooking the Pacific. Stumbling over a sustainable action accidentally like this makes me think that San Diego isn’t as far behind as some people might think.
You can learn more about San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project at SanDiegoRoots.org.