Woolman Blog

On the second full day of our Great Turning trip, we visited an awesome organization called Movement Generation in Oakland. We walked through the side gate of a house into a backyard garden filled with edible plants and beautiful flowers. From there we passed a small room that is their office space and entered a room in which they fed us cookies and juice as Ellen, one of the staff, gave us a presentation. We saw images and heard statistics on environmental issues and environmental justice, especially within communities.

Next, we went outside into the garden space and participated in a few engaging activities that Ellen lead. In these, we used our bodies to act out different environment and justice related scenarios with different rules to limit our movement. This offered new perspectives on possible solutions to some issues that the world is facing right now due to the unique creative outlook that the exercises had.

Before saying our goodbyes, we drove about ten minutes to a fenced in grassy area. Ellen had explained to us during her presentation that this land was previously used for Occupy the Farm. Residents of Oakland guerilla gardened on it for about 3 weeks before being kicked out by the owners of the land and the police. Here, she answered our questions about this particular action, Occupy the Farm in general, and what it means for citizens to re-claim land. Lastly, we did a bit of a debrief in which we stated one thing that stood out to us and one further action that we plan on taking that is related to what we learned there. A lot of people, including myself expressed shock in some of the environmental statistics that we heard. The action that I decided to take was to research what re-claiming the land might mean for my community back home. Overall, I think that our visit at Movement Generation was very hope-instilling because of all of the cool stuff that is being done in the Bay area due to their work. Along with that, personally, I was very inspired to take action. I am not sure exactly what this will mean, but I know that I will be thinking about it a lot over the next few weeks and I hope to implement some of the things that I learned at Movement Generation when I am back in Pennsylvania. 

To learn more about Movement Generation, please visit: http://www.movementgeneration.org

On the second to last day of our global issue trip in San Francisco, after visiting anarchist "hackers" (not to be confused with people breaking into computers, but rather these folks were all about creating/making/hacking from objects that already exist!) we went to this discrete entrance to a building. It was one of those bared doors that you see in the city, those ones that you don’t think twice about, the ones that are almost invisible to someone walking by. Those doors that you know you will never be able to get into to see whats inside. Well, we got in, and what was behind the door was magic of the human heart.

What this place was Station 40, the host area of Food Not Bombs. Food Not Bombs is a volunteer organization that prepares food (that would have otherwise been wasted) for homeless people on certain days of the week. Due to the dumpster diving and serving that food to the public, prepared in a kitchen not certified by anything or anyone, the legality of the operation is sketchy. But their view is that it is even sketchier to throw away food and let people starve.

The people who operate Food Not Bombs are just ordinary people with jobs already, giving their time and energy to collect and make food for the homeless community. Although the fact of what they are doing is illegal, that doesn’t stop them. They are not waiting for the government or anyone else to take care of the problem, they are taking charge and helping in the most sustainable, cheapest and best way they can.

Lately I’ve been thinking about integrity. Integrity with our beliefs, and how we live in this society. If we all lived with integrity, we would all be better off. One person that we talked to was teeming with integrity and self-loyalty. Her name is Chie Abad, and she is a former sweatshop worker for Gap Clothing Store. She was working in Saipan, as a seamstress sewing clothes in really bad working conditions, working 17 hour shifts, and only eating Ramen Noodles for meals. As she moved up positions in the factory, she was kept as a person that talked to all the seamstresses about how many pieces they got done that day. Since she kept in conversation with them, she got to hear each individual’s story, which made her empowerment to expose the working conditions grow stronger and stronger. Chie ended up taking a hidden camera into the workplace, and exposing a video of the factory on a video that went viral and was featured on television for the world to see. She then came to the U.S. and won a court case that made the Gap Corporation remunerate all of the underpaid, under-cared for employees including Chie. Chie started working for Global Exchange, working as an activist towards rights for sweatshop workers around the globe. She honored her integrity, and fought against the very thing that was keeping her life locked up. Now she spreads her message all around and inspires everyone with her courageous story.

To learn more about Chie's anti-sweatshop work at Global Exchange, please visit: http://www.globalexchange.org/fairtrade/sweatfree

This season we grew the most beautiful flowers yet.  While this is great for the beneficial insects they attracted and all of that, I have a new appreciation for the inherent value of beauty on the farm. There is something so heart opening about walking into a space where there is care for aesthetics and beauty. The flowers travelled about campus making regular appearances at meal times, in the administrative offices, as birthday surprises and even to our CSA member’s homes and the vegetable stands at our partner schools. 

Our local school partnerships also blossomed. I now wear another hat as the Farm to School director for Live Healthy Nevada County; creating farm to school partnerships with eleven K-8 grade schools around the county. Woolman is the “farm partner” for 3 local schools, meaning that we provide classroom visits, produce for their campus produce stand, and farm field trips of up to 60 students at a time rotating them through activities such as apple picking, cider pressing, wheat threshing, bug explorations, harvesting, and composting. 

Fall on the farm was abundant. Again, the interns made the herculean effort to harvest, can, dry, freeze, and ferment; preserving that fresh produce in its prime, just minutes away from where it grew, still vibrant and chalk full of phytochemicals.  Woolman students enjoyed their farm time in the through weekly shared work, their farm to table class, their natural building class, and several sustainability projects.  Interns spent participated in all aspects of running the farm and got the theory behind it in our weekly farming class. In addition, we had campers, work campers, home schoolers, volunteers, and community members all helping out and harvesting from the garden.  All tolled; about 700 people participated in growing (and more in eating) the food from the Woolman Farm this season.

While the season is coming to a close and summer crops are being pulled to make way for cover crop, things are just getting rolling in our newly constructed hoop house. Through grand community effort; our hoop house now stands tall and we are harvesting our first summer squash, basil and lettuces from within, while looking forward to spinach, turnips, and greens to relish this winter and spring!

Did you know that 3 million tons of chocolate are consumed every year? This fact may not come as a shock to you. Chocolate is a common candy that commercials idolize and is sold conventionally at almost every store. Some holidays revolve around candy. In fact, Americans alone purchase around 600 million pounds of candy each Halloween.₁ Chocolate is a cheap, delicious sweet that can be acquired easily. Here is something to think about in the upcoming Halloween season: where is my chocolate coming from?

An article published in 2009 called Islaves by Tim Newman articulated this, "Ivory coast, located on the southern coast of West Africa, is by far the World's largest supplier of cocoa beans, providing 43% of the world's supply. There are 600,000 cocoa farms in Ivory Coast which together account for one-third of the nation's entire economy."₂ Another product commonly harvested in the Ivory Coast is coffee. Most of the workers on the Ivory Coast are 12-14 year old children who have been sold into slave labor. The children are smuggled from a country called Mali in west Africa.₃ They are then put on buses and shipped to the Ivory Coast to work on cocoa plantations. In the video,Slavery in the Chocolate Industry, a bus driver was interviewed with his experience on the issue, he said, "In 2006, I discovered 132 children that were being trafficked. 97 were boys, and 35 were girls. In 2007 there were 140, 99 boys and 41 girls."₃ Children are taken from rural areas, lured by the promise of receiving money to bring back home. Most will never see their family again.

When asked if companies knew where their chocolate originated from, most said they did not know. Some stated that their cocoa was from the Ivory Coast but claimed to be unaware of the working conditions. Also, companies said they buy from sources that claim to have good working conditions and that tracking their product back to its original source is not an issue they address.₃ Although many of the companies we have come to know and love, such as Hershey's, Reese's, Nestle, Godiva, Kraft, Ben and Jerry's and M&M Mars have signed the Harkin-Engel Protocol (an agreement that sets rules of purchasing and growing cocoa beans)₄ many of these companies still buy from the Ivory Coast. Some companies are getting away with purchasing these products while saying they are Fair Trade. But how fair is Fair Trade?

Fair Trade puts guidelines out and sells a pretty convincing product review, they state, "You can enjoy chocolate that makes you feel as good as it tastes! Cocoa farmers are often forced to sell their harvest to middlemen who rig scales or misrepresent prices, and media reports of child slavery show the stark contrast between the delicious treat and the difficult conditions of the people who produce it. Fair Trade certification ensures that farmers receive a fair price, allows farmers to invest in techniques that bring out the flavors of the region, and strictly prohibits slave and child labor."₆ The product review does not address the fact that to be certified "Fair Trade," a product only needs to be 10% fair trade_7. This certification allows companies to purchase cocoa and coffee from people in unfair working conditions. It is easy for companies to get a Fair Trade label and it is easy to fool the public by doing so. So don't be fooled by the labels-look into the products you are buying and trace them back to their original source. It is possible to be aware of where your food is coming from.

Hope for the cocoa and coffee industry is apparent. Companies such as Equal Exchange practice authentic fair trade.₈ Fair trade isn't all bad if you know what you are buying and the work ethics the companies adhere to. There are organizations such as the International Rescue Committee₉ , International Labor Rights Forum_10, and Free the Slaves₁₀ that you can donate to, to help the issue of slavery on the Ivory Coast. Unfair working conditions are an issue that should not go unnoticed. Be mindful of what you buy and who your purchases affect and change will occur over time.

SOURCES

1. http://www.ibtimes.com/halloween-2011-it%E2%80%99s-time-candy-corn-and-chocolates-too-photos-708928

2. Islaves by Tim Newman. Published May 02, 2009 @7:30AM PT

3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNpwIzeyjKQ(Slavery in the Chocolate Industry)

4. http://www.cocoainitiative.org/images/stories/pdf/harkin%20engel%20protocol.pdf

5. http://slavefreechocolate.org/tag/harkin-engel-protocol/

6. http://www.fairtradeusa.org/products-partners/cocoa

7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairtrade_certification

8. http://www.equalexchange.coop/fair-trade

9. http://www.rescue.org/where/ivory_coast?ms=gg_nonb_zzz_zzzz_an_zzzzzz&gclid=CJjzmsOq_LICFURxQgod4ycAkQ

10. http://www.laborrights.org/stop-child-labor/cocoa-campaign

11. https://www.freetheslaves.net/SSLPage.aspx?pid=184

 “By what name will future generations know our time?

Will they speak in anger and frustration of the time of the Great Unraveling, when profligate consumption exceeded Earth's capacity to sustain and led to an accelerating wave of collapsing environmental systems, violent competition for what remained of the planet's resources, and a dramatic dieback of the human population?

 Or will they look back in joyful celebration on the time of the Great Turning, when their forebears embraced the higher-order potential of their human nature, turned crisis into opportunity, and learned to live in creative partnership with one another and Earth?”

-David Korten

Activist, authors, indigenous elders, and philosophers from many countries and backgrounds describe this point in human and natural history as The Great Turning. Essentially, it is a term that recognizes that we are at a crossroads, and that continuing the path that we have been on for the last 100 years will lead to unmatched devastation of human and natural life. However, there are actions, alternatives, and solutions springing up in areas of human rights, economics, the environment, (and so much more!) that are actively combating these crises. The best news is that the folks participating in these actions are having fun in the meanwhile!

The Great Turning Trip’s goals will be two-fold. Part of the experience will include a tour of some of the fantastic organizations located in the San Francisco Bay, a mecca of terrific visionaries for a more just and sustainable future. But, much of the time will also be spent in interactive workshops with leading activists, using internationally acclaimed methodology for helping us to get in touch with our own individual roles in The Great Turning. Being an activist means something different to each of us and the hope is that through experiencing and being introduced to a range of activism and alternative systems, we will be able to see how we might each use what makes us happy in life to make the world a better place!

If you would like to learn more about The Great Turning, here is an article by David Korten:

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/5000-years-of-empire/the-great-turning-from-empire-to-earth-community-1

Below is the tentative schedule for the week with brief descriptions of both the activities and the organizations that we will be working with:

Before the week begins, we will make each person a Secret Angel to someone. Make sure you don't tell the person.

Each person's Secret Angel will do nice things for her/him during the entire week in secret. These might include having someone else give the angel receiver a hug or shoulder massage, or a present or flower "from your secret angel," or a nice note or picture, or anything else conjured up through creativity and caring.  There is NO expectation of purchased gifts; in fact anything bought should cost no more than $2. Under no circumstances should anyone tell anyone else whose Secret Angel is whose.

At the end of the week, Secret Angels reveal themselves.

What: Global Exchange is an international human rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world. Representatives of the organization will be there to speak about their work on their Elect Democracy campaign and the Caravan for Peace this summer with victims of the drug war in Mexico/U.S. Chie Abad, a former GAP sweatshop worker will also be able to speak with the students again about her work around sweatshop organizing. Students will also hear about Community & Nature's Rights movements against corporate power.

What: Walk through the alleyways interpreting and experiencing the immense amount of expressive and often political murals in the Mission.

What: Learn SAGE history and services, Human Trafficking 101, case scenarios, and success stories.

The Canticle Farm: 9-1:15

What:  The Canticle Farm is an intentional community based off of the values of The Great Turning and the ideas of nonviolence, service, and sustainability. The community and its urban farm are located in downtown Oakland. Please click link to read an article about the community:

We will be touring, learning about intentional communities, and engaging in activities.

What: The Movement Generation Justice & Ecology Project provides in-depth analysis and information about the global ecological crisis and facilitates strategic planning for action among leading organizers from urban Bay Area organizations working for economic and racial justice in communities of color.

Grassroots activism workshop with Levana Saxon: 9-4

What: Learn more about strategic planning for activism and specifically we will plan, execute, and film a Flash Mob!

What: City Slickers was founded by West Oakland residents to increase food self-sufficiency by creating sustainable, high-yield urban farms and backyard gardens. We will be visiting one of their main sites that was formerly a trash covered park where people hung out and dealt drug and is now a farm stand on Saturdays!

What: Located in SF’s Castro District, the GLBT History Museum is the first full-scale, stand-alone museum of its kind in the United States. The museum celebrates 100 years of the city’s vast queer past through dynamic exhibitions and programming.

What: AFSC San Francisco coordinates staff, volunteers, and resources for programs in peace-building, counter-recruitment, Middle East peace, healing justice, and public education about issues of homeless people. We will participate in workshops on these issues.

What: Bay Area Community Exchange (BACE) a collaborative network that supports the development of alternative means of exchange in the San Francisco Bay Area, will host the event. They will introduce us to the Gift Economy concept and the idea of the Time Bank. The Happiness Institute is a space where community members collaborate and work on social projects.

What: Trash Mash-Up is a community art project. Using disposable materials, collected before they enter the waste stream, participants construct “Maskostumes” which are original pageant masks and costumes inspired by traditions from around the world. TMU reduces waste and inspires people to see each other and our environment in a new way.

What: Using actual bird species as inspiration for her sometimes grotesque forms, Djurberg explores physical and psychological transformation as well as pageantry, perversion, and abjection in avian society. In addition to the wild flock of more than eighty freestanding bird sculptures on view, the exhibition also includes five animated films, in which avian psychology is superimposed upon human behavior with extraordinary results. Her clay animations are set to music and sound effects by her partner and collaborator Hans Berg.

Nayland Blake was one of the pioneers of performance art in the Bay Area in the 1980s. His work often explored aspects of the queer urban lifestyle. Though now based in New York, his most recent work is a return to his earlier processes from that period, where materials and spontaneity generate sculptural works that are informal, precarious, nonsensical, and odd or uncanny. For his upcoming solo exhibition at YBCA, Blake will create spontaneous sculptures using his life as the catalyst. Also included in the exhibition are a DJ booth stocked with Blake’s collection of over three thousand LPs, which visitors will be invited to spin; and the recreation of a mural by Chuck Arnett (1962), which decorated the wall of the Tool Box, a leather bar in what is now San Francisco’s SoMa district.

While Woolman has been a great adventure so far, no other activity has come close to the food intensive. Throughout the six days, the amount of experience and perspective I gained about the food system is unprecedented. One stop on our packed trip was to Full Belly Farm in Guinda. In class while reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, we learned about small-scale, mostly organic farms that operate with the assistance of the animals that live on the farm, illustrated by Pollan using the model used by Joel Salatin at Polyface Farms. In the book, Pollan describes how Salatin uses his animals to help fertilize and replenish the fields. At Full Belly Farm, we saw exactly this in action. After a field has been farmed, the farmers at Full Belly plant a cover crop. Once this grows, they set their sheep onto the field, which will eat all the grass and help fertilize the soil and provide their animals with food. In addition, after corn has been harvested they let the cows eat the remaining plants. Both of these are concepts described by Pollan.

Another one of my favorite places that we visited on our trip was the Wolfskill USDA germplasm repository. I was completely enthralled by the concept that they essentially had almost every single variety of grapes and figs. The scale of this place hit me as I was roaming the grape vineyards sampling all the different varieties and pondering the fact that there are so many different types of grapes that I had never tasted before, let alone heard of. While many students were disturbed by the fact that nobody was eating the food, I wasn’t. I don’t feel that it is somehow wrong that that food is going to “waste” because in my opinion, what the scientists at Wolfskill are doing with those plants is more important in the long term and will keep more people from going hungry further down the line, in addition to the fact that they give away clippings of the plants per request. Over all the food intensive was a great experience which really helped me shape my opinion about how I think I should eat and where to get my food. I now feel confident in my decisions pertaining to food and way of life after hearing many conflicting views and ideas throughout this trip.

Agriculture and food have always been something that I've really liked learning about. This past week I have learned so much! I went on a trip that took me through the Bay Area of California, and really exposed me to some amazing places. The first place I landed was the Eco Fair in Marin County. The main attraction at the fair was a man named Van Jones, who is an environmental advocate, and briefly worked for Obama. Although he was an important part, there were also really ground breaking companies, who all attended the fair with hopes of helping Marin. Another thing I really liked while I was in Santa Rosa was the Summerfield Waldorf School. I loved how the school has a farm on their campus where many of the students could get involved. Another stop we made was Swanton Berry Farm, close to Santa Cruz. I really thought our guide, Bear, was honest about his job. He talked about how his farm was one of the only unionized berry farms and gave the workers an opportunity to own part of the company. He described that even though farming is really hard work and doesn't always make the most money, he still liked it. 

Many days were spent driving along the coast. It was my first time seeing the Pacific Ocean, and California! The Golden Gate Bridge was also really big for me. It was really awesome that we stopped at one end and got out to look around. I love seeing new places, so I really enjoyed driving through the cities. 

Full Belly Farm was probably my favorite place that we visited. Fully Belly was founded by two families twenty eight years ago, and has evolved into quite a successful organic farm! Most of their employees are Spanish speaking immigrants who get full health benefits and fair pay. Their jobs are also guaranteed through out the whole year, even during the slower winter season. One of my fellow students, who speaks Spanish, asked a man how long he had been working there and he said fourteen years. The system they had established seemed very solid, and I really liked how they ran the farm. 

Throughout the whole trip, my thoughts about agriculture changed a lot, and now I've been thinking a lot more about studying it in college. There are so many different aspects about it including; sustainable farming, GMO's, and solutions for feeding more people in the future. I'm really looking forward to learning more, and seeing where else it will take me!

I learned a lot on the our food intensive field trip.  There were a lot of things that were complicated, interesting, cool, mind-blowing. I gained a lot of knowledge about food, life and sustainability. There were a lot of things that I agreed with and disagreed with. I especially like how we started with politics and ended it at an organic farm.

I agreed with what Van Jones said about how to make changes in the U.S. I also like how he gave everyone the sad information about the country first and then he ended the speech by giving people hope for change. Moreover I feel that it is a fact when he said “if you want to make a change you have to make a move towards that to make it change”. Another place that we visited that I liked was Veritable Vegetable. I liked it because I learned a lot about labor. It was pretty shocking to me when I learned that the majority of the physical labor in their company is done by women, as I had previously believed that only men do that type of work. From my perspective I think it is unfair that people who do physical labor traditionally get paid less than people who work in an office. I think that this system should change.

My favorite of the trip, though, was James who gave a speech about American lifestyle and simple life. He talked about how we are consuming and wasting a lot of our resources. James believes that we should reclaim some of the ways we used to live back in the day and combine them with some of our best modern technology, which I strongly agree with. While it might not be possible or desirable to go back to how things were 100 years ago. I think we would all be happier living much simpler lives, which although difficult is not impossible. In order to live a simple life, one must surround oneself with people who live simple lives, which will in turn make it easier to live one's own life simply. I can relate to this because when I was in India I lived a very simple life and I was a very happy person. However, when I came to U.S. I always bought/consumed to keep myself happy which only gave me the fake happiness.