“Bees love buckwheat,” says Keith Kisler, a farmer who co-owns Chimacum Valley Grainery, a mill, bakery, and brewery on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Kisler and his wife, Crystie, cultivate barley, quinoa, rye, spelt, and wheat on about 70 acres of organic farmland, but buckwheat has become one of his favorite crops.

That’s because buckwheat—planted in late May and harvested in early October—is remarkably easy to grow. “In between, there’s really nothing done to that field,” Kisler says. “I don’t do any weed control, and we don’t water. It’s planted, it germinates, it grows, it flowers, it’s harvested.”

Buckwheat is also easy to mill into flour and adds a rich, earthy flavor to some of the Grainery’s products, like bread, beer, and pasta. By managing every step of the process, from cultivation to the finished product, Kisler has overcome buckwheat’s greatest challenge in the U.S.—a solid infrastructure that connects producers with consumers.

Buckwheat flour can be used in a range of recipes, including noodles, pictured here, as well as crêpes, blinis, and cookies. (Photo credit: Crystie Kisler, Chimacum Valley Grainery)

Buckwheat has a long bloom period, can build healthy soil, and is nutrient-dense, making it good not only for bees and farmers, but also planet and people. These multiple benefits are why Kisler and a team of scientists are working together to test new varieties of buckwheat and to build a local market for it.

Led by researchers at Washington State University (WSU) and supported by funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), they hope to increase organic production of this underutilized, low-input crop—one with the potential to address larger challenges like nutrition access and climate change.

A Versatile Seed

Buckwheat originated in southwestern China, featuring in Asian cuisines for thousands of years before spreading to Eastern Europe, likely in the 15th century. Today, China is the world’s second largest producer of buckwheat after Russia. The grain arrived in North America during European colonization and was a favorite of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, due to its capacity to suppress weeds.

Its culinary uses, however, have yet to be fully explored in the U.S., where it is still typically treated as an export item or cover crop. About 27,000 acres of buckwheat were grown here in 2017, the most recent year that data on buckwheat plantings were available.

Washington is the nation’s second top producer of buckwheat after North Dakota, with approximately 6,000 to 8,000 acres, according to Kevin Murphy, a WSU professor of international seed and cropping systems and the director of Breadlab, WSU’s grain research center. Almost all of the seed grown in the Northwest state is exported to Japan for making soba noodles.

Kisler’s buckwheat, grown on 12 acres that produce 16,000 to 18,000 pounds of seed annually, remains in his regional food system. His brother, on the other hand, grows between 200 and 300 acres of buckwheat in eastern Washington, entirely for export to Japan.

“There’s a need for different scales of operations,” Kisler says. “For somebody like my brother to grow several hundred acres of buckwheat and for small production at a local level.” 

At 71, Schwartz has learned plenty about these wild alliums since he moved here in 2006—and he’s eager to share.

In early May, the woods all around him are carpeted with lush green ramp leaves, clumped so tightly together it’s hard to tell one plant from the next. At last, he finds what he’s been looking for and takes a seat on a fallen log. As a woodpecker hammers in the distance, he picks up a dried seed head, left over from last year.

“This,” he said, “is what it’s all about.”

Flavor From the Woods

Within their fleeting window of availability, foragers and consumers prize ramps for pickling, grilling, pesto, or any adventurous way to enjoy their gentle bite. Here in Pennsylvania, their leaves peek out in April, and by late May they have begun to deteriorate, turning yellow and dying back to make way for a flower stalk. In some regions, the season can stretch to June. The early summer blooms develop seeds by the end of the summer, which eventually fall to the ground as one of the plant’s two modes of reproduction, the other being bulb division.

Every spring, dozens of visitors come to Delaware Valley Ramps, Schwartz’s wooded 20-acre property in Equinunk, to pick the glossy, garlicky greens that are the first to emerge after winter’s thaw. Schwartz offers his wisdom on respectful harvesting to visitors who pay $65 to pick ramps for two hours. He asks them to take only those with three leaves, which are more mature than those with one or two, so they all have a chance to reproduce before they’re picked.

He waits until later in the season to allow harvesting, because larger plants require fewer to make a pound, leaving more in the ground to sustain the patch. He also urges visitors to take only one from each clump so that none is overburdened, and he rotates through several patches to keep them all thriving.

It’s the least he can do to protect the population he found in abundance on his property when he bought it, lured by the Delaware River’s revered wild trout fishery. Although his land has no shortage of ramps, their future elsewhere is under pressure.

In the early 1990s, after Martha Stewart first sang their praises and fine-dining chefs began putting ramps on seasonal spring menus, demand soared, especially in urban centers where they often sell for $25 per pound or more. Eager foragers fanned out into the woods, and it wasn’t long before concerns grew about population decline.

The whole plant is delicious, but every bulb removed from the earth is one less to sustain the wild population. For years, conservationists have worried that avid harvesting of bulbs will endanger a plant whose value is as much cultural as it is commercial.

In both Indigenous and Appalachian communities, ramps are celebrated as a sign of spring with medicinal properties that can revive the spirit after a long, hard winter. Horticulturalists and ramp enthusiasts are working to better understand where and why they flourish and how humans can encourage their proliferation before it’s too late.

Can Ramps Be Farmed?

Although ramps grow wild, they’re often tended by property owners and harvesters, like Schwartz, who practice forest farming, which Burkhart describes as the cultivation and management of non-timber products under a forest canopy. Ramps and other forest foods are “the crack people can look through to get excited about their forests, rather than just seeing them as a source of timber revenue,” he said. And unlike most forest products, consumers already crave ramps, so expanding their supply can help harvesters meet demand while ensuring the plant population isn’t depleted.

Schwartz’s land is a suitable place to explore the potential of forest farming, because his methods are clearly working: His land now produces more ramps than ever. He’s seeing new patches flourishing on the property where none had grown before, which means their range is expanding, possibly due to the seeds being dispersed more widely by turkeys and other wildlife.

Today, his property includes a half-dozen 6-by-8-foot plots dedicated to studying whether ramps can be successfully regrown after they’re harvested by replanting the base of their bulbs. The study, designed and run by Schwartz in collaboration with Burkhart and still funded by a Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education producer grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, aims to help balance productive yields with long-term conservation.

“It’s the test of the hypothesis that you can eat your ramp and plant it, too,” Schwartz said as he surveyed the ramps in one of the study plots. “And it looks like it’ll work.”

Rooted in Culture

Karelle Hall, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and a member of the Nanticoke Tribe of Delaware, visited Schwartz’s property this spring as part of a broader effort to relearn ancestral traditions and get more people in her community to engage with ramps and other culturally significant foods, she said. A cousin who joined her that day operates the Native Roots Farm Foundation, focused on reconnecting Indigenous communities with their plant relatives.

Although she’d purchased them before at farmers’ markets, it was Hall’s first time harvesting ramps herself. It felt particularly significant to do so right beside the headwaters of the Delaware River, which supported the Nanticoke and Lenape tribes in pre-colonial times, she said. With her harvest, she made soups and stews, ramp butter to eat with a venison roast, and ramp salt that she’ll share with relatives to strengthen her community’s connection to the plant.

The approach to harvesting that she saw at Delaware Valley Ramps echoes the practices central to Indigenous relationships with the natural world, she said. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, for example, advocate taking just the leaves so bulbs can continue to propagate.

The gentle manipulation of a landscape can help a plant species feel more at home, encouraging it to grow into the space it’s allowed, Hall explained, as long as one rule is always followed: “Never deplete it to the point that it can’t repopulate itself.”

Jeanine Davis, an associate professor in horticultural science at North Carolina State University, has kept that principle in mind for more than 30 years, ever since a botanist in her state government asked for her help studying ramps as concerns grew about their declining population.

Within a decade, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, straddling North Carolina and Tennessee, made ramp harvesting illegal; three national parks in West Virginia followed suit in 2022. Although studies on the subject are scant, Burkhart said populations have diminished over time, but in Pennsylvania, at least, the issue is not overharvesting but the fact that favorable ramp habitats have been developed for other uses.

Back when she started studying ramps, Davis said the general consensus was that they couldn’t be cultivated, but she helped show they can indeed be grown, given the right conditions—including slightly acidic, moist soil and sufficient shade. She’s now researching how different harvest practices—say, the number of leaves or portion of a bulb taken—affect a population.

In addition to her work with the plants themselves, Davis has studied the role they play in the mountain communities that have celebrated ramps for generations. There, she said, they are “like a spring tonic,” rich in nutrients and minerals, including vitamins A and C. A 2000 study, she noted, found that thanks to their naturally high quantities of selenium, ramps have the potential to reduce cancer in humans.

Davis remembers the “mind-boggling” volume of ramps she saw the first time she attended one of many annual festivals in Richwood, West Virginia, about 25 years ago. “Pickup truck after pickup truck full of them,” she recalled. She was impressed by how the festival was truly a community effort, with the entire town seemingly involved in some way.

In time, though, as ramps gained broader popularity, “What we’d always thought of as a food for country people, hunters, and fishermen was suddenly a gourmet item,” she said. Although she’s enjoyed seeing more people appreciate the plant, its success poses a challenge for conservation efforts.

Sharing an Ecosystem

Steve Schwartz considers himself an accidental forager. Eighteen years ago, he bought a property in Equinunk, Pennsylvania, to gain access to the Delaware River’s vaunted wild trout fishing. Then he discovered ramps growing abundantly on his property and has been selling them since 2008. (Photo credit: Ben Seal)

But Chamberlain worries that ramps may soon go the way of ginseng, another plant once abundant in the Appalachians that he said has been “genetically extirpated from the forest” by unsustainable harvest practices.

“Someday, if we continue doing this, we won’t have ramps,” Chamberlain said. “It would be one more piece of the forest that’s gone.”

However, a 2019 paper that Chamberlain co-authored in Biological Conservation suggested wild cultivation and good stewardship practices could reverse that trend in ginseng and other wild-harvested plants like ramps. He believes forest farming can be part of supporting the sustainability of ramps and other wild plants, when done right. But doing so requires careful and respectful management of a patch that allows it to sustain itself.

“We get up in arms about cutting old-growth timber,” Chamberlain said, “but think nothing about harvesting old-growth ramps.”

For his part, Burkhart wants more people to engage with the landscapes around them, particularly through forest farming, which he believes can harness the woods’ “tremendous potential” to support our food systems. In a state like Pennsylvania that’s nearly 60 percent forested, managing a greater share of the land in an intentional way and utilizing its products can create income sources while promoting conservation, Burkhart said. He also studies ginseng as well as goldenseal, used in herbal medicines.

“We have a whole suite of wild species that people either forage or forget about, but they deserve close examination and consideration as new crops,” Burkhart said.

Despite conventional wisdom about how to sustainably harvest ramps—some suggest taking only the leaves, while others limit themselves to one-tenth of a patch—there is still little actual evidence to guide foragers and forest farmers. The study on Schwartz’s land, which began in 2023, aims to deliver that evidence. This was his second season observing the growth of ramps whose bulbs were replanted in the ground after being harvested.

Using variables including the number of leaves at the time of harvest, the point in the season when harvest occurred, and the amount of bulb that was replanted, he’s studying how well they bounce back year over year. So far, the most mature bulbs appear to have the strongest rate of return.

Once the study is complete, Burkhart wants to expand it to other locations across the state to develop more certainty about the findings and their implications. Schwartz says replanting bulbs in the past has helped him develop new ramp patches, suggesting that further understanding of favorable sites and successful conservation techniques can make a meaningful difference.

For Hall, the Indigenous anthropologist, the vibrant ramp patches in Equinunk hold the promise that more members of her community can engage with the plant and share some of the same excitement she felt. But when it comes to the conservation and management of a food found on the forest floor, she offers a reminder that there are always deeper layers to consider.

Hall’s work focuses on language revitalization, including the conversion of the Nanticoke language into writing. She’s still working on a full translation of the ramp’s name, pumptukwahkii ooleepunak, but she says it conjures the process of a plant popping out of the ground. Like the names of many other plants with a bulb or root system, it’s referred to in Nanticoke as a living being—a who rather than a what. We should remember this as we harvest ramps, she said.

“It’s not just about what’s going to be best for us in this situation,” said Hall. “What’s going to be best for this plant, for the forest, and for all the other beings sharing the ecosystem?”

The post Helping Ramps Flourish Through Forest Farming appeared first on Civil Eats.

https://civileats.com/2025/05/27/warming-waters-cause-invasion-of-sea-squirts-at-maine-fisheries/ https://civileats.com/2025/05/27/warming-waters-cause-invasion-of-sea-squirts-at-maine-fisheries/#comments Tue, 27 May 2025 08:00:43 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=64593 But the critical work of flipping oyster cages—turning them over to combat biofouling and introduce sunlight and air to the bottom—had become impossible. They couldn’t even lift some of them, even though they were made of hollow plastic mesh. The cages were covered and also filled with the globby bodies of sea squirts, invasive marine […]

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In the summer of 2020, Alicia Gaiero began to realize that sea squirts were putting the success of her new oyster farm in jeopardy. She and her two sisters, Amy and Chelsea, were working together to fulfill their dream of a family aquaculture business, Nauti Sisters Sea Farm, in Yarmouth, Maine.

But the critical work of flipping oyster cages—turning them over to combat biofouling and introduce sunlight and air to the bottom—had become impossible. They couldn’t even lift some of them, even though they were made of hollow plastic mesh.

In large numbers, sea squirts—some as large as a pair of tube socks, some smaller than a pinky ring—are surprisingly heavy, and are impacting lobster, oyster, and other fisheries.

The cages were covered and also filled with the globby bodies of sea squirts, invasive marine invertebrates that thrive in the warming waters of the Gulf of Maine and along the coasts of Alaska and the western United States. In large numbers, sea squirts—some as large as a pair of tube socks, some smaller than a pinky ring—are surprisingly heavy, and are impacting lobster, oyster, and other fisheries.

Gaiero had heard that sea squirts could be challenging, but this was out of control. “I’d never seen anything like it,” she says.

By the next season, she felt overwhelmed. “This was ruining my life.”

Blob Invasions Impact Maine’s Fisheries—and Beyond

There are now over 150 independently owned oyster farms in Maine, in part thanks to investment by the state. Under the glistening, still surface of the water, nearly every line and buoy marking a trap or cage is encased with gooey sea squirts—formally known as tunicates, for the tunic-like sheath of fleshy cellulose that covers their siphons, which suck in and filter sea water. The nickname “sea squirts” comes from the fact that they often squirt water when they’re disturbed.

Tunicates, commonly known as sea squirts, are a problem for commercial shellfish farmers, as they glom onto cages and the shellfish themselves. Here, tunicates cover an oyster cage in Casco Bay in Maine. (Photo credit: Alicia Gaiero/Nauti Sisters Sea Farm)

For more than 500 million years, tunicates have existed as simple creatures clinging to underwater substrates and filter feeding on plankton and bacteria. There are hundreds of subspecies. Some have inhabited the Gulf of Maine since the 1800s, arriving in the ballast waters of ships from distant seas; new subspecies have come from Europe and Asia in oyster seed and on cruise ships.

As tunicates spread across oyster cages, mooring lines, and buoys, they add incredible weight, turning a 5-pound oyster cage into an unmanageable 100-pound obstacle. As they proliferate, they compete with bivalves—oysters, mussels, and scallops—for resources and can eventually choke them out entirely. A bivalve covered in globby tunicates can no longer open its shell to feed, and will eventually starve to death.

They were only a mild nuisance to Maine’s working waterfronts until the past decade, when their populations started to soar.

“The biggest thing driving this invasion,” explains Jeremy Miller, research associate and coordinator of the System Wide Monitoring Program at Wells Reserve, “is the warming Gulf of Maine. The Gulf of Maine is getting warmer and warmer every year. Ever since about 2012, we have been going in one direction, and we haven’t had an anomalously cool year since 2007.” According to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, sea surface temperatures in the gulf have been steadily rising at an average of 0.84° F annually, roughly three times that of the world’s oceans.

The Wells Reserve team researches and tracks changes to the environment along the Wells Estuarine Research Reserve, monitoring changes year on year and sharing their findings with the broader scientific community. (Although they are concerned about potential federal cuts to their overall funding, their studies on invasive species receives private foundation money.) The warming waters have had profound impacts on Maine’s fisheries and waterfronts, from the disappearance of Northern shrimp to more frequent flooding events, including so-called “blue sky flooding” in the coastal city of Portland. And those rising temperatures are now driving a sea squirt population boom.

Internal anatomy of a tunicate (Urochordata). Adapted, with permission, from an outline drawing available on BIODIDAC.

Tunicates thrive and spread faster with warmer ocean temperatures. And the rising number of aquaculture farms are providing plentiful structures to which sea squirts can attach themselves and grow.

And there are other factors as well. “The Gulf of Maine, compared to a lot of other parts of the world, is actually fairly low in diversity,” says Larry Harris, Professor Emeritus of Biology Sciences at the University of New Hampshire and co-author of UNH studies on tunicates and warming ocean temperatures. Harris explains that development along the coast of Maine has created the perfect ecosystem for tunicates, with new docks and moorings offering an abundance of substrates for them to attach to in addition to aquaculture farms. Also, tunicates have few true predators in the Gulf of Maine, and overfishing has reduced the number.

Because tunicates are effective filter feeders that grow extremely quickly, they can reproduce alarmingly fast; certain species can double their populations in as little as 8 hours. Some species are considered “colonial,” growing in a super-organism, like coral. Others are called “solitary,” but often appear in clusters and groups because their offspring do not travel far.

And they are not easy to destroy. Cutting a tunicate off a line and throwing it back into the sea doesn’t kill it; a new tunicate will grow from the dismembered piece.

Instead, aquaculture farmers and lobstermen are encouraged to deal with tunicates by desiccation: hauling out traps, lines, and buoys and leaving them in the sun until they fully dry out, which kills the sea squirts. For oyster farmers, combating tunicates means regularly flipping, or “tumbling” the oyster cages to expose the tunicates to the sun.

The Gulf of Maine has a particularly intense tunicate infestation because it’s heating faster than other bodies of water.

The impact of tunicates extends beyond oyster farms. As part of his work at the Wells Reserve, Jeremy Miller manages the Marine Invader Monitoring and Information Collaborative. Traveling to different working waterfronts and Maine islands, he’s found lobstermen complaining about tunicates covering their traps, and hears of mussel farmers whose lines have snapped from the sheer weight of the tunicate blobs. Moreover, the diet of a tunicate—nutrients filtered from seawater—is similar to that of shellfish, reducing resources for native filter feeders.

“People are kind of shocked at the amount of actual biomass of these things,” Miller says. “From a biological standpoint, these are taking nutrients—it takes a lot of stuff to grow that biomass, and it’s all stuff that other things could be using. That creates a big impact on aquaculture.”

The Gulf of Maine has a particularly intense tunicate infestation because it’s heating faster than other bodies of water. But global ocean temperatures are all rising, and tunicates have become a nearly worldwide problem. Three species have appeared in the Puget Sound area of Washington State. Invasive tunicates have even been discovered in the waters off Sitka, Alaska.

Nibbling Away at the Problem

A few radical solutions to the tunicate invasion are in the works. A Norwegian company, Pronofa ASA, has perfected a method for turning the meat of the sea squirt genus Ciona, now common in Maine, into mincemeat for human consumption, much like ground beef.

While not all tunicates are edible, many of the varieties currently invading Maine’s coast are, including clubbed tunicate and members of the Ciona species. Tunicate meat is slightly chewy, reminiscent of calamari. Wild tunicate does look unappetizing, however. The fleshy tubes growing in Maine’s waters are brownish, barrel shaped, and flaccid.

A display of sea pineapples (hoya, known as 海鞘 and 老海鼠in Japanese) at a market. These sea creatures are a delicacy in Japanese cuisine, prized for their unique texture and oceanic flavor, and are often served in sashimi or other traditional dishes. (Photo credit: DigiPub, Getty Images)

It can be a struggle to convince consumers to eat these creatures. But in some parts of the world, they’re a welcome food.

“In Asia, they eat the club tunicate,” explains Larry Harris, University of New Hampshire Professor of Biological Science. “They peel off the outer coating. And in Australia they are a pretty standard part of some diets.” In Chile, a rock-like variety called piure is being embraced by fine-dining establishments as a sustainable and local seafood option.

In Norway, the sea squirts for Pronofa’s culinary experiment are farmed, an idea that causes alarm for Maine farmers as it would mean purposefully introducing tunicates to the environment. It remains to be seen whether intrepid chefs may start experimenting with wild-harvested tunicates. In other parts of the world, including Chile, Argentina, and the Mediterranean, sea squirts are part of the local diet. They are easy to harvest and prepare on any waterfront, and recipes for sea squirts abound in these places.

Even if Americans don’t eat them, sea squirts can be transformed into high-protein feed for various animals, from chickens to salmon, and some have begun exploring that possibility.

University of New Hampshire professor Harris began experimenting with tunicates for animal feed decades ago. But he discovered that a Norwegian company, Ocean Bergen, already held a patent for that purpose, which extended to the U.S., so he discontinued his efforts. Ocean Bergen is one of a handful of Norwegian companies working with tunicates as a future food-system solution. Researchers believe that Ciona, which thrives in the freezing waters around Norway, could help clean the water around salmon farms, filtering out the excess nutrients that cause harmful algal blooms.

Two varieties of tunicate that are taking over Maine waters. (Photo courtesy of the Wells Estuarine Reserve)

Scientists are also experimenting with using tunicates for biofuels. Because they produce cellulose to make their outer tunic bodies, tunicates can be broken down to produce ethanol. Since initial studies in 2013, tunicates have been suggested as a potential fuel of the future, but progress with these experiments has been slow and heavily regulated.

Using tunicates for animal food or biofuels would also involve cultivating them for a reliable harvest, which would meet resistance from the aquaculture industry. Since sea squirts are already wreaking havoc on the seafront, a tunicate farm would likely not be welcome near any existing oyster, mussel, or scallop aquaculture operation.

It may be a while before Mainers consider the idea of eating a sea squirt. Meanwhile, the most important step in preventing tunicate spread is effectively stopping their proliferation. As ocean waters continue to warm, and Maine’s aquaculture industry continues to grow, it is likely that the sea squirt will thrive, and aqua-farmers will have to deal with them.

As Larry Harris warns, “Every dock, every net, is a potential population.”

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]]> https://civileats.com/2025/05/27/warming-waters-cause-invasion-of-sea-squirts-at-maine-fisheries/feed/ 1 https://civileats.com/2025/04/30/oregonians-can-now-taste-local-maple-syrup-and-learn-to-make-it/ Wed, 30 Apr 2025 08:00:04 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=63735 What is unusual about Smoot’s work is not how it happens, but where. In her role as the executive director of the Oregon Maple Project, she is among the first to make maple syrup in the Pacific Northwest. The Oregon Maple Project is based in the sugarbush of Camp Colton, an outdoor environmental education center […]

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From late November to early March, Ella Smoot can usually be found in one of two places: the forest or the sugar shack. Like all maple syrup producers, her winter is a rush of running sap—cold mornings tapping trees and warm afternoons boiling the clear, watery liquid down to a golden, viscous substance. Though sugaring equipment has evolved over time, the basic process remains unchanged, as it has been practiced for centuries by Indigenous peoples in northeastern North America, from New England up through New Brunswick in Canada.

What is unusual about Smoot’s work is not how it happens, but where. In her role as the executive director of the Oregon Maple Project, she is among the first to make maple syrup in the Pacific Northwest.

“It’s one of the founding reasons of the Oregon Maple Project: to make maple syrup with people.”

The Oregon Maple Project is based in the sugarbush of Camp Colton, an outdoor environmental education center located 45 minutes southeast of Portland. Its 85 forested acres, composed largely of bigleaf maples, as well as fir and cedar, are the traditional lands of the Molalla and Kalapuya people. Though some tribes historically used parts of the bigleaf maple trees for medicinal purposes, it is only in the past few years that the area’s residents have begun tapping the trees for sap.

Eliza Nelson, founder of the Oregon Maple Project, was inspired by her childhood growing up amid sugar maples on the East Coast. She produced her first bigleaf maple syrup in 2018 and founded the Oregon Maple Project two years later, with Smoot joining a year after that. Though thousands of miles from most sugar shacks, they are part of a growing group of bigleaf syrup enthusiasts in the region, actively supporting its continued growth—especially through their Sugaring Collective, which consists of 22 members, drawn together by an interest in local, sustainable food practices.

As international tariffs implemented by the Trump administration affect the flow of foreign imports into the U.S., this interest has taken on a new urgency. Approximately 70 percent of the world’s maple syrup is produced in Canada. While the U.S. produces the remaining 30 percent, our cravings outpace our supply—in the past decade, we have imported more than half of Canada’s total production of maple goods. As imports from Canada are currently subject to a 25 percent tariff, this may change quickly.

The Oregon Maple Project—which produced just 2 gallons of syrup this past winter—can’t come close to meeting national demand, but what the collective offers to its members is more than just a precious, sweet taste of the season: It’s an opportunity to form a more meaningful relationship with their natural surroundings.

Following her fourth sugaring season, Smoot chatted with Civil Eats about her experience as one of the first maple syrup producers in the Pacific Northwest, the differences between bigleaf and sugar maple syrups, and how the traditional practice of sugaring is changing with the climate.

How would you describe the Oregon Maple Project?

Ella Smoot explains to the participants of a sugaring workshop how the boiler is used to transform bigleaf sap into maple syrup. (Photo credit: Elena Valeriote)

We’re an educational nonprofit with the mission of inspiring experiential learning, community partnership, and connection to nature through the local production of bigleaf maple syrup. We offer a range of programs for all ages, including workshops to teach about native plants and field trips to get kiddos outside more. The heart of our organization is the Sugaring Collective, which brings together individuals and families in Northwest Oregon who have access to bigleaf maples and an interest in learning how to produce syrup.

How does the maple collective work?

People pay a fee to participate during the sugaring season, and we provide training, equipment, and support throughout this time. We have a group email thread where people are able to ask any questions, any time, like, “What should I do here?” People collect sap from their own backyards and bring it to a community boil, where we then boil it down into syrup.

What do you love most about making your own maple syrup? 

The gathering and the community aspect of it! It’s one of the founding reasons of the Oregon Maple Project: to make maple syrup with people. During the days of boiling, it gets drawn out. It’s a lot of work, but the first boil is always the best day. Through this process, people volunteer in different ways—helping make sure the sap doesn’t start foaming up, chopping wood, adding wood to the fire, thawing sap, checking the tank so that we don’t burn the sap. After all that, we bottle it.  

What are the differences between sugar maple and bigleaf maple trees?

Sugar maples are native to the eastern United States and parts of Canada, while bigleaf maples are native to the Pacific Northwest. We usually tag bigleaf maples in the spring and summer, which is when you can identify them using the flowers and leaves (which are bigger than sugar maples’). We also look at the symmetry of their branching patterns.

Steam rises from the Oregon Maple Project’s sugar shack at Camp Colton as members of the sugaring collective oversee the boiling process, reducing the sap from local bigleaf maple trees down to a dense, flavorful syrup. (Photo courtesy of Oregon Maple Project)

Both are used for syrup, but there are some key differences. Sugar maples thrive in colder climates, where they have more consistent freeze-thaw cycles, and are known for producing sap with a higher sugar content, around 2 to 3 percent. This makes the sap easier to boil down into syrup. In the Pacific Northwest, we have less predictable freeze-thaw weather patterns, and the sap of bigleaf maples has a lower sugar content—about 1 to 2 percent—so we need more sap to produce the same amount of syrup.

What does bigleaf maple syrup taste like, compared to the sugar maple syrup most of us are familiar with?

Bigleaf maple syrup tends to be darker than the amber color of the sugar maple syrup most people are used to. Its flavor is usually described as richer, with a hint of butterscotch and a floral undertone.

We try to boil it to all the same properties of traditional syrup, which is sweet and dense because it has to be 66.7 percent sugar. We make sure ours is that percentage of sugar. It’s hard to get there because it’s really scary to be close to burning it when you’re getting to those higher density sugar levels. But what we found is that because there’s less sugar content in our sap, we need to boil it for longer, which gives it a darker color, plus a more molasses-y flavor.

Have Indigenous traditions connected to bigleaf maple trees or sugaring informed your practices at Oregon Maple Project?

Definitely, and moving forward, a big goal of ours is to figure out how to collaborate more with local Native people. Eric Jones (a professor at Oregon State University and a leader of the region’s bigleaf maple syrup movement) has been reaching out to Native communities trying to figure out more about the local history around bigleaf maples.

Buckets are affixed to bigleaf maple trees to capture the sap, which will then be turned into syrup at the nearby sugar shack. (Photo credit: Elena Valeriote)

For us, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass is really inspiring, especially the chapter on tapping maple trees. In our workshops, we try to share what we know about Native practices, particularly those from the East Coast, where maple sugaring traditions have been passed down for generations.

We follow Honorable Harvest principles, which means taking only what is given, using everything we take, showing respect for the environment, and leaving something behind in return. For example, to make sure we are respecting the trees, we wait until their leaves are fully off at the beginning of the season before we tap. Then, we only tap them one spile per foot of diameter and we’re not tapping all the trees in the area.

We’re also taking a really small amount of sap compared to what the tree actually creates and we try to be super-duper clean so that bacteria doesn’t grow. We remove all the taps once the trees start budding so that they have all of their energy go towards flowering and making seeds.

In terms of giving back, I think it’s the way we’re educating people about how to practice tapping sustainably. Overall, research on the East Coast has shown that sugaring is really sustainable, and there is more research being done at Oregon State University to evaluate if it impacts the lifespan of a tree at all. They’ve done samples on trees that have been tapped thousands of times on the East Coast, and it hasn’t led to anything showing that it disrupts its ability to live a long, healthy life.

How is producing maple syrup different in the Pacific Northwest as compared to the Northeast? Has climate change impacted the possibility of producing maple syrup in these two regions?

The sugar maple industry in the Northeast has a shorter season. Theirs lasts about six weeks in the spring after the deep freeze. For us, it’s late November or early December—whenever the first freeze is—through early March. And while their temperature patterns are more reliable and they’re working nonstop, we’re on and off, paying attention to the weather, collecting whenever there’s a freeze-thaw, then freezing all of our sap, because we don’t usually have enough for a boil. We have to do a lot of cleaning of all of our materials, because when there’s nothing flowing and it gets really warm during the winter, that’s a perfect place for bacteria to grow.

The maple syrup industry in general is interesting because there are a lot of small farm owners and woodland owners, and we serve people with all different political identities. Unfortunately, climate change has become a political identity.

At the Oregon Maple Project, we are curious about how the warming climate will impact the bigleaf maple trees. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer talks about how sugar maples are going to start walking up to Canada and colder regions because they really like cold. My inkling is that bigleaf maples are really resilient and they’ll stay here, but as the climate gets warmer, we won’t be able to make as much syrup because we need the freeze-thaw cycle for the sap to run.

Can you describe your work at the start of the sugaring season, and then a typical day when everything is in full swing?

The beginning of the season in November is focused on getting all of our systems up and running, developing curriculum for our educational programs, setting up the equipment for the sugaring season, and waiting for that first freeze.

Then, throughout the sugaring season, from December through March, it’s really just chaos. I’m running programs—we do two field trips every week and workshops on the weekends—but also supporting the Sugar Collective, plus collecting sap and processing it through a reverse osmosis system. Sap is made out of water and sugar, so when you run it through reverse osmosis, it’s separating out the water molecules and the sugar molecules. This allows us to freeze a higher concentrate of sugar sap and that lessens the amount of boiling time that we need to get rid of the water and turn it into syrup.

What does the future hold for the Oregon Maple Project?

We’re hoping to connect with more local Native communities to learn more of the history of this area, to keep growing the educational piece of our programs, and continue sharing the joy of making maple syrup from bigleaf maple trees.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The post Oregonians Can Now Taste Local Maple Syrup–and Learn to Make It appeared first on Civil Eats.

]]> https://civileats.com/2025/04/14/at-these-grocery-stores-no-one-pays/ https://civileats.com/2025/04/14/at-these-grocery-stores-no-one-pays/#comments Mon, 14 Apr 2025 08:00:08 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=63403 They weren’t there for books—at least, not at that moment. They came to shop for groceries. Connected to the library, the brightly painted market space is small but doesn’t feel cramped. Massive windows drench it in sunshine. In a previous life, it was a café. Now, shelves, tables, counters, and a refrigerator are spread out […]

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More than 50 people stood outside the Enoch Pratt Library’s Southeast Anchor branch on a recent spring morning in Baltimore. Parents with small children, teenagers, and senior citizens clustered outside the door and waited to hear their ticket numbers called.

They weren’t there for books—at least, not at that moment. They came to shop for groceries.

Connected to the library, the brightly painted market space is small but doesn’t feel cramped. Massive windows drench it in sunshine. In a previous life, it was a café. Now, shelves, tables, counters, and a refrigerator are spread out across the room, holding a mix of produce and shelf-stable goods.

Every fourth Friday, Pratt Free Market turns into “Pantry on the Go!”, a farmers’ market-style setup outside the library that offers fruits and vegetables.

That day, as staff and volunteers took their stations, shoppers walked in and filled their bags with what was in stock. On any given day, there’s a range of produce, like collard greens, apples, onions, radishes, potatoes, and cherry tomatoes, plus eggs, orange juice, rice, bread, and treats like cookies and peanut butter crackers. As they exited, shoppers did not need to pull out their wallets: No one pays at Pratt Free Market.

Launched in the fall of 2024, Pratt Free Market opens its doors every Wednesday and Friday and serves around 200 people per day. Anyone can pick up food at the store without providing identification or meeting income requirements. The library-based free grocery store was pitched by M’balu “Lu” Bangura when she started her role as Enoch Pratt Library’s chief of equity and fair practices. The idea stemmed from the food insecurity she saw during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Seeing people hungry just never sat right with me,” said Bangura. “People shouldn’t have to stress about this.”

The Trump administration’s rampant cuts across government agencies have heightened concerns about the future of food security in the U.S. In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) cancelled two local food programs that connected small farms to food banks and schools.

Republican lawmakers have also proposed significant cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a critical resource that helps low-income consumers purchase food. Economists also say that President Trump’s recent tariff policy on major agricultural trade partners will only cause the cost of food to rise—during a time when food prices were already projected to increase.

The combination of slapping tariffs on food trade partners and cutting aid programs seems like a perfect way to exacerbate an ongoing hunger problem in the U.S. In 2023, one in seven households faced food insecurity at some point in the year. For Baltimore residents, 28 percent reported experiencing food insecurity last year—twice the national average. Bangura described a time when a group of nurses came to Pratt Free Market on their lunch break, looking to pick up some food. She says that other working people have done the same.

On a recent Friday, the Pratt Free Market was stocked with radishes, apples, onions, eggs, salad mix, and other grocery items. (Photo credit: Sam Delgado)

Free grocery stores, like food pantries and community fridges, offer food at no cost to community members. But unlike other food charity models, free grocery stores often put more emphasis on the physical environment and service.

Just like regular markets, these dedicated spaces are bright, open, and filled with shelves and fridges holding a mix of food and household items, and customers choose what they want. A traditional food pantry may not have an appealing atmosphere, and community refrigerators have limited space and choices. By simulating the grocery store shopping experience, the free stores offer more than just food; they create space for dignity, too.

Pratt Free Market isn’t alone in this model. While some free grocery stores—like Unity Shoppe in Santa Barbara and World Harvest in Los Angeles—have been around for a while, others have popped up in recent years, including The Store in Nashville, Today’s Harvest just outside Minneapolis, the UMMA Center’s Harvest Market in Chicago, and San Francisco’s District 10 Community Market and Friday Farm Fresh Market.

The Pratt Model

The groceries that line the shelves and refrigerators inside Pratt Free Market vary from week to week, depending on who drops off food. Bangura says the vast majority of their food is purchased from a variety of sources, including the Maryland Food Bank and Plantation Park Heights, a local urban farm. The market sources its non-perishables and household or personal items, like deodorant, from Blessings of Hope, a Pennsylvania-based food redistribution organization.

Raquel Cureton, a program assistant at Pratt Library, stocked the shelves at Pratt Free Market before doors opened to the public. (Photo credit: Sam Delgado)

The funding for these purchases comes entirely from donations to Pratt Library, which are then split amongst the library’s different programs and initiatives, including Pratt Free Market. The library also receives donated food from Leftover Love, a Baltimore nonprofit that rescues food from local businesses that would otherwise go to waste.

On really good days, Bangura says, the market offers a mix of everything—from healthy, fresh produce to sweets like donuts. And every fourth Friday, the marker turns into “Pantry on the Go!”, a farmers’ market-style setup outside the library that offers fruits and vegetables. Last month, Bangura said they handed out onions, sweet potatoes, watermelons, celery, and apples.

As with most philanthropic efforts, volunteers are at the heart of Pratt Free Market’s operations. Gwendolyn Myers, a retiree who lives in the neighborhood, has volunteered with the free grocery store since they opened. She sees her work as a way to give back to her community, and she even brings extra bags of food to her elderly neighbors who aren’t able to leave their homes.

“A little bit of food, it helps,” Myers said. “Times are hard, and they’re going to get harder.”

Meanwhile, In Nashville

About 700 miles from Baltimore, in Nashville, Tennessee, The Store has the look and feel of a grocery store—it’s well-lit, spacious, and stocked with an even mix of fresh foods like fruits, vegetables, meat, and dairy, alongside shelf-stable items like oatmeal and rice. It even offers items like flowers and greeting cards. And just like at Pratt Free Market, its shoppers pay nothing.

Inside The Store in Nashville, which looks and feels like a regular grocery store. (Photo courtesy of The Store)

With funding coming from grants, corporate sponsorships, fundraising events, and individual donors, The Store also purchases most of its food, with a small portion donated. Sarah Goodrich, The Store’s operations director, says they source their food and ingredients from partners like Second Harvest Food Bank, the national produce distributor FreshPoint, and various local farms.

The Store opened in March 2020, during a distinctly difficult time for Tennessee and the country at large. Days before their launch, a deadly set of tornadoes devastated parts of Nashville and Middle Tennessee. Then, the staff received more difficult news: a nationwide lockdown was in place as the pandemic upended everything.

But the back-to-back adversities didn’t stop The Store from helping people access food. “We very quickly had to pivot our model,” said Mari Clare Derrick, The Store’s volunteer director. They switched to delivering food, and in that first year, served over a million meals.

Five years later and in spite of a tumultuous start, The Store’s doors are still open. People with incomes up to twice the federal poverty level can enroll to shop there. Participants are then split into a bi-weekly schedule, and each group alternates every other week. Over email, Goodrich added that more than 870 households are currently enrolled, and while the program is full, they’re working to expand their capacity by establishing another location.

Goodrich says that the “secret recipe” for solving social problems, like hunger, is collaboration and partnerships. The Store has dozens of “referral partners,” or organizations that work closely with vulnerable populations, like families transitioning into housing, formerly incarcerated individuals, and victims of domestic violence. These partner groups can refer their clients and patients to The Store, which can guide their shoppers to these organizations for help as needed.

Community Connection

Having the institutional backing of a Baltimore public library made it possible to launch the Pratt Free Market. “Because this is under [Enoch Pratt Library], I’m able to build partnerships with community organizations who want to come in,” says Bangura. “They want to work with us, and they want to bring their volunteers.”

Taking advantage of its affiliation with the library, the Pratt Free Market aims to connect shoppers to other library-run social initiatives, like Project ENCORE, which helps formerly incarcerated individuals re-enter society, and additional wrap-around services, including in-library social workers, lawyers, and housing navigators.

Unlike other food charity models, free grocery stores put a little more emphasis on the physical environment and service.

Using the library’s resources means access to a large and consistently available space, and the ability to offer more food and serve more people than a smaller intervention like a community refrigerator could. Having a market also allows the community to give feedback about what’s offered, unlike with a community fridge. (The library does have a community refrigerator at three other branches, all stocked with produce from Maryland-based Moon Valley Farm.)

Shopper input is a key part of the free grocery store model. When stocking the store, Bangura considers what products seem to be popular, including non-food items. “My dream and vision was always that this would look like a mini grocery store,” said Bangura. “Many grocery stores have things like deodorant, dish detergent, and soap.” She added that Pratt Free Market has a feminine hygiene dispenser, supplied by organic menstrual product company Femly.

Having a welcoming, communal, in-person space has also allowed for relationships to be built between free grocery store staffers, volunteers, and the communities they serve. Goodrich says that store organizers listen to their shoppers and conduct surveys to learn what foods and items to purchase.

A Disconcerting Future for Food Security

As the Trump administration dismantles federal food and hunger assistance initiatives, advocates see the impacts, and they’re troubling.

The “Everybody Eats” sign at Pratt Free Market. (Photo credit: Sam Delgado)

“There are millions of children living in food-insecure households,” said Alexis Bylander, interim child nutrition programs and policy director at the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). “This is just a really terrible time to end those kinds of programs.”

On top of cuts to the programs, the consumer choices of SNAP recipients have also been a topic of discussion among policymakers. Representative Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) posted on X that it wasn’t the government’s responsibility to “pay for someone else’s soda.”

“You want a soda? Get a job and go buy it yourself,” Mace wrote.

Though Mace alludes to SNAP recipients choosing “unhealthy” foods, restricting options for beneficiaries does nothing to address affordability or accessibility, says Salaam Bhatti, SNAP director at FRAC. “If your goal is for people to eat healthier, you have to understand that the healthier food is the most expensive food in a grocery store,” he said. “If you really want people to buy better food, then increase the SNAP benefit, because right now, it’s only an average of $6 per person per day.”

“I don’t think that I’m going to cure world hunger. But I could help one person eat their next meal. And that’s enough for me.”

The Trump administration’s ongoing and looming funding slashes haven’t affected The Store and Pratt Free Market directly because neither receive federal dollars. But cuts to critical food assistance and welfare programs could force more families to seek aid at philanthropic food initiatives like free grocery stores—and stretch resources thinner than they already are.

It’s particularly concerning in the context of rising grocery prices, which has been an ongoing problem since the pandemic began in 2020. Not all the increases stemmed from higher demand; some resulted from the intentional decision of major food manufacturers, retailers, and commodity growers to raise prices higher than the rate of inflation, says Errol Schweizer, a grocery store industry expert.

This price inflation is “not just a profiteering issue, it’s a food apartheid issue . . . and that it’s made people so much more food insecure,” he added.

Free grocery stores won’t solve hunger or its various root causes, and the people who lead these initiatives know that. But these spaces can play a crucial role in responding to local needs and gaps in real time, while offering a safe, dignified space.

As a dozen shoppers at a time perused the offerings at Pratt Free Market, they filled their bags with snacks and food and made pleasant conversation with staff and volunteers.

Sylvester Foster just started coming to market in the last couple weeks after some friends mentioned it to him. On his third visit, he noticed volunteers struggling to bring a new refrigerator into the store. So, he ended up helping them, and then started to help with other tasks, like breaking down boxes. In exchange for his spur-of-the-moment volunteer work, he got to shop at the market early.

“I gave [the volunteers] a hand, and I ended up getting myself early. So it was a 2-for-1,” Foster joked. “It’s very useful,” he added about the market. “My thing is, you got to utilize whatever you get.”

The store is modest, and still has challenges, like accessing more food to offer, says Bangura. But even so, for hundreds of Baltimore households a week, Pratt Free Market plays an active role in easing the financial pressure of affording groceries.

“I don’t think that I’m going to cure world hunger,” said Bangura. “But I could help one person eat their next meal. And that’s enough for me.”

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]]> https://civileats.com/2025/04/14/at-these-grocery-stores-no-one-pays/feed/ 4 https://civileats.com/2025/04/07/list-10-ways-to-offer-food-mutual-aid/ https://civileats.com/2025/04/07/list-10-ways-to-offer-food-mutual-aid/#comments Mon, 07 Apr 2025 09:00:34 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=61747 A version of this article originally appeared in The Deep Dish, our members-only newsletter. Become a member today and get the next issue directly in your inbox. Here are Greenfield’s suggestions for strengthening your own food community: 1. Live communally! Thousands of intentional communities and ecovillages are waiting for you to join them. Check out the […]

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]]> A version of this article originally appeared in The Deep Dish, our members-only newsletter. Become a member today and get the next issue directly in your inbox.

Environmental activist and author Robin Greenfield is known for his fully committed experiments in ecological living. His most recent book, Food Freedom: A Year of Growing and Foraging 100% of My Food, covers his efforts to live entirely independently from the industrial food system. Greenfield succeeded only by relying on others who guided him in his gardening, fishing, and foraging, and came to understand the profound power of community and how naturally that flows through food.

Robin Greenfield and friends, tending a community fruit tree. (Illustration by Nhatt Nichols)

Here are Greenfield’s suggestions for strengthening your own food community:

1. Live communally! Thousands of intentional communities and ecovillages are waiting for you to join them. Check out the Foundation for Intentional Community, the Global Ecovillage Network, and the Cohousing Association of the United States to find a community near you. Or use their resources to start a co-living space or community of your own.

2. Plant public trees in your community in collaboration with others. Community Fruit Trees can support you on this path.

3. Source your seeds and plants from small-scale community seed growers, seed libraries, and seed banks that are breeding diversity and resilience. Seed Savers Exchange, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Ujamaa Seeds, and Truelove Seeds are a few high-integrity organizations that distribute nationwide.

4. Start a seed library or a community seed network yourself. Community Seed Network and Seed Library Network are excellent resources to help you get started.

5. Join a community compost initiative or start one if there’s a need. Cycle the compost back into small-scale ecological gardening and farming. Find an initiative or learn how to start your own through the Community Compost Program.

6. Harvest food that’s already growing, but not getting utilized, and get this nourishing, local produce to the people who need it the most. Concrete Jungle and ProduceGood are beautiful examples to follow.

7. Join or start a community garden or school garden in your community. Community Gardens of America and Edible Schoolyard Project can help with this.

8. Seek out or start a Food is Free chapter and share your garden bounties freely with your community members.

9. Join a community-led ecological food initiative. A few that have inspired me include Soul Fire Farm, The BIPOC Community Garden, Bartlett Park Community Garden, and the Fonticello Food Forest. Support the initiatives that are already taking place. They are doing the work and they need our support to continue.

10. Take part in land reparations for Indigenous and Black communities, so that they can achieve food sovereignty. Find communities to support via the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust. Learn about and take part in the LANDBACK movement to return land to Indigenous people so they can build food sovereignty while stewarding our global resources.

Food Mutual Aid Stories

Illustration by Nhatt Nichols

• Indigenous Food Reciprocity as a Model for Mutual Aid
• Photo Essay: Standing in the Gaps With Feed Durham
• In Chicago, an Environmental Organization Feeds Community
• This San Francisco Food Pantry Is a Labor of Love
• Photo Essay: Connecting Manhattan’s Chinatown Elders Through Food and Culture

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]]> https://civileats.com/2025/04/07/list-10-ways-to-offer-food-mutual-aid/feed/ 2 https://civileats.com/2025/03/25/dignified-food-eases-food-insecurity-in-philadelphia/ https://civileats.com/2025/03/25/dignified-food-eases-food-insecurity-in-philadelphia/#comments Tue, 25 Mar 2025 09:00:53 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=62639 The steady thump of techno music spills from a portable speaker as they wind their way toward service. They’ll turn out 300 plates tonight, each one featuring a bed of couscous piled high with harissa-roasted carrots and a hearty Moroccan beef stew with chickpeas and spinach. A sprinkling of cilantro brightens every serving. This is […]

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Inside the commissary kitchen in West Philadelphia’s Dorrance Hamilton Center, a warming whiff of cinnamon, clove, and cumin fills the air, mingling with the comforting scent of beef simmered slowly with tomatoes. The kitchen is narrow, and the half-dozen chefs cooking on this Friday night in late February weave around its tight corners with a sense of purpose.

The steady thump of techno music spills from a portable speaker as they wind their way toward service. They’ll turn out 300 plates tonight, each one featuring a bed of couscous piled high with harissa-roasted carrots and a hearty Moroccan beef stew with chickpeas and spinach. A sprinkling of cilantro brightens every serving.

This is the home of the Double Trellis Food Initiative, where a group of chefs trained in the world of fine dining are cooking to feed those in need. They once served the city’s upper crust, but tonight their food will be heading to community fridges, mutual aid efforts, and youth programs, where it will feed those facing food and housing insecurity in America’s poorest large city.

With an estimated 15 percent of the population navigating food insecurity, Double Trellis aims to improve the quality of meals these residents receive from a vast network of food banks, soup kitchens, organizations, and agencies.

Over time, Double Trellis became a refuge for chefs turned off by the oppressive, abusive environment found in many white-coat kitchens.

Since its start during the pandemic, Double Trellis has developed from a fledgling operation into an established nonprofit with two full-time and five part-time employees, workforce development for juvenile offenders trying to straighten out their lives, and waste-reduction programs.

The organization receives roughly $400,000 in annual funding from donations, philanthropies, and government agencies, helping its chefs serve more than 55,000 meals last year. As the Trump administration seeks to shrink the public safety net, Double Trellis is deepening its commitment to communities facing increased need.

“Everyone deserves dignified food made from real ingredients by people who care,” says Adrien Carnecchia, a history teacher turned pastry chef who started volunteering with Double Trellis three years ago when it was still a ragtag operation turning out one offering each week.

Today, he and his colleagues send, to two dozen partner organizations across the city, four different meals each week—an evolving menu that recently featured chicken adobo, veggie fajitas, frittatas with potato-and-pepper hash, and butternut squash curry. The cuisine changes, but the food is always nutritious, filling, and flavorful.

The Origins of Double Trellis

Matthew Stebbins, the nonprofit’s founder and executive director, has felt the same hunger experienced by many of the community members Double Trellis feeds, lending extra weight to the standard that guides his kitchen: “If this is the only thing you ate today, would that be OK?” he says.

Executive director Matthew Stebbins updates a recipe board that breaks down the cooking tasks for that day’s meal and the plans for the next day. (Photo credit: Kat Arazawa)

Stebbins has been a chef most of his life, training under James Beard nominee Townsend Wentz and then manning the sauté station at Laurel, once named a top 10 restaurant in the country and the best in Philadelphia. But as his career progressed, so did his drug and alcohol addictions. At his professional peak, he was unhoused and struggled to reliably access food—let alone treatment. He spent five years on and off the streets, he says, before leaving the city to get sober.

When he returned to Philadelphia, Stebbins worked at a catering company whose business cratered at the start of the pandemic. When protests erupted a few months later after the murder of George Floyd, he had time and wanted to help. He rallied some friends to cook and feed the protesters, but quickly realized he should instead be serving the unhoused people he was marching past. Their grateful response to being offered a hot meal as simple as a breakfast burrito showed him the void he’s sought to fill ever since.

“It’s about investing directly into young people so they can have opportunities and things they haven’t had access to before—so they can get the life they deserve and want.”

“There’s a difference between skipping lunch and not eating for three days,” Stebbins says, recalling a moment in 2015 when he was at his lowest. “That sort of debilitating pain isn’t just in your body; it’s in your heart and soul. I think about that often when I get tired. There’s absolutely no reason in the richest nation in the world why that should be happening to anyone.”

When it launched in 2020, Double Trellis—its name drawn from the system Stebbins’ grandfather used as a grape farmer in New York decades ago—hand-delivered meals to unhoused people and soon began placing a portion of their food in a community fridge accessible to all for free. In March 2021, the organization began operating a fridge of its own in Kensington, a neighborhood that has long been the epicenter of the opioid epidemic in Philadelphia.

In that first full year, Double Trellis served around 10,000 meals, split between direct service and community fridges, which surged in popularity and prominence when the pandemic pushed food insecurity into the spotlight. Philadelphia was home to more than 30 community fridges at one point, most of which still exist.

The one Stebbins helped establish has since moved to the LAVA Center in West Philadelphia, closer to Double Trellis’ base of operations, and still receives some of the organization’s meals. Two others—The People’s Fridge, just a few blocks away, and the South Philadelphia Community Fridge—are the main recipients of meals made during this Friday night service.

For Staff, a Refuge and Source of Strength

Over time, Double Trellis became a refuge for chefs turned off by the oppressive, abusive environment found in many white-coat kitchens. Most of the staff is queer and gender-nonconforming, and they collaborate rather than compete. Stebbins is focused on “recreating kitchen culture from a fear-based system to a support-based system,” he says.

The Double Trellis team after wrapping up in the kitchen. Left to right: Adrien Carnecchia, Sarah Grisham, Mads Pryor, Dani Chaquea, Eli Rojas, and Matthew Stebbins. (Photo credit: Kat Arazawa)

The effort seems to be working. By last year, Double Trellis’ service had expanded nearly sixfold, even as it sought to broaden its impact by introducing a workforce development program for juvenile offenders. Through a partnership with YEAH Philly, which offers support for teens and young adults impacted by violence, Stebbins and his team spent four months teaching their first two young trainees the skills necessary to get a job in the food industry.

The trainees were paid $17 an hour and had externships at candymaker Shane Confectionery and Honeysuckle Provisions, an acclaimed Afrocentric restaurant. Both are now ServSafe certified in food safety and handling practices, which will make them more employable in the food industry. More importantly, both have had their juvenile court cases dismissed with support from YEAH’s legal team, according to co-CEO Kendra Van de Water.

Shamp Johnson, now 18, came to Double Trellis wanting to learn how to cook for himself and his mother. During the training program, he sharpened his knife skills, learned to navigate a professional kitchen, and fell in love with cooking. The relationships he built will stay with him, he says.

“Matt came from a similar lifestyle as me,” Johnson says. “He really showed me that whatever you put your mind to you can do. You really can achieve [it]. That really opened my eyes up, his whole story and what he’d been through. Now all I want is a job cooking.”

The organization’s second group of trainees is set to start this spring, remaining small so its members receive undivided attention, Stebbins says.

“Meals are just a stopgap, not a solution.”

The project is in good company in Philadelphia, where other initiatives share a similar goal. The Monkey and the Elephant, a café in the Brewerytown neighborhood, trains and employs former foster youth as they transition into adulthood, while Down North Pizza in Strawberry Mansion exclusively employs the formerly incarcerated. Philabundance, the largest food bank in the region, offers a 16-week culinary vocational training program for those with low or no income.

For Van de Water, who met Stebbins when Double Trellis began contributing meals to the free, youth-staffed grocery store YEAH operates, the program is helping to change how the Philadelphia community views teens affected by poverty, racism, and violence.

“It’s about investing directly into young people so they can have opportunities and things they haven’t had access to before—so they can get the life they deserve and want,” Van de Water says.

Carnecchia developed the curriculum, which includes one hour each day of classroom education—such as math skills for kitchen measurements and recipe building—and five hours in the kitchen. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve done here, by far,” he says, but also the most rewarding.

Stebbins hopes to expand the program if funding allows; last year, he says, Double Trellis’ revenue was around $400,000, including personal donations, support from private philanthropies like the Claneil Foundation, and backing from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. This year, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health began contributing funds.

Forecasting an Increased Need

Double Trellis’ work has only become more urgent as inflation continues to put healthy food out of reach for more people and the Trump administration threatens the social safety net by vowing to “correct Biden’s financial mismanagement” of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Economists also warn that tariffs will increase food prices. Following the election, volunteer signups at Double Trellis filled up for months in advance, with people recognizing the need that would likely ensue.

The organization hasn’t been directly affected by the attempt to slash federal government spending that has frozen funding for farmers, Stebbins says, but he anticipates a trickle-down effect. The kitchen sources most of its produce and meat from Sharing Excess, a food rescue nonprofit, and the Carversville Farm Foundation. Now, Stebbins is worried about food donations declining or drying up if his partners’ work is hampered. “Anyone [working to address] food insecurity is pretty nervous right now,” he says.

“We have to care for our community. We have to care for our neighbors.”

For Mads Pryor, a Double Trellis cook who has worked in kitchens for 15 years, most recently as private chef for a wealthy family in Philadelphia’s ritzy Main Line suburbs, working to address food insecurity is more important than ever. “We see the cost of groceries rising, an uptick in health issues, and not enough structural support for the citizens of Philadelphia and this country,” Pryor says.

These challenges underscore the need for Double Trellis’ workforce development program. As Stebbins points out, food and housing insecurity are deeply rooted, tangled up with poverty and the systemic failures that allow it to persist.

“Meals are just a stopgap,” he says, “not a solution.”

In the long term, Stebbins hopes Double Trellis can do more to make a difference. The kitchen’s emphasis on reducing food waste is part of that equation. Last year, it used 40,000 pounds of excess food rescued by Sharing Excess and composted 10,000 more. Meanwhile, Double Trellis makes the most of its ingredients. Lemon peels, for example, are preserved in salt and used in vinaigrettes and slaws.

To further expand its impact, Double Trellis hopes to find a kitchen of its own, which would make it possible to prepare breakfasts and lunches and triple its output to 1,000 meals a day, Stebbins says. His long-term vision includes nutrition workshops and cooking classes for the community, and more culinary training for young people.

For now, though, he and his colleagues are simply responding to the need they see as best they can.

“We have to care for our community,” Carnecchia says. “We have to care for our neighbors.”

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]]> https://civileats.com/2025/03/25/dignified-food-eases-food-insecurity-in-philadelphia/feed/ 1 https://civileats.com/2025/03/24/this-san-francisco-food-pantry-is-a-labor-of-love/ Mon, 24 Mar 2025 09:00:24 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=61738 A version of this article originally appeared in The Deep Dish, our members-only newsletter. Become a member today and get the next issue directly in your inbox. She has hosted a weekly food pantry from her garage since 2021, stocking it with donations from local food banks, grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries, and anywhere else she can get […]

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Priscilla “Cilla” Lee gave away nearly 50,000 pounds of food last year to her neighbors in San Francisco’s Outer Richmond district.

She has hosted a weekly food pantry from her garage since 2021, stocking it with donations from local food banks, grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries, and anywhere else she can get free food for her community. Every Friday and two Saturdays a month, she hands out food boxes filled with fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy products, and dried goods like beans or rice. She still serves between 40 and 50 families per week, and 25 families come on Wednesdays, when she gives away baked goods donated by a local bakery.

In a recent week, she shared four boxes of bread and pastries and 20 pizzas. She also gave away 120 boxes of mangoes donated by a food bank and trays of papaya salad and spring rolls provided by a caterer.

Since 2022, Lee has doubled her volunteer team to 40 or 45 people and added more structure. Last year, they gave away nearly 50,000 pounds of food to neighbors in San Francisco’s Outer Richmond district. (Photo credit: Tilde Herrera)

Lee, 54, began hosting the food pantry out of her garage in 2021, alarmed by the level of food insecurity in her neighborhood during the pandemic. She was inspired to help others by her late mother, who had always tried to give her family, friends, and acquaintances a hand, even during her cancer treatment. Also, Lee was on leave from her airline job, giving her a bit of extra time—and was volunteering with local food banks, which had surplus food. Starting a neighborhood food project just made sense.

Food Mutual Aid Stories

Illustration by Nhatt Nichols

• Indigenous Food Reciprocity as a Model for Mutual Aid
• Photo Essay: Standing in the Gaps With Feed Durham
• In Chicago, an Environmental Organization Feeds Community
• This San Francisco Food Pantry Is a Labor of Love
• Photo Essay: Connecting Manhattan’s Chinatown Elders Through Food and Culture

Civil Eats first covered Lee’s food pantry in 2022, when she was inviting free pickups through two local branches of Buy Nothing, an online network of neighborhood groups that share everything from extra food to old clothes and used appliances as part of a gift economy model.

Lee is an administrator for the official Outer Richmond Buy Nothing group, which has 1,100 members, and the Richmond-Sunset Buy Nothing group, which has 2,200 members. Now she limits slots for food pickup to ensure enough food for the core set of regulars who have relied on the pantry for all these years.

These regulars include Yulia Koudriashova, a single mom and teacher who saves nearly $300 a month by getting most of her family’s food through Lee’s pantry. She lives with her two daughters and her parents, who moved in three years ago after fleeing Ukraine when Russia invaded. “My parents’ income is zero in the United States,” Koudriashova says. “For them, it’s very important support because mentally, it’s very important that they know they can get food.”

Koudriashova’s mother spends her days cooking everything they receive from the pantry, and her father volunteers at the pantry a few days a week, unloading boxes or sorting food, despite not speaking any English. He worked as an engineer in Ukraine but is unable to work in the U.S., so he is happy to have a “job” and help others as he often did for his neighbors back home, Koudriashova says. Everyone calls him “Papa.”

“When he began to do it, he became alive, because it’s a very important role, mission,” Koudriashova says. “He tells us, ‘I’m working today,’ so we know he needs to go and help. He loves it a lot.”

Serving the Community

Since 2022, Lee has doubled her volunteer team to 40 or 45 people and added more structure. She has two volunteer administrators who create pantry schedules and sign-up sheets, as well as a third administrator who sends weekly reminders for volunteers to sign up for picking up donations or setting up the pantry. At each pantry, one or two hosts oversee the food pickups and support the pantry assistants, who receive the food donations and get food ready to be given out. About 75 percent of her volunteers are pantry recipients themselves.

Lee asks for a three-month commitment when recruiting volunteers, who donate their time and gas. “I’m donating my sanity and my family’s time—my partner also helps,” Lee says. “No one’s getting paid from this pantry.”

Annelissa Reynoso, a part-time restaurant manager and student, has been volunteering at the pantry for the past year. She met Lee through the Buy Nothing Facebook group when she was giving away a fruit platter. Lee claimed it and asked Reynoso if she was interested in volunteering.

“My parents’ income is zero in the United States. For them, it’s very important support because mentally, they know they can get food.”

Reynoso, 25, saw it as a sign to take action at a time when life felt overwhelming. The Israel-Hamas war was raging, and Reynoso felt helpless, hopeless, and disconnected. She began volunteering with Lee, working her way up from pantry assistant to host. She also drives to pick up donations and gives rides to neighbors who want to visit the pantry.

“I feel like I’m finally part of a community,” Reynoso says. “I’ve wanted to feel this way for a long time.”

Reynoso had already considered herself to be a human rights activist but says Lee has influenced her to consider a career helping unhoused, immigrant, or low-income communities.

“That’s awesome,” Lee says, of her friend’s new direction. “I love it.”

Growth of the Buy Nothing Model

The Buy Nothing Project continues to resonate with people a dozen years after its launch, says founder Liesl Clark, a documentary filmmaker who was fascinated by the cashless gift economies she saw in communities throughout the Himalayas. There are now more than 8,000 Buy Nothing groups on Facebook, representing 12.5 million people, and another 1.4 million people using the Buy Nothing app.

The app has added a global feed for users who are interested in a broader circular economy, Clark says. Rather than buying a product on Amazon, users can now search for it in Buy Nothing’s global feed or post an item they haven’t had success gifting locally. If they find the product, or a taker, they can use Buy Nothing shipping to receive or send the item through UPS.

“We still aim to provide every community that wants one, a gift economy, so community members can get to know each other and connect through our stuff and services offered,” Clark said in an email. “We know this builds connected neighborhoods, which is a building block toward resiliency, mutual aid, and healthy, human-centered cities and towns.”

A Labor of Love

Food donations have been unpredictable for the last 18 months, Lee says. With fewer donations, Lee must give less food to each family. She consistently receives high-quality donations from the Second Harvest food bank every week, but she says other food banks are giving her less food now compared to during the pandemic. That contribution could further decline in the wake of unsteady federal funding for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, designed to move local farm harvests into food banks.

“We still aim to provide every community that wants one, a gift economy, so community members can get to know each other and connect through our stuff and services offered.”

Lee estimates that she spends 32 to 40 hours a week working on the pantry. It’s more manageable since she retired in October from her airline job; when she was working, she often spent time on pantry-related tasks before and after work and during her lunch breaks.

In addition to the day-to-day logistics, Lee also keeps tabs on everyone’s food preferences. For example, she makes sure Koudriashova’s family gets plenty of their beloved potatoes and sets aside extra beans for a Hispanic family who visits the pantry. This ensures people get food they like to eat, and that food is not wasted.

It’s a lot of work to run the pantry, and the food-supply situation can be unnerving, but hearing about how the project has impacted people’s lives drives Lee to keep going.

For example, Koudriashova uses the money she saves on groceries to pay for gymnastics lessons for one of her daughters. She says she wouldn’t be able to afford those lessons without the pantry.  “When I go to the shop, I buy only some food for the kids to make sandwiches for the school lunch,” Koudriashova says. “Otherwise, we use all the products that we have from this pantry. I don’t know how we would survive without Cilla.”

Lee says she had no idea she would still be running this pantry, years after it began.

“I will try my best to keep the pantry going until either I am no longer receiving food donations or community [volunteers], and as long as I am healthy, my family is healthy, and I am not neglecting my own family.”

She says none of her volunteers want to take over the pantry. For now, seeing how it has alleviated financial stress for her neighbors motivates her to continue.

Although Lee didn’t start the pantry to inspire others or seek recognition, she says she has often been told by her community, volunteers, and peers that she motivates them to help others. Which, in fact, they do.

“It is a very powerful feeling, and I feel overwhelmed by the positive feedback,” Lee says. “It reminds me of how my mother would be so proud of the person she raised.”

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]]> https://civileats.com/2025/03/12/photo-essay-standing-in-the-gaps-with-feed-durham/ https://civileats.com/2025/03/12/photo-essay-standing-in-the-gaps-with-feed-durham/#comments Wed, 12 Mar 2025 09:00:21 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=61730 A version of this article originally appeared in The Deep Dish, our members-only newsletter. Become a member today and get the next issue directly in your inbox. Back in 2020, I formed a mutual aid collective called Feed Durham to address rising hunger due to the impacts of COVID. We started “small,” cooking for 750 people on […]

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I’ve fed 180,000 people from my front yard over the last five years. With more hands, more equipment, and more money, we can feed millions in even shorter time.

Back in 2020, I formed a mutual aid collective called Feed Durham to address rising hunger due to the impacts of COVID. We started “small,” cooking for 750 people on two whole-hog smokers and a couple of industrial griddles. We rented four fridges and posted them on my porches. In the months following the murder of George Floyd, we ballooned into cooking for 1,500 to 2,000 people per cookout over the course of three to four days, adding burners, steam pots, and more cooking surfaces.

“Mutual aid is a network of expansive relationships that you nurture and are nurtured by in the direction of your deepest hopes and dreams.”

Through dozens of community partnerships and donations, we feed elders, people living in cars and on the streets, widows, unsupported LGBTQ+ folks, undocumented families, the homebound and chronically ill, and elementary school students and their families, all at no charge. We are a multi-faith, multi-racial, and intergenerational mutual aid collective. We believe we are only as safe as our least hungry neighbor.

Once folks got vaccinated, and volunteers were no longer available for multi-day cookouts, we shifted to primarily hosting produce giveaways, which quickly expanded to include other items. These days, Feed Durham moves about 20,000 pounds of mostly donated food, seeds, plant starts, and household goods per month from local businesses and distributors, including Happy Dirt, Cocoa Cinnamon/Little Waves Coffee Roasters, Red Tail Grains, Maple Spring Gardens, Bulldega Urban Market, Flying Pierogi Delicatessen, Big Spoon Roasters, Ninth Street Bakery, The ReCollective, and Gaia Herbs.

We’re proud to offer every herb, fruit, and vegetable ever known, from the common sweet potato to the not-so-common kiwi berry. We prioritize fresh, organic whole foods and supplements.

Over the years, we’ve hosted two dozen cookouts and 60 giveaways, two Repair Clinics, a free photo shoot for unhoused neighbors who were able to leave with a framed photo, and a multimedia installation called “Lovingly Prepared By” at the Durham Arts Council.

How to Support Feed Durham

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Email: FeedDurhamNC-at-gmail-dot-com

Phone: (919) 907-0415

 

Donate

CashApp: https://cash.app/$FeedDurham

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Tax-Deductible Donation

 

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Mutual aid is a network of expansive relationships that you nurture and are nurtured by in the direction of your deepest hopes and dreams. It’s not just getting by—it’s flourishing, even if you don’t have a lot of material resources, because you feel loved, seen, and supported. Historically, mutual aid has worked best amongst rural people living in geographic isolation and with a shared spiritual practice for at least one generation, and people with shared identities who have been cast out from the mainstream.

The triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement were undergirded by the vast multi-generational mutual aid networks that Black folks used to sustain one another during slavery and Jim Crow. Those networks are still sustaining people like me, whose elder family members and ancestors practiced many forms of life-giving community care.

With that, I must share what mutual aid is not. Lately, I see a younger generation that regrettably didn’t receive much mentorship from adults, calling what they do “mutual aid” because they move resources from restaurants and grocery stores into the community. Most have never experienced mutual aid.

I have found that many are more excited about realizing their power alongside other organizers their age than they are about building intergenerational relationships and power with the people they purport to help. They ignore basic input from the communities they “serve” about food quality and safety, and they rarely acknowledge or address other needs.

Recipients are tasked with piecing together a variety of offerings in settings that are often unfriendly. This is altruistic capitalism. Charity. Colonialism. Clique-driven organizing that shuts out valuable input. Not mutual aid.

For 2025, Feed Durham is focused on supporting neighbors who want to grow food for one another. We are developing lo-fi tech solutions to bridge gaps between available household and food supplies and the people who need them. We are also liberating resources that lie dormant in warehouses and closets, soliciting these materials on behalf of under-resourced Black and Brown organizations and individuals who want to provide for their neighbors. We are serving as a networking hub for Durham’s vibrant organizing community and, of course, continuing to cook tasty, nutrient-dense meals for our neighbors.

To survive what’s coming, we are launching and sustaining a national mutual aid network to facilitate rapid response. Toward that end, we are sharing Feed Durham’s blueprints with a broad spectrum of mutual aid organizations throughout the U.S. Please borrow liberally. Share freely. And remember to practice care—and joy—during the hard times.

Caleb, a Feed Durham steward who showed up on the very first day of our very first cookout in April 2020, can normally be found doing exactly what he’s doing in the photo above: prepping chicken to go on the smokers. We cook about 800 pounds of chicken at every cookout.       

Caleb leads a small team of three to five volunteers in washing and seasoning several cases per night. We follow Black and Native practices, using all parts of an animal or plant across multiple dishes. We pay tribute to the animals and plants that die to nourish our bodies with spices, loving energy, and food-preparation processes that accentuate natural flavor. When the chicken comes off the smoker, the drippings will be poured into large spice containers that we send out to missions and churches to use as pot liquor for soups. We jokingly but reverentially refer to the marinade we make for the chicken as a “spiritual bath.” (Photo credit: Katina Parker)

A Feed Durham steward, Grayson spent two years learning to cook on giant 60- and 80-quart steam pots. They burned many beans, and even more rice, until they figured it out. Now, Grayson makes some of the best cabbage, pinto beans, vegan mashed potatoes, and Feed Durham’s Everything But the Kitchen Sink Stew. Remember when we said use all parts of the plants and animals we cook? Veggie scraps like broccoli cores and kale stems get cooked down into a tasty bouillon. We cook on 10 burners. Feed Durham can churn out food for thousands, just with our steam pot setup. (Photo credit: Katina Parker)

At the end of each cookout, we make family-size plates for volunteers, representing the bounty of every recipe we lovingly prepare. We call them Beauty Plates. This plate features smoked chicken, braised carrot steaks, grilled butternut squash, smoked-garlic Brussels sprouts, charred broccoli, smashed yams, caramelized carrots, and Roasted Beets Tropicale. We’ve developed a way to cook beets that removes the “clean dirt” taste.

Our kitchen has always been gluten-free and soy-free. Most of our dishes are now dairy-free. The only meat we cook is poultry. We feed our unhoused and low-income neighbors the way we like to eat, and we set a high bar for the quality of food our volunteers offer, so that they will raise the standards in other community settings where they serve. (Photo credit: Katina Parker)

Feed Durham has become a fixture at Bull City Pride. In 2021, when the U.S. was still in shutdown, Feed Durham cooked for 1,000 and served food at Pride: Durham, NC. That year, there were two vendors—us and Durham County. They set up a tent to test folks for sexually transmitted infections and COVID.

This volunteer, carrying a handwritten Feed Durham menu, is one of several who traveled in from Richmond, Virginia, to study with us as a part of our residency program, which has hosted overnight volunteers from Chicago, Baltimore, Charlotte, and Atlanta. (Photo credit: Katina Parker)

Once vaccines became widely available, Feed Durham experienced a significant decline in volunteers. People were forced to return to work before it felt safe to do so, and other folks were eager to visit faraway places to see family and to vacation. So we shifted mainly to produce giveaways. 

The food pictured was given away at the Scrap Exchange’s 2024 Earth Day celebration, where Feed Durham hosted a food giveaway and Repair Clinic to fix broken household goods. For the event, we partnered with Farm Church, whose pastor/master gardener fielded endless gardening questions with grace and patience while giving away seeds, plant starts, and oak saplings donated by a community member. (Photo credit: Katina Parker; subject arrangement: Dare Coulter)

Earthy, bitter, and tingly on the tongue, kava—‘awa in Hawaiian—calms the body without dulling the brain. “The only thing it numbs is your mouth,” said Taesali, a Samoan American whose first name, aptly, means kava in Samoan.

Kava, also known as Piper methysticum, is a perennial shrub with large, heart-shaped leaves. Its fibrous root, when crushed and steeped in water and massaged to release its essence, produces a cloudy, cool infusion traditionally served in an apu, or coconut-shell cup. Consumed in the South Pacific for at least 2,000 years for pleasure, relaxation, and in cultural and spiritual ceremonies, the drink holds deep significance in both Hawaiian mythology and Polynesian identity.

Beyond its traditional ceremonial and social importance, kava’s calming effects have sparked new research into kavalactones, the plant’s active compounds known to reduce stress, as an anti-anxiety remedy. Studies have also found that the elixir may have broader medicinal potential, from anti-cancer benefits to treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Despite these findings, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has yet to embrace these benefits. A longstanding federal advisory memorandum labels kava as an “unsafe” ingredient and classifies it as “an unapproved food additive,” citing unresolved health concerns including potential liver damage and cancer.

The FDA’s Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) designation deems substances safe to use in foods and beverages, covering everything from staples such as salt and vinegar to certain food dyes and other controversial additives. However, the FDA has withheld GRAS status from kava, classifying it instead as a dietary supplement alongside vitamins, herbs, and probiotics, subjecting it to stricter labeling requirements and health warnings—as well as lower consumer demand. Beyond limiting kava’s mainstream acceptance, the cautious stance has also cast a shadow over its reputation, overshadowing its deep-rooted significance in Polynesian culture.

Last year, however, Hawai‘i took matters into its own hands by labeling the root as GRAS. While states can’t overturn federal standards, they can set their own restrictions—California, for example, bans potassium bromate, a baking additive—or, as is the case here, make exceptions for certain substances.

By adopting the FDA term for safe-to-consume ingredients, the decision honors the plant’s cultural legacy. It also aligns with the international Codex Alimentarius, the food safety standard of the World Health Organization (WHO), which recognized the safety of traditional kava preparations in 2020, citing their cultural significance to Native Polynesians.

“This designation helps sustain Native culture, reassure public health, and encourage state food sovereignty,” said Kristen Wong, an information specialist for the Hawai‘i Department of Health (DOH).

The Stigma Surrounding Kava

Kava has endured a long history of adversity, said Lakea Trask, a Hawaiian farmer and local activist who cultivates kava and other Native crops for Kanaka Kava, his family’s farm-to-table restaurant in Kailua-Kona, on the Big Island. The plant has weathered centuries of hardship, he notes, from missionaries suppressing its use during colonization to the shift toward large-scale monocultures that crowded out Indigenous staples. The GRAS stamp is a long-overdue validation, he said, of kava’s importance to Hawaiian agriculture and identity.

As recognition grows, so have opportunities for small-scale farming initiatives and environmental restoration. By reviving Hawaiian self-sufficiency and healing the scars left by plantations, Trask said, “‘awa [presents] an opportunity to restore our sovereignty and our ancestral connection to the land.”

A History of Resilience

Yet by the 19th century, kava was headed toward obscurity. The rise of plantation agriculture uprooted Native communities, replacing local food systems with sprawling sugarcane and pineapple fields. “It’s the same story as all of our Indigenous crops,” said Noa Kekuewa Lincoln, a University of Hawai‘i (UH) associate professor at the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and head of the Indigenous Cropping Systems Laboratory.

Despite these challenges, kava’s ability to thrive in sun, shade, and diverse soils enabled it to persist, mainly in the wild. Forty years ago, Edward Johnston, a leading kava expert and co-founder of the Association for Hawaiian ‘Awa (AHA), stumbled on a hidden patch of kava deep in the Big Island’s Waipi‘o Valley. Struck by its calming properties, he began collecting and propagating different varieties in his back yard, eventually offering them for sale at the newly established Hilo Farmers Market.

Since kava reproduces only through cuttings, not seeds, Johnston’s work has been vital to preserving Hawai‘i’s 13 known cultivars. Known as noble varieties, all Hawaiian strains contain balanced levels of kavalactones, the compounds responsible for kava’s calming effects. Through AHA, a non-profit promoting the cultural, educational, and sustainable use of kava, Johnston has helped safeguard these native plants and elevated their cultural significance.

Edward Johnston walks through a field of kava in 1999. (Photo credit: Edward Johnston)

Johnston’s efforts helped spark a kava comeback, riding the wave of the Hawaiian Renaissance, a late-1960s cultural movement to reclaim Native traditions, language, and sovereignty. The resurgence gained further traction in the 1990s with support from the Department of Defense’s Rural Economic Transition Assistance-Hawai‘i grants, which helped farmers shift from sugarcane plantations to diversified agriculture. The late Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawai‘i) championed the program amid the decline of the sugarcane industry, spurring about 200 acres of kava cultivation by backyard growers and commercial farms, according to Johnston.

Demand for kava soared during this time, especially in Germany, where Hawaiian strains fetched a premium. In a 1998 newsreel, AHA co-founder Jerry Konanui urged farmers to seize the moment, highlighting that the raw kava prices had doubled to $10 a pound, presenting a sustainable source of supplemental income.

But when the liver toxicity reports surfaced in 2000, “everything went downhill,” Johnston said. Germany’s 2002 ban left a lasting impact: Despite inclusion in the Codex Alimentarius in 2020, kava is still illegal in Poland, the United Kingdom, and a host of other countries. And in the U.S., the FDA’s 2002 advisory, which labels kava as an unapproved food additive with potential health risks, still rules, lumping traditional preparations together with processed products.

A Growing Market Amid Regulatory Ambiguity

As kava’s allure grows, so, too, have local restrictions. In Florida, the so-called “U.S. Kava Capital” and home to 75 kava venues and a small crop of farms, one county recently imposed limits on kava bars near schools (there are no state age regulations around kava consumption). And in New York City, officials shut down a cafe serving kava and kratom, calling the combination “dangerous.”

Michigan, however, greenlit kava in 2023, becoming the first state to grant it GRAS status. “Michigan relies on the FDA to provide new information on GRAS products,” said a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD), which issued the designation. But in this case, “MDARD believed the WHO document provided sufficient evidence” to confirm the safety of traditionally prepared kava.

Soon after, Hawai‘i followed suit, citing the FDA’s “erroneous” classification of kava. The state’s health department invoked a federal exception that grants GRAS status to substances with a proven history of safe use before 1958—a milestone in food safety marked by the Food Additives Amendment. The state ruling recognizes noble kava cultivars brewed with water or coconut water as safe, while warning against alcohol-based extracts and processed products.

Although studies have linked kava to elevated liver enzyme levels, research shows that most cases of liver damage involve concentrated extracts or products made with non-root parts, like leaves or stems, rather than traditional brews. Genetics also play a role: While nearly all Pacific Islanders have an enzyme that metabolizes kava safely, upwards of a fifth of Caucasians lack it, increasing their risk of liver toxicity when consuming adulterated kava.

In an email to Civil Eats, an FDA spokesperson clarified that, absent GRAS status, kava can’t be used in foods and drinks and must be sold as a dietary supplement. Even though “this determination does not apply to kava steeped in water and consumed as food,” the agency’s warning still stands; “the cultural use of kava does not influence its safety assessment,” added the spokesperson, citing “data gaps” in the WHO evaluation.

Yet, as U.H.’s Lincoln notes, by the FDA’s own definition, kava—safely consumed for millennia—should qualify as GRAS. Not recognizing the historical safety of traditional preparations amounts to “[an] erasure of indigenous Hawaiian identity,” he adds, and an act of “ongoing colonial repression.”

Ultimately, the regulatory ambiguity creates inconsistent approaches for other agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). While the DEA doesn’t classify kava as a controlled substance, it lists the root alongside LSD and fentanyl on its Drugs of Abuse list, further muddling its legal status. Adding to the uncertainty, California echoed the FDA’s position last May by issuing its own caution in a consumer fact sheet.

Harvesting ‘awa requires leaving the corm and lateral roots intact. (Photo credit: Kanaka Kava)

The ambiguity is causing significant challenges for Rami Kayali, who owns two kava bars in California with plans to open a third—‘Awa Hou—in Honolulu this month. After six years of insuring his two mainland establishments, Kayali’s provider abruptly canceled coverage, citing the DEA scrutiny. Kayali has had to scramble, turning to pricey cannabis-industry insurance at nearly triple the cost. “It’s been a nightmare,” he said.

Amid these challenges, Hawai‘i’s formal stance provides vital legal footing for the industry, said Trask of Kanaka Kava, at least in the islands. “To have some of those protections put on paper is important.”

Yet those protections are weakly enforced. “We conduct investigations when notified,” a DOH spokesperson said, conceding that while state statutes require labeling and compliance, enforcement is largely reactive. “Blasphemous” kava extracts and adulterations are widely available, both on-island and online, said Trask, perpetuating misconceptions about “‘awa done traditionally,” prepared with just water or coconut water.

Supporting Local and Sustainable Kava Production

Hawai‘i’s noble kava varieties fetch premium prices—fresh “wet” kava can retail for $64 a pound—though local production remains “microscopic,” said Taesali of Kava Queen in O‘ahu. Her bar, like many in the U.S., serves mainly Fijian and Vanuatuan kava.

Scaling up won’t be easy, as kava plants take a few years to establish, and the slow returns can deter farmers. Growers like Trask of the farm-to-table Kanaka Kava, however, are tackling these hurdles by creating regional hubs and kava farm networks.

“We’re building a place-based community model of production,” Trask said, helping farmers grow cultivars suited to local microclimates, offering harvest support, and buying back crops in three to five years.

For Trask, kava is also central to healing Hawai‘i’s post-plantation scars. Fertile rainforests were razed for sugarcane fields, then abandoned after the industry’s collapse in the 1990s. Now overrun with “acres and acres of pasture and eucalyptus,” the land faces threats from pests and wildfires. By integrating native trees such as breadfruit and morinda (noni) with kava, taro, and other canoe plants, “we’re rebuilding our agroforestry system,” he said. Doing so “restores pono,” he adds, using a Hawaiian expression for the reestablishment of balance in the soil, in biodiversity, and in cultural practices.

Still, U.H,’s Lincoln is wary of kava becoming another commodity crop, where profits flow up, not down. “Hawai‘i is a state of small farms,” he said, with more than 90 percent measuring less than 50 acres. Aggregators and marketers tend to dominate supply chains, however, siphoning revenue and squeezing out small-scale growers. Kona coffee beans are a prime example: While beans retail upwards of $80 a pound, farmers, on average, earn just $2.25 per pound of cherries.

Lincoln sees co-ops as a promising model. His wife, Dana Shapiro, heads the Hawaiʻi ʻUlu Cooperative, which has helped revitalize breadfruit as an island staple. Co-ops allow farmers to “increase their equity and power,” he said, through collective control over aggregation, processing, and marketing. That results in fairer prices, higher profits, and greater “‘āina”—land stewardship practices like agroforestry and crop rotation that nurture both the land and local food system.

Trask echoes the sentiment. As demand for kava grows, restoring pono means honoring kava from soil to cup. “It’s about cultivating more farmers—and more [informed] consumers,” he said, to ensure that this ancient crop once again thrives.

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Where was the best place to find them? Which brands were available? Were any stores completely out? Parents rattled off reports of what they had seen at various places, from the big box outlets to the local food co-op, from high-end Whole Foods to discounters like Grocery Outlet and WinCo. “And,” someone sighed, “Can you believe the prices?” I listened and nodded, secure in the knowledge that I had six fresh eggs, straight from the backyard, on my kitchen counter.

Eggs are suddenly a conversation starter as the latest wave of highly pathogenic avian flu clobbers U.S. poultry farmers in the worst outbreak of the virus since 2022. In December, some 13.2 million laying hens either succumbed to the disease or were culled as a result of the flu, dominated by the H5N1 subtype. In the first six weeks of this year, 23.5 million have already died. Altogether, more than 159 million poultry livestock in the U.S. have died due to the virus over the last three years.

Meanwhile, in a repeat of the 2022 outbreak, the virus has once again led to a sharp price spike and sent restaurants and shoppers scrambling for eggs. Social media is awash with reports of bare grocery-store shelves. Last week, the average price of a dozen eggs hit $4.95 per dozen—an all time-record. The wholesale price restaurants pay is even higher, recently topping $7 a dozen. Waffle House recently announced that it was placing a 50-cent surcharge on every egg it cooks.

The virus’s impacts on the poultry industry—and, to a lesser extent, on dairy production—may well be the biggest interruption to the U.S. food system since the COVID-19 quarantine, which created a rush on vegetable seeds and baby chicks.

Such shocks to the food system are evidence of some of the inherent weaknesses of an industrialized and highly concentrated agriculture sector. Just 20 firms raise more than two-thirds of the roughly 380 million laying hens in America. To some people, such concentration is an asset, proof of the impressive productivity of modern agriculture. But concentration, it turns out, comes with its own risks—especially with a highly pathogenic virus on the loose.

Eggs from backyard hens. (Photo credit: Jason Mark)

When a few chickens get sick in a facility that has millions of other chickens, the whole flock gets wiped out. When that happens again and again, in state after state, prices inevitably shoot upward. Concentration may lead to efficiencies, but it also comes with brittleness. As a nation, we have too many eggs in one industrialized basket.

There are, though, other ways of making an omelet. Even though they are not immune from the ravages of the virus, smaller-scale and pasture-raised poultry operations have, so far, shown themselves to be more resilient against the outbreak, some experts say—even if that’s only because their smaller size is a check against hundreds of thousands of birds dying all at once at a single location.

And there’s another option for maintaining a steady supply of eggs: home-scale chicken flocks.

The eggs on my countertop came courtesy of the five laying hens my family keeps on our suburban Bellingham, Washington homestead. Such abundance affords me a measure of detachment when after-school talk turns to egg prices.

But as the virus spreads, and news comes of egg farmers holding emergency meetings in Washington, D.C. and of backyard birds getting sick too, I’ve begun to wonder whether my own chickens are worth the trouble, and whether keeping them is safe for my family.

The Origin of Bird Flu

The virus can spread by direct contact, as well as through the air, which makes it highly contagious. Biologists estimate that in recent years millions of wild birds have died from the virus. The disease has been especially hard on waterfowl like geese and ducks, though few bird species have been spared. Bird flu has caused deaths of bald eagles, especially chicks before they fledge. An outbreak among the endangered California condors has set back efforts to recover that species.

“What we do know is that the virus is now endemic in some wild birds, like wild ducks that move through our country,” says Carol Cardona, a professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences at University of Minnesota. “We know that is partially why we keep getting these seasonal outbreaks.”

Every year, tens of millions of migratory birds travel from the northern latitudes southward, and they inevitably cross paths with domesticated flocks. During a recent briefing for reporters, Maurice Pitesky, a cooperative extension agent at the University of California, Davis used California as an example.

“During the winter . . . we go from 600,000 resident waterfowl to over 8 million waterfowl. You will see ducks and geese. And we’ve decided to have our poultry and dairy operations overlap with where the wildfowl over-winter. They spatially overlap, and that is where infection can take place.”

After years of repeated bird flu outbreaks, most industrialized poultry operations have implemented sophisticated biosecurity protocols to try to keep their flocks safe. The birds spend the entirety of their lives indoors, quarantined from direct contact with wild fowl. No visitors are allowed on site, and at some facilities staff are even required to shower on the way in and the way out of the barns where the birds live.

So, how is it possible for the virus to get into a high-tech barn? Simple: the birds still need to breathe, which requires a ventilation system of some kind, which allows an entry point for the virus. Phillip Clauer, a professor emeritus of poultry science at Penn State, explains: “In the Midwest, they are working the fields in the fall, and you’ll see dust coming up from the fields, and the geese will land there to glean the extra corn, and they crap in the field. The dust goes aerosol, and that dust travels a long distance. We had one infected layer house in Pennsylvania, and they could tell you exactly what air vent the virus came in from. And then it spread through the whole flock.”

What does that mean for pasture-raised poultry, which spend most of their lives outdoors and therefore are at greater risk of contact with contagious wild birds? Farmers involved in smaller scale and regenerative poultry production insist that pastured birds are less susceptible to the virus, thanks to overall better health and wellbeing.

“In general, birds raised in high-welfare systems with access to pasture and sunlight are healthier and more resilient than birds raised in confinement,” says Tim Holmes, the director of compliance at A Greener World, which oversees the Certified Regenerative and Animal Welfare Approved labels. “In a pasture-based system, the key is having enough space and sunlight for the birds so that the pathogen load does not become too great. The ability [of] birds to forage and express natural behaviors also helps reduce stress, so the bird has a healthier immune system.”

I heard a similar argument when I paid a visit to David Whittaker at Oak Meadows Farm, a pasture-raised poultry and hog operation near where I live in Whatcom County, WA. Whittaker maintains his own biosecurity protocols—he wouldn’t let me enter the barn where about 100 chickens of his breeder flock were clucking around—but his chickens spend most of their lives freely roaming outside, with an epic view of glacier-capped Mount Baker.

Whittaker raises about 6,000 broiler chickens annually on 10 acres, and he has flocks on pasture well into October and November, when tens of thousands of snow geese, trumpeter swans, tundra swans, and ducks of all kinds fly overhead. In the 10 years since he turned his childhood hobby into a commercial operation, he’s never had a bird infected by the virus. “The birds I raise are healthier; they’ve got more resistance to it,” Whittaker says.

How come, exactly? “Just because I’m using high-quality feed, I’m not packing 100,000 or more into a building. They are out on pasture, eating grass.”

Clauer—who made a point to tell me that he has worked with both pastured operations and industrial players—was skeptical of the idea that pasture-raised birds might be less susceptible to the virus. “The more birds you have spread all over creation, the more opportunities you have to interface with wild waterfowl.”

He was also leery of the notion that smaller farms could meet the country’s demands for chicken breasts, turkey dinners, and egg scrambles. “You would need so many small flocks that you couldn’t produce enough eggs. You wouldn’t have enough people to collect the eggs.”

But Clauer didn’t dispute that the high concentrations of birds in industrial facilities (the biggest one he knows of is a 4-million-bird operation in Iowa) come with the risk of high mortality numbers, as well as greater chances of the virus mutating. “If you have a lot of animals, a lot more birds can become infected a lot more quickly. The bigger the flock, the bigger the concern.”

I have to wonder if some of the risk-reward calculus between industrial poultry farms and smaller, pasture-raised ones might start to change if—or when—bird flu becomes endemic in domesticated flocks. Especially now that the virus is going back and forth between cattle and birds, containment may no longer be an option. All the biosecurity measures in the world won’t stop geese from crapping in farm fields. It’s like wearing a hazmat suit to keep away the common cold.

If that’s so, then the way to create a more resilient—which is to say, a more efficient—food system would be to have more poultry farms like Whittaker’s. Of course, the economics of small-scale livestock farming are punishingly difficult and it would require a sweeping overhaul of the food system to get more locally raised eggs from pasture to market.

For that reason alone, we’re unlikely to see a flowering of more thousand-bird flocks any time soon. But there is another route to diversifying egg production from healthy, resilient birds: the kind of backyard flock like mine. “Basically, every couple of families [could have] enough hens to supply their friends and family,” Whittaker says. “Even if a small farm goes out, it wouldn’t matter. That would be the ultimate dream—pretty much everybody produc[ing] their own eggs, if they have the space to.”

Should You Raise Chickens?

If you’re serious about joining the estimated 13 percent of U.S. households that keep backyard chickens, here are some things to keep in mind.

Given all the news about bird flu, you’re no doubt wondering whether backyard poultry could put you or your household at serious risk. At this point, the answer is no. Most of the 67 human cases of bird flu in the United States have resulted from people catching the virus from dairy cattle, and most of them have been mild cases. The one human fatality from bird flu took place in Louisiana, where a woman apparently contracted it from dead chickens, but according to all reports the person was elderly and in poor health.

The risk is low, but it isn’t zero, and contact with backyard chickens would put you at a higher exposure. There are, though, ways to mitigate the danger. Clauer says one of the most important strategies for keeping your backyard flock—and you—healthy is to keep them away from wild birds. This can be as simple as ensuring that their living space is secured from feathered visitors by, for example, putting a net above the coop and run.

Beyond that, you’d want to follow some basic biosecurity protocols (the USDA and UC Davis have some good cheat sheets). Keep an extra pair of “coop boots” that you use only for going in and out of the poultry enclosure, so you’re not tracking poop into your house. Secure the birds’ food and water to keep out other critters, like rodents, that can carry disease. And always, always wash your hands after collecting eggs and feeding and watering your hens—an instruction so simple that even young children can follow it.

The next big question is: Are you ready to make the commitment of time and attention? Chickens require a level of care not dissimilar to any other animal companion. They need fresh water and food daily, plus regular cleanings of their coop and runs. They also—and this is harder than it sounds—need to be kept safe from predators.

If you’ve only ever cared for a house plant, you may want to think twice. That said, there are plenty of how-to guides to help you learn the basics, from the encyclopedic The Small-Scale Poultry Flock to the more quick and dirty tips in The Essential Urban Farmer. Maurice Pitesky and his colleagues at U.C. Davis also have a useful library of fact sheets.

Next, you need to ensure that it’s legally permissible to keep poultry in your city, town, or county. Most areas allow backyard poultry raising, but you need to be aware of the idiosyncrasies of local ordinances. Some places have strict rules about setbacks from neighbors’ properties, and many others prohibit roosters (too noisy). You can find a useful guide to local poultry rules at backyardchickens.com. Also: Be sure to check in with your neighbors before hatching your plans, to avoid drama.

Finally, ask yourself if it’s financially worth it to you. An off-the-shelf chicken coop can easily cost $300—and well more if you go for a bespoke model. If you’re handy, you can build one yourself, but lumber ain’t cheap, and even a homemade coop will pinch your pocketbook. You’ll also need some waterers, and maybe even a heated model if, like me, you live in a place with icy winters. If you’re rearing day-old chicks (which run anywhere from $5 to $15 per bird or more), you’ll need a heat lamp system and the proper feeders. Keep in mind that if you do purchase day-old chicks this spring, you won’t get your first eggs for about 20 weeks.

In short, there’s no such thing as a free egg. If you’re launching a laying hen setup from scratch, the payoff horizon may be longer than you wish. But if bird flu does become a permanent challenge for the U.S. poultry industry, the investment will eventually be worth it. “That might not be a bad economic equation for the next two years,” Clauer figures.

I’ve kept chickens for a total of six years in two different states, and by now I’ve paid off my initial investments and ongoing feed costs. During the summer, we’re overflowing with eggs, and routinely give away a half dozen here and a dozen there to friends, family, and neighbors. The egg volume does decline in the winter, yet even without artificial light we manage to get one or two eggs a day up here at the 49th parallel.

But I would keep backyard chickens even if it were a break-even proposition. I don’t raise hens simply as a matter of grocery-bill savings. They provide me with a subjective, but very real, sense of abundance and security.

I keep a large home garden, big enough to produce well more than half of my family’s annual fruits and vegetables. But, being a flexitarian, I can’t live on kale alone. And even though I can’t live off kale frittatas alone either, by producing some of my own protein I cultivate a feeling of ecological resilience, knowing that I’m more insulated from the brittleness—and the injustices and the pollution—of industrialized agriculture.

My small flock represents one additional node in the food production network. Imagine many more nodes like that, hundreds of thousands of new backyard flocks, and you might come to see how every home-scale hen helps strengthen the food system.

I’m convinced that even with all the cost and labor and time, such resilience and abundance is worth the price tag—is in fact, priceless.

An earlier edition of this article misspelled the name of Tim Holmes, the director of compliance at A Greener World.

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https://civileats.com/2025/01/22/in-los-angeless-altadena-neighborhood-community-food-solutions-feed-wildfire-recovery/ Wed, 22 Jan 2025 09:00:41 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=60747 Pacific Palisades, which has an average home listing price of $4.7 million, has gotten much of the attention in news media because of the many celebrities who own homes there. Altadena, whose average home listing price is just 28 percent that of the Palisades, is less known, yet has a rich history. During the Great […]

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In Los Angeles, the Palisades and Eaton fires that have burned for the past two weeks are among the deadliest and most destructive in California history, exacerbated by climate change. As of publication, the Palisades Fire is 63 percent contained while Eaton, in the suburb of Altadena, is 89 percent contained. Together they’ve burned nearly 40,000 acres of urban Los Angeles.

Pacific Palisades, which has an average home listing price of $4.7 million, has gotten much of the attention in news media because of the many celebrities who own homes there. Altadena, whose average home listing price is just 28 percent that of the Palisades, is less known, yet has a rich history.

During the Great Migration, when 6 million African Americans moved from the South to the North, Midwest, and West, many Black families settled here as nearby neighborhoods like Pasadena practiced redlining. In 2024, 18 percent of Altadena residents were Black; more than half were people of color. And 80 percent of those Black Americans were homeowners.

Though the Eaton fire still smolders, the Altadena community has banded together for relief and recovery. Many have lost so much: family members, friends, homes, valuables, places where memories were made. Through food, residents who have lost everything are finding sustenance for body and soul, and hospitality workers are collaborating to help the best way they know how. Here are 13 initiatives—some within the neighborhood, some from greater Los Angeles—that you can support to keep the victims of the fire in this vibrant community fed in the short and long term.

Altadena Farmers’ Market

In operation since 2012 and held on Wednesday afternoons in Loma Alta Park in west Altadena, the Altadena farmers’ market has sustained a double whammy, with local farms and vendors losing business and residents suffering the tremendous loss of the market, incinerated in the fire. All donations “will be used to purchase local produce from small farmers who are deeply affected by the fires,” says Rafaela Gass, the market manager and owner. “The produce will be given for free to families who lost everything and are now living on cereal bars and fast food. Our community needs and deserves to be nourished with healthy fruits and vegetables, grown with love and care by our farmers.” Farmers’ market food giveaways will take place on Wednesdays starting January 22 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Unincorporated Coffee Roasters, 2160 Colorado Avenue, in Eagle Rock.

Altadena Community Garden

The Altadena Community Garden, which began in the mid-1970s, has also been decimated by the Eaton Fire. Located on the site of a former military academy adjacent to Loma Alta Park, it had 82 plots rented by residents for generations, and a communal area spread over 2.5 acres. Operating as a self-supported nonprofit, it receives no county funding, making the loss of the garden that much more tragic. It is hard to estimate the impact the destruction of the garden will have on the community’s ability to feed itself, as community gardens are instrumental in battling food insecurity. The garden also reduces environmental impacts, since the food doesn’t need to be trucked in. To help the garden rebuild, you can donate to its efforts to rehabilitate the soil, replenish garden tools and structures, and replant foliage—all consumed by the fire.

Altadena Seed Library

Altadena Seed Library is a seed-exchange network, founded to expand access to green spaces and shade while increasing food sovereignty and restoring local ecosystems. Helmed by Nina Raj, the library is accepting native seed and plant donations as well as tools such as shovels, crowbars, gloves, and saws to help sift through the rubble and clear debris. Native plants are especially useful after fire: Because they’re adapted to the dry local environment, they require far less water and are more apt to thrive. To find out which plants are native to the Altadena area, visit Calscape. Seed donations can be mailed to 37 Auburn Ave., No. 8, Sierra Madre, California, 91024, in care of Altadena Seed Library.

New Revelation Missionary Baptist Church, Special Needs Network, and LA Urban League Wildfires Fund

New Revelation Missionary Church, in partnership with Special Needs Network, LA Urban League, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has served as the site of distributing three hot, to-go meals per day prepared by Black-owned restaurants in L.A., among them The Serving Spoon, Dulan’s on Crenshaw, Hotville Chicken, and A Family Affair. It’s an important partnership between Black communities, with these restaurants—based in Inglewood, Crenshaw, Windsor Hills, and South L.A.—feeding Altadena, where 80 percent of New Revelation’s congregation lives.

“Our initiative not only supports local businesses, but also ensures that Altadena’s displaced residents have access to nourishing meals during this crisis,” says Connie Chavarria, senior director of programs and community services at Special Needs Network. “Donations serve as a lifeline for those who have been affected by the wildfires, offering them not just sustenance but also a sense of care and support from their community.” Donate to their LA/Altadena Fire Relief Fund to keep the meals going at 855 N. Orange Grove Blvd., Pasadena, with distribution times of 9:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., and 5:30 p.m.

Inclusive Action Cash Assistance for Outdoor Workers 

The fires, and the destruction they’ve left in their path, have created dangerously poor air quality in the Los Angeles area, making conditions extremely hazardous for outdoor workers, including food vendors, many of whom live in Altadena. Inclusive Action for the City—an organization dedicated to supporting the economic needs of underinvested communities—has started a fund to provide cash assistance to those workers.

“Many street vendors, gardeners, and recyclers rely on jobs that are out in the open air, but due to the fires, many have lost their incomes or even their homes,” says Rudy Espinoza, the group’s CEO. The fund is offering $500 to each applicant, to be used however they see fit, and so far has received almost 11,000 applications.

“Thanks to generous donors and over 1,100 individuals on GoFundMe, we’ve raised over $1 million that can help us support 2,000 workers, but we still have a long way to go to care for them. We will continue to raise money to cover as many people as we can,” Espinoza says. To contribute to Inclusive Action’s cash assistance fund for outdoor workers, donate here.

Another Round Another Rally

An  organization started by bartenders Amanda Gunderson and Travis Nass, Another Round Another Rally helps support restaurant workers, many of whom live in Altadena, with education through scholarships and emergency aid. “Right now our Disaster Relief Fund is focused on hospitality workers who were affected by the fires in Los Angeles. You can donate or apply for aid at disasterrelief. anotherroundanotherrally.org, and you can also find tools there to host a fundraiser,” says Gunderson.

LA Community Meals

Countless independent restaurants around Los Angeles have stepped up to help feed first responders and evacuees despite having lower cash flow due to the slow winter season and empty dining rooms in the aftermath of the fires. Many of these establishments have been paying out of pocket to feed their communities. Thanks to a coalition of restaurants banding together to form LA Community Meals, supporters can purchase prepared foods for those in need while patronizing impacted restaurants at the same time.

“The Community Meals initiative is important, because it has found a way for people in Los Angeles to contribute, while recognizing that restaurants can’t undertake the effort without financial support,” says Beth Griffiths, owner of Little Nelly, in Burbank. “We’re cooking meals at cost and with the assistance of generously donated product from our vendors, but being able to pay our staff has been game-changing in terms of how much we can put out each day.” Support one or more restaurants as they cook meals for those affected by the fires here.

World Central Kitchen in Partnership with Kogi, Socalo, Evan Funke, and HomeState

World Central Kitchen (WCK), helmed by chef José Andrés, has been feeding afflicted communities all over the world, and Los Angeles is no exception. Here, they’ve partnered with Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken of Socalo; Roy Choi’s Kogi Trucks; Evan Funke of Mother Wolf, Funke, and Felix; and Briana Valdez of HomeState Pasadena. WCK’s fleet of food trucks have been on the road, feeding first responders and families who have been affected by the Palisades and Eaton fires, thanks to the funding of generous patrons.

“We chefs are built to feed people, and when there’s a disaster like this one in L.A., we swing into fifth gear,” says Milliken. “WCK is the glue between those in need and chefs who want to keep busy doing what they love: cooking. We’ve made over 10,000 meals and counting. My team is so thankful to be useful at a time when we all feel pretty useless in the face of natural disasters.”

Homestate Pasadena is also open and distributing meals. “Despite not having functional utilities, our team has been able to share over 7,000 meals, warm hospitality, and a place to call home for breakfast and dinner,” says Valdez.

You can donate to keep WCK’s trucks feeding those in need in L.A., or even join the WCK volunteer corps. Sign up to volunteer at HomeState Pasadena, or consider donating an order of Homestate’s tacos to those in need. To receive a free meal from WCK, check out its full list of meal distribution sites.

Hollywood Food Coalition

Hollywood Food Coalition has been serving dinners daily, 365 days a year, since 1987. Since the L.A. fires began, they’ve been ramping up food distributions to emergency responders and evacuation centers. They recognize the inadequacy of current response systems, especially for those experiencing homelessness.

“When a crisis strikes—like the current L.A. fires—we mobilize quickly with our partners to provide immediate relief until government assistance arrives,” says Arnali Ray, executive director. “We must keep investing in our food system infrastructure to ensure that, when the next crisis occurs, everyone—especially marginalized communities—has access to the food they need.”

The coalition is currently accepting dropoffs of food and other supplies in moderate quantities; see the list of desired items here. You can also make monetary donations on the same page. Dinners are served Mondays through Fridays from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at The Salvation Army Campus at 5939 Hollywood Blvd., and on Saturdays and Sundays from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. on the street, at the corner of Orange and Romaine.

Friends In Deed

Friends In Deed is a Pasadena-based, interfaith grassroots organization that began in 1894 and was officially established as a nonprofit in 1946. It serves homeless and at-risk communities, and during the fires is providing shelter at Trinity Lutheran Church at 997 E. Walnut Street in Pasadena, two miles south of the Eaton fire line. Though normally only operating at nighttime, their Bad Weather Shelter has kicked into 24/7 mode. The ongoing food pantry has been a staple in the community for over 50 years, and accepted donations can be found here, with the most-needed items being canned tuna and canned chicken, cereal, peanut butter, rice, hearty soups, stew, chili, pasta and pasta sauce, oil, sugar, flour, shelf-stable juices, and plant-based products.

“Our community represents just about every culture and background,” says Merria Velasco, senior director of development. “Single retired adults, families with young children, people who have fallen onto hard times, individuals experiencing homelessness, and most every other household picture you can think of, Friends In Deed serves them all.” The food pantry is open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and on Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Voto Latino and National Day Laborer Organizing Network

Voto Latino, a grassroots political organization focused on empowering the new generation of Latino voters, is matching all donations to the National Day Laborer Organizing Network up to $15,000. The funds will support NDLON’s Pasadena Community Job Center, which is serving as a relief hub for Pasadena and Altadena, providing food, temporary shelter, water, and emergency kits for the workers who put food on L.A.’s tables, yet are frequently forgotten. They’re also taking donations of canned goods, Gatorade, water, fresh produce, and more for second responders, who often are undocumented day laborers who step up for disaster recovery.

Heart of Dinner

This New York-based charity, founded by Yin Chang and Moonlynn Tsai, has expanded its operations to Los Angeles to help battle food insecurity experienced by Asian elders. Culturally sensitive foods accompanied by N95 masks and caring notes written in native languages are packaged in artful, hand-decorated bags, then delivered to homes with the aim of bringing hope and nourishment amid the crisis. On January 10, the first emergency drop to Korean elders contained packages of Korean bone broth, fresh produce, rice, buns, fishcakes, beef kimbap, and more. Donate to help Heart of Dinner reach its goal of feeding 1,000 Asian elders. Just $30 funds two to three days of meals and protective supplies.

Project Angel Food

Project Angel Food prepares and delivers medically tailored meals to the critically ill, designed to fit the unique needs of each patient, whether heart healthy, low fat, low protein, diabetic, gastrointestinal friendly, and more. At the moment, donations to the fire relief fund are being doubled, as it’s more crucial than ever that meals reach clients during this crisis. You can also volunteer for a shift to work in Angel Food’s temporary kitchen, located at 230 W Ave. 26 in Lincoln Heights, or to deliver meals.

As Altadena absorbs the shock and grief of loss, its deep community strength and the outpouring of support from the surrounding city  are already helping its citizens recover. It will be a long, slow build, and your support will make a difference.

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]]> https://civileats.com/2025/01/13/seattles-little-free-libraries-offer-a-catalog-of-collections-and-connections/ Mon, 13 Jan 2025 09:00:19 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=60416 This article first appeared in Pacific NW Magazine, the Sunday magazine of The Seattle Times, and has been republished with permission. With the aid of Holloway’s “partner in crime,” Kathleen Dickenson, they prop the lid of an old-fashioned school desk in Holloway’s front yard and fill it with cupcakes. Holloway adds edible pearls and glitter. […]

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]]> This article first appeared in Pacific NW Magazine, the Sunday magazine of The Seattle Times, and has been republished with permission.

Spooning buttercream into a pastry bag, Kim Holloway is close to opening time. She pipes rosettes of frosting on trays of vanilla cupcakes—some plain vanilla frosting, some cookies and cream.

With the aid of Holloway’s “partner in crime,” Kathleen Dickenson, they prop the lid of an old-fashioned school desk in Holloway’s front yard and fill it with cupcakes. Holloway adds edible pearls and glitter. Shortly after 3 p.m., the Little Free Bakery Phinneywood is open for business—the business of sharing.

“I love to bake, and many people have told me, ‘Oh, you should open a bakery.’ And I just think, ‘No, no, no, no. It would take the joy out of it for me,” Holloway says.

“To me, the seed library is part of food security. It’s like having money in the bank, but it’s seeds in the library.”

Like hundreds of other Little Free hosts in the region, she’s found joy instead in giving.

And, like so many good ideas, this one started with a book.

In 2009, a Wisconsin man named Todd Bol built a Little Free Library in his front yard, encouraging passersby to take a free book or drop off extras. The idea and the format—a wooden box set on a post, usually with a latched door—seeded a movement, with more than 150,000 registered worldwide.

“Seeded” got literal fast: The Little Free book idea spread to other sharing opportunities, including a rampant crop of Little Free Seed Libraries, where people swap extra packets of cilantro and Sungolds.

Seattle’s density, temperate climate, walkable neighborhoods—and maybe our introvert culture?—make it easy for the little landmarks to thrive. They exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic, when locals thought outside the box by putting up a box, including what’s believed to be the nation’s first Little Free Bakery and first Little Free Art Library. Many built on the region’s existing affinity for hyperlocal giving—the global Buy Nothing phenomenon, for one example, was founded on Bainbridge Island.

“We just seem to do more of all these versions of sharing,” says “Little Library Guy,” the nom de plume of a longtime resident who showcases the phenomenon on his Instagram feed and a helpful map.

The nonprofit organization now overseeing global Little Free Libraries finds the nonbook knockoffs “fun and flattering,” communications director Margret Aldrich says in an email. (She also notes “Little Free Library” is a trademarked name, requiring permission if used for money or “in an organized way.”)

Some libraries stress fundamental needs: A recently established Little Free Failure of Capitalism in South Seattle provides feminine products, soap, chargers, even Narcan. A Columbia City Little Free Pantry established by personal chef Molly Harmon grew into a statewide network for neighbors supporting neighbors.

Others are about the little things: Yarn. Jigsaw puzzles and children’s toys. Keychains (one keychain library in Hillman City has a TikTok account delighting 8,000+ followers). A Little Free Nerd Library holds Rubik’s Cubes and comic books.

Regardless of where each library falls on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they stand on common ground. “There’s a line from [Khalil] Gibran: ‘Work is love made visible,’ ” Little Library Guy says in a phone call. “That’s what they’re doing. They’re showing that they love the community by doing something for them.”

Here’s a little free sample of what you might find around town:

Seeding a Movement

Two University of Washington students sort, count, and bag mammoth sunflower seeds during an annual seed inventory inside a research facility at the Center for Urban Horticulture. These are seeds that birds at the UW Farm did not get to, and they’ll go into the Little Free Seed Library by the end of the day. (Photo credit: Ken Lambert/The Seattle Times)

At the UW Farm, on 1.5 acres of intensively planted land at the Center for Urban Horticulture, students grow more than six tons of organic produce annually. They learn about agriculture and ecology while providing food for 90 families in a neighborhood CSA, for college dining halls and for food banks.

One chilly November day, students and volunteers on the self-sustaining farm worked with the small staff to inventory what seemed like countless seeds for next year’s plantings: Parade onions, Autumn Beauty sunflowers, Painted Mountain corn, Genovese basil. Packs with just a small number of remaining seeds were set aside for the Little Free Seed Library installed near rows of winter greens.

Farm manager Perry Acworth organized the little library during the pandemic, seeing the renaissance in home gardening coupled with a run on supplies. “Seeds were sold out … even if they had money, they couldn’t find them,” she says.

Acworth picked up a secondhand cabinet—one with a solid door, rather than the usual Little Free Library glass window, because seeds need to be protected from light. Althea Ericksen, a student at the time, designed it, painted it with a cheerful anthropomorphic beet, and installed it.

Seeds were packed inside jars to protect them from rodents and birds who otherwise would have a feast, and the Little Free Seed Library was born—shielded from rain and direct sun, convenient to pedestrians as well as cars.

On a recent day, seeds for radish, mizuna, red cabbage, and flashy troutback lettuce waited in lidded jars for their new winter homes.

On the side of the seed library, thank you notes sprout comments such as, “Thank you for sharing.” Enough harvests have gone by to see the library’s benefits, from flowering pollinators to harvests of food. A mere handful of seeds isn’t useful for the farm’s scale, Acworth notes, but for library guests, “If I have five sunflowers in my yard, five heads of lettuce, that’s great.”

It isn’t all sunflowers and appreciation. The library has been emptied more than once; the seeds were once dumped out and used to fuel a fire on the ground.

But Acworth appreciates “the underground economy of it”—the relationships, the neighbors making a difference, the bonds it creates that are unbreakable even if the library is not.

Seed libraries actually predate the Little Free Library phenomenon. Anti-globalization protests at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999 were credited with sparking the phenomenon, according to a history first published in Acres U.S.A. magazine, encouraging a visiting Berkeley, Calif., resident, Sascha DuBrul, to co-found the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library.

A big step forward came when teacher Rebecca Newburn founded a seed library in the public library in her California hometown in 2000—and shared a template for others to replicate it. “In short order, there were hundreds of them, and now thousands,” she says by phone. Newburn founded a seed library network sharing information and pitfalls (beware of extreme heat and cold, which can damage seeds!) and details such as the potential legal complications of patented seeds.

Many organized seed libraries have a deeper mission: encouraging resilience and skill-building. Acworth encourages patrons to learn how to save seeds — a rewarding way of paying the Little Library forward, but also an important skill.

“To me, the seed library is part of food security,” Acworth says. “It’s like having money in the bank, but it’s seeds in the library.”

Good Dog, Goose

Giuli Lewis and her dog, Goose, pose near the Little Free Dog Library on Queen Anne that Lewis set up to foster a neighborhood exchange of dog toys (like this squeaky alligator). (Photo credit: Ken Lambert/The Seattle Times)

On Queen Anne, Giuli Lewis noticed last year that her dog, Goose, had extra toys. She figured: Why not share?

Lewis had been intrigued by a Little Free Stick Library she’d seen online, but sticks can injure dogs’ mouths. She set up a Little Free Dog Library instead, in a lidded plastic crate. Instead of “Take a Book, Leave A Book,” it advertised, “Take a Toy, Leave a Toy.” Goose, a 10-pound, friendly, former “foster fail” adopted from Dog Gone Seattle, had plenty of tasty treats and tennis balls. “It quickly took off,” Lewis says.

Through the local Buy Nothing group, neighbors learned to stop by—or drop off their own squeaky toys and spare leashes. Canine connections flourished, and so did human ones.

“I’ve talked to so many people,” Lewis says—along with Rue, Luna, D’Artagnan, Butters, Porter, Cooper, Nia, Balloo, Lemon and Walter (just some of their accompanying pets).

Neighborhood raccoons got wind of the windfall and robbed the crate more than once, so Lewis now brings dog food in at night. Otherwise, it’s been nothing but a hit.

“Multiple dogs, I’ve been told, insist on walking this block,” she says. One owner brings treats in his pocket just in case the box isn’t stocked.

And Goose, the original giver, seems fine sharing his belongings—as his visitors seem fine sniffing around and proudly taking something home.

“I think they like the idea they’ve taken another dog’s toy,” Lewis says.

The Art of Giving

The Free Little Art Gallery on Queen Anne is currently showing two abstract works. The show runs indefinitely, until new art is swapped in. A sign says, “Feel free to take a piece, leave a piece — or both.” (Photo credit: Ken Lambert/The Seattle Times)

When museums and art galleries shut down during the pandemic in 2020, Stacy Milrany opened a tiny one.

Her Little Free Art Library on Queen Anne was designed like a museum, with lighting and white walls, a tiny bench for viewing (with minifigures observing the display), and a tiny easel and shelf displaying drawings and paintings with dimensions of just a few inches.

“I was surprised how fast people embraced it and how many people contributed in the first 60 days. I had hundreds of pieces,” the artist recalls. “I didn’t even know if people would get the concept, want to play, care about it.”

There have been Post-it-sized portraits and abstracts, acrylics and watercolors, still lifes and collages.

“It can change over the course of an hour, and there can be a completely new installation there. That’s part of the beauty of it, is constantly seeing it change.”

At first, Milrany says, she felt compelled to meet artists and document each contribution.

It was delightful—and sometimes overwhelming.

“One thing I love about all these Little Free Everythings is that they wake people up,” she says. “They surprise and delight. They’re not on their phones, they look around, they’re engaged with humanity and artifacts made by real people.”

Milrany saw the irony in the time she was spending on her own phone, documenting interactions and contributions. She let the library become more self-sustaining, less actively managed—and that’s been delightful, too.

“I really wanted to see if it would sustain itself [after] the novelty of the pandemic, if it would wear off, or if people would still embrace it,” she says. “I am glad to say people have still embraced it.”

A larger community has done the same. Milrany designed the installation as much like a professional gallery as she could—partly because everything else was closed, partly for “people’s creations to be the hero.” She shared the design plans online, and she says it’s been rewarding to see hundreds of replicas rise nationwide.

“I hope that it’s a sign that we are making space for authentic human connection in this very isolated or disconnected world,” she says.

The Sweet Side of Giving

Kim Holloway finishes up a batch of cupcakes for her Little Free Bakery in Phinneywood. (Photo credit: Rebekah Denn)

The first Little Free Bakery is believed to be Lanne Stauffer’s 2021 Magnolia box, inspired by a gift bouquet from the nearby Little Free Flowery. As Pacific NW magazine contributor Jill Lightner—who operates a Little Free Bakery in Columbia City—noted, a scattering of bakeries followed around Seattle, and the concept spread to other states.

Holloway, of the Phinneywood bakery library, is a writer who has specialized in advertising copy for cookware companies. She’s on what she calls a “Gen X gap year” to focus on what she loves, and figure out what might come next.

“I am exhausted at the end of it, and usually I go lie down on the couch. But then what I’m thinking of is, ‘What’s next? What am I going to make next week?'”

She talked with a few other Little Free Bakery hosts before deciding to move ahead with her own in the spring. Their biggest piece of advice: “This is your own thing.” Do it however it works.

Holloway has operated the bakery most Fridays, noting the opening time on her Instagram page and local Buy Nothing group. She writes haikus and hands them out on bookmarks with the treats. Unlike many bakers, she and Dickenson stay outside and greet passersby.

“We see some of the same people every week, and then always we’re meeting new people,” Dickenson says.

Jogging down the street, neighbor Rachel Leftwich stopped for a cupcake, joking, “I did time my run” for the fuel.

Kim Holloway bakes on Friday afternoons, and usually, at around 3 p.m., fills her Little Free Bakery in Phinneywood on 87th between Dayton and Phinney. (Photo credit: Rebekah Denn)

A new neighbor came with her also-new dog, who accepted a treat while her owner tried a cupcake. Schoolchildren paused to agonize between frosting choices. One girl took two—then ran up the street to share one with her mother.

“That’s lovely,” one woman says, accepting a cupcake. “I’m surprised I’m taking it, but y’all look trustworthy.”

It took a second, for new visitors, to absorb that there was no catch, no money involved, no requests.

For Holloway, the scale already was balanced.

“I have lived here for 19 years, and I had never met most of my neighbors … and now I know a whole lot of my neighbors,” she says. “It really has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. I look forward to every Friday when I’m here, and then I am exhausted at the end of it, and usually I go lie down on the couch. But then what I’m thinking of is, ‘What’s next? What am I going to make next week?’”

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]]> https://civileats.com/2025/01/07/growing-corn-in-the-desert-no-irrigation-required/ Tue, 07 Jan 2025 09:00:55 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=60334 This story originally appeared on Reasons to Be Cheerful, and is reprinted here with permission. Instead, Kotutwa Johnson, an enrolled member of the Hopi tribe, practices the Hopi tradition he learned from his grandfather on the Little Colorado River Plateau near Kykotsmovi Village in northeastern Arizona, a 90-minute drive from Flagstaff: “In spring, we plant […]

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]]> This story originally appeared on Reasons to Be Cheerful, and is reprinted here with permission.

When Michael Kotutwa Johnson goes out to the acreage behind his stone house to harvest his corn, his fields look vastly different from the endless rows you see in much of rural North America. Bundled in groups of five or six, his corn stalks shoot out of the sandy desert in bunches, resembling bushels rather than tightly spaced rows. “We don’t do your typical 14-inch spaced rows,” he says.

Instead, Kotutwa Johnson, an enrolled member of the Hopi tribe, practices the Hopi tradition he learned from his grandfather on the Little Colorado River Plateau near Kykotsmovi Village in northeastern Arizona, a 90-minute drive from Flagstaff: “In spring, we plant eight to 10 corn kernels and beans per hole, further apart, so the clusters all stand together against the elements and preserve the soil moisture.” For instance, high winds often blow sand across the barren plateau. “This year was a pretty hot and dry year, but still, some of the crops I raised did pretty well,” he says with a satisfied smile. “It’s a good year for squash, melons, and beans. I’ll be able to propagate these.”

Hopi corn fields look vastly different from the tight rows typically seen across North America. Little Colorado River Plateau, northeast Arizona. (Photo courtesy of Michael Kotutwa Johnson)

Dry farming has been a Hopi tradition for several millennia. Kotutwa Johnson might build some protection for his crops with desert brush or cans to shield them from the wind, but his plants thrive without any fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, mulch, or irrigation. This is all the more impressive since his area usually gets less than 10 inches of rain per year.

“We chose this land, and we’ve learned to adapt to our harsh environment. The culture is tied into our agricultural system, and that’s what makes it so resilient.”

In the era of climate change, the practice of dry farming is met with growing interest from scientists and researchers as farmers grapple with droughts and unpredictable weather patterns. For instance, the Dry Farming Institute in Oregon lists a dozen farms it partners with, growing anything from tomatoes to zucchini. However, Oregon has wet winters, with an annual rainfall of over 30 inches, whereas on the plateau in Arizona, Johnson’s crops get less than a third of that. Farmers in Mexico, the Middle East, Argentina, Southern Russia, and Ukraine all have experimented with dry farming, relying on natural rainfall, though conditions and practices vary in each region.

For Kotutwa Johnson, it’s a matter of faith and experience. Between April and June, he checks the soil moisture to determine which crops to plant and how deep. He uses the traditional wooden Hopi planting stick like his ancestors, because preserving the topsoil by not tilling is part of the practice. “We don’t need moisture meters or anything like that,” he explains. “We plant everything deep—for instance, the corn goes 18 inches deep, depending on where the seeds will find moisture.” His seeds rely on the humidity from the melted winter snow and annual monsoon rains in June.

Kotutwa Johnson with an ear of his Hopi white corn. (Photo courtesy of Michael Kotutwa Johnson)

His harvest looks unique, too. “We know 24 varieties of indigenous corn,” he says, showing off kernels in indigo blue, purple red, snow white, and yellow. His various kinds of lima and pinto beans shimmer in white, brown, merlot red, and mustard yellow. Studies have shown that indigenous maize is more nutritious, richer in protein and minerals than conventional corn, and he hopes to confirm similar results with his own crops in his role as professor at the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona, and as a core faculty member with the fledgling Indigenous Resilience Center, which focuses on researching resilient solutions for Indigenous water, food, and energy independence. He earned a PhD in natural resources, concentrating on Indigenous agricultural resilience, not least to “have a seat at the table and level the playing field, so mainstream stakeholders can really hear me,” he says. “I’m not here to be the token Native; I’m here to help.” For instance, he attended COP 28, the 2023 United Nations climate change conference in Dubai, to share his knowledge about “the reciprocal relationship with our environment.”

Kotutwa Johnson was born in Germany because his dad was in the military, but he spent the summers with his grandfather planting corn, squash, beans, and melons the Indigenous way in the same fields he’s farming now, where he eventually built an off-grid stone house with his own hands. “As a kid, I hated farming because it’s hard work,” he admits with disarming honesty, followed by a quick laugh. “But later I saw the wisdom in it. We’ve done this for well over 2,000 or 3,000 years. I’m a 250th-generation Hopi farmer.”

Unlike many other Indigenous tribes, the Hopi weren’t driven off their land by European settlers. “We’re very fortunate that we were never relocated,” Kotutwa Johnson says. “We chose this land, and we’ve learned to adapt to our harsh environment. The culture is tied into our agricultural system, and that’s what makes it so resilient.”

However, the Hopi tribe doesn’t own the land. Legally, the United States holds the title to the 1.5 million acres of reservation the Hopi occupy in Northwestern Arizona, a fraction of their original territory. Kotutwa Johnson estimates that only 15 percent of his community still farms, down from 85 percent in the 1930s, and some Hopi quote the lack of land ownership as an obstacle.

Hopi corn thrives without fertilizers, herbicides, mulch, or irrigation. (Photo courtesy of Michael Kotutwa Johnson)

Like on many reservations, the Hopi live in a food desert, where tribal members have to drive one or two hours to find a major supermarket in Flagstaff or Winslow. High rates of diabetes and obesity are a consequence of lacking easy access to fresh produce. “If you’re born here you have a 50 percent chance of getting diabetes,” Kotutwa Johnson says. “To me, this is the original harm: the disruption of our traditional foods. By bringing back the food, you also bring back the culture.”

Traditionally, Hopi women are the seed keepers, and the art of dry farming starts with the right seeds. “These seeds adapted to having no irrigation, and so they are very valuable,” Kotutwa Johnson says. He is fiercely protective of the seeds he propagates and only exchanges them with other tribal members within the community.

Left to right: A variety of Hopi beans, a squash in the field, and an old Hopi corn variety grown from an 800-year-old seed. (Photo courtesy of Michael Kotutwa Johnson)

In that spirit, he was overjoyed to receive 800-year-old corn ears from a man who recently found them in a cave in Glen Canyon. Kotutwa Johnson planted the corn, and about a fifth actually sprouted. He raves about the little white corn ears he was able to harvest: “It’s so amazing we got to bring these seeds home. It was like opening up an early Christmas present.”

From a traditional perspective, “we were given things to survive,” he says. “In our faith, we believe the first three worlds were destroyed, and when we came up to this world, we were given a planting stick, some seeds, and water by a caretaker who was here before us.”

Kotutwa Johnson’s stone farm house in northern Arizona. (Photo courtesy of Michael Kotutwa Johnson)

He doesn’t believe that climate change can be stopped. “But we can adapt to it, and our seeds can adapt.” This is a crucial tenet of Hopi farming: Instead of manipulating the environment, they raise crops and cultivate seeds that adjust to their surroundings. His crops grow deep roots that stretch much farther down into the ground than conventional plants.

“Our faith tells us that we need to plan every single year no matter what we see,” even in drought years, he explains. “Some years, we might not plant much, but we still plant regardless because those plants are like us, they need to adapt.”

Roasted corn in a Hopi pit. (Photo courtesy of Michael Kotutwa Johnson)

Dry farming is “not very economically efficient,” he admits. “Everything is driven towards convenience nowadays. We’re not trying to make a big buck out here; we’re here to maintain our culture and practice things we’ve always done to be able to survive.”

Kotutwa Johnson does not sell his produce. He keeps a percentage of the seeds to propagate and gives the rest to relatives and his community, or trades it for other produce.

But his vision far surpasses his nine acres. He wants to pass on his dry-farming methods to the next generation, just as he learned them from his grandfather, and he often invites youth to participate in farming workshops and communal planting. That’s why he recently started the Fred Aptvi Foundation, named after his grandfather, to focus on establishing a seed bank and a Hopi youth agricultural program that incorporates the Hopi language. Aptvi means “one who plants besides another,” Kotutwa Johnson explains. “It’s about revitalizing what’s there, not reinventing it.”

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]]> https://civileats.com/2024/12/27/our-best-community-food-solutions-stories-of-2024/ https://civileats.com/2024/12/27/our-best-community-food-solutions-stories-of-2024/#comments Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:00:56 +0000 https://civileats.com/?p=60248 Climate change, environmental health issues, and food access are foremost among those challenges. The people and projects we drew inspiration from this year provided creative, community-appropriate improvements to disaster relief, wildfire prevention, living wages, and food access, among other pressing issues. Here are our best community food solutions stories of 2024. The Farmers Leaning On […]

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Over our nearly 16 years of covering the U.S. food system, we’ve seen firsthand how complex, often sobering stories about challenges in food and farming come to life when they include real people trying to fix problems at the local level.

Climate change, environmental health issues, and food access are foremost among those challenges. The people and projects we drew inspiration from this year provided creative, community-appropriate improvements to disaster relief, wildfire prevention, living wages, and food access, among other pressing issues.

Here are our best community food solutions stories of 2024.

The Farmers Leaning On Each Other’s Tools
The cost of specialized farm equipment is one of the biggest barriers for small-scale and beginning farmers. Cooperatives are springing up around the nation to help bridge the gap.

This Group Has Helped Farmworkers Become Farm Owners for More Than 2 Decades
California’s farmworkers face untold barriers accessing the land, capital, and training needed to strike out on their own. For 20 years, ALBA has been slowly changing the landscape for this important group of aspiring growers.

Can Prescriptions for Produce-Focused Meal Kits Fight Diabetes?
Over half of the population of Stockton, California, is diabetic or pre-diabetic. A prescribed meal kit program helps some residents manage the disease and may provide a model for other communities.

A participant in the Healthy Food Rx program gets ready to prepare a recipe with the fresh produce she received in one of its meal kits. (Photo credit: Abbott Fund)

Micro Solar Leases: A New Income Stream for Black Farmers in the South?
EnerWealth Solutions wants to bring the benefits of renewable energy to Black farmers and landowners in the Carolinas.

Native Youth Learn to Heal Their Communities Through Mycelium
Spirit of the Sun is using traditional ecological knowledge to help address food insecurity and connection to culture.

How a Community Gardener Grew Food for Her Family, Quit Her Job at McDonald’s, and Started a Farm
A Q&A with Maximina Hernández Reyes, who credits her success to a Portland, Oregon, food network called Rockwood Food Systems Collaborative.

A Community of Growers
How East New York Farms builds food security and provides jobs for its neighborhood.

Farm Stops Create New Markets for Small Farms
These brick-and-mortar consignment businesses support farmers and bring fresh, locally grown food to their communities.

Kim Bayer, owner of Slow Farm, in Ann Arbor, MI, with farm managers Zach Goodman and Magda Nawrocka-Weekes. Slow Farm sells its organic produce at Argus, a local farm stop. (Photo credit: Paige Hodder)

How a Vermont Cheesemaker Helps Local Farms Thrive
By paying top dollar for milk and sourcing within 15 miles of its creamery, Jasper Hill supports an entire community.

Good Goats Make Good Neighbors
A California nonprofit builds community through goat grazing to reduce wildfire risk, farm-to-school programs, and more.

After Hurricane Helene, Local Farmers and Chefs Pivot to Disaster Relief
Western North Carolina farms, restaurants, and even a festival quickly switched gears to get fresh food and water to neighbors devastated by the worst storm in more than a century.

Restoring a Cornerstone of the Local Grain Economy
A new community of millers joins the revival of America’s regional grain heritage, connecting farmers with a market eager for fresh, local flour.

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