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Green New Meal: The Food Climate-Connection

Green New Meal: The Food Climate-Connection

Brooklyn Public Library, December 11, 2019

Speakers

Moderator

Bhavani Jaroff is a natural foods chef, educator, farm-to-school coordinator, radio host, and food activist with over 30 years experience cooking healthy, fresh, organic food. She has designed holistic, educational food service and community service programs, including her own school, Cooking from the Heart.

Panelists

Onika Abraham has led Farm School NYC since 2014. A co-founder of Black Urban Growers, she is committed to increasing the number of black farmers nationally. Farm School NYC students study botany, propagation, soils, irrigation, and crop management as well as food justice and the New York City ecosystem. Onika completed the Farm & Garden Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food in Santa Cruz and earned an MBA from the City University of New York.

Nancy Romer is a professor emerita of psychology at Brooklyn College and a lifelong social activist. Nancy was the founding leader of the Brooklyn Food Coalition (2008-2017). She served on the executive council of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC)-CUNY and currently is an active member of PSC’s Environmental Justice Working Group. She is part of the Democratic Socialists of America’s Working Group on Climate Justice, works with the Labor Network for Sustainability and is a leader of the People’s Climate Movement-NY.

Slide presentation
Elizabeth Henderson co-chairs the policy committee of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA). She grew organic vegetables for the fresh market for over 30 years. She now represents the NOFA Interstate Council on the Board of the Agricultural Justice Project. Elizabeth is the lead author of Sharing the Harvest: A Citizen’s Guide to Community Supported Agriculture.

Actions and Resources

Think globally, eat locally

Brooklyn has some great sources for regionally grown and organic food.

  • Click here for a map of farmers markets in our borough.
  • Brooklyn’s Bushwick, Flatbush, Greene Hill, Lefferts, Park Slope and Windsor Terrace food coops offer more options. The Central Brooklyn Food Coop, now in formation, aims to bring similar offerings to Bedford-Stuyvesant: cbfood.org. Food coops rely on member labor, usually a few hours a month, and offer high-quality food at affordable prices. Coops often go the extra mile to provide fair trade products, too.
  • Another possibility is community-supported agriculture (CSA). City dwellers can buy a “share” of a farm’s harvest and pick up produce as it becomes available. localharvest.org/csa

    If you garden
    If you have space in a community garden, yard, rooftop, or window box, choose organic plants and soil. Avoid synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, cultivate native plants, and if pesticides are unavoidable, seek out organic varieties.

    Compost
    New York City has lots of places where you can bring kitchen scraps for compost, including many greenmarkets. If you’re not sure where to bring your food scraps, here’s a list of locations.

    Learn about soil carbon restoration
    The most effective proven method for sequestering carbon is in the soil. To learn more: nofamass.org/carbon

    Join a climate organization
    One of the most effective ways to help protect the food supply is to join the climate movement. Whatever we can do together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and global warming will help reduce the impact of warming on agriculture.