A Revolution in Your Own Backyard

Did you know there is a revolution happening in our own backyard? 

It's a food revolution.

A century ago, people ate what grew in their gardens and shopped at neighborhood produce stores, bakeries, and butcheries. The food that was sold at these stores came from the thousands of acres of farmland surrounding Buffalo, farms that brought their fruits and vegetables to market at places like the Clinton-Bailey Market on Buffalo's East Side. Everything was fresh, everything was local, everything was healthy.

With the invention of refrigerated trucks, large one-stop supermarkets and the streamlining of transportation, it somehow became 'normal' to ship all of our food in from across country, and today in many cases, from outside of the U.S.

Today a tomato is not picked at its peak and served. It is arguably not even a tomato. Today our fruits and vegetables have been bred and modified to be pretty and to ship long distances. However, they have not been bred and modified to necessarily taste good, and even more importantly, they do not necessarily contain the same vitamins and minerals a real tomato possesses. Today's tomato is picked before it is ripe, 'gassed' with chemicals to slow the maturation process, shipped from foreign countries in dark shipping containers and held in refrigerated warehouses until they are 'gassed' again, triggering the ripening process. It doesn't take a wise man to see that a tomato ripened on the vine, where it is still connected to its food source, gaining flavor from the sun and the wind, would taste better and be a more nutritious tomato.

It is no wonder that Americans have begun to seek out local, "real" food, like heirloom tomatoes. It is no wonder that Americans are beginning to question how factory food--most often prepared with the use of industrialized systems and chemicals--has become the norm.

In other parts of the country, the ability to grow food locally is often limited. In areas where this is the case, many consumers have sought out assistance from other states in an attempt to bring healthy, fresh food into their region.

Western New York does not have this problem.

Here, our micro-climates, prime soil ratings and acres of lush farmland are ideal conditions for growing a tremendous variety of fruits and vegetables. We also happen to be home to some of the best grass in the country (hence our large dairy industry), maple trees and wine grapes.

There are nearly 8,000 farms in Western New York and most of them are small farms, not industrial farms. Many of them have little market for the produce and fruit that they raise.

In the last few years, many people and organizations have worked hard to develop the connection between farmers and consumers. This has brought local food into the city by way of restaurants, and improved the acceptance of the local food movement here in Buffalo. It has also led to an increase in people looking for sustainable, locally-raised food at their local farmers market and in their favorite grocery stores. Many Western New Yorkers have recently chosen to seek out farms that are CSAs, often selling out shares and overall increasing the number of farms using the Community Supported Agriculture business model exponentially.

Strong and dedicated advocates of the right to healthy food in our impoverished urban neighborhoods have even developed their own solution. Why not farm the empty plots in their neighborhoods, providing fresh, local, sustainably-raised food to the denizens of the city's east and west sides?

Ten years ago a principled group of folks started Massachusetts Avenue Project, an urban farm and youth outreach program all wrapped into one. Recent developments have seen a straw bale greenhouse and an aquaponics system/tilapia farm integrated as part of this west side farm's layout. MAP continues to remain a force of advocacy and action on Buffalo's west side.

Just over a year ago, the Stevens family worked with the city and the community to procure the use of ten plots on Buffalo's east side. Today, Wilson Street Farm, once a string of empty urban plots, is home to a large hoop house and rows and rows of fresh vegetables.

Elsewhere in the city, young entrepreneurs with strong backs and principled goals have laid claim to turf on both the east and west sides of the city, growing their own bounty of fresh healthy food, available to their neighborhood at dirt cheap prices. Two such farms are Curbside Croft and Cold Spring Urban Farm.

There are other aspects to what I am calling Buffalo's food revolution. Just one or two of of them relate to farms. Urban farming and the increased acceptance and 'mainstreaming' of the local food movement are a single example of the remarkable changes seen in Western New York's eating and dining landscape in the last few years. In some cases, other parts of the revolution may be more exciting or even media-friendly. But the movement towards urban agriculture (which we can all see is just a return to the way things were a century ago before we sort of fiddled with nature) is perhaps the most important of all.

I happen to think this aspect of the revolution is important enough that I've developed a show and tell tour around Buffalo's "Urban Ag". I hope you will join us. We'll spend Sunday, August 22nd visiting each of these urban farms, meeting the people (and the fish!) behind each project and, tasting the food. Award-winning Chef Bruce Wieszala will prepare a local-centric gourmet lunch for us at a city park in between stops. He's been on Food Network a few times and has worked at some of the country's top restaurants, but he's too humble to tell you that. You'll know it when you taste it, though.

If you're curious, you can watch a slide show of past farm tours here.

What better way to witness the revolution first hand?





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Above image depicts co-founder of the Elmwood-Bidwell Farmers Market, Tom Tower, giving a tour of his Niagara County farm on last year's Foodie-to-Farm tour.