Interview about the Making of FTN
Anne Hamersky was recently interviewed by the American Society of Media Photographers about the making of Farm Together Now. ASMP recently gave her an award for her photography for the FTN project. You can read the original interview here or below:
By following a passion and creating her own “beat,” visual storyteller Anne Hamersky set the stage for a commission to photograph sustainable agriculture on farms across the country for a major book project. After intensive planning for the most efficient schedule and route, she embarked on a three-month, 13,000-mile journey around America. From sunrise to sunset and beyond, her images now form the visual centerpiece of Farm Together Now. Set for release in January 2011, half of the book’s profits will be plowed back into future food production projects.
Anne Hamersky, San Francisco, CA
Web site: www.annehamersky.com
Project: Commissioned project Farm Together Now for Chronicle Books.
All images in this article © Anne Hamersky
ASMP: How long have you been in business?
AH: My first photograph was published in October 1985. To learn more about shooting with strobes, I started assisting George Steinmetz soon after that. I began attending ASMP meetings to balance the Commerce and Art rails on my career track.
ASMP: How long have you been an ASMP member?
AH: I joined ASMP in 1989.
ASMP: What are your photographic specialties?
AH: Here’s what my Web site says about me. “Anne Hamersky is a visual storyteller whose portrait, documentary and multimedia projects capture the humanity of her subjects with a vibrantly warm and graphically strong signature style. She specializes in photographing people who shape the social and cultural landscape of our times, showing us how they look, what they do and how they influence our world. Anne’s projects include commercial, editorial and non-profit clients, serving such fields as health, education, sustainable agriculture, green technology, travel and entertainment. When she is not chasing the light, Anne swims in the San Francisco Bay without a wetsuit.” Read more…
Veggies Behind Bars
A recent article in the Chicago Tribune by Kevin Pang explains some of the process behind getting inmates at Cook County Jail to participate in the Sheriff’s gardening program that now sells to high-end local-food-loving restaurants. The approach of the article is compelling, with a focus on the program, the participant, the Chefs and the diner who all participate in this process. The sales to the restaurants help the program break-even financially, which I am sure help to justify its existence. The testimonies from the inmates who participate in the program veer much closer to a rehabilitation-oriented outcome than the punishment practices which our jail and prison systems are known for. It should not be so rare to read an article about incarceration where it seems like people are actually being helped, so kudos to Kevin Pang for writing it and for the garden program for finding a way to continue for 20 years in difficult conditions of the criminal justice system.
As Chicago prison reform activist Laurie Jo Reynolds likes to say, there is nothing more expensive you could do to a person than to cage them in a jail or prison. You could send them on a cruise, to college or through any kind of therapy and it would still be cheaper than putting them behind bars. The way incarceration works is not sustainable on a human or social level, as people’s lives are being taken and no attention on the inside or on the outside is being paid to rehabilitation or creating the socio-economic conditions for re-entry into society. The system is not sustainable on an economic level, as our states begin the challenging process of approving new budgets with record deficits. Perhaps there is an opportunity for the emerging food movements to do more bridge-building with state budget reformers, social programs and economic development initiatives to connect foods, rehabilitation and economic justice.
Here is an article from Planet Green.com about the first major prison garden program in San Francisco. It opens with a great quote from Nelson Mandela:
Nelson Mandela may have started it all when he was in prison—”A garden is one of the few things in prison that one could control,” he wrote in his autobiography. “Being a custodian of this patch of earth offered a small taste of freedom.”
Thanks to Jan Susler for passing the article along.
FTN Photo Featured in GRIST
Farm Together Now photo in Grist article by Stephanie Ogburn about City Slicker Farms in Oakland!
Anne Hamersky photo of City Slicker Farms from Farm Together Now
From the Grist article: “Started in 2001, City Slicker Farms is one of the oldest food and farming organizations in Oakland. Founded by activist Willow Rosenthal, the group, along with the food justice nonprofit People’s Grocery, has become an incubator and hub for agtivists who want to make fresh, healthy food available to all Oaklanders, especially those low-income communities and communities of color who typically have reduced access to quality produce at affordable prices.”
Peepli Live
The new film Peepli Live is touring the US right now and looks like it could be a great way for people to learn about the huge issue of farmer suicides in India (and many other parts of the globe) due to the stranglehold of corporate agricultural businesses on local and international food economies (In 2009’s season alone 1,500 farmers in the Indian state of Chattisgarh committed suicide).
Check out the trailer here:
and an interview with the filmmaker here:
Notes of a midwestern farm
I’m considering the summer weather right now. Pondering when and with what effect it will inevitably shift, as low fifties are predicted for these coming weekend nights. Terra Brockman composes lovely writings of certain ecological imperatives, including life on her brother Henry’s farm. Their roots are of Illinois, family, and farming. In mid August, Terra wrote of a heat inextricably woven into both day and night while considering those that toil within this realm. This particular piece is a part of her weekly food and farm notes series and to read about the extreme heat, just click on August under blog archive. Terra shares various descriptions of life on this midwestern farm as well as information on the vegetables grown and of course, suggestions on how to prepare items such as daikon, salsify, and purslane.
Mess Hall Presentation in Chicago on 9/12/10
I will be giving my first public lecture focused on Farm Together Now in just a few weeks in Chicago at the experimental cultural center Mess Hall. Their sunday skillshare series is intended to be a Messhall contribution to the new Glenwood Sunday Market taking place in the neighborhood. Please come by if you want to learn more about Farm Together Now and help me brush up on how to talk about this big ‘ol project.
Farm Together Now trip plan for summer 2009
p.s. Mark your calendar’s for the FTN release party here in Chicago on December 1st at 6pm (downtown, exact location TBA).
What:
Sunday Skillshare Series: Farm Together Now–a portrait of people, places and ideas for a new food movement w/ Daniel Tucker
Where:
Mess Hall is in the heart of Rogers Park, Chicago, our address is:
6932 North Glenwood Avenue Chicago, IL 60626It is very easy to get to our space via the CTA Red Line, get off at the Morse stop.
When:
Sun, September 12, 10am – 1pm
Description:
In 2009 Daniel traveled the U.S. with his collaborators Amy and Anne visiting twenty different inspiring activist-farmers. The result of this process is a book (To be released on Chronicle Books Dec, 1 2010). He will share a slide-show preview of the book and explain some of what he found out from these 20 inspiring projects. more info @ https://farmtogethernow.org/
*Mess Hall opens @ 10:00 for coffee & presentation begins at 11:00am.
More information at http://messhall.org/
Trying to understand the farm bill
The current farm bill expires on 09-30-2012. The writing of the new bill will begin in early 2011. We have less than a year to tell our legislators what we want the farm bill to be.
The farm bill designs the funding structure for commodity programs, agricultural research, nutritional programs, conservation programs, rural development, and more.
Food stamps, school lunches, and other nutrition programs account for about half of the farm bill spending. Support for commodity crop farmers accounts for another 35%. The rest of the funds are divided among conservation, environment, forestry, renewable energy, research and rural development.
About one quarter of U.S. farmers receive commodity subsidies and out of these, the top 10% receive 75% of all funds. Most payments go to the largest farms because commodities subsidies are paid to the producers of corn, soybeans, wheat, rice and cotton. The top 10 % receive two thirds of the payments. Very little of what is subsidized is actually edible to us humans.
Farmers who grow “specialty crops” or vegetables, fruits, and flowers are currently ineligible for these subsidies.
We need to make sure that the subsidies being legislated are in the interest of our nation’s health.
The farm bill is historically complex.
With roots in the New Deal, Agriculture Acts were once designed to help the struggling farmer by imposing restrictions on the amount of land that could be farmed to balance surplus and maintain stable prices. Trade was booming in the 1970s and farmers were encouraged to produce as much as possible, intending the surplus for export. During the 1980s, the global price of commodities collapsed and U.S. farmers dependent upon exporting were hit hard.
Jump to 1996 and the “Freedom to Farm Act.”– this marked the end of policy meant to control supply and stabilize prices. In 1997, Congress authorized the use of emergency payments to farmers and in 2002, Congress voted to make these emergency payments permanent.
Daniel Imhoff, a researcher who has spent nearly twenty years concentrating on issues related to farming, insists, “we must put an end to commodity subsidy programs that simply encourage over production and insurance of cheap ingredients for industrial foods. What we subsidize should contribute to an all around healthier food system.”
The House Agriculture Committee has been holding public hearings on the 2012 Farm Bill this summer. To keep up to date on the farm bill and other agricultural news, check out FarmPolicy.com, an Internet based newsletter that provides a daily summary of news relating to U.S. farm policy. And while you’re at it, read Michael Pollan’s You Are What You Grow, an article written the last time we were faced with the construction of our current farm bill. As Pollan states, this could be “the year when the farm bill became a food bill, and the eaters at last had their say.”
The Youngest CSA
There is plenty of fluffy writing these days about food and gardens but I cannot help but be inspired by this piece in Tonic about the 11 year old Katie Stagliano from South Carolina who started her own garden CSA. Katie obviously has a good publicist, as reflected by her recent video appearance on CNN.com. It is too bad that so much media attention is given to this one young person and not spread around to the folks who are experienced enough to really have a vision for how to change the food system as we know it, but this is one situation in which I am tempted to say that any press is good press when it comes to stories about people producing their own food.
Gavin Raders of Planting Justice
In an earlier post, I wrote about the workshop that I attended in Detroit during the US Social Forum. Check out this series of seven videos posted by the Permaculture TV free video cooperative, featuring Gavin Raders of Planting Justice speaking at that workshop.
This is from the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, who feature in Farm Together Now because of their collaborations with the Hunger Coalition in Atlanta. They are a really unique and important group to follow:
For Immediate Release:
July 21, 2010
Contact: Ralph Paige
404 765 0991
Federation of Southern Cooperatives/
Land Assistance Fund
Www.federation.coop
The Federation Sends Letter to USDA Secretary Vilsack
Regarding Sherrod’s Forced Resignation
ATLANTA….On July 19, former Federation staff member and head of the USDA’s Rural Development Office in Georgia was asked by the USDA to resign her post. The reason was because of the ramifications of a distorted video from a March 2010 speech she gave at the NAACP in south Georgia that was publicized by Fox News. In response to this the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund has sent the letter below to Thomas Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture.
July 21, 2010
The Honorable Thomas Vilsack
Secretary of Agriculture
Washington DCDear Secretary Vilsack:
We at the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund are writing regarding your decision to ask Shirley Sherrod to resign. We think you must reconsider and immediately reinstate her as Georgia USDA State Director of Rural Development.
Your decision to force Ms. Sherrod to resign was taken in haste without a thorough and complete review of the facts, context and circumstances of her actions. We feel you were unduly influenced by distorted and edited videotape that completely misrepresented a speech Ms. Sherrod made to the NAACP in Georgia.
It is a sign of leadership to admit to mistakes and quickly corrected them. We feel you as Secretary of Agriculture must quickly correct this injustice committed against Ms. Shirley Sherrod and the people she has struggled for years to serve. This is the transformative awareness and enlightened judgment we are expecting from you.
We note with interest that your concern is to move forward to solve the problems that USDA has had in the past in terms of its sad record on civil rights. Yet your decision to fire one of the few persons in the country who could likely do the most to help achieve that goal stubbornly negates your stated interest of moving forward toward equal access and equality of opportunity at USDA with integrity.
At the NAACP gathering in March this year, Shirley was sharing with the group her experience in the 1980’s of assisting the white farmer Roger Spooner. She, in fact, was instrumental in helping to save his farm. She describes the process of getting beyond her assumption that whites didn’t need services and assistance. She realized that being white did not make anyone immune to the problems of and to the lack of access to services. She realized rather that it was a matter of who has and how does not. This was a life changing experience for her. Her message was that all of us need to get beyond race and assist each other whether black or white.
Another of your interests we know is to finally resolve the lawsuits against USDA. Lack of access to services at USDA is the basis for the Pigford lawsuit. In addition to securing the necessary funding for settling Pigford from Congress to finally resolve this injustice to individual farmers, we know that another essential step in moving forward is to assist and assure farmers have access to the USDA programs. Programs, in fact, that are supposed to be available on an equitable basis to all farmers.
Shirley Sherrod in her remarkable career has been one of the most active practitioners in assisting untold numbers of black and white farmers to access the credit, conservation and other programs at USDA. Shirley has essentially been an ambassador for the USDA in her work at the Federation of Southern Cooperatives and as Georgia State Director of Rural Development. If anything, she deserves to be honored for this work and not falsely condemned and forced to retire in disgrace.
We find it ironic that in the one hundred years of USDA’s history of discrimination, not a single white person has been dismissed for discrimination, however, a Black women who is doing her job well is falsely accused of discrimination in an altered video and you decide that she can no longer do a credible and nondiscriminatory job of dispensing USDA rural development programs and must resign.
Once Shirley is restored to her position, we feel it would enhance USDA’s goals by utilizing her as an ambassador for USDA. She could offer USDA staff throughout the country training and teaching about transformation on the issue of race and what it means to offer service to all farmers with justice and integrity regardless of race.
In summary, the inference that Shirley Sherrod is a racist is beyond comprehension. For you to make a decision without consideration of Shirley’s long and impressive work in civil rights is uncalled for. It is not only an insult to her, but also to the communities she has worked for and with all these many years as well as our organization that has for decades fought against racism and injustice in the rural South
We ask that you immediately reconsider your decision to fire Shirley Sherrod, apologize to her and consider instead the tremendous asset she has been and could continue to be for the USDA and rural America. We urge you to learn from this disagreeable incident and make it a shining example of a true change of heart and direction at USDA toward a brighter day of racial reconciliation and justice for all.
Cooperatively yours,
Ralph Paige
Executive Director
Farm Together Now - The Book and Blog 