Recipient Organization
DEEP MEDICINE CIRCLE
3949 39TH AVE
OAKLAND,CA 94619
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
In the San Francisco Bay Area (Bay Area), hunger and malnutrition affect those most harshly impacted by our social and economic systems, especially the urban poor. Populations within this geographic area are primarily people of color, whose access to healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate food was already limited by unemployment and the high cost of living, but has been exacerbated by pandemic conditions and racialized food apartheid. As food banks work to provide basic, shelf-stable commodities to food insecure households, they are unable to access, afford, and distribute nutritious, fresh, organic produce at the current level of need. The fact that organic produce is not even a choice for marginalized communities of color highlights the indignity of the current hunger charity model and the need for a food system in which communities can have control and autonomy over what their families eat. Access to this food for all, regardless of race or socio-economic status, is a matter of justice and equitability, as well as public health.?The Farming is Medicine project aims to reduce food insecurity and improve health outcomes among historically marginalized and poor urban residents of San Francisco and the Bay Area through local, organic food production, community-driven food distribution, and workforce development. Our project is part of the burgeoning national 'food is medicine' movement. We place an emphasis on production since we view food sovereignty, led by Indigenous peoples, as central. We envision our multi-sectoral, community-driven project as an important pathway toward an equitable and sustainable regional food system in the Bay Area that is community-accountable. Through our work, we will measurably reduce food insecurity in our communities while educating and empowering community members to better understand where their food comes from, how it is grown, how it impacts their health and wellbeing, and how they can participate in food production and distribution.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The Farming is Medicine project has two overarching goals:To replace conventional produce with organic, culturally-appropriate, and nutritious foods for historically marginalized and poor urban residents impacted by food insecurity.To employ and train urban and rural food producers, from farmers to community leaders, from historically marginalized groups to grow food for communities impacted by hunger.To achieve these goals, we have devised three interwoven strategies with accompanying objectives:Supporting historically underserved farmers in production of local, organic, and nutritious food at farms that bridge the urban-rural divide.At rural Te Kwe A'naa Warep Farm (formerly Ma Da Dil Farm), DMC operates a 38-acre farm and conservation site that merges agroecological with Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) practices, operated under Indigenous sovereignty. At urban Rooftop Medicine Farm, DMC operates a 1-acre high-yield, agroecological rooftop farm.Objectives:1.1. Four farmers from historically underserved backgrounds will have viable livelihoods, appropriate for regional cost of living, and strong community connections.1.2. Yield equivalent to approx. $400,000 of organic produce, the selection of which is guided by the communities consuming it, is grown annually across the two anchor farm sites.1.3. Water and soil management becomes increasingly stable and sustainable during the project period, as assessed by staff farmers and Indigenous advisors.Re-distributing good food via community partners and accessible pathwaysFood from Te Kwe A'naa Warep Farm will be distributed by partners in San Francisco and will ensure nutritious organic fruits and vegetables are central to the fresh produce offerings.From the Rooftop Medicine Farm in Oakland, food distribution will occur through multiple partners and will help sustain a pandemic-heightened level of service with assured healthy, organic produce, specifically appropriate for houseless and housing-insecure people.Objectives:2.1. Increase in food security for 160 Indigenous elders in San Francisco, 500 Tenderloin District community members, 100 West Oakland families, and 400 East Oakland families per year.2.2. 200 East Bay families per month supplied with local, organic produce through UCSF Food Farmacy.Building power via workforce development for food growers, land stewards, and community health providers, in ways that bridge urban-rural dividesAt the rural Te Kwe A'naa Warep farm, DMC in partnership with Friendship House and Native American Health Center will lead workforce development training in agroecology for young Indigenous adults, to spark interest in pursuing conservation-oriented and/or agricultural-related careers; and provide a sense of belonging, cultural identity, and community. The workforce development services will train community members on green agricultural job skills and provide small business incubation related to environmental and food production careers. DMC will lead in offering learning exchanges targeting historically underserved producers, established and beginning, from the Bay Area region. We will offer these on-farm learning exchanges ("encuentros") seasonally, following the common model of peer-to-peer learning for agricultural professionals.Centered at the urban Rooftop Medicine Farm, DMC will train the next generation of urban farmers in agroecology on a highly productive innovative rooftop system to hyper-localize our food system to increase resiliency to poor community health and climate change.Objectives:3.1. Over 4 years, 30-40 urban Indigenous youth and 100 Indigenous adults will be exposed to agroecology blended with TEK, resulting in: improved land stewardship skill sets; improved wellbeing; and getting involved in urban agriculture or gardening.3.2. Over 4 years, 20-30 Indigenous individuals and/or families will either (a) pursue educational or workforce pathways leading to agriculture-related careers; and/or (b) develop microenterprises or small businesses related to a green economy.3.3. Over 4 years, 100-200 historically underserved farmers will take part in seasonal encuentros resulting in improved understanding of specific agroecological practices and TEK concepts and readiness to implement specifiable approaches, techniques, practices, and/or tools.3.4. Over 4 years, 480-1,200 community participants will take part in 10 day-long courses, resulting in: improved appreciation for urban farming and readiness to implement specifiable approaches, techniques, practices, and/or tools.3.5. Over 4 years, 10-16 beginning farmers from underserved backgrounds educated and trained in urban food production through apprenticeship programming at Rooftop Medicine Farm with job placement support and mentoring.
Project Methods
The Farming is Medicine project deliberately intertwines local, organic food production with community-food distribution and workforce development activities to address hunger, poor health, and housing insecurity in economically and socially vulnerable BIPOC communities.Through the project and in coordination with partner organizations, participants from the targetareas will come together at the farm site for skill building and applied-learning opportunities, eventually progressingto food production for neighborhoods and communities.They will be integrated into local foodsystems leadership and will help to develop the neighborhood food systems that will provide access to affordable organic food as well as equitable food oriented development opportunities. In this way, community members will ensure the sustainability of and control over their food system. Increased self-reliance, community control, and economic development within local food systems will continue to be supported by DMC and its collaborating partners, but leadership, collaboration, stewardship, training, and development will be led by program participants as they become health and land stewards of their communities. Programming will connect them with every aspect of food production, from growing, to harvesting, to distribution, thus giving them the skills to be self-sufficient in creating, supporting, and working with neighborhood and regional food systems outside of the current industrial model.Evaluation MethodsWe have three data collection methods, mapped to project-specific audiences and outcomes:Activity and Output Tracking: Activity and output tracking helps us see clearly what happened during the time of the grant, what was created, and who was involved, so that we can map these activities onto resulting outcomes. The project team responsible for each task will be responsible for reporting activities and outcomes on a quarterly basis.Reflective Practice: Using interview data from key stakeholders, this involves examining assumptions, questioning the status quo, and evaluating one's own responses and reactions to various situations. Interviews will be conducted at the beginning of the project and then at the end. SCI will work with project partners to develop a semi-structured interview protocol that can be used with individuals and/or groups of stakeholders (e.g., focus group). The conversations will be led by project co-leads and recorded with permission; anonymized transcripts will be qualitatively analyzed by SCI for key themes related to outcomes, impacts, and learnings.Pre-Post Surveys: Pre-post surveys will be developed, distributed, and analyzed for: (1) Community recipients of food and (2) Participants in training programs. SCI will work with the project team to develop accessible (read: short and also available on paper or online) surveys, building off of initial food surveys administered by DMC before project period. Project partners will distribute them to a representative sample of each group before and after they receive their food distribution and/or training. Questions will be included that enable pre-post comparison of key outcomes and additional open-ended questions to assess participants' perceptions of the project overall.Data from all evaluation methods will be used for outcome evaluation, mapped onto three primary audiences: farmers; community members; and trainees. Data from all methods will also be used for process evaluation to answer the question, "what best practices and/or improvements were identified from and for the project?"