How food literate are you? Does the concept of “food literacy” ring a bell? Think about it as your relationship to food: What meals can you prepare independently? Who taught you these skills? Food literacy is an understanding of the impacts of your food choices on your health, the environment, and our economy.
Jennifer Cockrall-King’s 2012 book, Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution, explores how we engage with food every day. Cockrall-King, an award-winning food journalist, seeks out pioneers in the urban-agriculture movement and cities navigating issues of food insecurity from around the world.
Optimism pervades this book. It is a fascinating chronicle of a game-changing global movement, and a rebellion against the industrial food system that explores reclaiming communities to enhance growth, learning, and eating locally.
This book follows a global movement of knowledge, novelty, and pushback on the way we consume. Cockrall-King looks to the future of farming and urbanization while celebrating innovative individuals in creating growing spaces in cities. From London and Paris to Vancouver and New York, Cockrall-King explores alternatives to industrial agriculture and retail supermarkets.
Supermarkets are part of many people’s weekly routine. But what point do supermarkets serve and perpetuate beyond supplying food? Cockrall-King critiques supermarkets in a way that reveals their intersection with the industrial food system. Supermarkets rely on supply and demand. They are intentionally located to serve the needs of those in the community. As population rises and the fear of shortages grows, what happens when supermarkets aren’t stocked? In juxtaposing the supermarket with the advent of urban agriculture, she inventively compares the convenience store to “really just the outlet mall for the industrial food system.”
Cities are reimagining how they grow and sell food. Cities are introducing fruit trees, urban gardens and other innovative growing spaces such as rooftops, on rooftops, backyards, empty lots, along roadways, and even in “vertical farms.” As Cockrall-King wittily remarks, “community gardens are mushrooming in size.” Food gardens are growing in notorious food deserts which lack reliable access to quality foods. The expansion of urban food gardens is a result of food literacy and simultaneously sparks knowledge and improves food literacy.
Knowing how to prepare a simple meal and work with various foods is a skill many young families, children, and those without experience do not have, however, by offering digestible case studies, Cockrall-King introduces everyday practices for the everyday person, allowing urbanites to engage with urban agriculture. How do perceptions change when gallivanting around a concrete jungle and being met with fruit trees and pots galore of tomatoes that are in fact in need of pruning? How do these interactions and small additions to the setting affect not only the planning of the city but the production and involvement of entire communities?
The book dives deep into far-reaching issues of food security. We learn about effective organizations that put food security at the forefront of their mission. Food Share, Canada’s largest community food-security organization, operates a program called Good Food Box. It is a subsidized Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program that offers food instruction via community kitchens in low-income areas. These kinds of programs work to fill the food-literacy gap by relaying knowledge that traditionally is taught in the home and on the farm. Food Share is an example of community outreach that values advocacy and acts as an activism hub for food justice in Toronto.
Why do we expect young adults to be well-versed in food and preparation? We so easily assume that youth have the support system backing them up to teach these skills. This is not necessarily the case. There needs to be more transparency in the myriad of ways people are taught and guided to interact with food. Many young families and individuals lack knowledge of basic cooking skills and how to properly balance their meals. With programs like Good Food Box, urban gardening is becoming an effective tool to combat this food gap.
Cockrall-King offers insight into the rapidly moving world of food. The breadth of cities studied, and issues associated with food security, at times parallel the fast-moving and innovative movement. I found myself at times overwhelmed with the information given. This book reinforced many of my own beliefs that simplifying the issue of food security and making it more accessible to youth is necessary to make change.
Graze the Roof is a community-produced garden that grows vegetables on the rooftop of a church in San Francisco.