S2E2: Love your Mother...Earth Farm

Welcome to Season 2: Episode 2, Love your Mother…Earth Farm. Season 2 is all about our food system, food access and food justice. For this episode, we interviewed the previous farm manager of the Mother Earth Farm, Liam McNamara, about the Emergency Food Network and the unique niche that the Mother Earth Farm plays in providing fresh local food to those who need it.

We recorded the interview last May, so a few of the items are a tiny bit out of date; covid-19 references were pre-delta and omicron variants. Also, references to last year, would be 2020 and next year would be 2022. Hopefully this isn’t too confusing. Since sometimes we do our episodes out of order, we didn’t think this would be too big of a challenge for our listeners…

Liam McNamara, (previous) Mother Earth Farm Manager

Liam graduated from the Evergreen State College with a BA in Environmental Justice. He has been involved with sustainable agriculture for 11 years and as of last year was in his 8th full season of farming. He also has 4 years of experience working with the Washington State Department of Agriculture as an organic certification regulator. Liam left Mother Earth Farm after we recorded this interview and returned to working for the WSDA in 2021. He worked with Mother Earth Farm for two seasons. Having grown up in Puyallup, he felt blessed to be farming in the beautiful Puyallup Valley and working to support his community by growing produce or neighbors in need.

Emergency Food Network

The Emergency Food Network is a non-profit food bank in Tacoma, Washington that provides services to Pierce County residents. They are responsible for providing food to various food pantries and other food distribution locations throughout Pierce County. They are trying to increase their capacity to improve overall food security and provide fresh, nutrient rich, culturally appropriate foods to their community. Programs like this are so important in the role they play to provide fresh, healthy produce to underserved communities and in providing a space for community building.

According to an article in the Journal of Community Health, “Food banks play a major role in the food aid sector by distributing donated and purchased groceries directly to food insecure families. The public health implications of food insecurity are significant , particularly as food insecurity has a higher prevalence among certain population groups.” In their review of existing studies performed to evaluate the effectiveness of food banks for providing food security it was, “found that while food banks have an important role to play in providing immediate solutions to severe food deprivation, they are limited in their capacity to improve overall food security outcomes due to the limited provision of nutrient-dense foods in insufficient amounts, especially from dairy, vegetables and fruits.”

The Emergency Food Network, a food bank, is able to help address the limited provisions of nutrient-dense foods by having their own farm and that’s a big reason why we wanted to include them in our discussion about food sovereignty this season.

Mother Earth Farm

A special part of their program is the inclusion of an 8-acre farm in the Puyallup River Valley called Mother Earth Farm. From the farm they are able to provide