November 7, 2023 • 49 mins
In this episode, we bring you the conversation from Eco Meet CLE, a sustainability event held this October at Great Lakes Brewing Company. The theme of the evening was local food. Over 100 people joined us for food, beer, and a conversation about our local food system with a panel of guests that helped us explore the meaning of the term food system, the various roles within that system, and ways we might make it more local, more accessible, and more inclusive.
In this recording, we first hear Lexi St. Denis, the local and responsible food coordinator for Great Lakes Brewing Company, describe her job and the farmers she works with. After that, we hear from Dr. Darcy Friedman, a renowned researcher and the Director of the Mary Ann Swetland Center for Environmental Health at CASE. Dr. Friedman moderated our panel of 3 speakers that included Zainab Pixler, the Local Food Systems Strategy Coordinator for the City of Cleveland Department of Public Health; Annabel Khouri, the owner of Bay Branch Farm in Cleveland and a member of the USDA Farm Service agency committee; Jennifer Lumpkin, founder of My Grow Connect, an organization that works to connect the community with agriculture and member of the Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition.
We've set the table for some intriguing topics - everything from food sovereignty to wealth building for BIPOC growers. And we examine solutions that Cleveland can adopt to improve its local food system, address disparities, and improve health in our communities. So pull up a chair. There's plenty to digest on this episode of Eco Speaks CLE.
Thank You, Sponsors!
Great Lakes Brewing Co - Brewing Good
Mary Ann Swetland Center for Environmental Health - CWRU
Conserva Irrigation of Northern Ohio
Graziani Multimedia
1 PM One Planet Media
Sustainable Ohio Public Energy Council
RET3 Job Corps
Lettuce Tree Farms
Blue CSR Strategies
Rust Belt Riders
Collaborx
Food Strong
BRITE Energy Innovators
Cleveland Neighborhood Progress
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, where the
EcoCurious explore the uniqueand thriving environmental
community here in Northeast Ohio.
My name is Diane Pickett and myproducer is Greg Rotuno.
Together, we bring youinspiring stories from local
sustainability leaders andinvite you to connect, learn and
live with our community andplanet in mind.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
My name is Don Gattis .
I am the director of North StarCleveland.
I'm also a grower and you can'tsee it, but I'm African
American and there are very fewAfrican American males
representing in this industry.
And it's awesome to come to anetworking event where it
doesn't even matter where.
(00:48):
When the conversation starts,you don't even recognize what
people look like.
You only hear the value oftheir words and the value of
their experiences, and that's apowerful thing, a very powerful
thing.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Hello friends, that was Don and one of the many
folks who came out to ourOctober EcoMeat CLE event.
The theme of this EcoMeat waslocal food, and over 100 people
joined us for food, beer and aconversation about our local
food system.
In this episode of EcoSpeak CLE, we bring you the conversation
from that night, where weexplore the meaning of the term
(01:23):
food system, the various roleswithin that system and the ways
we can make it more local, moreaccessible and more inclusive.
Now our EcoMeat CLE events areheld three times a year and
they're open to all, and weorganize these with the help of
our friends Victoria Avi andDanielle Doza, and our host, dan
and Pat Conway with Great LakesBrewing Company, and we are
(01:46):
also grateful to our manysponsors who make these events
possible.
Please see our show notes for alist, and also please stay with
us as we hear from thoseinvolved in our local food
system.
First up, we hear from Lexi StDennis, who is the local and
responsible food coordinator forGreat Lakes Brewing Company.
She describes her job and thefarmer she works with, and after
(02:09):
that we hear from Dr DarcyFriedman.
She is a renowned researcherand the director of the Marianne
Sweatland Center forEnvironmental Health at Case.
And then Darcy moderated ourpanel of three speakers,
including Zynab Pixler, thelocal food system strategy
coordinator for the City ofCleveland, annabelle Corey, the
(02:29):
owner of Bay Branch Farm inCleveland and a member of the
USDA Farm Service AgencyCommittee.
And Jennifer Lumpkin, thefounder of MyGrow Connect, an
organization that works toconnect the community with
agriculture, and a member of theCuyahoga County Food Policy
Coalition.
We hope you enjoy this episodeand thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yes, let's get started here to introduce our
panel and talk a little bitabout what we are eating here
tonight is Lexi St Dennis.
Lexi, come on up.
Lexi is a local and responsiblefood coordinator for Great
Lakes Brewing Company and sheplayed a crucial role in
sourcing local produce fortoday's event.
(03:10):
Her commitment to local andsustainable food systems is
truly commendable.
Please join me in welcomingLexi to the microphone.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Hi everyone.
Thanks so much for having mespeak tonight.
I am really excited to beinvolved in tonight's event.
So, as I was said, I am thelocal and responsible food
coordinator for Great Lakes.
Brewing Company, I manage all ofour local food purchasing
efforts, and that is involvedwith the Brew Pubs for seasonal
(03:47):
menus, brew Pubs, exclusivebeers and then also for our
density.
So for me, being a local foodcoordinator really starts with
local farms.
I've been working on smallfarms for the past seven years
and I really wanted to bringthat perspective into this
position.
Being a grower myself, I triedto be flexible with the small
growers, and I try to do that sothat we can maintain a
(04:10):
consistent buying schedule andmake sure that we feature the
freshest produce possible.
And then supporting small farmsin Cleveland for me is about
creating a stronger network ofgrowers that can be supported in
part by restaurants andinstitutions.
I really do believe in thepower of collaboration and have
really enjoyed expanding thenetworks that Great Lakes can
(04:31):
support.
And then I do really think thatmy role at Great Lakes is very
unique.
I not only handle the directsourcing, but I'm also involved
with community education efforts, marketing events and creating
new sustainability efforts as awhole.
Okay, so now I want to bringattention to the food that I
have sourced here this evening.
(04:53):
I purchased from eight differentlocal growers and producers,
and two of them Bay Branch Farmand Micro Connect are on the
panel this evening, so I wantedto give a special shout out to
them and I think that bringsattention to the fact that
(05:14):
farmers do have a wide range ofexpertise outside of the field
and I'm excited for that to beshowcased today on the panel.
I also wanted to recognize theOberlin Food Hub.
If no one is familiar with theOberlin Food Hub, they really do
simplify local food sourcingand streamline it and make it
easier for businesses like GreatLakes, and they also have
(05:37):
produce all year round.
So if you're unfamiliar and youhave local sourcing heat, that
is a great place to start,honestly, and they were a huge
help in sourcing for tonight'sevent.
Woo yeah.
And then, last but not least, Iwanted to give a shout out to
Steve Foreman.
That is our group of master.
We got the first batch ofpumpkin ale here tonight.
(06:00):
It is not even on tap, so weharvested those pumpkins from
our own farm, pinesize Farm, inthe Kairoga Valley.
National Park and we had aninsane harvest this year, so I
am so excited to share that withyou tonight.
Speaker 8 (06:15):
It's delicious Good evening and welcome everybody.
Thank you all for those amazingintroductions and it's really
great to be in a room with a lotof people that we know because
we've been working together fora long time and a lot of people
that we know because we've onlymet each other virtually and we
get to meet each other for thefirst time, and that's my case
(06:37):
with Jennifer because we've beenworking together virtually, and
this is my first time meetingher in person today, so it's
good to be here.
I'm Darcy Friedman.
I want to acknowledge that alot of people that I'm here with
tonight are members of theNourishing Power Network.
If you're in the network, mayberaise your hand.
These are people aroundCleveland.
(06:58):
Lots of us are here.
We are a community actionresearch project testing ways to
transform food systems bybridging community power with
organizational power to sparkand expand justice initiatives
led by the community.
(07:19):
So to start us, let's justground a minute in the term food
system.
This is a big word.
We've heard it multiple timesin our introductions and I just
want to have you guys raise yourhand if this is the part of the
food system that you touch.
Are you involved in growing andproduction?
How about processing?
(07:41):
How about distribution?
How about retailing?
How about preparing food,whether that's for your house or
your other people?
How about eating?
Anybody eat.
And what about waste management?
(08:02):
Okay, we have the whole systemin this room.
That's pretty amazing.
I asked chat GPT what is thefood system and this is what
they told me the food systemencompasses all the processes,
activities and relationshipsinvolved in producing,
(08:23):
processing and distributing andconsuming food.
It includes the entire journeyof food from the farm to the
table.
The food system is a complexand interconnected network that
includes these elementsProduction, processing,
distribution, retail,consumption, regulation and
policy, cultural and societalfactors, environmental factors
(08:48):
economic aspects and healthimplications.
So basically, all of us are herebecause we are touching the
food system minimally as eatersand the food system touches and
ripples out in so many otherways.
So just a little bit of factsto ground us today.
As a data person, as aresearcher, I always think it is
(09:09):
fun to think about some ofthese numbers.
So Cuyahoga County has thehighest percentage of food grown
that are fruits and vegetables,compared to all other
agricultural products, than anyother county in the state of
Ohio, according to the USDA AgCensus, which is pretty
(09:29):
impressive, so we're alreadystarting off with a major asset
coming into this space.
Secondly, we all have heard ofterms or some of the problems in
our food system related toaccess who has access?
Around issues around foodapartheid, which we're going to
be talking in a bit about thesedefinitions About 25 census
(09:52):
tracts in our county are inareas defined as being low
income and low access to agrocery store within one mile.
So that's actually 6% of thetracts in our county.
To me, that is a solvableproblem.
We can address 6% of the tractsin our county.
Thirdly, I'm always shocked bythis statistic that the EPA
(10:17):
shows that food waste is thesingle most common material land
filled and incinerated in theUnited States, A comprising 22
to 24% of land filled andcombusted municipal solid waste,
and that's as of 2022.
In terms of consumption in 2021, 12.8, or almost 13% more than
(10:43):
1 in 10 of the people in ourcounty were food insecure.
We're wasting 22 to 24% of thefood in this county is going in
the trash and yet we have 13% ofour residents who are food
insecure.
And lastly, another, because Icome from the health perspective
about 11% of our residents inCuyahoga County have diabetes,
(11:08):
compared to 9% nationally.
And then I guess there is onelast one.
I was kind of getting excitedabout the panel and I thought
what if we really grabbed allthe dollars in this county for
food systems transformation?
So how much money is even inretail in this county?
Well, according to the USDAthis is a 2017 estimate, so it's
(11:30):
dated there were $17 billion inCuyahoga County in the retail
industry.
So let's just say we grabbed 1%of $17 billion.
That means we have $170 milliongoing into local food systems.
Now, 1% is not a lot, so whatif we did 5%?
(11:52):
$850 million going into localfood systems?
So we have an opportunity, andthat's probably what motivates
me the most for our paneliststoday.
So how do we get there?
We can set some goals, but howdo we get there?
So I want to start off withhaving each of the panelists go
down and give a little bit of anoverview of the diverse areas
(12:15):
of work in the food system thatyou're doing and your vision for
what drives you to do that work.
And, if you want to, if youfeel like there's a term that's
important to your work aroundfood systems, can you define
that term so that we're allcoming into this conversation
together?
So, dana, do you want to goahead and get started?
Speaker 9 (12:45):
Thank you, hello, good evening everyone.
So I, as mentioned in mybiography, I'm the local food
systems strategies coordinatorfor the city of Cleveland.
That means I am working on alot of basically every single
one of those sectors of the foodsystem that Darcy was
mentioning, and a lot of thatwork will be on policy work.
(13:09):
So this is a new role.
It's a brand new role with thecity.
I've been in it for abouttwo-ish, three-ish months, so
still figuring things out, butbasically my role will be
implementing policy to helpsupport food access.
So when we talk about foodaccess, when I talk about food
access, I mean healthy,nutritious, culturally relevant
(13:30):
food that folks can afford andthat they can get down the
street or around the block,being able to walk to your
grocery store, being able totake a bike or other means of
transportation other than a car,which we know lots of folks
across the city and county don'thave access to a car.
(13:51):
So that's what I mean when Italk about food access, and what
really drives me is food is ajoyous should be a joyous
experience Buying food, makingfood, sharing food, consuming
food and so I want everybody tohave the access to be able to
create, share, consume food thatmakes them and their families
(14:13):
and their communities happy.
Speaker 10 (14:18):
Good evening.
Thank you for the opportunityto be part of this amazing panel
.
I'm really honored to be here.
So I am a farmer and this islike a new thing for me to say
about myself because I have anundergraduate degree in business
and an MBA.
And I worked in the corporateworld and nonprofit world for a
long time and I was alwaysafraid to actually say I'm a
(14:42):
farmer because we don't valuefarmers.
But we should, because we alleat and your food comes from
farms in a lot of cases.
So I'm a farmer, I'm a grower,I sell my food online through an
online store and I'm also amember of the Urban Agriculture
(15:03):
County Committee for the City ofCleveland, along with Jamal
Rakira from Village Family Farms, who represent the Eastside
farmers, and Tanya Holmes, whorepresents the Central Farmers.
So we are a direct link betweenthe USDA and the farmers in the
field.
So for any growers in the room,feel free to come talk to me
(15:28):
and you might not feelcomfortable going and talking
with the USDA, but there arelots and lots of programs
available Through the USDA.
There's a ton of money availablefrom the USDA to support new
and beginning farmers.
We just got some funding to dosome work in urban agriculture
to help new and beginningfarmers get access to the
(15:49):
programs with NRCS, the NaturalResources Conservation Services,
which I hope they'll talk abouta little bit more later but
also to work with youth to helpthem understand that agriculture
and conservation is a viablecareer path, so we're really
excited to get that up andrunning.
(16:11):
We just heard about this, maybea couple weeks ago, but we're
super excited to work with allof the new and beginning farmers
or aspiring farmers in the city.
Thank you.
Speaker 11 (16:28):
Peace everyone.
My name is Jennifer Lunkin, yousee her pronouns.
So firstly I am thegreat-granddaughter of Ruby
Holland and Howard Holland, whowere both sharecroppers in South
Georgia, a town called Boston,georgia.
I'm the granddaughter of AmyLunkin.
She worked for LCC Steel here.
My grandfather was adistributor, a truck driver, and
I'm the daughter of two teenageparents here from Cleveland and
Warnsville Heights.
(16:49):
I'm a community organizer.
I'm the chair of the KayaHogger and Cleveland Food Policy
Coalition.
I'm also a grower.
I grow here locally on my ownproperty.
I'm also an added valueproducer.
I produce tea, bath saucethey're right over there in the
corner, you can see them as wellas jam.
I help and support andfacilitate other folks who are
(17:10):
trying to reach food sovereignty, growing their own food, being
able to understand how toprocess that and make a living
and create generational wealth.
So for me, food sovereignty isthe ability and the power to
know how to feed yourself,whether it's growing, whether
it's actually working within thesystem to produce that food or
produce added value, and tocultivate those systems to build
(17:34):
intergenerational wealth.
So as a great granddaughter ofsharecroppers, it is fundamental
and primordial to my work thatI have sovereignty and how I
operate and do my business andgrow food.
I moved back to Clevelandbecause my family had and is
still experiencing illness, andsickness from moving from the
south of North and consumingfrom a very short few options of
(17:57):
food that we have here.
It might not seem like it, butin the neighborhood I grew up in
I mean KFC, mcdonald's, ralliesAudis, what else?
Speaker 9 (18:06):
I think that might be it right.
Speaker 11 (18:09):
So we didn't have a plethora of options.
So to me, food sovereignty wasnot existed until I left
Cleveland and I lived in areaswhere I was able to actually
grow food close to where I livedor where I lived, and I had
more options.
So I was able to really likeavoid all the health issues that
my mother and my father had atmy age I'm 40.
So I even look younger thanthey did at my age.
(18:31):
So I was able to see andexperience the difference of
what it means to be foodsovereign.
And that is ultimately the goalright.
It's to facilitate coalitionbuilding, facilitate movement
towards food sovereignty and toreduce the barriers of that
ownership.
Fortunately, the land that mygreat grandfather grew on my
family still lives on right.
(18:52):
I want to be able to do thatand I want to be able to have
other people continue to do thatafter me and I want to see
systems that cultivate that.
So that's really the vision andto me, food sovereignty is the
embodiment of actualizing all ofthose things.
Speaker 8 (19:12):
So we've just gotten started here and we're going to
go a little bit deeper and comeback to Jennifer, this idea of
food sovereignty, of having thatpower and ability to have
control over your food choices,your food destiny, communal
processes of problem solvingaround the food system.
(19:33):
So, jennifer, as you know,making local food systems
equitable will rest on theextent to which and even we
heard this with your comment,annabelle efforts create
economic opportunities forgrowers like I mean, not even
being proud to say the name ofthe role that you play, right.
So what is needed to createwealth building, especially
(19:56):
among BIPOC growers, as we buildup our local food system?
Speaker 11 (20:01):
I was just having this conversation with Tissue,
who owns Gaia's gift, and shemakes fresh, fresh juices.
She grows the produce.
I source some of the producebecause of the illness that her
son had and for me personally Ireally can you repeat the
question one more time?
Speaker 8 (20:18):
One is needed to create wealth building.
Speaker 11 (20:20):
So my experience here in Cleveland specifically,
and I think also on the EastCoast, has been nonprofit
contention, because we can'tcompete with free right and
people understanding the valueof food and being able to access
that in a dignified way, not apantry right.
Food is medicine.
How do we make sure that we'rebuilding growers and actually
(20:41):
utilizing the information wehave from our health care
systems and all these differentsocial disparities to build
wealth and inform people of howthey can do that and Tissue and
myself are examples of that.
We're way healthier thanprobably our predecessors and
our family, because we'veactually taken on the role of
being the economic driver of ourown food in our systems and
(21:02):
then providing it to people in away that's less capitalistic
but more collaborative andcooperative.
I would love to see thenonprofit sector and the
industrial complex really lookfor ways to not contend in the
food space but to support andexpand it so that we don't have
to compete with free.
It's hard to sell food topeople who've been getting it
(21:23):
for free and they don'tunderstand the value of three
pounds of tomatoes right.
So I would love to see thatsystemic change happen.
Speaker 8 (21:33):
All right, anyone want to comment on that?
Around the economicopportunities within the food
system.
You seem like you're readythere, Annabelle.
I'm just giving her props forwhat she said.
Okay, all right.
So we're going to hold thosenuggets and come back to them in
the Q&A, so keep this in mind.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
I think that was a really good point for us to keep
talking about.
Speaker 8 (21:56):
So, zaynab, can we just first of all acknowledge
that Cleveland has a coordinatorof local food systems.
I know a lot of people in thisroom advocated hard to get this
role, and Sometimes we thinkchange doesn't happen, and I
(22:20):
really am so thrilled to seethat you are here and you have
Taken this upon your shoulderswith everybody in the room.
That's one thing I really valueabout you is that you're saying
this is collaborative.
Just like Jennifer said, thisis team sport.
So, as the local food systemscoordinator of the city, do you
think we need to reinvent thewheel when it comes to
(22:43):
coordinating local efforts, orare there examples in other
cities that we could steal andmake them our own?
Speaker 9 (22:51):
That's a great question and, lucky for me, we
don't have to reinvent the wheelhere in Cleveland, maybe
retrofit it a little bit toserve Cleveland's very unique
needs.
But thankfully I am the first inCleveland, but not the first in
the country.
There's plenty of other folksacross the country that are
sitting in city government,sitting in County government,
(23:13):
working on food systems, whetherit be in their public health
department, like where I sit, orin their office of
sustainability.
Some cities are so Progressivethat they have an office of food
policy, which I dream of forCleveland one day.
But thankfully, even in our ownstate, columbus has a Food
policy analyst who I'm veryclose with.
(23:34):
We've been in similar studentcommittees and rooms together.
Franklin County, where Columbussits, also has someone working
on food systems work so really.
And Cincinnati, I believe, hassomeone.
They're a little bit newer aswell.
I'm so folks across the stateand across the country I'm
really looking to lean on andconnect with and hear what
(23:55):
they've been doing and reallythink about ways that we can
bring sort of those ideas toCleveland and, like I say,
retrofit them to Cleveland'sneeds and the Cleveland's
community and, really, bringingin to your point, this role was
created From advocacy fromwonderful people most of whom
are in this room today, or someof whom are in this room today
(24:19):
and really bringing thoseadvocates along with me to do
this work together, all right.
Speaker 8 (24:26):
So, annabelle, one of the things that's unique in
your perspective tonight is theexperience of working I'm gonna
say, hand-in-hand with the USDA.
I don't know if you canactually work hand-in-hand with
USDA, but you are at least atthe table with the USDA somewhat
regularly, along with some ofour other community leaders.
(24:47):
So how do you think we can pullon the strings of federal
policies and programs toaccelerate local food systems
transformation in CuyahogaCounty?
Speaker 10 (24:59):
I'll speak from the perspective of a grower.
There's definitely money outthere to get for growing.
I would say my biggest piece ofadvice if you're a newer
beginning farmer or an aspiringfarmer, find somebody who's
doing what it is you want to doand connect with them.
First, a farmer, because we area strong collaborative network.
(25:22):
The first thing I did when Istarted this journey was find a
mentor, and I think he wasregistered to come tonight, but
he's become a pretty awesomeresource to our business and
friend over the years.
So Get a mentor and then See.
(25:44):
You know, I benefited from someof the USDA programs and part
of that is just being aware thatthey are out there and they
exist and signing up for them.
So if you are a new beginningfarmer, go to Farmersgov and
click on the work with us orconnect with us tab, because
there are tons of programs.
You can find all theeligibility requirements online.
(26:07):
Again, you might not becomfortable going to the USDA
directly as a as a newerbeginning farmer, so find a
farmer that's benefited fromthese programs.
I'll talk about one program thatI've benefited from is I have
two high tunnels that have beenpartially funded through the
(26:27):
NRCS's Equip Program I apologizefor the acronyms Natural
Resources Conservation Serviceand and environmental quality
incentive programs.
Is the pot of money that thatcame from and they have funded?
Actually, cleveland was a pilotcity for the Cleveland high
tunnel initiative and that wasto build lots of high tunnels,
(26:49):
which sorry definitions.
A high tunnel is a Structurethat is covered in plastic that
allows producers to grow in thesoil for longer into the growing
season, outside the growingseason and Protects those crops
from pests and weather and in myexperience, growing in a high
(27:12):
tunnel, although there'scertainly a learning curve, the
produce is far superior togrowing on the field and it's
just more marketable.
So those structures areavailable through that program,
through USDA, and it's a costshare program so it doesn't
necessarily cover the entirecost but it took our farm leafs
(27:34):
and bounds ahead in terms offinancial sustainability, the
quality of the product that wascoming out of our farm and you
know it's just cool.
Like you have this structure, itactually looks like a farm in
our backyard now Because we havethese two tunnels.
So that's just one example andthere is lots of other money and
(27:54):
grants available through theUSDA.
But even locally, to bring itback to the community level, if
you're not yet eligible forthose monies, neighborhood
connections offers, I think$5,000 grants for programs or
community-led initiatives aroundgrowing food and Gardening for
(28:17):
greenbacks is another programthrough the economic development
department of the city,cleveland.
So, again, connect with afarmer.
We know a lot of stuff and cantry to Connect you or figure out
what you need and help youadvance your business.
Great.
Speaker 8 (28:34):
Is there a way for somebody to connect to a farmer?
If they don't know a farmer,how would they find a farmer?
There are several in the room,Okay so tonight, connect with
farmers that you've heard about.
But, zana, can they come to youif they do not know how to find
a farmer in our county?
Speaker 9 (28:55):
They can, like I said , still figuring things out.
One of the really excitingprojects that.
I'm working on that's so reallya development is sort of a
census for parks and gardensthroughout the city.
I'm so really working to Thinkthrough how we can get everybody
who's growing food and Knowthis can be a scary word but a
(29:19):
database so that we can.
Connect.
Connect folks across the citywho are doing this incredible
work.
Speaker 8 (29:30):
So we're gonna make it real here for a minute what
questions you guys have forthese three panelists local food
systems, opportunities,concerns, critiques.
I'll bring this to you.
Speaker 7 (29:53):
Let's see if I can put this into words.
I often hear about thelarge-scale agriculture and the
issues they're facing and theirtransition to regenerative, and
it's at such a different scalewhen you're talking about
commodity crops.
But I'm starting to think thatwe do need to have this
small-scale local food producersin a completely different
category and I'm wondering itlike is that helpful?
(30:13):
To think of them as somethingtotally different, as
large-scale commodity producers?
Is that not helpful?
And how you kind of segment itin your own mind?
Speaker 8 (30:23):
Did you guys hear the question?
Speaker 11 (30:24):
okay, yes, I can repeat.
So you were saying is there abenefit to differentiating
between small-scale farms andMike and large-scale commodity
farms?
So from my experience workingwith the USDA, like any sort of
like segregation or likedefining between who's growing
what size is not helpful becausea lot of things can happen when
(30:47):
you have like those identifiersand markers Usually small scale
means urban and so like.
When you start sort of likeputting definitions based on
like size and things like that,it can make it make you more
vulnerable, depending on youknow the political climate at
that time, right.
So like I would say no, but Ithink when it comes to actually
(31:08):
like facilitating and workingwith people and trying to
understand your capacity, youknow, and like making a crop
plan and things like that, likeknowing that for yourself and
your operation is important, butI personally, as a minor, I'm
not going to call myselfminority.
As a woman who is a black womanin America, I would not want to
be differentiated from any otherfarm.
(31:29):
I want the same services, Iwant the same resources and
everything.
So I would not.
I would not want that All right.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I heard the term used several times apartheid could.
Could any of you define that?
Speaker 9 (31:53):
Yeah, so we, all of us in this room, have probably
heard the term food desert.
Right, food desert is a termthat's becoming updated then
trying to use words like foodapartheid to really bring in the
structural systems that havebeen put in place to
(32:13):
purposefully create theconditions of low food access
for particularly low income,particularly for black and brown
people throughout the country.
So when we think about a termlike food desert, it implies
naturally occurring, it impliesthat there's a lifelessness.
But food apartheid really takesinto the systems that were put
(32:38):
in place, things like redlining,that really intentionally drew
out certain segments of thepopulation to cut them out of
being able to build their ownfood system, have food
sovereignty, have food accessand I'll want to stress the food
(32:59):
desert and the lifelessnesspiece.
These communities are notlifeless.
They've got plenty of resources, they've got plenty of love and
life to give to their foodsystem, to be able to feed their
people.
They just need access to thefinance, to the food in some
(33:22):
cases.
But again, like folks aregrowing food all over the place,
folks are finding ways to feedpeople.
It's, it's not a desert.
So that's where the term foodapartheid comes from.
Speaker 5 (33:36):
I'm wondering if you could comment on the
opportunities that might existbetween the small farmers or
smaller farmers and the otherdistribution channels.
Maybe it's working with smokershere in town or other folks
that might have package ordistribute food to make masks.
Speaker 11 (34:05):
I was going to say that, like it actually enables
you to forecast and plan andhave a growing schedule and
actually be able to like applyfor funds and know exactly how
much you might need, based on acontract from a large producer
like smuggers.
Like that would be supersupportive, right.
And it could also encouragecollaboration and cooperation in
a smaller ecosystem to do thatgrowing to even maybe like train
(34:29):
people, right, you could createsome sort of workforce
development if you have aguaranteed contract from someone
like smuggers, right.
So like those sorts of thingsprovide a level of stability and
then also credibility, right.
If you know that you have anend user who's going to purchase
from you at the end of twoseasons, then you could actually
go for confidently funding andother opportunities, like to
(34:52):
building your capacity andhiring staff, which is what I'd
like to do.
So I think that's one of thesort of like benefits of having
a larger producer, but then alsolike it encouraged us to
produce our own, becausesmuggers has a lot of sugar.
So yeah, I think it wouldencourage us and give us insight
as to what we could also dowithin our own communities right
and broaden our perspective.
Speaker 13 (35:14):
Hi, I have a semi-selfish question, but it
might fit.
It fit others when you said ofthe word sovereignty, or you
grew up on a homestead recently.
So yes, both of you all.
(35:35):
So recently.
I found this term.
I'm a farmer, a little bit ofbig, keeping a little bit of
farming.
I found this term called urbanhomestead and so I wonder, I
know the growing part as far asthe food, but I wonder what that
looks like to you.
I have a little tribe with me.
There's a lot of them at home,so I wonder what that looks like
(35:58):
to you and how that can beaccessible to somebody, and what
were some steps that you wouldmove forward in that area?
Speaker 10 (36:09):
I grew up on a homestead in a rural community
in Vermont and I got to behonest I could wait to get away
from that.
But that was looking back.
I appreciate what I learnedgrowing up in that environment
and I feel like I've sort ofreplicated it at my urban
(36:30):
homestead, which I guess meansI'm turning into my parents.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
She's asking if I can define homestead.
Speaker 10 (36:47):
I don't know the official definition, but I'll
share what I think it means.
And I think it means reallytaking control of the food that
you eat to the extent possible.
And on my homestead, where Igrew up, that meant we raised
animals, so we had our meat, wehad bees, we tapped our trees
from maple syrup, we grew thefood.
(37:09):
My parents knew all of theedibles in the forest and again,
I didn't appreciate that.
But now that is amazing.
That's an amazing knowledgebase to have grown up with and
that's amazing to give to ourcommunity and to our children.
And you can do that on an urbanscale.
(37:29):
So I wouldn't say you need tolive early in order to have a
homestead.
Speaker 14 (37:39):
Thank you so much.
The issue of scale you justmentioned, Jennifer, it's been a
word in the conversation acouple of times.
Building on the work of DavidBeach, who's here, and many of
you, we've been trying to bringback into the conversation.
Bio regionalism, the scale ofthinking beyond political
boundaries to ecosystems hasimportant for the future and
(38:02):
Cleveland and the bio regionsaround here have a certain
advantage when it comes to thefuture Timescale climate crisis,
climate change.
We do have access to water andother things.
As you guys think about farmingand local food at the scale of
local and regional, where do yousee positioning yourselves in
(38:22):
Cleveland and what I think willbe an increasingly important
focus on how communities worktogether at that kind of scale
bio regions?
Speaker 9 (38:36):
So I mentioned a little bit about the importance
of policy when we think aboutlocal food systems and
supporting local food systems.
For me, my vision is that weleverage the millions and
billions of dollars that theregion is generating in food
(38:56):
procurement and shift thattowards supporting local food,
local growers, and it also meansensuring that folks have access
to the land to grow their foodas well.
So when thinking about theoperations of the city, we think
about the city land bank, andwhat I'd love to see is a reform
(39:21):
and policy to be able to allowfolks to be able to purchase
land for agricultural purposes.
Speaker 10 (39:32):
Yeah, I think that access to land and soil that's
not contaminated in an urbanenvironment is really important.
And, yeah, there have beenfarmers that I've come up with
who have gotten leases from theland bank and tried to renew
those leases and it's just beena nightmare.
(39:53):
So there's a real disconnectbetween using vacant property
for as productive green space,whether that's growing or
turning it into a park.
So that is a policy issue thatneeds to be addressed.
Those farmers are no longerfarming and that land is still
vacant.
So that's a problem and wecan't scale up if we aren't
(40:19):
utilizing the space that we havethat's not being used for other
means or other purposes.
So I'm sure in ourneighborhoods there's vacant
properties that we see and I seethat that's potential right.
That is a potential space forsomething productive to be grown
, to be turned into a park, nota dumping ground or a grass
(40:43):
that's just growing andattracting vermin.
Speaker 11 (40:48):
So that's my two cents.
I think building out food withthe thought, the tangential
thought of building out a greeninfrastructure in Cleveland
specifically targeting folks whoare already working as small
scale contractors carpenters andactually having a green
(41:08):
infrastructure that supportsgenerational wealth.
We have such high poverty hereand there's ways to actually do
a lot of like transferable skillapprenticeships that can build
people out not just as traineesbut as contractors.
Right, really looking at howour unions interact with our
(41:29):
communities and whether or notit's actually building out
further social disparities andhow building out a food system
can actually remediate that andchange that and rectify that
through green infrastructure.
There's really a lot of dollarsthat don't necessarily fall
under the category of food thatcould support food right and
support other economies withinthe city.
(41:50):
So I would love to see somemore innovative thought about
how those federal dollars cansupport a green infrastructure
that's inclusive of food andbuilding out economic
opportunities to not just bringpeople out of poverty but to
thrive and to actually see adifferent type of culture around
.
I would say blue collar workers,right Farm workers like we're
(42:11):
necessities and there's waysthat what we do transfer into
other sectors.
So being really thoughtfulabout that and mindful of how
we're doing the work and usingdollars from other parts of
federal funding to support thework.
Speaker 8 (42:25):
Okay, I've been warned.
We have two final questions andI'm going to do this one and
this one, so go back here.
Speaker 12 (42:35):
Thank you.
I guess I follow up to thefunding, or federal funding, in
particular with the Inflationand Reduction Act and, in
particular, funding for greenbanks.
Have you guys thought about orhave you tapped into the funding
that's available there and, inparticular, thinking about the
fact that the leveraging thatfunding, along with local banks
(42:57):
like Key Bank, is one of thelargest funders of farms in the
country?
Those could be someopportunities that you could
pursue as farmers and I'm justwondering how have you pursued
the IRA funding today?
Speaker 10 (43:14):
I'll just say that access to traditional streams of
credit can be reallychallenging for farmers because
we don't make a lot of moneydoing this work and so I'm not
familiar with green banks, butit would be really hard for me
to go get a loan from a bank ifI showed them my income
statement from my business.
But there are farm loans fromFSA, and so you can get a loan
(43:42):
at a much lower interest rate tostart up your farm business, as
long as you have a businessplan, and so that is a way to
get some startup capital to getyour project off the ground, and
I haven't done that myself, butthat does exist.
Speaker 11 (44:01):
I have not applied.
I think you have to also be lessrisk averse for really applying
for those types ofopportunities.
So I have a full-time job which, to me, not only funds my
farming.
I work so that I can farm andtypically that's not always
looked at positively.
It's not like I'm making$60,000, $70,000 farming every
(44:26):
year.
So for me being able tosubstantiate those dollars that
I would get, I can't prove itbecause there's not enough
people with enough income to payme for what I'm selling and the
services that I'm offering.
So when I lived in DC I hadplenty of customers that were
buying for me.
I would deliver.
I had schools that would hireme, contract me.
Those opportunities don't existin Cleveland, specifically not
(44:47):
for black women like me.
So I have to work a full-timejob and when I go to those
places they're asking mequestions that just are outside
of my scope because I guessmaybe I haven't lived long
enough, I don't know.
So I think that you have to beless risk averse for those types
of opportunities.
But I was just introduced toGreen Bank, so I'm going to look
at it.
But traditionally those types ofopportunities just are not
(45:09):
catered to folks that are tryingto do this work, especially not
younger folks that don't haveand built up credit or things
like that.
Speaker 8 (45:17):
But we'll see All right, our final question is
going to Sarah Condon, who'sback here.
Speaker 6 (45:26):
Thank you all so much .
This has been so informative.
I was wondering if you couldshare with the room because I
don't know if everyone knowswhat's been going on around the
whole notion of the vacant lots,the cleave lot, all the
different things that arehappening and potential ways
people can get involved withthem, because there's a lot of
publicly facing aspects of thosethat people can engage to be
(45:49):
part of, hopefully getting intosome of these tens of thousands
of vacant lots in the city ofCleveland alone.
You can share that?
It'd be awesome, thanks.
Speaker 9 (45:58):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Thank you, Sarah, good to seeyou.
The cleave lot program is aprogram that's being run by the
Western Reserve Land Conservancyin cooperation with the city's
land bank.
It's C-L-E-V-L-O-T.
There is a beautiful websitethat you can learn more about
the program.
(46:18):
But really the intention is tomake the whole process of
acquiring land from the city'sland bank more transparent,
easier hopefully, and also helpthe land bank reform their
policies to better support useof vacant lots across the city.
I will note it is indevelopment phases right now, so
(46:40):
still very early stages, butthey've been convening groups,
they've been working as hard asthey can.
Western Reserve Land Conservancydoes a lot, so this is just one
of the things that they do, butI did want to note it's still
in development, so I am going towrap up our formal session with
these panelists amazingpanelists but first let's give
(47:03):
them a round of applause.
Speaker 8 (47:04):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you
.
To me, one of the themes that Iheard tonight is that there are
major opportunities for foodsystem transformation, but there
is also major risk if we're notthinking through who's going to
(47:25):
benefit and who's going to harm, and who's going to benefit and
who's going to harm.
And what I heard in this roomis that people want everybody to
benefit and maybe don'tunderstand how difficult it is
for some people to accessopportunities.
So I would love to see comingout of this eco-meat.
Where can we continue thatconversation of these are the
(47:47):
opportunities and how doeseverybody have a fair chance to
take advantage of them?
Because I appreciatedJennifer's link back to gender,
and a lot of times in food workwe don't talk about gender at
all.
But much of the burden of foodinjustice is born on the backs
of women, whether it's women whoare in the home, where a
(48:09):
person's making them preparefood and they're not able to go
out and have a job.
There's women that try and getin the workforce but they're not
able to make.
We know they don't make.
We don't make the same amountof dollars for a man with our
same skill set.
The most food insecure peoplein our country are women with
(48:29):
children in their household, sowe have a lot of opportunity to
unpack.
How do we create solutions thatreally work?
And I do hope eco-meat can keepus in that conversation.
Speaker 15 (48:50):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of EcoSpeak
CLE.
You can find our full catalogof episodes on Spotify, apple
Podcasts or wherever you getyour podcasts.
New episodes are available thefirst and third Tuesday of each
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Please follow EcoSpeak CLE onFacebook and Instagram and
become part of the conversation.
If you would like to send usfeedback and suggestions, or if
(49:11):
you'd like to become a sponsorof EcoSpeak CLE, you can email
us at hello at ecospeakclecom.
Stay tuned for more importantand inspiring stories to come.
You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, where the
EcoCurious explore the uniqueand thriving environmental
community here in Northeast Ohio.
My name is Diane Pickett and myproducer is Greg Rotuno.
Together, we bring youinspiring stories from local
sustainability leaders andinvite you to connect, learn and
live with our community andplanet in mind.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
My name is Don Gattis .
I am the director of North StarCleveland.
I'm also a grower and you can'tsee it, but I'm African
American and there are very fewAfrican American males
representing in this industry.
And it's awesome to come to anetworking event where it
doesn't even matter where.
(00:48):
When the conversation starts,you don't even recognize what
people look like.
You only hear the value oftheir words and the value of
their experiences, and that's apowerful thing, a very powerful
thing.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Hello friends, that was Don and one of the many
folks who came out to ourOctober EcoMeat CLE event.
The theme of this EcoMeat waslocal food, and over 100 people
joined us for food, beer and aconversation about our local
food system.
In this episode of EcoSpeak CLE, we bring you the conversation
from that night, where weexplore the meaning of the term
(01:23):
food system, the various roleswithin that system and the ways
we can make it more local, moreaccessible and more inclusive.
Now our EcoMeat CLE events areheld three times a year and
they're open to all, and weorganize these with the help of
our friends Victoria Avi andDanielle Doza, and our host, dan
and Pat Conway with Great LakesBrewing Company, and we are
(01:46):
also grateful to our manysponsors who make these events
possible.
Please see our show notes for alist, and also please stay with
us as we hear from thoseinvolved in our local food
system.
First up, we hear from Lexi StDennis, who is the local and
responsible food coordinator forGreat Lakes Brewing Company.
She describes her job and thefarmer she works with, and after
(02:09):
that we hear from Dr DarcyFriedman.
She is a renowned researcherand the director of the Marianne
Sweatland Center forEnvironmental Health at Case.
And then Darcy moderated ourpanel of three speakers,
including Zynab Pixler, thelocal food system strategy
coordinator for the City ofCleveland, annabelle Corey, the
(02:29):
owner of Bay Branch Farm inCleveland and a member of the
USDA Farm Service AgencyCommittee.
And Jennifer Lumpkin, thefounder of MyGrow Connect, an
organization that works toconnect the community with
agriculture, and a member of theCuyahoga County Food Policy
Coalition.
We hope you enjoy this episodeand thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yes, let's get started here to introduce our
panel and talk a little bitabout what we are eating here
tonight is Lexi St Dennis.
Lexi, come on up.
Lexi is a local and responsiblefood coordinator for Great
Lakes Brewing Company and sheplayed a crucial role in
sourcing local produce fortoday's event.
(03:10):
Her commitment to local andsustainable food systems is
truly commendable.
Please join me in welcomingLexi to the microphone.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Hi everyone.
Thanks so much for having mespeak tonight.
I am really excited to beinvolved in tonight's event.
So, as I was said, I am thelocal and responsible food
coordinator for Great Lakes.
Brewing Company, I manage all ofour local food purchasing
efforts, and that is involvedwith the Brew Pubs for seasonal
(03:47):
menus, brew Pubs, exclusivebeers and then also for our
density.
So for me, being a local foodcoordinator really starts with
local farms.
I've been working on smallfarms for the past seven years
and I really wanted to bringthat perspective into this
position.
Being a grower myself, I triedto be flexible with the small
growers, and I try to do that sothat we can maintain a
(04:10):
consistent buying schedule andmake sure that we feature the
freshest produce possible.
And then supporting small farmsin Cleveland for me is about
creating a stronger network ofgrowers that can be supported in
part by restaurants andinstitutions.
I really do believe in thepower of collaboration and have
really enjoyed expanding thenetworks that Great Lakes can
(04:31):
support.
And then I do really think thatmy role at Great Lakes is very
unique.
I not only handle the directsourcing, but I'm also involved
with community education efforts, marketing events and creating
new sustainability efforts as awhole.
Okay, so now I want to bringattention to the food that I
have sourced here this evening.
(04:53):
I purchased from eight differentlocal growers and producers,
and two of them Bay Branch Farmand Micro Connect are on the
panel this evening, so I wantedto give a special shout out to
them and I think that bringsattention to the fact that
(05:14):
farmers do have a wide range ofexpertise outside of the field
and I'm excited for that to beshowcased today on the panel.
I also wanted to recognize theOberlin Food Hub.
If no one is familiar with theOberlin Food Hub, they really do
simplify local food sourcingand streamline it and make it
easier for businesses like GreatLakes, and they also have
(05:37):
produce all year round.
So if you're unfamiliar and youhave local sourcing heat, that
is a great place to start,honestly, and they were a huge
help in sourcing for tonight'sevent.
Woo yeah.
And then, last but not least, Iwanted to give a shout out to
Steve Foreman.
That is our group of master.
We got the first batch ofpumpkin ale here tonight.
(06:00):
It is not even on tap, so weharvested those pumpkins from
our own farm, pinesize Farm, inthe Kairoga Valley.
National Park and we had aninsane harvest this year, so I
am so excited to share that withyou tonight.
Speaker 8 (06:15):
It's delicious Good evening and welcome everybody.
Thank you all for those amazingintroductions and it's really
great to be in a room with a lotof people that we know because
we've been working together fora long time and a lot of people
that we know because we've onlymet each other virtually and we
get to meet each other for thefirst time, and that's my case
(06:37):
with Jennifer because we've beenworking together virtually, and
this is my first time meetingher in person today, so it's
good to be here.
I'm Darcy Friedman.
I want to acknowledge that alot of people that I'm here with
tonight are members of theNourishing Power Network.
If you're in the network, mayberaise your hand.
These are people aroundCleveland.
(06:58):
Lots of us are here.
We are a community actionresearch project testing ways to
transform food systems bybridging community power with
organizational power to sparkand expand justice initiatives
led by the community.
(07:19):
So to start us, let's justground a minute in the term food
system.
This is a big word.
We've heard it multiple timesin our introductions and I just
want to have you guys raise yourhand if this is the part of the
food system that you touch.
Are you involved in growing andproduction?
How about processing?
(07:41):
How about distribution?
How about retailing?
How about preparing food,whether that's for your house or
your other people?
How about eating?
Anybody eat.
And what about waste management?
(08:02):
Okay, we have the whole systemin this room.
That's pretty amazing.
I asked chat GPT what is thefood system and this is what
they told me the food systemencompasses all the processes,
activities and relationshipsinvolved in producing,
(08:23):
processing and distributing andconsuming food.
It includes the entire journeyof food from the farm to the
table.
The food system is a complexand interconnected network that
includes these elementsProduction, processing,
distribution, retail,consumption, regulation and
policy, cultural and societalfactors, environmental factors
(08:48):
economic aspects and healthimplications.
So basically, all of us are herebecause we are touching the
food system minimally as eatersand the food system touches and
ripples out in so many otherways.
So just a little bit of factsto ground us today.
As a data person, as aresearcher, I always think it is
(09:09):
fun to think about some ofthese numbers.
So Cuyahoga County has thehighest percentage of food grown
that are fruits and vegetables,compared to all other
agricultural products, than anyother county in the state of
Ohio, according to the USDA AgCensus, which is pretty
(09:29):
impressive, so we're alreadystarting off with a major asset
coming into this space.
Secondly, we all have heard ofterms or some of the problems in
our food system related toaccess who has access?
Around issues around foodapartheid, which we're going to
be talking in a bit about thesedefinitions About 25 census
(09:52):
tracts in our county are inareas defined as being low
income and low access to agrocery store within one mile.
So that's actually 6% of thetracts in our county.
To me, that is a solvableproblem.
We can address 6% of the tractsin our county.
Thirdly, I'm always shocked bythis statistic that the EPA
(10:17):
shows that food waste is thesingle most common material land
filled and incinerated in theUnited States, A comprising 22
to 24% of land filled andcombusted municipal solid waste,
and that's as of 2022.
In terms of consumption in 2021, 12.8, or almost 13% more than
(10:43):
1 in 10 of the people in ourcounty were food insecure.
We're wasting 22 to 24% of thefood in this county is going in
the trash and yet we have 13% ofour residents who are food
insecure.
And lastly, another, because Icome from the health perspective
about 11% of our residents inCuyahoga County have diabetes,
(11:08):
compared to 9% nationally.
And then I guess there is onelast one.
I was kind of getting excitedabout the panel and I thought
what if we really grabbed allthe dollars in this county for
food systems transformation?
So how much money is even inretail in this county?
Well, according to the USDAthis is a 2017 estimate, so it's
(11:30):
dated there were $17 billion inCuyahoga County in the retail
industry.
So let's just say we grabbed 1%of $17 billion.
That means we have $170 milliongoing into local food systems.
Now, 1% is not a lot, so whatif we did 5%?
(11:52):
$850 million going into localfood systems?
So we have an opportunity, andthat's probably what motivates
me the most for our paneliststoday.
So how do we get there?
We can set some goals, but howdo we get there?
So I want to start off withhaving each of the panelists go
down and give a little bit of anoverview of the diverse areas
(12:15):
of work in the food system thatyou're doing and your vision for
what drives you to do that work.
And, if you want to, if youfeel like there's a term that's
important to your work aroundfood systems, can you define
that term so that we're allcoming into this conversation
together?
So, dana, do you want to goahead and get started?
Speaker 9 (12:45):
Thank you, hello, good evening everyone.
So I, as mentioned in mybiography, I'm the local food
systems strategies coordinatorfor the city of Cleveland.
That means I am working on alot of basically every single
one of those sectors of the foodsystem that Darcy was
mentioning, and a lot of thatwork will be on policy work.
(13:09):
So this is a new role.
It's a brand new role with thecity.
I've been in it for abouttwo-ish, three-ish months, so
still figuring things out, butbasically my role will be
implementing policy to helpsupport food access.
So when we talk about foodaccess, when I talk about food
access, I mean healthy,nutritious, culturally relevant
(13:30):
food that folks can afford andthat they can get down the
street or around the block,being able to walk to your
grocery store, being able totake a bike or other means of
transportation other than a car,which we know lots of folks
across the city and county don'thave access to a car.
(13:51):
So that's what I mean when Italk about food access, and what
really drives me is food is ajoyous should be a joyous
experience Buying food, makingfood, sharing food, consuming
food and so I want everybody tohave the access to be able to
create, share, consume food thatmakes them and their families
(14:13):
and their communities happy.
Speaker 10 (14:18):
Good evening.
Thank you for the opportunityto be part of this amazing panel
.
I'm really honored to be here.
So I am a farmer and this islike a new thing for me to say
about myself because I have anundergraduate degree in business
and an MBA.
And I worked in the corporateworld and nonprofit world for a
long time and I was alwaysafraid to actually say I'm a
(14:42):
farmer because we don't valuefarmers.
But we should, because we alleat and your food comes from
farms in a lot of cases.
So I'm a farmer, I'm a grower,I sell my food online through an
online store and I'm also amember of the Urban Agriculture
(15:03):
County Committee for the City ofCleveland, along with Jamal
Rakira from Village Family Farms, who represent the Eastside
farmers, and Tanya Holmes, whorepresents the Central Farmers.
So we are a direct link betweenthe USDA and the farmers in the
field.
So for any growers in the room,feel free to come talk to me
(15:28):
and you might not feelcomfortable going and talking
with the USDA, but there arelots and lots of programs
available Through the USDA.
There's a ton of money availablefrom the USDA to support new
and beginning farmers.
We just got some funding to dosome work in urban agriculture
to help new and beginningfarmers get access to the
(15:49):
programs with NRCS, the NaturalResources Conservation Services,
which I hope they'll talk abouta little bit more later but
also to work with youth to helpthem understand that agriculture
and conservation is a viablecareer path, so we're really
excited to get that up andrunning.
(16:11):
We just heard about this, maybea couple weeks ago, but we're
super excited to work with allof the new and beginning farmers
or aspiring farmers in the city.
Thank you.
Speaker 11 (16:28):
Peace everyone.
My name is Jennifer Lunkin, yousee her pronouns.
So firstly I am thegreat-granddaughter of Ruby
Holland and Howard Holland, whowere both sharecroppers in South
Georgia, a town called Boston,georgia.
I'm the granddaughter of AmyLunkin.
She worked for LCC Steel here.
My grandfather was adistributor, a truck driver, and
I'm the daughter of two teenageparents here from Cleveland and
Warnsville Heights.
(16:49):
I'm a community organizer.
I'm the chair of the KayaHogger and Cleveland Food Policy
Coalition.
I'm also a grower.
I grow here locally on my ownproperty.
I'm also an added valueproducer.
I produce tea, bath saucethey're right over there in the
corner, you can see them as wellas jam.
I help and support andfacilitate other folks who are
(17:10):
trying to reach food sovereignty, growing their own food, being
able to understand how toprocess that and make a living
and create generational wealth.
So for me, food sovereignty isthe ability and the power to
know how to feed yourself,whether it's growing, whether
it's actually working within thesystem to produce that food or
produce added value, and tocultivate those systems to build
(17:34):
intergenerational wealth.
So as a great granddaughter ofsharecroppers, it is fundamental
and primordial to my work thatI have sovereignty and how I
operate and do my business andgrow food.
I moved back to Clevelandbecause my family had and is
still experiencing illness, andsickness from moving from the
south of North and consumingfrom a very short few options of
(17:57):
food that we have here.
It might not seem like it, butin the neighborhood I grew up in
I mean KFC, mcdonald's, ralliesAudis, what else?
Speaker 9 (18:06):
I think that might be it right.
Speaker 11 (18:09):
So we didn't have a plethora of options.
So to me, food sovereignty wasnot existed until I left
Cleveland and I lived in areaswhere I was able to actually
grow food close to where I livedor where I lived, and I had
more options.
So I was able to really likeavoid all the health issues that
my mother and my father had atmy age I'm 40.
So I even look younger thanthey did at my age.
(18:31):
So I was able to see andexperience the difference of
what it means to be foodsovereign.
And that is ultimately the goalright.
It's to facilitate coalitionbuilding, facilitate movement
towards food sovereignty and toreduce the barriers of that
ownership.
Fortunately, the land that mygreat grandfather grew on my
family still lives on right.
(18:52):
I want to be able to do thatand I want to be able to have
other people continue to do thatafter me and I want to see
systems that cultivate that.
So that's really the vision andto me, food sovereignty is the
embodiment of actualizing all ofthose things.
Speaker 8 (19:12):
So we've just gotten started here and we're going to
go a little bit deeper and comeback to Jennifer, this idea of
food sovereignty, of having thatpower and ability to have
control over your food choices,your food destiny, communal
processes of problem solvingaround the food system.
(19:33):
So, jennifer, as you know,making local food systems
equitable will rest on theextent to which and even we
heard this with your comment,annabelle efforts create
economic opportunities forgrowers like I mean, not even
being proud to say the name ofthe role that you play, right.
So what is needed to createwealth building, especially
(19:56):
among BIPOC growers, as we buildup our local food system?
Speaker 11 (20:01):
I was just having this conversation with Tissue,
who owns Gaia's gift, and shemakes fresh, fresh juices.
She grows the produce.
I source some of the producebecause of the illness that her
son had and for me personally Ireally can you repeat the
question one more time?
Speaker 8 (20:18):
One is needed to create wealth building.
Speaker 11 (20:20):
So my experience here in Cleveland specifically,
and I think also on the EastCoast, has been nonprofit
contention, because we can'tcompete with free right and
people understanding the valueof food and being able to access
that in a dignified way, not apantry right.
Food is medicine.
How do we make sure that we'rebuilding growers and actually
(20:41):
utilizing the information wehave from our health care
systems and all these differentsocial disparities to build
wealth and inform people of howthey can do that and Tissue and
myself are examples of that.
We're way healthier thanprobably our predecessors and
our family, because we'veactually taken on the role of
being the economic driver of ourown food in our systems and
(21:02):
then providing it to people in away that's less capitalistic
but more collaborative andcooperative.
I would love to see thenonprofit sector and the
industrial complex really lookfor ways to not contend in the
food space but to support andexpand it so that we don't have
to compete with free.
It's hard to sell food topeople who've been getting it
(21:23):
for free and they don'tunderstand the value of three
pounds of tomatoes right.
So I would love to see thatsystemic change happen.
Speaker 8 (21:33):
All right, anyone want to comment on that?
Around the economicopportunities within the food
system.
You seem like you're readythere, Annabelle.
I'm just giving her props forwhat she said.
Okay, all right.
So we're going to hold thosenuggets and come back to them in
the Q&A, so keep this in mind.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
I think that was a really good point for us to keep
talking about.
Speaker 8 (21:56):
So, zaynab, can we just first of all acknowledge
that Cleveland has a coordinatorof local food systems.
I know a lot of people in thisroom advocated hard to get this
role, and Sometimes we thinkchange doesn't happen, and I
(22:20):
really am so thrilled to seethat you are here and you have
Taken this upon your shoulderswith everybody in the room.
That's one thing I really valueabout you is that you're saying
this is collaborative.
Just like Jennifer said, thisis team sport.
So, as the local food systemscoordinator of the city, do you
think we need to reinvent thewheel when it comes to
(22:43):
coordinating local efforts, orare there examples in other
cities that we could steal andmake them our own?
Speaker 9 (22:51):
That's a great question and, lucky for me, we
don't have to reinvent the wheelhere in Cleveland, maybe
retrofit it a little bit toserve Cleveland's very unique
needs.
But thankfully I am the first inCleveland, but not the first in
the country.
There's plenty of other folksacross the country that are
sitting in city government,sitting in County government,
(23:13):
working on food systems, whetherit be in their public health
department, like where I sit, orin their office of
sustainability.
Some cities are so Progressivethat they have an office of food
policy, which I dream of forCleveland one day.
But thankfully, even in our ownstate, columbus has a Food
policy analyst who I'm veryclose with.
(23:34):
We've been in similar studentcommittees and rooms together.
Franklin County, where Columbussits, also has someone working
on food systems work so really.
And Cincinnati, I believe, hassomeone.
They're a little bit newer aswell.
I'm so folks across the stateand across the country I'm
really looking to lean on andconnect with and hear what
(23:55):
they've been doing and reallythink about ways that we can
bring sort of those ideas toCleveland and, like I say,
retrofit them to Cleveland'sneeds and the Cleveland's
community and, really, bringingin to your point, this role was
created From advocacy fromwonderful people most of whom
are in this room today, or someof whom are in this room today
(24:19):
and really bringing thoseadvocates along with me to do
this work together, all right.
Speaker 8 (24:26):
So, annabelle, one of the things that's unique in
your perspective tonight is theexperience of working I'm gonna
say, hand-in-hand with the USDA.
I don't know if you canactually work hand-in-hand with
USDA, but you are at least atthe table with the USDA somewhat
regularly, along with some ofour other community leaders.
(24:47):
So how do you think we can pullon the strings of federal
policies and programs toaccelerate local food systems
transformation in CuyahogaCounty?
Speaker 10 (24:59):
I'll speak from the perspective of a grower.
There's definitely money outthere to get for growing.
I would say my biggest piece ofadvice if you're a newer
beginning farmer or an aspiringfarmer, find somebody who's
doing what it is you want to doand connect with them.
First, a farmer, because we area strong collaborative network.
(25:22):
The first thing I did when Istarted this journey was find a
mentor, and I think he wasregistered to come tonight, but
he's become a pretty awesomeresource to our business and
friend over the years.
So Get a mentor and then See.
(25:44):
You know, I benefited from someof the USDA programs and part
of that is just being aware thatthey are out there and they
exist and signing up for them.
So if you are a new beginningfarmer, go to Farmersgov and
click on the work with us orconnect with us tab, because
there are tons of programs.
You can find all theeligibility requirements online.
(26:07):
Again, you might not becomfortable going to the USDA
directly as a as a newerbeginning farmer, so find a
farmer that's benefited fromthese programs.
I'll talk about one program thatI've benefited from is I have
two high tunnels that have beenpartially funded through the
(26:27):
NRCS's Equip Program I apologizefor the acronyms Natural
Resources Conservation Serviceand and environmental quality
incentive programs.
Is the pot of money that thatcame from and they have funded?
Actually, cleveland was a pilotcity for the Cleveland high
tunnel initiative and that wasto build lots of high tunnels,
(26:49):
which sorry definitions.
A high tunnel is a Structurethat is covered in plastic that
allows producers to grow in thesoil for longer into the growing
season, outside the growingseason and Protects those crops
from pests and weather and in myexperience, growing in a high
(27:12):
tunnel, although there'scertainly a learning curve, the
produce is far superior togrowing on the field and it's
just more marketable.
So those structures areavailable through that program,
through USDA, and it's a costshare program so it doesn't
necessarily cover the entirecost but it took our farm leafs
(27:34):
and bounds ahead in terms offinancial sustainability, the
quality of the product that wascoming out of our farm and you
know it's just cool.
Like you have this structure, itactually looks like a farm in
our backyard now Because we havethese two tunnels.
So that's just one example andthere is lots of other money and
(27:54):
grants available through theUSDA.
But even locally, to bring itback to the community level, if
you're not yet eligible forthose monies, neighborhood
connections offers, I think$5,000 grants for programs or
community-led initiatives aroundgrowing food and Gardening for
(28:17):
greenbacks is another programthrough the economic development
department of the city,cleveland.
So, again, connect with afarmer.
We know a lot of stuff and cantry to Connect you or figure out
what you need and help youadvance your business.
Great.
Speaker 8 (28:34):
Is there a way for somebody to connect to a farmer?
If they don't know a farmer,how would they find a farmer?
There are several in the room,Okay so tonight, connect with
farmers that you've heard about.
But, zana, can they come to youif they do not know how to find
a farmer in our county?
Speaker 9 (28:55):
They can, like I said , still figuring things out.
One of the really excitingprojects that.
I'm working on that's so reallya development is sort of a
census for parks and gardensthroughout the city.
I'm so really working to Thinkthrough how we can get everybody
who's growing food and Knowthis can be a scary word but a
(29:19):
database so that we can.
Connect.
Connect folks across the citywho are doing this incredible
work.
Speaker 8 (29:30):
So we're gonna make it real here for a minute what
questions you guys have forthese three panelists local food
systems, opportunities,concerns, critiques.
I'll bring this to you.
Speaker 7 (29:53):
Let's see if I can put this into words.
I often hear about thelarge-scale agriculture and the
issues they're facing and theirtransition to regenerative, and
it's at such a different scalewhen you're talking about
commodity crops.
But I'm starting to think thatwe do need to have this
small-scale local food producersin a completely different
category and I'm wondering itlike is that helpful?
(30:13):
To think of them as somethingtotally different, as
large-scale commodity producers?
Is that not helpful?
And how you kind of segment itin your own mind?
Speaker 8 (30:23):
Did you guys hear the question?
Speaker 11 (30:24):
okay, yes, I can repeat.
So you were saying is there abenefit to differentiating
between small-scale farms andMike and large-scale commodity
farms?
So from my experience workingwith the USDA, like any sort of
like segregation or likedefining between who's growing
what size is not helpful becausea lot of things can happen when
(30:47):
you have like those identifiersand markers Usually small scale
means urban and so like.
When you start sort of likeputting definitions based on
like size and things like that,it can make it make you more
vulnerable, depending on youknow the political climate at
that time, right.
So like I would say no, but Ithink when it comes to actually
(31:08):
like facilitating and workingwith people and trying to
understand your capacity, youknow, and like making a crop
plan and things like that, likeknowing that for yourself and
your operation is important, butI personally, as a minor, I'm
not going to call myselfminority.
As a woman who is a black womanin America, I would not want to
be differentiated from any otherfarm.
(31:29):
I want the same services, Iwant the same resources and
everything.
So I would not.
I would not want that All right.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
I heard the term used several times apartheid could.
Could any of you define that?
Speaker 9 (31:53):
Yeah, so we, all of us in this room, have probably
heard the term food desert.
Right, food desert is a termthat's becoming updated then
trying to use words like foodapartheid to really bring in the
structural systems that havebeen put in place to
(32:13):
purposefully create theconditions of low food access
for particularly low income,particularly for black and brown
people throughout the country.
So when we think about a termlike food desert, it implies
naturally occurring, it impliesthat there's a lifelessness.
But food apartheid really takesinto the systems that were put
(32:38):
in place, things like redlining,that really intentionally drew
out certain segments of thepopulation to cut them out of
being able to build their ownfood system, have food
sovereignty, have food accessand I'll want to stress the food
(32:59):
desert and the lifelessnesspiece.
These communities are notlifeless.
They've got plenty of resources, they've got plenty of love and
life to give to their foodsystem, to be able to feed their
people.
They just need access to thefinance, to the food in some
(33:22):
cases.
But again, like folks aregrowing food all over the place,
folks are finding ways to feedpeople.
It's, it's not a desert.
So that's where the term foodapartheid comes from.
Speaker 5 (33:36):
I'm wondering if you could comment on the
opportunities that might existbetween the small farmers or
smaller farmers and the otherdistribution channels.
Maybe it's working with smokershere in town or other folks
that might have package ordistribute food to make masks.
Speaker 11 (34:05):
I was going to say that, like it actually enables
you to forecast and plan andhave a growing schedule and
actually be able to like applyfor funds and know exactly how
much you might need, based on acontract from a large producer
like smuggers.
Like that would be supersupportive, right.
And it could also encouragecollaboration and cooperation in
a smaller ecosystem to do thatgrowing to even maybe like train
(34:29):
people, right, you could createsome sort of workforce
development if you have aguaranteed contract from someone
like smuggers, right.
So like those sorts of thingsprovide a level of stability and
then also credibility, right.
If you know that you have anend user who's going to purchase
from you at the end of twoseasons, then you could actually
go for confidently funding andother opportunities, like to
(34:52):
building your capacity andhiring staff, which is what I'd
like to do.
So I think that's one of thesort of like benefits of having
a larger producer, but then alsolike it encouraged us to
produce our own, becausesmuggers has a lot of sugar.
So yeah, I think it wouldencourage us and give us insight
as to what we could also dowithin our own communities right
and broaden our perspective.
Speaker 13 (35:14):
Hi, I have a semi-selfish question, but it
might fit.
It fit others when you said ofthe word sovereignty, or you
grew up on a homestead recently.
So yes, both of you all.
(35:35):
So recently.
I found this term.
I'm a farmer, a little bit ofbig, keeping a little bit of
farming.
I found this term called urbanhomestead and so I wonder, I
know the growing part as far asthe food, but I wonder what that
looks like to you.
I have a little tribe with me.
There's a lot of them at home,so I wonder what that looks like
(35:58):
to you and how that can beaccessible to somebody, and what
were some steps that you wouldmove forward in that area?
Speaker 10 (36:09):
I grew up on a homestead in a rural community
in Vermont and I got to behonest I could wait to get away
from that.
But that was looking back.
I appreciate what I learnedgrowing up in that environment
and I feel like I've sort ofreplicated it at my urban
(36:30):
homestead, which I guess meansI'm turning into my parents.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
She's asking if I can define homestead.
Speaker 10 (36:47):
I don't know the official definition, but I'll
share what I think it means.
And I think it means reallytaking control of the food that
you eat to the extent possible.
And on my homestead, where Igrew up, that meant we raised
animals, so we had our meat, wehad bees, we tapped our trees
from maple syrup, we grew thefood.
(37:09):
My parents knew all of theedibles in the forest and again,
I didn't appreciate that.
But now that is amazing.
That's an amazing knowledgebase to have grown up with and
that's amazing to give to ourcommunity and to our children.
And you can do that on an urbanscale.
(37:29):
So I wouldn't say you need tolive early in order to have a
homestead.
Speaker 14 (37:39):
Thank you so much.
The issue of scale you justmentioned, Jennifer, it's been a
word in the conversation acouple of times.
Building on the work of DavidBeach, who's here, and many of
you, we've been trying to bringback into the conversation.
Bio regionalism, the scale ofthinking beyond political
boundaries to ecosystems hasimportant for the future and
(38:02):
Cleveland and the bio regionsaround here have a certain
advantage when it comes to thefuture Timescale climate crisis,
climate change.
We do have access to water andother things.
As you guys think about farmingand local food at the scale of
local and regional, where do yousee positioning yourselves in
(38:22):
Cleveland and what I think willbe an increasingly important
focus on how communities worktogether at that kind of scale
bio regions?
Speaker 9 (38:36):
So I mentioned a little bit about the importance
of policy when we think aboutlocal food systems and
supporting local food systems.
For me, my vision is that weleverage the millions and
billions of dollars that theregion is generating in food
(38:56):
procurement and shift thattowards supporting local food,
local growers, and it also meansensuring that folks have access
to the land to grow their foodas well.
So when thinking about theoperations of the city, we think
about the city land bank, andwhat I'd love to see is a reform
(39:21):
and policy to be able to allowfolks to be able to purchase
land for agricultural purposes.
Speaker 10 (39:32):
Yeah, I think that access to land and soil that's
not contaminated in an urbanenvironment is really important.
And, yeah, there have beenfarmers that I've come up with
who have gotten leases from theland bank and tried to renew
those leases and it's just beena nightmare.
(39:53):
So there's a real disconnectbetween using vacant property
for as productive green space,whether that's growing or
turning it into a park.
So that is a policy issue thatneeds to be addressed.
Those farmers are no longerfarming and that land is still
vacant.
So that's a problem and wecan't scale up if we aren't
(40:19):
utilizing the space that we havethat's not being used for other
means or other purposes.
So I'm sure in ourneighborhoods there's vacant
properties that we see and I seethat that's potential right.
That is a potential space forsomething productive to be grown
, to be turned into a park, nota dumping ground or a grass
(40:43):
that's just growing andattracting vermin.
Speaker 11 (40:48):
So that's my two cents.
I think building out food withthe thought, the tangential
thought of building out a greeninfrastructure in Cleveland
specifically targeting folks whoare already working as small
scale contractors carpenters andactually having a green
(41:08):
infrastructure that supportsgenerational wealth.
We have such high poverty hereand there's ways to actually do
a lot of like transferable skillapprenticeships that can build
people out not just as traineesbut as contractors.
Right, really looking at howour unions interact with our
(41:29):
communities and whether or notit's actually building out
further social disparities andhow building out a food system
can actually remediate that andchange that and rectify that
through green infrastructure.
There's really a lot of dollarsthat don't necessarily fall
under the category of food thatcould support food right and
support other economies withinthe city.
(41:50):
So I would love to see somemore innovative thought about
how those federal dollars cansupport a green infrastructure
that's inclusive of food andbuilding out economic
opportunities to not just bringpeople out of poverty but to
thrive and to actually see adifferent type of culture around
.
I would say blue collar workers,right Farm workers like we're
(42:11):
necessities and there's waysthat what we do transfer into
other sectors.
So being really thoughtfulabout that and mindful of how
we're doing the work and usingdollars from other parts of
federal funding to support thework.
Speaker 8 (42:25):
Okay, I've been warned.
We have two final questions andI'm going to do this one and
this one, so go back here.
Speaker 12 (42:35):
Thank you.
I guess I follow up to thefunding, or federal funding, in
particular with the Inflationand Reduction Act and, in
particular, funding for greenbanks.
Have you guys thought about orhave you tapped into the funding
that's available there and, inparticular, thinking about the
fact that the leveraging thatfunding, along with local banks
(42:57):
like Key Bank, is one of thelargest funders of farms in the
country?
Those could be someopportunities that you could
pursue as farmers and I'm justwondering how have you pursued
the IRA funding today?
Speaker 10 (43:14):
I'll just say that access to traditional streams of
credit can be reallychallenging for farmers because
we don't make a lot of moneydoing this work and so I'm not
familiar with green banks, butit would be really hard for me
to go get a loan from a bank ifI showed them my income
statement from my business.
But there are farm loans fromFSA, and so you can get a loan
(43:42):
at a much lower interest rate tostart up your farm business, as
long as you have a businessplan, and so that is a way to
get some startup capital to getyour project off the ground, and
I haven't done that myself, butthat does exist.
Speaker 11 (44:01):
I have not applied.
I think you have to also be lessrisk averse for really applying
for those types ofopportunities.
So I have a full-time job which, to me, not only funds my
farming.
I work so that I can farm andtypically that's not always
looked at positively.
It's not like I'm making$60,000, $70,000 farming every
(44:26):
year.
So for me being able tosubstantiate those dollars that
I would get, I can't prove itbecause there's not enough
people with enough income to payme for what I'm selling and the
services that I'm offering.
So when I lived in DC I hadplenty of customers that were
buying for me.
I would deliver.
I had schools that would hireme, contract me.
Those opportunities don't existin Cleveland, specifically not
(44:47):
for black women like me.
So I have to work a full-timejob and when I go to those
places they're asking mequestions that just are outside
of my scope because I guessmaybe I haven't lived long
enough, I don't know.
So I think that you have to beless risk averse for those types
of opportunities.
But I was just introduced toGreen Bank, so I'm going to look
at it.
But traditionally those types ofopportunities just are not
(45:09):
catered to folks that are tryingto do this work, especially not
younger folks that don't haveand built up credit or things
like that.
Speaker 8 (45:17):
But we'll see All right, our final question is
going to Sarah Condon, who'sback here.
Speaker 6 (45:26):
Thank you all so much .
This has been so informative.
I was wondering if you couldshare with the room because I
don't know if everyone knowswhat's been going on around the
whole notion of the vacant lots,the cleave lot, all the
different things that arehappening and potential ways
people can get involved withthem, because there's a lot of
publicly facing aspects of thosethat people can engage to be
(45:49):
part of, hopefully getting intosome of these tens of thousands
of vacant lots in the city ofCleveland alone.
You can share that?
It'd be awesome, thanks.
Speaker 9 (45:58):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Thank you, Sarah, good to seeyou.
The cleave lot program is aprogram that's being run by the
Western Reserve Land Conservancyin cooperation with the city's
land bank.
It's C-L-E-V-L-O-T.
There is a beautiful websitethat you can learn more about
the program.
(46:18):
But really the intention is tomake the whole process of
acquiring land from the city'sland bank more transparent,
easier hopefully, and also helpthe land bank reform their
policies to better support useof vacant lots across the city.
I will note it is indevelopment phases right now, so
(46:40):
still very early stages, butthey've been convening groups,
they've been working as hard asthey can.
Western Reserve Land Conservancydoes a lot, so this is just one
of the things that they do, butI did want to note it's still
in development, so I am going towrap up our formal session with
these panelists amazingpanelists but first let's give
(47:03):
them a round of applause.
Speaker 8 (47:04):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you
.
To me, one of the themes that Iheard tonight is that there are
major opportunities for foodsystem transformation, but there
is also major risk if we're notthinking through who's going to
(47:25):
benefit and who's going to harm, and who's going to benefit and
who's going to harm.
And what I heard in this roomis that people want everybody to
benefit and maybe don'tunderstand how difficult it is
for some people to accessopportunities.
So I would love to see comingout of this eco-meat.
Where can we continue thatconversation of these are the
(47:47):
opportunities and how doeseverybody have a fair chance to
take advantage of them?
Because I appreciatedJennifer's link back to gender,
and a lot of times in food workwe don't talk about gender at
all.
But much of the burden of foodinjustice is born on the backs
of women, whether it's women whoare in the home, where a
(48:09):
person's making them preparefood and they're not able to go
out and have a job.
There's women that try and getin the workforce but they're not
able to make.
We know they don't make.
We don't make the same amountof dollars for a man with our
same skill set.
The most food insecure peoplein our country are women with
(48:29):
children in their household, sowe have a lot of opportunity to
unpack.
How do we create solutions thatreally work?
And I do hope eco-meat can keepus in that conversation.
Speaker 15 (48:50):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of EcoSpeak
CLE.
You can find our full catalogof episodes on Spotify, apple
Podcasts or wherever you getyour podcasts.
New episodes are available thefirst and third Tuesday of each
month.
Please follow EcoSpeak CLE onFacebook and Instagram and
become part of the conversation.
If you would like to send usfeedback and suggestions, or if
(49:11):
you'd like to become a sponsorof EcoSpeak CLE, you can email
us at hello at ecospeakclecom.
Stay tuned for more importantand inspiring stories to come.
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