BALTIMORE CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS/MONTESSORI SCHOOLS:

Tony Geraci's big plans - mover & shaker

Allison Schecter - food is important to education

(footage of her interview, kids playing in the raised beds/with chicken, talking about food)

Allison: kids learn better on healthy food

Statistics: number of kids on the food program in city schools, current state of that food program

back to Geraci, about how he wants to see this change

Allision & Denzel: how this is happening at the bmpcs

what this means for the future - children educating their parents, building a better more educated future of food

(footage of the kids cooking class = hope for the future)

 

JUMP CUT!!!!!!!!!!!!! but it's ok, it's the end of an era

 

URBAN AG GALA = represents the growing popular  support for "good" local, regional organic etc.

also this would be a good place to show farmers' markets, other scenes of people gathering around these new ideals. STEW.

We need to establish a sense of "the people" and how they feel.

 

The established food system is beginning to reflect the changing popular attitudes towards "good" food.

Supermarkets, etc. THE SYSTEM isn't malicious (except when it is,) all they want is your money.

If you want to buy a certain product, they will stock that product.

Increasing demand creates supply, and is capable of changing the market quickly.

However, many esablished businesses are realizing the true benefits of regional organic food.

 

SANTONIS - HOW "THEY" INCORPORATE LOCAL FOOD

20:00:00 buying from local/regional vendors is a priority b/c you get great service, take advantage of economies, reduce expenses, happens naturally for us

20:50:00 80% bread business is local

 

I think there is more we could hear from him. Also the guys from NAFCO and Cooseman's would be essential here, to talk about their customer base. I know they talk about who is buying what, the recent trends, how their business has changed.

 

Narrator: With the push for local and organic food, small farms, and a farm-plate relationship,we have been forced to question the real-world logistics of supporting ourselves with this emerging ideology. The opinion that a shift towards locally produced organic food, and the cultivation of more local farms and urban farms, is an essential course of action, is valid if we hope to support ourselves in a changing world - a world in which an energy crisis could easily disrupt our fragile food system, throwing our world into chaos. And while everything on the ground looks and sounds amazing, we are forced to consider a larger perspective. Is it really possible to support our population on regional food systems? Or have we grown to dependent on our global ecology? what happens when that system falls apart? We talked to Kate Clancy, an expert on regional food systems and human nutrition:

 

KATE CLANCY - WHAT DOES "LOCAL" REALLY MEAN?

Local - no formal definition yet, means what it needs people to mean, different def. used in different farmers markets that correlate to different distances

8:32:00 depending on different radius distances for "local," many regions in North East would not be able to feed its population - talks specifically about NY 

Natural - old term, used alot beginning 70s, no formal FDA definition, does have formal USDA definition, natural means nothing really b/c it's used by everybody

5:00:00 throw natural label on anything, even things like cookies NOOOOOO

Organic - has formal, legal definition from 1991 law that set standards, overseen by dept. of agriculture

10:40:00 the largest need in the diet is carbohydrates, will mostly come from grains

11:00:00 we are not likely to end up growing ie lots of wheat in cities

11:20:00 urban ag. can't solve all of our problems b/c doesn't fit our dietary needs, doesn't mean urban ag can't contribute a lot of our food

12:00:00 we don't have any models for how much food will be able to grow in cities

 

here we need people's "responses" to Kate Clancy:

 

DAVID SMITH

10:30:00 couldn't possibly provide food for all restaurants interested in local food

JOHN SHIELDS

36:55:00 mentions Springfield farms in context of how right now we cannot feed ourselves entirely w/ local food, really imp. that we rebuild our local food economy - frightening but hopeful

- also he talks about this food scare a while ago where a local farm would not have been able to support the local population.

ALLISON SCHECTER

? - talks about the school's relationship with local food

 

other people talking about how local food has become integrated into their lives, talk about how local food is ultimately just that - feasible, but locally. Reforming the larger food ecology will require us not to abandon it, but to work to change it's methods. The ways we eat, how we interact with food, has to change.

 

JOHN SHIELDS

28:40:00 remains to be seen how efforts will play out, this type of pollution/stress happening all over country, a lot comes from an over-reliance on protein - we didn't used to eat per capita so much fish/meat/chicken, that was for rich people, most people ate a little protein - put hamhock/little crab into big pot and would serve 10-12people, this puts stress on land & water - there needs to be a whole change in how we approach food, have to have one foot in past and one in future

 

DAVID SMITH

12:50:00 there is middle ground b/n small farms and industrial agriculture, we as a population eat way too much meat - we need to re-educate population about eating more vegetables, need to can/freeze to get through winter, we need to get people to back off of meat

 

animation segues into shots with voiceovers:

shots of Springfield farms, maybe great kids farm

 

JOHN SHIELDS

30:00:00 number of young people going back into farming, growing on small plots responsibly - that will grow, that will be what saves our whole region - we can grow what we need in season, keep money in the community, taking less stress on protein factory that was always there

 

shots of participation park and other urban farms

 

KATE CLANCY 

10:11:00 regional food system would include food grown in urban areas

 

MARK WINNE

4:40:00 something as simple as a garden helps people help themselves, build self-esteem, when work w/community creates community bonds, so people feel helping community while helping themselves

 

shots of the harbor, Jones Falls

 

27:30:00 regional food systems - a lot of work that has to be done is to bring together the right political people in these regions to strat now looking at the regional water supplies, at watersheds, so that people in watersheds - even if it's just the people with leadership, have to be thinking right now we have to save a lot more farmland, if we can't save it locally b/c of the politics, we need regional land use planning

 

shots of the bay, from the waterman's perspective

 

COMB

5:00:00 Chesa influenced by human development, affects runoff to bay, by fishing methods, nets that scrape the bottom disrupting oyster/sea-grass beds, industrial pollutants, ag pollutants, fertilizers, ecosystem not equipped to deal with

6:45:00 biotech allows to get away from taking resources from Bay and grow fish, shellfish in sustainable bio-secure systems, grow in pristine environment

9:15:00 still will always be wild fisheries but those can be slowly replaced/largely supplemented by growing same fish in recirculating facilities/aquaculture facilities

 

shots of indoor facilities

 

2:00:00 in this facility demonstrating you can grow sustainable seafood in an urban location, we're in downtown Baltimore, can be very close to a distribution network such as the BWI airport, retail areas such as Gessup retail market, have an urban proximity that can be used for commercial purposes, show to investors, can be done in old reclaimed brown-field buildings, old warehouses, you can use what exists, you can use urban areas where labor, you can create jobs, can use municipal water supplies and energy grids, all can come together to make cost-effective sustainable seafood

7:40:00 can know your seafood not high in mercury and PCBS

ALGEA KITCHEN

How that crazy shit works

 

(end voiceovers) narrator: we need to remember that after all, it isn't that you can buy a grapefruit from pap new guinne that's BAD, but the methods of production and transportation. The reason our global food system is broken is because it relies on outdates technologies and attitudes. It's going to be nearly impossible to support our population by switching to local food - we have to learn to work with a large scale food ecology, because that ecology can and will change.

 

30:40:00 as soon as you start using efficiency or vertical integration people think - oh that's bad, b/c that's what the dominant food system does - but we all have to be efficient, can't let the dominant food system take away those terms

 

Change is inevitable. The systems that are present now will change, and we will be forced to adopt new methods of production. The ways we interact with food will be different. We can take comfort in the fact that people are so involved right now - that there is a push to reform and change and learn, that this change will happen on our terms.

 

MARK WINNE

11:40:00 have been @ this work for 40 years, have never seen this much enthusiasm as now, I must be dreaming

10:45:00 hopeful about future of food b/c so much interest in it, hot topic, how many books about food? stories? films? restaurants talk about where food comes from on menu? now read menu tells stories where food comes from, people falling over eachother to talk about where/how/how healthy food is, what does to enviro - we are a food crazed society

DAVID SMITH

11:00:00 mentions Baltimore City Public schools - local food, farm, overall David is very positive about future of food in Baltimore City

JOHN SHIELDS

38:00:00 when looking @ future of Balt. food economy, all little things - aquaculture, small farming, cheese makers, farmers markets - our food future has little dots on the map, and soon all those dots will be connected and that will be the future of the balt. food scene

 

this would be a good animation.

 

 

Favorite food from Baltimore from people, ending with local energy.

 

 

 

HOORAY!

 

This is really great. I think there is too much John Shields, but I think that's a problem that can be solves by strategically planning our next interviews. We should really get to talk to Greg Strella, because he can talk about the small local farm as opposed to David Smith who is a ways away and pretty big, as well as about serving local restaurants such as woodberry.

there's also a lot of opportunity when introducing an idea to hear many voices coming together, as we have seen throughout our interviews. We could have segments with a lot of brief statements cut together, giving the viewer a sense of how interconnected all of these people are. This also gives the film the sense that the people we interviewed are having a conversation with each other, not just with us.

 

 

GREAT JOB ZOE!! HIP HIP HORRAH you the best

 

 

i agree. good job at laying all this out.