Green Movements Grow in Central Brooklyn

Last weekend, November 19-21, the first annual conference to forge food, farming and policy solutions for the Black Community convened at Brooklyn College in New York City, convening farmers, gardeners, activists, students and community leaders from across the nation and around the world.
The 3-day conference, attended by more than 500 people, was hosted by Karen Washington of La Familia Verde and sponsored by Black Urban Growers (BUGS), an alliance of predominately Black urban farmers and food activists.  Farmer Devanie Jackson, who founded with her husband Rev. Robert Jackson the 5,000-square-foot Bed-Stuy Farm facility on Decatur Street in 2004, proudly represented the community in workshops and as a keynote leader.
Participants spent the first day mingling and the last day on a tri-borough tour of community gardens in the City, including the globally known Hattie Carthan Community Garden on Lafayette Avenue.  Other Brooklyn organizations represented at the conference included Weeksville Heritage Center and East New York Farms, among many others.

Participants and presenters came from far and wide to hear Will Allen, an urban farmer, founder and CEO of Growing Power, Inc in Milwaukee, WI,  and a MacArthur genius grant awardee, who opened the conference.  They also gathered to learn from the distinguished Ralph Paige, Executive Director of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives of East Point, Ga., whose keynote closed the conference.

According to Ms. Washington, The conference, aimed to strengthen networks and inspire new ideas among people working across disciplines to address food-related issues that contribute to inequities in health, wealth and justice in black communities.  So why are we compelled to focus on food, farming and justice now, in these embattled times?  Allen and Paige both said in so many words, “we can not afford not to be concerned “about the inequities in a food system that is increasingly alienated from the needs of African Americans and dismissive of their demands.”
NBFC’s shared statistics that also answer the question:
· Our farmers are in peril:  ninety years ago, over 14% of U.S. farmers were African American. It’s now dwindled to about 2%.  In New York State alone, there are only 110 African-American farmers in 56,000.
· Our communities are malnourished and our collective health is suffering.  Nationally, the typical low-income neighborhood has 30 percent fewer supermarkets than higher-income neighborhoods. Nearly 50% of African American children will develop diabetes at some point in their lives. About four out of five African American women are overweight or obese.

· Our communities are dying: Deaths from heart disease and stroke are almost twice the rate for African Americans as compared to Whites.
But the beauty of the 3-day conference is that it offered proactive solutions, the kind that get your hands dirty. Some examples follow:
· Paula Thompson and Trineka Freeman from 42nd and Steele St Parking Lot Farm in Denver shared the story of how they took a parking lot back and made it their paradise.

· In ‘By Any Greens Necessary: Food as a Tool of Colonization and Joining the Resistance’, Jade Walker from the Mill Creek Farm and Chris Borden-Newsome led a discussion on the interconnectedness of oppressions.  They also taught participants how to challenge these negative systems.

· Youth from Brooklyn’s East New York Farms! Joined the conversation on ‘The Next Generation’ along with folks from Real Food Challenge.

·Tanikka Cunningham from Healthy Solutions led the discussion on increasing access to affordable food in communities of color.

· Dr. Ridgely Abdul Mu’min (Muhammad), Minister of Agriculture and Farm Manager, Muhammad Farms of Albany, Ga., talked about the effect of USDA and other goverment policies on Farming and Urban Gardening.  He was joined by Gary Grant, President, Black Farmers and Agriculturists Association of Tillery, N.C.; Spencer D. Wood, PhD, Kansas State University in Manhattan, KS; and Barry Crumbley of the Intact Community Development Corporation in Mt. Vernon, NY.
· Michelle Hughs, Director, GrowNYC: New Farmers Development Program, presented some resources and support services available for all farmers on the local level.
Urban gardeners from Upstate New York and New Jersey, Black farmers from across the country representing the states Wisconsin, Michigan, Mississippi, California and and the nation of Canada learned how  a $5 per foot investment could convert an abandoned parking lot into rich farm land.
To a captive audience, Allen broke his success down to one phrase, “If you’ve got good soil, you can do anything.” Allen then detailed how soil was derived from composting dirt and garbage. “The key to good soil is garbage and access. I was walking yesterday and saw you all have a lot of garbage. For composting, it’s like a smorgasbord.”
The conference  – which featured over 20 breakout sessions on other topics like ending racism in the food industry and the resurgence of the urban black farmer in Denver and Detroit – came on the heels of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act which passed in the U.S. Senate a day before. Among other changes of note, the bill would make public a National Agriculture and Food Defense Strategy that may give opportunities for black farmers.
“This is just the beginning,” said Paige of the need to continue the talk around black and urban farmers.
At the conference, the 2010 Black Farmers & Urban Gardeners George Washington Carver Awards were announced.  Workshop subjects were compelling.  They included: Scaling Up! Creating 100,000 New Farmers: Local and National Resources for Rural and Urban Farmers, Designing Linkages between Upstate Farmers and Downstate Food Desert communities, Undoing Racism in the Food System:  Lessons from the Detroit Struggle, Urban Farming as a Framework for Wholistic Community Development, Young, Black and Gifted: Creating Niche Food Communities, The Next Generation: Youth Creating Food Change, By Any Greens Necessary: Food as a Tool of Colonization and Joining the Resistance and a Place for Us: Black Farmers in the Organic Movement.
For more information, visit: www.blackfarmersconf.org
(Publishers note:  Bernice Elizabeth Green contributed to Mr. Kene’s article.)

Gov. Paterson Impresses Diverse Audience at Brooklyn Town Hall Meeting: Commands Moment, Impactful on State Budget Crisis

A confident Governor Paterson was well-received at a Town Hall meeting about the New York State budget at Brooklyn’s Borough Hall on Monday and no one can accuse him of sugar-coating the economic message.   Paterson began with a brief historical analysis of how governments have changed the names of financial problems from Poland’s Crisis of 1899 to the Great Depression of the 1930s to what is today called a “recession.”  The point of his lesson was that whatever it’s called, the pain is the same.  “A recession is next door,” said the governor.  “When you’re the one who’s lost a home or a job, that starts to feel like a depression.”    
Paterson says New York State can be looking at a Depression if action is not taken now.   And the action he has taken, he frankly detailed.  “In my administration we have cut $4.5 billion from health care, we’ve cut $1.1 billion from education, we’ve cut our administration, our agencies, by $1.5 billion  and in this year’s budget we’re going to cut it some more.  We’re going to have to cut health care another billion, education a 5% reduction of $1.1 billion and another billion from our agencies, including $250 million from workforce reduction.”
Governor Paterson was quite clear in his warning when he said, “I came here to tell you that today we’re Crossing the Rubicon in terms of moving from recession to something else far worse if my colleagues and I can’t close a $9.2 billion deficit.”  They had successfully closed an  $18 billion deficit last year, said the governor,  “but we had more options.  We’ve used them up.  We’ve depleted our resources.”
The governor then asked for suggestions but reminded the assembled that wherever a program is to be saved, “we also have to know how we’re going to pay for it,” because the state may run out of money by May or June. 
Suggestions ran from borrowing from other countries; “most are in the same boat we are,” said Governor Paterson, although he added he has suggested that the Treasury could lend to highly rated governments at a favorable rate of return.  Queen Mother Blakely’s suggestion that it would be cheaper if state institutions purchased Queen Mother’s Organic Coffee from her women-owned enterprise and queried as to how she should proceed.  The governor acknowledged that, “There is a lot of purchasing the state does and we’ll have someone speak to you about that.” 
Dave Taylor said the governor may not remember him, but he was from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and came representing the Council of Senior Services to say that senior citizen centers throughout the five boroughs are currently under review by the NYC Department of the Aging to determine which should be closed.  “Seniors are terrified.  We are faced with the possibility of 75 centers being closed throughout the city.  Will you take Title 20 off the table and stop the closing of senior centers?”   “Dave Taylor, I remember you well from the Upper West Side,” responded the governor.  “And if I remember correctly, I think you ran for City Council in 1989.”
Mr. Taylor’s question was an opportunity for Governor Paterson to show the dilemmas his administration is faced with.  “A kind of triage,” is how he puts it.  Two of the deficit culprits are the surge in Medicaid costs – “about $400 million” – and the Wall Street bonuses that were paid in stock, not in cash and therefore couldn’t be taxed. 
“When the bonuses are not paid, they don’t go back to the public, they go to the firms,” explained the governor.  “And the firms have very favorable tax benefits and ways in which when the money goes back to the firms, we can’t tax it at the same rate as if it was paid in bonuses.  This cost us another half a billion dollars.” As the governor put it, “This was the public relations way that Wall Street is adjusting to the attacks on the high bonuses.”
Describing the economic environment he is in, Paterson said, “It is hard to take things off the table when actually we still have to come up with another billion dollars.”
He insisted that his administration is “particularly careful and scrupulous of those who live on the edge:  Seniors. Homeless people with disabilities and people who don’t have many options.”  And yet while still being mindful of the very real pain these cuts cause, New York State has to move forward and “the only reason it’s on the table is because of the dire state that we’re in.”
Councilman Charles Barron spoke in favor of looking for money where money is: wealthy folk. He called for a Stock Transfer Tax as a way to recapture some of that Wall Street money and congratulated the governor for blazing the path of taxing the wealthy. “I think you were bold.  You were one of the few governors who had the heart and the spine to raise the PIT, Personal Income Tax surcharge, on those earning $250,000 or more and we got about  $4 billion out of that.  Let’s go up further, those making $500,000, charge 2.5%  Those making a million, 7.5%.    You cannot have a budget process and say that raising taxes on the rich is off the table.  If you want to be fiscally prudent, then everything stays on the table: cutting us, taxing the rich and selling state assets.  Tax the rich and put some of our stuff back in the budget.”
Describing an imposition of a Stock Transfer Tax as “tantalizing” Paterson said, “The Stock Transfer Tax began in 1905, and in 1966 it was shifted and the Transfer Tax benefited New York City.  It was reduced between 1978 and 1981 and here’s why.  We’re not living in the kind of world as in 1905.  We’re living in an electronic environment.  If you want to move Wall Street to Downtown Newark or Greenwich, Connecticut, impose a Stock Transfer Tax.  They don’t need the geographic location of
Wall Street to operate any more.”
The governor then offered a suggestion of his own on retrieving some of the Wall Street bonus money.   “What I think we should do is talk to Wall Street, which is the engine of our economy, about the way they are shifting resources that just denied New York State half a billion dollars this year and half a billion next year.  I do think there is a discussion that we have to have with the major firms on Wall Street about how to support New York State, which is supporting them.” 
On the issue of taxes the governor agreed that he had enacted one of the most stringent taxes on the wealthy, over 9%,  “for which we got a lot of criticism,”  but his administration has found that this approach has diminishing returns.  As proof, he offered that they had projected over $4 billion in revenue but actually got in only $3.6 billion.  Apparently, people’s loyalty to New York does not extend to paying more in taxes.  “The problem is people will say they moved to Florida, and stay there one more day a year than they do here in New York, and for that, they don’t pay any taxes at all.”
To a question regarding the Atlantic Yards project, Paterson said he had waited for the Court of Appeals to make a decision regarding the use of Eminent Domain in the taking of private property for private use and was surprised that it allowed the taking to move forward.  “And now the Supreme Court has made a decision.  There was a process, I did not want to impose my own judgment where there has already been a court decision in the matter.”
Councilwoman Letitia James said there could be savings in closing empty upstate prisons and merging redundant agencies.  Paterson responded that they have already begun the merging of agencies, but said the savings are “only in the tens of millions of dollars,” and they’re looking at a multibillion-dollar hole to fill.
Councilwoman James had also brought up the subject of the proposed Sugar Tax, which she said was a regressive tax.  Perhaps because the governor’s schedule showed his next stop was a Sugared Beverage Tax Symposiumÿ in the Blue Room of the Capitol he took to the question like a bear to honey.
“In the end it may be regressive, but it’s a different kind of tax,” the governor insisted, “because all of the tax collected is designated for health care services.   We are losing $8 billion a year from people smoking and almost as much, $7.5 billion a year, treating diabetes, heart disease and other ailments coming from obesity, largely caused by sugar.  Companies have freely sold these products in our communities and put them in serious, serious physical condition and we’ve never taken a look at that.” Paterson spoke of the proliferation of hospital units around the country treating childhood stroke and heart attack victims. 
“We assessed how much money we would get from a Sugar Tax but we also assessed that there would be a 15% drop-off in the market.  This will drop the amount of money the taxpayer is paying for health care.  60% of adults in the state are obese,  25% of children and 33% of minority children are obese.  80% of African-American women are obese.  Well, okay, 79%.  I’m speaking for a class of people who don’t have a vote.  And that’s the children of this state. And when their parents come down here and shaking the wall  about their children having heart attacks, it’s not going to be on my conscience.”
Also speaking for the children was Ms. Jackson of AARP Chapter 2197 who asked, “Why are we cutting Kin Care when it saves the state money.   We have over 400,000 children in Kin Care.  Keeping those children out of the foster care actually saves money.  We need that $2 million for those children,  keeping them with their families, the Kin Care program builds family bonds as well as saves the state money.”   Paterson said he would go back and take a look at the Kin Care program.   “But,” he said, “If the premise of your question is that we have made cuts that otherwise brought revenues into the state, what I want to tell you is that’s how dire our situation is.”  He gave the example of the Parks System where he said every dollar the state spends generates $5 in revenue.  “The problem is we don’t have the dollar to open the parks.” 
The governor describes a scene much like a family at the kitchen table holding back on paying the cable bill in order to pay the rent.  “We have to make payments to local governments at the end of March and payments on Medicaid.  We are $2 billion short on those payments and nobody knows where we’re going to come up with the money.  That’s why we discussed holding back the tax returns for two weeks.  That would bring about $500 million into the $2 billion we have to pay.  These are not choices.  These are necessities.”

Coalition Campaigns to End Prison-Based Gerrymandering

Senator Eric T. Schneiderman and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries joined forces with a statewide coalition today to announce a new organizing campaign plan to end prison-based gerrymandering in New York State before the 2010 Census.
The coalition’s goal is to organize across the state to pass Senator Schneiderman’s bill that would require New York State to count incarcerated persons in their home communities-rather than in the districts where they are incarcerated-for purposes of drawing legislative district lines. If passed, it would be the first law in the nation to count prisoners in their home communities for districting purposes.
“It’s an absolute injustice that New York currently counts people in the districts where they are incarcerated, rather than in their home communities. I am proud to be here to join forces with Sen. Schneiderman, Assm. Jeffries and this coalition to end this unconstitutional practice. If we do not act soon, it will be 10 long years for another opportunity to right this wrong. We cannot afford to wait,” said Rev. Al Sharpton.
“Equal representation under the law benefits everyone,” said Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, the lead sponsor of the bill to end prison-based gerrymandering. “The practice of counting people where they are incarcerated undermines the fundamental principle of ‘one person, one vote’ – it’s undemocratic and reflects a broken system. This legislation is as simple as it is fair: it requires that legislative districts at every level of government contain an equal numbers of residents. The time to act is now.”
Assemblyman Jeffries is the bill’s lead sponsor in the Assembly.
“This bill is necessary to break the back of the prison industrial complex where certain communities benefit from the criminalization of young people who disproportionately come from low-income neighborhoods across the state. Prison-based gerrymandering is unfair, unethical and unconstitutional, and we will not rest until the process is changed,” said Assemblyman. Jeffries.
 ”Prison-based gerrymandering continues to cheat needy communities of fair and equitable representation across the state of New York. This archaic formula perpetuates traditional electoral disparities by insuring that many men and women of color be counted by the U.S. Census in counties where they are incarcerated as opposed to where they resided at the time of their arrest. This practice cheats neighborhoods of much needed resources as well as a fair share of political representation,” said Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat, a co-sponsor of the bill.
The new coalition was represented by Citizen Action of New York, The Public Policy and Education Fund, The Prison Policy Initiative, New York Civil Liberties Union, Demos, Common Cause, the Brennan Center for Justice, Fortune Society, Bronx Defenders, Praxis Project, Correctional Association of New York, Community Service Society, New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN), Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Center for Law & Social Justice, Nu Leadership Policy Group, Prison Families of New York and Exponents. The announcement was followed by a statewide organizing meeting that included more than 50 community-based organizations focused on passing this legislation.
Eddie Ellis, executive director, Center for NuLeadership on Urban Solutions, Medgar Evers College, CUNY, said, “This critical piece of legislation speaks to the fundamental principle of a participatory democracy, namely: ‘one man/woman, one vote.’ In additional to violating the constitution of the state of New York regarding residency, the current census counting process for incarcerated people also violates the ‘one man/woman, one vote’ principle in as much as it assigns disproportionate representation to certain counties to the detriment of others. As such, this process must be changed.”
“When the Census tallies incarcerated people at prison locations far from home, the picture of the American civic community is distorted, with profound ramifications for our democracy,” says Erika Wood of the Brennan Center for Justice. “The policy gives public officials in prison districts an incentive to build their districts on the backs of ‘ghost voters,’ packing in prisoners who count toward the district size but who are not permitted to vote.”
“New York State is undermining the core American principles of fairness and equal representation by pretending that inmates are legitimate constituents of the districts where they are incarcerated,” said New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman. “Our state must end this corruption of the political process and count all New Yorkers as members of their home communities.”
“Common Cause/NY applauds Senator Schneiderman and Assembly Member Jeffries for their leadership in righting an obvious wrong,” said Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause/NY. She added, “In order to achieve fairly drawn legislative and congressional districts and insure the efficient use of scarce government resources, it is essential that the census miscount of incarcerated New Yorkers not be the basis for redistricting and distribution of resources. Article II, Sec. 4 of our state constitution demands no less.”

BROOKLYN RETIREES FIND SUCCESS IN EMBRACING LIFELONG PASSION: UPSTATE HERB FARMING