April
5, 2012
SOMERVILLE
READS BOOK DISCUSSION for FARM CITY:
THE EDUCATION OF AN URBAN FARMER By Novella Carpenter
“There
was something captivating about making something
useful
again – about resurrecting the abandoned…”
Oakland, California seems like the last place on earth one
might find a farm. In her memoir Farm
City, Novella Carpenter makes a case for it being one of the best, no
matter how unusual. When she and her
boyfriend Bill decide to make their home in “Ghost Town,” one of the rougher neighborhoods
in the area, they immediately see its potential by transplanting their urban
farmer instincts to their new plot of land.
Establishing a “squatters garden” in an abandoned lot that flourishes
into a community garden of sorts is only the tip of the iceberg. Carpenter takes the adventure into many
different directions from the joys of beekeeping to the raising and
slaughtering livestock, including a turkey called Harold and two enormous pigs. Cataloguing the struggles and triumphs of
her endeavors, Farm City is the story of a woman who wants to see
sustainable life even in a place long-abandoned by society – she wants to prove
that even the ghetto holds promise.
On Thursday, April 5, Jessie Banhazl of Green City Growers,
and a Somerville urban farmer, led a group discussion about the book in the
Main Library. Jessie spends her day
working to install raised bed gardens all over the greater Boston area and thus
has a unique perspective about Carpenter’s endeavors. “She wasn’t fearless, but she acted that way,” Jessie said.
The discussion began with why the ghetto and why
Carpenter seemed to get away with having her farm there without too much
protest from the neighbors. There are
places where the notion of someone wanting to keep chickens in his or her own
yard might become the heart of a heated public debate, but that didn’t ever
seem to be the case for Carpenter, no matter how loud – or smelly – her animal
hoard became. Issues of individual
survival were more on the forefront for most of her neighbors – and the
benefits of the garden were for everyone, since Carpenter freely shared
whatever she grew with whoever wanted some.
The land wasn’t hers, after all – and in many ways, each of her
neighbors was doing something either questionable or downright illegal, so the
tendency seemed to be that everyone looked the other way, taking handouts from
each other when the opportunity arose.
Occasionally, Carpenter expressed frustration with her neighbors – like
when she expends a great deal of time and energy into growing a single
watermelon only to have it lifted by an anonymous stranger – the reality also
had to be acknowledged that the very land she farmed didn’t even belong to
her. “Even though someone’s taking
something from her, she’s taking something from someone else,” Jessie pointed
out. Going on, Jessie added, “I think
it’s like driving – some people are respectful and some people aren’t.” The “good neighbors” were the ones who
contributed seeds or helped farm or harvest or found other ways to back Novella
and Bill up whenever possible.
From there, the conversation turned to the recurring theme of
beekeeping throughout the book. Bees,
of course, are a wonderful source of pollination, but would you be thrilled to
have a beehive on your neighbor’s back porch?
Novella and Bill’s neighbors never seemed to mind it. Everyone reaped the benefits of a thriving
garden and endless honey. The
discussion then became about the wonderful experiences people have had with
growing their own food and what a difference it makes to harvest fresh produce
from your own backyard. One of the
women in the group said, “I’m always amazed when someone says they don’t like
tomatoes – they say, ‘Oh, they taste like nothing.’ Taste like nothing?? They
taste like everything!” Jessie
added that she’d encountered school children who believed that vegetables came
out of cans or met line cooks who had no idea where the food they were
preparing originated. The disconnect
with people of all ages not really knowing how food comes to be shocked the
entire discussion group. “Food’s become
about convenience, not about thought,” Jessie said. Educating people about how what they’re eating is produced is an
extremely important piece of the social puzzle that is often overlooked. Jessie suggested taking children to visit
farms and community gardens to lift the mystery and make them better aware of
where food comes from.
The discussion group also spent some time considering the
frank way Carpenter describes slaughtering and preparing her animals to be
meals. “I thought it was both brave and
crazy,” one of the women in the group said.
Discussion about whether or not certain individuals would be able to do
what Carpenter did – raise a turkey from a day old and then eat him for Thanksgiving
dinner, for example – led to a discussion about vegetarianism or veganism. Committing to those lifestyles perhaps comes
with a certain level of economic security, much the same way a more affluent
neighborhood might cause a ruckus over someone wanting to keep chickens on his
or her property, whereas in Novella and Bill’s neck of the woods, such things
were so far from the big survival issues that no one batted an eye at much of
anything. It didn’t matter how cute and
fuzzy that bunny was – when you’re hungry, that bunny just might be the thing
that will keep you alive.
As the discussion wound down, Jessie praised Carpenter’s
candid and honest approach to writing her book, never seeming to back down from
what some might consider difficult truths about what she had to do to survive
as an urban farmer.
Before the group dispersed, there was an announcement made
about the Somerville Reads Celebration happening from 1PM-3PM on Saturday,
April 21 – also known as Earth Day. The
theme is food, so come hungry and bring a dish to share for this potluck-style
event. See the Events Calendar for more
information!
