KPL Event: Farm City

I've never read the book, Farm City, but after hearing the presentation about it last night by the author Novella Carpenter, I'm convinced it's something I should read before I die.

 

That's Novella above. She's an urban farmer. Novella live in Oakland California and started a farm in an abandoned lot near her apartment building. Farm City is the story of Novella expanding her farm in the middle of the ghetto by raising animals for meat.

 

Novella studied under Michael Pollan, the author of Omnivore's Dilemma (one of the books we looked at in class). Another book we looked at was featured in KPL's Read Together 2014 event as well - The American Way of Eating, the book I chose to read. I can't believe how perfect the timing was for this class and this KPL series of events!

 

Farm City describes a nearly perfect way of how an omnivore should eat and live. When Novella came on to the stage, the first tings I thought of her was: HIPPY!! She wasn't extremely well put together, but she looked comfortable. Her hair was long and pulled back. She wore orange, cork-bottomed clogs that matched her oversized orange sweater. She looked like a lady that cared little about what others thought of her appearance, and I can totally respect that.

 

Novella is a very funny lady. She's very crass and has a straight forward, no questions about it sense of humor. Novella talked about her urban farm called, "Ghosttown Farm" where she grows or raises nearly all of the food she needs to eat. Novella read a couple of passages from her book that described her experiences with getting her first meat birds. She bought turkeys, ducks, and chickens to raise for meat. She later raised rabbits and pigs as well. Novella did not spare any details when it came to talking about slaughtering the pigs for meat and using every part of them to make some kind of food. "We boiled down the hog heads to make bologna. Like head cheese. It was so delicious."

 

Novella talked about her interest in bee keeping to harvest honey. She sells it at farmers' markets in her town. She also raised goats for their milk and used that to make cheeses.

 

Novella is living the lifestyle of the perfect omnivore. She eats meats and plants as much as she wants, and she knows it's all healthy because she grew or raised them herself. I am amazed at this concept. She talked about ways she used her surrounding to help sustain her farm. She dumpster dives at a local Chinese restaurant to get the food for her pigs and birds. She finds and reuses wood to build structures for the animals to live in. She is a full blown farmer right in the middle of the ghetto.

 

I admire what Novella is doing and I'm glad she wrote a book to spread the word about it. Something that struck me was said after a question was asked about growing your own food. Novella said, "You know, we all need to learn how to do this. If the world were ending, I could only feed the people around me for like 5 minutes. What will we do then? Everyone needs to learn how to grow their own food so we can all be empowered. We should all be able to be self sufficient."