Kudos to the Food Project, a local nonprofit that promotes urban gardening, and kudos for the US Department of Health and Human Services, and kudos to the Boston Globe for writing about local farms and bringing recognition to the Food Project. This is only a start on the way toward local sustainability and health, and the federal money will dry up before too long, so it is important that the federal money be used wisely to establish permanent farms and businesses, but it is absolutely necessary to jump start self-sustaining local farming.
Boston is one of only seven communities nationally to get stimulus money for battling both obesity and tobacco use. Of the city’s $12.5 million in grants, the Food Project is getting $600,000 to renovate a deserted greenhouse in Roxbury and build 400 backyard gardens in Dorchester, Roxbury, and Mattapan, the neighborhoods with the highest obesity rates in Boston.
The rest of the two-year federal grant will support a variety of initiatives, ranging from expanding bike share programs to reducing soda consumption and limiting tobacco access. In the process, the city expects to create up to 50 temporary full-time jobs and 250 summer positions for local youth.
“We like to think of the first lady, Michelle Obama, as now the most famous vegetable gardener in the country, but you all are a close second,” said Sebelius of Boston’s work supporting local and sustainable food sources. “It really is us learning from you a model that we can take and replicate around the country.”
Sebelius said obesity and tobacco use, as leading causes of chronic disease nationally, contribute to rising health care costs. Today, 75 cents of every dollar spent on health care goes toward treating chronic diseases, she said.
The grants will also have an impact on a local level, especially on those living in neighborhoods with limited access to full-service grocery stores, said Margaret Williams, the Food Project’s executive director. Each of the 400 backyard gardens that will be built, for example, can provide a family of four with all of its vegetable needs during the summer.
For David Hicks, 18, this is his third summer working as an intern for the Food Project. This year, he is spending about 40 hours a week working on a farm in his hometown of Lynn, where he also goes to farmers markets to sell the peas, squash, kale, tomatoes, peaches, radishes, and raspberries he helped cultivate.
“When they told me I was farming, I was like, farming where?” he said. “I didn’t think there were any farms around in the city, but there are a bunch of them, actually.”
This season, 140 teenagers are working on the more than 40 acres of farm land in eastern Massachusetts overseen by the Food Project.
For bringing in these grants!