The Shorewood Insider
Farming The Food System
Milwaukee is one of 20 finalists in a national challenge on addressing the broken food system. And, Shorewood's Gretchen Mead is a main contributor to the unique plan.
When other Shorewood moms were gathering pipe cleaners for the perfect spider costume, Gretchen Mead, the Executive Director of Victory Garden Initiative, was putting together an ingenious plan to answer Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett's Tournavation challenge. This competition solicited ideas to combat the issue of the broken food system within the city. "The lack of access to healthy foods can have profoundly negative effects on individuals’ health," she said. The winning idea in Milwaukee came from Mead and the VGI, which she titled "PUHA, the Post-Industrial Homestead Act," which turns empty lots and foreclosed homes into community-based food system hubs. The solution in the application was to "find out how to leverage the land and …
Absolutelyfabulous
9:00 am on Friday, November 9, 2012
NY Times article Growing Everything but Gardeners http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/garden/urban-gardens-grow-everything-except-gardeners.html?partner=rss&emc=rss "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose sustainability initiative, PlaNYC, calls for city agencies to identify vacant parcels that may be reclaimed for urban agriculture..There is some evidence, in fact, that the bulk of New Yorkers do not … more ›