Bay Area Planting Justice co-founder Haleh Zandi discusses the work of creating sustainable food systems, green jobs, and healthy communities by building over 400 edible permaculture gardens, a food justice curriculum, and green jobs for former prisoners.
TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1:Method to the madness is next. You're listening to method to the madness, a weekly public affairs [00:00:30] show on k a l expertly featuring bay area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Keifer. And today I'm interviewing Holly Sandy Co founder and educational director of planting justice, a Bay area nonprofit, growing local sustainable food systems, green jobs and healthy community.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the program today. Thank you for having me. We're very curious [00:01:00] about planting justice. You're a local nonprofit. What do you do? We run several programs. One is a landscaping service that transforms yards into edible gardens. And then I work in the educational program where we're leading food justice, culinary arts and permaculture design programs at several high schools in Oakland and apartment complexes and other community organizations as well as at San Quentin state prison [00:01:30] and um, juvenile detention centers in the area. We also have a canvas program, a full time staff who are on the streets raising funds and talking with folks about food justice issues and organizing. And then we have several urban farm and training programs, a five Acre farm in El Sobrante that is a permaculture food forest. And then our newest a nursery is at a hundred and Fifth Avenue in Sobrante Park in Oakland, [00:02:00] East Oakland, where we have 1100 different varieties of fruit and nut trees that get shipped across the country through online orders.
Speaker 2:Okay. So this sounds really great. What are the problems you're trying to solve? We're really looking at the intersections of the health crisis, which is linked to the food crisis on the economic crisis that we're facing and the climate crisis. And so we're really trying to create living wage jobs that are for [00:02:30] people with barriers to employment within the food system to create a more local and sustainable food system here in the bay area. One of the things you say on your website, uh, you believe the modern colonial food system is a paradigm of war. Yeah. Can you explain that? The way that our industrialized and globalized food system operates now is like a slow and violent warfare on our bodies. It's literally killing us from diet related diseases to low wages and slavery [00:03:00] within the industrial food system here in the u s and around the world, you call it violence of the industrial food system.
Speaker 2:Yes. So if you look at, for example, the chemicals that are in the pesticides and fertilizers sprayed on conventionally grown produce, those are the same chemicals that are used to make bombs. Ammonium nitrates. Wow. Yeah. And after World War II, the munitions industry funneled through Congress, their leftover chemicals into the agricultural industry, and [00:03:30] that's all seeping into our food system and into the rivers and, okay. So a lot of the things you're working on, use the word justice, that's food justice, economic justice, environmental justice, social justice. I'm curious how you came into this arena, like you studied cultural anthropology at UC Santa Cruz, correct. And in San Francisco at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Yes. Did that lead you to this field? Yeah. At that time I was really studying [00:04:00] feminist movements in Iran and Iraq and Afghanistan. My family's from Iran and most of my family lives there.
Speaker 2:My Dad was the only one to come to this country back in 1978. And so at that time I was doing a lot of anti-war organizing and it whether it was when Bush was in office and there was a lot of threats of going to war with Iran and I was really scared for my family and my livelihood. And so I felt like those strategies that I was working on, whether it was going door to door, doing [00:04:30] letter writing campaigns, asking Congress to end the war, prevent wars, marches and rallies, I felt that those strategies weren't effective. And I really did some self reflection on my privilege and my sphere of influence and power. I went to Iran in 2009 to visit with my family and um, it was very clear to me that if I were to be organizing there, I would have a very high risk of being in prison.
Speaker 2:But when you look at the prison population here, I have a lot of light [00:05:00] skin privilege and gender privileged, cisgender privilege. And despite wanting to work in the Middle East, I see that my, my power is really here where I can use that privilege to build and organize and create jobs and do the work that planning justice is doing. When did you get started? Back in 2009 and you're local? I came back from Iran in Oakland and we've built over 380 [00:05:30] gardens in or more in the past six, seven years. So, so those are all throughout the bay area? Yeah, I was reading that recently. The father of permaculture passed away. Yes. What is the importance of permaculture? Permaculture is a system of design for human settlements and looking at the way that nature's patterns and cycles work and replicating in our buildings and [00:06:00] the way we grow our food in our, in all of our interactions with the natural world, it has three ethics care for the people, care for the earth, return the surplus and then it has maybe nine I think themes and so those are usually studied in a permaculture design course.
Speaker 2:It takes usually about two weeks. Our curriculum is really hands on and is either gardening activity, so building the garden or maintaining the garden or culinary arts activities where we're harvesting [00:06:30] from the garden and using those products to make different things. We connect each lesson to a social movement so that that's the food justice related aspect to it. So we look at different social movements both locally and around the world presently and historically, and connect them with the issues that our participants are facing in the community. What high schools are you teaching this curriculum? Man, we're at Fremont high school in partnership with the Latino men and boys program there. We're at McClymonds high school where we work with teachers [00:07:00] there and we're at this year at metwest high school. We're also at West Oakland middle school. Okay. So what's been the response from the students? Are they getting into it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's different across the board. Every one has some kind of memory or connection with gardening, whether it's with their auntie or whatnot, but there's also a history of slavery in the African American community around growing food. And then currently in Latino, I'm Mexican or Central American [00:07:30] families that's very present for them around growing food and those unfair and unjust conditions. And so you have to be able to talk about these things with the students and have those conversations where they come to an understanding of learning to grow your own food and developing these skills is about food sovereignty and taking care of our communities. Do they get the connect between who they are and the food they eat? Oh yes. So it's very culturally relevant. Our educators from the communities that we're serving, so we [00:08:00] are hiring directly from San Quintin, the guys who are coming home from our program in San Quintin.
Speaker 2:We're in partnership with the insight garden program at San Quintin. And so when guys return home, they join our, our staff and weather and landscaping or canvassing or at the nursery at the farm. They're developing all those skills and then they can come be mentors at our high school. Love this part of your, but you have several programs, but I want to talk about that holistic reentry program, which is where you're employing former prisoners. Okay. Well, we, um, started working with the insight garden program [00:08:30] in 2009 and built a vegetable garden there. It took about five years to build four raised beds. So why did you choose that prison system? We were invited by the insight garden program to, to help build the garden there. What we heard from the guys in the class is that they really needed jobs when they got out. We work in the medium security unit, so guys are returning home from our program several times a year.
Speaker 2:We have guys getting out and so if they're coming to Alameda Contra Costa County, then we're there, have the opportunity to join our staff [00:09:00] at, um, entry level wage 1750 an hour and do they get benefits? And then once there's a 90 day probationary period, yes, there's health benefits, dental, chiropractic, vision paid time off. Really we want to demonstrate that we can have these living wage jobs within the food system because the food sectors, such a low paying sector, but it's really such an important part of our society and there's a lot of racism [00:09:30] in that. Have you been tracking recidivism? Yeah. So California in general has almost a 70% recidivism rate, which means that within one year someone who gets out is going to go back to prison. At planting justice, we have a 0% recidivism rate congratulate. We have 40 people on staff. The majority of those folks are people who have been formerly incarcerated.
Speaker 2:And so the holistic part of it is that there's a whole host of challenges that people face when they come home from housing [00:10:00] because they can't be eligible for section eight and the prices in the bay area are so inflated right now that housing is a really challenging issue. So that's something that we're trying to address. How are you trying to address that? We're looking at building a tiny home re-entry eco village, putting a set of tiny homes on a piece of property with a common area and having that be a space where formerly incarcerated folks can can live and learn about the food justice movement and get, you know, get [00:10:30] that support that they need. Well does that include any kind of psychological counseling as, yes, we have case management on staff as well. And you know, things like substance abuse and families having family support, there's a whole host of issues that people are facing and we do a lot of restorative justice circles within our staff. And so rather than having a disciplinary approach to when you know, when issues arise, when conflicts arise or when people aren't showing up and need to be held accountable, then we sit down in a circle, [00:11:00] a sacred space to communicate with each other about how it's affecting us, um, and why and why and what are the underlying issues and really talking about it within the lens of the structural racism and classism and sexism that people are exposed to on an everyday basis.
Speaker 1:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to method to the madness weekly public affairs show on k a l expert [00:11:30] celebrating the bay area, La San Diego cofounder, an educational director planting justice. Your mission is to democratize access to affordable, nutritious food. They believe everyone should have equal access to food, jobs. [inaudible]
Speaker 3:[00:12:00] you've had a lot of successes already since 2009 are you getting a lot of national attention?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we do. Receive USDA Funds. And so the USDA, that's just trickles down. What should really be available to more cooperative and small and farmers of color should be receiving. Our website has been viewed in dozens of countries all around the world. [00:12:30] And so all of our resources, we really want to keep them open source, you know, the curriculum that we've developed, 18 different lessons and that's free of charge on, on your example to give a donation. Um, and it's currently not up there right now available, but if people contact us, what is your website? Share it@theplantplantingjustice.org. Okay. And how big is your staff? We have 40 people, so we have about 10 people working in the landscaping program, both permaculture designers and permaculture landscapers. And then [00:13:00] we have about eight folks doing fulltime grassroots organizing. We have maybe eight folks at the nursery and farm.
Speaker 2:Um, and then our education team is small but mighty. Let's talk about your programs, about your five Acre farm. Who are you selling your produce to? So we just planted, um, over 500 trees, maybe even a thousand by now. This past winter. So our produce isn't [inaudible] yet, not distributing yet. Our vision is [00:13:30] to really make it accessible and affordable to communities all throughout the bay area. And so whether that's doing a CSA, that sliding scale, um, which is done by some food justice organizations already. So we don't want to be competitive around that. Making it available at farmer's markets where EBT and food stamps are, are used. Um, we're growing the types of crops that aren't generally found at farmer's markets correctly. So like pomegranates, lots of nuts of Ocado, those really drought [00:14:00] tolerant, um, Mediterranean varieties, figs, our nursery has, you know, 1100 different varieties as I mentioned.
Speaker 2:So those are all the mother plants are now planted in El Sobrante. How did you get this land? It's a total of 10 acres in El Sobrante and it has a freshwater spring on site and Garrity Creek is the creek that runs through it. And so it was slated for development. It was all going to be paved over 30 homes. And the neighbors formed [00:14:30] an association called Friends of Garrity Creek and filed an environmental lawsuit and the developer went bankrupt. So I think no one else wanted, no. The other developer wanted to touch the land though it was only $300,000 for 10 acres. We say only in the parent. Right. And there's an x one existing structure that was, that was not livable conditions. And so the nonprofit didn't have $300,000 at the time and didn't want to go into debt at such a young age. I was back in 2012, uh, 2011 [00:15:00] maybe.
Speaker 2:And so we, a few of us formed an LLC called wild and radish and fundraised getting small investments from friends and our network at zero to 4% interest with a model of repayment through rental income. So eventually taking a small portion of the land to build something like co-housing or cooperative housing or where folks can rent and that would generate the income for the community to pay back [00:15:30] those investments. The LLC, Walden Radish offered planting justice, five acres of the most farmable part of the land at a dollar a year for 10 years. The literally nothing. So I'm the board of directors signed onto that and, and we dug swales along the land, which is on a swale. It's a, it's a ditch on contour about a foot wide and a foot deep and you take that dirt and put it on the downhill side to create a berm.
Speaker 2:So when it rains, the water is going to fall onto the landscape and rather [00:16:00] than washing down the hillside, it's going to fall into those ditches. If you cover it with Mulch, it's going to really soak into the, um, into the landscape. And then, um, we s we had, we built a deer fence around it cause there's deer and hawks and Turkeys and lots of wildlife out there and, and then set up the area [inaudible] as well. And then do you have a, well on this part you had the spring underneath. Have you taken that? Have you tapped? We haven't tapped it yet. And there's an old windmill on site and an old cistern. So [00:16:30] it used to be pumped uphill by the windmill. So we might eventually restore that water is life that is important, right? Part of apology. Exactly. Are you ever going to have like a little farm store?
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then maybe having a food truck. So putting the produce on a truck and having it go around and to different sites where you know our school sites and such where people are already congregating and distributing produce that way. You know, I met a lot of your volunteers, like they've been canvasing [00:17:00] in north Berkeley on the streets and all of them to a t are happy, excited about what they're doing and that was impressive to me. Yeah, I mean it's like a family organization. I mean Gavin and I are partners. We have two kids together and, and so we really, you know, have as a staff treat each other like family and there's a, have you haven't been working on this equally the same amount of time. We started it together. Does he have the same kind of background as you also an anthropology, but he's the one who got the permaculture design certificate [00:17:30] and lived for eight months at the regenerative design institute in Bolinas in West Marin county.
Speaker 2:While I was doing my masters research, he was there. And so we kind of had a lot of conversations about what we wanted to see in the world and the strategies we thought would be successful. And one thing I liked what you said about permaculture was that our current food system depends on unsustainable amounts of groundwater, oil and toxic inputs for survival. So bringing it back to really [00:18:00] how I got into this work is if you look at the industrializing globalized food system, it's nasty with fossil fuels from plastics to um, sprays to machinery to getting shipped all around the world. Why are we militarizing the Middle East? I really think because of that natural resource, that precious fossil fuel that our society has really structured upon. And if we were to have a more local and sustainable food system, we wouldn't need to rely [00:18:30] upon fossil fuels.
Speaker 2:And maybe that would alleviate that. Militarism of the Middle East is your nursery and aquaponics on the five acres or the tender three is at a a hundred and fifth avenue on a two Acre site in Sobrante Park in East Oakland. And um, the aquaponics is going to be developed there as well. What is aquaponics? It's a way of growing food, mostly Greens and herbs is what we're going to focus on using fish and their waste as the [00:19:00] fertilizer. So it's a closed loop system in which the water is being pumped through the plants and the plants are purifying the water to keep it clean for the fish. And um, so you're basically just feeding the fish. We'll likely do catfish, which some people like to eat. And when you only harvest the fish, I think every nine months or so, maybe one or two times a year you're really getting, a lot of your production is out of the Greens and the microgreens and the Kale and collards [00:19:30] and all the herbs and lettuces and such.
Speaker 2:And it doesn't use any soil. So if you have land that is already paved over, which is a lot of the urban areas and Oakland in particular, or land that is the soil that is toxic from the previous industry in the area, then um, it's a really good method for growing food. Why did you choose 100 and 150? Yeah, a hundred and fifth avenue land and access to land is the biggest challenge that people in the food [00:20:00] movement and the Food Justice Movement really face. So you can look at places like Qilombo and Africa, town gardens where that land is being challenged. You know, people need land to grow food and land is so expensive in the bay area. There's public land. If you look at Nathan mclinn talk from UC Berkeley, um, got his phd here, his report around public land and how much public land could be used to grow food. Um, with private land there's so many empty lots that could be [00:20:30] used to be growing food. So it's something that people really need access to. So how did you get access? We got alone from the northern California community loan fund. We were able to purchase it through using that loan, which as a young nonprofit, we wouldn't generally qualify for a loan from a bank or anything like that. So, um, NCCLF is the organization that helped
Speaker 1:to fund it. And if you're just tuning in, you're listening to method to the madness, [00:21:00] a weekly public affairs show on k a l x burglary celebrating bay area innovators. You also have a program about transforming your yard. This is one of [inaudible], one of
Speaker 2:our income generating programs that very mission-related growing food in the bay area. And so for people who want to grow food in their backyard, whether it's chicken coops, beehives, rainwater catchment tanks, laundry to landscape, greywater [00:21:30] systems, raise beds for vegetables, fruit trees, whatever they want to see in their backyard, our team can do it. And so how would I go about doing this? We have, um, we have a form on our website for, for folks to, um, set up a consultation and then our, one of our permaculture designers will meet with the homeowner or the renter or whatever and get an idea of what they want to grow and what designs they [00:22:00] want to see in their yard grow there. And then our crew takes maybe like three days to a week at most for most gardens to, to transform it, to do everything. And what does that cost?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a range depending on what people want to see. But I would say as low as like 3000, as high as like 15,000. Um, and then previously we used to do gardens both for full paying clients and then for free [00:22:30] and backyard gardens. And now we're focusing more on doing three gardens in community spaces where it's gonna have more of an impact in terms of how many people can access the space and who's going to be helping to maintain the space. Great. So, um, at work you also maintain these gardens once you put them in for somebody? Yeah, we do offer a regular ongoing maintenance if people want. And we also provide a permaculture primer, um, and can teach, um, our clients [00:23:00] along the way about, about, so it's worked out for maybe, you know, maybe, uh, a quarter of our gardens we've, we've built at a subsidized or, or for free for low income communities.
Speaker 2:So how many private gardens have you done just approximately in the bay? More than 380, maybe 400 by now. Another one of your programs is the grassroots canvas. And I believe that's what I had previously talked about. Your volunteers who go out and, well, they're not volunteers. Okay. Yeah, they're paid. Yeah, they're on salary. [00:23:30] And what is their goal? Their goal is to get people to sign up as monthly sustainers. And their goal is also to organize folks around food justice issues. So if there's something coming up in, um, within the city or some kind of action or something like that, their goal is also to get new landscaping clients. Their goal is also to connect us with, um, new community and school sites. So they really have a, a multitude of, [00:24:00] uh, functions we're organizing out there on the streets. Where do you see yourself in the next five years?
Speaker 2:It sounds like you've accomplished a lot since 2009 for good question. Are you going to be, um, you know, the aquaponics programs really got to go get up and running and that's a really technical system, but we really wanna be able to host that site, uh, for worker owned cooperatives to, um, learn the skills and launch their own projects. Um, we'd really like to see [00:24:30] the tiny, the tiny home reentry eco-village develop in the next five years. And, you know, we're a young organization and we're trying to do, we're trying to model and demonstrate a different way of living and honoring and respecting each other than the current capitalist patriarchal system is operating. And so, although we're, we have to operate within those structures and systems as we're challenging them [00:25:00] and trying to, trying to overturn them, we also have to navigate through them and, and see the ways that they show up in our workplace.
Speaker 2:And so I think within the next five years it's really about honing down our skills and our model, educating the public, continuing to do the work as we're doing and, and being self reflective about it and, and trying to really do it the best that we can. Do you enlist volunteers from UC Berkeley or if, if anybody's interested, [00:25:30] how should they reach you? Sure. We're really focused on creating green jobs for people with barriers to employment. And so, um, we, we don't want to exploit any labor by having volunteers and we want to demonstrate that we can grow food and pay people fairly for it. But people do want to volunteer when they have the time and privilege. And so we welcome that at our five Acre farm, generally on Thursdays and Fridays. And, um, you can look at our website, www.plantingjustice.org [00:26:00] under our five Acre farm for more details about volunteer days.
Speaker 2:Food is really interesting because it can often seem a political and everybody eats and everyone can connect with that issue in some way, whether they're conservative or not. But it is actually a really political act. And so when you, when we're growing food together and we're also growing community, [00:26:30] so when we're growing food together, we're really connecting it to all the different systems of oppression that we're facing. So whether it's indigenous rights, water protectors who are putting their bodies on the line and the Dakotas or immigrant rights with people coming over the border, the ways that capital can cross border, but people can't, they have so much knowledge around growing food that it should be really respected [00:27:00] and valued. So when you look at what's happening here in Oakland, the history of the Black Panther Party and the ways that they organize the free breakfast program and how that political act became so threatening to the u s government that we would feed little black girls and boys, that that was so threatening.
Speaker 2:It's really about connecting the issues and seeing that what we're putting into our bodies is very political. There's so many [00:27:30] ways to work within the Food Justice Movement, whether it's around inner city neighborhoods, not having access to healthy foods because there's so many corner stores and and liquor stores that have nutrients deficient food or working with farm workers and organizing to protect their bodies and their health and get the wages that they deserve. Or in the restaurant industry, the way [00:28:00] that people behind the, um, behind the scenes aren't recognized aren't paid well. There's a lot within our food system to really to really reflect on and make changes about the way we package our foods, the way that our trash systems work and who's picking up our trash and how are they being treated. So I encourage people to just really look across the whole food system from production to processing to distribution, consumption and waste and really identify ways that they can make changes. [00:28:30] They can organize for changes and always at the leadership of those who are most directly impacted
Speaker 1:by those injustices. I really appreciate you being on the program. Thank you so much for having us. You've been listening to method to the madness, a weekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley featuring bay area in our later
Speaker 4:[00:29:00] tune in again next Friday at noon. [inaudible]
Speaker 3:perfect.
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