“Food justice is a huge issue,” Ms. Kessler, 31, said. “But we study and talk blatantly about it — who has access to this food and why.”

Ms. Kessler’s pupils study factory farming and corn subsidies, read articles by Michael Pollan and Wendell Berry and watch documentaries like “Food, Inc.,” a dark look at the nation’s industrialized food system. They also tend a 2,500-square-foot organic vegetable garden that borders their school, financing it with funds they raise and with support from the New York chapter of Slow Food U.S.A. In season, their plot teems with cucumbers, eggplant, okra, peas, red cabbage, spinach, tomatoes and many herbs. The teenagers can take the food home free, and they sell the rest at an after-school farm stand.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/nyregion/06metjournal.html

Darn it, Piffy, I saw the words “food justice” and thought this was going to be some diatribe involving “free the yams.” Or at least an examination of the performance art of Karen Finley.

My apologies?

Really, though. it’s a cool article. I have a friend who ran a similar program in downtown philly for years where the kids grew food in empty lots around the city for sale at local markets, and got to keep the cash.

they always thought she was a bit kooky when she would explain to them how multinational corporation want to copyright food so that they will have to buy it at the store, but it was always neat to see some 14 year old disaffected urban youth ‘get it’ when he saw how a carrot comes from the ground.