from a former professional basketball player an executive at procter and gamble to urban always believed in having a farmer and ceo of growing power. diverse group of folks. this is about an hour and 20 diversity is at the top of my minutes. agenda. one of the declarations i made with the city was that i would hire kids from the community ans >> welcome. i am the proprietor. then we started being looked at this is our 11,305th day. thenn asset to the community because we are providing jobs. tonight we are presenting will allen to author of "the good ♪ >> i used to work up here everyr day when i was in high school.ba food revolution." underserved urban populations.od one day i just top-10.ed after a brief career inurbapopua love it here.by professional basketball and a i never wou ld have thought ithu would be doing something like ti number of years in corporate this. marketing and procter and gamble levitt. will allen returned to his roots ♪ as a farmer using his retirement package to purchase a plot of inner-city land with greenhouses' with both the >> whoever wants help, whether they are from detroit are some country's preeminent urban small rural community in farms, nuncio growing power, an alabama, mississippi, of state, organization that developsg h wisconsin, we engage those community food systems. communities. in 2008 he was named john d. and so it is not just inner city. it is not just urban. catherine t. macarthurhi foundation, a genius grant calir it is rural communities that are

hurting today as well. the second farmer ever to be so but it's really all about foodi, honored. and how we are going to try toor he is also --i [applause]e] change the existing food system to make it something that really he is also a member of the works for everybody. clinton global initiative and in >> people think that because february 2010 he was invited to they spend a lot of money forerb the white house to join firste s food and food is fresh and good. lady michele obama and launchinm we know when food travels many u let's move, her signaturele miles it loses a lot of this program to reverse the epidemic of child of the city in america. nutrient value. this system that we need is to v in may 2010 time magazine named go back to the status where the well to the time 100 world's food system was local. sustainable food system that is most influential people.i the only way to really end and in 2011 -- hunger in the world. w [applause] the industrial food system has. not worked. allen was named one of the seven we have to change our food s world's most influential foodies policy, national food policy. he was named the 2012 in see a to do that we need projects like this and others come around the theodore roosevelt award recipient. country to change. he lives with his wife in oak creek wisconsin. he just can't compete. now video. [applause] gaf to prove that this works. book tv -- we have to prove. ♪ >> it is something that we need

to continue to grow. there are some challenges that someave to overcome to make it grow. you know, i like competition and >> it's a new day. that like challenges. ♪ i always wanted to take the last it's in a day. ♪ shot in the game or never. it's a new day. i like that kind of challenge. ♪ it's a new day. ♪ as you can transfer that into it's an along time coming. something like this, it becomes up the mountain camp running. a very powerful and get thing sounds of freedom kept coming. for the community. ♪ -- ♪ >> food is such a powerful way of bringing people together.a book tv -- ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

>> i graduated high-school, 100 [applause] scholarship offers.ol i my goal was to get an education >> good evening. and play professional basketbald i don't know if this works. i said, i'll never go back to [applause] the farm.said w [laughter] these things i never working for able to move from 1% of local me. it is great to be here tonight.o food production to 10%, billion great to be back in milwaukee.ai dollar change. i flew in a few minutes ago from miami. ♪ i was in l.a. earlier this weeke the growing energy, growing soiy i was invited by the presidentb , growing people, and we're growing the communities. of our university, the university of miami. the community it badly needs food. part of that, this whole concept once the chancellor at you w. is really about growing madison. community as well as providing now the present at the the most important thing to all university of miami, to give the of us. commencement speech to the ♪ graduating class, which i did yesterday. it was quite an honor. especially the fact that in 1967i left the farm in maryland ♪ and went to the university of

my mother's family was a farmer. my father was a sharecropper.d ' miami where i was the firstad african-american basketballpecif player.i unlike many african-american males at that time it wants to 1967. myself and my brothers to know it was kind of a really special, where our food came from. itecial weekend for me. for practical reasons to be able it is also special to be back to grow our own food. home. fr >> as we sit here today. [laughter]just one tomorrow i am heading to newr] york. before i get started i want to bring a charles wilson who were [applause] our job driving down the street really -- in a charles, a co here, it's that time back in wrote this book with me. 1993, i was working at proctor and gamble. in knowledge a couple of peoplee sales. that helped with the book.k. says technology. i saw the for sale sign. i stopped and i wrote down the i don't know if you want to do number. that. as said to myself, this is the please. place that i could land. [applause] that is when i get an show. i knew a little bit about the >> you can do yours. [laughter] area. five blocks away is the largest and one of my friends told me housing project we have here in once that in life, you know, you milwaukee. often get projects for wellness pretty much what is called thesd food does it.ace. the only access to food isaway m

and projects for your heart. corner stores and what they call the book is the same thing.e] fast food swamps. this is really touching are to t be involved with.y h i feel really grateful to well. a test.. i met with the mayor of cleveland. he really gets it. i have respect for this man. i really feel grateful to haveif worked on this. starting to get a lot of waste i just want to thank you people love or instrumental in helping. from food wholesalers. they throw away thousands and john fisher who is here tonight. thousands of pounds of food >> will you stand up? waste a week. >> the ping shares. ae i want the same food to go to all people and all communities.n >> very grateful writer who get this project off the ground. to do that you have to figure don richards who is in the book, out ways of reducing the production cost.ce a board member. and part of that is what we do >> were is john? here in terms of growing soil by >> where is down? >> areas. using renewable energy to keep >> said think everybody knows the costs in line so that we can done. get the food to everybody and a and all the men here in the city reasonable cost. of milwaukee.evody >> and don is putting in a good how did you do that? word. well as applying to get thatnws in know, how did you make that place on silver spring drive happen? there's a church to want to the how can we -- this farm systemyo place as well. and don said, i think we have

is a unique farm system. it is part of a d'agata of the enough churches in ourinoo future in terms of how we grow community.ted itwe food here, very intensivelyfo he said to me said, what you're using every square foot and doing is religion and self. everything that we discover weon pass on to folks to come here. and i want to thank jennifer, it's not like we want to stick it in some closet and try to some beautiful pictures.auti make money off of it. and really helped quite a bit. everything we discover we pass on to other folks. i great photographer. >> i don't think i have ever interviewed anyone who is a lots of other people that i'm fisherman, may come and part of sure and forgetting. a major foundation. how did you find out? thank you. >> we have a lot. hundreds and hundreds, thousands of acres. >> we also have some other folke cities like detroit, cities like that were very instrumental in the work that we do. one of them, sarah was nasty, new york, chicago. our facilities manager of glen power. a lot of you have been to tours. 7,000. you have probably run into her. sydney three square-mile us. where are you? ♪ [applause]

somewhere in here.e li and also we have a couple other people here. really wanted to thank them.to part of a key. the way we operate. , i keypad and kaj and organization this team perspective. it is not just me.not i get a lot of the credit. 110 employees and we will bepye hiring another hundred and 50 over the next year or so. they do a lot of the heavyex lifting. [applause] we are embarking on a strategic plan. you want to stand up?

our second strategic plan.- fraa our first jay z plan really really brought us to where we are today, so we are hoping this strategic plan that we will be developing over the next year really takes this into thewill future, going through kind of a so fession plan and so forth. so looking forward to that. it really want to thank frank as part of that. but this, the work we are doing in milwaukee, i would not happen if it was not for the community. everybody in the community in terms of, this is a grassroots kind of revolution that startedi as a movement. now i call it a revolution because it really is. traveling around the country everywhere. dozens of people show up for her talks. thousands of people getting involved. the realize that our food systet is broken.

we realize that our health isrys going south. al you can read articles. it's on tv every day.cle time magazine when they show this little baby that is predicted to be 300 pounds by the time that person reaches 30 years of age. we know that one-third of us arr obese. we know that we are eating a lot of food that is not really good food even though we can pay a lot for it. when it travels that loses a lot of its new tram value. and really the only way -- andt. for the first time in march 2010, the only way to endf world hundred, lose about 5 million people to lack of foo and water a year. local food systems, not the industrial food system. the industrial food system got to go away? no. we should be working on trying to develop a system where most of the food is grown within thev states where we live.

and now we have this tremendous opportunity because of what has du happened in rural america inm terms of losing farmers and farh land to really use of the landld in outer cities and some of the vacant buildings. milwaukee is one of those cities that has a lot of vacant land and a lot of vacant buildings. somebody has become the leader around the world. urban farming. looked at as a place where our folks can come and get knowledge around how to start their businesses and how to develop their farms, not just community gardens, but community farms said that we can scale up and grow enough food. and part of what we're going to do over the next few years, it is bleak, quantify a lot of things because you really have to have concrete the examples of how things work before people really believe because there are still a lot of naysayers. especially the folks who work in

the industrial food system, they're starting to say come upt that doesn't work.esre a that could never work.ayul and i think that just feels us even more when people say things don't work. we are going to be quantifying what does work and do it here in milwaukee. milwaukee right now, 1%, less than 1 percent of the food is locally grown. over the next two years our goal is to take that to 10%.. that has huge implications in terms of jobs and different categories of jobs they wouldiml not necessaicrily look at as fam jobs. this new kind of growing food involves everybody. everybody in this room. one thing that connects all ofcf us is the fact that we have to eat food. when that good food? we should be able to get our food in our bellies within a day , dana have a production so it has the full nature and impact. medical folks recognize that. they are participating with us

in getting the word out.th food is medicine. to the some of us eat good medicine every day. most of us the bad medicine. so we need to start eating good medicine. to the only way to do that isdi to develop the infrastructure and the system to be able to do that. and it is not me. but it can be fine if everybody works together.be everybody needs to be what ieryb call the giffords revolution table. we can't afford any more to keep -- kick people away from the ath table because we'd all like their politics or read their work for what company represent. every major corporate companya today has a sustainable mission. so everybody wants to live in the system, the cities. as a matter of fact, every major city has a 2020 plan to become green and sustainable. has and if we don't have green and

stable food systems that willwan never reach those goals. food is the number one thing.od so most cities like it. we aren't going -- we have an opportunity here in milwaukee.th the all milwaukee mature area to really prove that this can happen. so i believe that over the next couple of years looking at the gray institute and to really get the healthy diet. we cannot commercially fished for yellow perch in more and like michigan. it has been banned. of course contaminants. so we are going to build the system and use some of those vant buildings to really, the thousands, but millions. one of the plans is to have a

hatchery here, something that we don't have anywhere, that is myc

mother. my father was a sharecropper.tht just dropped and headed norther along with my mother. a lot of that is illustrated in the book. going the wrong way. early, 1993 to 2000. this is what i purchased. this is what it looks like. and there is something unusual about these young people. e over 30 years of age today.

they came from the neighborhood. that is how we got engaged withe the neighbors.from the working with these kids. there's something different about them than the kids today. i tell you, have their pants pulled up. [laughter] we started there. we started crawling back in those early years. you can see one of the greenhouses, starting to take the glass out. built in the late 1920's. that was how the place looked. restarted composting more. and we started back then. today is one farm, 7,000 pounds. and decent people, over 30 years old. this is in the wintertime.

the greenhouse. so we had an old. [inaudible] it did not work very well. ticket to get it going. his work codes.coat we started. i remember this image. this was the start of our hydroponic program in 1995. one tank was filled. we grew about 50 tilapia ande 55-gallon drums. we moved the water from tank to tank.e we replicated rivers. so you will see how we move ahead as we move forward. and a number of those around the north wall. we grew a lot of plants. that is what this greenhouses' really set up to do. se

we use those to decorate. and then i would teach the kids up to grow food on the back. one of the things i noticed, many of these young people haven really bad reading and writing skills. after they did something hands-on we would bring them inh and have them write about it to improve their writing skills. they would want to dig deeper. we would give them some reading on microorganisms. great improvement, something that we did with our curriculum's today. one of the lost arts was counting food. my family always did that. i would teach those kids. really john to things we did as a family as i was teaching these kids in those early days. the other thing we did, many of

these and people did not know how to use tools, until your 18 years of age. [laughter] [applause] teach these and people life skills.ol and then more programs. and also, the juvenile justice system, some of these kids hadje gone off. there were coming back into the community. they had to go through this transitional school. i would use agriculture as a way of helping them do that.emthat

that was really a healing process. that was very important to themt and then we will the kids would go over. the compost. the flowers accident. and what happened. [laughter] what happened was it went away peas people started payingen attention. so beautify the community.

though we did this around the entire block.it ene neighborhood house. this was on 25th and brown. i remember this. drug dealers would hang out. of 75 yards of compost. and would do these flower beds. and then what happened, the drud dealers went away. people started turning theirawau heads. now they're looking at the flowers. uncomfortable. that became a real crime-fighting tool, believe it or not. the kids that summer jobs at a time when the city had cut a lot of the jobs. they had just taking care of the flowers, and it really worked. and then the native communities

that would come to the workshopf they were suffering from -- many of these, starting with the use. it would have these interchanges with our youth corps. and there would work inooor communities like ingelwood andmi chicago. cited growing food down there. that was another crime fighting tool. 1995, the scent this article that's when it really took off. the turn-of-the-century, it really started to go. .. the turn-of-the-century it really started to grow.

this is what it looks like today. the total transformation. we use renewable energy, wind power, that is an important piece because in terms of shipping food and processing food 25% of the fossil fuel is used in agriculture. it is very important to have water collection we capture all of the water off of all of the buildings and reuse that in our project. the solar panels take 1/4 of the energy use with the

solar energy and look gain and the wind generator. every time i go home. i have to have made one of those. [laughter] we call this the community food center where people can come to purchase food and learn about growing food. it is one of the few multi-cultural agencies led by persons of color. multi-cultural and multi generational organization. we have 110 employees. people came on tour over

15,000 and trade over 1,000 farmers per year. >> even these guys. [laughter] next. next. >> okay. it's all about the soil. so what we have to do is weis really have to grow soil. and i, as i travel around the country, i tell people in cities and mayors and everybody i talk to, they need large-scale or mid-size composting operation to be able to grow soil, because the soil is contaminated. not only in our inner cities, but in our suburban areasi because we spray lawns and in

our rural communities because we spray everything, and all thentm microorganisms have been killed off in many of the farm fields, and our bees are struggling tof. make honey. so we really need to resurrect our soil. and the only way to do that is to take the waste that we put i the landfill every day and puthe it back into mother earth, and that's what we do. so we do over a million pounds up on silver spring drive annually of compost.nd some of you have participated in that. and we have animals. you know, we're only about 200 feet away from our residence, and people always ask me, how can you compost, how can you have animals? well, the key to getting involved in urban agriculture, you really have to gauge your neighbors and get them onboard to be able to -- [laughter]re yeah, goats are, you know,

they're too smart. we also have over 500 layers ani lay brown eggs. even though they're white chickens, they lay brown eggs. and be, of course, aquaponics,o growing fish. these are lake perch. that's what they look like. and these are some of the cisterns. this is -- slow down a littlehes bit, charlie. [laughter] this is our research project that we're going to be doing with the great lakes institute over the next two years to quantify things that have nevero been quantified about growing, growing fish. we're building seven different types of systems to be able to do this work and different types of feed stock, natural feed stocks, things like worms or black soldier fly larvae, food waste. so we're growing a number of fish. the latest fish that we're, we have started research on is

black paku which is a braziliani fish that eats only nuts, berries and vegetable waste. and they get up to 60 pounds. so we're, and they -- the taste is just wonderful.oun finish -- so we hope to maybe start raising some of those.o and they have a lot of mega 3 fatty acids just like tuna and some of the other fish. but this project really mean a lot to si in terms of -- to city in terms of really starting to grow, giving back. a million pounds of yellow perch tonight, we'd have them sold by tomorrow morning. that's how much in demand that fish is right now. these are our cisterns. that's a 10,000-gallon system that's in ground in the area. growing power, when you're doing greenhouse production, every bit

of space important, so we try to use space blow ground. -- below ground. typically, greenhouse producers don't use. this is a 10,000-gallon system that's growing lake perch, and it remediates the nitrogen that the fish give off. it's called aquaponics, it's a symbiotic relationship between, the fish and the plants. this has two 10,000-gallon systems using plants to remaduate. the one on the right is tilapia, the one on the left is lake perch. the water temperature is heated to 85 degrees. we have a solar water system that heats, that provides 70% of our heated water now. so it will offset the costs. it also has another benefit, it heats the greenhouses. so it's much more effective toa heat by having a thermal mass of

hot water verse is the forced air you just lose because you don't have a good value growing in a greenhouse.j so we have these, and we also teach bee keeping because like i said before, our rural agriculture, we're losing bees. so we teach bee keeping to hundreds of people, even our youth. so we're able to get about 100, over 100 pounds of honey per heave which is about 50% more than the rural farmers are getting today. because all you folks grow flowers in the city, so our bees are coming over and stealing some pollen from your gardens and so forth. so we're able -- this is another project, you might know this project, this building, it's the old american lennon astro building on 10th and north avenue. we turned it into an agricultural strike. we grow on asphalt, concrete rooftops, and this is romaine

lettuce. we planted that back in february intoof plugs, and then we transplanted it into our compost in these hoop houses in 20 days. this lettuce was ready.nd this lettuce goes to sysco. we've also been through sysco a delivery system into our public schools. almost all of our public school systems get food delivered by sysco, so last year we grew 1 o 00,000 pounds of carrots that some of them went into the milwaukee public school lunch program. this year we're going to grow 250,000 pounds of carrots to go to the mps lunch program. we develop relationships because all this work is about developing relationships with folks, and this is where we have a four-acre composting site, and this is where we're doing our 40 million pounds of food waste

into compost. we're able to break down the carbon waste, that's a wood chip up on the hill there, into high quality, the best soil in the world. in three months.y we get the temperatures up to -- and across the street. we also got a 30-acre farm from msd, and this is where we're growing tomatoes. we just planted those two weeks ago, so these are shots of the tomatoes. these tomatoes are, these are big beef, and they're very productive. we'll have these tomatoes inprod these hoop houses until about january, february. they just keep producing tomatoes. they're indeterminants, and they just keep climbing up all the way to the ceiling. next. thishe is, across the way we've got 16 hoop houses there, we're adding 19 more, and we have a crew that builds hoop houses

every day. every day we're building infrastructure to increase the amount of locally-grown food. next. and we build these from scratch. next. next. slow down. t so these young men are building these hoop houses every day. we have a crew of about 16 now.m we're going to be adding a lot more, add about five new employees to this crew every month. next. this is very important because it shows that we need to grow food on every bit of space that we can find. this is a fire station. i got a call from the battalion chief, and he heard about what we were doing, and he had some vacant land by the fire station, and the guys really didn't want to cut the grass anymore. [laughter] so he, he thought what we were doing was great, and they're in a food desert area over there on

16th or, 16th and reservoir. so we built out four hoop houses there. and now that's what's growing there. salad mixes and our wonderful soil. we don't grow any existing soil. we don't dig down. we have no digging equipment. it's all new stuff. just recently on earth day at our april workshop congresswoman gwen moore came in and spoke to us during earth day. next. next. and these are participants from all over the country. and some outside of the country. i think we had folks from all canada, we had some folks from sweden at our workshop. so folks from all over the world really come to these two-day workshops. and one of the pieces that we do is this project planning process that leads groups into be action. it's not one of those sit at a table for two or three years until you plan yourself out a

business. [laughter] this is about, this is about visioning ahead what your farm's going look like and then going into action. this has been a very effective tool that we use to get, launch folks into action. this is an idea of an outreach. we have 15 regional outreach centers around the u.s. one of the -- we did this hav workshop a week ago in the washington d.c.w we signed a year contract with the university of district of columbia which is a land grant university for the district of columbia.h and what they wanted to do isl start growing soil. i convinced them that they needed to grow soil for folks that are wanting to do urban agriculture in the washington, d.c. area, and this was really important to me because i'm from that area, growing up about 10i miles away. so we went and excavated aeded one-acre compost pad, and we

went down with our staff, about seven of our staff, and we did a weekend workshop. and this is kind of the images. they're not in order, so i'm not trying to tell -- slow down, charlie. next. next. next. next. next. next. next. next. next. so this is what goes on at a workshop. we start out, and this particular young man in the d.c. area has this thing called compost cab.y he painted a truck that looks like a cap, and be he goesk around and picks up different food waste from different homes, and he takes it out to farms. he charges a tipping fee to the residents, but this is one of the most important things. he came to our five month promotional urban act training program a few years ago, and he wanted to do rooftop gardening. but before he left the five

month program, we had, he had changed his mind, and he wanted to start composting. so picking up waste. he doesn't do composting a himself, but he picks up the. waste, and this particular truck, and he has others. next.om next. next. next. next. next. slow down a little bit. next. next. next. next. next. so we bring one of our 24-foot trucks from milwaukee with all the tools, all the materials on it, and we do this weekend training where we train lots of folks from the regional area. they learn techniques of how to build these hoop houses, how to do composting. um, next. next. next. next. next. next. next. next. next.

next. so this is all done in two days. and everybody gets a hand in doing this. slow down a little bit, charlie. we bend those hoops, everybody participates. and that's the only way you can learn how to farm. you can't learn how to farm in a classroom, you have to learn how to farm out on the farm. i've never seen anybody learn how to farm -- this is chicago. we have seven farms in chicago. this is probably the most aesthetically pleasing farm in the nation. it's on the front doorstep, this is in grant park in chicago.

150 different varieties, called art on the farm, a french protege design of plants.the next. we've been doing this for seven years. and now the city of chicago has given us more land to grow. this food goes to programs, it gets marketed throughout the chicago area. i hauled 100,000 pounds -- we also, ca britainny green -- ca britainny green, probably the most famous housing project ino the country, or infamous. the fourth presbyterian bought this land, and they're using it as a peace garden as gentryification from the east is happening, and this has been another huge project grown on top of asphalt. success a sevenr plan grown on top of

asphalt. is a great project with folks from different cultures pro this is the latest 7-acre farm to get more acreage from bridgeport the average income is 55,000 on the other side of the river it is 19,000. this farm is important. i will be here. we were at the chicago farm and garden show. this was our display. these gardens need to be

aesthetically pleasing we need to enhance gardens. these the young people of not participating they would do something that they get paid and many have stayed with us. this is the future. we hope to be breaking ground. this has been designed. the first of the kind been the world with a five story. farm we could house 400 people on the second floor with a commercial ticino kitchen for the culinary arts. and hopefully be the start

of a project working with universities around the state to to have a nutritional and ' trawl institute in the future would be tomb move next door to build the the institute there. we will start with 24 office spaces they keep very much. [applause] [applause] one person i did not introduce, he has been working with me.

[applause] we are putting together this will be coming out with the work we're doing. you have a small slice. my normal power point* has almost 1,000 images. [laughter] this only has 200. i will take some questions. i think we have a process? >> thank you horror at an informative and inspiring talk. we are fortunate to have you

here and thank you for setting up shop. i heard you speak recently you said he would do something at the state fair. can you elaborate? >> largest international urban and small farm conference coming september september 7th through 9th. 17 different tracks medical, a corporate, the former, former and of who's who list they come into milwaukee. we've just give them freed entrance into the conference so these people will come in with over 200 it is a huge

youth presence is on the weekend so they will not mince too much school. maybe one day. the conference in 2010 we had 1500 people. it is that the expos center. all the food is from the infrastructure we will have the highlight with over 30 different chef stations on saturday night where they take the food to make this amazing food. we look forward to that. we have been planning that were over one year. we're still looking for people. sign up.

>> what are the main challenges you have today with your group? >> oh god. [laughter] we would be here all night to. >> always finding. we are a nonprofit 50% comes from our own efforts of selling products. i do not come from than nonprofit background so when i started i said let's sell products. nobody would find us. we do have a small

development team to write grants and we have been fortunate to get sizable grants but we don't beg for money every day that this cash flow what we're doing and auspex of the four main system -- farming system. >> [inaudible] >> i don't mean to be facetious but i grew up with the inner standing eating vegetables from greenhouses was not good.

>> it is all about this will. maybe the traditional way is chemicals even hydroponic systems. most greenhouses u.s chemicals. we don't. it is about to the soil. the root fibers of the plant if you have health the soil and microorganisms you have good taste. we use warm casings, it is important to have the right nutrients in the soil. >> do you have a

relationship with whole foods? >> a permanent placement of products at all three outpost stores. and we work with them at sinai hospital we have a farm stand. one of the most important thing this to get the food is to get those programs out to the community. >> you talk about this project and chicago was instrumental two men defenses? can you talk about that? >> it is being dismantled of the high-rises as people

move into the community the presbyterian church from downtown chicago wanted to use this piece of land originally to build a community center but they did not have the funding so they came to us to ask the three would help to set up a large scale community garden two men fences then they could recruit people to join the church to bring people together. people from different cultures. it is a big success to do that. >> you add shown the

construction of four greenhouses near washington. they are well organized in today's time. how do you get the people? how do they know this is coming? had you get them signed on for the project? to be completed in such a short time. >> that is a great question because that is part of the art reach the organizations we work with. we're not trying to put growing power businesses all over the country but we assess to give them

training. they recruit the folks to come to the workshop and those people have zero knowledge of how to build the hoof house. we bring six of our staff to the locations around the country and look up the trucks with the materials because we learned when we send people up to purchase the material we get there and nothing is there or half of it is missing. reload up truck and we lead the training. you can put up a 20x48 foot house in two days.t and that's how, and be people learn. and once people learn how to do this, they can pass it on, take it back to their farms or their community-based organizations and take that knowledge back. ..

once they learn they can pass it on and take the knowledge back. . . is very concerned if you have a backyard and have not been using -- i'm afraid that the water isn't healthy. [laughter] diry toion i'm

>> i'm going right directly. now, see. if i don't. i don't know what the problemetw is. >> let me answer that for you. one of the heaviest cities in america. first of all. no lift in the south side of milwaukee. rent at one point number one inm the nation. so certain plants take up lead in there, you know, likeingsk mustards. lead a lot of different plants take up that lead. d we eat that. especially the vulnerable kids eat that lead. wonder why they have heavy lead, they have led problems and soled forth when they get tested.te so we have no digging equipment. now, if you're going to do all full spectrum test of all your soil it will cost you a few cost thousand dollars.'s not really practical to do that. we found a method that epahat really likes.kes. we put 2 feet of new soil on top of the existing soil.

micro root fibers don't go down and said our hardpan clay. i'm looking for nutrients downet there. i'm not interested in nutrients and that 2-foot cell. that is the technique we have been using for many years. an even the epa has not signed on and said this is the method, there will be coming out with some, because of all of the activity.ue a we are in a city, lot of oldho houses that used to use lead paint. that paint, let has been spread around the yard.ic arsenic. a lot of other bad guys in thei soil. i would not eat food that was drawn directly in the soil inside. me, personally, i would not want any of you teach food unless -- because if you just think that you have really help the soiltht without refining of for sure.ore it's really important. >> okay. over here.his ung the san man.

>> could you comment a little bit of a landfill contamination from sources like electronicsonn and trash and how that affects our food supply? >> i don't have a lot. i know landfills are good. the worst thing that goes into landfills is food waste because it leeches out the nitrogen, its leeches out, if they're is a hole in the liner whenever it causes groundwater contaminatio, .ater we do know that.k th that is why it is important to keep food waste out.r rowi one of the things that we areon going to starte , the new housig project, and mixed in come development. we are constructing the 75-acre project. we are going to have milwaukee's first food waste pickup.we a we are turning folks that are

moving in there on what to puto into the container because wecaw don't want things like rags and diapers at things like that. that will be the project for thy lost city of milwaukee. we hope in the future that we could roll this out. i talked to the mayor of this.i. he is very interested.tartt we're going to started there. >> i understand that there may be three areas for you to grow.o i did not see much in here. one is the abandoned building.ar another is schools.hs wh there might be a couple of science teachers and some of these schools are actually seing setting up a system like yours,s quietly they are. under cover.

and the third-place is internationally, what are we wh sending over there? especially places like palestinr desert areas.s killing millions of people. the project. >> memory is assured.o first of all, let's start. i was an education major inngs college. one of the things that they kind of keeps you on campus. they don't give you anyache practical learning. one of the things that we arewee doing, working with teachers nog , they're coming to our weekend training over five o months. they're learning how to do p hands-on education because thatl is really important. our kids learn in a very hands-on way before they get hnd interested in really learning.ae so we are working with teachersy it's not under cover, by the way it is being funded by a number

of sources. and many teachers are veryrs are interested. and now we are working with the college. other schools.s so it is really important thattc our teachers learn how to passto on. one of the messages that we give our kids, we talk about the five super foods in classroom, youyou know, retail, whenever, i thinks it is blueberries and three others.ot and and then wait months and down the hall and give them.fo. so it is not -- it is not a gooo message. i think we need to, as far ass darkness, on the school grounds. it is very important. of course started that out in california. and know what you we had a number of school gardens that wt have installed. as a matter of fact, every clas and the school has a garden. and the community has a garden.n it's a combination of community

garden and a school guard.gard so that is important. as far as international work, part of the clinton global o initiative.we are doing we are doing some work. w around the world now. kenya, we are developing someoms projects in zimbabwe, south africa. a big interest in doing things in different countries. we have do we have done some work in the ukraine. once the russians got out oft there.o so we have been doing a lot ofif work in those areas. [background noises] [inaudible question] >> we are looking at abandoned d buildings. we are alsoan looking at a bandl schools.erclos twenty schools. some of them have a lot of acreage. a contractor to look over wheree we will start putting up.

about 40 -- i think it is 42nd it has been closed for about 56 years. so we will be able to put out 20 by 96-foot houses at that site on top.site so we are looking at every type th -- in the space that we can find. but definitely these buildings. like i said to my government, bu we're building up a hatchery tam content the north avenue. we have built a greenhouses onlg the two and a half acre facility i showed images. so we will also have the first town cemetery. they had greenhouses' there. gnh we resurrected as greenhouses. bve been growing there.for keeping people out of thatin cemetery a little bit longer.gh] [applause]

>> until most of us are eating more than 1% and up toto 100 percent organic local food, do you have any ideas on things that we can do about iologically engineered food in this country?ing >> well, you can stop buying it. >> right. >> add me to my think that would be the first thing.one one of the problems we have a we get to recover sure store, you have to search for local levelsl we are going to try to -- and we love done it, buy a lot of locally grown food in the summertime, but we need to betoe allowed to grow food here said that we can have locally grown food year round.we that is what our project really is all about, not just growing food 20 weeks of the year. >> i was just wondering if the carter initiative or any ofor these are looking at bought --oc

thiogically engineered food. >> well, a lot of people. our approach is to change thehae dynamics of how people have a access to food.cod. one of the things you're trying to do is give stores havecally locally grown section so when you walk again to the vegetable aisle instead of searching forra that locally grown food it will be labeled. a big sign, and it will have the farms. maybe pictures of the farmers the growing this locally grown food. then you can make -- it will be easier to make those choices. until we build thel infrastructure, less than 1%.up% if we can get up to 10 percentor implications of tremendous in terms of 10% less trucks coming in across the country. all the money stays in localin l community to create jobs. 10% or more, weigh more than 10 percent better health forr cells of rereading this food. >> thank you.

>> yes. this young man here.>> t >> what we do. th they do a number of things. kind of fun. we are making artists and cheese.rtisan chees there is a cheese plantse.. of a friend of mine, you guess it probably heard of him, opening a cheese plant on the south side.h one of the only ones i know by in the country. inside a major city. we will be taking gets no therem to make carson sees. i got you before. we will come back. i want to answer everybody's question.k aout h >> i heard you talk about how you never dig into soil.neve you have so, making your of fresh water system.o i want to kind of elaborate on s what she was saying. a a lot of people out there, other activists that think that the

genetically modified food isllmi contaminating our natural seed. and there are a lot of peopleanr out there that believee ar thatu have to save your seeds in order to have natural, organic.atur og so wanted to get your opinion o that.ink if he thinks he'd saving has to be a part of growing power in o the future. >> well, we do some, but that is a whole other business. we participate in seed companies to attu heirloom seeds and opend pollinated seeds.ded we don't use -- as a matter of fact, very few on the best allys tomatoes and corn are probablyrt the only ones that are monetically modified that you can find. most of this stuff is cash crop stuf stuff like soybeans, corn, and things like that. but as far as a vegetable seedso yes. it is important for us to start seeds saving. a lot of companies that we support that do seem safe on the

organic side. that is a whole other business. and we try to support people pe that want to gtho into those kis of businesses. i hope more people want to. if you want to, we will definitely try to help you. [laughter] yes? >> yes. i am concernd ed about my newfre friend who really wants to dodo farming in her house. she has growing power considered scholarships or funding for anyone that is this enthusiasti? >> absolutely. we have scholarships. we also have -- we also have to -- when we lost those 25,000 backyard gardens we have some corporate companies that gave over $30,000 to be able to purchase so for low-income folks

. every ten guard is that we sell we donate one to of low income family. an we don't just want these gardens and they're soil to go to the folks that have a lot of money. ant everybody, and that is the way we work.work we want our food to go to everybody. we want the same food, the samet food to go to every area of our city, our state, whatever. that is the way. because this work is really i about social justice and food fc justice. we have an organization that wei have growing power, our response, over a thousand different organizations around the country.red we have a conference every year i'm growing food and justice. [applause] >> well, here is a softball for you. urban farm.

we saw the guts and thehe chickens. how many total livestock to you have?? >> oh, gosh. ew yo --sktha >> within 100,000. >> not, we don't have that many. the space allocation.teocatio we have over 50 gets. 500 chickens. so, you know, when we do taurus, one of the things about our thou taurus. we toward dozens of kids every year. many of the programs to allow kids to go out to farms because of economics.because of the they get to see a real farmics inside the city. that is another reason.glers >> billions of those. >> yes.ho and by these way, those are also our employees. so the biggest employer in the world. [laughter] abcaeight.ery thank you very much.u

all take one more. >> obviously the infrastructure and press, people who are really interested, people who want to support. you're a tremendous leader. your enthusiasm is unbelievablee what are you doing to ensure that this initiative continues well beyond you?beuse this is a long process. >> frank r. donnelley. frank martinelli is helping us to lead our organization to asun succession plan. we have -- the most wonderful in staff in the world, i think. and these and people are learning every day.ythi i pass on everything that i can tell our staff. our our strategic plan is mucherentn different than most organizations. our strategic plan.la and we want to say a couple of words about how we engage ouroun entire management staff.

>> t's a great question. >> thanks.start well, i would start by saying that one of the hallmarks of a great leader is he/she thinkss t about the future.re. what needs to be done today so that the mission of the organization will thrive and we will have an impact in the future. and that is really why will isog supporting and leading this strategic planning process. and like most strategic plannini processes it is really important to involve the board and the staff together. t and then also to really throw the net wide in terms of who weh talked to, who we ask about the future, what is changing in the world around an organization like growing power, the implications of those changes, and then how growing power needl itself to change in order to ber around in the future. and i think -- and i have said w

this to will and the others, the inecial challenge to anow organization like growing power which is, of course, coue sustainability, your challenge,l our challenge is to build an organization that is sustainable itself. >> thank you. >> all right. >> yut realistically, you know, i'm not goinoug to be around forever. i realize that. i'm trying to pass on to the pas next generation, and i believe i in the next generation. a as a matter of fact i75% of the% folks around the country, undery 40 years of age a first-time.fit before it was mostly academics, studying the food system, a buusty old farmers like myself. now we have all these same people that want to become b farmers.n diff farm and a different way. most of these are future farmers of will be growing, will notcom come from the rural community. c it will be coming from colleges and universities and programs

around the country. they will be going on rooftops s and on asphalt and building inside buildings and during hydroponics and hydroponics.ndse the different techniques. so this next-generation, passing on to them.e they're going to take it and really grow our food system thae really works for all of us. thank you very much. [applause] >> we will allen is the ceo of growing power. for more information visit growing power got bored. >> on book tv recent visit to wichita kansas, with local cable partner cox communications we spoke to a local author dennis varney. his book is the barns farmer and the lady come aviation legends. the founders of beechcraft. aircraft corporations such as its chairman, cessna, money, and

beechcraft or all founded in wichita in the late 1920's and early 1930's. some still call wichita home today. >> the beach was of barnstorming literally. flying to my county fairs and aviation. circus's. during beryl's and loop to loops. and he was an extrovert. he certainly enjoyed a good drink at the end of the day. he was kind of -- before you get married he was wichita's most eligible bachelor. i think not -- you may not agree with this. i think that she was basically there was a real element of shyness. she compensated for it superbly well with a sort of backbone of steel. walter was the kind of guy who pulled her into the soil in pull when they were having their engagement tenor celebrating

their engagement. and she was the kind of woman who could stand up to walter. the next day she went out to the best or is in town and bought a ton of good clothing and jewelry to replace that which had been ruined and cents and the bill. so i think that kind of sums them up and away. this was 1932. he founded the beech aircraft. it was in the teeth of the great depression. and i would have thought, being a far more cautious person than walter, i would of thought, okay, if you're going to start a business building airplanes in the teeth of the oppression you would build a cheaper plan. one that people could afford, but he really went the opposite direction and bill sort of the rolls royce of airplanes, the model 17, the stagger wing. and it works. he didn't have to sell a huge amount of these, but he did --

they sold for anywhere around $17,000 in 1932 money. but he could sell enough to the oil men, oil magnates, to movie stars and so on that had been able to flourish. >> my favorite memory was going to apply with my father. so that was when i was younger than ten. it was very special. we would walk through with them. all of the different kinds of production that was happening. and then we also got to sit on the secretary's last. finds out the memories. >> walter, i think, his great gift was the ability almost intuitively to sense what the market might want to before the market knew it wanted it. and all van, in turn, her

credibility was administration and making decisions. she actually was a better business and that he was. when he died in 1950 she took over. and at first, you know, she was one of the very first, maybe the very first woman running a big company. and the men tried to stage a coup, about a dozen of them while she was in the hospital having -- giving birth. but she had taken the precaution of having a direct line established next to her hospital bed. she crashed the coop kind of like the kremlin might have crushed a coup in the old soviet union. and she turned out to be an excellent business woman with excellent as tanks. and a kind of a sense of integrity that she would not cut

corners. she would not -- she would stand behind the buyers. if something broke she would have it fixed at the company's own expense. the only thing she lacked, perhaps, was his instincts about what the market might want to next, although that is sort of overstating it because for decades beach continued to go from success to greater success under her. but most of the models tended to be sort of to some extent a derivative of the previous models. it beach never did make that jump into jet airplanes. this, perhaps, was one of the few failings or one of the few questionable things that happened under her administration. >> what is also important is to say she was really involved in

the company. she was secretary treasurer. they started the company together. so it was not like she just stepped and without any previous involvement. >> one of the stories i like is that when the company, when walter was in the process of forming the company all vances i want to be a partner, but i want to be paid. i want to be -- have a salary. i'm not just going to donate my life to something without a salary. and she was very conscious of her whorf and her prerogative as . and, you know, always i think in private, you know, personal relationships with their friends and relationships at work she was never lost consciousness of who she was.

she occupied a pretty unique place. one of the stories i like about her is that she -- it bothered her that workman, are people out on the planned for were tracking in orally booths and steel savings on to her expensive drug because her office was finished out, finished and french provincial style. >> right. >> and so she posted a rule, a sign outside saying, please remove your shoes before coming in. well, okay. the men did that. one day a group of wichita matron's can't a visitor to the friends of hers, they saw the sign into their shoes off. that was kind of emblematic, i think, of the way the world responded to her. basically it did what she wanted. they went for another 30 years

under her. and only in 1980 was it merged with raytheon. raytheon purchased it. so she took it and really, as big as it was under walter, it became much bigger under her. she continued to, you know, attracted ever larger. >> how does that aviation business. it was pretty big back then. >> i say it was a very mixed bag. still the largest employer. it's still, you know, immensely important to wichita. there have been a lot of changes to the years. i think there will be more. hopefully we will always remain. >> for more information on the recent visit to wichita kansas

and the many other cities visited by our local content vehicles go to c-span.org / local content. >> over the past four years pulitzer prize-winning author david maraniss has been researching and writing his tenth book, barack obama the story. the research included traveling the globe and speaking with the president's relatives in kenya and discovering his african ancestry on the shores of lake victoria. he also toward the family homes and sites in kansas to find the origins of his mother's family. barack obama the story comes out in bookstores on june 19th. book tv will give you an early look with exclusive pictures and video, including our trip to kenya as we travel with the author in january of 2010. join us sunday, june 17th at 6:00 p.m. eastern time. later at 730 that same night, your phone calls, he knows, and tweets.

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