>> i think that good, wholesome food is a right for everyone in the country. it is the reason we want to feed every single child at school. and i don't mean that kids come and buy their food at school. i am talking about feeding children a breakfast, a lunch, and an afternoon snack. they pay up front instead of out back. we all know the food is expensive. not only to our healthy environment, and particularly to our culture. we are wanting everything to be fast, cheap, and easy. when you think about music, and architecture and art, everything has to be fitting into this kind of way of thinking. and it is what is destroying

the world and taking the beauty and the meaning out of it. so we are saying that this is something of great value and you have to make the different kinds of decisions. right now we want to buy 3 pairs of nike shoes rather than spend it at the farmer's market and feed our children. it is a matter of choice. you have to learn about it. the biggest impediment is the price of food and people accepting this. we have to figure out different ways to talk about it. i hope it is one of the important conversations that happens at slow food nation. i have been working at neo university for the last 6 years. believe it or not, money is an

issue for them at yale. not because they don't have the money to spend. but so indoctrine nated that food should be cheap, when the caterer says [inaudible] they don't want to pay it. it is not supposed to be that expensive. it has to be this kind of engagement. i think everybody should go out and try to grow food. [applause]. >> just put it in perspective, the cost, i don't think most people know. it is interesting, i don't want to do an audience quiz, venture to guess what we allocate in

terms of federal dollars, 53 percent of san franciscans kids are eligible for free lunch program. they can't afford, so we subsidize it. a meal at lunch, at our school district is budgeted at $2.68 of which $.21 is from the state. one of the budget cuts proposed from 21 cents to $.19. a $.99 hamburger is netted out, it ends up in obesity in

your emergency room, in inactivity, lack of work place, it ends up reducing gep. is that an argument beginning to take shape? an argument having an impact, the actual costs not the [inaudible] costs? >> absolutely, the school in oakland, they identify 4,000 kids at risk for obesity. their clinic can only take care of 150. that is the handwriting on the wall. you know, all of our health insurance goes up and up and up. >> and will unhappily pay those premiums because we have no choice, then we are outraged

when someone says we have to invest a little more. i tried this in one of our homeless shelters. i had my department folks say we can't afford this. we had a conversation with carlos. i said this is the best idea, get it into a homeless shelter. don't get me wrong, we improved the food, x number of percentage comes from sustainable sources, etc. but it is not the real deal. the argument is cost. even in san francisco, we are not giving up. it remains an on going challenge. we have gotten salad bars in our schools [applause]. a few questions, here. food depends on r farms.

farm lands are being paved over. how can we protect them from being developed? >> by protecting our farmers. this wave, this criteria for buying in the public schools could keep those farms in business. could go right to those farmers. because you decide you are going to decide from local people. so there you are, you are an engine. we only have 500 people we serve a day. in berkeley, they have 10,000 kids in the public school. just imagine. we support 2 farms entirely. we have 85 people that we buy from during the course of the year. just food. and then there are all the other supply that is we buy.

just think what could happen if you had school a school system in nebraska buying from local people? >> i saw recently the governor of washington state signed interesting legislation as it relates to no longer procuring the lowest prices for some of their school-related lunch and breakfast programs. are there examples that you point to and say boy, for we can just do what we are doing in dublin, ireland? >> yale is doing a lot of work on distribution of food from small farms in connecticut into a big institution and figuring out the ways they can use the packing facilities for canning

the tomatoes from the local farmer and having the delivery come to the university. and if they can be doing that research on it, then sharing that is a beautiful thing. >> couple of questions, has it been difficult to spread your philosophy to urban communities and what solutions, more specifically, can you offer to help education poor communities and support those students? if money is used as the excuse and easily used in declining resources, how do we realistically break through? >> we start growing things on every available lot. >> i wasn't joking. just think of what happened during world war ii.

i grew up on my parent's victory garden. they were asked to do this as a part of the war effort. they saved all of their tin cans. they kept their milk cartons. they turned out the lights. it is the way you were brought up. it is free food when you grow it. every time i see a vacant lot, i think my god, how much food can be grown. there are beautiful people doing research on ecology action with john jevens. how much food can be grown in the least amount of space. he is doing projects all over

the world and teaching people intensive gardening. there are amazing farmers who can help us accomplish this. we need to have the mayor. >> need leadership. >> the president of the united states just saying, hey, please help us. help us. help us make this change. >> couple of questions about private funders. has the private and foundations gravitated beyond your foundation, is this an easy sell? >> what we have to do is make these models and make them really good. that is what has happened with the schoolyard. we put a lot of money into one. we have one in new orleans. it is amazing.

this has been an idea, not a berkeley or san francisco idea, something that requires a kind of special fill anthropi and what better way to buy food than people that need money in that city? so the farmer's market is helping to supply the school. now the kids are going out into the neighborhood and picking up cans and bottles and examing them, recycling them, making them into art work. it is a beautiful project. and it is a universal idea, as

i say, it is not something that we dreamed up. this is the way people have been living since the beginning, buying things from local people. eating them together with the family and friends. we are just coming back to our senses. >> we have talked so much about children l. the question is, what is the best way to reach adults that have fast food ingrained into their system? thoseover those of us that know. >> planting the perfect ripe peach. i thought if he just could taste this. >> president clinton in terms

of fast food addiction. [laughter]. >> once you taste you can't go back. it is very, very -- it is not just the taste. it is the care that comes with the taste. see you feel this. it is a lot of non verbal kindsover longings that i think a lot of people have. and then we need to connect up with that. sitting at a table and eating garlicy foods. it works in some beautiful way. you go to italy and you see that really translated into the culture. that is why that movement is so

strong and why they are so successful in combatting the globalization of food. in other countries like france, they are just opening the doors. >> most of the best practice, most what you see happening, that by way of example is happening outside the united states. any other parts of this country and region? now you are talking about peaches and things. >> we have a good friend up in maine. he has a green house. a very kind of organic and affordable green house situation. he grows them and closes in the

summer. he is growing salads. we had to learn to eat differently at different times of the year. when we were doing this project at yale, what are we going to eat for 9 months out of the year? we found all kinds of dried beans, dried fruits. we found vegetables, all of the beautiful heirloomed potatoes and made syrups. we ate fish. we used to know how to do this. nobody knows how to cook, true?

so when we teach this course in school, one of the outcomes is everyone is going to learn how to cook and farm. it is going to be a beautiful outcome of this core curriculum in ego gastronomy. edible education. sounds a little too gastric. it really says what it is. it is a huge, beautiful subject that we need to be studying. >> are people teaching this stuff? new york university? >> slow food university. >> there is actual slow food university? >> university of the gastroano, ma'amic sciences. they send students around the world to intern.

>> is berkeley teaching any of these things? god for bid, stanford? [laughter]. >> all of the forestry programs. i mean, definitely, we have michael pollen at new york university. we have marian nesum. kelly brown teaching psychology. we have to connect in a way. we sort of imagine this event moving around the country. we'll continue to always have something in san francisco. we want to go to chicago, new york, and new orleans and really bring people to

experience different parts of the country to pull us together of a slow food nation. >> because of time, i want to wrap this up. we don't have time to talk about the work you have done in edible schoolyards in new orleans. the slow food nation is going to happen in san francisco this labor weekend. how can people get involved, not only slow food nation, but with also get involved in this whole movement? i want to learn more, i have to know more. is there a book you recommend? a website? a brochure we can pick up or a phone number? >> we do have a brochure.

there are lots of brochures. certainly the website of slow food nation is a way to get connected and understand what is happening in international movement. that is what is most important. this isn't just the united states. this is an international organization in 131 countries. we are having this conversation around the world and that is what needs to happen. we need to unite in that way. there are all kinds of incredible books. fast food nation is no. 1 homework piece. michael pollen's books bring us into the big picture around food. of course my own books. but we have to really think

about what we are eating everyday. really pay attention to this. and thank goodness we have farmer's markets within 15, 20 minutes. >> i live in san francisco. >> i love organization like the people's groceries, taking food that is left from the farmer's market and taking it down to the poor sections of town and offering it. we need a big wholesale farmer's market in san francisco. >> we need to be able to have a place that gathers food that we can distribute it to the schools and hospitals and institutions around san francisco. so i think that funded by the

city. it has to be affordable. >> you didn't hear my budget speech today. [laughter]. if people want to contact you and support the foundation? >> that is how they can, they can look up the website. and send their very big checks. we are trying to make the models, paying teachers to breathe life into this idea. that is what is going to make it convincing for the powers to be. >> it is dinner time. i hope you are going to think wisely tonight. i want to thank becca proda and

thank you all very much, ladies and gentlemen, a big round of applause. [applause]. >> thanks, gavin. [applause].

>> being a pedestrian in san francisco is not easy for anybody. >> [inaudible] people push tables and chairs outside the sidewalk. >> i have to be careful not to walk the sidewalk. it is very hard. >> sometimes people get half way across the intersection. >> you have to be alert because there is always something coming up that you need to know about. >> i learned to listen to the

traffic patterns. sometimes i notice the other pedestrians, they are crossing, on occasion, i have decided i'm going to cross, too. i get to the middle of the intersection, and i find out that the light has changed. >> we need to be able to work and go from one place to the other and have public transportation. the world needs to be open. >> people on disability has the task of addressing all the disability. when we are talk about the sidewalks, ramps, we have very specific issues. for people blind and low vision, we have the issue of knowing where they are and when

the cross. it can be hit or miss. >> at hulk and grove, that sound the the automatic -- it helps people cross the street safely. >> now we have a successful pedestrian signal. >> i push the button, i get an audible message letting me know that i need to wait. when it is safe to cross, not only am i going to get an audible indicator, this button is going to vibrate. so it tells me it is safe. there is the driller sound and this trigger is vibrating.

i am not relying on anything but the actual light change, the light cycle built into it. >> it brings san francisco from one of the major cities in the u.s. to what is going to be the lead city in the country. >> city working on all sorts of things. we are trying to be new and innovative and go beyond the ada says and make life more

successful for people. >> disability rights movement, the city has the overall legal obligation to manage and maintain the accessibility and right of way. with regards to the curb ramps, bounded by a groove border, 12-inch wide border. for people with low vision to get the same information. the shape of the domes, flush transition between the bolt bottom of the ramp and gutter. >> we have a beveled transition on the change in level, tape on the surfaces, temporary asphalt to fill in level changes, flush

transition to temporary wood platform and ramp down into the street under the scaffoldinging. detectable ramps. they are all detectable. nothing down below or protruding that people are going to get snagged up on. smooth clean that nobody is going get caught up on. >> our no. 1 issue is what we see here, the uplifting and shreufting to concrete due too street tree roots. here is another problem we have with street trees. if i have i was a person blind,

this would be an uncomfortable way to find out. >> we don't want to create hazards. >> sometimes vendors put sidewalk cafes where people push the chairs too far out. >> sometimes it can be impassable. so much foot traffic that there is no room for a wheelchair or walker to go by. >> san francisco is a lively street life, it can be an issue with people with visual disabilities as well. they have these diverting barriers on other side of this