tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight conversation with will allen. he turned a small farm into a new urban farming movement. he is the founder of the growing power, incorporated and the author of the book "the good food revolution." also actor dev patel. he has a new project called "the best exotic marigold hotel." we are glad you have joined us. will allen and dev patel coming up right now. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: will allen is the founder of the growing power, incorporated which has ideas about food and farming. he became the only -- the second farmer to receive a macarthur genius grant. his latest book is called "the good food revolution." good to have you here. i have been to your spot a few times, most recently last summer.

i put my hands in the worms. the fun part was watching the tilapia jump. how was the project going? >> it is going good. toaren't adding new folks our system. we have 100 employees and we're hiring 150 more in the next year and a half. tavis: there was a controversial story in the new york times about whether or not the food deserts are real. if you go to miles this way, you can find good food and fresh meat and fresh vegetables, assuming you have transportation to get their. leave it to them to make a story about that. did you see that story? >> i heard about it. i did not actually read it.

it is pretty ridiculous when you think about the folks without cars, a lot of middle-income and lower-income folks. without cars, they have to get their food to go on the boss. a lot of them are single families. elders. to carry food over a mile is a sure. especially with the kids. in our case, we are in a densely populated area. the largest project is five blocks away. you have to travel three and a half miles east west and north and south to the closest brush restored. in the wintertime, it is cold. people are locked to down. but the average family having a day and a half of food in the refrigerator, you can imagine with a heavy snowstorm, ice

storms. tavis: why do they exist in the first place? >> we used to have retail grocery stores all over america. they started pulling out. some of the reasons were ridiculous because studies show that people on the lower income levels spend a lot of money purchasing food. it was for a lot of other reasons. it left this avoid but as they pulled out, some of the land they occupied is occupied by fast-food joints and corner stores were the food is processed and low quality. consequently, we are seen the results of that in terms of childhood obesity, heart disease, diabetes, we have to do something about it. tavis: how much more important

now are these kinds of programs when you consider the growing rate of food and security? it is hard for some people to wrap their minds around the fact there are people who do not have enough food to eat. food insecurity is a real issue. how important to, whether it is growing power, that these kinds of urban farming programming exist? >> we know it is going to be important for us to start developing a food system that works. tonight, one out of every five or six kids in america goes to bed without food. unless you have communities where you how of accessibility, you're going to have these problems. many of our young people are obese. i read a statistic that by a

203042% of americans will be obese. these are real issues that have to be solved and we have not solved them by our industrial food system, by shipping food from far away. then there is the issue around how nutritious is the food we are eating in terms of once we take a been or something of a stark and it travels many miles something off a stock it travels many miles, we're starting to see the results of that. we haven't seen those results. tavis: the song title is growing healthy food, people, and communities. how do you do that

simultaneously? it is a process in terms of engaging the community. these are community food systems we are developing. they are not industrial food assistance or people from outside or people coming in and telling the community how to develop their food system. the first thing you have to do is engage the community so you are looked at as an asset. the second thing is to grow new soil because our soil is contaminated. you cannot grow in the existing soil when you are developing a local farm. those are some of the things you have to overcome and then you can start growing healthy food to grow healthy people. food is the no. 1 things in our lives regardless of how we try to push it to the side or minimize it. without it, we will never have a

healthy cities that all of the mayor's talk about that. by 2020, having a sustainable community but without a sustainable food system, that is never going to happen. >> i have seen you do this in milwaukee and around the world. how you do this successfully in urban areas? >> one of the things you have to quantify, you have to have a concrete project to show people. a lot of cities have policies that are negative in terms of developing a food system. to do that, the best policy change is to show that this does work. quantifying a lot of the things to make sure that you can cash flow these farms instead of thinking about acres, we think

in terms of square footage to be able to grow food iintensively. we cannot have large animals. we have to look out chickens and fish. water and to be a major part of this resurrection of our food system. 50% of the fish we eat is a farm raised. that is going to go to 75% because of what has happened in the gulf, japan and so forth. it is a tremendous business opportunity but we need to quantify these things. that is what we are doing in the walking. we have 200 acres right now and 20 farms in the city and outside of the city. we really need to quantify it because all of these young people want to be a part of the

good food revolution, we have to show them they can make a living out of growing food in a different kind of way. not like their grandfathers and many of these and people will not come from rural farms. there will com from colleges that have youth programs around growing food. tavis: when you think about urban centers, you tend to think of people of color. 90% of african-americans live in the top 10 cities in this country. i am trying to understand how you get traction on an issue like this where people of color are concerned. you think of farms and you think of white brothers and sisters in the plains. how does a program like this, hold? in milwaukee, you have young african-american kids all over

the place. kids who have graduated and have come back to work with you. how'd you get traction on this program in inner cities? >> we have had the opportunity to work with these young people at 8 years old. did they go through our program all the way through college we try to find and scholarships. i have a scholarship program to give kids an opportunity to have some spending money. a couple of thousand dollars. i remember when i was a young person in the late 1960's, i was on a basketball scholarship but i did not have any money to spend. i want to make sure that if we send these kids away, they are taking care of. we take them through the process of learning what we have learned. so that when they come back to us, we have to pay them a living

wage. we have to and give them a salary that keeps them long enough that we can further train them. that is what we try to do with our employees. we look at paying people a living wages so that we can have them on enough. you do not to grow a farmer overnight. it takes a number of years to really grow a farmer. farming is different because we're talking about food systems where there are hundreds of categories of jobs. we have renewable energy. we make connections with corporate companies and we need folks that work in finance. over 100 areas. this new foods to system is going to be different than our grandmothers and grandfathers situation. tavis: let me close with this,

are you hopeful that through the good food revolution that we can actually get a handle on childhood obesity? i saw a little baby on the cover and a says, look at me, i'm going to be 300 pounds when i grow up. >> i am hopeful because i know we will. like i have said, all of these young people that wants to get involved. we have over 75% that are under 40 years of age. it gives us a great opportunity. over 10 million new people started growing food, people who used to grow food got back into the game. their backyards and on their balconies. because of the white house guard and then when you look at the first family, they are so

healthy. that really helped us, folks like myself, an old farmer like me and people in the food system, having that kind of support from the white house has been helpful in terms of changing the dynamics. when you talk about these predictions, if we do not change the system, that will happen. i work with some obie's kids. working through children's hospital, as somebody -- and us they change their habits in terms of eating and exercise. it is going to take all of us working together and we all have responsibilities to make this change to our food system and some money stays in the local communities and go back to the

days when food was grown in the states where people live. today, less than 1% of food is grown locally. tavis: has become will allen a legend in milwaukee. as i said, in case you just tuned in, and a macarthur genius, and on the time on hundred list, and you have done so well, they got to back as commencement speaker. >> that was quite an honor considering i was the first african-american basketball player there in 1967, to come back and be asked by the board and the president. it was quite an honor. you learn tavis: did. the new book is called "the good food revolution growing a: the food, people, and communities."

up next, "slumdog millionaire" star dev patel. tavis: is a knack dev patel to who starred in the film." "slumdog millionaire this summer you can catch him in the hbo series." "the newsroom he is also starring in." "the best exotic marigold hotel >> you have found your way to the states by my beloved father that i have raised from the ruins of his broken dreams and name to the best exotic marig elo. ld i yes -- hotel.

i use these words deliberately. who knows how many days you have left. we are most honored you have chosen to spend that time with us. please. let me through. my brother is a doctor. [laughter] i do not now tavis: whether to ask you about getting the accent right or the all-star cast. >> that scene was telephone -- terrifying because the character i play he is a, showman. there are many scenes where he is trying to win over the crowd and the crowd in the this scene consisted of judi dench, maggie smith, i remember looking

around and been terrified because everyone is staring. i feel like they have x-ray vision. it was so much fun. it is a funny movie and we had a great time. tavis: my producer was playing around. i think he did some calculations, you have -- you are barely 22 years old. happy birthday, belated. you have five years of acting. >> may be. just about. tavis: all of those experts to mention, 283 years. >> it is weird because it has not sunk in that i am an actor. tavis: obviously that scene was

pretty good. you got past the intimidation. >> i did. what was even more scary when you get cast for a roll and you realize you're going to be surrounded by these phenomenal actors and you feel nervous and you feel you do not have avoided takes. you can picture another thousand actors that could take upshaw -- the role. there was this kind of injury. everyone was so willing to learn about india andhe sat. it was like a workshop. did you give tavis: to spend any time in india or were you working? >> i go a lot. it was weird because the movie was such a pleasant experience. in my days off, i would be walking down this beautiful hotel and i would see maggie

smith and judi dench, and it was just bizarre. tavis: how would you describe this journey, this journey fro "slumdog millionaire until now" ? >> i know alisa like i am falling into a deep and. -- always like i am falling into a deep end. i got this amazing role. nobody knew how important is was going to be. i was on the front pages of newspapers. street after that, i did so many other things. i came to work on this and it has been an amazing process. i have learned a tons.

i really have. tavis: there are a couple ways to start your career, you'll build up to the moment for the first thing you do is the big moment and then you have to navigate your way beyond the big moment. you ok with that? that it started so they dance so fast. >> definitely. the thing i think about, i would not change it for the world because it was an amazing experience. it was so beautiful, it happened at the right time. the movie exuded hope. it was a time of hope. obama was coming around in the u.s. became a the right moment. for me, i almost it happened and later because i came out with my first movie where i was in this

role being escorted to, all of these awards shows and everyone thought of me as this esteemed actor when i am really inexperienced. it is a blessing and a curse. you feel pressure straight away. you feel everyone is staring at you. it is a scary experience. you take a step back and you let it soak in and try to mix it up. wherever i went, people were screaming hey, slumdog it was wonderful. but i thought what i always be identified with that role?

and you always want to go back and see if you could do it over. it translated great on camera because i was this kid is the whole of india was watching on this game show. the nervous energy worked for the character, i guess. tavis: tell me about the new project. >> he is this young chap whose father has passed away and he is left with this property that needs a little tlc. tavis: that is a massive understatement. >> it needs a lot of work. he has this idea to turn it into a home for the elderly. he describes it as outsourcing old age to his mother. he makes the website and makes

this awful place look like the taj mahal. he was not expecting them to come this early. tavis: instead of you going to london, the british are coming to you. >> everyone looked at me as the experienced one after doing "slumd." og." i am the one who got the bad the tommy the first. it was weird -- i had never been to that part of india before. it is a city full of people, a lot of humanity. you go to where we shot this and

it is really beautiful and quiet. tavis: tell me about the new tv series. >> it is called "the newsroom." it is set in the world of news reporting. it has been an interesting experience for me. tavis: you are busy. glad to have you on. that is our show for tonight. if you want to download are new application, you can go to itunes. thank you for watching. as always, keeps the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org.

tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. the legendary singer songwriter carol keen on her new memoir. that is --that is next time. we will see you then. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. be more. pbs. be more. pbs.