Plenty Archives - Tracie McMillan

Q&A: Labor of Lovins

December 16, 2023October 1, 2007

Plenty • October/November 2007

Amory Lovins might not be a household name, but the ideas he’s put forth for the past 30 years have affected virtually every household in America. Increasing energy efficiency, supporting small and local power generation from renewable sources, and building smart rather than big are just a few of the concepts he’s promoted. Lovins started when he was 29, using the energy crisis of the late ’70s to reach President Carter’s ear. This year, the Rocky Mountain Institute, the nonprofit organization devoted to energy research he founded with his wife, celebrated its 25th anniversary with a forum attended by luminaries such as Thomas Friedman of The New York Times and Majora Carter of the nonprofit Sustainable South Bronx. Plenty stole a few minutes of Lovins’s time to discuss ultralight cars, an indoor banana garden, and why efficiency is the best alternative fuel we’ve got.

Digging Deeper

December 16, 2023August 3, 2007

Plenty • Aug. 3, 2007

When Will Allen was offered a buyout from his job at Procter and Gamble in 1982, he knew exactly what to do with the corporate cash: Buy a farm. Allen dropped $80,000 on 100 acres south of Milwaukee’s airport, and eventually added a couple of acres within city limits.

Today, the 58-year-old has 25 years of urban agriculture experience under his belt—and he’s put it to good use. As the executive director of Growing Power, an urban agriculture group, Allen oversees a wide array of innovative programs that have made the organization one of the country’s preeminent teaching institutions for city-based, grassroots farming practices. “Our strength is in inspiring people to get up off the planning table,” he says.

Mapping Out Meals

December 16, 2023July 27, 2007

Plenty • July 27, 2007

Two days before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Marnie Genre was putting down roots in the Big Easy—literally. Planting backyard fruit and vegetable gardens in the city’s Hollygrove neighborhood, Genre and her colleagues at the New Orleans Food and Farm Network (NOFFN), a food justice group, were aiming to improve the health of residents in the low-income communities while bolstering local food systems.

Then Katrina hit. Hollygrove sat under floodwaters for days. And when they receded, NOFFN knew that everything had changed—including what they needed to do.

Not Your Average Turnip Truck

December 16, 2023July 13, 2007

Plenty • July 13, 2007

The corner of Market and Brockhurst in West Oakland, CA doesn’t look much like a food mecca. A small church, a low-slung YMCA, and an elementary school occupy three corners of the treeless intersection. On the fourth corner sits the only clue: a two-story house converted to apartments, bearing a colorful, graffiti-lettered sign declaring, “Be Healthy!”

It’s fitting that the offices of the People’s Grocery, an Oakland-based food justice group, offer the brightest sign of fresh food for blocks. Founded in 2002 by Malaika Edwards, Leander Sellers, and current executive director Brahm Ahmadi, the group started with one simple premise: Bring fresh, healthy food to the city.

One Stop Shop

December 16, 2023July 6, 2007

Plenty • July 6, 2007

A couple years ago, Veronica Uy, a staffer for the Philadelphia-based food justice group the Food Trust, got an intriguing assignment: Visit the country’s biggest and best farmers’ markets—and help create something similar in the City of Brotherly Love.

It was a perfect fit for Uy, a Filipina-Canadian transplant to the States who developed a passion for food markets during a trip to Southeast Asia. She’d recently dropped a fledgling career as a computer programmer to work on food issues, and the project came with a double lure. Not only would a flagship market appeal to Uy’s foodie instincts, (she’s an avid home cook) it would highlight the local produce available in the city—and help publicize the fact that in Philly, most farmers’ markets accept food stamps and other government benefit coupons.

Motor City Harvest

December 16, 2023June 29, 2007

Plenty • June 29, 2007

“All right, when you’re starting your seedlings, you don’t need to go buy those trays, right?” Ashley Atkinson, a bespectacled and freckled 29-year-old, is quickly wrapping a piece of newspaper around a bottle of water, talking to a dozen tables of Detroiters eating through a potluck dinner as she works. “Because what are those trays made out of?”

The room chuckles: “Plastic!”

From Stories to Strawberries

December 16, 2023June 4, 2007

Plenty • June/July 2007

With her rare mix of storytelling skills and a social conscience, best-selling author Barbara Kingsolver has built a career on the premise that a well-told story can move mountains. Her latest effort, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, tells an entirely new tale: her own. Spun around her family’s move to Virginia and their subsequent decision to eat only foods grown and raised in their county—including their own farm—Animal marries Kingsolver’s narrative gifts with reported essays from her husband, biologist Steven Hopp, and recipes from her then-19-year-old daughter, Camille. Plenty caught up with Kingsolver to talk about the local food movement, taking your dinner seriously, and why eating well is for everyone—not just the elite.

From Stories to Strawberries

December 16, 2023June 1, 2007

Plenty • June/July 2007

With her rare mix of storytelling skills and a social conscience, best-selling author Barbara Kingsolver has built a career on the premise that a well-told story can move mountains. Her latest effort, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, tells an entirely new tale: her own. Spun around her family’s move to Virginia and their subsequent decision to eat only foods grown and raised in their county—including their own farm—Animal marries Kingsolver’s narrative gifts with reported essays from her husband, biologist Steven Hopp, and recipes from her then-19-year-old daughter, Camille. Plenty caught up with Kingsolver to talk about the local food movement, taking your dinner seriously, and why eating well is for everyone—not just the elite.

From Soil to Stoops: The Local Food Movement Hits Urban America

December 16, 2023June 1, 2007

Plenty • June/August 2007

There’s a subtle irony embedded in our current national craving for locally grown food: Cities, the antithesis of the countryside, have arguably become the easiest place to indulge it. The rise of farmers’ markets and buying clubs has transformed urban food possibilities and the economic viability of small American farmers. It’s a radical shift, and one driven not by market forces or government, but by the work of a burgeoning cadre of activists from coast to coast. Driven by the belief that everyone should have access to fresh, local food, these visionaries are changing the contents of city shoppers’ carts from Philadelphia’s tony Society Hill to the gritty edges of Oakland, California. Enjoy!