Should the poor look to weeds from cracks in the sidewalk as a source of nutritious, organic free food? New York Times writer and foodie Mark Bittman thinks so. He is roaming “underserved urban neighborhoods” with UC Berkeley professors, spreading this gospel. “Salad from the Sidewalk?”



The spirit of Marie Antoinette has apparently returned more than 200 years later. This time, the trendiest ideas to help feed the hungry are being offered up by foodies, not an uneducated, teenage queen.



Urban agriculture isn’t a bad idea. Who could argue with community gardens? They are awesome. Urban agriculture is just not a solution to the complex problem of American hunger. The way to feed millions of people has always been industrialized agriculture, pesticides and GMOs: three things which are anathema to foodie culture. But instead of recognizing that the 50m Americans (and counting) who are hungry and at risk for “undernutrition” need more than foraged yarrow, the thought leaders of the foodie movement continue to rail against GMOs and industrial farms.

I don’t mean to be negative. I think people like Alice Waters, considered the most “influential person in American food”, is brilliant and has had an extremely positive impact on the American way of eating, thinking about nutrition, flavor and cooking. But some have felt frustrated by what they perceive as the misplaced priorities of foodies like her. The author Caitlin Flanagan wrote an infamous take down of Water’s Edible Schoolyard; Waters advocates putting gardening and cooking front and center of the elementary school day, while Flanagan argued that poor children in failing schools should not learn how to grow vegetables during school hours, they should be in the classroom learning math, science, etc instead. While some felt Flangan ignored the substance of Waters’ vision and many of the real benefits to schools which adopted the Edible Schoolyard curriculum, the clash demonstrates how urban farmers and social advocates can often find themselves at odds.

There are many reasons why urban farming doesn’t just fail to solve hunger and inequality, but actually worsens it. Income equality advocates say it’s a disaster for cities with severe housing shortages, like San Francisco, which need their empty space to build housing. Austin, Texas, another city facing an “affordability crisis” shut down an urban farm and many environmentalists don’t like urban agriculture either because it puts a strain on already stressed water sources.

That’s why, despite their good intentions, foodies are freaking me out: hunger is a massive problem, spreading through the socio-economic strata of our country, getting bigger every year. If there are artisanal, DIY, local, slow-food solutions to hunger, we haven’t seen them yet.

However, it is no surprise that urban agriculture, an offspring of the locavore movement, is “booming”. And its not just with Farm-to-Table, Kinfolk reading, DIY weekend picklers. Everyone wants to believe there’s a simple solution to hunger, especially those Americans who live in food deserts (a benign term for a horrific reality): those parts of the country in which residents don’t have access to “fresh, healthy or affordable food.”

America is transforming from a country of the haves and have-nots, into a country of the hungry and the fed. This dire situation requires a real solution and urban agriculture is not it. Maybe if foodies try to feed their own families with weeds from the sidewalk and whatever is left at the food pantry, they’ll focus their famous creativity on cooking up delicious, sustainable solutions to hunger.

