We have applied to be fiscally sponsored by BAVC, the Bay Area Video Coalition, and with any luck we’ll have temporary 501(3)(c) status as early as next week.

After that, we can set our sights on grants and distribution/ broadcast. Broadcast-wise, we’re looking at KQED’S Truly California, a monthly series of independently-made documentaries that have a California focus. Edible City is just that, and that’s why we’d love to find it a home there.

Here is a piece of our literature on the film, the introduction to our documentary:

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The world is facing a dire food crisis. Since the beginning of 2006, average global prices have skyrocketed: soybean prices have risen by 107%, maize by 125% , wheat by 136%, and rice by 217%. The higher prices for the most basic human need – food – have led to riots and upheaval. Causes include poor harvests, rising populations, higher fuel costs, and increased wealth in China and India. Furthermore, biofuels now account for 5% of the world’s cereal grain production, and the International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that growing demand for these fuels may be responsible for 30-75 million hungry people worldwide. Large-scale, vertically integrated agribusiness practices, reliant upon fossil fuels and designed to maximize crop production at any cost, control the world’s food supply. The Green Revolution is widely credited with having prevented mass starvation in the second half of the 20th century, but critics argue that the systems put in place are harmful and unsustainable, and that a return to more traditional agricultural methods – agroecology – is needed.

The food crisis, however, is by no means limited to poor countries. What may come as a surprise to many people is the fact that there has been an institutional food crisis here in the United States for a long time, and it is one that directly affects the country’s poor and lower middle class. Burdened by housing woes, stagnant wages, and rising fuel costs, people are increasingly turning to food banks and enrolling in food stamp programs. Currently, over 35 million Americans are ranked as “very food insecure” (read: hungry) by the Department of Agriculture.

Food sovereignty – being in control one’s own food systems rather than relying upon uncontrollable market forces – is a distant dream for most people. We have a mass food infrastructure reliant upon oil for production and distribution. Whole generations are eating nutrient deficient, packaged foods, without any idea of where that food comes from. Yet, food security barely rates as an issue for politicians.

In the Bay Area, among other places, individuals are finding ways of chipping away at the vastness of this issue. More and more people are creating arable land in limited urban living spaces. Often wedged between buildings and unnoticeable from the street, these urban farms make up the grass roots of a movement that sees people forging connections to the food they eat and reaching out to the local community.

The movement is tackling not only food issues, but also health, poverty, crime, and the psychological fallout of living in our thoroughly modern world. Urban farming culture consists of a wide range of people and personalities, from idealistic neo-hippies to permaculture professors, from locavores and foodies to community activists. And yet, the movement is firmly centered around the idea of food sovereignty. The common threads are a return to personal food connection, control over one’s nutritional intake, and the use of food cultivation as a means to strengthen communities and human relationships.

The practice of urban farming is not new – Machu Picchu had terraced crops, ancient Persian towns had agricultural systems supported by mountain water – but its current iteration is largely a response to systemic inequality and large-scale organizational failure. Recent urban food production movements also came about through necessity and have shown that such a model can be, to some extent, successful. The Victory Gardens of World Wars I and II saw people in England, Canada, and the US grow their own food to aid in the war effort. It was a way of both empowering people to rely less upon public food supply, as well as improving morale during troubled times. It is estimated that as many as 20 million victory gardens accounted for up to 40% of all food production during wartime. In Cuba, in the early 1990s, the sudden severance of Soviet oil forced people to devise and implement immediate solutions; through local, organic urban farming, Cuba was able to stare down peak oil and survive.

The current food crisis, because it is not caused by one event or development but rather by a series of complex factors, is more difficult to solve. Fortunately, being “green” has become increasingly trendy (even if it is sometimes more of a marketing tool than an actual movement). Slow food, organic farming, and “local and seasonal” are all the rage, especially in the Bay Area. Awareness of one’s carbon footprint – a measure of personal impact on the environment – is becoming more widespread, as talk of peak oil, alternative energy, and climate change increases. Recent documentaries such as The Future of Food, Fast Food Nation, and An Inconvenient Truth have shown through their success and impact that issues of health, food, and environmental sustainability are on the public’s mind.

In reality, urban farming is a very small piece of the puzzle that is our food crisis – but it is one that is important enough to be a way of life for a growing number of people. Confronted by booming food and oil prices, global warming, and an unsure future, city farmers are doing what they can to make a dent in the massive predicament we find ourselves in.