Can you Afford Organic Food?

It may seem odd to knock Whole Foods with a new location being built in Downtown Detroit, but if you’ve ever been to a higher end grocery store that carries organic foods, you know how expensive it can be to purchase organic foods. But why, are organic fresh foods only for the rich? Greg Willerer of Brother Nature Produce believes organic foods should be an option for everybody.

Greg and his wife Olivia make up the brains of one of Detroit’s best Urban Farms. I had the pleasure of meeting both and with Greg’s “just do it” attitude and Olivia’s Horticulture degree from MSU (Go Green), they’ve created a thriving farm that specializes mostly in salad greens. Not the boring Iceberg and Romaine salad greens either. Brother Nature Produce is reinventing the salad while inspiring local Michigan restaurants to move towards more seasonal menus based on the seasonal produce being grown right in the city. The people of Brother Nature Produce do all this while staying true to their mission to “grow organic food without the organic price”, thus keeping “organic” accessible to everyone.

Interesting Insights Into Brother Nature Produce

1. I got there at around 6:30pm and worked until 8…everyone else had been working since 7AM and didn’t stop until around 9PM (That’s some dedication)
2. Among the salad greens I have never heard of such as Purple Bok Choy and Bordeaux Spinach; Sorrel has the most surprisingly lemony flavor that is becoming my favorite salad green.
3. Greg makes his own salad dressing which is AMAZINGLY delicious
4. It took 5-6 years for the farm to build by hand. Greg’s hands to be exact as he made several trips to the farm with bags of soil to build up the soil line. “Just do it!”
5. Detroit Dirt is part of Greg’s vision which will “teach other people to fish” by making their wonderfully organic and effective soil mix available for purchase.

Want to learn more? Contact Greg at gweg27@gmail.com or pay him a visit Saturday mornings at the Eastern Market. Pick up some reinvented salad greens while you're at it!

Organic, Tasty, Healthy and Grown in Detroit

Detroit once was one of the largest, most prosperous cities in the United States, but when its main source of economic growth stumbled, Detroit fell with it.  Since then, the city has gone though riots, drugs, “white flight” and government corruption has lead the city into what seems to be a perpetual downward spiral, but the community is responding with hope.  In the city that just refuses to die, many people are rooting themselves and looking to the future.

Urban planting projects are springing up all over the city and the idea is growing.  In the part of Detroit known as a “Food Desert”, there are no grocery stores.  Starting farms seemed like the logical thing to do.  People are hungry and there are ARCES of unused land in the city.  So, they began to grow.  Today, the urban farms have grown from just feeding the community to SUSTAINING it with a regular source of income. 

Produce from Detroit urban farms can now be found all over the city.  There is a “Grown in Detroit” section at the Eastern Market, various local restaurants use produce from urban gardens or, you can just visit the farms yourself and purchase foods.  The people that run these gardens would call them Detroit’s future, but the city is still pushing for more development. 

In addition to the dozens of commercial property “for sale”, the city has written no laws to protect and grown urban farms, on the contrary the law directly hinders them.   There are limits on the sizes of greenhouses, they don’t actually own the land and if the city wants to, they can take the land back at any time. …sounds stupid to me too.   It would be simple to give the farmers land, let them tend it and eat the produce they harvest.  After all, the farmers most often are Detroiters seeking some peace in a restless city. 

Since the movie “Grown in Detroit” was created, MSU (Go green!) has proposed a potential 100 acre, $100 million investment into urban gardening research in Detroit.  This research facility would put Detroit back on the map as a center for worldwide urban gardening research.  Currently they are looking for areas on the Lower Eastside that would be suitable for urban farms and gardens. 

I don’t know if farming will be Detroit’s future, but it does make sense.  Maybe not as a major economic business, but farming within Michigan makes perfect sense to me.  The people are hungry.  Why not give them an opportunity to grow food and feed themselves?  In addition to being able to feed their own hunger, they can sell the food and make MONEY to sustain themselves long term.  Also, the benefits to a generation that has grown up on McDonald’s are too numerous to count.  Community, health, knowledge, economic….the reasons for urban farming seem never ending and I for one can vouch that a Meijer tomato taste NOTHING like homegrown.  Yup! Detroit is serving up organic, fresh and healthy produce right from its own backyard. Visit facebook.sowdetroit.com for more information.