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Interview with Pingree Farms
19 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Produce Safety Technician Micah Hutchison interviews Clarence Price with Pingree Farms in Detroit. Clarence discusses the history of ag in Detroit, the food safety practices at Pingree Farms, and the benefits of urban farming and urban market gardening.
Funding for this podcast was made possible in part by the Food and Drug Administration through grant PAR-16-137. The views expressed in the posted materials do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does any mention of trade names, commercial practices or organization imply endorsement by the United States Government.
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Transcript
Introduction to Produce Safety and FSMA
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Agri-Food Safety Produce Bites Podcast, where we discuss all things produce safety and dive into the rules and regulations surrounding the Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule.
Meet the Team: Clarence Price and Micah Hutchison
00:00:14
Speaker
My name is Clarence Price, born and raised in the city of Highland Park. Call Highland Park the capital of Detroit because it's surrounded by Detroit on all sides. I'm currently serving as Executive Director with Pingree Farms with a focus on education.
00:00:30
Speaker
Hi, my name is Micah Hutchison, and I am the produce safety technician at the Genesee Conservation District, and I work with growers in Southeast Michigan on the implementation of the FSMA produce safety rule. So, Clarence, I am so excited to talk to you today and learn about pin-gree farms.
The Accidental Start of Pingree Farms
00:00:50
Speaker
Can you first tell us about pin-gree farms and what you do, what it has to offer?
00:00:55
Speaker
Sure. So, uh, Pangberry Farms was launched back in maybe 2013 as a, as a mistake. I had to put it that way, but it was definitely a mistake. Really? Uh, it sits on the campus of Milton Manufacturing. Milton Manufacturing is a government fabricator that fabricates all different types of
00:01:22
Speaker
winches, brackets, everything you think of that a government vehicle would need, Milton manufactures these things. During the time of 2013, the area where Pingree is located was very blighted, burned down parcels, vacant parcels. So you had Jim and Shelly Green, who are the owners of Milton Manufacturing. They were bringing their customer base to their factory, but directly across from it.
00:01:52
Speaker
were these blighted parcels that didn't reflect well on the community. So they came up with the plan to start demolishing the properties themselves with the thought of improving the neighborhood.
Community Growth and Educational Impact
00:02:07
Speaker
So they started demolishing the properties. As they demolished the properties, now you had to cut the grass. So the person responsible for cutting the grass was Jim Green Jr.
00:02:16
Speaker
Grass became such a task that Jim Green Jr. came up with a solution. He said, maybe we should just plant a garden rather than having to cut all this grass. Of course, anybody with a real garden knows that a garden requires way more work than grass. Way more work.
00:02:37
Speaker
So that's why I always say it started as a mistake because he didn't know what he was recommending. And so from that 15 acres of garden was planted and has been produced annually about 15,000 pounds of fresh produce. Wow.
00:02:58
Speaker
Definitely. It's definitely a wow moment. So on top of the garden, at one point, Jim Green always tells the story about how he wanted his children to have better responsibilities. So he went out, he purchased a couple of cows, and at their home in Troy, he put these cows on their land. You can't have cows in Troy. This man had cows at his house. He had to move them. So as it was time to move them,
00:03:28
Speaker
He came up with the bright idea that he would hide them down at his industrial complex, Milton manufacturer. Takes the cows down to Milton, they stay down there for X amount of months and then the community finds out. They said that he was hoarding animals. And so the city started leveraging all these tickets. He still has the tickets that the judge was accusing him of being malicious with his hoarding of animals.
00:03:55
Speaker
But the city came in and decided to work with him and partnered with him to, as long as it was for educational use and we were partnered with educational facility, they would allow him to keep these animals. And so from there, Pingree Farms was definitely born. So we currently have 25 acres. And then we also now host eight different animals. So the animals are used in support of our 4-H program. So in the,
00:04:24
Speaker
In the inner city of Detroit, instead of students having to try to lease or rent animals on their own, they can join the Pingree 4-H program and all of our members show their animals for free. That is so cool.
Historical Context: Mayor Pingree's Urban Farming
00:04:40
Speaker
So Pingree Farms, what are the links with the history of agriculture in Detroit?
00:04:47
Speaker
directly tied to the history of the agriculture in Detroit. So if you're familiar, are you all familiar with Mayor Pingre? I am, but could you tell us more so anyone who's listening to the podcast can understand what Pingre did? Go ahead. Tell me your, tell me your, your Pingre stories. So I, I went to college in Detroit and he was the potato mare. Am I right? Potato mare. Yeah. They caught on the potato mare.
00:05:15
Speaker
So can you tell us why they called him the Potato Mayor? So ultimately they say that Mayor Pingree was the first urban farm. That's what my research has said. So Jim Green, they called him Farmer Green as a kid because he desires so much to be a farmer. And so also with the history of manufacturing and farming, Henry Ford was a devout believer that manufacturing and farming
00:05:43
Speaker
both hand-to-hand. And so Mayor Nathan Pingree, he was big on how to be able to feed people. And so when he became mayor, it was during that depression of 1893. And so he came up and he decided that we would use vacant land, vacant community land for growing food. And so from my understanding, that's where they termed him the Potato Patch Pingree or the Potato Patch Mayor. Yeah, he was
00:06:13
Speaker
always a legend when I was at Edible Flint of really being that first person advocating for urban agriculture.
00:06:27
Speaker
That was definitely enlightening to learn that so far back that there was somebody that had the thought process that, hey, we've got to be able to utilize this land for something more than being vacant.
Detroit's Urban Farming Leadership
00:06:40
Speaker
And so to see where Detroit is right now with leading the industry in urban farming, I've been meeting so many people that come here just to see.
00:06:49
Speaker
and ask questions about how we have so many urban farms that's popping up. So the name Pingree is directly tied to the history of Mayor Pingree.
00:07:02
Speaker
And again, so this, I'm not, I'm not traditionally a farmer. My family came to Michigan, came to Highland Park actually from Birmingham in Mississippi in 1955. We still own the family house, but in Tuskegee where my family is originally from, we currently have a 30 acre farm that's still in production.
00:07:25
Speaker
So for me taking on this role without knowing this history and like I've just recently learned the connection with Pingree and Mayor Pingree and him being the first urban farmer who made it okay. So to see, to fast forward to now to see what's happening in Detroit and to know that we've always had this manufacturing agriculture connection is definitely enlightening as well. I love what you're saying and I think that
00:07:55
Speaker
you bring up the natural benefits of urban agriculture and agriculture in industrial spaces. Can you talk more about the benefits of urban agriculture and that urban market gardening experience, what it brings to a community, how it aids the community?
00:08:14
Speaker
Definitely. So the urban ag space is important because what I've been seeing and learning in just this journey is that a large farmer suggested to me that it's not wise to
00:08:31
Speaker
realize that a community needs food and instead of taking the garden to them, what we traditionally do is we realize somebody lacks food. We're going to try to buy a truck and ship it to them. Whereas this farmer suggested that we should be more on educating people to be able to set up more small scale farming in communities.
00:08:55
Speaker
So the support for that comes from Tillers International. Tillers International is a ag education facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan. And at Tillers International, they teach 1,800 and 1,900 farming practices. So you can go there and learn broom making. You can go there and see the draft horses, plow and fields, all these skills that we've gone away from.
00:09:21
Speaker
Wow. And so we see these skills and you see what we no longer are capable of doing ourselves. I grew up with great aunts who could preserve peaches and things like that because it was a means of survival and it was a means of education that wasn't passed on to us. And so also at Tillars International, they do a big outreach program in Mozambique,
00:09:49
Speaker
where they go over to Africa and they help to teach these 1800, 1900 farming practices. And the statistic that they said from Mozambique was that 94% of the population is fed through small scale farms.
00:10:05
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, so that really put in the perspective for me because of course we know that full security is an issue. Yes. So full security and national security go hand in hand because if people don't eat, we all in trouble.
00:10:20
Speaker
And so to see the opportunity and to
The Role of Urban Agriculture in Education and Tradition
00:10:24
Speaker
learn the connection of how many people in the city are on the thought processes to how do we feed people? How are we going to be able to sustain ourselves? How are we going to be able to make sure that we don't go hungry? And so that benefit of being able to not one person saying, all right, I'm going to dominate a bigger farm.
00:10:47
Speaker
a bigger farm saying how can I teach more people to better utilize the space that they have. If nothing else everybody should have some type of self-sufficient gardening going on to be able to be confident and know that you'll be okay. I think that's really really important. I know that like in Flint we talk about a lot in our food systems conversations how
00:11:15
Speaker
Our community and ourselves are about one to two or two or three generations now away from.
00:11:22
Speaker
I'm working in the land from having those household gardens. Like you, my family is from the South. We had farming land. Unfortunately, it was sold in about the fifties and sixties, but like our, our cultures, our black farming traditions have been lost through our migration northwards. Do you see a lot of benefits working with the community?
00:11:47
Speaker
on getting back to those traditional land experiences as kind of healing? As kind of healing? I definitely believe that it's healing in being able to first understand where your food is coming from and secondly, being able to grow and cultivate your own food.
00:12:11
Speaker
it's been such a terrible stigma placed upon farming because of course you know it's 400 years of indentured servitude going on with farming so quite naturally the the psychological pain that's been passed down the psychological trauma that's been passed down from generation to generation of that but prior to that there was an experience of farming where
00:12:37
Speaker
We were experts at agriculture. And so to learn the other side of that, to learn the further back history of agriculture and people, for me, it's been an experience that I never would assume that I would be in the road that I'm in. I never would assume that I would be such an advocate of youth and food and agriculture.
00:13:04
Speaker
until I was educated. And so now that I'm educated, I can better see the benefits because just meeting people like you all who are committed to the mission, who are very acknowledged in what's happening in full, helps me to better now when I'm at Pingree. And I have students that I can say, I can point you into, I can point you in the direction of an expert who can tell you better than not. And so that benefit alone of being able to start that connection to large scale farmers,
00:13:34
Speaker
down to the youth who need this education sooner than I did. I didn't start taking food and farming series to a year and a half ago. And so now I feel like it's my responsibility to be able to
00:13:50
Speaker
connect these two worlds. You all shouldn't be talking to me today. You all should be talking to the 4-H leader who runs the garden program or something like that. So ideally, that's my focus as to how can we get the youth to take over and be as committed as we all are. Absolutely. If we're not training tomorrow's leaders today, how will we still be able to
00:14:17
Speaker
have the same systems in place. Exactly.
Ensuring Food Safety at Pingree Farms
00:14:21
Speaker
I know there's a lot of concerns, but can you talk about the role of food safety in the evolution of Pangree Farms? Food safety and evolution of Pangree Farms is probably the number one priority as far as growth and going forward. Awesome.
00:14:43
Speaker
food safety at Pingria when I first started, it wasn't like now that I've been able to go to multiple farms, see different practices that are happening. In my opinion, one year ago, food safety and what we were doing, we would say we were food safe, but the practices, they just weren't there. So now stepping into the role and seeing other experts and how
00:15:08
Speaker
what compost we're using, if we're fertilizing, how we're cleaning our harvest buckets, how we're storing the produce, just seeing these things and realizing the importance. Previously, I didn't know that they say that your store bought produce touches 13 hands prior to reaching your mouth, at minimum 13 hands.
00:15:31
Speaker
So now as you start to better realize that I start to understand the importance of our harvest processes or our planting processes. And so the food safety is such an important aspect because it's literally why we're doing what we do. I'm a firm believer that gut health and mental health are inter-correlated. So how going forward, Pingree is able to
00:15:57
Speaker
be able to create that safe space of planting, safe space of harvesting, safe space of preserving and safe space of distributing is what we should be known for going forward. You should definitely be able to track and know exactly how all of our processes are being ran and that we're understanding. That's awesome.
00:16:21
Speaker
I love the philosophy and I love the connection of gut health and mental health. And also that you're thinking about food safety in all aspects of the farm, from soil to transportation. And I just want to say if you need any help, I'm always here to show up on the farm, to walk through your processes, to give input, to create an action plan.
Youth Engagement through Summer Programs
00:16:44
Speaker
Micah, I need all of that.
00:16:46
Speaker
I thank you all for taking this time just to sit and discuss because it's definitely the outreach from those of you who continue to do this to reach out and say, let me know, I'll pull up. That's always the response I've got from all agriculture people. I will always walk away with that feeling like we're on the right path.
00:17:08
Speaker
It's a beautiful community. It is a beautiful community across the state. And there are so many wonderful people to learn from. Definitely.
00:17:19
Speaker
Thank you so much for talking to us today. I feel like I learned so much. I appreciate you all, most definitely. And I will love to meet up soon. I will email you and come out to the farm. Let's talk about produce safety. Please, let's set that up. We're launching a summer enrichment program that kicks off July 5th.
00:17:40
Speaker
We'll have 20 youth on site four days a week, five hours. And so they'll be paid through the Grody Trait Young Talent Program. And so they'll come over and we'll take them through. We'll have garden duties, barn duties. Some of them will be able to work in the office. And we'll just have an assortment of activities where they'll be working, but they'll be coming over and they'll be learning and going through some of our pilot programs that we've been launching.
00:18:07
Speaker
is definitely a ton of opportunity for you to come over and see some great things.
Additional Resources and Closing Remarks
00:18:11
Speaker
Links to anything referenced in this episode are provided in our show notes, which can be accessed on the website at canr.msu.edu slash agri-food underscore safety. Thank you to everyone for listening, and don't forget to tune in next month for another episode of our Produce Bites podcast.