Hyperlocality and Abundance with Jamiah Hargins

This month on Repast, Diana Winters and Beth Kent, a fellow in environmental law and policy at the Emmett Institute at UCLA Law, talk with Jamiah Hargins, founder of Crop Swap LA and the Asante Microfarm, about healthy food access, the need to keep things local, and why Crop Swap LA is actually a lifestyle company.  Jamiah, Diana, and Beth discuss the intricacies of growing and distributing food in L.A., L.A. food policy, and exciting Crop Swap LA and microfarm developments.  Jamiah also points to meaningful volunteer opportunities for students and others looking to make a difference in healthy food access, community development, and food policy.

Jamiah Hargins is the founder of Crop Swap LA.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Beth Kent is an Emmett/Frankel Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy at UCLA Law.

Crop Swap LA's website is here.

You can find a L.A. Times article about Jamiah here, and one in Food and Wine here.

Transcript

Michael Roberts 0:07

Hello. Welcome to Repast, a food law and policy podcast from the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy at UCLA Law. I'm Michael Roberts, the Executive Director of the Resnick Center.

Diana Winters 0:20

And I'm Diana Winters, the Assistant Director of the Center. The Resnick Center performs cutting-edge legal research and scholarship in food law and policy to improve health and quality of life for humans and the planet.

Michael Roberts 0:33

Each month we'll bring you an interview with thought leaders transforming food law and policy.

Diana Winters 0:47

Hello, welcome to Repast. Today, Beth Kent, a Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy at the Emmett Institute at UCLA Law, and I, Diana Winters, speak with Jamiah Hargins. Jamiah, who is the founder of the gardening collective CropSwap LA and Asante Microfarm, studied political science at the University of Chicago and International and Public Affairs at Columbia University before moving to LA and dedicating his time to creating a path to healthy food access and job development in underserved communities in Los Angeles. Welcome, Jamiah.

Jamiah Hargins 1:24

Thanks.

Diana Winters 1:24

Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for having me. We're so happy you're here. So can you start by telling our listeners a little bit about CropSwap LA and Asante Microfarm and what made you commit yourself to transforming the food landscape?

Jamiah Hargins 1:39

Yeah, thanks. Well, CropSwap LA, it's a company we started here in the city about three years ago that was designed just to get gardeners to share their extras with each other. But ultimately, throughout the pandemic, we began seeing cracks in our supply chain that led us to want to grow food initially on any unused land that we have in the city. So it's easiest so far for us to get our hands on front yards by making agreements with homeowners on what we'll do on their yard, which includes a landscaping job so that we can kind of terraform the yard to grow food and water recycle. And it also includes a membership arrangement for their neighbors within a mile to buy that food. So it ends up being a business, not only for my employees, to transition their careers toward urban agriculture, but also it's a movement. Folks are seeing that space can be used more intelligently, that water can be recycled in growing food, and that profits can be made and split equitably among all of the parties.

Diana Winters 2:38

That's great. So you mentioned the pandemic.

Jamiah Hargins 2:40

Yeah.

Diana Winters 2:41

So you saw the supply chain disruptions, which obviously we're still having. Those affected your business model?

Jamiah Hargins 2:49

Yeah, and 100%. You know, at first it affected us mainly with opportunities in an ironic way. Farmers outside of the city who had their supply chain disrupted didn't know where to put the food. So they heard we were doing things with food in LA and reached out to us to say, hey, you know, anyone that could use this extra food, you know, we can't sell it to our grocery stores right now or otherwise. And we said, yeah, absolutely. We knew nonprofits, people who needed help in the community. That built our reputation and then led us into a grant where we had a public voting competition for $50,000. So with our charitable work earlier, it gained us, you know, momentum and you know, awareness so that we could win that grant for 50 grand and then use that money uh to make our first Asante microfarm. So, yeah, it's definitely open opportunities. I feel like our supply chain has always been precarious and it's been misguided by economics and politics. Um, from you know, the percentage of our plate that ends up being nutritious to the methods in which we cook our food, we we aren't focusing on the right goals. Um, I think the goal is that we enable our citizens with healthy bodies, minds, and spirits, uh, and that the input of their food is the first, first strategy, right? Um and it takes leadership to admit that incentives are crisscrossed uh between our political leaders who you know delegate land and opportunity in ways that that need to serve themselves as well, but also in business, such that you know large producers of food far away have kind of captured the urban food market and and in a sense held captive those that are forced to use it because there's not really opportunity to grow food. Many folks live in small spaces, many folks live in shared spaces, and in the context of LA, with water being scarce, growing food also has a tremendous cost. Uh so you know what we're trying to do is demonstrate that with some kind of clever engineering, we call ourselves guard engineers because we you know combine agriculture, landscaping, and pond making in order to constantly keep water on site, capture rainwater, and use that to grow the food. So, yeah, we we have to push back against you know allowing this complacency with our supply chain. There are methods that we're showing and others have too of bringing ourselves out of that that cycle. It's like an endless cycle. But but yeah, we're doing with the Sante micro farm. We've got over 50 members, and uh we're gonna keep it around 15. And for our next micro farm, uh not far from there, and also in the Mert Park area, that should serve two restaurants uh from that location. So it really is showing a different variety of model, and we're excited to be doing that.

Diana Winters 5:47

I heard you say, you know, uh, or I see a focus on local food, on growing it locally, eating it locally. How do you ensure that the food stays local? That it's not like is that through your membership program, or what are you guys doing?

Jamiah Hargins 6:05

It's it's such a great question. How do you ensure that the food stays local? And I think how we ensure that is first by refocusing on how food is supposed to be nutritious. And it's ironic jump, but food is supposed to be nutritious. 24 hours after it is harvested, most lettuces have lost 70% of their nutrient values. There's this thing called phytonutrients, uh, which are only active in the plant when it's been charged with the sunlight. And after being harvested, the plant tells itself not to, it doesn't need the phytonutrients anymore. It's not pulling up nutrients from the soil anymore. So, what that means is whoever takes the food should be nearby enough that the maximum amount of nutrition gets into their body, right? So the best is like you pick it right there and you eat it. The worst is they pick it in Iowa and ship it down here and it's stored, and then we make our way to go buy it at a store like weeks later, um, or many days later, I'm sure. So, what we do is uh we have a rule on our membership that they got to be within two miles in order to sign up. And we have an incentive uh pricing for those who walk versus those who drive. So we're trying to encourage people to walk or ride a bike to come pick up their bags every every Sunday. And occasionally we'll do deliveries for folks, but we really want people to connect with the community too. I think it uh strengthens membership. And uh a lot of studies have shown that if you focus on hyper-local activity, then it's better for business and it's better for community cohesion. So I I like that aspect. Uh, similarly with our restaurants, uh, any of them that sign up with us uh would would ideally be within one or two miles. And if we dot around Los Angeles, eventually we'll have the whole the whole area kind of covered. So I also hire hyper locally. I think it's important that people in the block feel responsible for themselves. And it gives me peace knowing that if the irrigation breaks in the middle of the night, there's someone just down the street to fix it. But you know, it's uh it's beneficial to walk to work and earn $20 an hour harvesting crops for your neighbors. It's just sounds like a dream.

Diana Winters 8:24

Yeah, no, that's great. And that's what um so your your staff are also they are hyperlocal. I that's a great term, also. Okay. Totally. Um, that's fantastic. What obstacles have you faced? And I'm sure there are too many to list. Alora, have you encountered any great problems in your endeavors?

Jamiah Hargins 8:48

Um I I'm grateful that every problem has presented more than one opportunity with it. So um, you know, early on, any anyone listening that that plans to do something courageous in your community, even if you don't know it's courageous yet, um, just you know, there's going to be support for you, and then there's also going to be distractions for you. Distractions can be like a disgruntled partner, business partner or something, or a criticism, an aesthetic criticism, or a suggestion that you're not doing enough. That has been a lot of pressure. But along with that, those opportunities they they open up more. Um, like when I have gotten all this press since like April, it's been a little bit busy, but now we know we can reach out to our community to get things done. Like as simple as getting some dirt moved from one place to another. We've had many volunteers stepping forward, which is grateful. We're grateful for that. And yeah, I feel like the biggest challenge though hasn't hasn't come yet. And it's going to end up being um a challenge of of ethics. So who gets the food and why? That I've been anticipating being being a real challenge. That's why you know hyperlocal is also a nice excuse, right? When people across town say, we need it over here. And I say, I can't get over there. So, but it it's also that it becomes very much about power when you say who gets the food and not. Whether our staff aren't able to take it themselves, it becomes an issue of power in districts, like city council districts, for instance. Um, when a council member wants to micro farm in their area, but uh I'm busy over here. You know, it has it has a lot to do with the media conversation at the time. For instance, yeah, I think it's advantageous right now. We're lucky that it's gotten really back to hyperlocal tendencies. People realize it it's better to be doing things nearby and to grow food in their communities, but that conversation could shift at some point. You know, it may become, it may become unpopular at some point. And by then we have these microfarms out there. So that's why we got to keep innovating. One of the things we did this week is we started our fruit picking operation again, uh, where we go to people's backyard trees and take whatever they'll offer us, and we include that in our bags now. So uh we found a way to to innovate uh when we needed kind of extra to pad in the bags, and that's an endless opportunity. Thankfully, the nature of nature is abundance, um, abundance in creativity and opportunities, you know, expanding into jams and seasoning, eggs and honey. Um, all of these are extra layers of abundance. So yeah, I've noticed that the whole three years. Uh, and uh anytime I have encountered something, I just dip back into the abundance.

Diana Winters 12:05

That is so great. The idea, I mean, pivoting from problems to opportunity and focusing on abundance. I am going to try to incorporate that into my own life. It's really great. Um Beth, I'll turn to you for a moment.

Beth Kent 12:21

Wonderful. Thanks, Diana. So, Jamaya, speaking of creativity, another space where we've seen you be really creative is when it comes to working within existing regulatory systems and also creating new policies. So we love to hear a little bit about what it takes to grow and distribute food in Los Angeles, the restrictions that apply, and you know, what we can be doing to change the policy landscape going forward to support efforts like yours.

Jamiah Hargins 12:49

Fantastic. Yeah, thanks, Beth. And I think that that that's a great way to look at it because um, you know, the policy landscape is one that can either help or hurt you, which is why it's just always good to be involved. It's good to influence when you can. Um, when you know your heart's pure, right? Like I recognize that the power I alluded to earlier in this food movement, it could actually fall into the hands of the wrong people uh that would like to squash this movement. Um, you know, if a policy were made prohibiting our actions, for instance. And so I like to keep our team on it. Um there's actually a young uh researcher at at um the university uh who is helping us. Uh, she's just started a uh public an urban planning program at UCLA, and it's just great to have teammates thinking about this. So in Los Angeles, you have basically two regulated areas of food uh, in my point of view. Uh, one is grocery stores that have larger volume and a variety of fresh and processed foods. Uh, and then you've got farmers markets that have uh that are ideally like fresh, unprocessed. Um, and then you've got cottage growers or cottage design cottage cooks, I forget what they're called, but um that is someone that takes something and makes uh a use out of it or an added value, for instance, if you want to make jam from strawberries. Uh so those are actually three levels, but there's no level for gardeners or urban gardeners to um regulate trade among that that net that circuit. So if I grew a bunch of pumpkins and I wanted to give them away, it's no problem. There's no regulation on that. If I want to sell them, then I can sell them directly from my house with no regulation uh or issue. But if I want to sell it at a farmer's market, I do need to get a permit for that. And that just requires you to admit that you are the one that grew those pumpkins, um, that you're not taking someone else's pumpkins and selling them here in LA because there's no way to trace uh if anything goes wrong with the consumer. It's all consumer-facing. Um, and that's what's exciting to me because the way that we're doing our memberships uh from the microfarms directly uh is directly like beneficial to the consumers. So it's very unlikely that folks would be discontent enough with us to like cause a complaint of anything when the food is is is for them. But one of the things that we're being creative about is uh bringing in extra food that we get from people's trees. I mentioned this includes star fruit, guava, kiwi, grapes, bananas. I mean, people have all kinds of things growing in LA, and of course the citrus, right? So that's tons and tons of food a year that we could be collecting uh and putting into our circulation. It it's about, you know, designing methods before there's regulation around it, so that when that opportunity comes to regulate it, we can kind of show best practices and encourage, you know, this be the direction. I like that we we figured out water recycling, um, but there are some regulations that can change around the turf removal programs uh in LA. Uh it's great, you know, if you take your grass off and put desert plants or something like that, they give you three bucks per square foot. And for a regular yard, it may be about $5,000. But that requires a certain kind of irrigation to be installed. And we've actually figured out technology to recycle water to where the irrigation doesn't have to be that way. I mean, it gets technical, but basically there's a sprayer and then there's a bubbler and there are drip lines, and they say you're allowed to use all of all of methods except sprayers. And our our argument is, but we're recycling the water, we should be able to use it any way we want to. So that's a small detail, but for the most part, I think environmentally speaking, uh, Los Angeles has shown interest uh and and courage toward conserving water better. I think for the farming community, using water recycling, like subterranean storage facilities of water is is really uh the future. So if it can be continually incentivized, that's one way we can we can do well together.

Beth Kent 17:20

That's great. And it's awesome to hear that in some cases you're you know piloting best practices and then being able to provide those success stories to decision makers, even you know, before they start considering those types of policies. That's wonderful.

Jamiah Hargins 17:35

Yeah, thanks.

Beth Kent 17:36

And I know we've talked a little bit about the membership model, but it would be great to hear a little bit more about that and how it compares to trap gardening and other forms of production, just both in terms of a you know innovative policy solution and also the benefits it provides for the organization in terms of sustainability.

Jamiah Hargins 17:55

Yeah, totally, totally. So our membership operates sort of like a CSA membership for any other farm. So it kind of regulates our income. We know how many members there are and therefore what the revenue will be, irrespective of the production volume of the food. And so there'll be some months where the members are like, man, we're getting so much, you know, huge heads of lettuces, all these herbs, and you know, peppers and eggplants. Wow. And then other months like this month, where we had a transition of the season uh where our members are getting like a few things and fruit. And so uh they understand that's gonna be some ebbs and flows, and that's how farming works, but it also helps protect us legally. So if there is a big issue with the food, say someone eats something, chokes on a seed, and like wants to wants to sue, we can actually say, Well, we we didn't sell you the food, we sold you the membership. And this is what a lot of corporations do for other other businesses that that sidestep liability. And sometimes they sidestep regulation entirely and saying we're not in the food business, we're in the membership business. But you know, obviously we we want to make sure no one chokes. I just want to put that on record. Chew your food. Uh but also um, you know, we it allows for a lot of things to be included in a membership, right? So right now we're just including these food bags in the future. It may include uh tours of our micro farms, it may include, you know, a shirt once in a like upon signing us, or they're walking around advertising for us, or experiences. We've had a lot of agro agro tourism opportunities, um, such as visiting a beekeeper and visiting another my urban farm. Um so this can be really a whole experience. Uh, I think it is a lifestyle company. We're a lifestyle company. Uh I haven't really said that, but I think it's true. You know, transitioning from the lifestyle that we we have to one that we want.

Diana Winters 19:56

That's awesome. You mentioned, um I heard you mentioned bees, and uh you've mentioned a couple of times jam. Like, is do you have an idea of including things like honey, or I guess you could think of, I don't know whether you would locally source flour and millet, but bread baked from that things. Have you thought about expansion opportunities?

Jamiah Hargins 20:16

I love those ideas, yes. And uh for the bread, we've thought about what it takes to grow wheat here and if it's worth it per square foot. Yeah, we're thinking about all that. Uh certainly around eggs, uh, both chicken and duck. There are breeders nearby and there are homeowners who are willing to take these on to grow these out for us as a family project, you know, as a as a lifestyle transition. Um and, you know, honey for sure. We love to be, you know, we're gonna start out partnering with an existing honeymaker, probably, uh just selling theirs. Uh and then once we get them under under our umbrella, basically, um, we can we can grow out that more. They could become a trainer and create career pathways for for people. Uh so yeah, inevitably this is um this is expansive. It's something very delicate that I I have in my hands and our team. We're about 19 people. We're we're very kind of humbled by all this this meaning in our world now, like the meaningful work that we're doing, like the smiles on the kid's face just yesterday when we were at the micro farm. I mean, he hadn't been back to the micro farm in a couple months, and he says, man, they're they're even greener than last time. And uh that tasted amazing. Or I can't wait. He had the bag of veggies. He's like, I can't even put the whole bag in my backpack. He's just so impressed. So, like, that's the that's like the spice of it. That's like the spice of life that can be reignited. It's still in us, and we respond to it. Um, we had like 15 volunteers out there yesterday. We replanted 300 seedlings. And we have things like cauliflower, broccoli growing, just it's a it's a magical opportunity, not only for them, but for the homeowners who who they themselves feel like community heroes, uh, and they deserve to for offering their space like this. Yeah.

Diana Winters 22:15

So homeowners can feel like heroes and offer their space. And you talked about harvesting fruit from, I mean, there are talk about abundance, like fruit trees in Los Angeles. But do homeowners do they receive anything besides feeling like a hero? Um what in in terms of uh harvesting fruit from trees, et cetera, or using um land? How do homeowners benefit, I guess, if for lack of a better word, materially?

Jamiah Hargins 22:46

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so we offer 5% of our net revenue to them. That ends up aligning our interests together to keep costs low and income high. Um, so by the end of the year, we'll look at our numbers and say, okay, Asante, how much have we earned? Um, homeowner gets 5%. And let's see, 10. I did the math, and that ends up being about uh it could be three, it could be three to five thousand dollars a year. Uh so they also benefit from the turf removal uh by not having grass anymore. Uh having grass costs about 800 gallons of water a day for uh like the large size front yard, 800 gallons. And when you see these sprinklers go off, it's just rolling down the street. It's a huge cost. Um, I think their bill on the water used to be about $450 a month. Uh so now with that reduced to zero or a little bit over zero, they're saving that every month as well. So yeah, it'll pay itself back as an investment to the homeowner uh after just about two years. Uh, it's a $35,000 investment and uh it's about the same as most landscaping jobs, but uh this one pays itself back and feeds the community. That's great.

Beth Kent 24:00

So, Jamaya, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of listeners who are excited about this and want to get involved. And so, first we love to hear if there's any opportunities for UCLA law students to volunteer with you. Um, and then if there's sort of more general opportunities for just interested folks and community members.

Jamiah Hargins 24:22

Yeah, absolutely. So on the UCLA law students, um, anyone listening that is interested in like contracts, we have a few agreements that we we modify periodically based on different uh engagements. And uh we'd love to have a volunteer work with us on that. We have a pretty interesting like operating agreement with our employees uh that after their first year, they get to uh receive a portion of our net profit to get uh as like a bonus, um, and that it endows itself for them after their fifth year. So if they leave afterwards, they still grow with us. And that's that's just a unique kind of legal way to create loyalty uh and and cause mission orientation. But if you want to get your hands dirty, you can also join us on Sunday mornings, nine o'clock, actually eight o'clock to nine thirty. We are out there harvesting, washing, drying, and bagging, putting new seedlings in there, adjusting irrigation things. So if you really want to do that, that's cool. And then if you are committed to this, this world, um, you could become a trainee and eventually a part-time employee. So anyone listening there too, uh I'm sure you have to do something else after law school, but you could help out in the summers on your breaks. Yeah.

Beth Kent 25:45

That's wonderful. Um, and then do you have any advice for students who want to be involved in progressive food policy in Los Angeles, maybe even as a career?

Jamiah Hargins 25:56

Yeah, for sure. I think now's a great time. Um so just have have real courage and know that any way that you come you come into this space is going to be useful. The food justice space is just like a blatant, it's like a it's like a wildfire. You can't not see it. And you know, understanding some of California's food policies uh and labor practices is very important, not only you know, in LA, but especially in the Central Valley and other parts of California. Labor policies and labor rules around agriculture are just like the most important area to know. Yeah, I'm very careful to treat my people really well in case it's hard work. So, you know, for those interested in helping on a policy level with me, I'm also involved with state senator Kamlager. She's uh up in Sacramento, used to be uh an assemblywoman here in California, here in LA, and she's helped us recently to secure $4 million for the state budget for CropSwap LA. So we'll be expanding our operations through the city. Um I am hiring, I'm actively hiring, and I think it's wise to have to have staff like a legal in-house at some point. Um, I haven't, I think that's gonna start in February of 2022. And so, yeah, anyone interested in in just getting involved, you know, love to have you come by.

Beth Kent 27:25

Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Diana Winters 27:28

This has been so great, Jamaya. Thank you. The growth of your operations is amazing, and I can't wait to see what happens in the coming year. We will put links to CropSwap LA and some of the major media that's covered you recently in the show notes of this if our listeners want to read about it. But thank you so much for joining us.

Jamiah Hargins 27:52

Sure, it's a pleasure. Thank you both so much, and uh, thank you everyone for listening.