Title: Blog 11: Lesson 1 Reflection

This poster advertised during WWI and WWI and the integration or urban farming into societal needs is the equivalent sort of enlightenment I hoped to impart on the active minds of my audience...

1. What are you most proud of in your lesson, and why?

- I am most proud of the inquisitive approach I took when tackling my first lesson of senior project.  Throughout my presentation, my goal did not lie in educating the listener to the fullest extent but rather to be give an introduction to my exploration into urban farming as a whole.  This goal of mine I hope helped to clarify the audience’s perception of what it is my essential question is hoping to answer, and hoping to educate in regards to community engagement and enhancement, as well as food security and environmental stewardship.  Now that I have established a platform consisting of my primary studies, I have a pier from which to leap off into the abyss of my topic in all of its complexity - developing a solid essential question along the way so that I don’t enter a state of limbo.

  

2. What assessment would you give yourself on your lesson? Explain why you earned that grade using evidence from the component contract.

- I humbly believe that I deserve an AE on my presentation, simply due to the fact that  chose to view this component as a means of briefly covering all aspects of urban farming - relying on the audience to discriminate between the pieces of information thrown out on the stage as to how the topic is relevant to their livelihoods and beyond.  Through breaking down my essential question, defining key terms like those of food system and the definition of urban farming as seen through the lens of real life scenarios I have either researched or heard about from my mentors, I intended for my audience to have experienced excitement rather than confusion as to where my focus lay within the project - especially since my focus was analyzing the topic from all aspects and uses it has to many up and coming issues.  In explaining the background history predating my definition of urban farming, and then relating how I defined the term to be as learnt from my interview with Joy Lam in how she works with MuirRanch, I presented a well-rounded sum of both research and first hand experience.  In this sense, I explored with the reader what it meant to plant a farm in an urban environment, and allowed my lesson plan to develop this curiosity by presenting it with the P requirements of good volume and clear enunciation of approachable wording, confident body language, and constant engagement with the audience by making my information clear and concise.  Based on the feedback I received from the abundance of ‘review’ slips of paper given to me after presenting, my content did prove to be worthwhile in what it taught, going above and beyond merely covering the concept I thought up of when I first chose urban farming to be the focus of my senior project.  In having gone through 3 mentorships thus far, my research was wide reaching as I hoped it would be, stemming from the the history of urban farming throughout American history as cited in “Farm City” and “Grass, Soil, Hope” (two published works I brought up with me) to its “wide reaching social and environmental benefits”, including that of carbon trapping as a means of combatting climate change - excess of carbon in the atmosphere.  Indeed, the research presented heavily relied on the picture slideshow I relied my spoken word upon, wherein there lay multiple printed pieces, most of which I snapped myself.  The real life scenarios in which urban farming was applied followed a similar evolution as my presentation progressed, including but not limited to examples during WWI and WWII, my mentorship at the Arroyo Food Co-op, my current mentorship at Pomona College’s Organic Farm, and the questionable regulations provided on commercially tilled soil in contrast to those on privately-owned urban farms.  To this end, I enforced both breadth and depth throughout my lesson, and do hope my goal was fully realized so that it may achieve a higher grade.

3. If you could go back, what would you change about your lesson?  How can you use that knowledge to give a better Lesson 2?

- I would definitely have practiced my presentation bunches of more times.  This time around, I ran through a mock version of my lesson in front of my mom and dad, who then supplied me with advice and pointers for future reference.  This run-through though came the night before my presentation was due to commence, and was reserved to that time frame only.  If I would have invested more time into rehearsing, I may have developed my conclusion a tad bit more adequately.  Although, I hope the open-ended nature of my exit off stage left the audience wanting more as is the atmosphere compatible with my goal for this first sneak peek into what I am laboring towards.  The second lesson will be a continuation to where I left off in my presentation of urban farming as a process imparting sustainability and activism to city environments.

Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

The entrance to Pomona College's Organic Farm, with the farm's toolshed of general supplies in the colorful hut to the left and a new compost pile behind it

1. Please explain how you are spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else?  Are you shadowing?  Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to the topic?  If so, what?  Are there other people who are experts in the location?  Etc...)

- My workplace is a farm, with two sectors wherein there lie rows of crops in earlier stages of development and fruit trees with multiple years of seniority.  Through my mentorship with its manager, Scott Fleeman, I can volunteer with whatever work he tends to on the grounds, with other volunteers, college students and random Claremont residents alike, helping out as well.  In this way, the location of my mentorship is laid back and gives me the freedom and direction with which to shadow an urban farmer in his natural habitat - and analyze his impact on a community -, and learn from his techniques that can be applied to truly any plot of land in Southern California.  There are human wealths of information in the form of farm hands on duty other than Scott though, with one of them being Sam, an elderly gentleman who maintains a (an aspiring) French Intensive garden on the Eastern realm of the farm.  This secondary unofficial mentor of mine is quite proud of his sprouting produce, especially his vibrantly colored and scarily spiced chili pequins, and so getting him to passionately talk about urban farming and his involvement in the idea is a minor feat.

2.  How did you find your mentor?  How did you convince this person to help you?

- My sister attends Pomona College, and I have known of the existence of an organic farm on the college’s campus for about a year, volunteering there with her in the past.  Back then, I really did not know its significance, but after drawing up my plans for senior project, I right away realized its potential to the community and more excitedly my project.  I simply researched the farm’s website, and found the means by which to email the manager - the highest position held on the grassroots site - with a plea for farming enlightenment.  I immediately heard back from Scott wherein his first note on the project’s topic was that he was glad I was interested in urban agriculture.  The beginning of a professionally collaborative relationship thus began.  

3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship?  How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship/with this person

- Due to the fact that I have spent around 5 Saturdays working on the farm closely shadowing Scott and his directives through the completion of 2 hour long tasks that account for substantial farm maintenance, I have developed a rewarding rapport with my mentor and the coworkers he calls his friends.  Seeing how dedicated I am to every task he assigns me, ranging from seeding garlic chive for the proliferation of a handy seed bank to trimming an antique, staple Mulberry tree in anticipation for a farm gala, Scott, I suppose and hope, has deemed me trustworthy and a padawan whom to train with no abandonment to be expected.  The evidence for such two-way comfort, as worked with by the mentor and the mentee, include Scott mentioning my project to most everyone he comes in contact with and he willingly meeting with to sign a form I had forgotten to have him sign in regards to a lengthy interview.

4. What went well in this interview?  Why do you think so?  What do you still need to improve?  How do you know?  How will you go about it?

- The interview mirrored that of a conversation, this being likely description of the interview by how much information I was able to gather from lengthy answers to each of my questions.  Scott was willing to provide the material I needed to further explore my topic before I focus on a concrete, sound essential question, and I would like to think this was due to the open-ended fashion of my questions, meaning they couldn’t be answered through simply worded phrases.  I do still need to improve on my follow-up questions though, which I lack to think of after a primary question is answered.

Link to recorded second interview with Scott - 
https://soundcloud.com/robert-machuca-1/pomona-college-farm-interview-2

Blog 9 - Advisory Prep 3

This photo shows an urban garden in the backyard of a Pasadena home; the lot belongs to a coworker of my dad's

We'll have a house discussion in place of a research check this Friday to check in on how things are going.

1. State whether or not you currently have a mentor, and what the status of your interview is with that person (I have completed the interview, I have scheduled the interview, I have not scheduled the interview, etc).

- Thankfully, I have found a second mentor with whom I hope to work with till the end of senior project arrives.  This mentor of mine is named Scott Fleeman and, as mentioned in an earlier blog, he is the manager of Pomona College Organic Farm.  Converting from a possibility into where I am engrossed in every Saturday, the farm has enabled and will continue to enable my exposure to farm management and farm strategy when it comes to providing the material for sale with the idea of urban farming.  In this way, I have two mentors addressing and stimulating my understanding of the economic and literal implications of my topic, and the anatomy of its process (assembly line) from germination to community involvement and onward towards sustainable shopping.  As of now, I have completed my second interview with my current primary farm hand mentor this past Monday at 2 PM (as he voraciously chewed a citrus of some sort).

2. At this point, your research is probably guiding your studies toward more specific areas within your topic.  Name the area or two you find most promising and explain your reasons.   

- The areas of future study I find most relevant to my topic are those of community engagement (and how this movement can influence politics in the name of food security and shifts towards societal sustainability) and the science of proper soil management when farming for the trend.  It seems both add complexity to a rather simple topic (transforming grayspace into productive greenspace through the growing of produce in city environment) by being able to relate urban farming to multidimensional benefits residing in  local food sourcing and the combat against climate change.

3. What kinds of sources do you think will help you in the next month to gain more research depth?  Where will you go to get them?

- To delve deeper into the science of proper soil treatment when farming, I will continue to read the book “Grass, Soil, Hope” by Courtney White and to analyze the effects of urban farming on a given community, I will look into victory gardens established as community gardens in America during its home front effort in World War II.  To supplement this P.O.V. from the past, I will continue to read the modern-day style of the novel “Farm City”, Novella Carpenter.

4. Write down a possible EQ.  Please don't worry about wording other than ensuring that it provides the option for multiple correct answers.  At this point, the senior team is most interested in understanding your thought process.

→ What are the ways in which urban farming can make effective its definition to a food system?

Blog 8: Independent Component 1 Proposal (Revised December 17, 2015)

This picture shows my shadow over a plot of garden I tended with Elephant Garlic (fist-sized and mild in flavor) at Pomona College's Organic Farm...it has been covered with uprooted herbs to maintain moisture in the drought stricken soil and has been labeled as now belonging to the 'holiday bulb'

At Pomona College's Organic Farm, closely knit students and farmers alike plant garlic cloves for winter tending (they shall sprout after 9 months)...this last time I went to the farm, I made many new college friends and met my mentor who hails from UC Santa Barbara

To get your idea for Independent Component One approved now, please answer the following questions:

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

I am planning to till the soil of and plant a garden in my backyard, relaying the information I have gathered at Pomona College's Organic Farm to my mother - as she acts as a sort of apprentice in my efforts. In this way, it is important to note that I am planning to make my own soil, using worm dung, and compost to make a nutrient rich, carbon trapping patch of dirt.  The produce grown will be seasonal and shall reflect vegetables/herbs/fruits that can be easily be grown in abundance for a family of three - seeing how this homegrown bath of produce affects household costs and the nearby environment. (ie. potatoes, white sage). What's more is that the soil I am beginning my venture with is unhealthy due to paint being splattered on its surface and little to no water reaching a great depth. In addition, the soil is compact and devoid of any plant life, so resurfacing its potential for growth/abundance as described in the book "Grass, Soil, Hope" will be my primary responsibility.
My learning will be further extended by the counterpart to my idea for independent component one: making a self-contained aquaponics urban farm.  This endeavor will take place at my home, where my mom and I will play the part of everyday citizens in the city of Pasadena - which we accurately are -   wanting to eat from land that is ours.  Delving into both forms of urban farming - one based in soil and the other conveniently managed by recycled water and fish - will let me compare their methods as well as cite their similarities as both being solutions to food security and other problems urban farming can easily address.  

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.  

• During planning of my home garden, I will take plenty of photographs at certain time intervals so that the viewer - the senior team and my classmates - can see how the seeds fared by the time the component shall be due - a sort of time lapse of germination if you will.  My end goal is to be able to provide my house teacher with food grown from seed to stock, in a basket preferably to go along with my theme of self-sufficient small time farming.  Hopefully, she - as well as my mother - will enjoy picnicking on the 'fruits of my labor', and will see as I have seen in my mentorship how satisfying it is to taste freshly picked produce brought into existence a few steps, or miles, away.  My other forms of evidence will include a log by which my family members who wish to help with the work load will sign-in to work the garden in an organized fashion - these logins including times when I teach important lessons in how to maintain the vitality of the garden.  The garden will be the legacy I leave to my family home by being documented extensively and resting as a resource, this being the case expailly after I leave for college.
• My aquaponics garden will be pretty straightforward in providing evidence for how much work it took to design and build by hand.  I will include blueprints and design layouts for the idea in a portfolio along with the actual prototype I will have prepped complete with fish and a flourishing set of plants - as I plan that is.  I also plan to interview my mom unofficially on the process we will have taken in buying and hand making the necessary materials.  Her point of view will be essential in accurately judging my ability in passing on knowledge in what I have learnt.

3.  Explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

• By attaching itself so personally to my way of life, my backyard and aquaponics gardens will endure as a area of experimentation for my efforts in understanding how the rungs of farming operate organically and in a city setting.  It will be so enlightening challenging myself with new methods while recycling old ones as I operate in a location I feel comfortable to do so in - exploring my senior topic in the most rugged and risk-free sense.

4.  Update your Senior Project Hours log.

• I have updated my blog thus far in my project.  As the link clearly conveys, I have gotten into a new mentorship at Pomona College’s Organic Urban Farm, where Scott Fleeman - the farm’s manager - is my mentor who shall be teaching me the ropes of planting and gardening in order to maintain a living, established farm essential in providing fresh produce to the Claremont College Consortium on whose campus it stands.  I look forward to spending future Saturday’s on its grounds in conjunction with my mentorship at the Arroyo Food Co-op, it if keeps its doors open having survived its recent financial deficit.  In this way, I am well on my way to comprehensively understanding the steps taken in ensuring the promise of urban farming as having potential to a community (both its people and environment).  
  
  

  

  The end product of urban-based agriculture often invokes the same feeling: pride in being self-sufficient ('Walking Dead' style if you will)
  
  

  
  

Blog 7 - Second Interview Preparation

It will be interesting to see, if the mentorship at the college works out, how being established on a college campus affected and affects the stability of the Pomona College organic farm in its operations 

The Pomona College organic farm stands next to a grassy lawn used for sports and is split into two regions - one with fruit trees and low lying herbs and the other teeming with robust vines and bushes used as herbs and produce...the lot is, from a general point of view, located at the south end of the college campus

1.  Who is your mentor and where do they work?  If their workplace does not reflect their expertise, what makes them an expert?

For my second interview, I shall be interviewing a third mentor of mine - this one hopefully helping me traverse the project till my 1.5 hour presentation next spring.  Unlike my first two mentors at Caltech and the Arroyo Food Co-op, this expert will help me explore the aspect of urban farming concerned with being familiar with farming techniques and measuring a living by the amount of produce self-produced.  Finding one such person at a farm, I will retire from my post as an Arroyo Food Co-op ambassador if the store continues to fare poorly in regards to financial circumstances - as of now, the  Co-op is struggling to stay afloat in their homegrown, community-based vision.  It would be ideal to continue working at a functioning grassroots store so essential to publicizing the idea of urban farming while looking behind-the-scenes at the physical labor put into actually making its shelves stocked.  However, I am expecting to adapt to whatever situation is afforded to me, especially since I have by now fully tapped into the experience and hands-on information (through observation and conversation) available at my two listed mentorships!  

Currently, as I type this post, I am in the process of emailing the head farmer at the organic community farm at Claremont Pomona College - where my sister attends her new college life - to see if he would be willing to mentor me in being more fit - physically and mentally - for this project.  Being that this man has just graduated from UC Santa Barbara with knowledge in biology and general regenerative studies, I feel he is compatible with urban farming as a ‘rising trend’ and a more ‘promising solution’ to many ecological and therefore social issues, like that of food security in a world battling the consequences to climate change.  In the same way the farm manager reflects his recently acquired expertise through his work environment, I hope to take what I have read about in articles for research checks and apply these dreamlike tid bits in continuing the movement towards food sustainability.  If my Pomona contact falls through, I will follow up with the manager at Earthworks Farm, which gives younger generations the opportunity to learn farming techniques from experienced farmers who devote their time to education.  The Farm is unique in allowing each of its ‘students’ manage a farm plot of their own, pulling in big name sponsors to cover costs of the operation.

• Pomona College Farm manager: Scott Fleeman

Scott.Fleeman@pomona.edu

• Earthworks Farm

Senior Farmer (official mentor): Angel Abarca

Program/Development Director: Marianne Zuagg

http://earthworksfarmgarden.org/about-us/staff/

2.  What five (and then some) questions will you ask them about their background?

• What interests growing up most contributed to the fruition of your involvement in urban farming? How do you view your role in bringing urban farming to your community setting? What is your definition of urban farming?
• What struggles have you faced in seeing your ideas come into reality at this workplace of yours? In what ways have these road-blocks stimulated your ambitions? Please detail your ambitions in regards to urban farming.
• How has the community supported you in maintaining the success of your farm? How do you involve the general public in something so against society's reliance on outsourcing?
• Do you relate the idea of urban farming to a trend or a modern-day saving grace? What cause (environmental, economic, etc.) does it most benefit in your opinion, and how can it become more of a staple of ‘everyday life’?
• How has your personal life integrated urban farming into its daily routine? Do you believe urban farming is/has been a keystone of the past or the future?
• What is the prime location of an urban farm and what resources are most needed by a citizen to start one up?
• Which method of urban farming - aquaponic or hydroponic - is most useful? Why? Have you been in contact with either method?
• How does one maximize the potential of an urban farm lot - regardless of its size in acrage?

→ If Scott is chosen…

• What makes having a farm on a college campus beneficial to the farm/more difficult for the situation?
  
  

Inquiry in pursuit of a diverse set of resources…

• How will the drought in California affect the prominence of urban farming in city-communities?
• Who has been your inspiration in your pursuit of urban farming? Where do you plan to continue your career? What career path interests you as of now?

Earthworks Farm is located in El Monte and has been bent on educating the public on how to re-connect with techniques that human ancestors used for sustenance (placing seeds in soil and watching them grow and produce edibles)

It seems that Savodaya Farms is out of the picture for learning the hands-on aspect of urban farming, giving that its farmer training program - a way to most utilize the farm's resources for my mentorship - takes place on weekdays during morning hours - when I must farm grades at school

Blog 6 - Advisory Prep

These were plastic bulk bins I hand-washed two weeks ago while in the humid, hot backroom to the Arroyo Food Co-op...after rinsing them with eco-grade soap, I allowed them to air dry...

1. What has worked well for you concerning senior project this year?  What has made it a positive experience for you?   

- The thing that has most worked well for me during this senior project of mine has been my developing ability in making personal relationships with the people around me.  Doing so has not only enabled me to gather the information and first hand experience I need to isolate my definition of urban farming as my senior thesis, but has also instilled in me a habit of making friends with those of a profession of interest to me.  Making such connections in life will, as I predict, help me become situated in a career and become comfortable in what I has to offer me my pursuits in science and beyond.  I do hope the people I meet today will give me advice for my own future so that I may enter adulthood a sage and experience as a second party to another person’s trials and tribulations.  I love the idea of layering my successes atop the learnt life skills of others and having others - future younglings - layer their own moments of pride atop my future failures sure to come.  One example of how I have come to familiarize myself with this interspecies style of collaboration are my brief conversations with Nikki, Erin, and Kelly as I work in my mentorship at the Arroyo Food Co-op, and how they have made my working more enjoyable and less demanding than if I were an ignored shop-keeper hidden away while stocking shelves.  In being a part of the community surrounding the food revolution urban farming brings to the store, I have associated my mentorship as a positive experience.  I have come to appreciate being around people who are in the same position as me, bringing about a revived prominence for urban farming.  I have also come to appreciate how I am constantly around people who at any point in time can offer me advice for another direction in my senior project.

2. What are you finding difficult concerning senior project?  How can you adapt to make that portion work better for you?  How might the senior team help?

- The  most difficult challenge that has confronted me constantly throughout my senior project has been widening the scope of my exploration into urban farming to include how it can be physically analyzed and its relation to the earth.  To this end, I have been looking to intern at an urban farm and so learn the techniques necessary to farm effectively and thus make urban farming tethered as an idea to reality.  I desire so very much to see fruit and vegetables growing in trees and on vines, and to see how this grown bounty is brought into existence so that it may be placed on shelves like those I stack for consumption at the Arroyo Food Co-op.  To see the assembly line urban farming relies on is my goal, and I now only need to gather up the gumption involved in sending emails to unknown persons at novel workplaces rooted in the dirt.  Doing so I hope will lead me to another mentorship at either Savadoya Farm or Earthworks, which could actually provide me with my very own garden plot.  In this way, I will adapt by learning to be fearless with my ‘hunt’ for my questions in regards to how to define urban farming - a task necessary if I ever hope to think of an essential question!  The senior team will be essential if I intent to make sure that I am not being overly ambitious at any given point during my project’s trajectory, acting as a sort of reality check with a continued advisory prep sessions and hopefully individual conversations.  This team creed will act to settle another stimulus of my worries: my fear of not meeting certain criteria required for P grade consideration.

The bulk bins I adopted under my care were filled with bulk foods like those of beans and rice for a grand opening of a bulk food section at the Co-op this past Sunday...to announce the development of one such amenity and to increase revenue for the store's future endeavors (including that of a possible move to another location more so in the heart of Altadena

Blog 5 - Interview 1 Reflection

This photo mirroring the idea of self-reflecting in mentorship thus far is why I snapped its semi-portrait of the work I employ myself with around three times a week at the Arroyo Food Co-op...the apron I wear symbolizes my willingness to convey the message of the store to act as a liaison to local/quality ingredients provided by local urban farmers/kosher enterprises with similar ideals

Analyzing my interview with Joy Lam – manager and mentor at the ARROYO FOOD CO-OP…

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  Is there anything I would do differently for other interviews?

• Up until now, the most important thing I have learnt from partaking in a mentorship analyzing the sales aspect of urban farming and its lucrative tendencies was understanding how novel and convenient of an idea the trend indeed seemed to be.  My topic, unpacking organic and locally sourced goods onto shelves feeding both mouths and consumerism, seemed so relevant to the successes of the Arroyo Food Co-op that I right away assumed that it was inherently very economical, and only needed a farmer to tend its physical appearances in the ground.  After interviewing Joy Lam this past Tuesday though, I have learned an important lesson: that urban farming needs to be communicated in order to fully reach its potential in supporting livelihoods and a community.  In many urban cases, urban farming is seen as a mere ‘hippie’ movement towards “becoming one with the Earth as if humans are not already”.  The truth to the matter, is that humanity is as natural as any other organism on Earth, and, like other organisms, has a niche to compliment.  It is in this sense that farmers must convey to the general population the true definition of urban farming, and how it shall re-connect humans to this idealistic niche we have abused thus far with over-consumption of natural resources and speeding up the rate of organismal extinction.  In doing so, we as a society will come to reap environmental benefits through replacing barren yards with booming ecosystems and economical ones that will provide income and job profiles to individuals and communities.  This true sense of the term I have been researching is an abstract idea to many, and is many a time not related to how it can provide to real issues we face today, like food security and overpopulation of our world.  Through my first interview during my senior project, Joy revealed to me the effort that must go into relating people in the Pasadena/Altadena areas - where the store is located - with how urban farming and its liaison through the store best fits their interests.  She let me know the struggles she has had to face while running the store to this end, all of which were inflicted through a weakening supply of money.  As she said herself, the Co-op is burning its last reserve funds, stalling its growth and possible migration to another location for more publicity.  Even though the Co-op has plenty of members who pay an annual membership fee so they could shop for deals in its aisles, Joy cites how they do not treat the store as their neighborhood market that they can rely on for sustenance.  In retrospect, the public is not convinced that movements like the one for urban farming don’t have an expiration date.  They are likened to seasonal trends - sure to max out on novelty and not very realistic.  Joy uproots this notion by telling me the efforts of urban farmers and their vendors alike, and how realistic the experience urban farming provides truly is.  In fact, though she attended USC, she considers working at the Arroyo Food Co-op as her trade, with no pay needed.  I believe she is how each consumer should behave, trying to make an often un-sustainable business sustainable despite the unpredictable odds stacked against her.  My senior project spreading the word for these unsung revolutionaries only but helps the movement progress.
• In future interviews, I plan to ask more personal questions.  For example, I asked Joy how the financial state of her store was, but I didn’t ask what her source of strength was in upkeeping her hope for better times.  I also neglected to ask her about her sacrifice in choosing a career path that doesn’t match her career interest.  This change in direction will allow me to better tap into public opinion of urban farming, especially since this perspective changes from profession to profession.  I do like how I didn’t ask the questions given on the interview contract verbatim, but instead had a conversation incorporating all points I needed and wanted to address.    

2. Did I get additional resources and contacts?  What is the most useful?  Why?

• Joy started out the interview with asking me how I define ‘urban farming’.  I told her its vision is turning grayspace into green space, and how this transition from asphalt to tilled soil could benefit a community’s living and sustainability.  Joy then showed how she was disappointed with how people think so idealistically of urban farming as ‘garden-picking’, as she believes this perception hides the human element.  Indeed, urban farming needs to be established in order to be made a living from, as shown in how the store only accepts produce from homegrown farmers who have been licenced and regulated by the city.  The best way to find such vendors is through hunting them down at a farmer’s market, as she chuckles.  In this way, Joy told me to look at how the idea behind urban farming was born out of necessity in America, with the poor setting up community-based gardens from which to pick inexpensive produce during the Great Depression (especially during when the Dust Bowl hit the midwest and left he prices of fruits and vegetables inflated).  These humble origins of a  food revolution deemed ‘hipster’ are what must be remembered as we make the notion of self-sufficiency through locally sourced food more relevant to an everyday life habit for us all.  In this way, urban farming will gather the devotion, not only the interest, of a community and beyond.  Joy, in addition to this advice is seeing a necessary improvement to urban farming, also gave me a contact to an urban farmer in Altadena who owns his own backyard farm plot by the name of the Urban Homestead.  He is new to the business and so relates to my primitive exposure to the idea, except he is willing to devote a career to making it part of his personal life.  The next step that is most useful to me as I explore the implications of urban farming, as Joy hinted at, is to see firsthand the source of produce sold in the store.  Only then can I understand how my thesis affects a livelihood, the environment (and how this is a large selling point currently), and how its complexity behaves as the next step in the evolution of food production.  The step will be useful in retrieving a second mentorship as a farmhand on a actual urban farm to see the inspiration for this idea.
• Link to contact’s website (could be sueful as another interview): http://urbanhomestead.org
• Possible location of second mentor:

http://sarvodayafarms.com

3. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me?

• The interviewee is my primary mentor as of now and has been able to provide me with insight into how the idea of urban farming is in the process of being sold to the public.  By managing both the social media aspect and online catalog of the Arroyo Food Co-op store, she is frontrunner in the management of the store, supervising its daily purchases, political game, and business savviness.  By being honest in what she has experienced in regards to urban farming through the store, I have been able to use her wealth of information to define urban farming as something a bit less dreamlike and capable of being more institutional to society.  This hope for a more logical humanitarian duty for the movement in a community, in addition to its conservation bound premise, is tirelessly being made a possibility by backstage artists like Joy, who know the true interests of humanity in an idea lies in pocketbook interests and self-gain.  Joy’s struggles in helping to make this hope a reality, thus giving urban farming a lasting impression on the economy and harmony of civilization, made me realize the strain a transition to a different form of food security could have on livelihoods before any sort of potential is realized.  My next goal is to understand how urban farming has survived this long through its green roots backing and desirable idealisms.  Joy also opened my eyes to how a person with a set of interests in something so mainstream to many  - research at USC - can be convinced of an idea based on research behind its benefits.  Humans were programmed to care; first we must be shown why to care according to our human nature before urban farming can take root.

PROOFS (audio of interview):

Link to interview audio (including pauses for helping guests to the store)in its entirety:

(Soundcloud): https://soundcloud.com/robert-machuca-1/interview-one/s-JBYTg

This is a scanned copy of the interview verification form signed by my mentor Joy Lam to assure the viewer of the page that interview one of my senior project has been completed, with good reason!