Huerto de la Familia is a nonprofit organization in Eugene that aids Latino families in becoming food secure. Their organic garden program provides the Latino community with their own plots of land so they can grow their own organic, culturally appropriate food, as well as monthly workshops taught in Spanish about organic gardening, small-scale farming, food preservation and more. This gives families both sustenance and economic security in that they can rely on having produce from their garden instead of buying it from the store.
What is food insecurity?
While food insecurity is an epidemic that millions of people in the United States are regrettably familiar with, the term continues to be incorrectly used. Food insecurity is not simply a lack of any type of food; it is the lack of quality or healthy food.
This slight adjustment in the definition makes all the difference in terms of who lives in food deserts — geographic areas that meet standards for food insecurity — which disproportionately affects the Latino population in the United States. This means that an area can be considered a food desert even if it is littered with fast food restaurants, which they often are.
This clarification also calls into question what “healthy” means. Healthy foods are most often thought of as being any type of fruits and vegetables — which is accurate — yet there is another layer to health. Culturally rich foods, or nutritious foods that are tied to one’s cultural identity, bring people a sense of joy and comfort — especially if they are far from home.
The structural problem of food insecurity
In Lane County, Latinos make up 24% of the food insecure population, compared to 12% of non-hispanic whites. According to Megan Carney, a cultural anthropologist featured in Huerto de la Familia’s documentary “Harvest of Pride: The Garden,” food insecurity is “very much a structural problem, and that income, lack of a livable wage, lack of affordable housing; these are the driving forces for preventing families from accessing an adequate, nutritional [and] culturally acceptable diet via appropriate socially acceptable means.”
These structural problems stem from language, cultural or educational barriers that make the Latino community more susceptible to job insecurity, which depletes their income, therefore causing food insecurity as a result. Sarah Cantril, the founder of Huerto de la Familia, saw how many Latino parents went hungry in order to feed their children, as well as their lack of access to food assistance programs, and decided to take action.
“In 1989, I was working with a group of Latinas in a birth-parent education course and approached them about starting a garden and so that first year in ‘99 we started with six women in a 300 square foot plot,” Cantril said in “Harvest of Pride: The Garden.” “Then in 2004, we changed locations and received non-profit status and worked with 12 families and it’s steadily grown ever since. In 2008, we were working in three community garden sites with 30 families and now we’re working with over 50.”
Cantril’s statement was made 11 years ago. Since then, the number of community gardens has doubled — with a seventh on its way in Cottage Grove — and they are working with 200 families.
Starting an organic garden
The process of becoming part of the Huerto de la Familia program is quite simple. You call the organic garden program office and get added to the waitlist of the community garden that is closest to your home or place of work. Once there is an opening you are given one to two plots of land, which measure 15 by 20 feet each, which are enough to be self-sufficient in terms of growing your own produce. Gatlin Fasone Alshuyukh, the organic garden program manager, reminisced over some of the gardeners who have had their plots for 17 years.
“The community gardens are definitely a space of consistency and autonomy, because people get to keep those plots, make decisions in the plots,” Alshuyukh said. “Their children grow up in those community gardens and they choose what they plant, how they plant it and it’s really, really lovely because it can be a place for families to really put down their roots in this community.”
Elva Webster, the garden and community engagement coordinator, as well as a plot-owner of seven years, echoed these sentiments, further detailing the ways in which this program fosters something more than produce: a community.
“If you have extra [food] — it’s a community — we share,” Webster said. “That gives us an opportunity not to learn about just our food, it’s also medicinal plants because our community has a lot of knowledge about that too.”
Webster is from Michoacán, Mexico. She is the fifth of 12 children, but is the only one that lives in the area. She’s been living here for almost 24 years and is married with two kids. She reminisced over her family recipes made from herbs native to Mexico that she has been harvesting in the community gardens.
“Epazote — my parents used it before when I was a kid — if you have worms in your stomach, she cooks milk with that epazote plant, boils that and you drink that before you eat anything and that was super good for cleaning your stomach,” Webster said. “So things like that, it comes from our families and it’s amazing to know a little bit of.”
In this way, vegetables bring her health in more than one facet. Not only are they packed with nutrients and medicinal properties, they also harvest her sense of cultural identity tied to memories of her mom trying to make her feel better as a young girl. As an added bonus, she reported that she is almost entirely reliant on her harvest and rarely has to buy produce anymore.
“We do a lot of canning, a lot of people can those tomatoes and in my case I froze them. Unless I want to do a pico de gallo [during the winter], I don’t buy tomatoes,” Webster said. “That supports and helps a lot to families, because it’s not only me, they preserve the food or sometimes they dry them. That’s why every year we provide these workshops that way we teach them [about food preservation].”
Your contribution
If you are interested in volunteering for this organization but do not know the first thing about gardening, you are not alone. Huerto de la Familia welcomes volunteers with open arms — even if they have no prior gardening experience. Alyssa Rueda is a prime example of this.
“Personally, I’m not much of a gardener because I grew up in Las Vegas, but I’ve always loved the idea of it. I’ve always wanted to learn more about it [but] it’s always felt very intimidating, like no one wants to teach me,” Rueda said. “But I just kept showing up and I kept asking people to help, especially Elva … and I just kept asking her if I could help her water, if I could help her harvest or anything that she needed and it just kind of stuck.”
Food alleviates so much more than physical ailments — it can bring back childhood memories, reconnect you to your roots and create communities — which is why it is so devastating when families go without it. Huerto de la Familia’s program aids Latino families in becoming self-sufficient and food secure — one garden at a time.
“I feel more healthier than before because gardening provides you everything: exercise, sunshine [and] energy,” Webster said. “Yes, you get tired, but it’s a really nice way to get tired because at the same time you see your plants — your babies — grow and then you use that to eat.”
Are you curious about how this article was written? Check out this week’s “How It’s Reported” with Hana Dussan.
