Many Hands Make Network: Micro food systems in Eugene neighborhoods 

Could Eugene become the urban chicken coop destination of the Pacific Northwest? From the plethora of neighborhood web pages and social networking sites touting chicken advice and bike tours of local coops, it would seem so. The backyard chickens are part of a larger movement in our little town, providing, if you will, a nest egg for tough economic times ahead. Neighbors gather with a new fervor to establish and nurture what I call micro food networks: small ways to exchange goods and services among people who live very close to one another.

Communal living is certainly no stranger to Eugene. Micro food networks, however, show another aspect of living communally, one that not only motivates aging hippies but sweeps across generations, social class and experience level. Bringing your excess zucchini to work is one example; another is exchanging education, such as your salmon smoking process, for goods, like your fisherman friend’s fresh Coho. Eugeneans partake in sharing food regularly, from potlucks to seed swaps. Liz Lawrence and her partner, to take just one example, have benefited from trades of home-baked bread for artwork and the promise of homemade paneer made from goat milk. Others share figs, tomatoes and apples.

With the economy and growing awareness of the need for sustainable living and relocalizing food systems, micro food networks have been cropping up on the neighborhood level as well as among individual families and friends. Many Eugene neighborhoods, including Whiteaker, Southeast and Amazon, have fledgling neighborhood sustainability committees, chronicling their efforts in newsletters, webpages, wiki collaborations and online discussion forums. You’ll find a range of motivations for participation, from individuals bunkering down for fallout from global climate change to grandmothers who don’t want to waste the plums that keep plumming on their Italian prune trees. 

Leading the pack in online social neighborhood networks is undoubtedly the Friendly Area Neighborhood, with a Facebook-like group that includes almost 100 people living in Friendly and College Hill. The Friendly Neighborhood Farmers (FNF) site encourages neighbors to meet one another at gatherings where food and garden labor is shared. Special groups on beekeeping and chicken-raising have sprung up on the site. The hands in the photo belong to Matt Lutter’s Friendly neighbors, who recently collaborated on creating a traditional cob oven made of recycled concrete pieces, straw and mud.

FNF founder Robin Scott explains her inspiration for the group: “I started the Friendly Neighborhood Farmers group because I noticed a Craigslist.com posting for a ‘chicken sitter.’ The person posting lived two blocks from me. We have chickens too, and I didn’t realize we had someone so close by who also had chickens. We connected and started watching out for each other’s chickens when one of us went out of town. I realized how little I knew about my neighborhood after living here for 15 years.”

Though the group has an active interest in urban chicken coops, the main focus is on the kind of farming Eugeneans can manage in their backyards, and members are encouraged to list their specific interests, whether those are permaculture practices such as rainwater collection systems or organic vegetable start sharing. Several members discuss their hopes to barter eggs for garden produce or even space to plant in someone else’s yard.

Egg lovers have united in other events, such as the recent “Tour de Coop” bike tour of River Road chicken coops. River Road resident Jan Spencer spreads the word about these types of community-building activities on his newly hatched social networking site, with a tone and role similar to the FNF. 

For those Eugeneans who do not have garden space and choose not to garden in the city-established community gardens, exchanging space with neighbors for a share in the proceeds may become a popular option. Many of these miniature, amateur CSA shares are in the formative stages this year. New social networking sites for these types of garden space shares — one for River Road and another for Whiteaker — are established and waiting for participants. If inexperienced, well-meaning groups can turn to the wealth of resources available to gardeners and food preservers in Eugene, such as the low-cost workshops and research-based publications available through Lane County’s OSU Extension Service.

South hills resident Sarah Gilbert urges us to consider fruit tree gleaning and utilizing casual community gardens planted in parking strips around the city, offering produce for anyone interested. Often they will be marked with a sign or be obvious to passersby. And don’t forget to give something back: Gilbert will often return a gift from the fruit she has gleaned from a tree, “something really special, such as fig pear lavender jam … this is the most fun micro-food network I can imagine!”