Table for All with Buki Elegbede

[playful music] - There's a reason why they call New Jersey the Garden State.

New Jersey is home to over 9,000 farms that span over 700,000 acres of land.

For being one of the smallest states, we pack a big punch when it comes to farming and agriculture.

We rank third in blueberry, cranberry, and spinach production in the nation.

Not to mention the bell peppers, strawberries, soybeans, corn, and so much more.

[playful music] But farming and farmers as we know them are in danger thanks to big companies turning farming into a genetically modified industry for profit and not the way of life it has been for generations.

Food insecurity has also become a growing concern, thanks in no small part to COVID-19 and inflation that has made the cost of food skyrocket.

Food deserts are popping up in every type of neighborhood across the state.

Today I'm visiting two different farmers who are lifting up their communities but also reminding us that the future of farming is tied to the past.

[rooster crows] [bright, tranquil music] An hour west of urban Patterson, way past the suburbs of Montclair, is rural Asbury.

We're on the border of Warren and Hunterdon counties, just a few miles off the interstate.

[tractor engine running] Who needs a cup of coffee when you have fresh air and a morning tractor ride?

Just another day on the farm.

Charles Rosen is a Canadian-born entrepreneur who pivoted his knack for public service and decided his best efforts were better suited for a farm, where he is re-imagining our food system with just a little bit of liquid courage.

So Charles, how did a former film producer and lawyer get into farming?

- Well, it certainly wasn't intentional.

Through a series of discussions and different activities, I decided to start our company in Newark with a focus on urban renewal and workforce development.

- But why Newark, though?

I mean, there's Camden, there's Trenton, there's Jersey City.

Why focus on Newark?

- We came to learn that the very first industry, or one of the earliest industries in Newark, was hard cider.

Colonial era Americans didn't drink the water, cholera and stuff, I guess, and so it was all about drinking hard cider.

And Newark cider was really globally renowned.

And some even say that the majority of champagne drunk in this country for over 100 years was just relabeled cider from Newark.

- [Buki] What made this New Jersey cider special was the type of apple, native to Newark, the Harrison apple, which had all but disappeared from New Jersey.

In order to start a cidery, Charles needed an orchard.

Not much room for an orchard in Newark, so Charles and his team brought the apples back here.

- So after we found the Harrison apple, this thought-to-be-extinct apple- - Which these are them?

- Yeah.

- But how did you find the Harrison apples?

- Well, with an apple detective, of course.

- Oh, of course.

- Yeah, duh!

Buki, what are we doing here?

Yeah, there's these guys, they're great historians.

This guy found the last remaining Harrison tree in Livingston in 1978, took cuttings from the tree, and preserved it at his orchards in Virginia.

And when we told him our story, he was really excited that we were bringing this apple back to our home.

- I may not like the taste of alcohol but an exception must be made for these nearly extinct apples turned into cider.

I do not drink.

- Oh, you do now [chuckles].

- But Charles says that I'm going to be changed forever, so.

- Ooh, that's a lot to put on somebody but... - I'm waiting to see.

- So, - All right now, I'm scared to try this on camera because... - No, you should-- - Because Charles is in the corner looking at me funny.

Well, I will say I am converted to the hard ciders.

- I would do a full dance.

- This is pretty darn good.

Wow!

- Excellent.

- And I barely taste the alcohol which I'm scared about.

- Oh you really shouldn't taste the alcohol.

And that's what.

- Okay.

I'm not mad at it.

I'm driving tractors.

I'm drinking cider.

Who asks about how this tastes?

Somebody get me out to here?

- [Cam] No, no.

- Changing my whole personality.

Cam, that cider!

I may be a convert.

We didn't come to the Ironbound farm just for cider though.

That pig is huge.

- Yeah this is a Rusty.

- I've never seen a pig this big before.

- Yeah, they are like 600, 700 pounds maybe probably more.

- This is incredible.

I will not jump in because... - Well you are because I think... - Oh, you don't have to they hardly move their feet.

- Wait, wait, wait, who's planning this situation?

- They won't attack, you can just run fast.

- They follow you quickly.

- They'll take you in.

Grace and Taylor will protect you.

- Okay, she's like, "where's the food?".

Behind me!

- She's behind you, kind of.

- Okay.

Wait a second now, come on now.

[laughter] - This is not really for you.

- Okay I'll do [laughs].

I'm thinking they're trying to be for the hot girl Summers but no [laughs].

He's a good Diana.

- [Grace] She's the cutest when she eats [inaudible].

[playful music] - [Buki] Ironbound Farms adopted a centuries old farming practice, now called Regenerative Agriculture, which focuses on the soil's ability to sequester carbon, making it more resilient to climate impact.

Long before Europeans settled in New Jersey, indigenous people protected local ecosystems and conserved biodiversity through managing the lands, making them truly the first farmers and the first ever to practice Regenerative Agriculture.

- We started with a mission.

This idea that a for profit company could care about human and environmental repair, right.

I didn't really know how to do it, we didn't even have a business plan but we learned about Regenerative Agriculture.

And what that's about is how do you build a system of diverse organisms in the soil microbiological life, where as each organism the system gets stronger, the whole system gets stronger?

And I literally had an epiphany in working the land.

I'm like, well, that's what community building should look like.

Each individual, regardless of color or political beliefs or sexual orientation is each individual in the system gets stronger.

The whole system gets stronger.

- If I win, you win.

- Yeah.

And I think that's sort of not really how we think about the American dream anymore.

It's mostly like, I can only win if you lose.

In addition to changing the way we see farming, Charles also wanted to change how we see the chronically underemployed and decided to hire formerly incarcerated individuals.

- We have less than 5% of the world's population.

We have more than 25% of the world's incarcerated population, and the vast majority of them are of color.

That is not by chance, that's by design.

And interestingly, as a farmer and looking at this, our large industrial farms in our country, including some of our large organic mega farms, have private prisons, lending them inmates to grow our food.

That's about as close to free forced labor as you're going to get.

- So your mission when you started this farm to break that system.

- Yeah, you know, a big part of the answer, I think, is integrating those people into the food system.

And we're talking about creating living wage jobs, creating opportunities.

Most of these people are living in survival mode.

Most of these people are in crisis just like the land is in crisis.

So most of our work now is about, "how can we build another system, a smaller system, but one where there's sort of viability and resiliency for everyone along the supply chain, for the farmer, for the value add producer, for the chef, for the restaurant and the consumer?"

"How do we build a closed economic loop?"

- Rather than send their products to a distributor who takes a massive cut of the profits and tries to sell their products nationally, the Closed Loop System focuses on local restaurants, grocery stores and direct to consumer sales.

This fosters an environment where local food producers are invited to work together to feed their communities along with Ironbound instead of competing against them.

In this case, teamwork truly makes the dream work.

By setting an example of how a small farm can thrive, enrich the land, and also lift up the community around them, farms like this may be the key to new farming systems in the future.

But it's also time to see this Closed Loop System in action.

A meal featuring not only foods from this farm, but also surrounding growers.

It's time to eat.

- So welcome to the mother fire.

- The mother fire.

- Our Argentinean inspired 30 foot grill, where we do all of our open flame cooking.

So Alec joined us a few years ago as our Farm Manager.

Unbeknownst to us when we hired him as a Farm Manager, his background was a chef and every day he would, you know farming seven days a week butt his break was coming down here and cooking with us and gunner on the mother fire in his spare time.

So we came to learn that... - Wait, wait, wait, they have spare time on the farm?

- Well that's what I'm saying after seven days a week of farming that his break is actually cooking with us.

So let's walk you through what our taco platter is.

So this is pork that is from the pigs that we raise here.

- Rustic tacos with a pickled red onion, a cabbage slaw, fresh cilantro and a crema made from cream from a nearby dairy farm, all on fresh pressed tortillas.

Now, this is the real deal, farm to table.

[upbeat music] How I'm I going to eat all this, hold on.

- Here is a small one.

- This is a good meal.

[upbeat music] That is ultra delicious.

- I love when the food isn't just showcasing what we're growing at the farm, but what our neighbor farms are growing as well.

- I think I read that when you first started, that was the plan to have this farm collective, have, you know, massive acreage.

So, you're well on your way.

- Our Farm Manager always says she thinks the future of farming isn't one 1000 acre farm.

It's 1000 one acre farms.

[upbeat music] - The future of farming has already sprouted in Paterson at the Green Acre Community Garden in the city's fourth ward, where master farmer Deacon Willie Davis is proving if you can grow food here, you can grow food anywhere.

He grows thousands of pounds of fruits and vegetables every year and distributes them to the community for free.

Deacon started farming as soon as he could walk.

His parents were sharecroppers in northern North Carolina.

Workers like Deacon's parents would rent a portion of a farmer's land.

Their rent was covered as long as the crops were successful and they had virtually no opportunity to save or make money.

Galvanized by his parents experience and motivated to create a brighter future, Deacon left North Carolina for Jersey at the age of 18.

- I came out, I got a job, were making $2.10 an hour, which was a lot of money compared to 30 cents an hour that we were making at home.

And I work 40 hours a week I'm making $80.

Yeah I was rich.

- So tell me about how this came to be.

- I would go to work, I keep saving.

Go ahead made a plan and I made a promise to myself that I will [inaudible].

I want that I could not see happen anymore?

- What couldn't you not see happen anymore?

- People working for nothing.

Sweat ran all day long.

Walk around with shoes on with no bottom.

I didn't want nobody to be hungry.

I know what it feels like to be hungry go two or three days without a meal.

That's a terrible thing.

And then you got to work on top of this.

So I said, no, I got to make a difference.

So that's why I came here.

I started working.

So I saved my money.

[playful music] - Deacon started a garden on a small patch of dirt.

Whatever he harvested he gave away to the community and received some donations along the way.

Through those donations, he was able to procure this one acre plot around the block, which he has turned into the urban oasis you see today.

Can you describe what this place used to look like before you took over?

- Garbage that was thrown over the fence and stuff.

Was so much garbage in here went and got a big van got in here, fill it up twice.

- Wow.

- And I raked up and it's just done.

I thought your name and I got my dream.

My vision.

All the stuff that I seen start coming to pass.

- Growing up in North Carolina, rural didn't prime for farms.

But here we are in this little stretch, surrounded by concrete.

What were the challenges to grow all this food here?

- I believe in Dig and Dream.

The method came to me.

Bring the farm to the city.

That was the method.

I said, "how do I do this?"

I show you not by my might by his might.

We've got to bring the farm to the city.

So Paterson though, is known to be a food desert.

I was talking to Cory Booker four episodes ago.

He says that it's a nutrition desert.

How important is it for these fruits and vegetables to get into the hands of this community?

It's more important than gold.

Because you see here in the area, people don't have it.

You cannot have the to means to go out to get it and when they can go out and get it they can't afford it.

And if we can take this here and move it more after a while we won't become... We can come out of that food desert.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- My strawberries, man.

- They've been picked twice already.

This is the corn here.

- Yeah.

- Those are country corn.

- These are your North Carolina corns.

- These are your North Carolina corns.

Those are... - Can I get a taste?

- Taste hmm.

- Mmm.

- Ah.

We don't want to fail.

I mean, of course you can make a lot of money out here but then I will lose what it was for.

It's about giving.

- Deacon is committed to providing healthy and nutritious food to his community for free.

Foundational to that is making sure there are no harmful pesticides or artificial growth supplements.

We hear it's hard to grow organic, that that's why that we need the pesticides and things like that.

Is it really hard to grow organic or it's not really hard?

- It's not hard and I don't use no pesticides.

Make your own.

- How do you make your own pesticide?

- Hot pepper, vinegar.

- Vinegar.

- Coffee ground, got it?

Onions.

You can cook it or easy let it sit in a jar for two or three days.

Pour a little bit oil so it stick to leaves.

The bugs and stuff won't want it.

[playful guitar music] - What will the impact be to have a green acre in every urban city?

- If we can get enough to get going we'd be able to feed all these people.

I might not see it, but they're going to be other greenhouse and patches [inaudible].

Fresh green.

Not going to be the last.

It's the beginning of beginning.

- If you have anything to say about it.

- If I have anything to say about it, that's right.

- But how has faith played a part in this development?

- Say it again.

- How has faith, your faith played a part in this development?

- Oh, completely.

Completely I had to do that.

I get excited when you ask me the question because this all is faith.

I walk in faith, I move in faith and I talk in faith, I love in faith.

All these things, I don't care how bad you is, you come around me, I'm going to talk to you good.

Faith is a comfort, faith it's life.

Without faith we can't.

This is life, to me it's everything.

- Is it faith, is it the food you eat or is it just giving that has kept you so young?

And just by the way, your skin is flawless, by the way.

And what keeps you going and still working these lands at 72?

- Even my wife, she says, "you have such a passion for it".

Well I say, "yes".

I go to sleep at night.

I can't wait till the morning to come out here till the morning.

Oh my God, Faith and love man and all that giving, all that work in one circle because without faith you can't have love without love you can't have faith without giving you can't have none of these.

So all of them work in one.

- I see a barbecue are we really doing a cookout though?

- I did yesterday, sure did.

- Wait a minute, you did a cookout yesterday and you didn't call me?

- If I would have known I would have called you.

[chuckles] [upbeat music] - Well, since I missed lunch at Deacon Willy's Urban Garden, back to Ironbound, where Charles is putting me to work.

Don't mind us.

- You're going to go under, see all these girls just sitting and roosting?

- Aha.

- She won't do anything, just kind of dig under her butt, wrap around, get some eggs, she's sitting on those eggs.

- What in the devil - There you go.

It's warm, right?

Yeah, it's warm.

I love how they're just like, "whatever".

[rooster crows] That's good.

- [Charles] Nice, let's head out, fantastic.

- Oh she's going to attack me, oh sorry girl.

[upbeat music] Now this is looking like a farm.

- [Grace] Mm hmm.

- You know when you close your eyes and you think of a farm.

Rows of vegetables.

- [Kat] Yep.

- This is what I'm talking about.

You want to give a try?

- I sure will.

- Nice, there you go.

- All right.

- You're a farmer.

[laughter] - If that's all it took.

[laughter] One thing I always want to know is when is the best time to eat what?

An apple - Fall.

- Broccoli.

- Late spring or mid to late Fall.

- Blueberries.

- Early summer.

[chuckles] - That's that's going to be a tough one.

Pizzas.

- Late summer, early fall.

- Avocados.

- Have your friends visit from Florida and they bring you avocados.

That's how you do it.

- Got it, done.

- Here you go if you want to throw the knife right in there.

That's fine.

- Boom.

Now that I've got my eggs and my spinach, it's back to Alec who's already gotten started with the next Closed Loop menu item, the raviolo.

[machine whirring] Alec.

- Hey Buki.

- I brought the eggs.

- So at first what you could do is crack 12 eggs into this bowl for me.

[upbeat music] Carefully use your fingers to fish the egg yolks out and we're going to very gently put it in this little ricotta nest.

- These are some... - Farm egg whites.

- This is this is farm fresh.

- Take some of these egg whites and you're just going to get the pastry brush a little wet and then we're just going to go around this.

- [Buki] Okay.

- And then what that is going to do is going to help stick this top layer of pasta to the bottom.

The next step now is to cover it.

So get it nice and pinch and secured so when we seal it, we don't have air bubbles.

Because what happens is if there's air bubbles, then it floats on the pasta water and it just doesn't cook as well.

The next step is we're going to very gently try to press this down and get rid of all of the wrinkles.

- [Buki] Wait, why are you doing yours so fast?

- [chuckles] I'm still on one.

- Wait.

- Now I will let you do the honors of being the cutter.

- Oh.

- The next step is we pull the pasta up to make like a little flower.

So we're going to go like this to pinch it and we do six points and then it kind of just makes it look like this like festive little nest.

- They look beautiful.

I'm going to try this little flower.

I'm going to impress people.

- Yeah, pasta is fun, it's therapy.

[chuckles] - [Buki] Time to clean up and we're back to enjoy the fruits and vegetables of my labor.

What would a visit to the farm be without a farm to table dinner?

- So this is our lovely roasted chicken and honey glaze with our Ironbound potato crouton.

Some sauteed spinach, which you were so gracious to help.

Harvested with me.

- [Buki] With your help and body.

- In the tunnel exactly.

And some burnt cipollini onions.

And then it's paired with our spring salad.

So we have romaine lettuce, some of our grown microgreens carrots, beets, turnips, and topped with our house vinaigrette and boba link drum cheese.

- Wow.

- And we snuck a little of the cider into the vinaigrette that one of our partners, Boba Link and the cheese.

- They're all about the cider.

[chuckles] - And Kat's whole team, you know, and everything else.

- Well fantastic.

- Cool.

- Right well, I'm just going to go.

- Yeah, thanks Kat.

- Thanks Kat.

- That's a potato, Right.

That's a potato.

And so sweet because these potatoes that have been storing for the Winter transpiration it's like the evaporation, the water coming out of the potatoes has concentrated the sugars.

- Umm.

- Yay, yay!

Wait, I need you to try a beet, just try one beet.

- I'm going to try a beet but this is one of the best chickens I've ever had.

- Oh, I'm so glad.

- Wow.

That's a wow wee knock out wow wee pizawee.

[playful guitar music] - Right?

It's just a beet but it's just... - Just a beet but it's so much more than a beet.

- [Charles] Right.

- You have always said that you want to be a congressman, but you are still very much in politics.

You are on Governor Murphy's COVID Recovery Council.

You're working with Senator Booker on all these agricultural measures that he's introducing into the Senate, worked with Obama on a lot of things to do with farmers.

So what has politics taught you about farming?

- My time in the political arena kind of really showed me that once you get for whom the system is working, you realize it's working really, really well and there's no incentive for it to change.

And in starting this company, you know, my goal was to say, like, okay, well, "how do we build a for profit business that actually cares about environmental stewardship, human repair, community building and still just be a business?"

- Now, with the reentry program, you were just mentioning that, you know, some people have, you know, unfortunately lost their lives.

Some are back in prison.

Will you continue the reentry program?

Because there haven't been a lot of success stories that have come out of this.

- Yeah.

You know, I'm grappling all the time with, like, how much can we really do just here on the farm alone.

Just like learning how to farm better, I think the mission has evolved.

- So will you close the reentry program?

That's the question.

- [Charles] No.

.

You're not going to close it?

- No, I think as this system gets built, farmers, producers, truck drivers, salespeople, commissary kitchens in cities like Trenton and Newark, right, all of that, once a system is in place, there are places that then can welcome more and more of these chronically underemployed members of our community.

- All right, what's next on the tasting menu?

- [Charles] Well, literally the fruits of your labor.

- And now to bring the Closed Loop full circle, the raviolo.

[gentle guitar music] All right it's bursting out, oh my goodness.

- [Charles] All our neighbors in this one little dish.

- [Buki] Yeah.

[munching food] - Right?

- Mmm.

- [Charles] Right?

- This is really, really good.

Oh, my goodness.

When you think about where your food comes from, I want you to remember Deacon Willie Davis, Charles, Cam, Alec and Kat and all the local farmers in the state and country that are doing the often thankless work of creating a lasting legacy and community through the food we eat.

And remember that there's probably a healthier option for your body, your community, and the planet.

After all, who doesn't feel good after eating a salad?

Without faith, you cant have lo Without love, you cant have fai Without giving, you cant have none of these, So all of these work as one.

Im gong to end it there with that.

With that wonderful gold nugget.

Ive got to start giving more.

Im too selfish.

Get away from that selfish!