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Ways We Can Make The Food System More Sustainable
If you’ve been paying any attention to the changing food climate over the past several years, you’ve probably heard a certain buzzword repeated time and time again: sustainability.
Ways We Can Make The Food System More Sustainable
February 7, 2018
Written by Megan Ray Nichols
If you’ve been paying any attention to the changing food climate over the past several years, you’ve probably heard a certain buzzword repeated time and time again: sustainability.
But what does a sustainable food system refer to, exactly?
The answer is complex and composed of many moving parts, but at its heart, a sustainable model in the food system promotes the physical health of the public, the economic health of farmers and producers and the fair treatment of the earth, animals and people.
A sustainable food system also refers to an approach that makes the most of the earth’s resources for future generations. It guards against depleting these resources. Why, then, has sustainability not yet been achieved? Perhaps it’s because not enough folks know how to achieve it.
Here are 10 ways that consumers, food producers and legislators can work together to make the food system more sustainable.
1. Local eating
The cost of transporting food across the globe isn’t measured just in dollar signs, but in carbon emissions too. When you buy food from local farmers, you’re contributing to your community’s economy and also decreasing your impact on Mother Nature. Win-win.
Tip: If you really want to reduce your food miles, we recommend growing your own herb garden. It’s easy, economical and sustainable. Check out this post on growing herbs.
2. Encourage cooking
Since sustainability promotes better health among consumers, learning to cook at home more skilfully — and more frequently — is an essential component. When people have control over their own food, they can eliminate ingredients like added sugars and fats. This, in turn, creates a healthier public.
Tip: Check out the video below that we created to encourage people not only to cook vegan, but to grow their own food too!
3. Design menus to follow seasons
Eaters like to enjoy fruits and veggies year-round which is part of the reason foods are imported from all over the world: to gratify the appetites of consumers. This however is unsustainable. If you stick to seasonal produce, however, you’ll be able to buy almost everything locally — and make sure that you get more variety in your diet over the course of a year. This practice will help to reduce your carbon footprint and boost your health.
4. Rotate crop varieties regularly
When farmers plant the same crops again and again, they eventually suck the nutrients out of the soil, making it near useless and often necessitating chemical-laden fertilizers. There’s a simple, natural and time-tested trick to avoid this, though. Farmers can plant different crops every few years to keep the soil healthy. Consumers just have to get on board with mixing up their diet too.
5. Waste less
If you added up all the food to be produced from now until the year 2050, the sum would equal the same amount of food that’s been consumed over the past 8,000 years. Clearly, as the food industry grows, so will its impact on the earth. In order to offset this impact, consumers should strive to toss out less food at home and make the most of their groceries. Businesses, supermarkets and industry should stop throwing out food too and strive to donate to charity or other organisations.
Tip: It’s important that food isn’t sent to landfill as it adds to the carbon pollution problem as rotting food in landfills help to create methane, a greenhouse gas. So make sure to compost your food. To learn more about the food waste problem, we recommend reading this post which runs through the issue in great detail.
6. Support Fair Trade
Foods that bear the Fair Trade label have been produced in a way that ensures fair treatment of employees and the earth. So if you’re committed to the sustainable food movement, you should opt for Fair Trade foods whenever possible to support the right kinds of producers.
Tip: If you really want to support a sustainable food system, make sure to choose more plant-based foods, reduce your meat intake or try a vegetarian or vegan diet.
7. Consider food’s true cost
The “true cost” of food refers to the often unseen environmental and social impacts that mass food production creates. Although unsustainable foods may be cheaper at the supermarket, they ultimately have a higher “true cost” in their negative impact on people and planet. It’s important to keep this issue in mind when you buy food.
Tip: If it’s more sustainable to support local grocers, farmers and primary producers, why not quit the big supermarkets? This post offers some helpful advice.
8. Invest financially
The Netherlands is a small nation, but it exports the second-highest amount of food in terms of value, second only to the United States. How? The Dutch have invested in sustainable agriculture. They get innovative, using indoor farming techniques to make the most of every square inch of land. They also forego most chemical pesticides so they can keep their soil fertile.
Tip: Vertical farming is a great example of indoor farming. Not sure what it is? This beginner’s guide will bring you up to speed.
9. Avoid additives, pesticides and go organic
Synthetic pesticides, fertilizers and antibiotics take a toll on the earth and on animals, but are used frequently by primary producers and livestock farmers in conventional farming to ensure produce and animals grow – and turnover profit – as quickly as possible. When you have the option, try to buy organically grown and additive-free produce and grass-fed meats where possible This should be clearly marked on the packaging but if it isn’t, make sure to ask an assistant.
10. Be willing to forgo convenience
Supporting a sustainable food system isn’t easy. When you commit to buying locally-produced foods and Fair Trade foods and adhering to other tenants of sustainable living, these conscious choices may cost you time and money. But ultimately, you’re working toward a greater cause that will ensure you pass on a healthy earth to future generations.
Contributing to a sustainable food system may require a personal investment on your part, but when you weigh the benefits, it’s well worth the effort. With just a few minor tweaks to your daily life, you could have a huge impact on the way the food system develops in the coming decades. So pick one or two of these steps that you can take to do your part in living (and eating) more sustainably.
Farmers for America - New Documentary Screening in Fairfield, Iowa 2/17 and 2/18
Farmers for America - New Documentary Screening in Fairfield, Iowa 2/17 and 2/18
A Documentary to Celebrate, Inspire, and Support Young Farmers
Saturday, February 17 at 7:30 pm
Sunday, February 18 at 2:00 pm
Orpheum Theatre, Fairfield, IA (NOTE LOCATION CHANGE)
Saturday evening features a panel discussion with director Graham Meriwether and area farmers
Farmers for America, a new documentary from director Graham Meriwether (American Meat), traces the extraordinary changes coming to Americas food system as more and more consumers flock to farmers markets, embrace farm-to-table lifestyles and insist on knowing where their food is coming from. At the center of the film are the farmers, young and old, who provide the spirit and energy to bring urban and rural America together over what both share in common: our food. These farmers reflect nothing less than the face of America.
With the average age of todays farmer at 60, and rural America losing population as the cost of land and equipment soars, this film reveals the people waiting to take their place, the practices theyre championing and the obstacles they must overcome.
After the film on Saturday evening, Meriwether will be present to facilitate a conversation with a panel of local farmers of all backgrounds- from small-scale niche production to large-scale commodity farmers. Meriwethers goal is to bring these two perspectives together and forge a shared path towards our next agriculture.
Admission by donation.
Click here for more information on the film.
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Jefferson County Farmers & Neighbors, Inc.
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States With The Best And Worst Diets
States With The Best And Worst Diets
By Cheyenne Buckingham and Samuel Stebbins January 31, 2018
The prevalence of obesity among American adults has been on the rise for decades. While the obesity epidemic has ushered in wave after wave of fad diets and weight loss schemes, the fact remains that a balanced diet is one of the simplest and most important aspects of a healthy lifestyle.
Despite a near-universal understanding of the importance of regular fruit and vegetable consumption, not all American adults make it a priority. Nationwide, only about 78% of adults eat vegetables at least once a day and an even smaller 60% share consume fruit on a daily basis. Additionally, despite the known adverse health effects associated with high sugar consumption, about one in five American high school students drink soda every day.
While maintaining a balanced diet may seem straightforward, dietary habits are subject to a range of social and economic factors, and as a result, vary considerably by region and state.
24/7 Wall St. reviewed fruit, vegetable, and soda consumption rates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify the states with the best (and worst) diets.
Though a balanced diet is only one aspect of a healthy lifestyle, states with larger shares of residents who regularly consume fruits and vegetables tend to report other healthy behaviors which in turn support healthier outcomes — including lower obesity rates and lower incidence of premature death.
Consuming healthy amounts of fruits and vegetables appears more common in some regions, with the states with the best diets concentrated in the Northeast and least healthy confined exclusively to the South.
Click here to read about the states with the best and worst diets.
Click here to read our detailed findings and methodology.
Growing Their Own At Corner Cafe
Growing Their Own At Corner Cafe
Cooking students soon will have fresh herbs to harvest
Natovia Talbot, a junior at Princeton Township, IL, High School, places bok choy seedlings into the new tower garden at the Corner Cafe in the Area Career Center’s Dolan Building next to the La Salle-Peru Township High School. The 5-foot tower circulates water and nutrients under artificial light to grow lettuce and herbs, which culinary arts students will harvest and use. Tracey MacLeod
- Jeff Dankert | February 6, 2018
Indoor growing technology is putting fresh herbs into the hands of culinary arts students.
A 5-foot tower garden is starting to green up in the dining area of the Corner Cafe, which is in the Area Career Center’s Dolan Building on the La Salle-Peru Township High School campus.
A few students took a break from the kitchen a few days ago to transplant lettuce, onion, chard, arugula, bok choy and basil into the tower. The plants were started in trays where each plant was labeled with a plastic spoon.
The tower herbage should be ready in a few weeks, said Susan Stiker, culinary arts instructor.
The students use many greens and herbs in the kitchen.
“Actually quite a bit. Kale, basil for pesto,” said Abby Nord, a junior at Princeton Township High School. The Area Career Center teaches students from several area high schools.
“Aren’t we going to try Chinese and use the bok choy with it?” said Natovia Talbot, also a junior at Princeton High.
The new gadget and the growing plants get frequent checks by the students.
“Every day when they come in, they check this first,” Stiker said.
The growing tower looks like high-tech hydroponics but the maker calls it aero-ponics because the plants are not sitting in the water.
Seeds are started in a synthetic medium called rockwool inside grow trays. The clumps of rockwool, bearing tiny seedlings, are transplanted into slotted pods on the outside of the tower cylinder. A rack surrounding the tower glows with three florescent light tubes, oriented vertically, to provide energy for photosynthesis. The lights are on for 14 hours and off for 10, Stiker said.
At the bottom of the tower cylinder is a 20-gallon water reservoir that holds dissolved fertilizers and nutrients. A pump circulates water up and drips it down along the inside, watering and feeding the clumps of rockwool and plant roots growing within. The watering is set on a timer.
“It cycles on for 15 minutes and is off for 45 minutes,” Stiker said.
Deborah Aldana checks the progress of celery, avocado and potato roots growing inside jars of water. These plants won’t go into the tower garden but are a demonstration of how vegetable roots can be used to grow new plants.
This project integrates with the educational buzzword, STEM — science, technology, engineering, and math. Preparing and cooking food has many STEM opportunities, Stiker said.
“I’m doing all of that STEM stuff all the time. That’s what this is,” she said, pointing to the tower. “Students looking to do an independent study, this would be a great thing. I had the kids research how to harvest and how to check the pH.”
The $900 apparatus came with all the equipment and supplies to get started. It was funded by a grant from the La Salle-Peru Township High School Foundation for Educational Enrichment.
The Corner Cafe is a restaurant with a fully-equipped kitchen and dining area for the public. Students prepare food to sell and for events. Students recently made pies for a buffet, prepared food for a group of eighth graders, made chili for a fundraiser and prepared Super Bowl snacks for staff.
Indoor garden towers are a thing among urbanites. The vertical design uses less space, such as a corner of the dining area inside the Corner Cafe.
“I knew I had to do something smaller here,” Stiker said.
Stiker got the idea from a middle school in Texas that was growing plants in an indoor tower. School gardens, indoors and outdoors, have taken off, she said.
“There are schools that actually supply their cafeteria,” Stiker said.
Streator Township High School students constructed six indoor plant towers that are now growing lettuce, said agricultural educator, Riley Hintzsche.
Streator students have a vegetable garden two blocks away and grow sweet corn on one-fourth of an acre outside of town. Students harvest the vegetables and donate them to the food pantry, he said.
“We do have some of the food classes use the produce occasionally as they need them,” Hintzsche said.
Jeff Dankert can be reached at (815) 220-6977 or lasallereporter@newstrib.com. Follow him on Twitter @NT_LaSalle.
Jillian Hishaw, Esq. LL.M - A Big Lift to Small Farms
F.A.R.M.S. is a regional nonprofit dedicated to protecting the family farm against land loss through estate planning and education while relieving hunger in the farmer's community. To keep up to date with Ms. Hishaw’s latest activities please visit www.jillianhishaw.com Please follow us on social media T: FARMS30000 Instagram: f.a.r.m.s FB: F.A.R.M.S.
Jillian Hishaw - A Big Lift to Small Farms
Family Agriculture Resource Management Services (F.A.R.M.S.) Named a Finalist in The Atlantic’s 3rd Annual Renewal Awards
Vote Today! Online Voting Open from February 7–February 21; Details at TheAtlantic.com/Renewal-Awards
Family Agriculture Resource Management Services (F.A.R.M.S.) has been named a finalist in The Atlantic’s The Renewal Awards, a nationwide competition recognizing local organizations driving positive change in their communities and bringing progress to the country.
Online voting began on Wednesday, February 7 and runs through Wednesday, February 21, at TheAtlantic.com/Renewal-Awards.
The Renewal Awards seek to illuminate grassroots solutions to challenges faced by communities around the country in an unsettling economic era.
Ultimately, five organizations will each receive a $20,000 grant from Allstate and five runners-up will each receive a $10,000 grant from Allstate.
The Renewal Awards are related to The Renewal Project, a social-first website and newsroom spotlighting people and organizations advancing social good and contributing to civic innovation across the country.
Last year’s Renewal Awards were presented in March 2017 after a yearlong search for America’s most promising social innovators. The six winning organizations, chosen from a pool of more than 460 nominees, were: New Alternatives for LGBTQ Homeless Youth (New York, NY), Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop (Washington, DC), Kounkuey Design Initiative (Los Angeles, CA), LostBoyz, Inc. (Chicago, IL), and Hour Children (Long Island City, NY), also the “Allstate Youth Empowerment” winner.
F.A.R.M.S., is a regional nonprofit dedicated to protecting the family farm against land loss through estate planning and education while relieving hunger in the farmer's community. To keep up to date with Ms. Hishaw’s latest activities please visit www.jillianhishaw.com and to support F.A.R.M.S. work visit www.30000acres.org and sign up for our newsletter. Please follow us on social media T: FARMS30000 Instagram: f.a.r.m.s FB: F.A.R.M.S.
Jillian Hishaw, Esq. LL.M (Agricultural Law)
2017 CLIF Bar "Food Industry Changemaker"
F.A.R.M.S. Founding Director
Phone: 307.228.0407
Fax: 1.888.877.0455
How A School Kitchen Garden Can Transform An Entire Community
2018
How A School Kitchen Garden Can Transform An Entire Community
A school initiative is encouraging whole multicultural communities to improve their relationship with food. (Sunshine North Primary School)
"They say food brings people together. What we’ve found is that this program has brought our community together."
By Yasmin Noone
29 JAN 2018
There’s a small kitchen garden situated in the cultural melting pot of Sunshine North in Melbourne’s west that’s changing the way the community interacts with food.
It’s not in a local park or in an expensive gardening centre tended to by masses of horticulturists.
No. This edible garden of influence – cared for by children, teachers and parents – is located on the grounds of the low-socioeconomic, multicultural Sunshine North Primary School.
The kitchen garden at this school, operating as part of the nationwide Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation, goes one step further than educating kids about plants and food.
It aims to help a very diverse group of students to read and write, and encourages parents - many of whom are newly arrived migrants - to integrate into Australian society.
“We are a very multicultural community,” Sunshine North Primary School principal, Ken Ryan, tells SBS Food.
“There are 300 children at the school and 35 different nationalities here. We have a very big Vietnamese community and the second largest community is from Burma.
“For many of our students, they start at our school at the beginning of their life in Australia. But the thing is, only one-in-10 students speak English at home. So the starting point for the children’s formal education when they come here is usually quite low.”
School kitchen gardens aren’t just about kids dipping their fingers in the soil.
The school, which became involved in the kitchen garden program around 11 years ago, has developed the program into something extra special. The teachers have integrated kitchen garden lessons into the school curriculum, which incorporates science, math, critical thinking and English.
The recipes are used to teach children and their parents basic reading, comprehension and maths, while science lessons are conducted in the garden.
Conversational English skills are practiced while children are eating their cooked lunch. As they sit together around a table – that they set – kids discuss the experience of cooking and chat about what the food tasted like.
Students from kindergarten through to Year six participate in gardening and cooking classes, utilizing 80 percent of school-grown produce as they prepare meals (with teacher supervision) in the school kitchen.
Community-wide benefits
The program has also helped parents from non-English speaking backgrounds who haven’t felt confident volunteering for academic-based activities at the school.
They get involved with Sunshine North Primary community by lending a hand in the garden.
“Everyone cooks and everyone eats, no matter what language you speak, so we engaged the parents in the garden and in the kitchen,” says Ryan
“Parents now come into the school and look after the garden or feed the chickens. The program is the result of a whole community effort.
“They say food brings people together. What we’ve found is that this program has brought our community together.”
aims to help a very diverse group of students to read and write, and encourages parents to integrate into Australian society.
A healthy lesson for all ages
Ryan explains that the kitchen garden – consisting of seasonal herbs, fruits and vegetables – is also teaching parents and children about health and wellbeing, and on the dangers of fast food in Western society.
“It used to kill me to watch some parents coming into the school, with a McDonald's meal for their child at 10 am which they wanted to be served to them for lunch at 1 pm, thinking they were doing the right thing.
“I thought, ‘we need to change the learning around Western food and how important food is in general in a child’s wellbeing’.
“We can now clearly see that at our school, this program helps both children and their parents to make good choices about their food.
“They are learning, [as a community] to grow their own food and understand that the food you grow yourself tastes different to the food you buy.”
1,630 kitchen gardens nationwide…and counting
Sunshine North Primary is only one of the many schools around Australia participating in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation.
Since 2004, the program has been implemented in 1,630 primary schools, high schools and early learning centres nationwide. The program is among the most popular in primary schools – 1,065 primaries are involved – while 70 special schools and 237 early learning centres also participate.
The foundation reports that Victoria is by far its biggest supporter, with kitchen gardens now in almost 560 schools and centres across the state.
However, there are 48 kitchen gardens implemented in the Northern Territory, 59 in Tasmania, 71 in the ACT, 139 in South Australia, 213 in Queensland, 170 in WA and 377 in NSW.
It's also about teaching immigrant parents and children about health and wellbeing, and on the dangers of fast food in Western society.
Why kitchen gardens create good food habits
Rebecca Naylor, CEO of the Kitchen Garden Foundation and Program, attributes the program’s national popularity to its ethos – kitchen gardens teach children why eating well is important, what good food actually looks and tastes like, and where food comes from.
“Kids habits are formed early in life,” says Naylor.
“If we can build habits for kids early on, that help them engage with growing food, cooking that food, eating seasonal fresh delicious food and then sharing that with others, then their relationship with food will be different than if they were never exposed to that experience.”
Since 2004, the program has been implemented in 1630 primary schools, high schools and early learning centres nationwide.
Naylor explains that when kids are involved in the program their willingness to try new foods also increases.
“Many kids don’t necessarily know where food comes from so their experience of food is shopping in the supermarket – not putting a seed in the ground and growing a pumpkin or beetroot.
“We know, even for us as adults, many of us have a fairly distant relationship with our food. But if your experience of food, [early on] is going to school, putting a seed in the ground and watching it grow in an environment where you also learn maths, English and language, then you are more likely to want to try that purple dip with the beetroot you’ve grown, as opposed to not wanting to try a meal put in front of you that you have no association with.”
Evidence-based success
The program is reaping positive education, community engagement, health and wellbeing results. A national evaluation of the program, funded by the Department of Health and Ageing and conducted between 2011-2012 by University of Wollongong researchers, found it to be a positive learning experience for students. Over 97.5 per cent of teachers involved also thought it benefited their student’s learning.
An earlier university study, done from 2007-2009, discovered that the program encouraged students to make positive health behaviour changes. These changes, the research showed, were then transferred to their home and community environments.
The program is reaping positive education, community engagement, health and wellbeing results.
Barriers to access
The success of the kitchen gardens program begs one question: why doesn’t every school across Australia have a kitchen garden, run by this foundation or another?
Naylor says there’s often an assumption that schools might need a big space for a kitchen or garden to be involved. While this was once true, the program has been altered to adapt to the needs of any size school of any socio-economic standing.
“To be fair, it’s true to say that schools that have a lower socioeconomic make-up often find it harder to get a program like this up and running because they have less of an ability to draw on the school community for fundraising – for example.”
However, Sunshine North Primary School got one running.
“It all comes down to the vision and leadership at a school. There needs to be someone involved in the school who has the ability to see how a program like this can be used right across the school community and curriculum.”
Naylor also calls on state governments to exercise leadership and encourage all schools of the value of kitchen garden programs for children of all backgrounds and wealth status.
“We need governments to say that running a kitchen garden of this type in your school is what they want to see happening.
“It will give schools the permission they need to engage in the work that is required to set a program like this up.”
How do you provide tasty, delicious and high-quality meals, whilst keeping prices affordable? It’s a problem Shane Delia is facing both in his business and with his Feed the Mind project. The answer for Shane is to look for local solutions, and he enlists the help of Stephanie Alexander to supercharge the school garden as a means to provide healthy ingredients that don’t need to be ordered from the shop. Watch the episode on SBS On Demand here.
Shane Delia's Recipe For Life airs 8pm, Thursdays on SBS, then on SBS On-Demand. You can find the recipes and more features from the show here.
National Nonprofit Aims To Put Gardens In 100 Detroit Schools
BIg Green
Kimbal Musk, co-founder and CEO, Big Green, stands in a learning garden in Indianapolis.
National Nonprofit Aims To Put Gardens In 100 Detroit Schools
Big Green, run by brother of Elon Musk, promotes science education, healthy eating
January 17, 2018, By SHERRI WELCH
- Big Green to bring 100 learning garden classrooms to metro Detroit as part of $5 million commitment
- Kimbal Musk, who with brother Elon sold company that later became PayPal, is champion behind the gardens
- $2 million raised so far for project
A national nonprofit run by the brother of serial entrepreneur Elon Musk aims to bring food education and outdoor "learning garden" classrooms to more than 100 metro Detroit schools as part of a $5 million plan to connect the city's youth to real food.
The gardens created by Boulder, Colo.-based Big Green are intended to support science lessons taught through the growing of food. The idea is to help kids increase their preference for nutritious foods, develop healthier responses to stress and improve their academic performance, said co-founder and CEO Kimbal Musk, who with his brother Elon developed and sold for $300 million the company that is now PayPal Holdings Inc.
Kimbal Musk went on to open Kitchen restaurant in Boulder, a farm-to-table restaurant, in 2004, and for the next dozen years helped local farmers scale their businesses to meet the growing demand of his restaurant group, The Kitchen Cafe LLC.
He also founded the Kitchen Community — now known as Big Green — after seeing how school gardens can help kids.
Since 2011, it has created learning garden classrooms, with raised beds planted with fruits and vegetables and student seating areas, in Denver, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Chicago, serving about 250,000 students.
The metro Detroit project, which happened with encouragement from the Pathways Foundation, Musk said, has raised $2 million to date from Pathways; Grand Rapids-based Gordon Food Service; Carol Ilitch, a mediator at Oakland Mediation and the daughter of Little Caesars founders Mike and Marian Ilitch; and others.
The effort will target Detroit, elsewhere in Wayne County and nearby low-income, underserved schools, Kimbal Musk said.
"We have stopped educating our kids about real food for a couple of decades now, and the results have been disastrous, rampant diabetes ... and in some neighborhoods, over 40 percent of kindergarteners go into kindergarten obese," he said.
"It's not something they did to themselves. It's what we did to them, and we now need to fix it."
Big Green has named Ken Elkins, who served as COO of Winning Futures since 2013, as regional director for Detroit. He will be charged with hiring three teachers who will serve as garden educators and assist teachers with lesson planning, and three local landscapers to build and maintain the gardens.
Elkins also will be charged with raising the remaining $2.5 million to $3 million for the project.
The $5 million will fund the construction and planting of the first 100 learning gardens. The Detroit branch will then need to raise about $1 million a year afterward to maintain the teacher training and gardens, Musk said.
Big Green will work initially with the Grand Valley State University charter school network, given the interest it has shown in the learning gardens, Musk said.
The university charters 41 schools throughout metro Detroit, according to its website.
"We expect at some point to work with Detroit Public Schools Community District, as well," Musk said.
The nonprofit plans to build its first learning garden in April and to have 100 in place within 2 1/2 years, Musk said. "Will be moving very fast."
Big Green looks to build on the urban agriculture, community garden and school garden projects sprouting around Detroit.
School gardens have shown to be a powerful tool to improve test scores, Musk said.
"If you teach the exact same science lesson in fifth grade in the classroom and then move it out to the garden, you'll get a 15-point increase in test scores for those who had the outdoor lesson. It's so much more powerful than learning in the classroom."
As for the produce that's grown, many schools choose to do a farmers market, selling it to parents. Others incorporate it into the cafeteria menu so students can eat the food they've grown, he said.
Given that the gardens go in schools in low-income communities, "we also encourage people to eat food right out of the garden," Musk said.
New Haven Farms To Expand Healthful Garden Program
New Haven Farms To Expand Healthful Garden Program
By Esteban L. Hernandez
Published 3:53 pm, Sunday, January 14, 2018
hoto: Credit: New Haven Farms
NEW HAVEN—New Haven Farms will expand its popular incubator program this spring to include 25 additional families who will manage their own garden plot and have access to fresh produce.
New Haven Farms Executive Director Russell Moore said the program has grown every year since it launched in 2015. Two new incubator sites will be placed in Fair Haven on Stevens Street, near Shelter and Clay streets, and on Davenport Avenue in the Hill neighborhood.
Fair Haven’s site will support 15 families, while the Hill is expected to serve 10. The program currently has 50 families, a majority of whom are low-income residents.
Families first participate in a wellness program operated jointly by Fair Haven Community Health Center and NHF before joining the incubator program, which provides them a plot of land to build their own vegetable garden. The goal of the wellness program is to assist people in developing more healthful eating choices to address possible health concerns. The incubator garden allows participants to continue healthful habits learned through the wellness program.
“The significance of it is not just 25 families,” Moore said. “It’s that their family members will benefit from fresh produce.”
NHF works in partnership with the New Haven Land Trust and the Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare Foundation to fund the incubator program.
Moore recently visited the Fair Haven site. At the moment, it looks barren, with what he suspected were dead collard greens near the entrance. But the site will eventually be home to 15 additional families using the land, once seeding begins in March and the season starts in May.
New Haven Farms manager Jacqueline Maisonpierre, who helped to develop the incubator garden program in 2015, said the program fits well into NHF’s mission to, “promote health and community development through urban agriculture.”
The program has just about a 100 percent retention rate, though two families have moved out of the city, Maisonpierre said.
Moore said between the seven gardens, which together comprise just about one acre, New Haven Farms produced 18,000 pounds of produce. Providing produce for 50 families means more than 200 people receive help.
“We’re really getting people to change, to make large behavioral shifts in their lives so that they can live a healthier life and reduce their dependence on medication,” Maisonpierre said.
The incubator gardens teach families “that they have the powers to change their own health outcomes,” Maisonpierre said.
New Haven Land Trust Executive Director Justin Elicker said the trust supports 52 community gardens in New Haven. Elicker said NHF’s program teaches citizens how to be more healthy.
“This partnership was a great fit for both organizations,” Elicker said. “Graduates of the wellness programs have an ability to continue their connection to the community that they developed.”
Last fall, an NHF site near Ferry Street was the site of a robbery that left a seasonal worker injured. The man who was attacked is still working for NHF; Moore said the attack seemed to make his commitment to the organization even stronger.
The attack prompted a community meeting and increased police patrol. Added safety measures, including lights, were installed on a nearby post, and have helped with security, Moore said. He was happy with both the community and local law enforcement response to the incident.
“It was galvanizing,” Moore said.
The response seems to reflect what Moore said is another important effect from their gardening programs, which is people learning by example.
“One shining example can have a ripple effect throughout the community,” Moore said.
Reach Esteban L. Hernandez at 203-680-9901
Official Opening of The World Horti Center
Official Opening of The World Horti Center
The World Horti Center will have its official Grand Opening on Wednesday, March 7, 2018, in The Netherlands. The World Horti Center will introduce everyone to the concepts, values and core competencies important to their success. Come learn how they plan to create entrepreneurship, research, and education that will allow this innovation center to lead the world of horticulture into the future.
There will be an official opening ceremony that will take place for partners and participants in the World Horti Center (invitation only). Afterwards, the Center will celebrate the World Horti Festival, where companies, industry professionals, and students are welcome.
Contact the World Horti Center for additional information on the Grand Opening.
https://www.worldhorticenter.nl/nl/evenementen/officiele-opening
A New Report on SSL’s Energy-Saving Potential in Horticultural Applications
A New Report on SSL’s Energy-Saving Potential in Horticultural Applications
DOE has just released a report that examines the energy-saving potential of LED lighting in horticultural applications. All three main categories of indoor horticulture were investigated: supplemented greenhouses, which use electric lighting to extend the hours of daylight, supplement low levels of sunlight on cloudy days, or disrupt periods of darkness to alter plant growth; non-stacked indoor farms, where plants are grown in a single layer on the floor under ceiling-mounted lighting; and vertical farms, where plants are stacked along vertical shelving to maximize grow space, and the lighting is typically mounted within the shelving units.
DOE utilized data from U.S. agriculture and horticulture censuses, as well as catalog and product specification databases for horticultural lighting products, and interviewed growers, utilities, lighting manufacturers, retailers, and other industry experts.
Among the findings:
- Based on current performance, LED lighting offers 24% to 30% reduction in electricity consumption per ft2 of grow area for each of the three categories.
- Non-stacked indoor farms employ the most energy-intensive lighting, with incumbent technology using about 60W/ft2 and LED lighting 41.8 W/ft2.
- Of the three categories of indoor horticulture, vertical farms have seen the highest adoption of LED lighting, which comprises 66% of all lighting in that application, while LED products make up only 2% of the lighting in supplemented greenhouses and 4% of the lighting in non-stacked indoor farms.
- In 2017, horticultural lighting installations in the U.S. consume a total of 5.9 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity per year, which is equivalent to 61 trillion Btu (tBtu) of source energy consumption. Of this 5.9 TWh, 89% comes from lighting in non-stacked indoor farms, 10% from supplemental lighting in greenhouses, and 1% from lighting in vertical farms.
- If all horticultural lighting today was converted to LED technology, annual horticultural lighting consumption would be reduced to 3.6 TWh, or 37 tBtu, which represents energy savings of 40%, or $240 million.
For the complete findings, download the full report.
Northeast Organic Farmers Coming Together at Rutgers This January
Northeast Organic Farmers Coming Together at Rutgers This January
By ADRIAN HYDE
January 17, 2018 at 11:35 AM
More than 50 workshops on food, farming, and gardening will be offered at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey (NOFA-NJ) Winter Conference at the Rutgers University Douglass Student Center, 100 George Street, New Brunswick.
The sessions run Jan. 27 and 27, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. They'll include five tracks: crops, livestock, gardening, policy and urban farming.
Anyone interested in learning about local, organic and sustainable food, permaculture and related policy issues is invited to attend.
The theme of this year’s conference is “Regenerating Our Communities, Restoring Our Land,” and nationally-recognized speakers are coming in from all over the country. This year’s keynote is Mark Shepard author of Restoration Agriculture, which explains his approach to permaculture, as practiced at his New Forest Farm in Wisconsin.
In his work, Shepard makes the “whys and hows” of permaculture compelling and accessible, including its ability to sequester gigantic amounts of atmospheric carbon. He also explains clearly the tradeoffs between annual and perennial crops.
Don Huber, PhD, will speak in a double-session about his research on the harms of glyphosate, the world’s most ubiquitous pesticide. Along with the content of his presentations, Huber provides copious references to scholarly and scientific work on the subject.
Dan Kittredge, lifelong farmer and founder of the Bionutrient Food Association, will reveal his organization’s efforts to democratize testing for food quality in a completely open-source framework.
For several years, Kittredge has been a leader in efforts to produce more nutrient-dense, high-quality foods, and early successes in the BFA’s food testing strategy suggest exciting possibilities.
In addition to Mark Shepard, other nationally-recognized, expert permaculturists will be speaking, both individually and on the “PermaPanel.” There will be something for everyone, from topics of general interest to specific practices for experienced farmers.
For more information, please visit nofanj.org or contact NOFA-NJ at 908-371-1111.
Why I Want to Bring #RealFood to 100,000 Schools Across America
American children are being fed processed, nutrient-poor food that leaves them starving and obese at the same time. Our food system is destroying their growing bodies and minds.
My mission is real food for everyone. Co-founder of The Kitchen #realfood restaurants, Big Green teaching kids about food & Square Roots mentoring young farmers
Jan 17, 2018
Why I Want to Bring #RealFood to 100,000 Schools Across America
Announcing Big Green, Learning Gardens in 100 Detroit schools; Eyeing four more American cities.
Big Green :: Real Food Grows Here
American children are being fed processed, nutrient-poor food that leaves them starving and obese at the same time. Our food system is destroying their growing bodies and minds. With an estimated $63.5 trillion in total private wealth, America is more wealthy than any other country in the world. Yet our children are bearing the burden of a broken, even lethal food system.
Today, diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States and costs the country around $245 billion in medical expenses and lost productivity each year. We are not setting our kids up for a healthy future when we fail to teach them how to nourish their bodies and their minds. Inadequate access to healthy foods, in particular veggies and fruits, can lead to preventable chronic diseases that affect children into adolescence and beyond. I am talking about kids feeling healthy and going to school, graduating from school, getting a job and starting a family. Habits form early and so should a good diet. It all starts with real food.
One of our first — and most beautiful! — Learning Garden classrooms in Los Angeles.
About seven years ago, Hugo Matheson — my co-founder at The Kitchen — and I became involved with a few school garden initiatives in our own community in Boulder, Colo. I was astonished to see how excited the kids were to plant, harvest, and EAT vegetables that they had grown. I learned first-hand that school gardens are associated with the most positive changes in students’ fruit and vegetable intake. I couldn’t just stand by as obesity ravished our nation. I wanted to see the same enthusiasm that the kids in my community had for real food, in hundreds of other communities across our great nation. For context, up until this point, building two school gardens per year was considered a strong achievement. What if there were beautiful Learning Gardens in every school in America that would show our kids the path to a thriving future filled with real food?
In 2011, I wanted answers. So Hugo and I co-founded non-profit organization to join the movement to help get kids excited about real food. Supported by my community restaurant, The Kitchen, we started building Learning Gardens in schools around our community and surrounding cities. We were a small but fierce team and called ourselves The Kitchen Community (TKC). We had success in Denver with the support of Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. We went to California to build gardens in LAUSD, Compton, and Hawthorne School Districts. We went to Chicago with the incredible support from the City of Chicago and Mayor Rahm Emanuel and built 100 Learning Gardens in one calendar year! Next up was Memphis with 100 Learning Gardens and Pittsburgh with 50 Learning Gardens in only two years. In 2016 we went to Indianapolis where we now have 30 Learning Gardens and are on our way to 100. 👊 It’s been a whirlwind of excitement around real food and yes, my questions were answered. Real food education makes a powerful difference.
Peas in a purple pod grown in a Learning Garden in Denver, Colo.
I am even more convinced of the difference after seeing and hearing all of the inspiring stories from the communities we have joined. One of my favorite stories is of a high school senior who became involved in the Learning Garden we built at her high school on the south side of Chicago. In January of 2017, her doctor diagnosed her as a pre-diabetic. A chilling and scary diagnosis for such a young girl. In just six months after getting her hands dirty planting real food in her school’s Learning Garden and going through our food literacy program, she started eating healthy; and in November last year, she reversed the course of a life-threatening illness. With the help of a Learning Garden, she is no longer pre-diabetic.
Our success in six American cities is why today, I’m incredibly humbled to announce that my organization is stepping out as a national nonprofit called Big Green. I’m joined by some of the most incredible entrepreneurs in the nation. Our national board members Antonio Gracias, Barry Didato, Don Degnan, Cindy Mercer, RJ Melman, and Michael Tang bring deep entrepreneurial and business expertise. We’ve also been working with the nation’s top educators, like Big Green board member and Memphis Superintendent Dorsey Hopson, to craft programming and curriculum that equitably and effectively teaches kids about food, entrepreneurship, and science through hands-on and project-based learning.
Our BIG vision to change food in America to impact ALL kids, and particularly the most underserved with healthy, vibrant futures, is becoming a reality. In addition to announcing our national non-profit Big Green, I’m also eager to announce that we will join the Detroit community — our seventh city — to build Learning Gardens in 100 schools across the Motor City. 7 cities means 700 Learning Gardens.
Over the past year, we have explored Detroit and learned how resilient the city is — filled with passionate and dedicated people who care about the future of their kids and schools. Our expansion to Detroit is only possible because of the generous corporate, foundation, and individual donors who collectively gave $2 million at the start of this New Year. It’s nearly half of the $5 million capital campaign necessary to build beautiful, outdoor Learning Garden classrooms in 100 schools in Detroit. Our local partners helping make this dream possible include: Gordon Food Service, Pathways Foundation, philanthropist Carole Ilitch, and others. Teachers and principals across Detroit can start applying now for a Learning Garden at their school. Shovels hit Detroit soil in April to build our first Learning Gardens.
With every new city, we join means new jobs locally. In Detroit, we’ve hired Ken Elkins, a Michigan native, and long-time metro Detroit resident, as our Detroit Regional Director. He is now hiring a local team of Garden Educators, Project Managers, and other positions.
We are also eyeing Colorado Springs, Colo., Louisville, Ky., Long Beach, Calif., and San Antonio, Texas, for expansion to build 100 Learning Gardens in each of those cities.
There are 100,000 schools across America. I am focusing first on impacting high-need and underserved students — because sadly, these communities bear the brunt of obesity-related diseases. Eventually, we will reach every kid in all 100,000 schools in America because every child deserves to thrive in healthy environments that connect them to real food.
This ambitious goal will require a significant investment of resources, funding, and human capital. We must scale in order to fundamentally and radically alter the school food environment and ensure that all kids nationwide enjoy healthier futures through real food. While we’ve engaged some of the top US companies like Wells Fargo, Gordon Food Service, Chipotle, The Kitchen, Walmart, we need more American companies to join our efforts.
Reaching 100,000 schools in our lifetime is not something I can do by myself. This is a BIG effort for everyone in America. We must all try to make a Big Green effort to be part of the real food solution. I’m now asking you — CEOs, Governors, Superintendents, partners, parents, and teachers — to support real food education. It’s time to step-up to make #realfood in America a possibility before industrial food takes another child’s life.
Every student in all 100,000 schools in America deserves the opportunity to play, learn, and grow in a healthy community. Go to biggreen.org/hello and sign our pledge to get real about real food. This will also ensure you are up to date on our latest news at Big Green because I promise … BIG things are coming.
Introducing The New Kiss the Ground Speaker Training Course
“Our mission is to inspire participation in the global movement to restore soil.”
– Team Kiss the Ground
Introducing The New Kiss the Ground Speaker Training Course Begins Monday, January 29, 2018
“Our mission is to inspire participation in the global movement to restore soil.”
– Team Kiss the Ground
The 2018 6-Week Kiss the Ground Speaker Training Course begins Monday, January 29th! You are invited to use your voice and join us in the largest movement of our time.
We will give you the tools you need to become a soil revolutionist and share techniques that will help you become a more confident and empowered speaker.
We are seeking participants who preferably have a background in ecological science, environmental or sustainability studies or have a strong interest in learning about the soil regeneration movement. The world needs more voices spreading the message of soil regeneration. Sign up today and become one of them!
More course details provided below!
SIGN UP NOW
Course Details
Dates:
January 29 – March 5, 2018
Where:
In Person at the Kiss the Ground Office in Venice, California or Online From Anywhere
Day/Time:
Mondays 7:00 -9:00 pm PST
Length:
6 weeks
Investment:
In Person: $300 ($200 Student)
Online: $75
How to Register
Email Michelle at speakertraining@kisstheground.com
SIGN UP NOW
Your Teachers
Finian Makepeace
Kiss the Ground Co-Founder
Finian is a recording artist, activist and self-taught soil advocate whose passion for changing the world brought him to study political science at UCLA. He strives to make the world a more peaceful and harmonious place for humans and all of nature. Finian resides in Venice, loves to make music, build gardens and bring people together for common causes.
Don Smith
Healthy Soil Advocate
Don Smith is a speaker, teacher, and student of regenerative agriculture and regenerative lifestyles. His talks are engaging, inspiring, and filled with viable solutions to the world’s largest problems. In addition to speaking, Don helps Kiss the Ground with editing, technical details, and infographics promoting soil as a solution to climate change.
We'd be so grateful if you helped us spread the word about the Speaker Training Course!
Do you know people in your social networks or local community that would be interested in joining our training and becoming a voice in the soil revolution?
We have provided our downloadable event flyer to print and a downloadable social graphic to share on your social networks!
Please tag us #kisstheground so we can say thank you!
The world needs more voices spreading the message of soil regeneration. We'd love if you were one of them!
MORE INFORMATION
AmHydro’s “ Introduction to Hydroponic Crop Production” Seminar Series
AmHydro’s “ Introduction to Hydroponic Crop Production” Seminar Series
February 22nd & 23rd in Eureka, CA
In this interactive 2-day course, you’ll learn the basics of running a hydroponic farm and business from industry leaders. With this knowledge, you’ll be better equipped to grow and sell produce to your local community. Best of all, you’ll get hands-on experience in a greenhouse.
COST: $995 for two people. Bring a friend!
HOSTED BY: American Hydroponics
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
- The history of hydroponics
- How hydroponics effects the world today
- What is controlled environment agriculture (CEA)
- Basics of hydroponic farming
- Pest & disease control
- How to market your produce
Classroom AND Greenhouse Instruction!
LOCATIONS: The Ingomar Club and the HCOE Hydroponic Training Center, both in Eureka, CA
For more info and to sign up, please visit:
http://amyhydro.com/seminar
Cultivating Farmers
Cultivating Farmers
The nation’s first USDA-recognized urban agricultural fellow program yields nine budding entrepreneurs who want to connect city residents with the power and profit that can rise from the ground | Photos by Jay Paul
January 8, 2018
Fellows Kamala Bhagat and Sonia Allen examine some scarlet queen turnips in Tricycle Gardens' hoop house at RVA Urban Farm in Manchester.
Alex Badecker, a VCU biology graduate who has worked for years in the food industry, has spent the past year planting and pruning on Tricycle Gardens’ 1-acre urban farm in Manchester — and that work has given him the confidence to attempt making a living off Creighton Farm, a 2-acre property that he purchased in eastern Henrico.
Alex Badecker
While a member of Tricycle Gardens’ inaugural class of urban agricultural fellows, Badecker has held open house days on his farm and has invited the public to help him form beds, plant cover crops and lay irrigation. On pick-your-own-produce days, he’s sold carrots, squash and eggplant.
“I want to bring people out and show them what you can do with 1 or 2 acres,” says Badecker, who completed the fellowship program in December.
A Dream Realized
Tricycle Gardens’ Executive Director Sally Schwitters developed the Urban Agricultural Fellowship because many of the nonprofit’s volunteers and interns did not have technical farming skills. With classroom sessions and fieldwork, the fellowship program is educating a new generation of urban farmers through the wisdom of an aging farming workforce.
The program has been a longtime dream of Schwitters. Financial support and participation by experts from Virginia Tech, The Rodale Institute, Bon Secours and the U.S. Department of Agriculture meant that a formal 41-week program could be developed. The fellowship also helped Tricycle double its staff and increase its production.
“Growing [food] is a magical process,” Schwitters says. “I love sharing our knowledge and sharing that feeling and opportunity. That is the root of my motivation. We don’t want to be a nonprofit that grows food for everyone; we want to grow farmers who localize food for everyone.”
“Healthy communities are always at stake, especially in the urban areas,” says Albert Walker, Bon Secours’ director of healthy communities. Based out of the Sara Garland Jones Center, where the fellows meet, he serves as a liaison with the program. “We need grocery stores in the city, yes. But putting farms in urban areas is one step closer toward healthier communities.”
Mark Davis
Because low-income urban communities are so detached from fresh produce for economic reasons or because of the perception that healthy food is for the rich, Mark Davis, another member of the Tricycle Fellows, views this as a public health problem, what he calls nutricide.
“The community is convinced that farmers are poor,” Davis says. “I want to show them that farming is very viable as a [job] option. But you must know what you are doing.
I want to show them the money they can make growing and selling food.” Land acquisition is the biggest hurdle, he adds. “But farming is about problem-solving.”
Classrooms, Inside and Out
Over the course of the yearlong program, for about 20 hours every week, Badecker and the eight other fellows had many hands-on, hands-on experiences.
A highlight of the program for Badecker was coming together as a group on Fridays to participate in workdays at Tricycle — planting garlic, weeding or making compost. On weekends, the group visited area farms and urban agriculture conferences. They experienced the retail aspect of agriculture, harvesting and selling produce at markets. Finally, they developed business plans for their planned endeavors, which are both for-profit and nonprofit.
Badecker says he has always been into food and an outdoor person, but those interests hadn’t clicked until his experience with Tricycle.
“You can still be a farmer and be successful,” Badecker says. “People don’t understand that there is a lot of math and a lot of science and a lot of engineering involved in agriculture. All farmers are always designing and making something to use on their farms. No two farmers are the same. I’ve enjoyed meeting all the fellows. We’re so different, with such different backgrounds, with different ideas of what we are going to do. I’ve loved bouncing around our ideas of what we want to do and problem-solving things on the farm.”
Ash Hobson Carr
Fellow Ash Hobson Carr started planting herbs in her backyard to counter the hours she spent sitting and editing photos as a professional photographer. She was drawn to the physical work of gardening. She plans to start a seed-saving and medicinal-herb business.
“One highlight has been to meet all the amazing women farmers in the classes and field trips with an average age of around 58,” Carr says. “They have been so generous with their knowledge. They were figuring out how to do organic farming before there were books and networking.”
Davis wants to develop a market farm made up of quarter- and half-acre vacant plots throughout the city sown by city residents. Davis says his project addresses a crucial problem — the disconnect between urban youth and farming. He’s also not new to urban agriculture. As a student at Howard University, Davis started a community garden on campus to teach people about the beauty of eating food grown by their own hands.
A Plan and a Journal a Must
The fellow program was designed to teach students how to go from seed to sale as they mastered growing techniques, harvesting practices and farm-food safety. The inaugural group had varied backgrounds, from social justice to cosmetology, and they ranged in age from their mid-20s to their mid-40s.
“Agriculture is very regional. It is climate- and-soil specific,” says Chris Lawrence, a Richmond-based cropland agronomist with the USDA who works with farmers across the state. He taught the fellows about soil science. “The class I taught them was refreshing because you do not often think of farmers coming from an alternative angle, but we have a lot in common.”
Tricycle Urban Farm Manager Amy Wilderman
During a recent Tuesday morning classroom session at the Bon Secours’ Sara Garland Jones Center, Tricycle’s Urban Farm Manager Amy Wilderman quizzed the group on the tenets of crop rotation, soil nutrients and plant parts. She led a discussion on the differences in plant families and what makes plants heavy versus light feeders. Sometimes, she told them, farmers should not rotate crops.
“When you are maximizing small spaces, you have to have a plan,” Wilderman says, holding up a farm chart. “The plan will probably change, but you have to have a plan to start with. I’ve learned in past years to plan for the entire year in winter.” She also tells the group to use a farm journal to write about which crops do not work and record how each crop does each season.
“Take stock,” Wilderman instructs the group. “Then you get to dream about what you want to grow next.”
Through homework assignments, required journaling and a final exam, the fellows, Wilderman says, will ultimately have a firm business plan that they can potentially present to a bank.
A $400,000 grant from the USDA and support from Bon Secours were enough to provide each participant a full scholarship, pay for a new hoop house at Tricycle and cover the cost of speakers who focused on technical points. The grant funding also covers the 2018 fellows, and Tricycle staff fundraising is focused on continuing the program well into the future, with a vision to share it with other cities.
Walker says that Bon Secours’ involvement with the fellowship program connects with its mission to serve the community, but it also got him thinking that it’s a logical move to put in a garden next to the Sarah Garland Jones Center, with a rain catchment system to make it sustainable, and maybe even plant fruit trees.
For fellow Alex Badecker, his participation has allowed him to develop a solid crop plan for when he starts planting in 2018.
“I’m more confident that I will start next spring on the right foot.”
The Rest of the Fellows
SONIA ALLEN
Background: Co-founder of An Access In Food Inc., a Richmond nonprofit that aims to serve economically disadvantaged people through nutrition education and food access
Project: Wayside green spaces, gardens for restaurants and a teaching farm in Maine
Takeaway: “We were taught to plant properly by specifications instead of a hodgepodge.”
NICOLE BRODER
Background: Created a mobile farm on a truck as a student at William & Mary
Project: Establish and maintain rooftop gardens in the city, where space is at a premium
Takeaway: “I think my knowledge, especially about soil science, will be valuable and will benefit me through the years. Now I have a network of experts I can call on if I have a question.”
DANA WRIGHT
Background: A graduate of VCUArts who has worked in restaurants focused on the farm-to-table concept
Project: Create green spaces for businesses and restaurants, as well as teaching gardens
Takeaway: “A highlight of the year for me has been being on the farm and having a full-year experience — winter spring, summer, fall.”
MANDY YARNELL
Background: A degree in international studies from VCU and a decade in the food industry, plus alpaca farm experience
Project: Her farm, Owl Creek Heirlooms and Oddities, or OCHO, will offer exotic varieties of plants and animals.
Takeaway: “With urban agriculture, anyone can do it. Even in containers you can plant what you need.”
KAMALA BHAGAT
Background: Natural hairstylist
Project: She plans to open a natural beauty parlor in the city, with a garden that will act as the source of her hair products.
Takeaway: “I want to show people how important nutrition is in hair care, not just for consumption. In hair care, your scalp is like soil. Your scalp needs moisture and light.”
KITTIE STOREY
Background: Has taught gardening to teens at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden and now works at Little Green House Grocery. Was a Tricycle Gardens farm intern in 2012 and helped run the East End farmstand.
Project: Wants to use the knowledge she gained during the fellowship to implement agricultural education in public schools and community centers
The application period runs through Jan. 19. It’s for high school graduates who are interested in getting into agricultural work. Participants need to be prepared for physical labor and to be outside in variable weather. On Jan. 11, Tricycle is holding an open farm volunteer day for potential applicants from noon to 2 p.m., followed by an information session from 2:30 to 4 p.m. For more information, visit tricycleurbanag.org.
Applications Are Now Open For The Iowa AgriTech Accelerator’s Class of 2018.
i Grow News is a proud supporter of the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator. Based in Des Moines, Iowa. The Accelerator seeks early-stage companies with an idea, intellectual property or prototype for agricultural innovation for its Class of 2018.
Applications are now open for the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator’s Class of 2018.
If you know of an early-stage company with an idea, intellectual property or prototype for agriculture, they can apply for this year’s cohort at www.agiowa.com/apply.php.
Companies selected to participate will receive seed funding, subsidized housing, time with mentors and investors and opportunities to build strategic partnerships.
I’m pleased to be a mentor for this year’s cohort.
Kimbal Musk Doubles Down On School Garden Effort
Learning gardens provide access to nutritious food and serve as educational tools at underserved schools. Photo courtesy of the Kitchen
Kimbal Musk Doubles Down On School Garden Effort
The Colorado 100 Fund is a $2.5 million effort toward creating 100 learning gardens in Colorado by 2020.
BY DALIAH SINGER | JANUARY 3, 2018
In 2011, Kimbal Musk, co-founder of the Kitchen (and brother of tech giant Elon Musk), decided it wasn’t enough serving real, local food at his family of restaurants. So he launched the Kitchen Community nonprofit with the goal of “empower[ing] kids and their families to build real food communities from the ground up.”
In practice, what that means is creating learning gardens—a garden as an outdoor classroom—in underserved, low-income schools across the country. Since the first opened in Denver in 2011, 450 learning gardens have been built across the country. Colorado, though, has begun lagging behind. The state currently has 55 learning gardens; Chicago has 150. But that will soon change: Musk recently announced theColorado 100 Fund, a $2.5 million initiative to increase the number of Centennial State learning gardens to 100 (in other words, adding 45 more) by the end of 2020. “We built our first [learning garden] in Denver,” says Courtney Walsh, Musk’s communications director. “We need to look at our own backyard…to really impact change.”
Kimbal Musk (right) and a student at a Kitchen Community learning garden in Los Angeles in 2015. Photo by Patrick T. Fallon for the Kitchen Community
According to the 2017 Kids Count report from the Colorado Children’s Campaign (CCC), 16 percent of Colorado children experienced food insecurity—“their access to adequate food was limited by lack of money and other resources”—between 2013 and 2015. In addition, many high-poverty neighborhoods are located in food deserts, meaning they have limited access to affordable and nutritious foods. That’s one of the reasons the CCC says, “…children growing up in low-income or food-insecure families are likely to…have challenges getting the nutrients they need for proper growth and development.”
School gardens can help reverse those concerns by exposing children to fruits and vegetables, teaching them where their food comes from, and encouraging healthy lifelong eating habits. At an elementary school, students might count the plants and learn their names. In middle and high school, the gardens become the foundation for a science class or a lesson in entrepreneurship (how to run a farm stand, for instance).
To accomplish the 100-garden goal, Musk formed a Leadership Circle comprised of prominent Coloradans who support his efforts to improve children’s health. Among them is Robin Luff, who also serves on the board of the Kitchen Community. “We’re there to talk about the importance of real food, of changing behaviors. We all believe that can happen when we have a really strong effort in a city,” Luff says. “It’s useful, and it’s lasting.”
Schools submit applications for learning gardens, and the district has to approve the Kitchen Community’s efforts. The nonprofit has already worked with the Denver Public Schools and the Poudre School District and will continue to do so; it expects to add some gardens in Jefferson County as part of the Colorado 100.
“One of the challenges in Colorado versus some of the other inner cities we’re working with is that we have this gorgeous landscape we look at every day,” Luff says, “and it’s really hard to imagine that some kids have never played in a stream or with sticks. [Determining how to] make a lasting impression in Denver is really important.”
One hundred learning gardens is a big enough number to convince people (the legislature, school boards) to pay more attention to the issue. “It becomes an ecosystem about learning about food,” Walsh says. “If you have 100, then you’re able to truly impact the community…and reach kids at all age levels.”
But don’t expect this work to stop once Musk and team reach 100. ”Kimbal’s overarching national goal is to build 1,000 learning gardens to ostensibly impact a million children,“ Walsh says. We have no doubt he’ll get there.
DALIAH SINGER, 5280 CONTRIBUTOR
Daliah Singer is an award-winning writer and editor based in Denver. You can find more of her work at daliahsinger.com.
How France Became A Global Leader In Curbing Food Waste
n February 2016, France became the first country in the world to prohibit supermarkets from throwing away unused food through unanimously passed legislation.
How France Became A Global Leader In Curbing Food Waste
PROGRESS WATCH
France isn't an obvious frontrunner in food recovery, but new legislation has helped catapult the nation to the top of the 2017 Food Sustainability Index.
Philippe Wojazer/Reuters
Story Hinckley | @storyhinckley
JANUARY 3, 2018 —France is a culinary leader – both at the table and, more recently, in the trash can.
In February 2016, France became the first country in the world to prohibit supermarkets from throwing away unused food through unanimously passed legislation. Now, supermarkets of a certain size must donate unused food or face a fine. Other policies require schools to teach students about food sustainability, companies to report food waste statistics in environmental reports, and restaurants to make take-out bags available.
These laws “make it the norm to reduce waste,” says Marie Mourad, a PhD student in sociology at Sciences Po in Paris who has authored several reports on French food waste. “France is not the country that wastes the least food, but they have become the most proactive because they want to be the exemplary country in Europe.”
France’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. The country earned top ranking in the 2017 Food Sustainability Index, a survey of 25 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas conducted by the Economist and Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition Foundation (BCFN).
The people of France wasted 234 pounds of food per person annually, according to the BCFN report, which is drastically better than France’s international counterparts, compared to about 430 pounds per capita thrown away year in the United States.
Small scraps make big impact
Food waste, or unused, edible food, is a global issue. Each year, some 1.3 billion metric tons, or one-third of all the food produced, is thrown away, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. Recovering just 25 percent of that wasted food could feed 870 million hungry people – effectively ending world hunger.
Not only does food waste fritter away valuable resources like water, arable land, and money, but it also fills up landfills, which emit methane. If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter behind the United States and China.
“Food waste is so urgent because where and how we produce food has the biggest impact on the planet of any human activity,” says Jason Clay, senior vice president of food and markets at the World Wildlife Fund.
“In the US, we don't have champions in government who are thinking much about food, nevertheless food waste,” says Mr. Clay. “That has separated us from France: they have people who took up this issue politically.”
French National Assembly member Guillaume Garot helped frame the legislation with his previous experience as the former junior minister for the food industry – a position that in and of itself proves France’s dedication to the issue, say experts.
However, France is not an obvious frontrunner in this field.
Over the past decade, Britain has demonstrated far more statistical success, says Craig Hanson, global director of food, forests, and water at the World Resources Institute, and Denmark has made news with new projects like ugly produce grocery stores. Comparatively, France’s law is new, and as the Guardian reported after it was passed, only 11 percent of France’s 7.1 million metric tons of wasted food comes from supermarkets.
But to Clay, Ms. Mourad, and other food recovery advocates, the law is important symbolically. Neither the United States, nor Britain or Denmark, have comparable government legislation.
“Making it illegal for supermarkets to throw away food is massive,” says Jonathan Bloom, author of the book “American Wasteland.” “That legislative step has impacted all levels of the French food chain.”
Before the 2016 law, French supermarkets typically donated 35,000 metric tons of food annually, roughly one-third of food banks’ total supply, Jacques Bailet, president of the food bank network Banques Alimentaires, told the Guardian in 2016. If supermarkets can increase their food bank donations by only 15 percent this could mean 10 million more meals for needy French each year.
This law improves not only the quantity of donated food, say experts, but also the quality. Food banks typically are supplied with canned goods, rather than nutritionally valuable foods like meat, vegetables, and fruit.
“The fight against food waste should become a major national cause, like road safety, that mobilizes everybody,” said Mr. Garot in a press release. “That implies that every authority, at every level, plays its part.”
Hydroponic Farm, Housing Project Planned Near Pablo, Montana
Hydroponic Farm, Housing Project Planned Near Pablo, Montana
January 07, 2018 at 11:27 am | By PEREGRINE FRISSELL Daily Inter Lake
A developer planning an ambitious housing project and hydroponic farm near Pablo believes his company is on the brink of realizing its goal after years of wrangling grants, permits and community support.
Previously the farm and residential development were going to be adjacent to each other, but the developer has switched course and is putting each on separate lots a little under 3 miles away.
The firm, Hawaii-based Aloha Noblehouse Inc., which has an executive director and president based in Marion, plans to construct a commercial farm on a 31-acre site on Minesinger Trail, just off U.S. 93 south of Polson toward Pablo.
Just less than 3 miles away, closer to Pablo, will be an 80-unit single-family housing development that will offer low-priced mortgages. Both properties are on the Flathead Indian Reservation.
The idea is that people who choose to live in the housing should be able to support themselves and their family by working a job at the nearby agricultural production facility, said Gerald Greenstein, president of Aloha Noblehouse. He intends the project to enhance food security and affordable-housing options and promote economic development in the area between Polson and Pablo.
“Our area is desperately in need of affordable housing,” said Jodie Paxton, executive director of the Ronan Housing Authority.
Paxton said she supported the project and was in talks with the developers early on to manage the housing when it was going to contain rental units.
They have since switched to plans to sell the units so the housing authority is no longer involved, but Paxton said the proximity to Salish Kootenai College would make the development an important addition to the area.
“Unfortunately it’s tough to live here, it’s tough to find a job that can pay for what it costs to own a home,” Paxton said. “I think it would go a long way toward assisting those who are in a lower income bracket to buy a home.”
The developer, in an application for a New Markets Tax Credit, states the housing portion of the development will include an electric vehicle charging station, a daycare for children between 2 and 5 years of age, community center and a triage nurse station. A triage nurse is generally referred to as the first nurse to evaluate a patient, determine the severity of the maladies and decide where to refer them for more comprehensive care.
The organization has yet to file for any permits with Lake County that would be needed before construction were to begin, said Jacob Feistner, director of the Lake County Planning Department.
They have received letters of support from several organizations, including the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the Ronan School District. The project has also been endorsed by the Lake County commissioners and the Salish Kootenai Housing Authority.
Greenstein and his colleagues at Aloha Noblehouse are still working to pull together the funding they need to begin construction. He hopes the project will provide a sustainable business model that could act as a catalyst for similar developments to go up throughout the nation. Aloha Noblehouse also holds property in Idaho and Hawaii.
The proposed sites will operate with a mixture of renewable energy resources, and the developer hopes to get them as close to carbon-neutral as they can, according to an executive summary of the project.
While the farm would be small in size compared to most commercial farms, the developer hopes to have a large output by producing year-round in a large greenhouse-like setting using hydroponic farming techniques. Aloha Noblehouse predicts the project could create between 25 and 40 jobs, according to a copy of its business plan.
The developer plans to grow organic lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, zucchini and peppers, as well as basil and thyme. The business plan states the company will seek USDA organic certification and seek production contracts with the food supplier giant Sysco.
They estimate their total annual sales to be in the range of 1,600 tons of food, totaling about $4.4 million the first year, according to the executive summary. They expect it to grow closer to $5 million in following years.
The developers say they would like to partner with Salish Kootenai College, the Montana University System and nearby Kicking Horse Job Corps for educational opportunities and to help find people to staff the facility.
The application also states they will seek to install a restaurant attached to the agricultural production facility. It would be operated as a privately held, for-profit limited liability company.
The project has gained the approval of the Lake County Community Development Corporation.
“As an agency that works on economic development, we absolutely support developments that add new housing, create jobs and add value to agriculture in the area,” said Gypsy Ray, executive director of the Lake County Community Development Corp. “From what I’m aware of, all of those things would be part of the program if successful.”
Ray noted that while she had spoken with the developers and supported the project, she had not worked closely with them in recent weeks or months. She said they were still seeking funding and investors, and that had been the major hurdle for a while.
The single-family residences are expected to begin in the $140,000 range, and Aloha Noblehouse has arranged options with financiers to make competitive mortgages attainable for those with good credit. The default design will be three bedrooms and one bath, Greenstein said, but could be altered for an additional fee if enough prospective residents express interest.
The developer also has been angling for a New Markets Tax Credit, a federal tax credit available for ventures that include real-estate investment in low-income areas of the United States. The credits would go toward the housing project only, not the agricultural center.
The tax-credit program was nearly eliminated in the negotiation process for the new federal tax plan that passed through Congress just before Christmas. Aloha Noblehouse contacted Montana’s U.S. senators and representative to enlist their help in preserving the credit, and the final passed version does not eliminate the program.
Reporter Peregrine Frissell can be reached at 758-4438 or pfrissell@dailyinterlake.com.
Fellows Earn Urban Farming Certification
Fellows Earn Urban Farming Certification
- BY TAMMIE SMITH Richmond Times-Dispatch Dec 17, 2017
Alex Badecker was one of nine people earning certificates in urban agriculture December 12, 2017, as part of the Tricycle Urban Ag Fellowship program.
Urban farming nonprofit Tricycle last week graduated the first class of students to complete its 11-month fellowship program in urban agriculture.
The nine people received certificates in urban agriculture endorsed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
A number of the students plan to operate or already operate small farming operations. The training emphasized urban farming practices and management, said Beth Nelson, fellowship program manager.
The students spent 15 to 20 hours a week in training — hands-on in the field and in the classroom where topics included holistic business planning, farm business plan development, financial projections and cash flow, record keeping and decision-making for farm profitability.
“My goal is to sell to restaurants and farmers markets,” said Alex Badecker, who grows asparagus, sweet potatoes and other produce part time on an approximately 6,000-square-foot plot in Henrico County.
The others receiving certificates in urban agriculture were Sonia Allen, Kamala Bhagat, Nicole Broder, Ash Carr, Mark Davis, Kittie Storey, Dana Wright and Mandy Yarnell.
Broder said she wants to start a rooftop farm. Carr is planning a farm that will produce medicinal herbs and seeds.
Storey wants to be a small grower. “Keeping food in our local system is a big part of educating the public about where their food comes from,” Storey said.
Davis said “Tricycle and the fellowship have been one of the most powerful experiences” of his life.
The training was presented in collaboration with the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Bon Secours Richmond Health System. Last week’s ceremony was held at the Bon Secours Center for Healthy Living at 2600 Nine Mile Road.
Nonprofit Tricycle is recruiting for the next class of fellows, which will start in March.
For more information, go to tricycleurbanag.org. Application deadline is Jan. 19, and the fellowship runs from March to December. Scholarships are available, and there are information sessions in December and January for those who want to learn more.