When the local economy is threatened, what do you do?
While some may turn to outside forces for help, others turn to the people at the heart of the matter: the community. That’s exactly what residents of Asheville, N.C. did by bringing to fruition a homegrown solution through the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP).
With the changes in the tobacco industry and the trend towards larger agricultural farms, North Carolina communities realized that something needed to be done to preserve their farmers, which are constrained in size because of the mountainous landscape. That answer came in the form of a group of volunteers led by Charlie Jackson.
The group began by taking it to the streets, publicizing local farms and products through door-to-door campaigns, newspaper articles and radio announcements. It also printed a Local Food Guide as well as a weekly “Fresh at the Farmer’s Market” report, according to the Sustainable Cities Collective.
In 2002, the nonprofit ASAP was born.
Since then, it has expanded its efforts by starting the “Appalachian Grown” program, which offers certification to local farms, restaurants, distributers and grocers. Acceptance into this elite group entitles members to technical assistance, marketing support, training and a network of other local food providers.
Preserving an economy requires all generations, which is why ASAP is going into schools to educate youths through its “Growing Minds Farm to School” program. Working with schools, ASAP organizes school gardens, local food cooking classes, farm field trips and local food service in the cafeteria, as well as training teachers and dietitians.
The purpose of the program is to make local food a commodity which everyone can enjoy, which is why a large percentage of students receive free or reduced lunch.
For Jackson, though, the movement is about the community, so it leads the project, which has the added benefit minimizing infrastructure issues.
“It’s really important to ASAP that a just food system’s going to include everybody,” Jackson tells Sustainable Cities Collective. “Right now, we’re thinking about this as a movement. Focusing on local is an amazing way to create community dialogue and democracy that we don’t have in our food community right now.”
Through the work of ASAP, the western North Carolina agriculture economy is thriving, and Asheville has become a cultural hub. And for a region that was on the brink of disappearance 15 years ago, it just goes to show what a difference a little home fertilization can make.
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Tag: food
Let’s Hope This Is the Next Big Food Trend
Thinking about your next meal? Forget kale or quinoa or any other trendy fare. Why not try “expired” or “ugly” food instead?
Modern Farmer has proclaimed that salvage grocery stores (where shoppers can find misshapen fruits and veggies, and food that’s past the sell-by dates for steep discounts) are “the next big thing in food.”
The reason why? For an increasingly eco-conscious America, salvage grocery stores don’t just mean savings for your pocketbook, they also help reduce the shocking amount of food that’s wasted in this country.
We’ve said it before: About 40 percent of perfectly edible food that’s produced in this country never makes it onto our plates. That’s 36 million tons of food wasted annually, to the tune of $165 billion, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That’s not to mention all the energy, carbon emissions and environmental destruction involved in farming and the food manufacturing process. To produce food that’s immediately landfill-bound is also incredibly senseless when 1 in 6 Americans are struggling with hunger.
Surprisingly, one reason why so much is wasted is due to confusion about sell-by dates. Many grocery stores (as well as individual Americans) throw out food that’s deemed bad simply because it’s past the date on the sticker. Dumpsters behind big grocery stores have been found “full to the brim” with fresh or packaged foods that are past these arbitrary dates but would never make anyone sick. Truth is, these labels don’t actually mean much. Even the U.S.D.A. says those dates refer to peak quality and are not a time that designates when it’s safe to consume the food.
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Additionally, Americans have gotten used to seeing fruits and vegetables that come without a single bump, bruise or bend. Produce that’s less-than-perfect gets tossed out before it enters anyone’s shopping cart.
But salvage groceries are places where unwanted foods and odd-shaped fruits and veggies can find its way to your fork. Modern Farmer writes that these stores sell just about anything you’d find at a conventional grocery store — from potato chips to organic wine — but for a much cheaper price because salvage grocers buy directly from manufacturers and aren’t as concerned with perfect-looking produce. You’ll also find holiday and seasonal foods, failed products, items with misspelled or misshapen labels and other grocery store castoffs.
Unfortunately, there’s no national database of salvage grocery stores, so you might have to search hard for one near you (if there is one at all). But for your wallet and for the environment, it’s definitely worth the effort.
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For Kids Afraid of Broccoli, This Center Helps Squash Their Fear
You’ve heard about the importance of literacy for reading, for finances (“financial literacy”), and maybe even for math — aka, numeracy — but what about food literacy?
The Food Literacy Center, a nonprofit in Sacramento, Calif., is inspiring kids to become knowledgeable about food in the hopes that they’ll develop life long healthy eating habits.
It opened its doors three years ago, offering classes on cooking and all-around vegetable know-how to children and has become so popular that now, dozens of volunteers work alongside its four full-time employees — reaching 2,400 kids at public libraries, after-school programs and other nonprofits. It specializes in reaching low-income kids and those who qualify for free and reduced lunch. These families often can’t afford fresh produce, leaving their kids inexperienced in everything from carrots to kohlrabi.
At the Food Literacy Center, they learn such facts as how to distinguish fruits — including the frequently misidentified bell pepper — and why whole fruits are better for them than juices and jellies.
The founder of the center, Amber Stott, tells the Sacramento Bee, “Because kids’ eating habits haven’t been firmly formed yet, we have a great opportunity to create healthy eaters, to help these kids become food adventurers and build habits that will last a lifetime.”
The effect of fruit and veggie literacy often extends to the kids’ parents. Evonne Fisher, the mother of a seven-year-old participating in the program, says that before her daughter’s food lessons, neither of them were culinary adventurers. “Before Food Literacy, if I was scared of how a certain food looked, I wouldn’t try it,” she says. “But this has really opened me up. I never would have tried a persimmon before, and now? I love them.”
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How Does This Sheet Make Healthy Food More Accessible?
Let’s be honest, most of us probably love the taste of homegrown, fresh vegetables, but we don’t want to do the work required to start our own garden. Between weeding, planting and watering, the upkeep of a garden requires a lot of time that many of us simply don’t have.
All of that might change, however, with the invention of the Seedsheet, a seed-loaded sheet customized to your needs.
Seedsheet is the product of the new Vermont-based company Cloudform. A Kickstarter campaign to fund its production launched on Nov. 14.
Green thumbs can design their garden using the Seedsheet’s website, and according to CEO and founder Cameron MacKulger, it’s as simple as paint by numbers. Users plug in their garden dimensions on the website and and their zip code to learn which plant hardiness zone they live in. Next, users customize garden by dragging, dropping and arranging fruits, vegetables and herbs in their virtual garden.
Seedsheet will then create the sheet and all the customer has to do is prepare the soil, put the sheet in the soil and water. The sheet eliminates the need for seed selection, planting and weeding (thanks to the weed-barrier fabric in it).
Making gardening easier is not MacKugler’s ultimate goal, however.
“The primary aim of the Seedsheet, and our company, is to make healthy food accessible for everyone,” MacKugler tells Motherboard. “The Seedsheet is a value-add to people that already garden, as it is an innovation that will save time and improve upon the process that they already love. By incorporating a user-friendly software program, we make gardening approachable to millennials that would otherwise be intimidated by a 100-page seed catalog.”
Additionally, because Seedsheet warms the ground beneath it, it makes the soil and seeds more stable to fight erosion, plus, it requires less watering.
Sounds like a dream come true for green thumbs everywhere.
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In Boston’s Poorest Neighborhood, The Seeds of a Food Economy Are Being Sown
Boston can boast about many things – top colleges, rich history and vibrant business. And now, it can add one more item to that list: an emerging local food economy.
That’s right, ever since the 1980s, the areas of Roxbury and Dorchester have been slowly developing their communities into burgeoning food hubs. With community land trusts, local kitchens and retailers, a waste-management co-op and others, Boston is achieving an integrated food economy.
Back in the eighties, residents banned together and formed the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, acquiring 60 acres of land in the middle of the Dudley neighborhood. Since then, the land has been used to build homes and start a community land trust consisting of parks, gardens, a town common, community center, charter school and a community greenhouse.
That greenhouse is leased to the Food Project, a nonprofit focused on youth development and urban agriculture. Half of the greenhouse is used for produce that is sold to cover the majority of the operating costs, while the other 50 percent is utilized by local residents and organizations.
Food Project works with more than 150 teens and thousands of volunteers to produce food that is sold at famers’ markets and community agriculture programs in order to raise money for hunger relief programs.
Additionally, since 2001, the Grow or Die campaign run by Boston’s youth has been turning vacant lots into raised-bed community gardens servicing more than 100 families.
And in 2009, City Growers entered the scene. Started by Glynn Lloyd (who also runs Roxbury catering company City Fresh Foods) because he wanted access to fresh, local food, the for-profit farming venture is one of the area’s firsts.
Lloyd hasn’t stopped there, as he recently founded the Urban Farming Institute and facilitated in the passing of Article 89, a commercial urban agriculture zoning ordinance. As a result, a groundbreaking was held last July for the Garrison –Trotter Farm, which sits on two lots that had been vacant since the 1980s.
Along with the programs, gardens and more processing business, retailers and restaurants are emerging that want to utilize the local food. Linking all of these organizations is that community’s first step toward a successful local food network.
And for Lloyd, coordination and cooperation is the key for the future.
“Many of us don’t come from conventional business backgrounds,” Lloyd tells YES! Magazine. “Innovation won’t just come from private sector, nonprofits, or government, but from all of them working together.”
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These 3 Schools Are Earning an A in ‘Green’
Located on college campuses nation are are dorms, academic buildings, dining halls and a student union. And now, as Americans develop a green conscience, universities and millennials are jumping into the fray by practicing sustainable agriculture right on campus.
While numerous colleges across the country have community gardens, here are some of the standouts.
Pomona College Organic Farm
The long growing season in California makes it the perfect place for a campus garden. At the Pomona College Organic Farm, land is used for class as well as business. Started in 2005, the farm is part of the college’s Environmental Analysis program.
As part of the curriculum, students have the opportunity to not only maintain the plots, but also test real soil for soil sciences courses. Further, students use the farm as a tool when writing theses in areas such as politics, environmental science and science. On the business end, students operate a bi-weekly farms stand where the food is sold to those in the area.
Naira de Gracia is a recent graduate of the college and local farm manager.
“That’s the whole point of the farm; to invent and innovate and experiment,” de Grazia tells Sustainable Cities Collective. “I’m always discovering new alums who have done something awesome, who say they only were able to do this because of the farm.”
Central Carolina Community College Land Lab
The entrepreneurial-focused Sustainable Agriculture program educates students how to be financially and ecologically savvy in starting and operating a farm. The farm functions as a tool for biology courses as well, and after graduation, many students start their own farms.
An added benefit of having the Land Lab at Central Carolina Community College on campus is that the produce is used in the school’s culinary program.
Rutgers University Student Sustainable Farm
Located in New Jersey is the “nation’s largest organic farm managed by students.” The university’s Student Sustainable Farm is a self-sustained CSA program that is completely run by the student body. Each year, four to six student interns manage the operation with the assistance of faculty farm advisor Dr. Ed Durner from the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. The food produced by the farm is given to the shareholders and donated to local organizations who donate it to the needy in the area.
To learn more about collegiate sustainable farms, click here.
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To Combat Child Food Insecurity, These Brothers Biked Cross Country
What does two brothers plus one penny per mile times 4,000 miles equal?
The answer: 400 meals for children living in poverty in the U.S.
Hailing from Ferndale, Michigan, Jon and Chris Gagnon are well acquainted with the childhood food insecurity problem in Detroit. In Wayne County, Mich., the rate of child food insecurity is 22.3 percent, meaning 102,790 children don’t have sufficient access to nutritious food.
While volunteering with an AmeriCorps summer program, Jon heard about No Kid Hungry – a national nonprofit that helps bring federal and state assistance programs to families and children. Jon is now employed by Groundwerx.CI, a Detroit nonprofit that works with No Kid Hungry.
Due to this experience, the Gagnon brothers saw that something needed to be done, and their solution was a cross-country bike campaign to raise money for the organization.
Their ride started on Sept. 3 in San Francisco and concluded Oct. 17 in Washington D.C. For six weeks, the brothers toured all around the country seeing sights all too common in Detroit: tons of grocery stores and farmers markets, but people still living without healthy food. During their trip, they were able to witness and experience the daily struggle of those families.
“Being hungry doesn’t just make your stomach growl,” Chris wrote on the brothers’ blog. “It drains your energy, steals your focus and makes the simplest actions feel impossible.”
Before they started their trip, the brothers began an online fundraising campaign on the No Kid Hungry website. Donors could make a straight donation or an amount per mile. Just $1 can provide 10 meals for a child.
Of the collected donations, 20 percent will go to the national No Kid Hungry and the other 80 percent is heading to the Detroit chapter. The brothers’ goal was to raise $25,000. As of November 13, $18, 117 was raised, and donations are still being accepted online.
While fighting child food insecurity is a long journey not near completion, the Gagnon brothers have shown what can be accomplished with a few dollars, bikes and some perseverance.
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One Year Later: How America’s First Non-Profit Supermarket Is Faring
About a year ago in Chester, Penn., a group of individuals started a supermarket. However, this wasn’t just any grocery store: Fare & Square is the first non-profit one in the country.
Twelve years ago, the last supermarket in Chester (a city about 15 miles from Philadelphia, where 31 percent of its residents live below the poverty line and the median income is $27,546) closed its doors, leaving residents with few food options. As a result, more and more residents relied on Philabundance, a Philadelphia-based food bank, but fewer and fewer donations were coming in. So Philabundance president and executive director Bill Clark realized that something needed to be done.
“We knew that Chester was a market in need,” Clark tells Next City. “When everybody can’t get food at a grocery store and goes to emergency food cupboards, that’s not a very good, effective way to deal with the problem, either.”
His solution? Fare & Square — a supermarket that will provide a wide variety of healthy options, as well as host special events where Chester residents can receive health screenings.
With a year under its belt, Fare & Square is now assessing its progress. So far, it’s been slow-coming as the owners try to adjust their products to fit their clients’ needs, which must strike a balance between healthy options and ones that are affordable.
Fare & Square’s managing director Paul Messina remains optimistic and views the situation as trial–and–error.
“It’s Fare & Square 1,” Messina says to Next City. “We’re still trying to do our best to keep our cost of goods down for the community, and we are making changes. We’re looking very, very closely at the product mix that we currently have in the store and seeing what we can continue to sell at what prices. We do feel that we’re going to need to eliminate some items that cost more money than we’re able to sell at a good cost for the community.”
For a community without much, Fare & Square is demonstrating that all sorts of possibilities are possible, thanks to food.
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The Group Pedaling to a Cleaner Earth
What would you think if saw someone riding a bike with a bunch of garbage bins attached to it?
For residents in Austin, Texas, this site isn’t uncommon. That’s because since December 2012, the East Side Compost Pedallers (ESCP) have been riding around, collecting trash to be composted by local urban farms, schools and community gardens.
“Scrapple” is how the cyclists affectionately refer to the compostable food waste which they collect. Currently, the group is comprised of seven bikers who serve residences in east Austin and neighborhoods by the University of Texas, as well as local businesses such as DropBox and small cafes.
Cyclists are equipped with custom-built, heavy-duty Metrofiet cargo bikes that can carry 55 gallon barrels totaling 250 pounds each. They also have the option of riding retro-filled pedicabs, which can carry barrels weighing 800 pounds each.
The for-profit organization charges for its services: For residences, it’s $4 per week, while the cost varies for businesses depending upon their size and the amount of bins required.
Over the past two years, ESCP has seen a growing client base and massive results. Among its achievements, the group can boast that it has redirected more than 190,000 pounds of scrapple from landfills, produced 50,000 pounds of compost, reduced the costs of composting by $5,000 for farmer patrons and stopped the emission of about 30 tons of methane, according to Good.
Their clients have also noticed how beneficial the service has been, too. Composting for the past 27 years, the East Side Café started using ESCP six months ago. So far, the café has redirected 7,155 pounds of waste and prevented more than a ton of methane emissions.
Perhaps the most defining feature of the group, though, is their drive to improve the environment and the community.
“East Side Compost Peddallers are pioneering the compost movement in Austin,” Elaine Martin, Eastside Cafe’s chef and owner, tells Good. “They’re out there pedaling every day, and you can tell they’re passionate about what they’re doing and want to make our community a better place to live. It’s great to work with people who care about your neighborhood as much as you do.”
And with that, keep pedalling, please.
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When Its Only Grocery Store Closed Its Doors, This Town Didn’t Have to Look Far for New Owners
What do you do when your local supermarket closes? For one town, it means you open your own community-owned store.
When the local Winn Dixie shut its doors in northeast Greensboro, N.C. in the 1990s, the area became a barren food desert. For the past 15 years, residents have been waiting for another grocery story to fill the void, according to Yes! magazine, but none came. The community isn’t big enough to satiate the needs of a large shareholder corporation, which has acted as a deterrent for other chain stores.
Left without access to food for too long, the community took the matter into their own hands and started researching. After exploring various options, it decided to form a grocery store cooperative.
Starting next year, northeast Greensboro residents will have access to a store that will provide them quality food as well as well-paid jobs. All workers at the Renaissance Community Cooperative will be paid more than minimum wage, starting at $10 per hour.
There’s a common belief about co-ops that they work best in more affluent communities. However, northeast Greensboro is a low-income and predominantly African-American community, so with the start of the cooperative, the town is looking to break that stereotype.
While the results and success of the co-op remain to be seen, right now it can be viewed as a positive step in the right direction. And, if it does become successful, it will serve as an example and model for other low-income areas to follow.
It goes just to show what positives can come from what first seem to be a devastating event.
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