Tag: Sustainable Food

From Garbage to Greens: How This D.C. Lot Plans To Make History

Posted on by robbie

The vacant lot tucked away in the District of Columbia’s Anacostia community has long been a wasteland for the Department of Parks and Recreation and the Department of Transportation — serving as a storage facility and a temporary space for leaf collection, respectively.
More recently, construction companies have taken to using the space for illegal dumping, painting a picture of desertion in a struggling neighborhood. But by early next year, city officials are expecting the overgrown area to be transformed.
Into what, you’re probably asking? Impressively, the wasteland is going to be turned into the home of the world’s largest urban greenhouse.
Washington D.C.’s Department of General Services and the Anacostia Economic Development Corporation have teamed up with BrightFarms, a New York-based firm that builds and manages greenhouses and rooftop farms across the country. (BrightFarms has spearheaded urban greenhouses and rooftop farms in New York, Chicago, St. Paul, Minn., and St. Louis, Mo., among others.)
Authorities expect the 100,000 square-foot greenhouse to produce 1 million pounds of produce — such as tomatoes, leafy greens and herbs — to be sold at 30 Giant grocery stores throughout the greater Washington, D.C. area, according to the National Journal.
The Anacostia community itself, which grapples with high unemployment and crime as well as a lack of fresh-food options, will also benefit from the new project. Some of the greenhouse produce will be sold to local merchants at a subsidized rate while also providing between 20 and 25 new permanent jobs as well as 100 construction jobs, according to BrightFarms.
MORE: From Windowsills to Rooftops, Check Out the Rise of Urban Farming

“We can make a meaningful impact on the food supply chain and help improve it, lessen the environmental impact, and improve the health, the safety, and the quality of our produce that’s available,” said Toby Tiktinsky, BrightFarms’ director of business development.

The transformed space will also serve as a classroom for students to learn about sustainable farming and healthy eating.

Construction is expected to start late this summer and take up to five months to complete, turning this community blight into a neighborhood bright spot.

Watch: Now You Can See Which Restaurants Help Feed the Hungry

Posted on by robbie

In 2011 Ben Simon launched The Food Recovery Network at the University of Maryland. The goal was simple: intercept as much leftover food from his college campus’s cafeteria as possible and get it to those in need. Within months, the network grew to include dozens of chapters at colleges across the country. More than 320,000 pounds of recovered food later, Simon is launching his most ambitious initiative to date — Food Recovery Certified.
Any food provider in the country can apply to be Food Recovery Certified as long as they donate their leftovers at least once a month. Cara Mayo, Food Recovery Certified’s program manager, works with local nonprofits to verify the donations. She says she hopes becoming certified will become a national trend. “Consumers want there businesses to be associated with an environmental or social cause. They want the effects of it to be felt in their home and in their community.”

Editors’ note: Since the original publication of this story, Ben Simon, founder of The Food Recovery Network, has become a NationSwell Council member.

Watch: How One Chicago Restaurant Went Totally Trash-Free

Posted on by robbie

According to the Green Restaurant Association, the average restaurant in the U.S. produces 150,000 pounds of garbage each year. Café owner Justin Vrany thinks this number cannot only be reduced, but eliminated entirely. His Chicago-based eatery has produced an astonishing 8 gallons of garbage (pictured above) in the last two years. According to Vrany, that bag of trash was recently picked up by a local artist, who will transform it into a sculpture — now making Sandwich Me In a zero-waste restaurant. 
Watch and see how this restaurant operates with clean dumpsters, and learn the story behind its remarkable owner.

Kelp: The Sea Weed That Could Save Mankind

Posted on by robbie

Bren Smith blends into the New England seascape, a waterman decked out in waders tooling around on his boat in the Long Island Sound. On this hazy July morning, he’s motored out aboard the Mookie III from a Stony Creek, Conn., dock to check on his oyster beds scattered between the Thimble Islands. Another boat putters by, and Smith raises his arm to point, his hands cloaked in rubber gloves to protect against the barnacles. “That guy,” Smith says, “is only catching about five pounds of lobsters a day. He doesn’t even pay for half his fuel with that.” And with this observation, Smith shatters the illusion that he’s just another fisherman chasing his catch.
Smith, in fact, is a genuine revolutionary, a man who sees powerful currents of change in the choppy waters off the Atlantic seaboard. And his neighbor, chugging past with his nearly empty hold, is proof that the end of a way of life is looming—and the beginning of a new one is at hand.
Climate change has affected the fishing beds. Ocean acidification, a product of rising atmospheric CO2 levels, kills off coral reefs, causes toxic algae blooms and dissolves the shells of oysters and other mollusks, researchers say.
And then there’s what Smith calls the “rape and pillage” of the world’s oceans—the overfishing that has dried up once-fertile sources of food, and sent unemployment in once-thriving seaside communities through the roof. Smith assigns himself a share of the blame. He fished for McDonald’s in the Bering Sea some years back, and pushed the cod stocks to the brink. But grousing about it, and hoping government regulation will solve the problem, won’t do the trick. What fishermen catch needs to be rethought. What fishermen should be doing, in Smith’s view, is harvesting kelp.
Yes, you read that right: the slimy brown sea vegetation that has grossed out generations of New England beachgoers. You might think of it as an annoyance of no particular significance to mankind. Smith sees it as a jobs program, an amazing source of nutrition, a strategic adaptation to the havoc being wrought by global warming—and, quite possibly, the next big thing in trendy New York City restaurants.
He calls it his “path of ecological redemption,” and he’s calling on fishermen, businessmen and consumers to follow it with him.
Continue reading “Kelp: The Sea Weed That Could Save Mankind”

This Urban Farm Has a Very Unusual Key to Success

Posted on by robbie

Urban hydroponic farming can grow produce with less space and water than traditional methods and no soil at all. But these farms are fussy and complicated–if you mess up the chemistry, you can kiss a whole crop good bye overnight. That’s why Jan Pilarski created Green Bridge Growers. Her son Chris, who has a degree in chemistry and environmental studies but also has autism, is an ideal candidate for managing such a complex system. People with autism have a 90 percent unemployment rate, but Pilarski saw an entrepreneurial solution to Chris’ challenges. Many people with autism, like Chris, excel at work that involves minute attention to detail, precise timing, and constant monitoring–the exact skills you’d want for running a successful aquaponics farm. With the farm’s Indiegogo campaign exceeding its initial $15,000 goal to build a commercial-size facility, Pilarski hopes to hire four more workers for the project.

Farmers’ Markets Around the Country Have Found Bitcoin’s Secret Good Side

Posted on by robbie

At farmers’ markets, credit cards make transactions more convenient for customers who may not have cash on hand. But they’re not ideal for vendors, who have to forfeit a 3% transaction fee. Some farmers are therefore turning to the new digital currency, Bitcoin, which most people associate with online drug and weapon sales. Clinton Felsted from Provo, Utah, started using Bitcoin at his market and has enjoyed pocketing the 3% of each transaction he was previously losing. It might seem like a small fee, but for a “high-volume, low-profit” business like a farmers’ market, it accrues harshly. Bitcoin could make a significant difference in business, and aid the country’s growing local agriculture movement. Small businesses may especially benefit from Bitcoin: they’re young and nimble enough to take the risk of using a new currency.
 

The Company That’s Keeping Junk Out of School Cafeterias

Posted on by robbie

Word association. I say, “school lunch,” you say…. “Gross.” “Junk food.” “Mystery meat.” It doesn’t have to be that way, and a young Chicago couple is proving it. They didn’t like the choices available at their son’s preschool, so they started Gourmet Gorilla.* Four years later, the company delivers 10,000 better meals and snacks to 90 elementary and preschools each school day. They source about 70% of their ingredients locally and from organic suppliers. Now, I’m fully aware that money is the elephant in the room for school lunch choices, especially in cash-strapped urban public school systems. But there’s always a way to do a bit better. Our kids deserve it.
*I’m betting this is a play on the irresistible kid’s book Goodnight Gorilla.