Giant Pumpkin from anchoragedailynews on Vimeo.
Since Jean Hamilton from NOFA-VT is scheduled to speak at our first statewide conference in Louisiana, I have been in touch with her during this difficult week up there. She sent me this email:
Our offices were closed yesterday due to the fact that all roads into town were completely flooded. I tried driving in from two of the three directions when I finally got a glimpse of the Winooski river turned sea.
So, I headed into Burlington instead where I spent the day helping farmers at the Intervale cart produce to high ground. A bunch of us filled a cooler with as much as four farms could harvest before the water took their fields, only to realize that the water was definitely going to fill the cooler as well. Luckily, our local school district is very supportive of local farms and invited them to move all their stuff up to a HUGE walk in cooler at the middle school. It was an emotionally confusing day with lots of sunshine, inspiring community cooperation, and oh so much farm food gone bye-bye.
For the most part, people are taking this opportunity to reaffirm the things that matter most, but I know there are some very low spirits among the farmers.Anyway, it was touching to come home, see this email, and realize how many people are thinking of us up here.
(1) Higher Education and Food Systems (deadline: Dec. 1, 2011)
A growing number of colleges and universities are making serious efforts to increase their ecological sustainability through conscious change in very specific aspects of teaching, research, operations, and public engagement. In addition to adopting practices such as LEED certified construction, green cleaning supplies, and sustainability education programming, many are focusing specifically on food- and agriculture-related sustainability issues, including developing local food procurement for their student food services, adopting composting and other food waste management practices, establishing demonstration farms, gardens and CSAs, supporting student food and agriculture groups, and programming in support of public engagement in food and agricultural policy. Many institutions of higher learning now offer food-related courses and academic programs.
Furthermore, the topic of food systems is increasingly found across a broad range of social sciences course curricula and is no longer solely in the arena of agricultural colleges. Progressive colleges and universities are not only in a position to graduate students as who are well informed about the issues and prepared to be food citizens, but also to model reasoned investigation and informed public discussion of issues — and therefore to influence public policy in other aspects of society and the economy.
In this special topic call we invite researchers, administrators, graduate students, NGO staff members, and others to submit manuscripts featuring results of surveys, case studies, policy analyses, review articles, reflective essays, commentaries, and the like in which they examine the ways colleges and universities are pursuing their food system sustainability goals and the extent to which they are finding success.
Examples of topics include:
Survey of campus sustainability coordinators related to best practices in food system–related activities
Focus group of food service directors
Census of student farms and gardens
Survey of student organizations to inventory and assess student-led programs and activities
Comparative analysis of food system curriculum within and across disciplines or institutions
Innovations in programming by institutions of higher education, including private and community colleges in addition to land grant colleges
Comparison of institutional use of local food
Employment prospects for graduates of food system sustainability programs
Analysis of trends in tenure-track positions and funded research
Analysis of food systems education and the liberal arts
The role of higher education social networks related to food and agriculture
Case studies of university-based local food system projects or community-university partnerships
Analysis of food system education curricula and course syllabi
See more details and printable flyers at JAFSCD’s calls for papers.
(2) Sustainable Livelihoods in Food Systems (deadline: February 15, 2012)
Members of the Ojibwe indigenous community harvesting wild rice.While industrialization and globalization of the food system continue to lead to declining numbers of midsized farms and more low-wage employment, emerging regional food systems appear to be creating some new occupational opportunities, including the emergence of green-collar sustainable occupations such as farmer trainers, farm managers, agriculture teaching positions certifiers, and consultants. At the core of regional food system growth, family farms are engaging in producing new crops and cultivating techniques that are entrepreneurial and high risk. Indeed, economics continue to challenge the viability of even the most progressive operation. From a public policy perspective, the growth of sustainable livelihoods in the food system will require fair prices and competitive markets for farmers, fair wages for workers, safe working conditions, and a well-trained workforce.
(Photo: Members of the Ojibwe indigenous community in northern Minnesota harvest wild rice (manoomin) in the traditional manner; learn more at http://www.welrp.org. Photo copyright 2007 by Duncan Hilchey.)
JAFSCD welcomes submissions on a wide range of food system livelihood topics that will inform thinking and practice related to regional food system trends, issues, and public policy. We seek reports of qualitative and quantitative studies, review articles, reflective essays, and commentaries. We encourage submission which focus on Sustainable Livelihoods Approaches (SLA), drawing on diverse disciplinary perspectives and bridging divides, particularly between the natural and social sciences.
Topics of interest might include:
Application of SLA in smallholder farming and local food systems in the Global North and South
Local food livelihood development as a strategy for improved food security
SLA for exploring livelihood options and strategies of different actors within food systems
Emerging or declining farm- and food-related occupations
New skills required in emerging food systems (e.g., line workers in farm-to-school programs)
Occupational data trends and issues in emerging food systems
Small-scale food processing livelihoods
Farmer self-exploitation
Farm worker trends and issues (e.g., regarding migrant labor, guest workers, apprentices, etc.)
Barriers and effective paths for farm workers to become farm owners
Trends and issues for independent grocers and other food retailers
Studies of innovations in microenterprise, entrepreneurship, and occupational education programming
Food, health, and new products and enterprises
Changes to subsistence practices due to globalization
Analysis of foundation, public, and private-sector investment in food systems businesses
Analysis of policies promoting and/or discouraging emerging systems and their implications and effects on local occupations, economics, and health
Emerging livelihoods in sustainable livestock production
See more details and printable flyers at JAFSCD’s calls for papers.
JAFSCD
What a few months for the natural world in North America. It seems that we are now fully in the next phase of environmental uncertainty and change, and as market organizers, must plan for the eventuality of it coming to us.
Vermont is currently in the grips of the devastation and as a recent visitor, I worry about those farmers and markets that I met while there. I know from experience that the issues they will face over the next few months will be both unique to their place and similar to New Orleans 2005, Iowa 2008 or even the horror of Japan 2011 and so on. Sure we can help and should help, those of us who have seen it, but more importantly:
How can we begin to add some resilience into our organizations so that we can quickly react to our community when they need us? Is funding the top priority after disasters, or is the primary responsibility a series of human responses that offer comfort and solace? And what can be done as a national community of markets to offer help without becoming a FEMA-like casualty of bureaucracy?
Is this a series of audio pieces or maybe even a packet, downloadable for those who are ready to plan?
I am beginning to work on post-disaster planning for markets. If you feel like adding your thoughts, do send me any ideas as they pop up. And good luck to Vermont and to the entire Northeast.
email me at dar wolnik at gmail if you have ideas or details that you want to share.
Grist: too many farmers markets?
Please also see my post below this for my 2 cents…Love to hear some of yours too…
A NYT article in Sunday’s paper reports on (and quotes some of our market leaders) on saturation worries with climbing numbers of markets and cannibalization of shoppers. Of course, its already true in some areas, but in my mind, only if we ignore the fact that, at best, we attract 1-5% of the population right now.
We can increase the number of markets if we continue to direct resources to increasing the number and type of farmers while we seek out groups of new “low-hanging fruit” of the next generation of shoppers.
In short, to improve we need to maintain balance of benefits while reaching new, often slightly less ready shoppers while holding on to our old faithfuls…
Unfortunately, we in the agricultural biz are just going to have to get better at explaining disasters to our communities…
Record for billion-dollar weather disasters tied – Weather – msnbc.com.
Here’s an excellent story of people using social justice framework to show the inequities of the food system. Welcome these Riders when they come to your area or tell your colleagues when they arrive in theirs. Every significant issue is tangled around the industrial food system; let’s keep reminding the world of that.
From the LIVE REAL website:
Black farmers continuing their fight for Civil Rights. Farmworkers organizing for fair working conditions. Native youth restoring traditional foodways. Farmers struggling against Monsanto in the cornbelt. City residents reclaiming vacant lots for vibrant gardens.
These are the hidden stories of America.
Across the country, everyday people are responding to a failing food system, asserting the right of all people to real food, real culture and real jobs.
This summer, Live Real commemorates the Freedom Rides of the Civil Rights era with a journey exposing injustices and innovations in communities across America, from the ‘hood to the heartland. We honor our political ancestors as we continue their journey for justice.
Thirteen riders, including Live Real staff, Real Food Fellows and allies, will travel across America to expose and uplift stories from farmers, food chain workers and #foodandfreedom fighters. The riders will teach youth about federal food policy, and carry our message to our political decision-makers: Real food is a real solution.
I think there are great quotes and information in here for every market, every food system piece of writing you are doing…
Including this quote:
But alas, the gospel that better nutrition means more expense has taken on a life of its own. Everyone has heard it — and so everyone tends to repeat it. Perception becomes reality, so most people simply accept that good nutrition is economically disadvantageous. They then stop trying to eat better and simply propagate the urban legend.
In my mind, the story linked at the end of this post is like ending up the wrong side of the tracks in a regional food system: You’re viewing the poor part of it (in this case, in values) and maybe it’s wrong to see it as being part of the same place at all.
Trumpeting a man made water-reliant artificial system for growing what is known among the wild-caught fishers in my neck of the woods as “textured protein” rather than understanding that shrimp are creatures that are born and live in a complex free flowing water system, such as our estuaries around the Gulf of Mexico is dangerous wrong-side-of-the-tracks behavior.
And instead of pointing out that true localvores eat what is raised as part of their bioregion, this story extols the virtue of every food item available 24/7 in a desert.
I do have access to seafood and as a result of that bounty, live with the uncertainty of life on the edge of a massive waterway that is prone to hurricanes and dead zones from run off up North. I do have access to seafood, but go without fresh corn or stone fruit being available locally and only see those wonderful items when I travel to another food system. And that, to me, is the definition of a localvore.
Our national voice for farmers markets, Farmers Market Coalition(FMC) has launched their great Seven Days, Seven Ways campaign to celebrate the many ways markets benefit the farmers, shoppers and community. Take a few minutes to see the list of economic, social and human measurements FMC has used in their report (culled from markets own reports) and make a mental note to visit the innovative markets that FMC honored this year.
Helping Farmers Markets Grow 