Seed Money for Seeds

By Helen Brady, President, Friends of Hilltop Hanover Farm and Environmental Center

The receipt of a generous grant from the Community Catalyst Fund allowed the Friends of Hilltop Hanover Farm and Environmental Center, Inc. buy the necessary vegetable seeds, soil amendments and supplies to plant our first Community Supported Agriculture program.

Hilltop Hanover Farm and Environmental Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, is a regional education center that offers programs on healthy and sustainable food production, and teaches skills for small-scale suburban and urban farming, illustrating sustainable living practices for regional and local communities. The farm features demonstration models for backyard farming, rainwater harvesting, composting, and green-roof technology. Visitors can hike the farm’s 3.5 miles of woodland trails; picnic on the farm grounds; buy a CSA share, purchase produce from a farm stand and at U-Pick; or attend numerous classes and lectures. The Farm offers tours, classes and field trips to school groups, garden clubs, and scout troops, with specific emphasis on agricultural preservation, drinking water protection, and the promotion of environmental stewardship.  The farm is open to the public, harnessed 1,700 volunteer hours in 2010, and donated 4 tons (est. value $18,000) of produce to regional food pantries.

Purchased in 2003 by Westchester County for watershed protection, and agricultural education, due to budgetary constraints within the County the Farm lost 50% of its funding for the fiscal year 2011, the loss of funding eliminated the budget for seasonal employees and horticultural supplies. To save and support the Center, the Friends group was established in June 2010, with the goal of fully funding and operating the Farm. The Friends is working cooperatively with Westchester County to reach the goal within three years.

The $3,000 grant towards seeds, soil amendments and supplies was the “seed money” that allowed us to start a Community Agriculture Share (CSA) program of 100 members.   A CSA affords farm customers the opportunity to become farm supporters by committing before the growing season to buy a share of the farm’s produce, in our case members receive 20 weeks of vegetables from June to October.   This arrangement helps the farm better plan for the season, particularly in the area of staffing. Through the sale of CSA memberships the Friends raised over $60,000, critical income for 2011.  With the income we hired 6 local seasonal staff, and provided needed working capital.

It is clear that the financial return on investment for this grant is outstanding, but it is equally important to highlight the impact the grant has had within the community; local food, local involvement, and local jobs at a Farm that teaches sustainability.

Thank you Community Catalyst Fund.

Welcome to the Ringwood (NJ) Community Garden!

By Amy Jolin, President, Eat Local

Thanks to a generous grant from the Community Catalyst Fund, Eat Local, Inc. was able to purchase lumber, fencing, water barrels, and soil for a large, beautiful garden in the wooded and rocky soils of Ringwood, NJ.The project started in 2010 as a charity garden organized by Girl Scout Troop 369. The girl scouts helped till soil and plant a garden at the Community Presbyterian Church at145 Carletondale Road. With the support of the church Session and donations from Eat Local and various local organizations, this service project supplied fresh healthy tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce and beans to the food pantry located in the same campus.

At the end of 2010, Eat Local received a grant for $2,500 to expand the charity garden into a full fledged community garden accommodating 27 families to grow their own food in the raised beds of a sunny, fenced area with great water access.

Eat Local received ample support from local businesses, including a machine for a day from CLC Landscaping who scraped the top layer of weeds from the proposed lot. Andersen Forest Products arranged for a great discount on untreated clean lumber with which to build raised garden beds. Boy Scout Troop 76 donated their time to build raised beds.

The Borough of Ringwood donated the rich, black, composted leaf mulch with which to fill the beds. They also donated the machine to move soil from the pile to the beds, saving the volunteers much hard labor. 

The news of the project spread like wildfire through the advertising efforts of Eat Local. Families fell in love with the idea and snatched up the plots quickly, contributing a small fee for the yearly upkeep of the garden. Each family joined a committee, such as communications, events, education, fences, water, soil, pests, and so on. Families worked with great enthusiasm to install the fencing, fill beds with soil and to even extend the project by building a small school garden in the pre-school playground adjacent to the garden.

The energy of the families grew from a feeling of camaraderie developed during several work parties and family holiday parties. Families shared gardening details and bragging rights over the tallest sunflowers or the fattest onions.  Children conducted a “Most Beautiful Garden” contest and chose the winner to receive a silver trowel.

The events committee of the garden is planning a Ribbon Cutting ceremony for the garden which will include the Ringwood Mayor cutting the ribbon, a blessing  of the harvest, a poem, and dedication of the garden. Later in the season, the families will gather for a twilight harvest dinner. Families will bring a dish of food from their garden, listen to the music of a talented garden guitarist, and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Committee members have contributed articles to a monthly newsletter that includes photos of the garden build, growing tips on tomatoes, school garden successes and other details of the project.

For the most part, the families of the Ringwood Community Garden had been hindered in their garden attempts by endless wildlife challenges including bears, deer, turkeys, groundhogs, and even beaver. They have struggled with the rocky soil of Ringwood, and a rigid tree ordinance that keeps most yards wooded. The garden has been an oasis for them, allowing a home-grown food source, and the confidence of their own organic food system. The families are dedicated and delighted with their amazing garden, and grateful to the Community Catalyst Fund for making it possible.

Local Matters – to Whole Foods Market and to Us

 

 

 

 

Roger Stephenson, APR

Vice President for Programs

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is a pleasure working with Whole Foods Market Team Leaders and Team Members as we approach April 12,  the 5% Day dedicated to benefitting Clean Air-Cool Planet’s sustainability programs in communities and on campuses. 

Local matters to Whole Foods Market. Yet for them, local is not limited simply to local produce for consumers; the company has a local producer loan program to support local growers and farmers and “make it easier for them to grow their businesses”. Local matters to Clean Air-Cool Planet and we’re investing in local projects with small grants through the Community Catalyst Fund.

On  April 12, Whole Foods Market stores and customers together can contribute significantly to our efforts increasing local sustainability and we’re grateful for the support.

 

The participating stores in Connecticut are: Darien, Greenwich, Milford and Westport.

Long Island stores are the Whole Foods Market stores in Manhasset, Lake Grove and Jericho.

New Jersey stores in Edgewater; Rose City (Madison); Millburn-Union (Vauxhall); Middleton (Redbank); Paramus; Ridgewood; West Orange and Montclair.

The participating New York City stores are: Chelsea; Columbus Circle; Tribeca; Union Square; Upper West Side; and Bowery Culinary Clinic.

And we are so pleased the White Plains Whole Foods Market is also participating in the 5% Day!

All on Tuesday April 12!

CA-CP Launches New Online Tool!

By Jennifer Andrews
Director of Program Planning and Coordination,
Clean Air-Cool Planet

CA-CP achieved a milestone last week with the unveiling of the new online CHEFS tool, in Denver, at the annual campus sustainability conference hosted by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).   

CHEFS, or Charting Emissions from Food Services, is a platform that will foster more North American life cycle studies of food production and a tool that will eventually allow institutions to assess the life cycle carbon impact of their food services. 

With project partner ARAMARK and CHEFS pilot school New York University, Claire Roby led a workshop in Denver on the newly-released CHEFS tool, which included a lively discussion of the ways in which users expect to benefit from CHEFS and suggestions for its continued evolution. The workshop presented findings from the work done to date with twelve pilot schools collecting and analyzing dining service purchase and operations data, and outlined next steps for the program over the next 6-9 months:

• A second pilot project: We will be recruiting at least a dozen new organizations, representing not only higher education but business and government, to participate in a facilitated process of data gathering and analysis, and provide their feedback about how CA-CP can provide additional or improved CHEFS functionality and support resources to aid them in measuring their “foodprints”

• Launch of a large public research initiative:  In early 2011 we will be publishing a “research agenda” highlighting the most important data gaps and research opportunities related to North American food systems, and engaging both academic and industry partners to see the research accomplished (and the resulting data integrated into the CHEFS tool)

• Integration with the Campus Carbon Calculator when the Calculator is brought online in 2011

On our website, you can get more information or go straight to the beta too.  Also, you can learn more about how this could be a useful tool for you in a free webinar this Thursday afternoon or later in November.  Register online today!   

It’s still a work in progress, but we’re very pleased with the level of excitement and eagerness to participate we’ve already heard from the audience at AASHE, and everyone else who has seen the new tool.  We look forward to the opportunities to build upon it in the months to come.

Starting a national conversation – about food!

By Julie Munro
Climate Fellow,
Clean Air-Cool Planet

 
 

Julie Munro is working with Claire Roby in Oklahoma on Charting Emissions from Food Services (CHEFS) and Greening Tulsa. A new graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., she was “very active in campaigning for campus sustainability and I helped to establish a community garden, farmers’ market, and Clean Energy Revolving Fund on campus.

As a part of our work on CHEFS, we are also 1) creating momentum within corporate foodservice providers to green their own operations, and 2) contributing to the body of life cycle data for food production in North America. We have partially completed a first phase of piloting the new tool, but will also be undertaking further pilot testing with a revised version of the tool throughout 2010. Julie is coordinating the communications with each pilot site, recruiting new pilot partners, and synthesizing the outcomes into best practices and outstanding questions.

Julie is also at work in the office of the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, where she is bringing the large-scale carbon accounting work with CHEFS to action and programming at the local level. Approximately one day per week will be spent supporting the Chamber’s “Tulsa Young Professionals” group with several environmental projects.

Here’s a question to chew on over your lunch break: Where does your food come from?

Several years ago, as I was assisting with a summer camp program at Southside Community Land Trust’s urban farm in Providence, Rhode Island, I posed this same question to the young, inner-city campers.  Cursory answers like “the supermarket,” “the refrigerator,” and “the drive-thru” (yikes!) started flying in all directions.  My mission for the summer was to instill in them that food actually originates in the ground, and that even as seemingly powerless children growing up in a sea of impervious surfaces, growing food in their urban environment was still possible. 

This summer, I have a new target audience – institutional food service providers – and I’m quickly learning that even environmentally minded answers like “our food comes from the ground” won’t cut it.  Clean Air-Cool Planet’s “CHarting Emissions from Food Services” (CHEFS) tool is an initiative that will assist campus-based institutional dining services to quantify the carbon impact of food production, processing, preparation, and disposal. As I investigate “life cycle assessment”  (LCA) of different foods in order to build a database for the CHEFS tool, I am realizing that beauty “life cycle” is very much in the eye of the beholder.

Much like another national (and perhaps a tad more controversial) debate demonstrates, there is always a question of when life begins. Consider a milk carton: If you asked one of the kids at the Providence summer camp, they might say the milk originated from lunch lady in the school cafeteria. If you asked an average person on the street, they might say the milk originated from the cow. If you asked me, I might say it originated in the cornfield that grew the primary ingredient for the feed that would eventually be fed to the cow that produced the milk. Or I might tell you that the milk originated at the gas station where the CEO of the Dairy Company stopped to fill his tank on the way into the office that day.  None of these answers would be wrong, but would any of them truly be right?

While these differences in life cycle perspective will make it infinitely more difficult to pinpoint values to use in the CHEFS tool, the major problem thus far has not been too much information, but rather, not enough information. The overwhelming majority of scholarly life cycle assessment reports about food come from Europe or Japan with data based on systems completely different from that of the infamous monstrosity bolstered by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Thus, the desperately necessary shift to a more environmentally responsible and less carbon-intensive food system in the United States will need to be a bottom-up approach. While we can’t all take the time to research and assess the life cycle of the food we eat, we can use the all-mighty power of consumerism to ignite a national conversation.  We at Clean Air-Cool Planet hope that the CHEFS tool will be a key part of that national conversation, starting with college campuses and instigating reforms up through the corporate food sector.  Understanding our impact is the first step to changing it, and it all begins with asking, WHERE did THIS food come from?

What does sustainability look like? What does it taste like?

By Harry Alper
Climate Fellow,
Clean Air-Cool Planet

Harry Alper is earning an undergraduate degree in anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, where he is involved in environmental justice efforts and “grateful for every chance to ride bikes with friends and to serve dinner on my front porch.”  He will be working this summer on The Seacoast Science Center’s Carbon Challenge – helping the Center to make the Challenge part of their climate education offerings. He will evaluate and assist in the successful cultivation of Northeast Science Center Collaborative.

Imagine we live in a truly and completely sustainable world. We don’t extract and burn fossil fuels. Everything we manufacture either decomposes, returning to the soil from which it came, or is reused and recycled indefinitely. We release no toxic compounds into the environment. Our countries do not wage war over scarce resources, our communities have ended structural poverty, and our varied cultures are fresh and participatory. This is the society I want to live in, and since you’re at this blog, it’s probably the society you want to live in too! And it looks different in many ways from life in the USA in the year 2010. How do we turn people on to this new world?

One of my tasks as CA-CP Climate Fellow at the Seacoast Science Center is to help the Center engage its visitors in solutions to global warming. Most of those visitors are elementary- and middle-school-aged children. I’d like to sit down with a bunch of six-year-olds and try to put environmentalism into context, to explain some of the connections between commercial media, consumerism, and climate change. But the issues are bigger than the attention span of a very young person asked to sit still and listen.

It might not work to just lay out the whole complex web, and hope the children will make sense of it all. Instead I’d like to send them off to have a taste of sustainable society. And as they grow, and hopefully continue to experiment in ecological living, they will come to their own understanding of sustainability and how to bring it about.

We can encourage fifth graders to sit down with an elderly neighbor and ask her, “What was this neighborhood like when you were my age? Was it sustainable? Why?” Parents can bring their elementary school kids to a nearby garden and help with the harvest (expect to hear, “Oh! That’s how asparagus grows?” or “That’s where eggs come from?”). As they turn sixteen we can encourage them to think about the places to which they drive. Could they walk or ride a bicycle instead? Try it! It feels better, no?

Arundhati Roy, Indian author and alter-globalization activist, said “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” I want to reach the children who visit the Science Center, help them to slow down and tune out the toxic din of television advertisements, and to try something new. Or old, as it would be…: Gardening.  Neighborliness. Peace.  Walking.  And if they receive enough support, and are left enough creative space, they may choose to usher in this other world, a world of global citizens with the knowledge and the care to solve global warming.

What’s your story of tasting sustainability?

CSA – Hooray!

Teal Tigner, Clean Air-Cool Planet

By Teal Tigner

Corporate Program Consultant

Clean Air-Cool Planet

I have always loved vegetables.  I’m probably the only 5 year old who asked for a dinner of steamed veggies … with a side of French fries, of course.  I mean, I was still 5 even if I DID love vegetables.  Fortunately, my love of veggies has continued into my twenties (so has my love of French fries, but that pesky metabolism thing mandates a reduction in their appearance).  And, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more adventurous in my veggie choices.  I’ve always loved okra, but moving to the East Coast 8 years ago gave me a whole new appreciation for squash varietals as well as rare, yet tasty, fiddleheads.  But this winter and spring I found myself in a veggie rut.  I was making the same spicy butternut squash boats and chicken parmesan stuffed acorn squash.  I needed to branch out, but my local Stop & Shop wasn’t inspiring me.  Enter my next door neighbors….

Last year, Kevin and Laura jumped on the chance to sow and reap the harvests of their own labors by signing up for a shared farm plot at Fodor’s Farm, right around the corner from us.  Sadly, my fiancé and I recognized that we would not have the time to manage our own farm plot, so we set out in search of another solution.   After talking to our neighbors, we heard about Stone Gardens’ Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program… and signed right up.  Each week for 22 weeks, we get a ton of basic fresh vegetables including multiple types of lettuce, bok choy, swiss chard, salad fixings, and kale.  In addition we get weekly “cool” vegetables, as I call them.  These are the different, seemingly exotic veggies that you cannot find at most supermarkets.   And, more often than not, you have to find a recipe in order to figure out what to do with them – although sautéing seems to be a safe bet for just about everything.  So far, my favorite veggie has been Kohlrabi.  Like the translation of its name implies, Kohlrabi is similar to a cabbage/turnip blend yet has the consistency of a potato (again with those French fries!).  While Kohlrabi tops my list of “cool” vegetables, that list literally changes every week as we get new and exciting grab bags of fresh produce.

What’s even better is that cooking dinner has become fun againl  For a while we were in a “couscous and salad” or “grilled chicken and salad” rut.  The CSA share has put us back in touch with our cookbooks and spice rack…and has added a creative element back into cooking.  In addition, we’re eating less because the produce is so flavorful.  Lettuce, that green watery stuff that rarely has its own flavor sans salad dressing, has layers of flavor.  Salad dressing is out the window.  Now I can have a delicious bowl of mixed greens and taste pepper, lemon, and grassy goodness just by munching my way to the bottom of the bowl.  And, because of the weekly herb plants we receive as part of our share, our backyard herb garden is exploding, making even my Sunday night Penne taste better.  But most of all, it means something to me that I know where my food comes from and who is behind its lifecycle.  I even e-mail with Monica, the lady who runs our CSA and is responsible for growing everything we’re eating.  That’s much better than simply exchanging pleasantries with the Stop & Shop check out lady.  Granted, our CSA goodies have dirt and the occasional garden slug on them.  But that’s an easy tradeoff when I consider the benefits of eating local, supporting local businesses, and increasing my overall well being.

Food Choice and the Climate

by Adam Markham
CEO, Clean Air – Cool Planet

I usually have a pretty environmentally responsible breakfast: toasted multigrain bread from a local bakery with raspberry jam made from organic fruit we picked on a small farm in Maine last summer. But poking about in my pantry and reading the labels I can see that I’ve recently been eating cheese from Finland with crispbread from Illinois, as well as Moroccan tangerines, Canadian cranberries, free-range chicken from Pennsylvania and curry sauce from England. Oh yes, I also ate a delicious chocolate bar that Cadbury says has a carbon footprint of 6 oz. – somewhat astounding since it was a 2 oz. bar. We have organic red peppers and carrots in our fridge but they came all the way from Mexico and California respectively, presumably by truck.

Lately I’ve been wondering a lot about the effect my food choices have not just on my health, but also on the climate. I think I know what I should be doing for the climate – eating less meat and more vegetables and wherever possible eating foods in season that have been produced locally, ideally organically. But how big a difference do our food choices really make?  And what, really, are the right choices?

To try and find out I’ve been following the work of the UK-based Food and Climate Research Network for the last year or so. When I finally took the time to read a report they produced at the end of last year, I realized that the scale of the problem and the confusion surrounding it, are bigger than I’d thought.

Author Tara Garnett estimates that GHG emissions embodied in the production, transport, storage and preparation of food in the UK represents a huge 20% of Britain’s carbon footprint. I was amazed to find that 3 to 5% of the UK’s GHG emissions result solely from refrigeration and cold storage of food. But what really got me thinking was some of the analysis about food miles. We’ve been hearing a lot about “food miles” lately and the “locavore” movement is really taking off.

We tend to assume that the further food travels the worse it as for the atmosphere. Apparently this is not always the case. For a start, you have to compare both the methods of production and the system of transport.  Tomatoes grown in California’s mild climate may be less energy intensive than those grown under glass in New Jersey, especially in winter, despite the fact that they have to be trucked across the country. One recent lifecycle analysis concluded that lamb imported to England from 11,000 miles away in New Zealand was responsible for less than a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions of most lamb produced in the UK because of better pasture and the prevalent free-range stock-rearing practices down under.

How we store and prepare food matters too. Having a second (usually old and inefficient) fridge in the garage just to keep the beer cold (which I don’t) or an extra freezer in the basement so you can store your half of a lovingly reared and locally butchered Tamworth hog (which I also don’t but wish I did) are bad climate choices. If I boil beans or lentils with the lid off the saucepan, the extra energy I waste may be at least the equivalent of the energy in the fuel used to transport the produce to my kitchen.

In the end, like so many of the challenges we grapple with in trying to solve the climate crisis, finding the right answer is tougher than at first it seems. Food choices are particularly vexing. I want food for my family that contains no pesticides or hormones, I want to support local agriculture and I’m committed to reducing my carbon “foodprint”. I don’t think I can go far wrong by visiting the local farmers’ markets more often, growing more in my garden and making sure I put the lid on that pot of boiling potatoes. But as for oranges – I’m just not prepared to wait for the climate to change enough for them to start turning up in the local CSA’s weekly basket and they will have to keep coming from Florida.