Professor Brian Donahue knew from a relatively young age that he wanted to have an impact on the world and he was gonna to do it his way.

Having left school after sophomore year to pursue a life more “interesting,” he started making it on his own. From logging to starting a non-profit to teaching and writing, Mr. Donahue has become well versed in the art of raison d’être, finding his “reason to be.”

One of Mr. Donahue’s more important involvements comes from a 2005 report titled, Wildlands and Woodlands . In this is an outlined vision pertaining to New England’s forest lands that calls for 70% of it to be put aside for conservation within the next 50 years. The report also summarizes a plan for New England growing a large chunk of its food supply.

In his latest pursuit of happiness him and a few friends are working on a start-up pasture based family farm in Gill, Ma called Bascom Hollow Farm.

According to a recent article in the Hampshire Gazette…

Brian Donahue has done the talk, he’s done the walk, and now he’s doing the math. And for him, it all adds up:

• his work as an associate professor at Brandeis University,
  
• his three decades of working on a community farm in Weston and now,
  
• the 170-acre farm he recently bought off Bascom Road (in Gill, MA) where he’s begun putting down roots with friends.

To read the article, go to Gill professor-farmer sees food as more than academic.

Professor Donahue spoke to a group of local citizens in the Amherst Town Hall last winter on the future of farming in New England.  It was an inspiring and thoughtful presentation.

Here is a synopsis of his presentation on “Leading a New England Home-Grown Food Revolution”

Lets look fifty years into the future and ask, if New England were to do about as well as we can imagine at providing its own food through sustainable farming, what might we best grow here? Let us say that we were to triple the amount of farmland in New England to 6 million acres—close to where it stood in 1945. That would return about 15% of New England to agriculture. If we assume ‘smart growth,’ that could be done while leaving 70% of New England still covered in sustainably harvested woodlands and wild reserves. Given 15 or 16 million New Englanders to feed (and presuming they were eating more healthily), we could envision five major building blocks of a sustainable New England food system:

1. New England could produce the great bulk of its own vegetables and a substantial part of its fruit, and from that fruit a significant portion of its own beverages. This might require on the order of 1 million acres: about 250,000 acres devoted to fresh and storage vegetables; 250,000 acres devoted to fruit (notably apples, cranberries, blueberries, and grapes); and 500,000 acres devoted to dry beans, which would replace some meat in the diet. While much of this produce might be intensively grown on small acreages near cities, some vegetable crops such as potatoes and other root crops, winter squash, and beans might be grown in rotation with hay and grain on more diversified rural farms.
2. New England could once again produce the great bulk of its own dairy products, and alongside that most of its own beef, almost entirely on grass (with some supplemental grain). This assumes dairy consumption about as it is today, but red meat consumption cut in half. Most of the farmland reclaimed from New England forest would be devoted to pasture and hay, for which our soils and climate are well suited. This defining element of our pastoral landscape might require as much as 4 million acres: about 1.5 million for dairy cows and 2.5 million for beef, along with some sheep and goats.
3. That would leave on the order of 1 million acres of cropland that could be devoted to some combination of grain for direct human consumption, grain for livestock feed, or oil crops (such as canola, sunflower, or soy) which could provide protein meal for stock feed as well. If most of that million acres were to grow grain for human consumption (flour, pasta, beer, and so forth), for example, we could about cover those needs; but that would not leave much for feed or oil. Grain and oil crops could be grown mostly in rotation with hay.
4. New England could produce the great bulk of its own pork, chicken, turkey, and eggs. These animals could be integrated into grazing systems without requiring much additional pasture acreage, as most of their feed doesn’t really come from grass. However, their feed grain requirements would amount to more than a million additional acres, which is probably far more than New England could supply. But importing grain is not a bad thing (presuming the grain were to come from sustainable farms elsewhere)—it is one very effective way to import fertility into intensive grazing systems.
5. A restored and thriving regional fishery would be another crucial building

We wish Brian well and are delighted to have him joining the local food movement in Western Massachusetts.  To stay linked to some of the activities and thinking on local food in this region, please join the Facebook Group – Just Food Now in Western Massachusetts.

And for resources on sustainable food and farming, go to Just Food Now.

Written by Steven Cognac and John Gerber, January 2012.

OpEd (1/9/12)

By: John Kinsman, President of Family Farm Defenders

On Wed. Jan. 11th dairy farmer, Vernon Herschberger must appear before
a county judge in Baraboo, WI – his crime, providing unpasteurized
dairy products from his small herd of about twenty pastured cows to
members of his own buying club. Half way across the continent in ME,
Daniel Brown, another family farmer with a small livestock herd was
notified on Nov. 8th that he was being sued by the state for selling
food and milk without a license. At the time he was milking one
Jersey cow.

In Valencio County, NM, the Hispano Chamber of Commerce was forced to
cancel its popular Matanza Festival set for Jan. 28th under pressure
from the USDA which said the centuries old tradition of processing and
serving pigs on site could no longer be done outside of a federally
certified slaughter facility. Last July in Oak Park, MI bureaucrats
threatened Julie Bass with up to three months in jail for daring to
grow vegetables in her own front yard. In Sept. Adam Guerroro, was
ordered to remove his kitchen garden because it was deemed a “public
nuisance” by Memphis, TN officials. Apparently, Michelle Obama’s
victory garden at the White House falls under a different jurisdiction.

This government crackdown on family farmers is absurd given the
current sordid state of our food/farm system and the urgent need to
relocalize agriculture for the sake of our health, as well as that of
the planet. Study after study has shown that the most dangerous food
is usually that which has endured the most processing and traveled the
furthest.

“With millions of Americans contracting food borne illnesses each
year, the USDA is committed to supporting research that improves the
safety of our nation’s food system,” – this was the comment of USDA
Deputy Secretary, Kathleen Merrigan, in a Dec. 15th, 2011 article in
Agriview. In the same issue, it was also revealed that U.S. meat and
milk exports had failed to pass the European Union’s standard for drug
residues. Deborah Cera, leader of the drug compliance team at the
FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, admitted there were many
violations involving scores of drugs in U.S. livestock. In a Nov.
17th 2011 article in the Wisconsin State Farmer, Kim Brown-Pokorny of
the WI Veterinary Medical Association, warned that Wisconsin was the
worst violator nationwide in terms of illegal drug residues in the
meat of culled dairy cows. Yet, there was no mention in either
article of prosecuting or penalizing these drug users or even
informing U.S. consumers of this obvious food safety threat.

On Wed. Jan. 4th 2012 the FDA announced it would finally ban the use
of cephalosporins in livestock by April. Of course, this is but one
small group of antibiotics representing less than .00032% of the 29
million pounds fed to livestock each year. Doctors use barely 20% of
antibiotics in the U.S. to treat human disease – the other 80% are
used on livestock to make them grow faster, and this reckless
application is driving the evolution of antibiotic resistant pathogens
that now plague our hospitals.

Meanwhile, the USDA, FDA, and various state agricultural agencies are
squandering millions in scarce taxpayer dollars to criminalize small
family farmers who are at the forefront of providing healthy
nutritious fresh food to their communities. For instance, according
to an Aug. 25th, 2011 Natural News story, the WI Dept of Agriculture
and Consumer Protection (DATCP) receives up to $80,000 a month from
the FDA to wage its current crackdown on raw milk. The FDA even flew
several of its officials out to Wisconsin to join DATCP colleagues for
surveillance operations of local farmers’ markets. This taxpayer
subsidized harassment is reminiscent of the discredited National
Animal Identification System (NAIS) which was also fueled by millions
in USDA dollars funneled to DATCP for the unapproved registration and
“identity theft” of family farmers simply to meet compliance quotas.

It is time citizens told elected officials and the public servants
within government agencies whose supposed mission is to safeguard our
nation’s food supply that enough is enough. Producing and consuming
fresh local food is not a crime. In fact, every community should have
the right to determine what they grow, raise, and eat – this is the
underlying principle behind food sovereignty, first elaborated in 1996
by La Via Campesina, the largest umbrella organization for small
family farmers in the world.

In March 2011 the citizens of Sedgwick ME, passed the first Local Food
and Community Self-Governance Ordinance. The ordinance states in part
that “producers and processors of local foods are exempt from
licensure and inspection when the producer is selling directly to a
consumer intending to use the product for home consumption, or if the
foods are sold at a community social event. Citizens have the right to
produce, process, purchase and consume local foods of their choosing,
and it shall be unlawful for any law or regulation adopted by the
state or federal government to interfere with these rights.” Since
then similar local food ordinances have been adopted by other towns in
ME, CA, VT, and MA.

If people in Wisconsin want to enjoy access to fresh local food from
family farmers in the future they may need to pass similar ordinances
here. Otherwise, corrupt government under the sway of corporate
agribusiness will make sure they have no choice at all.

Poster on ComFood listserv by
John E. Peck
Executive Director
Family Farm Defenders,
P.O. Box 1772, Madison, WI 53701
tel./fax. 608-260-0900
http://www.familyfarmdefenders.org

The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, the Center for New Community, and Indiana University Press today announce the publication of “Food Justice,” a new issue of the journal Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contextsthat explores the intersection of race and food in the national and global food systems.

With a wide range of academic- and activist-authored papers, the issue takes readers through the entire food chain from—“field to fork”—in an examination of the challenging intersections between race, sustainability, food safety, access to healthy food, land ethics, food worker justice, and food sovereignty.

Wherever food is produced, picked, processed, packed, or purveyed low-wage workers of color predominate in the hard, dangerous jobs that feed the world on cheap labor and rampant exploitation of food workers within a toxic framework of abiding racial structures spanning the global community.  And wherever food is sought by those who can least afford it, those same racial structures prevent or prohibit access to decent, nutritious, and affordable food.  If all people are to be well-fed with good, healthy, affordable food there can be no avoidance of addressing the fundamental, structural racism at the heart of the food system.  In short, race and food are inextricably related.

According to Charlotte Williams, Field Organizer for Food Justice Initiative, Center for New Community, “A just food movement must be grounded within the framework of racial justice. With a renewed sense of urgency, food workers, urban and rural organizations and communities, and neighborhood leaders are working together to dismantle the racial structure of the food system that continues its defeat of the average citizen through low-wage jobs, harsh working conditions, and poor quality, high-cost food.”

“At every level in the food system,” Andrew Grant-Thomas, Editor-in-Chief, Kirwan Journal said, “people and communities of color are deeply impacted by this racial structure.”

The special issue was a collaboration between the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University (Columbus) and the Chicago-based Center for New Community and its Food Justice Initiative and is published by Indiana University Press.

           Anne Cody is a consultant for the Massachusetts Farm to School Program, which is a program created to help farmers distribute their fresh food to their local school community.

The program is beneficial on many different levels to both the farmers and the school system. Local farmers benefit not only from having a large year round paying customer but even get to sell some of the foods that would have otherwise been rejected by other consumers (for example potatoes that would have been too small are PERFECT for tater-tots!). The Schools are able to serve healthier, better quality food to their students, create a relationship with their local farmers (students get to go on field trips to the farms) and remove a large portion of their imported food.

When Anne Cody isn’t building bonds between schools and farms she’s working on her other program: The Kindergarten Initiative, which, similarly to the Mass Farm to School Program, helps offer locally grown snacks and nutrition education to Worcester kindergarteners and their parents.

Some of the toughest obstacles that Anne faces are convincing some of the lower income schools to buy local food because of the difficulties of organizing school financing. She feels her job is making a large difference in society and is an exciting change for the school system. She is grateful to live in a community, which is such a large support for local food and I believe that with her successes already, her program could eventually join local farms and schools together all over country!

Farm to School: http://www.farmtoschool.org/MA/programs.htm

Farmers Markets are one of the fastest growing sectors of the food economy in the U.S.

Notice on the map the concentration of farmers markets in some areas of the countries.  A few of  the markets in New England are reporting that farmers seem to be competing with each other for the same customers.  The USDA reports that less than one-percent of the population buys food direct from farmers on a regular basis.  So how will new farmers find customers in these regions?  One way is to bring the food to the people!

While many CSA’s have a delivery stop “in town” here is one that specializes in it!   Farmers to You offers products from over 25 suppliers in central Vermont and delivers to people in the Boston metro area.

This business represents a evolution of Community Supported Agriculture, where individual families make a commitment to buy at least $30 worth of produce each week.  FarmersToYou deliver to one of 9 suburban pickup sites or even direct to your doorstep or office in urban Boston.

Most people appreciate excellent quality, fresh produce, meat, milk and eggs but are generally unwilling to give up the convenience of a large supermarket.  Farmers To You makes getting fresh New England grown food possible in areas where there are no farms – and makes it convenient too!

Farmers To You will deliver to your doorstep or office by bicycle in urban Boston.

Most Americans are unaware of the mounting global food crisis.  The following was taken from an article in YES magazine examining the root cause of the eruption of violence in Tunisia and Egypt.

——————————————————————-

In many of these countries, certainly in both Tunisia and Egypt, tensions have simmered for years. The trigger, it seems, came in the form of food shortages caused by the record high global prices reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in December 2010. The return of high food prices two to three years after the 2008 global food crisis should not be a surprise. For most of the preceding decade, world grain consumption exceeded production—correlating with agricultural land productivity declining almost by half from 1990–2007, compared with 1950–1990.

This year, global food supply chains were again “stretched to the limit” following poor harvests in Canada, Russia and Ukraine; hotter, drier weather in South America cutting soybean production; flooding in Australia, wiping out its wheat crops; not to mention the colder, stormier, snowier winters experienced in the northern hemisphere, damaging harvests.

So much of the current supply shortages have been inflicted by increasingly erratic weather events and natural disasters, which climate scientists have long warned are symptomatic of anthropogenic global warming. Droughts exacerbated by global warming in key food-basket regions have already led to a 10–20 percent drop in rice yields over the last decade. By mid-century, world crop yields could fall as much as 20–40 percent due to climate change alone.

But climate change is likely to do more than generate droughts in some regions. It is also linked to the prospect of colder weather in the eastern United States, east Asia, and northern Europe—as the rate of Arctic summer sea ice is accelerating, leading to intensifying warming, the change in atmospheric pressure pushes cold Arctic air to the south. Similarly, even the floods in Australia could be linked to climate change. Scientists agree they were caused by a particularly strong El Niño/La Niña oscillation in the Tropical Pacific ocean-atmospheric system. But Michael McPhaden, co-author of a recent scientific study on the issue, suggests that recently stronger El Niño events are “plausibly the result of global warming.”

The global food situation has been compounded by the over-dependence of industrial agriculture on fossil fuels, consuming ten calories of fossil fuel energy for every one calorie of food energy produced. The problem is that global conventional oil production has most likely already peaked, having been on an undulating plateau since 2005—and forecast to steadily and inexorably decline, leading to higher prices. Although oil prices dropped after the 2008 crash due to recession, the resuscitation of economic activity has pushed up demand, leading fuel prices to creep back up to $95 a barrel.

The fuel price hikes, combining with the predatory activities of financial speculators trying to rake in profits by investing in the commodity markets, have underpinned worldwide inflation. Just as in 2008, the worst effected have been the poorer populations of the South. Thus, the eruption of political unrest in Egypt and elsewhere cannot be fully understood without acknowledging the context of accelerating ecological, energy and economic crises—inherently interconnected problems which are symptomatic of an Empire in overstretch, a global political economy in breach of the natural limits of its environment.

Did you ever wonder if Cheez Whiz was real food?

One of my favorite “foodie” web pages, Summer Tomato, was created by Darya Pino who has a PhD in neuroscience from UC San Francisco and also writes for several publications including The Huffington Post, SF Weekly, KQED Science and Edible San Francisco.  Her latest post proposes a slightly “tongue in cheek” method for determining if the food you are buying is real food!   She calls it her supermarket GPS.

Of course, you won’t need it if you shop at your local farmers market! And by the way, if you run Cheez Whiz through the test – it fails!

Have fun……

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization announced this week that food prices hit a record high last month.

According to the United Nations, food prices in December were close to the crisis levels that provoked shortages and riots in poor countries three years ago.  The reasons according to experts vary, but no one seems to deny that rising energy costs and erratic climate are among the primary causes.  Neither of these impacts are likely to improve.  Coupled with economic stress, this “perfect storm” requires a response.  While policy solutions are much needed, it is important for individuals and families to take action!

It seems to me like a good time to start growing your own food.  Economists predict the biggest impact on food costs in the U.S. is likely to be on meat and egg prices, which depend heavily on grain for feed.

For some background info on raising your own hens (for eggs of course), see Homes for Hens. And for more on diy food, go to my main page Just Food Now.

There are lots of reasons to start thinking about starting our own garden.  Perhaps you can even contribute to “saving the planet” by growing your own food.

Don’t miss the showing of In Transition on Sunday, January 16, 4 p.m. at the First Congregational Church; 165 Main St., Amherst MA.  Discussion • Refreshments • Suggested donation: $5

Join us for the first detailed film about the Transition move­ment, filmed by those who are  making it hap­pen. The Transition move­ment is about  commun­ities around the world re­sponding to peak oil sup­ply, climate change, and economic instability with creativity,  imagination and  humor.  It shows com­munities rebuilding their local economies, food supply, transportation, ener­gy-generation, and health care. The film is positive, solutions-focused  and fun.

For more information or snow-date, call Betsy Krogh, 413-549-2846

Call Your Senators Today
To Defend Family Farms and Local and Regional Food Systems

Debate and voting on The Food Safety Modernization Act (S. 510) is set to begin on the Senate floor on November 17th. The bill takes important steps to improve corporate food safety rules but it is not appropriate for small farms and food processors that sell to restaurants, food coops, groceries, schools, wholesalers and at farm stands and farmers markets.

Two amendments will be offered when S. 510 comes to the floor and both are essential to protecting the supply of locally grown food.

Please call your Senators and ask them to:

•    Vote for the Manager’s Amendment
•    Vote for the Tester-Hagan Amendment

It’s easy to call: Go to Congress.org and type in your zip code.  Click on your Senator’s name, and then on the contact tab for their phone number.  You can also call the Capitol Switchboard and ask to be directly connected to your Senator’s office: 202-224-3121.

For more information on the bill and the amendments go to Nefood Alerts!

Thanks to NEFOOD for keeping us all informed.