A hog farm in eastern North Carolina on Monday. The pink area is a lagoon of pig excrement. Credit – Rodrigo Gutierrez/Reuters
EDITORS NOTE: The real costs of industrial agriculture are not included in the price of food. We all pay for “cheap food” in pollution, unjust labor practices, and poor public health. To learn about alternatives, check out our online Pigs & Poultry class!
The record-breaking rains that started with Hurricane Florence are continuing to strain North Carolina’s hog lagoons.
Because of the storm, at least 110 lagoons in the state have either released pig waste into the environment or are at imminent risk of doing so, according to data issued Wednesday by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. That tally more than tripled the Monday total, when the department’s count was 34.
UMass’s First Carbon Farming Initiative Demonstrates How to Sustainably Grow Food and Mitigate Climate Change
By: Lisa DePiano and Nicole Burton
The UMass Carbon Farming Initiative is the first temperate climate research silvopasture plot at the University of Massachusetts. Carbon farming is the practice of sequestering carbon from the atmosphere into soil carbon stocks and above ground biomass. Silvopasture, a carbon farming practice is the intentional combination of trees and livestock for increased productivity and biosequestration.
The plot is a 1 acre silvopasture system at the Agriculture Learning Center (ALC) that integrates a diverse planting of complex hybrid chestnuts systematically arranged to ensure ease of management for rotational grazing sheep. Establishment of the initiative has been funded by the Sustainable Food and Farming Program (SFF) and a grant from the Sustainability Innovation and Engagement Fund (SEIF) and is managed by Stockbridge School of Agriculture Faculty Lisa DePiano and Nicole Burton and SFF students.
According to Project Drawdown, a broad coalition of scientists, policy makers, business leaders, and activists that have compiled a comprehensive plan for reversing climate change, silvopasture is the highest ranked agricultural solution to climate change. Silvopastoral systems contribute to climate change mitigation both through the direct drawdown of atmospheric carbon into soil and biomass and through the reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions emitted by industrial livestock systems. With the growing demand for meat and dairy products, and the limited amount of land available it is essential that we identify agricultural practices that are part of the solution rather than exacerbating the problem.
Umass Student Farmer, Kyle Zegel gives a tour to Intro to SFF class
SFF Senior Sierra Torres and Faculty Nikki Burton show the sheep to Congressmen Jim McGovern
In order to get to down to 350 ppm of atmospheric CO2, the safe amount of concentration of carbon in the atmosphere, we need to have NET Zero carbon emissions and remove 300+ billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere.Research suggests that silvopasture systems are capable of storing as much as 100 tons of Carbon (367 tons of CO2) per acre while adding the yields of tree crops to the existing animal systems, and ecological benefits like reduced nutrient runoff, erosion, and animal stress from heat and wind. Traditional silvopasture systems, such as the dehesa in Spain and forest pastures in Scotland, have existed for centuries but more research and development is needed for cold climate sites in the United States.
Some goals and objectives for this project are:
Establish a concrete example of carbon farming. This example will function as an outdoor classroom for SFF and related courses as well as a demonstration site for farmers and policy makers.
Trial different varieties of complex hybrid chestnuts looking for traits like climate hardiness, nut size and yield, disease resistance, and precociousness
Test market for products such as chestnuts, chestnut flour, nursery scion wood
Track financial implications of these practices such as: cost of establishment, ongoing costs, revenue streams, and CO2 sequestration per acre
Empower students as emerging leaders in the cutting edge fields of Permaculture, carbon farming and sustainable animal husbandry.
Conduct research and development to support regional farmers in adopting carbon farming practices and strategies
Catalog the carcass yields of the pastured livestock
Monitor and test parasitic loads with livestock
Track rotations of sheep
For more information on the Initiative contact Lisa DePiano at ldepiano@umass.edu or Nicole Burton at ngburton@umass.edu
Shemariah Blum-Evitts, Program Director for Land For Good. (Courtesy Photo)
KEENE, N.H. — Shemariah Blum-Evitts, a farmer, regional planner and project manager is now the Program Director for Land For Good, a New England-wide nonprofit that works to ensure the future of farming in the region by putting more farmers more securely on more land. Blum-Evitts will direct all of the organization’s education, consulting, and research, as well as its direct service to New England farmers looking to access land, plan for farm succession, and obtain more secure land tenure.
Supporting farmers and farmland owners around accessing and transferring farmland and farms is critical in the region. Nearly 30% of New England’s farmers are likely to exit farming in the next 10+ years, and 92% of these 10,369 senior farmers do not have another farm operator working alongside them. (Gaining Insights) While this does not mean that these farmers don’t have a succession plan, it does suggest that the future of many of farms is uncertain. The 1.4 million acres they manage and $6.45 billion in land and agricultural infrastructure they own will change hands in one way or another. What these farmers do with their land and other farm assets as they exit farming will shape New England’s agricultural landscape for generations to come.
At the same time, access to land is a top challenge facing new and beginning farmers. Fewer young farm operators are getting securely on land, and they need support to determine their land access strategy, find and assess farm properties, and negotiate good agreements.
A farmer herself, Blum-Evitts was also the founder and Program Manager of New Lands Farm with Ascentria Care Alliance from 2008-2015. The program, which she initiated and built in collaboration with community partners, offered training and land access to New American farmers in Central and Western Massachusetts seeking community gardens, farming enterprises and technical assistance. Blum-Evitts studied land use and agricultural planning while gaining her Masters in Regional Planning from UMass Amherst. Her thesis developed a foodshed assessment model to map current and potential working farmland and farmland capacity. She believes strongly in the importance of working farms. Since 2004, she has been working on and managing farms in GA, TX, CT and MA. She and her husband operate their own small-scale, kosher, pastured poultry operation on their home farm in South Deerfield MA.
”Shema brings the skills, experience and that are a great fit for this position and our team. Her farming and program work on farms with diverse populations will enrich and deepen our work. We’re excited to have her – and another farmer – on our team.,” says Jim Hafner, Executive Director for Land For Good.
“Land For Good has been a resource for me – both as a beginning farmer and a service provider,” shares Blum-Evitts. “It was through working with LFG that we were confident in our lease arrangements for New Lands Farm and fully understood our options. I am delighted to be part of the organization and extend expertise and support to more farmers.”
Land For Good (LFG), based in Keene NH, is a New England-wide not-for-profit organization whose mission is to ensure the future of farming in the region by putting more farmers more securely on more land. With field agents serving all New England states, LFG educates, consult, innovates and advocates with and for farm seekers, established farmers, farmland owners, and communities. LFG is the only organization of its kind, nationally, with a sole focus on farmland access, transfer, and tenure.
UMass Sustainable Food and Farming grad, Jason Silverman, is a Field Agent for Land for Good!
Global bodies such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) that are directly and indirectly promoting a host of multilateral and bilateral trade agreements have created a criminal level of inequality in this world, wherein according to reports, 82% of the world’s wealth is now controlled by merely 1% of the people. Global Hunger is again on the rise, with peoples’ food sovereignty under severe threat.
This comes on the back of a seven-decade long persistent push for neo-liberal policies, which called for ‘free market trade’ regimes around the world. Privatisation and de-regulation that came about as the consequences of such a push has evidently made the Continue reading Global Day of Action Against WTO and Free Trade Agreements→
NOTE: interested non-majors are welcome but will need permission to register. Contact the instructor at Angela Roell <angela.roell@gmail.com>.
Class Meets Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00- 3:30; This course will be both in person and online via Moodle, digital content will be released weekly on Monday, weekly course content will be due by the following Monday by midnight.
Office Hours: Via phone or Skype, by appointment only
This course will focus on knowledge pertaining to honeybee hive anatomy & social structure, and the management strategies necessary to perform basic beekeeping. Continue reading STOCKSCH 166 – Practical Beekeeping→
Why are food power and justice important for our communities’ health and environment?
How do we frame racial equity in our food policies?
This course examines the role of policy in determining WHAT we eat, WHO experiences barriers to access to safe, healthy, local, fairly produced foods, and HOW we create equity and sustainability in our local food system. Learn about key local, regional and federal policies framing the food system and public health. Engage with experts who are changing food equity.
This course is generally restricted to Sustainable Food and Farming majors but we can waive this requirement for students who are interested. Contact the instructor for help.
Photocredit: Interaction Institute for Social Change
As part of his eighth annual Farm Tour in western Massachusetts, Congressman James McGovern will make a stop at UMass Amherst’s Agricultural Learning Center (ALC), where approximately 30 of its 60 acres are in production this summer. The focus of this season’s tour is farms that produce and sell food and produce to schools and other institutions.
Center director Amanda Brown says 10 active faculty-sponsored projects employing 20 undergraduate student summer workers are currently underway at the ALC, including:
a silvo-pasture, combining a woodland nut crop and grazing sheep in a mutually beneficial way
a chicken-raising operation as a source of lean local protein
the “Food for All” garden, which provides fresh local produce to the Amherst Survival Center and the Amherst-based soup kitchen, Not Bread Alone
a native plant demonstration plot, pollinator garden and permaculture garden
honey bees
an off-grid greenhouse funded by a National Science Foundation grant, now up and running, will allow students to grow produce year-round without fossil fuels
an organic vineyard, now staked out, will be planted in the fall
an organic apple orchard
a demonstration plot of cover crops, grain and pasture management
This post is one of the reading assignments in my class, STOCKSCH 391A – Dialogue on Agricultural Issues, taught during the Fall semester 2018.
By Dr. Vandana Shiva
The system that drives farmers into a debt trap creates malnutrition. The solution lies in shifting from a toxic, high-cost system to a nutritious, low-cost, sustainable food production model
There is no reason why India should face hunger and malnutrition, and why our farmers should commit suicide. India is blessed with the most fertile soils in the world. Our climate is so generous we can, in places, grow four crops in a year, compared to only one in most of the industrialised West. We have the richest biodiversity in the world, both because of diverse climates and because of the brilliance of our farmers as breeders. They have given us 200,000 varieties of rice, 1,500 varieties of wheat, 1,500 varieties of mangoes and bananas.
Sir Albert Howard, who was sent to India in 1905 to introduce chemicals in farming, saw how fertile the soils were with no pests in the fields. He decided to make the Indian peasants his professors and wrote An Agricultural Testament, which spread organic farming worldwide on the basis of India’s ecological farming, today recognised as
NOTE: If food justice is of interest, you might be interested in our new online class, Food Justice and Policy, being offered this summer at UMass Online!
A new book aimed at the socially conscious food activist explores how our food system can be a place for transformation through an alliance between the progressive and radical wings of the food movement.
As advocates for a just food system, most of us try to live by our beliefs. Shopping at the farmers markets: Check. Buying local and grass-fed: Check. We rail against Big Food, yet don’t dare, or bother, to look too far beneath the surface when we shop at Whole Foods or order from the organic aisle of Fresh Direct. We are walking, kale-stuffed characters out of Portlandia, better-intentioned than informed. After all, what are we really doing to change the system?
If this undercurrent of low-level guilt is one you’ve experienced, you might be a target of Eric Holt-Gimenez’s new book, A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism: Understanding the Political Economy of What We Eat. The book, by and large, delivers on its goal of serving as a political economic toolkit for the food movement. It’s Capitalism 101 for the socially conscious, would-be food activist. Continue reading How Foodies Can Understand Capitalism and Farm-to-Table Justice→
We are just one week out from the 2018 PVGrows Forum and we are nearing capacity! Register today to secure yourself a seat on April 7th as we dig deep on the urgent and timely topics facing the Pioneer Valley food system. Join us to broaden and deepen your relationships with others in the field while identifying paths to take collaborative action for a more just, equitable food system!
Catered lunch, Gateway City Arts – Spanish interpretation services available
Keynote from Migrant Justice
Migrant Justice organizes immigrant farmworkers and allies in the state of Vermont for human rights and economic justice. Founded in 2009 after the death of a young dairy worker, the organization brings the farmworker community together with community assemblies to create a vision and roadmap for advancing human rights through collective action. In the decade since its founding, Migrant Justice has received national accolades for its cutting edge grassroots organizing, winning access to driver’s licenses for immigrant workers and the country’s strongest statewide policy preventing police collaboration with deportation agencies. In 2017, Migrant Justice signed a contract with Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to implement the organization’s worker-driven social responsibility program “Milk with Dignity” in the company’s supply chain. This program is now transforming conditions and securing human rights on farms across the state.
Sessions for the Day
Land Access in the Pioneer Valley
Both rural and urban agriculture face challenges related to land access in the Pioneer Valley and beyond. Our region’s long history of enslavement, racial discrimination, and anti-immigrant biases has forged the patterns of land and wealth distribution that exist today. Join us to explore this history, the challenges that exist in the field of land access today, and opportunities for taking action moving forward.
Immigration and the Food System
Now is a time of heightened stress and fear for foreign-born residents of the Pioneer Valley and beyond. Foreign-born residents play a substantial role in the food system of our region and now, more than ever, it is essential to support the food system workers of the Pioneer Valley. Join us as we examine the current lay of the land for immigrants working in the food system and explore approaches to taking action moving forward.
Building Political Muscle for Food Resilience
What’s the Farm Bill? Why does it matter? Build your toolbox, and take away actions your communities can do at the State and Federal levels to preserve the programs that ensure healthy food is accessible to all.
The Trump Administration’s 2019 Budget proposed cutting SNAP’s budget by over $200 billion in the coming decade while radically restructuring the entire program. This session will feature updates on the current status of this and other essential programs like Farm to School and FINI, the federal grant program that funded HIP, while offering an opportunity for developing strategies across our communities for protecting current funding levels and new ways of moving forward.
PVGrows Forums bring together food system stakeholders and participants to spend a day deeply exploring the Pioneer Valley food system. Our events are open to all. The 2018 PVGrows Forum is made possible by a volunteer planning committee, our sponsors, and CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture.)
