Education

The art of systems thinking in driving sustainable transformation

According to this blog post in The Guardian: Sustainable Business Blog systems thinking helps us to “change systems and help multiple stakeholders find a common vision.”

thinking

Systems thinking may represent the next phase in the evolution of sustainability, but it is not an arena for corporations to enter lightly.

While collaboration may offer the best opportunity for scaling up change, it is far from easy and requires a certain skill set, including a sense of humility and sensitivity, that seemingly all-powerful corporations are often not well versed in.

So I thought it would be good to outline some of the essential ingredients for a successful systems change programme.

I give the credit for these guidelines to two women I met at the SXSW Eco conference in Austin, Texas; Sarah Severn, director of stakeholder mobilisation at Nike, and Darcy Continue reading The art of systems thinking in driving sustainable transformation →

Farming

Can we survive off the land?

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By By RICHIE DAVIS Recorder Staff

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Can Franklin County feed itself?

A new farmland and food supply study completed for the Franklin Regional Council of Governments says yes, assuming that we can continue to preserve farmland, convince farmers to modify their crops and convince others to change eating habits.

And while being entirely sustainable would require 45,000 acres of farmland — about 8,000 acres more than now — the 80-page study recommends an easier way to achieve “self-reliance,” focused on what we already grow well, requiring 34,000 acres.

The study, completed by Conway School of Landscape Design, looked at how much farmland is needed to meet the nutritional needs of residents, how much farmland there is Continue reading Can we survive off the land? →

Education

UMass Stockbridge School, Wildwood embark on grow local partnership

By By NICK GRABBE Staff Writer

Thursday, October 25, 2012

AMHERST — Wildwood School kindergarteners and Principal Nick Yaffe, sat in a circle Thursday around a hole in the ground where an apple tree was about to be planted.

Ryan Harb, coordinator of the permaculture program at the University of Massachusetts, who carted in two semidwarf apple trees, asked the children if they had ever eaten apples. Every hand shot up.

“The reason we came here and want to plant this apple tree is that we’re really passionate about growing food, so we wanted to give you an opportunity to grow some food with us,” he explained.

They shook out the dirt from the sod that Harb and his colleague, Tripper O’Mara, had dug up. One child found a large worm, and as his classmates gathered around to look at it, Continue reading UMass Stockbridge School, Wildwood embark on grow local partnership →

Activities and Events

Sustainable Food Guide produced by UMass students

There was a celebration in the Cape Cod Lounge at UMass on October 25 celebrating the introduction of the new Sustainable Food Guide.  Great music and local food were shared by many!

Bicycle powered music!

The UMass Permaculture Initiative!

Pick up the Food Resource Guide!  (and please ‘like us’ here)!

One of the co-sponsors of this event was the Stockbridge School of Agriculture’s  Community Food Systems class taught by Catherine Sands and offered by the coolest major on the planet:

 UMass Sustainable Food and Farming

Food Policy and Advocacy

A Simple Fix for Farming

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By Mark Bittman

New York Times – October 19, 2012

IT’S becoming clear that we can grow all the food we need, and profitably, with far fewer chemicals. And I’m not talking about imposing some utopian vision of small organic farms on the world. Conventional agriculture can shed much of its chemical use — if it wants to.

This was hammered home once again in what may be the most important agricultural study this year, although it has been largely ignored by the media, two of the leading science journals and even one of the study’s sponsors, the often hapless Department of Agriculture.

The study was done on land owned by Iowa State University called the Marsden Farm. On Continue reading A Simple Fix for Farming →

Food Policy and Advocacy

California Prop 37 should matter to you too!

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Vote for the Dinner Party

Is this the year that the food movement finally enters politics?

By MICHAEL POLLAN
Published October 10, 2012 – New York Times Magazine
One of the more interesting things we will learn on Nov. 6 is whether or not there is a “food movement” in America worthy of the name — that is, an organized force in our politics capable of demanding change in the food system. People like me throw the term around loosely, partly because we sense the gathering of such a force, and partly (to be honest) to help wish it into being by sheer dint of repetition. Clearly there is growing sentiment in favor of reforming American agriculture and interest in questions about where our food comes Continue reading California Prop 37 should matter to you too! →
Food Policy and Advocacy

Moment of truth: Is the ‘food movement’ for real — or just talk?

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By Tom Laskawy

At the start of the Obama administration, the newly minted president, the same one who quoted Michael Pollan, immediately and disappointingly set about enforcing the food and farm policy status quo. To some political analysts, this came as absolutely no surprise. Ezra Klein, who now writes for the Washington Post but was blogging for the American Prospect at the time, explained the dynamics of the situation:

The broader community of folks who eat food — all of us, more or less — don’t clearly see the connection between policy and plate and so pay little attention to federal action. Our interests are largely lost because there’s little in the way of political reward for serving the silent. Expecting Obama Continue reading Moment of truth: Is the ‘food movement’ for real — or just talk? →

Food Policy and Advocacy

Watering the grassroots economy: an editorial

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By By BOONE W. SHEAR

Sunday, October 14, 2012

AMHERST — The day after the first presidential debate, local and national newspaper headlines reiterated the tenet that Democrats and Republicans have different, opposing plans for improving our economy. The New York Times construed their differences like this: “On a basic level it was a clash of two ideologies, the president’s Democratic vision of government playing a supporting role in spurring economic growth, and Mr. Romney’s Republican vision that government should get out of the way of businesses that know best Continue reading Watering the grassroots economy: an editorial →

Food Policy and Advocacy

Sustainability grows in healthy soil

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By Christine Clarke, Massachusetts State Conservationist

Thank you Mr. Elmer O. Fippin. Who is Elmer O. Fippin? He was the soil scientist who mapped and wrote the 1903 publication entitled The Soil Survey of the Connecticut River Valley. Thanks to his groundbreaking work more than a century ago, we have the tools today to reduce the effects of drought and increase our ability to feed the world.

In 1899, Congress appropriated $16,000 to the USDA Bureau of Soils to conduct four soil Continue reading Sustainability grows in healthy soil →