Live blogging at Sustainable Foods Seminar

http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/people/students/orgs-farmhand-seminar.html

• Yay Deb Gallagher, oh matron saint of ENV 301.25! (Deb co-advises the seminar with UNC partners)
  
• Kudos to Nicholas MEM's Cassie Ann and Gretchen
  

7:00PM - SEED (Durham, NC) - Kavanah Ramsier

• They campaigned to allow chickens in the City of Durham!
• DIG encourages local youth to get into the whole of food process, from encouraging peer education on planting science, managing gardens, marketing produce, and ecology of farming. Big emphasis on pollination, beekeeping.
  
• Weekly meals with the food they grow!
• On food justice:

  "It's appealing to kids that 50 cent or Beyoncé drink Coke."

• "We need to be thinking of ways to turn more consumers into producers of food."

7:20pm - Carrboro Farmers Market (Carrboro, NC) - Sarah Blacklin, Manager

• Chapel Hill area had a ton of markets (at churches, etc.) back in the 70's!
• North Carolina Agricultural Marketing Project forms the Carrboro Farmers Market in 1979 (Ken Dawson).
  
• Farmer-run, farmer-owned; farmers form 7-member board.
• All farmers live within 50 mile radius - reduces fuel cost.
  
• They even work with food stamps and cost programs.
• Brewmasters: they do hops!
• Buffalo jerky! Liverwurst! Kimchi! Gluten-free pies!
• Rule: farmers must grow their own. No reselling.
• Farmers are mandated to be within 50-miles of market.
• Unique Rule: Require farmers to be at market -- they can't send reps or farmhands.

  "The best way to learn about your food is from your buyers."

• Obesity program, giving families a plot to grow own produce.
• Starting a new organization called Friends of the Market, to do more community outreach and farmer support. Goals: access for minorities; CSA's for families in need; Spanish translation; group health insurance plan for farmers! Also catastrophe relief fund for farmers; scholarships for minority/farmer families in need.

7:36pm - Chatham Marketplace (Pittsboro, NC) - Mary DeMare, General Manager

• A young co-op, founded in 2003
• Counts local as 250-mile radius, to include coast; majority of local food comes from within 50-miles.
  
• 120 local producers; works with Eastern Carolina Organics
• Local rice! (204 miles, just into SC border :))
• $2.6 million in sales last year!

(dah... battery running out... cutting off any moment!)

7:42pm - Open Questions

• Concern over buyers assuming that local farms = organic. Sarah Blacklin: "Some farmers get defensive, but we encourage farmers to say, 'ask me about my produce' to get more clarity and detail. But farm practices really change from year to year -- it's not that clear cut. And every shopper has unique preferences on organics/spraying etc. I would love suggestions on better communication of practices."
  
• How do you enter the market... of the farmer's market? Sarah Blacklin: "Mid-week test to see if they are viable. Seniority is set for someone who does at least 17 weeks, to prevent fair-weather friends. There is also limits on crafts booths, to prevent it from becoming a flea market. But we have recently allowed farmers to take sabbaticals -- without losing seniority."
  
• How does a cash-based market deal with debit and credit society? Kavanah/Sarah: Carrboro has applied for a EBT machine to accept food stamps... but complicated situation dealing with LeafLife(?)...also complicated to have one machine for market, having someone manage the machine, and having a swipe/token exchange.
• Decrease in African-American farmers? Kavanah: That's certainly a focus of DIG is to encourage more urban families to learn about farming and food. All three panelists: we want to bring in and support minority farmers, but don't have/know a specific strategy for African-American farmers specifically.
  
• Better consumer education? (sorry... tuned out...)
  
• Most pressing concern for sustainable local food systems? Collectively: wow, tough questions... um, everything? Cost for consumers; cost/time for farmers to produce for market and make profit to sustain farm; young farmers face high start-up costs; and more...
• Where will supply come from with increasing demand? What are incentives for farmers to stay/start farming? Sarah: Young farmers are crucial. Eastern NC and mountain NC are suffering though, being far from markets like Durham/Raleigh. Triangle/Piedmont benefits from being close to markets, and small farms are growing!
  
• Promo for Real Food, Real Medicine conference.
  

(Reception time... nummy foods.... Peace!)
8:20pm

What's on your dinner plate?

Which is worse for global warming-the fork or the SUV? To many the answer seems obvious—we all know how fuel efficient those Dodge Durango and GMC Yukons are.

But the answer is actually the fork, at least when that fork is being used to eat a big slab of meat. Our meat-heavy western diet is heating up our climate in a big way. A 2006 United Nations report that received little media attention, “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” examined how the industry impacted land use, water pollution, air pollution, and biodiversity loss.

It concluded that worldwide livestock farming accounts for 18% of all human-generated greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 13% from all the planet’s cars, trains, planes and boats combined. The majority of emissions come from deforestation, since the constantly increasing demand for meat means clearing land to create pastures or farmland for growing animal feed.

In addition, every day factory farmed animals produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population of the U.S.—87,000 lbs. of waste per second! Much of this ends up in giant pits in the ground or on crops, which eventually pollutes the air and groundwater.

So now we know what comes out of this industry, but what goes in? According to an E Magazine article “The Case Against Meat,” 4.8 pounds of grain is needed to produce 1 pound of beef. With so many starving people in the world, is it ethical to feed our growing desire for meat instead of feeding people? The article’s author says that the next time you sit down for an 8 oz. steak, think about “the room filled with 45 to 50 people with empty bowls in front of you.” Overly dramatic? Maybe. But perhaps we need some dramatic imagery these days.

Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer estimates that if the U.S. reduced its meat production by just 10%, it would free up enough grain to feed 60 million people. And what do meat producing companies respond to? Customer demand.

So my question is why more environmental organizations aren’t advocating vegetarianism or even reduced meat consumption as an environmental solution to everything from local water pollution to global warming. Hopefully this will change soon. Even the head of the U.N.’s Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, recently urged the world to cut back on meat in order to combat climate change.

I encourage you to start thinking more about what you’re eating and where it comes from. Even if you don’t give up meat completely, you can start by cutting out one or two meat meals a week. And next time you get a mailing or email from a major environmental organization, by all means support them, but also send them a note asking them why they’re missing out on such a huge opportunity to make a difference.