Posts Tagged ‘Localization’
Living Local: Find Your Community
How can you make an impact on your local community?
What impact does community have on the local food system and sustainability?
Chuck Minguez of Door to Door Organics and Jeanna Kane of the Doylestown Food Co-op explore what it means to live locally.
Chuck encourages people to go out and join in the change happening in their area. “Get involved with local organizations that support the local foodshed like Bucks County Foodshed Alliance or your local Buy Fresh, Buy Local chapter. Go to meetings and meet the people directly involved in creating change.”
Jeanna also believes strongly in the power of community, like-minded individuals joining together, to affect change. Her words follow.
“This now brings me to Community. This could be one of the most important items to address as we move through climate change. All of the things we need to do as humans living on a changing planet we will need to do together. We are all great at coming together in a tragedy. Just look at how people came together during the aftermath of Sandy. People offered their homes for sleeping, showering, or just a hot cup of coffee or soup. So let’s take that community spirit and use it before the catastrophe. We can help each other plant gardens, we can have better public efforts on getting more alternative energy into peoples homes – subsidized solar panels perhaps. We can get together and help each other learn how to can or cook a seasonal meal. We can support community efforts on getting local food onto the tables of people who can least afford it.
Cathy Snyder of Rolling Harvest picks up a donation of greens and vegetables from Blue Moon Acres in Pennington, NJ
“I do many of these things now through my Ladies Homesteading group that I meet with on a monthly basis in person and almost a daily basis online, as we share tips and tricks for gardening, preserving, holistic health, and other general homesteading ideas.
“I read and read and read lots of books so that I can learn more ways to lower my footprint. But I don’t just read, I also put many of the things I learn into action. I share with others what I have learned through educational efforts.
“I have worked hard to bring about a food co-op in Doylestown that will support the local farmers– and I’m happy to say that we have a location and a targeted opening date of November. [The Doylestown Food Co-op is now open and operating.]
“I support organizations such as the Rolling Harvest Food Rescue that works with local farmers who donate excess harvests to go to local food pantries. They now have about 13 or 14 farmers in their program and are on target to surpass the 48,000 pounds of fresh food that they delivered in 2012.
“Get up each day and see what you can do that day that would lead to a more sustainable, less resource wasting life. I didn’t do all of this overnight.”
Living Local: Know Your Producers!
What does it mean to live locally?
How can you be a local citizen?
Alex Jones of Fair Food Farmstand in Philadelphia suggests that getting to know your food producer–literally, the source of the food you are eating–will strengthen your civic pride.
In her words:
My suggestion would be to not only give your dollars to local businesses and food sources, but to think of food that you purchase in terms of knowing the producer, not necessarily looking for a certification on the label.
If you’re able to access food from a grower directly, or from an organization or business (such as Fair Food!) that provides transparency and information about its sources, that’s worth a lot more than buying something from a large retailer just because it has an organic label.
I also get really motivated to look for things locally because it deepens the connection I feel to my part of the world — my region, my city, my own neighborhood — and sometimes the history of that area, too.
Farmer Jess Niederer of Chickadee Creek Farm in Pennington, NJ
Living Local: Buying Local, and Knowing from Whom You Buy
Wondering how you can support your local community? Try committing to buying local, and buying from people you know.
Lisa White, President of the Doylestown Food Co-op, really encourages people to buy local, as much as possible, as a way to ensure the continued vitality of your community. “I love where I live and I would love to be able to help assure that I, and future generations, have everything we need to live comfortably right here in our own area…. and to know that it is the tastiest, healthiest, and best it can be. To live local, you need to commit to buying local for everything that you possibly can!!”
Jamie Hollander, owner of Jamie Hollander Gourmet
Another element of buying local is getting to know the people behind that business. This is, after all, one of the biggest benefits of being locally-produced goods: the producers are your neighbors.
Ashley Lyons Putman, Sales Manager here at Blue Moon Acres, believes that a large part of living local is connect with small business owners in your local community. She recommends seeking out the mom and pop shops and patronizing those stores. These are the businesses we want to stay a while. And that’s not the only benefit- “You get quality, too. Someone that is really sticking their neck out for you and providing you with a quality product- staking their life on it.”
Living Local: On Raising Chickens and Keeping a Garden
Patti and Emily are both old* school Blue Mooners, with lots of experience themselves in gardening in agriculture. Patti, our seeding and watering specialist, has a BS in Horticulture from Penn State and a pack of chickens and 2 dogs in her backyard. Emily, who manages our market (and market garden) in Buckingham, in addition to working in the sales office, maintains a large kitchen garden with her boyfriend, Scott, in Ottsville.
Their advice on how to be a local citizen? Keep a garden and raise your own chickens.
If you are just getting started gardening, Emily advises, the best things to grow are things that you like to eat! “It seems so simple, but it makes gardening more fun.” What does this mean? If you don’t like kale… then don’t grow kale! If you like cucumbers, try planting some!
Tip from Emily on gardening: Look at your landscape. Do you have a shaded yard? Full sunlight? The amount of shade will affect what you are able to grow. Think before you dig!
And chickens? “If you can have chickens, have chickens! They are so easy to take care of, and you get the best-tasting eggs ever.” Patti gets a lot of enjoyment from her chickens- they’re fun to watch, pretty to look at, and, really, the eggs just can’t be beat.
Tips from Patti on keeping chickens: Always make sure their water is clean! Chickens are natural composters- have garden scraps? They love them! (Note- Chickens especially like Blue Moon lettuce.)
*as in years of employment, not age 😉
Living Local: Recommendations from Food Producers, Marketers, Consumers, and Advocates on How to Live a Local Life
I am excited to begin this next blog series, and share with you recommendations from some of Blue Moon’s partners and friends who exemplify the local life. We’ll read through suggestions on raising chickens, buying local, being flexible on price, supporting local farmers, gardening basics, and more.
Our first Living Local recommendation comes from Mike Hays, former Produce Category Manager at Kimberton Whole Foods, and current New York-based journalist.
From Mike:
In addition to shopping at farmers’ markets or purchasing a share from a CSA, as local consumers we need to shift our thinking on pricing a little bit.
Eat This Jams, produced by Gino De Schryver in Erwinna, for sale at Blue Moon Acres
It has been ingrained in us since we first started shopping with our parents to always look for the best deal. This pocketbook-friendly strategy is reinforced through advertising.
Although locally-grown produce travels a shorter distance and consumes less fuel, the growers often cope with variables that corporate conglomerate farms are insulated from. For example, adverse weather can spoil an entire crop for a small farmer, whereas corporate farms have crops located throughout North America.
The Manoff Family, farmers and proprietors of Manoff Market Gardens in Solebury
Also, the wages paid on family-owned farms are typically higher than those paid to migrant workers.
So by paying a bit more, you are supporting family farms and agricultural diversity in your community.
Is price one of your considerations in shopping? How so? Would you prefer to buy a cheaper item made thousands of miles away, or a more-expensive locally-produced option? Is there a middle ground?
Relocalization’s Triumph
Pick up a menu at Triumph Brewery New Hope and you’ll notice something special: it’s all local.
That’s right.
For just under a year now, the upscale brew-pub has been committed to sourcing exclusively from local farms, wholesalers, distilleries, and vineyards. It’s the kind of quixotic experiment you privately shake your head at—until it succeeds.
“When we first began,” General Manager Paul Foglia says, “we were unsure about availability, so we only did half the menu local. Once we realized the simplicity of it, and that it was doable, we moved forward.”
A big part of this transition was Zone 7, a natural foods wholesaler based in Lawerenceville, New Jersey. Zone 7’s vast purchasing power and enormous inventory enabled Triumph to consolidate their orders, expand their menus, and keep from pulling their hair out in the process. It certainly didn’t hurt that the product was of markedly better quality—shorter traveling distances and more conscientious growing practices, after all, make for more appealing dishes.
And ultimately it was the quality that sealed the deal for Foglia et al.
“It was never our intention to jump on a bandwagon; we wanted to separate ourselves from other restaurants in Bucks County and New Hope, to showcase what these great farmers and purveyors have in the area.”
River and Glen, Rushland Ridge, Alba Vineyard, Dad’s Hat, and Blue Moon Acres are just a few of these purveyors. River and Glen supplies meat and seafood; Dad’s Hat provides rye whiskey; Alba and Rushland Ridge, local wine. (Dad’s Hat also donates spent barrels, in which Triumph ages select beers, the barrels lending overtones of smoke and caramel to the brews.) Moreover, Buck’s County-based Freedom Fuel uses Triumph’s spent fryer oil to make soaps and degreasers which Triumph then uses to keep its kitchen spic and span. (Freedom also uses fryer oil to make biodiesel which we at Blue Moon use to power our farm equipment!)
Virtuous though all this may sound, relocalization is not without downsides. The wintertime can be especially problematic: with produce limited to root vegetables, chefs’ creativities’ are put to the test. Even at the height of summer, menus must be updated daily to reflect an ever-changing availability.
Says Executive Chef Tony Sauppe, “The biggest challenge is guessing how much product I’m going to go through in a week for an entire menu. You don’t want to waste product, but you need enough to get you through the following week.”
Despite the challenges, both Sauppe and Paul agree that relocalization is the way to go.
“I never ever want to go back to a regular menu,” Sauppe says. “Never want to not do a local-style menu. It just makes so much sense.”
Bucks County, it seems, agrees.
