Sustainable Local Food Systems: Best Practices

1. NSLW Conference Sustainable Local Food Systems:Best Practices Andrew Jameton College of Public Health, UNMC City Sprouts December 11, 2008

2. Outline: Local Food Systems • Plusses & Minuses • Climate Change as Reason • Food outlets & distribution • Production models • Starting a community garden • Associated businesses • Misc local information and sources

4. Annie Greenhouse, Educational Ramifications of Gardening

5. City Sprouts Flower Boy City Sprouts Gardening Volunteer

6. Five Domains • Environmental (natural and man-built) • Socio-cultural (history, conditions, and contexts) • Technological (appropriate, sustainable) • Economics (the production of goods and services within a sustainable context, and the financial resources to support the production, trade, operations, and maintenance) • Public Policy (government, or public rules/regulations)

7. Five (Maybe Six) Domains • Environmental (natural and man-built) • Socio-cultural (history, conditions, and contexts) • Technological (appropriate, sustainable) • Economics (the production of goods and services within a sustainable context, and the financial resources to support the production, trade, operations, and maintenance) • Public Policy (government, or public rules/regulations) • Health, public health, sustainable health, intergenerational health, environmental health

8. Locavore Demand • There is growing consumer demand for local, healthy, high quality food • The obesity epidemic has stimulated a wide range of private, public, and individual efforts to improve diet • Links between diet and exercise are being promoted and explored

9. Bottom Line • There are many viable inner-city, local, community and urban agriculture projects all over the United States. • There are many reliable and informed sources available on starting and managing such projects. • There also exists a wide variety of reports on the relationships of agriculture to environmental preservation and climate change. • Preserving health through diet and exercise is a key theme of these enterprises, although sustaining community, justice, and micro-economics are also important themes. • Although expanding, such projects have so far only displaced a small percentage of more industrial, commercial, food intake.

10. Plusses • Integrated approach (therefore, efficient) • Freshness (but, frozen can be fresher than stored local) • Energy and material conservation (storage, packaging, freezing) • Composting harbors atmospheric carbon • Healthiness of food (selection, psychological satisfaction) • Improved control, “Food Security” • Community projects, empowerment, neighborhoods • Small business • Link with exercise • Science, agriculture, cooking, and dietary education

11. Minuses • More of the same? • Not necessarily organic • Note necessarily safe: Leaded soil • Grains need wide area • Meat (rabbits, chickens) highly regulated; have risks • Theft • Instability of community projects

12. Climate Change as Reason • General agricultural impacts: • Loss of agricultural land • Changes in water patterns, especially drying, desertification • Loss of economic prosperity in affected areas • Migration • Instability, food insecurity • Agricultural, gardening, and food preparation skills

13. Food Outlets & Distribution • Farmers Markets • Restaurants • Whole Foods • Front yards • Churches • At the garden • “Consignment” shops • Trucks • Food banks • WIC Program, Food Stamps

14. Production Models • Personal use • Personal and neighbor use • Schools, Churches, Neighborhoods • “Every child should have the experience of eating something he or she has grown from seed.” • CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) • “Truck gardens” • “Victory gardens” • Edge farms (for larger growing areas)

15. Starting a Community Garden • A champion • Acquiring land (buying, renting, donations, land trust), sunny, flat, clean, accessible • Water, rainwater, gray water, city water, neighbor water • Soil amendments, mulching, composting • Plowing • Tools, Safe storage area • Fencing, signage • Community events, ceremonies, dinners • Educational program • Insurance, 501c3, incorporation, business plan, naming, gardening policies, community outreach

16. Associated Businesses • Breeding for local growing / seed saving • Greenhousing, sprouting, potting • Composting, mulches • Organic sources? • The food truck • Value added projects • Urban animal husbandry

17. Nebraska • Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society • Center for Rural Affairs • NCR SARE • Nebraska Food Cooperative • College of Agriculture (& the Extension) • Shadowbrook Farm (CSA, Lincoln) • Bloom’s Organics • Community Crops (Lincoln)

18. Useful Reports • USDA. The effects of climate change on agriculture, land resources, water : Resources, and biodiversity in the United States, Final Report, Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.3 • Managing Editor: Margaret Walsh ; Lead Authors: Peter Backlund, Anthony Janetos, and David Schimel • May, 2008 • Available at: http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap4-3/final-report/default.htm • Urban Agriculture Committee of the Community Food Security Coalition: Urban Agriculture and Community Food Security in the United States: Farming from the City Center To the Urban Fringe • Principal Author: Katherine H. Brown; Editor: Peter Mann; Contributors: Martin Bailkey, Alison Meares-Cohen, Joe Nasr, Jac Smit, Terri Buchanan • February, 2002 • Available at: http://www.foodsecurity.org/urbanag.html • Leopold Instiitute: New Perspectives on Food Security • November 12-14, 2004 Conference Proceedings, Glynwood Center, NY • Leopold Institute Web Site: http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/ • Available at: www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/other/files/food_security.pdf • FAO, Interdepartmental Working Group on Climate Change and the Stockholm Environment Institute: Climate Change and Food Security A Framework Document • October 2007 • Available at: • www.fao.org/clim/docs/CDROM/docs/Food%20Security/key%20mes...20revised%20-%20Zurek.pdf • Good Search Terms: • +"best practices" +"food security" +sustainability +environment +health +Nebraska

19. My Contact Information • Andrew Jameton • UNMC College of Public Health • 402-559-4680 • ajameton@unmc.edu • City Sprouts • www.omahasprouts.org • City Sprouts Director Kate Card, 402-502-5902, citysprouts@omahasprouts.org • City Sprouts, PO Box 31593, Omaha, NE 68131-0593