California’s Division of Apprenticeship Standards (DAS) has partnered with College of Marin and Fresh Run Farm to offer students the nation’s first-of-its-kind apprenticeship program for organic farming. Participating students will learn progressive, responsible farming practices including landscape ecology, composting and fertility management. In addition, students will learn the business side of farming with coursework in marketing and certifications.

The Organic Farming and Gardening Apprenticeship Program is the latest of 611 active apprenticeship programs recognized in California by DAS, a division of the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR). DIR’s Director, John C. Duncan, gave official approval of the program today during a signing ceremony at College of Marin’s Indian Valley Organic Farm and Garden.

“The Organic Farming and Gardening Apprenticeship Program will be a model program in sustainable food production,” said DIR Director Duncan. “We realize there are particular challenges organic farmers face, and the organic apprenticeship program will benefit this niche industry and support the continued growth of organic farming by providing valuable training to future farmers about sustainable, local food systems.”

The apprenticeship program includes 1,800 hours of hands-on paid training at Fresh Run Farm in Bolinas and 11 courses of related instruction provided by College of Marin. Students will be able to complete the program in two years or less.

“The College of Marin’s Indian Valley Organic Farm and Garden represents the values of Marin County—the 3 E’s of sustainability—the environment, the economy and social equity,” said College of Marin Superintendent and President Dr. David Wain Coon. “The farm promotes a healthy environment, strong local economy, and helps achieve social equity through education. This partnership is truly something to celebrate!”

The organic farming industry is the fastest growing sector in agriculture. Marin County alone boasts of 23 registered organic producers that farm 810 acres of land. Nearly all row crops grown in Marin today are certified organic.

“Many of us make the claim that our most important crops are new organic farmers and this program is a really great way to stand behind that claim,” said Fresh Run Farm Owner and Operator Peter Martinelli. “There are so many younger people today looking for these opportunities and it is important that we provide them with a clear, legitimate path to entering the industry.”

Tags: education, farming, industry, local

A group of people from northern Minnesota wants foods grown locally to be as accessible as foods commonly found in larger grocery stores.

To make this happen, the group plans to build a commercial kitchen in Bemidji, one that is FDA-approved. The intention is to make the kitchen available for use by individuals to mass-produce locally grown food products, such as spaghetti sauce, jelly, pickles and salsa.

The project has been spearheaded by the Headwaters Food Sovereignty Council (HFSC), which serves the counties of Becker, Beltrami, Cass, Clearwater, Hubbard, Itasca, Mahnomen, Pennington, Polk and Red Lake, as well as Leech Lake, Red Lake and White Earth reservations.

Ryan Zemek, a development specialist with the Headwaters Regional Development Commission, has provided Harmony Foods with some economics-related information for the feasibility study. But Zemek is also starting a larger initiative involving local foods. He is in the beginning stages of studying the regional and local economy.

Zemek said there are environmental and economic benefits to eating foods grown locally. He said research suggests local foods have more taste and money spent locally stays in the community.

“One of the challenges is how do you build a system where you can start getting local foods into not just the farmers market,” Zemek said. “I don’t know if there will be a tool to get local vegetables into the hospitals because of distribution.”

While Zemek does not know if a locally grown food distribution center could be developed in Bemidji in the near future, he said he has seen a shift in more people becoming interested in where their food comes from.

“Fifty years ago I think a lot more of the meat, vegetables, milk and cheese were coming from local sources,” Zemek said. “As we built up larger industrial food system, there was less need for these growers.”

Today, especially with gas prices around $3.50 a gallon, Zemek said it is making more sense to people to depend on local facilities.

“Even a 15 percent shift in more local goods would cause some industries to start up again,” he said. “Then some of that money could circulate through local economy.”

Tags: business, community, local

Sandy River Farms, an organic dairy at 560 Farmington Falls Road owned for 60 years by the York family, has started processing and bottling its own milk under its farm label.

Half-gallons and gallons of low-fat organic milk along with pint-size containers of chocolate and strawberry flavored milk are on the shelves at Tranten’s grocery stores in Farmington and Kingfield, at the White Elephant in Strong, and at Ron’s Market, Mosher’s Seafood and Arkay Pizza in Farmington. It is also expected to be sold at the Farmington Hannaford in the coming weeks once the Yorks get their bar code stickers, farm manager Erik Johnson said.

“It’s local, it’s fresh and it tastes great,” he said. “And we have control over our product.”

“We are getting great support from the local stores and we have had very positive feedback. It is a win-win situation,” he said.

York believes the “old-fashioned” way they are processing the milk – by slowly heating it to 145 degrees and holding it there for half an hour — retains the flavor better than the instant-heat method used at commercial processing plants.

The milk is also fresher since it is only being transported from the barns across the street to the dairy, he said.

And because they are saving on transportation costs, they are able to keep the price lower than other organic brands and comparative to the cost of non-organic milk, he said.

York said he didn’t know of any other dairy farm in Maine processing its own milk on the premises.

According to the Maine Department of Agriculture, there are about 50 organic dairy farms operating in Maine.

“This is a niche market,” Tim Drake, the executive director of the Maine Milk Commission said.

“Anytime an agricultural enterprise takes its future into its own hands is a good thing. It can be a huge risk but you have control over your own product,” he said.

The family is processing about 200 gallons every other day with the rest of the 6,400 pounds produced by the 64 head of registered milking shorthorns being picked up by Horizon.

Tags: business, dairy, local

The Northeast Organic Farming Association of Massachusetts held its winter conference in Worcester on 15 January.

An article entitled Organic sustainability bid; NOFA says East Coast can again grow its own food appeared in Telegram & Gazette following the conference. The article summarised the thoughts and opinions of organic community leaders as expressed during the conference’s Building a regional sustainable food system workshop. Some interesting sentiments emerged from the workshop.

Sarah Voiland, a manager at Red Fire Farm, an organic vegetable farm in Granby and Montague, said a focus on community supported agriculture – in which consumers pay farmers in advance for a season’s worth of food – is revolutionizing farming for small producers.

“They (the customers) know where the produce is going to grow,” she said. “Sustainability comes from methods in tune with our ecology and our community, and it pays our farmers well. We need to level the playing field for young farmers because there are lots of hidden costs.”

While no one was questioning the wisdom of increasing local farm production at the expense of centralized factory-farm production, it’s difficult not to appreciate and respect the observations of Bill McGowan, the North Atlantic regional produce coordinator for Whole Foods Market, when he noted that:

Customers have embraced local products to the point “that they are almost willing to buy rocks if they are local.”

However, he said, the local movement could be made more regional, encompassing New England, the Northeast, and the entire Atlantic coast, if logistics were more efficient.

“The blueberry model is the perfect model,” Mr. McGowan said. “The product moves from Florida all the way up the coast to Canada, to extend the season.”

The concept of a regional food system comprising New England, the Northeast, and the entire Atlantic coast seems like a smart way forward. Regional food systems such as this have the potential to balance and maximize outcomes for growers, retailers, and consumers alike. However – to succeed – they need to be underpinned by a sophisticated transport and logistics networks. And that requires significant investment. Anyone with a checkbook?

Tags: business, consumers, economy, food system, local, NOFA, regional, Whole Foods

The Stamford Advocate recently reported on the growing popularity of winter farmers’ markets.

While farmers’ markets have traditionally been held between April and November, there are some good reasons for extending them beyond the warmer months.

Organic growers, many of whom are too small to meet the stringent volume requirements of the larger retailers, often rely on markets as a means of generating revenue. Farmers’ markets also provide consumers with increased choice, variety, and freshness. They facilitate direct access to farmers’ responsible for growing food. Importantly, the money consumers spend at farmers’ markets supports local communities and regional-based economic development.

Expect to see more winter farmers’ markets in coming years. This is a trend that is likely to continue.

Tags: business, consumers, farmers' markets, growers, local

A USDA initiative aimed at improving the health and nutrition of children is due to be rolled out in the coming months.

More than $7.7 million in funding will be provided by the USDA to support state agencies in implementing initiatives through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). Over half of the funds awarded will be distributed to local child care sponsoring organizations and institutions through state agencies.

The grants are intended to inspire innovative improvements to enhance nutrition and promote physical activity of the children in these states and communities.

The Child and Adult Care Food Program supports more than 3.3 million infants and children and 112,000 adults receive nutritious meals and snacks each day.

The funding is to be made available for activities promoting nutrition and physical activity in child care and may present an opportunity for community-focused local organic growers and co-operatives to become involved.

Tags: children, health, local, nutrition

A feature article appearing in December 2010′s edition of USDA’s Amber Waves looks at the growth in demand for local food.

By using census of agriculture data and data from the research firm Packaged Facts, ERS researchers have attempted to quantify the development of the local foods market.

According to census data, direct sales to consumers account for a small but growing segment of U.S. agriculture. Direct sales of agricultural products, including Internet and catalog sales, totalled $1.2 billion in 2007, or 0.4 percent of total agricultural sales. From 1997 to 2007, direct sales increased by 105 percent ($619 million), compared with an increase of 48 percent for all agricultural sales ($95.8 billion).

Over the same period, the number of farms selling directly to consumers increased by 24 percent, compared with a 0.5-percent reduction in the total number of farms. In 2007, the 136,800 farms selling directly to consumers surpassed the number performing custom work (services for others such as planting, plowing, spraying, and harvesting), agritourism, and sales of firewood and other forest products, positioning direct sales as the leading onfarm supplemental enterprise.

This research indicates that a clear opportunity exists for organic growers to connect with consumers using direct channels.

Tags: industry, local, research, sustainable, USDA

Demand for local food in the US has significantly increased over the past decade. In an attempt to understand the drivers of this demand and how they have changed over time a new study, due to be published in the December issue of Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, considers the literature on organic and local foods over the past few decades.

The study focuses on the characteristics now associated with both local and organic foods. The study found that, prior to the late 1990s, most research failed to consider factors now associated with local food, and the few that included these factors found very little support for them.

In many cases, the lines between local and organic were blurred. Coincident with the development of federal organic food standards, studies began to find comparatively more support for local food as distinct and separate from organic food.

The authors suggest that the review uncovers a distinct turn in the demand for local and organic food.

Before the federal organic standards, organic food was linked to small farms, animal welfare, deep sustainability, community support and many other factors that are not associated with most organic foods today.

They further suggest that demand for local food arose largely in response to corporate co-optation of the organic food market and the arrival of ‘organic lite’.

This important shift in consumer preferences away from organic and toward local food has broad implications for the environment and society. If these patterns of consumer preferences prove to be sustainable, producers, activists and others should be aware of the implications that these trends have for the food system at large.

One of the shortcomings of this study is its failure to recognise the important role organic agriculture has played in the development – and continued acceptance – of the local food movement. The study appears to suggest that consumers are increasingly seeking out locally grown chemically treated produce in favor of equivalent, albeit less local, organic produce. This seems unlikely.

A more realistic, less populist, analysis of the available literature would likely have supported the conclusion that consumers are increasingly choosing local food because of the perception they have – rightly or wrongly – of it being grown according to organic prinicples.

While there is no question that local food produced according to organic principles is the ideal, it is also worth remembering that local chemical food contaminates local people.

Keywords: study, health, pesticides, chemicals, industry, research, consumers, local, certification

Tags: certification, consumers, health, industry, local, pesticides, research, study

Walmart recently launched a global commitment to sustainable agriculture that should help small and medium sized farmers expand their businesses, get more income for their products, and reduce the environmental impact of farming, while strengthening local economies and providing customers around the world with long-term access to affordable, high-quality, fresh food.

According to Mike Duke, Walmart President and CEO, “Through sustainable agriculture, Walmart is uniquely positioned to make a positive difference in food production — for farmers, communities and customers. Our efforts will help increase farmer incomes, lead to more efficient use of pesticides, fertilizer and water, and provide fresher produce for our customers.”

In the U.S., Walmart aims to double its sale of locally sourced produce and increase its purchase of select U.S. crops. Walmart’s commitment to sourcing more local produce, improving customer health, and minimizing pesticide and fertilizer use, should significantly benefit North America’s organic industry.

Keywords: organic industry, announcement, Walmart, commitment, sustainable agriculture, local farmers, pesticide minimization, consumer health, sustainable food production, farmers, local produce, social responsibility, corporate social responsibility

Tags: corporate sustainability, fertilizer, local, pesticides, small farms, sustainable, Walmart