Tag: Agriculture

A utopian, sustainable N.C. city

October 26, 2018 / odrozd

Columbia, North Carolina: A Sustainable Example

In April 2018, Viktor Agabekov wrote a fictional, first-person account of life in a utopian, sustainable North Carolina city of the future. Read his story below.

As dawn rolls through the transparent solar panel of my bedroom window, I start another day in the historic downtown of Columbia, North Carolina. Once a tiny settlement with less than 900 people, the city is now a national leader in adapting to sea level rise. Situated near the mouth of the Scuppernong River in northeastern North Carolina, Columbia first experienced irregular flooding in the late 2010’s, and city leaders boldly decided to reshape the image of the town to ensure it would have a future.

It is now 2040, the city has swelled past 4,000 residents, and the policies adopted in the past 20 years make it sustainable to live and thrive in the city. In addition to environmentally-minded designs, the city has shaped development to capture the benefit of social capital as part of its mission.

I work as an environmental consultant for the town, and start each day with a 5-minute commute to the city center by bicycle. The design of the town follows the “garden city” layout proposed by Ebenezer Howard in the late 19th century, as the town has capitalized on the nearby abundance of green space surrounding it (figure 5). The total size of the city is just over 25 square miles, with most of the area being dedicated to green space. Several “spokes” of transit that include three-lane roads and separated bike paths stretch to compact residential neighborhoods, such as the one I live in.

I leave my tiny home in the morning without having to lock my door, as the Internet of Things lets me do that remotely from my phone as I’m on the way to work. The roads and bike paths are elevated over the saltwater wetlands below, and are made of permeable material to limit flooding when heavy storms saturate the area.

As I ride up to my company building, I lock my bike in an elevated bike rack and head up the stairs to my office space. It’s not a long walk, however, as the city has a height limit of 4 stories for buildings by the waterfront as to preserve the profile of the riverfront. My office building has passive lighting and large windows, which offset its electricity use even on hot summer days by letting the sun do the electricity generation and lighting work.

The building facades of downtown Columbia are mandated to appear similar to historic buildings previously constructed, to keep up the historic charm of the city. My building, along with all others in the downtown area, also has a green roof to reduce the heat absorbed in the hot summer months planted with crop plants that can be harvested by workers for food. The roof captures rainwater in a cistern, which is then used for secondary non-potable purposes including flushing and irrigation.

Water in the city literally surrounds the core of downtown every day. As sea level rise has caused the height of the Scuppernong River to increase by 2’, Columbia has adopted strict building codes that minimize losses due to seasonal flooding and constant water presence. The riverbank is lined with a living shoreline, mostly made up of oyster reefs and vegetation beds. The river water isn’t fresh, as saltwater from the ocean mixes in during tide changes. This made obtaining fresh water a priority for the city, so a single large desalination plant was built in 2030 in the northern limits of the city to solve this problem. The rising water forced the city to condemn several older structures that became total losses over time, and these structures were torn down and converted into wetland park open spaces.

Water also serves as a means of transport to Columbia, and the city has a central transit hub on the downtown waterfront that links a ferry terminal, boat marina, bicycle path, and arterial road. It’s easy to get around the downtown by walking from this transit hub, and it’s a popular public space for people to meet up at and watch boats go by. The city is small and walkable to the point where local buses aren’t required, and all buildings are made inclusive for all people through accessible ramps, doors, and elevators to upper floors.

Lunchtime calls for a trip down to the local food co-op in downtown Columbia, and I walk across the main circular plaza at the core of the city. The streets here are made of cobblestone filled with permeable gravel, which slows down drivers and adds a cozy, historic element to the atmosphere of downtown. This allows water to quickly dissipate during rain events, and helps bring the total runoff from the city center to almost zero. The food co-op has a large open lawn that is open to the public, and is a popular spot to relax and enjoy the sights of the city at. It is lined with fruit trees that are grown in large containers, as the soil across most of the city is too salty for fruit trees otherwise.

Container gardens like this also line the windows of downtown buildings, and it is town policy to allow any citizen or visitor to freely harvest these gardens as part of an equal access to fresh foods initiative. Because the city is easily walkable, there are no recognized food deserts in Columbia.

Agriculture was once the backbone of Tyrrell County, but rising sea levels and saltwater intrusion have caused it to retreat inland within North Carolina. This has caused Columbia to rely on many crops to be imported from other locales, but several salt-tolerant crops such as sugar beets and barley are still farmed beyond the green belt band of the city. Lunch also includes a refreshing non-alcoholic craft beer from a Columbia brewery, which has become a cultural staple for locals.

The fishing industry on the Scuppernong River has also surged to cultural prominence, as the farming of oysters and blue crabs have made the city internationally recognized for its seafood products. Sustainable culling and size restrictions have allowed these populations to flourish near the town, and the fishing economy has become one of the largest employers in the region.

Another industry that has become integral to the city has been research in climate adaptation for agriculture and city resiliency planning. A large research institution sits at the core of downtown Columbia, bordered by a cobblestone woonerf plaza that gives its students access to labs and high-paying research jobs. This reflects the progressive ideology of the city, as the rise from a poverty-stricken town to a global leader in climate adaptation has caught the eye of many inspired planners.

Columbia is also home to the a significant government presence, as it is the county seat of Tyrrell county and hosts a US Coast Guard search and rescue base. The presence of this large amount of industry is the source of employment for most of the town’s 4,000 residents, including me. My company helps developers set up microgrids in new communities, and works with electric utilities to allow net metering of residential surplus electricity to take place. The city offers net metering in all of the low-income housing neighborhoods it maintains, allowing residents to gain supplemental income and proving that Columbia values them and is invested in their success, a commitment to social capital.

The emergency services of the city including the fire department, police, and paramedic, are all centrally located behind the city hall at the core circular plaza of the city. This allows them to respond to all emergencies in the city’s radius from a single, central point, and thus equalizes response times to neighborhoods despite their demographics.

The energy portfolio of Columbia is entirely made of renewable sources, primarily fed from a large offshore wind farm near the Outer Banks. The rest of the city’s electric needs, including a full charging infrastructure for electric cars, are met by solar microgrids that use transparent window-panels, much like my home neighborhood.

Columbia city schools are also powered by microgrids, and use electric school buses to get kids to and from their schools. Renewable technologies are taught to all kids enrolled in Columbia, and are favored in city policy. In fact, the city has a ban on internal-combustion-engined vehicles, including lawn mowers and carts, as the volatile compounds created by those emissions are precautionary blocked from impacting the wetland ecosystems that surround the town.

Since most of the former agricultural lands near Columbia became unfarmable due to saltwater intrusion back in the 2020s, the city bought them at fair market value and raised funds through taxes to convert them to a green belt, reverting them back to their natural pocosin wetland biome type. These delicate ecosystems are degraded by combustion emissions, and the city has opted to justly protect them since they are an ecotourism destination, provide ecosystem services to the city, and are a cultural staple.

Wetlands have come to define Columbia: they have naturally resisted climate change and rising sea levels, are entirely unique compared to other ecosystems, and provide valuable services that other regions can benefit from. The city knows this very well, and recognizes this through an annual celebration called “Wetland Day,” which involves completely closing the downtown of the city to cars and having local artisans, scientists, and teachers show visitors the benefits that wetlands provide the town. Because the scale of the downtown area is very human-centered, visitors are fully comfortable walking around historic buildings and bringing their families as well.

The city has a comprehensive CCTV network that monitors streets, neighborhoods, and the green belt, and thus creates a network of safety that wasn’t previously seen in such a coastal community. The monitoring of wetlands specifically deters any poaching of endangered animals such as the red wolf, which has become a local symbol of pride and resilience. The conservation of a wetland buffer around the city also provides many ecosystem services for residents, ranging from cooler temperatures in the summer, to protection from flood surges and hurricane winds. This protection extends to all residents of Columbia, regardless of their demographics, and is an example of the city’s commitment to nature and valuing social capital.

My day at work wraps up as I collect the compost bins from around my office and send them down a vacuum chute into a central composting and waste management center in the north of the city. Composting, along with recycling has lowered the city’s total waste destined for landfills to just 2% of the total waste produced by residents each year. Because the city’s low-lying topography and sensitive ecosystems make landfills unfavorable, it exports this trash inland to Person County, and pays for this service through a waste disposal fee levied on citizens. This makes everyone want to generate as little landfill garbage as possible, and most neighborhoods around Columbia even hold competitions to see if anyone can lead a truly zero-waste lifestyle.

My final stop before I leave for home is a small drugstore in a mixed-use building at the edge of downtown, to pick up some protein powder. I debated seeing my friends who live above the drugstore in an apartment, but decided against it as I still have to prepare dinner and harvest vegetables from my container garden back home.

As I cycle back home on the raised wooden bike path, I remember visiting Columbia when I studied on the Outer Banks in college. The town was entirely different back then, and didn’t have a single value of sustainability at its core. The Columbia I know now is at the forefront of sustainable living and development, and to see how successful policy has been for this city is humbling; it was an effort by the residents who denounced isolationism and banded together to outlast the changing climate that threatened their very homes.

As I look over my shoulder at the bright sunset, I pull up my bike to my house and check my net electricity meter. My house generated 3-kilowatt hours of extra power, which was used by my neighborhood microgrid to light a basketball court for a kids’ scrimmage game. I tend my garden and prepare dinner, winding down after a long day of analyzing sustainable policy.

I finally wrap up my night by stargazing with my telescope through my open window, a hobby I picked up since the wetland buffer around the city limits the sprawling light pollution, right as the sun finishes setting on my sustainable city.

About the Author: Viktor Agabekov graduated UNC in 2018 with dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Economics and Environmental Studies, along with a minor in Entrepreneurship. A proud son of North Carolina, he has worked with state and local public entities along with student organizations and start-ups to find solutions to the question of what it means to be sustainable. He is now the Project Coordinator for the UNC Three Zeros Environmental Initiative. Aside from his official roles, he enjoys hiking, fresh and saltwater fishing, sustainable cooking, and organic gardening.

Featured Image Photo Credit: Viktor Agabekov.

REPOST: What Exactly Is “Local Food”? Ten Answers for North Carolina and Beyond

August 31, 2018 / odrozd

We all need to eat. Each of us deserves access to affordable, healthy, and culturally appropriate nourishment. But food influences more than just individual health.The way in which food is grown (such as the use of pesticides, how animal waste is managed, and the type of crops grown) affect soil, air, and water quality, which in turn affect the health of the environment and people living nearby. Agricultural policy influences whether a farming community prospers, and whether farmworkers earn enough money to afford food and shelter for their families. Despite hearing about farmers’ markets and seeing promotions for local food in grocery stores, many people are still unsure about what it is or why it matters. Here are ten ideas to get you started.

1. Why do we call it a food “system”?

A food system is made up of all of the inputs—like seeds, fertilizer, land, machinery, trucks, and fuel—and work that contribute to growing, processing, packaging, transporting, selling, consuming, composting, and managing waste that is associated with food. (The American Planners Association’s definition is more or less the same.) Some conceptions of the food system also include the economic, social, and political influences on those processes. You can visualize the food system with this great graphic from Nourish.

2. What is a local food system?

A local or regional food system is, you guessed it, a food system that is contained within a defined geography – this could be anything from a region like “the Northeast portion of the United States” to state, county, or city boundaries – and it is up to the person saying “local” to define the region. Anything more specific, and even the USDA throws up its hands. “Local” does not have any legal or regulatory definition. Defining local and regional food systems is contentious because the phrase “local food” is used to shape what people want food systems to look like, and because it is a powerful marketing label. This is just the first in a series of debates about the definition of local food. Some people expect that foods that are marketed as “local” have other characteristics, such as being organic, grown at a small farm, sold through a farmers market, non-GMO, or certified as humanely treated livestock. None of these expectations are actually implied by the phrase “local food.”

Cattle grazing in Alamance County, North Carolina. Source: Sophie Kelmenson

3. Which branding claims matter?

Sometimes food manufacturers advertise products with characteristics that do not have any particular legal meaning, like “natural.” This practice is known as “greenwashing,” or making claims that make a product sound environmentally friendly but do not actually mean anything. Greenwashing can increase prices and change purchasing patterns, and it is a huge challenge for local food. It’s hard not only to know what all the different “local food” labels mean, and even harder to confirm that food products are actually compliant with those labels that have a specific meaning. Food companies know that, and many want to keep it that way. Luckily, there are online resources that tell you which claims are real, which are not, and what they actually mean.

4. Is local food actually better?

It depends on what you mean by “better”. There is no doubt that eating more vegetables is healthier. When it comes to health and environmental benefits of organic or local, you’ll have to do your own research! Agricultural production practices and the definition of local food vary from place to place, so the environmental and health effects of local food also vary from place to place. The research literature about the impacts of local food is still emerging, but early reports indicate benefits from increasing local business activity, increased cultural and community connectivity, and improved environmental stewardship.¹

5. Our food system has been controversial for generations. Why the focus on local food now?

The United States industrial food system consolidated immensely in the past fifty years, concentrating land ownership and sales into the hands of a few. Our current food system functions like a factory because it maximizes returns instead of quality. Recent spotlights on all kinds of problems within our food system, from food safety concerns about e. coli, to outrage about pink sludge in our chicken nuggets, to competing claims about nutrition, to campaigns against large farm industries distorting our political process, to abusive workplace environments for farm laborers, have all made people question where food comes from. One of the best ways to know whether your food is safe, healthy, and otherwise unproblematic, is to buy it directly from a farmer who you know and trust.

Mountainside farm in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Credit: Sophie Kelmenson

6. Are farmers markets the only way to support local food systems?

Farmers’ markets are rather spectacular places – you can meet farmers who grew the food that you will eat! The food you buy might taste better, too, because growers can harvest farmers market produce later, allowing it to mature more and gain flavor. You can also learn about new foods and enjoy the company of others in your community. However, markets are not open during all of the times people want to shop (farmers have to farm, too!). You might have noticed that there are more white and wealthy customers at farmers markets than at the typical grocery store, and farmers markets do not offer all of the products we need to cook at home. Some of us don’t have time or the know-how to cook at home. Farmers markets are great, but there are lots of reasons to make sure that there are other ways to buy and consume local foods.

7. What are my other options?

Fortunately, grocery stores, institutions like our home university, UNC, and K-12 schools have all started to purchase local food. Some state and local governments mandate that a certain percentage of food procurement must be from local sources. These institutions provide critical support to local food systems, as they provide large-scale demand, price stabilization, and access to wider markets. You can also join a Community Supported Agriculture program to purchase local food without visiting a market, or purchase food from a local food hub or cooperative.

8. Can local food improve food access and justice?

We have a long way to go in order to make safe and healthy food affordable and accessible to everyone. There are many challenges to changing the built environment so that people may purchase food nearby, shifting food policy so that vegetables are more affordable than Twinkies, altering migrant farmworker policy to prevent health problems, or requiring animal waste be managed in a way that doesn’t put people at risk of exposure. Some local food initiatives address these challenges, but food access and justice are not necessarily central to the concept of local food.

9. What about food systems policy?

The Federal Farm Bill is the ultimate source for learning about American food policy. Additionally, local, state, and federal government policies support an array of programs that increase access to local food. For example, now low-income individuals may use SNAP/EBT benefits at farmers markets. The federal government also provides support for infrastructure for warehousing, packing, processing, and distribution, all of which are also necessary to sell more local food in more places.

10. What does local food look like in North Carolina?

The state has a long farming history, plenty of farmers markets, and an innovative local food program for public schools. The state ranks eighth in agricultural production, primarily through livestock and poultry. Food produced and sold locally represents a small but growing portion of agricultural sales. A number of celebrity chefs who promote local food call North Carolina home, such as Aaron Vandemark of Panciuto and Andrea Reusing of Lantern. The New York Times recently wrote about the “food sisterhood of North Carolina,” describing the passion and creativity of women developing an innovative local food economy.

Small-scale farming in Alamance County, North Carolina. Source: Sophie Kelmenson

Local, regional, and national food production systems are complicated and interconnected, which makes interventions challenging. Solutions, like the systems themselves, will vary in size, goals, and format. Understanding community needs and opportunities is a great place to start, as well as collaborating with existing efforts to support food systems. Organizations such as the Center for Environmental Farming Systems already communicate with community partners to research and support local food in North Carolina. Impactful planning initiatives could include: protecting farmland and fisheries; increasing access to infrastructure for processing, storage, and distribution; and creating lending opportunities to upgrade technology and production size.

To me, good food is more than delicious. Good food is produced in ways that enable ecologically, financially, and socially positive outcomes for producers (all of the people who handle the food along the way to my plate) and consumers. As consumers, we should be aware of the food we eat. As planners, we must think critically about how to how to support good food systems. Go forth, eat good food! Please.

¹Dunning, Rebecca. Research-Based Support and Extension Outreach for Local Food Systems. Center for Environmental Farming Systems, August 2013.

About the Author: Sophie Kelmenson is a master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Her studies focus on economic development and food systems.

Pass the Turkey: Why Cricket Farming is a Better Choice

November 28, 2017 / odrozd

This Thanksgiving, North Carolina (NC) continued its yearly tradition of feeding the country. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, NC remains the nation’s second largest producer of turkey in addition to being a top producer of pork and chicken. In other words, the state is responsible for producing some of the most unhealthy, land intensive, and environmentally polluting proteins in the country. Hog farming, in particular, has been linked to negative effects like asthma, cancer, air and water pollution, and declining property values for those living near hog farms, as covered extensively by researchers, doctors, journalists, and independent organizations.

While advocates of pork, chicken, and turkey farming will often cite NC’s $84 billion agricultural industry, protein production is not paying off like it used to. The News & Observer reported that there been a steady drop in the number of farms—with 100,000 fewer farms since the 1960s —and in the percentage of farms making a profit (only 43% are recording economic gains) .

Wastewater in Vanguard Farms Lagoon from hog farming, Beaufort County, NC. Photo Credit: Flickr

When faced with these realities, the state may long for a way to maintain its agricultural identity, while supporting economically, socially, and environmentally healthy protein production practices. I don’t usually advocate for “magic bullet” solutions, but in this case, it’s hard to argue with one unparalleled option: insect farming.

While some people may be uncomfortable by the thought of insect farming for humans, times are changing. Consumers are getting over their initial aversion to eating “bugs” just like we got over the disgust of eating delicacies like lobster (“the roach of the sea”) or sushi (which used to be raw fish with fermented rice). After all, insects are packed with essential nutrients and all the other goodies that make for a healthier source of protein.

How can we eat lobsters but not crickets? Photo Credit: Ed Bierman

Consumers have rapidly increased the demand for insects sold in products like protein bars, baked chips, and all-purpose cricket flours. “There simply aren’t enough farms to supply the insects that people want,” said Kevin Bachhuber, founder of Big Cricket Farms in Ohio—the first American cricket farm for human consumption. Since its establishment in 2014, multiple farms have popped up nationwide, including BitWater Farms in Mills River, NC. Bachhuber describes the success of the farm by constantly turning away orders because of high demands: “The crickets are sold four weeks before they’re finished being raised … we’ve had to be selective at times about who ends up with our crickets. I’ve raised my prices maybe six times so far.”

Aspire, another cricket farm, found similar success this March when they began testing the demand for whole, dry-roasted crickets. Mohammed Ashour, CEO of Aspire, shared that they were so successful that Aspire crickets are now offered on the menus of high-end restaurants.

High protein cricket powder. Photo Credit: Aketta

While we typically associate an increase in the demand for livestock production with land use inefficiencies and environmental degradation, insect farming is almost unbelievably low-impact. In the academic journal Global Food Security, Dr. Peter Alexander and colleagues found that insects “are the most efficient animal production system considered” with a 34% decrease in the land needed if insects like mealworm replace 50% of existing animal commodities. In addition to needing less physical space, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization indicates that insects for farming emit fewer greenhouse gases and can be raised on organic side-streams, and require significantly less feed than conventional livestock. If NC embraced insect farming, it could relieve much of the pressure farmers are facing to find affordable, arable land.

Unfortunately, the state recently passed on an opportunity to cash in on the potential economic and environmental gains of insect farming when the North Carolina Farm Act of 2017 (SB 15) was signed this summer. Lawmakers could have incentivized farmers to research and advance insect farming in a way that promotes food security, healthier protein options, and smart land use decisions.

As Dr. Alexander described, “we are not trying to mandate or even suggest some policy that you eat insects every day [but] our work indicates the potential benefits that are there [for land uses and environmental outcomes].”

Insect farming is the next frontier in agriculture. Bachhuber believes we are close to developing “edible insects [like crickets, grasshoppers, and mealworms] into a full-fledged market.” The General Assembly can lead NC in cricket farming by revising rural development extensions in the next iteration of the Farm Act, slated for 2019, by designating crickets as a specialty crop. The land is ready; the market is ready; and the people want it.

As we enjoy this holiday season, I invite you to introduce family and friends to delicious, protein-rich snacks and enjoy their look of delighted disbelief as they exclaim, “there are crickets in this?”

About the Author: Karla Jimenez-Magdaleno is a second-year master’s student in health behavior and land use and environmental planning. She loves to think about the intersections among public health, economic development, and land management. In her spare time, Karla works as a health communication analyst at RTI International and produces episodes for “The Measure of Everyday Life.”

Learning from Leaders: Food Systems and Community Voices in the Carolinas

February 20, 2017 / odrozd

Brownbag with Gini Knight and Jared Cates from Community Food Strategies

As professionals working at the intersection of community development, land use, transportation, and economic development, planners are uniquely situated to help their communities address food systems issues. In fact, the American Planning Association recognizes food systems work as an opportunity for leadership in the field and the North Carolina chapter recently announced “food” as its theme for 2017.

Sharing lessons from experience at a DCRP Brown Bag. Photo Credit: Alison Salomon

On February 13, 2017, DCRP students had the chance to learn about an innovative, community-driven approach to food systems planning that is taking root in North Carolina: food policy councils. As part of this semester’s Brown Bag Series, Plan for All hosted Gini Knight and Jared Cates from Community Food Strategies (CFS) for a presentation titled “Elevating the Community Voice: An Update on Food Councils in the Carolinas.”

Knight and Cates discussed how food councils are effecting change in local food systems and they shed light on the work that their group, Community Food Strategies (CFS), is doing to support these efforts. CFS is a multi-organizational partnership with representatives from the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (where Knight works), the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (where Cates works), the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, and the Care Share Health Alliance.

Bounty of a farmer’s market

CFS aims to model the best practices it preaches by emphasizing diversity and equity, implementing interactive and flexible governance, and forming relationships with individuals. The speakers suggested that all of these approaches contribute to successful, long-lived organizations. In the case of food councils – which bring people together across sectors and are usually led by volunteers – these approaches can be instrumental in ensuring groups’ survival. In addition to these best practices, CFS recommends that food councils use baseline assessments to inform their focus, share leadership responsibilities, and create and leverage networks.

Food councils in North Carolina. Credit: Community Food Strategies

Cates and Knight explained that food councils’ power lies in their ability to effectively advocate and organize. Food councils bring people together to assess the local food system, connect stakeholders, align efforts, educate leaders and the community, and recommend policy and program changes. The alliances that emerge from food councils can have synergistic results by reducing duplications, enabling targeted collective action, and securing larger grants.

Even though food councils have a lot going for them, they face significant challenges. These include a lack of diversity, difficulty in creating clear messaging and communicating with the wider community, and trouble measuring their impacts. CFS addresses some of these concerns by providing food councils with valuable resources. At present, CFS focuses on building and convening the food policy council network, publishing toolkits (including a baseline assessment toolkit and a “phases of council development” toolkit), and providing strategic and action planning consulting services.

Throughout their presentation, Cates and Knight shared success stories and drew on specific planning-related actions that food councils have taken. During this past election season, several food councils hosted candidates’ forums, bringing voice to food and agriculture issues. The Upper Pee Dee Farm and Food Council successfully lobbied to change a zoning ordinance to allow for the shared use of agriculture and solar on farmland. Similarly, the Char-Meck Food Council successfully petitioned the Charlotte City Council to pass an ordinance allowing mobile farmer’s markets in the city.

Food system relationships. Credit: Wikimedia Commons user Hunt041

Food councils present a great opportunity to be a part of community-driven, systems-level change. If you would like to get involved with our local food council, the Orange County Food Council, consider attending the community forum today, Monday, February 20, at the Cedar Grove Community Center from 5-7pm.

For more information on Community Food Strategies, please visit www.communityfoodstrategies.com or https://www.facebook.com/communityfoodstrategies/.

For more information on the Orange County Food Council, visit orangecountyfoodcouncil.wordpress.com or https://www.facebook.com/orangecountyfoodcouncil/.

About the author: Alison Salomon is a first year student pursuing a dual Master’s degree through the Department of City & Regional Planning and the Gillings School of Global Public Health. She studies the intersection of land use and health behavior and is passionate about food systems, placemaking, and active transportation. She takes pride in her buttermilk biscuits, shoe tying skills, and ability to turn anything into a game.

What Exactly Is “Local Food”? Ten Answers for North Carolina and Beyond

March 21, 2016 / odrozd

1. Why do we call it a food “system”?

2. What is a local food system?

Cattle grazing in Alamance County, North Carolina. Source: Sophie Kelmenson

3. Which branding claims matter?

4. Is local food actually better?

5. Our food system has been controversial for generations. Why the focus on local food now?

Mountainside farm in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Credit: Sophie Kelmenson

6. Are farmers markets the only way to support local food systems?

7. What are my other options?

8. Can local food improve food access and justice?

9. What about food systems policy?

10. What does local food look like in North Carolina?

Small-scale farming in Alamance County, North Carolina. Source: Sophie Kelmenson

¹Dunning, Rebecca. Research-Based Support and Extension Outreach for Local Food Systems. Center for Environmental Farming Systems, August 2013.

About the Author: Sophie Kelmenson is a master’s student in the Department of City and Regional Planning. Her studies focus on economic development and food systems.

On Farm Labor in the United States (1/2)

November 1, 2015 / odrozd

Part One: How Consumers (and Laws) Overlook Farm Workers

Fifty years ago this fall, Filipino American farm workers in Delano, California, walked out of the grape fields to demand better pay and working conditions. They joined forces with a predominantly Latino farm workers union and the strike spread. This new coalition called itself the United Farm Workers, or UFW. Both a social movement and union, the UFW’s multi-year campaign built widespread awareness of the exploitative conditions under which grape-pickers lived and worked. The grape strike grew to involve a nationwide consumer boycott of table grapes that connected farm workers in California fields to families across the United States. After five years of picket lines, consumer actions, hunger strikes, and nonviolent organizing, grape growers in the Central Valley signed union contracts that guaranteed better pay and working conditions.

The Grape Boycott. Photo Credit: CC Paul Sequeira

The Grape Boycott. Photo Credit: [CC0] Paul Sequeira

This was a defining moment for farm workers in the United States, who for decades were subject to working conditions long ago considered intolerable in other occupations. One of the many important legacies of the grape strike and boycott is the way in which non-farm-workers supported the movement. The UFW shone a light on working conditions that shocked most Americans, then created a way for families to easily, but intentionally, support vulnerable workers: don’t buy grapes. This act successfully put enough pressure on the supply chain creating economic incentives for stores, then distributors, then table-grape and wine companies, and then growers to communicate with workers.

Though the national farm worker movement has grown and made some gains, farm workers remain among the least visible and least politically represented members of our communities. Even with heightened popular interest in how and where food is grown, farm workers are left out of most conversations about improving local and global food systems. “Agriculture” conjures images of either small-plot farmers tending fields with hand tools and peddling exotic tomatoes at the local weekend farmers’ market or massive combines cutting paths through Middle America. But “agriculture” also involves a lot of people who are not farmers. This other actor, the “farm worker,” is essential to the production of much of our food and other agricultural products, yet is dangerously left out of our conversations and many of our most important laws.

Migrant workers harvest yellow squash at Kirby Farms in Mechanicsville, VA. Photo Credit: Lance Cheung for USDA

It’s not just a few scattered cases of farm workers being denied the rights that most of us assume are universal in this country: farm workers are specifically excluded, for example, from the National Labor Relations Act and important provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. What does this mean? For starters, farm workers have no right to overtime pay, are often not entitled to a minimum wage, can be fired for joining unions, and have no right to collectively bargain. Children as young as 10 or 12 are legally permitted to do farm work. Isolated farms, workers who often speak little to no English, and a general lack of basic protections can combine to create working conditions that are appalling and inhumane. The consequences of this extralegal aspect of farm work are felt as much in North Carolina as anywhere else.

Part two of this post will introduce the farm worker movement in North Carolina and describe ways in which consumers can play a role in supporting the basic rights of farm workers.

About the Author: Andrew Trump is a student in the Master of City and Regional Planning and Master of Public Administration programs at UNC-Chapel Hill. He focuses on community economic development.

Tag: Agriculture

A utopian, sustainable N.C. city

Columbia, North Carolina: A Sustainable Example

REPOST: What Exactly Is “Local Food”? Ten Answers for North Carolina and Beyond

Pass the Turkey: Why Cricket Farming is a Better Choice

Learning from Leaders: Food Systems and Community Voices in the Carolinas

Brownbag with Gini Knight and Jared Cates from Community Food Strategies

What Exactly Is “Local Food”? Ten Answers for North Carolina and Beyond

On Farm Labor in the United States (1/2)

Part One: How Consumers (and Laws) Overlook Farm Workers

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