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Tips on Building a Strong Local Food System via the 100 Mile Diet Challenge
Cheryl Nechamen, NYS Capital District Energy Action
Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon of Vancouver, BC, dreamed up the 100 mile diet in early 2005 when they decided that for one year they would eat only food that had been grown or raised within 100 miles of their home. Since then, the idea has spread far and wide. Here are a few tips on running a 100 Mile Diet Challenge, based on our experience in upstate New York in September 2006.
1. Choose September for the Challenge. Timing is critical to a successful project. September is still the harvest season so there are lots of fresh fruits and vegetables available in farmers markets, some of which close by the end of October. People are back from vacation which means a bigger pool of participants and more people to help with the organizing details.
2. Run the 100 Mile Diet Challenge for one month. A month is short enough to encourage people to try the 100 mile diet and long enough for the word to get around and for additional people to join the effort. Having a particular starting date helps the procrastinators get organized.
3. Send out press releases. The press is looking for stories with a harvest theme in September. Again, timing is critical. Our challenge was covered by 4 newspapers and was featured in 3 radio interviews.
4. Enlist organizations with similar interests as co-sponsors. Not only does a long list of co-sponsors make your project look like a huge movement (even if it starts out small!), the co-sponsoring organizations are a good source of new and enthusiastic workers.
5. Think in broad terms when you’re recruiting co-sponsors. People with a wide range of interests are attracted to the idea of locally grown food. Our co-sponsors included peak oil groups, the largest food co-op in the area, a farmer advocacy group and a group trying to connect youth and farming. Food is the intersecting point for a lot of different interests.
6. Encourage the co-sponsors to publicize the challenge to their membership. This will very quickly amplify your message.
7. Be persistent. It was challenging to get the first few groups to sign on as co-sponsors, but as our list of co-sponsors grew, other groups were eager to jump on the bandwagon.
8. Develop a website devoted to the 100 Mile Diet Challenge- see our website 100milechallenge.com/. The website should be informative, with sources of locally grown food. Readers notice gaps and send in more listings. Farmers notice the website and ask to be listed which provides an opportunity to get to know your local farmers.
9. Use your website to advertise upcoming events tied to the 100 Mile Diet Challenge. Also, listing the newspaper articles and radio interviews that have already covered your project will get you more press coverage!
10. Having a website will enable you to be noticed by people and groups outside of your immediate area that have common interests. And you will become aware of these groups!
11. Let Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon at 100milediet.org/home/ know about your 100 mile diet project. People interested in the 100 mile diet will find out about your efforts.
12. Put a blog on your website. The public is curious about what it’s like to be on the 100 mile diet. They want to hear your stories. It also provides interesting material for reporters.
13. Don’t forget to have printed material describing your 100 Mile Diet Challenge. Flyers to hang up and brochures to distribute all help to get your message out there. Be sure to direct people to your website in the printed materials.
14. Focus on food to pique the public’s interest and then use the opportunity to talk about peak oil and the dependence of modern agriculture on fossil fuels.
15. Use this as an opportunity to develop a network of people interested in peak oil, sustainable agriculture, food safety and freshness, supporting local businesses and preserving open space. In short, you’re on the way to building strong communities.
(May 2007)
The website aims “to stir people into action on peak oil issues in the Capital District” (Sarasota Springs, New York). There are other pages on “What is peak oil?”, “What can you do?”, and “Relocalization plan.”
52 Weeks Down – Week 5 – Eat Seasonally
Sharon Astyk, Casaubon’s Book
For a lot of us, now is a good time to start seasonal eating – there is a lot of food being produced right now. So commit, this week, to making a couple of seasonal meals, where most or all of the ingredients are things that are locally available.
The thing about eating this way is that it is so much better tasting than regular food, and it makes everything special. When asparagus is in season, we eat it as often as we can, and then we talk about it dreamily occasionally for months…but to have it at another time would diminish the pleasure. The same is true of everything we anticipate – right now there are huge strawberries with very little taste in the stores, but we’re holding out for the first flush of ripe berries from our own patch. The children visit the little white berries every day, and we dream of them at night. But none of us wants to rush it with something old and false and not as flavorful.
There’s a food to every season for us – from the first dandilions of spring, through rhubarb and asparagus, to the new potatoes, earthy morels and peas, green beans, apricots and sweet cherries of early summer, on to peaches, watermelon, sweet corn, peppers, eggplants and tomatoes.
(28 May 2007)
Latest in Sharon’s series:
As a stab at offering a guide to the basics of energy consumption reduction, I offer here a Monday morning, weekly suggestion for fairly simple changes that can be integrated into daily life
52 Weeks Down…Week 1
BC Conference: Changing Ecologies of Food and Agriculture
How is large-scale food production contributing to climate change?
AFHVS and ASFS
The Joint 2007 Annual Meetings of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society (AFHVS) and the Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS).
How is large-scale food production contributing to climate change? This is one of several questions that food scholars, policy-makers and members of the public will tackle at “Cultivating Appetites for Knowledge,” a conference of international food experts taking place May 29 to June 3 at the University of Victoria.
Conference chair Dr. John Volpe of UVic’s School of Environmental Studies is best known for his research on the risks of industrial aquaculture to food sustainability on the West Coast of North America. Most recently, Volpe’s research has looked at the ways consumer demand for cheap food is affecting the environment.
“This is the premier international food scholar conference held in North America,” says Volpe. “It is a natural fit to host the conference on Vancouver Island, which is home to such robust food security activism and cuisine.”
“We are bringing a community of exceptional food scholars to a community of exceptional food advocates, food artisans and food lovers,” says conference organizer and UVic graduate student Sushil Saini. “Our job as organizers is to create as many opportunities as possible for these communities to meet and inspire each other.”
The conference will feature four days of presentations, workshops and panels where food experts and members of the public will explore the social, political and economic structures crucial for a sustainable and secure food future. It will include a 12-course grand banquet prepared by Chef David Mincey of Camille’s Fine West Coast Dining, food tastings, a free film series and a free speaker’s night on food and climate change.
The conference kicks off plans for sustainable food systems education at UVic, ranging from one-off courses on culinary and cultural interest to courses designed for current and future food policy-makers, farmers and food industry professionals.
For more information on the conference, visit brainfood.uvic.ca/ .
(May 2007)
Here’s hoping that some of the presentations will be made available over the Web (slides, videos, etc.) -BA
Trouble Brews in Germany as Biofuel Boom Jacks Up Price of Beer
Kirsten Grieshaber, Associated PRess
AYING, Germany — Like most Germans, brewer Helmut Erdmann is all for the fight against global warming. Unless, that is, it drives up the price of his beer.
And that is exactly what is happening to Erdmann and other German brewers as farmers abandon barley — the raw material for the national beverage — to plant other, subsidized crops for sale as environmentally-friendly biofuels. ..
In the last two years, the price of barley has doubled to euro200 (US$271) from euro102 per ton as farmers plant more crops such as rapeseed and corn that can be turned into ethanol or bio-diesel, a fuel made from vegetable oil.
As a result, the price for the key ingredient in beer — barley malt, or barley that has been allowed to germinate — has soared by more than 40 percent, to around euro385 (US$522) per ton from around euro270 a ton two years ago, according to the Bavarian Brewers’ Association.
For Germany’s beer drinkers that is scary news: their beloved beverage — often dubbed ‘liquid bread’ because it is a basic ingredient of many Germans’ daily diet — is getting more expensive. While some breweries have already raised prices, many others will follow later this year, brewers say.
Talk about higher beer prices has not gone unnoticed by consumers. Sitting at a long wooden table under leafy chestnut trees at the Prater, one of Berlin’s biggest beer gardens, Volker Glutsch, 37, complained bitterly.
“It’s absolutely outrageous that beer is getting even more expensive,” Glutsch said, gulping down the last swig of his half-liter dark beer at lunch. “But there’s nothing we can do about it — except drinking less and that’s not going to happen.” ..
(28 May 2007)
