CT Green Scene

A Decade of Saving Connecticut Farmland: Connecticut Farmland Trust Looks Back and to the Future

By Chris Watts

A lot's happened over the past ten years. Republicans and Democrats swapped control in Washington and in Hartford. Wars started and ended. Housing and land prices went up and then crashed back down. The stock market went for a ride up and down and is now back up. It seems things are always changing. But for the last decade, one constant has been the efforts by the Connecticut Farmland Trust to save the dwindling number of farmland acres in the State of Connecticut.

The core of what would become the Connecticut Farmland Trust (CFT) had its beginnings in 2001 when a group of concerned citizens got together, with the help of the Hartford Food System, to urge legislators to support the state’s fledgling farm preservation program. Through this effort the group discovered that while the State’s program worked well – some farms were not qualifying.

“What we found was that the state was able to preserving large tracts of land and larger farms, but smaller family farms were not qualifying under the formula,” says Gordon Gibson, an original board member of CFT and its first president. “These smaller farms are just as important and often were one of the few remaining working farms in a particular town, but there was no way to find funds to save them. Then some of us got the idea that maybe it was time for us to start our own land trust to help target these smaller parcels.”

That idea led to the incorporation of the Connecticut Farmland Trust on March 1, 2002. With just a board of directors and no permanent staff or office space, the group started to create the state’s only statewide land trust with the specific goal of saving the smaller working farms that would fall under the state’s radar.

Boxed Goodes

by Eileen Weber

Pamela Dunn started her own business in one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression. She couldn’t be happier about it.

“You have these little moments when you feel like a rock star,” said Dunn, founder of Boxed Goodes, a natural goods business focused on whole grains, rice, beans and spices. Dunn’s business launched last April. Since then, she has seen an increasing number of customers who are interested in how to cook with natural foods. A growing number of consumers are consciously stepping away from foods with artificial ingredients.

Dunn started out as a chef in residence in Litchfield. Because she used whole foods in her cooking, it seemed only natural to jump into this market. “I built the business to compliment the local, seasonal foods in my recipes,” she said.

And how local is her food? Everything she uses for her food demonstrations at local farmer’s markets comes directly from her CSA at Wild Carrot Farm. Deb Parker, the Store Manager at the farm, said her products have been flying off the shelves since they opened for the season in April. “We have lots of customers who don’t know what to do with the produce we sell. They’ve never tried it before,” she said. “But they use one of Pamela’s recipes and her ingredients and it’s a good tie in with the produce. “

CSA's: Get ‘Em While They’re Hot!

by Eileen Weber
 
Along with farmers’ markets and organic produce available in certain grocery stores, CSAs are relatively commonplace these days. So I probably don’t have to tell you that CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. You already know that it supports local farms. And, you know that it provides fresh produce for you and your family for (break it down, now) a fraction of the cost you end up spending at the supermarket.
 
Here’s what I can tell you: What’s still open. If you’re anything like me (and I sincerely hope you are not), you procrastinate like crazy. In fact, if procrastination were a disease, I would have slipped into a deadly coma and perished from it long ago.

Farming: The Ultimate Green Job

by Eileen Weber

“You have to leave the land better than when you found it,” said Fred Monahan, who runs Stone Gardens Farm in Shelton with his wife Stacia. The couple sustainably grow vegetables using an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system. They raise cows and chickens. They compost and use their animal manure to enrich the soil. The land, originally a dairy farm until the mid 1990s, evolved to become the thriving farm it is now. “The economic downturn hasn’t affected us,” said Monahan.

But that’s not the case for a lot of farmers in Connecticut, particularly in the dairy industry. When a gallon of milk costs nearly twice to produce than its revenue, dairy farmers have been tightening their belts. And in some cases, they can’t tighten them enough. According to the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), nineteen dairy farms in Connecticut sold off their animals last year. Once the farmland goes, it’s gone. 

A Blogger For Any Diet

by James Simpkins

Last week I wrote about a pizza place in Avon and no one said a word. Over the holidays I penned two articles expressing my displeasure about shopping at Discount Food Outlet in Canton; and readers are still writing in droves to expressing their displeasure about my perspective, even attacking me personally. More than one comment suggested that I leave town since I didn’t like it. I was both confronted and amused by such responses. The confrontation part is obvious, I hope—no one likes being openly despised, especially by people they are unacquainted with. Unfortunately, humans seem all too willing to express malice towards those people with opinions that do not match their own (see our current political climate). In my mind, this is akin to hating the guy next to you because you don’t like the color of his tie. Ties, like opinions can, and do, get changed. The life that wears that tie or has that opinion, however, is no less precious, and we are all hard-wired to preserve it. Fortunately that is not all us humans are born with. Laughter, they say, is the best medicine.

In another sense, I was very much amused by all the uproar realizing people’s anger was not because of an unpopular stance on abortion or gay marriage, but a grocery store. Now that is funny!!! I had no idea that people were so attached to where they bought their food. Shame on me, though, as food is always chock-full of intimate meaning for people. Lesson learned.

In the wake of the fallout from the DFO articles, this week allow me to offer a more personal piece that I hope will establish a context for what I write, and why I write it; a kind of road map to my inner gastronome.

The first item on the colloquial menu is the term “connoisseur”; this is what I consider myself in the food arena. Think of it as the “who does this guy think he is?” part of my writing. The second proffering is the usefulness of critique and analysis. While criticism nearly always gets a bad rap, I think we need critics and critical understandings of any subject, food included. As subjectivity is common to all of us, being critical can actually help us appreciate even our least favorite ideas by allowing us to see there is always another side to any story. But first, the connoisseur…

Fruit At Your Fingertips

by Eileen Weber

It’s hard to think about picking fresh fruit when it’s below freezing. And when places like Plant City, Florida have to huddle up to keep their strawberries warm because of the recent cold snap, the idea of wandering aimlessly through a local orchard to pick a fresh snack seems like nothing more than a daydream.

But that didn’t stop Kaytea Petro, Co-Founder of Neighborhood Fruit, LLC. Established in the spring of 2009, the San Francisco-based company developed a web site to help people find local orchards and backyards to pick fresh fruit.

On their web site, people offer excess produce from their yards while others search for what to pick. The site also features an interactive map of over 10,000 fruit-bearing trees growing in parks and along roadways. The point: Why waste the fruit?

Petro and her business partner, Oriana Sarac, have now developed an iPhone application to find the nearest bountiful tree. Sarac says the application "unlocks this hidden urban bounty and makes it accessible on the go."

Vegetarian What? (part II of at last II)

by James Simpkins

Last week I’m sure that there were more than a couple raised eyebrows or sighs of exasperation at my writing on the fake meat thing—and that’s fine. I actually didn’t realize I was so fired up about it until I read it again later. It’s funny how that works.

My personal truth about the whole fake meat topic is really “live and let live.” I don’t actually keep myself up at night worrying whether or not people should eat tofu shaped like a turkey. Honestly, though, I think it’s a little strange. Then again, if you saw the wildly un-hip sweatpants that I like to wear around the house, I should think to be understood at least as bizarre.

One of the comments on my previous article was by Julie Braun, of particular note as she mentioned something I don’t hear very often by folks trying to justify their weirdness. She pointed out the taste that she liked. Now here is the pickle that most of us are in: What costs the most in trying to eat (pick one) “green”, “organic”, “healthy”, “natural”, etc.—aside from perhaps succumbing to whim while shopping at Whole Foods Market—is loss of flavor. And meat tastes better than almost anything. Properly cooked meat is, gastronomically speaking, a much more pleasurable experience than most tofu, seitan (pronounced ‘say-tahn’) or tempeh I’ve ever had and you’ll waste your time trying to convince me otherwise. But, I regularly eat all of the meat substitutes listed above. I’ll get to why, later.

Fairfield Farmer

by Eileen Weber
 
Most people in Fairfield know Wyatt Whiteman. They just don’t know they do. He lives in an old farmhouse that dates back to 1760. He raises chickens, rabbits, ducks, and horses. He even has a tiny Dexter cow named Bridey. He grows an organic garden. He has his own beehive. And, all of this farm activity is done on one acre of land on a busy street.

But that’s not what people know Whiteman for. They know his house because of the gigantic carved pumpkins he puts out front every October. But his neighbors know him as the guy who sells them organic produce. They also know him as the guy who cooks meals over his fireplace and doesn’t use electricity periodically.

“Imagine what this was like even one generation ago, living off the land with an outhouse in back,” Whiteman said of the property he inherited from his family.

Standing tall not unlike a grizzly bear recently awakened from a long winter’s nap, he will tell you he prefers to live a simpler life from a simpler time. He remembers when life was without its technology and its gadgets. Today, however, his house comes equipped with computers and DVD players. He’s even got an above ground pool out back. “It’s for the kids,” he said of his three children, the youngest of whom is a toddler.

Is Your Food FRESH?

by Eileen Weber

A friend of mine bought into a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) this summer. But this week, she was going to be on vacation and wondered if I would like to take her share. Sure, why not? I had thought about buying into a CSA. But, I reconsidered. I thought my family wouldn’t eat that much food. What’s the point of fresh food if it goes to waste?

But I stopped off at the CSA this week and picked up beets, baby carrots, leeks, peaches, nectarines, yellow squash, zucchini, and red eggplants. A vegetarian feast! I used the eggplant and squashes in a ratatouille. (Delish.) I will make soup with the leeks. (Yum.) The nectarines I will grill and serve with vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of local honey. (There is no expletive to suitably describe this one.)

With all that luscious organically grown food, the word “fresh” comes to mind. That’s exactly the kind of eating we should be doing, at least according to Ana Sofia Joanes. She is the producer and director of FRESH: New Thinking About What We’re Eating. Originally opening on May, the film debuted in Southport Wednesday night at the Pequot Library.

These days, food never seems to be too far from the media. The selection of Tom Vilsack as the Secretary for the Department of Agriculture was a heated debate earlier this year. Anything written or spoken by Michael Pollan, author of such titles as The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, indicating his position on food, how it is raised, and how what we eat affects us. And most recently, the release of Food, Inc., a movie based on the industrialization of farming in this country. The spotlight is trained on what we eat.

Much like the documentary Food, Inc., FRESH takes a hard look at the food industry and what local farmers are doing about it. Antibiotics. Hormones. Feed made from dead cows. These are the things that organic farmers are taking stand against. And for good reason. They cause more problems than they solve.

“Americans fear only one thing: inconvenience,” said Will Allen, an organic urban farmer of Growing Power in Milwaukee, Wis., and one of the farmers highlighted in the documentary. “We don’t want to think about who’s growing it or if there’s a chemical residue on it.”

Art of Bee Wrangling

by Melissa Waldron Lehner
Fertile Ground USA

Bees have been seein' red these days. Well, actually they can't see the color red, Ted Jones explains, they only see black. But they have been getting pretty ornery from all the rain here in Connecticut. While picking up some eggs, I had the pleasure of running into Ted, expert bee-wrangler, owner of Jones’ Apiaries in Farmington, Connecticut, and president of Connecticut Beekeepers who was at Hard Rain Farm in Burlington with his son to smoke out some bees. Hard Rain Farm rents 10 of his hives to pollinate the myriad of apples, kale, eggplant, herbs and other vegetables and fruits that grow on the 4 acres of well managed farmland.

Today, father and son were out to collect the honey. A thunderstorm had just come through and the sky was bluish-black. Tom eyed the sky and held out his hand for rain, not a welcome thing for bees. “Bees don’t like the rain too much, it’s best to stay away from them.” That’s why Ted was sending in his son to check on the hives. His son, dutifully suited up for what looked like a trip to the moon, had a long-nosed smoker by his side. The smoke apparently sedates the bees and reduces the chance of being stung. Ted explained that a bee’s behavior is triggered by pheromones, or rather, chemical signals which then elicit a response from the bee, a response like stinging for example. “Another thing is, you don’t ever want to go near a beehive with a banana, you know,” says Ted dryly, as if there was a punch line coming. The only punch line is for the poor sucker who peels one back while standing in front of a hive - even one lone bee can wreak havoc. Bananas have an aroma which set off the alarm response and can cause quite a stir of stingers directed at said banana holder. “It could be ugly,” he grimaced.

Only 10% of honeybees remain in the wild. Tom says his business has really picked up nowadays and he has hardly had a day off. “It used to be that you just dropped off the hives at the beginning of the season and then you come to pick them up at the end. But no more.” Now Ted needs to visit the hives every two to three weeks to make sure all is well. “Some get wiped out when farmers spray their crops with all those pesticides, others have been wiped out by disease.”

Lettuce and Bok Choy and Arugula. Oh My!

by Eileen Weber

Sarah Puerini joined her local CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, for the summer. So far, she has picked up two deliveries in Southport with enough fresh produce to sink a ship. She even has a Facebook page devoted to the recipes she makes with the deliveries.

“Holy cow! Can you say salad?!?” Puerini said on Facebook. “We’ll be eating tons of [it] this week as we got two huge heads of lettuce in our farm share and lots of other greens.”

Typically, consumers who are interested in a farm share program will pay up front for their “membership” or subscription to the group. That particular farm will drop off a certain portion of their produce once a week for members to pick up at a designated drop off point. Each crate is labeled with how much a member is allowed to take. Members can bring a reusable bag or another type container and fill ‘er up!

Puerini said that right now it does feel a little overwhelming with so many greens. “I really like doing this,” she said. “But there are only so many salads you can eat.” As a result, she has managed to try some unusual recipes with some of the produce. “I never tried arugula pesto before. But I was surprised. It was wicked good.”

You Gonna Eat That?

by Eileen Weber

Ever feel like there are just too many tomatoes and not enough time? Come August, there will be plenty of backyard gardeners who would agree with that statement. And that’s where food trading comes in. Home growers are sharing their produce in a free trade system online and in communities across the country. 

According to an article in The New York Times on June 10th, there are a growing number of participants in food trading. The concept is based on the fact that “it’s a shame to let fruit go to waste” and “neighborhood fruit tastes best when it’s free.” Well, really, doesn’t everything taste better when it’s free?

Among others, the article listed web sites like VeggieTrader.com and NeighborhoodFruit.com as a place for traders to post what they have in exchange for what they want.

If you, like the founders of Veggie Trader, had excess lemons from your lemon tree, wouldn’t it be nice to see someone else make use of them? You could trade those lemons for, say, herbs or zucchini. You get to give what you have more of and take what you have less of. It’s a win-win.

In the New England area, Brian Alcorn, Founder of the Vermont Garden Exchange, wrote that many times a gardener has too much to use himself and doesn’t have the time to preserve the excess.

“The idea is to open it up so that you can trade anything,” said Alcorn, who founded the site with his wife. “You could even trade a cord of wood if that’s what you had. I just don’t want it to become an online grocery store. That’s not what it’s about.”

Lynn Seigel-Boettner, Founder and Organizer of the Santa Barbara Food Not Lawns chapters, agrees. “It’s more than just sharing food. It’s about bringing a community together and connecting people. We’ve forgotten how to do that.”

Markets Galore

By Chris Gallagher

Spring is nearly here, and it's time to get the garden ready.  Composting is key and here is a great resource from our fine state government.  For the stuff you can't grow on your own we are lucky enough to have a plethora of local farmers here in Connecticut and some great farmer's markets to choose from.

Fiddleheads in New London has a market every Saturday now, with another every Wednesday starting on March 26.  CitySeed in New Haven has kept their market open monthly throughout the winter and come May it's back to a weekly event.  On May 22 Billings Forge Farmer's Market will start up in Hartford and you will be able to find amazing produce and other local vendors on both Mondays and Thursdays. Fairfield Market is held every Saturday rain or shine, and often draws a few hundred people. Another cool market is the Oak Street Market in New Britain. It's urban and fun and has some of the best greens around. To locate the organic farmers markets near you, click here.

Of course the best thing about a market is the food: amazing greens, organic eggs, still-dirty potatoes and seafood dripping with salt water, all of which I want to rush home and devour.  There's more to it, though.  I love that it is such a neighborhoody event.  It is a great place to have random, interesting conversations, make new friends, learn a few things about what I'm eating, stroll the streets of my town, breathe the fresh air and reconnect with the community.

The dinner we craft in the evening is just the bonus.  We already feel great after a market day.

   

This week @ the market : music by Michael Greenberg Upon first hearing Michael Greenberg, we said "Wow!" Still an undergrad at the Berklee School of Music, Michael's songs display his talent for complex acoustic guitar work and thoughful lyrics. For a preview, visit Michael's site on myspace Ox Hollow Farm returns this week as does Woozie Wikfors from walkingwood (gads, that's a mouthful), for a schedule of vendors, you may download our March calendar by clicking here. Remember that the market is open rain or shine -and through snow too. Happy Saturday!

From Brownfield to Green Urban, Organic Farm

Oak Street in New Britain may seem a unique location for a working, organic farm that practices sustainable agriculture and produces fresh produce—and it is.

The nonprofit farm has been an urban revitalization success story since 1999, when organic farmers Tony Norris and Mike Kandefer made Urban Oaks Organic Farm a reality by mobilizing environmental clean-up funds, grants and volunteers to re-mediate the former Sandelli Greenhouse property and create a working city farm. The restoration of 15,000 square feet of greenhouses has allowed the farm to offer fresh greens and produce year-round.

Today, the presence of Urban Oaks is a positive force and a community place where city residents and students can learn about sustainable and environmentally friendly farming.

The farm supplies restaurants from Hartford to Stamford, and is open to the public on Fridays from 3 to 6 p.m. year-round, and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. through the end of October. Customers can pre-order via e-mail, or just stop by.

Contact:
225 Oak St. New Britain, CT
(860) 223-6200
Email: urbanoaks@earthlink.net

The Dressing Room's Michel Nischan

For those of you who attended the latest Green Drinks at the Westport Arts Center, you're familiar with this guy, Michel Nischan. We just wanted to extend a special thanks to him for his inspirational talk about sustainable living.

Quite a few of you know about Michel and his team's work, but in case you don't, here's a few details. Michel is the co-owner and operator of The Dressing Room in Westport, which is located next to the playhouse. He is also the author of two award-winning cookbooks, and he travels and speaks often and regularly about sustainable and culturally significant food.

Additionally, Michel is the founder of Wholesome Wave, a not-for-profit that currently is the home of two outstanding programs. The first is Wholesome Wave Farm Markets, or as you may know them, the Westport Farmers Market and the Fairfield Winter Market. These markets are run by Katherine Dyer, a regular at Green Drinks and a real inspiration to what one person can accomplish with a lot of patience and hard work.

Wholesome Wave also is home to the Green Wave Program, a farm-to-college, whole and natural food program run by Lila Gault, which is launching a movement to get real food, grown by local farmers and processed minimally, on the tables at major colleges and universities.

If you have any questions for Michel, you can contact him via his website at michelnischan.com

Get your fresh, local produce and support local commerce!

   

Over FOUR HUNDRED people showed up for this season's first farmers'
market! Don't miss out on getting those fresh fruits and veggies, while
mingling with the people who tend to the earth everyday to bring
them from the farm to your table!