This documentary explores the urban farming movement in Detroit.

Check it out at 7:00 p.m. on February 29 at 2372 St. Claude Ave.

This screening is a part of the Food Co-Op’s Member Appreciation Day, which is being held from 9:00 a.m. through 9:00 p.m.

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Recirculating farms use clean recycled water in place of soil to grow food. “Aeroponics” is one type of these farms, where plants grow in vertical towers.

AMPS plans to build many other recirculating farms throughout New Orleans to provide more local sources of healthy food.

AMPS is partnering with the Recirculating Farms Coalition, a national non-profit headquartered in New Orleans and the New Orleans Food and Farm Network, a food justice group, to reach out to locals about the benefits of building recirculating farms.

AMPS Builds New Orleans’ First ‘Aeroponic’ Recirculating Farm, Demonstrates Sustainable Urban Agriculture — NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ –.

As citizens of Greater New Orleans,we understand that a vibrant local food system is central to the health of:

• our families
• our culture
• our economy
• our environment
• our schools
• our health care system
  
• our sustainable future

We also understand that the successful development of a local food system requires comprehensive and diverse strategies.

Therefore these strategies must:

• Ensure the health and well being of all our citizens especially the most vulnerable – our elders and our children.
• Support our local and regional food producers to sustainably grow, harvest and sell the kinds of food that promote health in our communities, families and economy.
• Remove barriers to fresh food access. Some of these barriers include lack of transportation, inadequate wages, and the unequal distribution of retail outlets.
• Provide education which supports a healthy local food system by promoting environmental, nutritional, cultural, culinary, and horticultural awareness.
• Preserve our unique food culture, traditions, and heritage.
• Develop infrastructure and resources for city agricultural sites and gardens. 

These will grow our local food system and our local economy while beautifying our neighborhoods and increasing the availability of fresh, nutritious, and enjoyable foods.

This document was created with community input through the Grow New Orleans food justice networking body.

Please sign the charter today!

The NOLA Growers Guide is structured in the form of a wiki that is user-friendly and evolving so that we can fine-tune information and models that will help New Orleanians help build neighborhood food security and the local food economy.

We would like to see greater participation from the food systems community – nutritionists, community development professionals, extension agents, faculty, students, public officials, agency representatives, and, of course, farmers and food entrepreneurs. Please comment on the entries and we will modify the NOLA Growers Guide with this important input.  Thanks!

New Orleanians are invited to enter short works for New Orleans by New Orleans, an upcoming collection of stories inspired by New Orleans and the people who live there.

“We seek amazing stories of the Crescent City from people who know it best – what is in the heart and deserves to be said,” said project creator Ryan Smolar. “We seek stories inspired by, set in, or about New Orleans.”

Selected stories will be published in New Orleans by New Orleans and will be available for sale in local bookstores and on-line.

All genres are welcome, including fiction, non-fiction, essay, plays, monologues, poetry, song lyrics, tall tales, family histories, folklore, neighborhood legends and more.

Each entry must be 600 words or less (that’s roughly equivalent to one full page of single-spaced text, typed in 12 point font). All skill levels and ages are welcome, though anyone under 18 must have parent or guardian approval.

The entry deadline is February 21, 2012.

Enter at www.bookbyauthors.org.

Book by Authors is the program producing New Orleans by New Orleans.

Started by Smolarcorp in 2006, Book by Authors creates a ‘written time capsule’ of a community’s diverse thoughts, hopes, fears and past experiences via a published collection of short works (fiction, non-fiction and everything in between). Stories that have been linked by a common geographic place are literally bound into one book. Smolarcorp created Book by Authors in response to the National Endowment for the Arts’ “The Big Read” – a program that encourages a city to collectively “Read One Book.” In contrast, Book by Authors creates a model for a city to “Write One Book” about itself. Past Book by Authors publications are Book by Authors: North Long Beach Anthology (2009) and Book by Authors (2006).

For more information visit www.bookbyauthors.org.

Episodes | Heritage Radio Network

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An urban food system consists of a sustainable and integrated system of food production, processing, distribution, marketing, consumption and waste management in an urban landscape.

An urban food system integrates live, work, and play into the activities of a productive landscape.

The success of an urban food system relies on the coordination pieces of a support infrastructure to share the strengths and the peculiarities of each others resources.

Institutional and community food processing needs coordination among different schools, churches, NGOs, agencies, and governments. Only then can food production and distribution be integrated into the daily activities of all community.

Marketing is the common thread among uniting urban food producers and consumers. Building these connections, providing the framework of the distribition network, adapting to the changing needs of the market and the changing challenges of the producer are keys to success.

Most importantly, a sustainable local food system needs to be based on an ongoing system with little input. Waste management is the sector of an urban food system that needs intergation with a waste recycling and reuse program in a community to recycle the nutrients in the food production system.

NOFFN is building a sustainable urban food system in New Orleans through our NOLA City Farms Program that consists of several overlapping initiatives:

• Garden Builds
• Urban Farm Incubation
• NOLA Soil Project
• New Urban Farmer Training
• Urban Food Policy
• Public Engagement
• Food Clusters

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• CRS – The Role of Local Food Systems in U.S. Farm Policy (bespacific.com)
• Calgary launches assessment of food system sustainability (vancouversun.com)

Field Trip #5
School Gardens
Hosts: Damian Thompson and Chris Hiryak
http://www.ssawg.org/2012-conference-field-trips/

Field trip participants will visit two diverse models of educational gardens. The first stop will be Dunbar Middle School Garden, a public/private partnership between Little Rock Parks and Recreation and Gibbs and Dunbar schools. Operating for 19 years, Dunbar Garden is an example of long-term success in schoolyard gardening. The two-acre urban farm abounds in biodiversity amidst the asphalt. Flowers and vegetables, fruit trees, bees, heritage chickens, and pygmy goats, along with a greenhouse, composting area, and more facilitate an environment for children to apply classroom lessons, develop healthy habits, and get their hands dirty. Participants will learn about what Dunbar produces, their outdoor classroom teaching techniques, the logistics of sustaining Dunbar Garden, and building relationships in the community.

The second stop will be Mabelvale Magnet-Middle School, where the once bare schoolyard is now filled with vegetables growing in a French-intensive bed system, a rainwater collection system, and hens. The parking lot is home to the greenhouse where students grow more crops and make vermicompost by feeding food scraps to wriggler worms. This robust garden is the pilot site for Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute’s Delta Garden Study, a research study aiming to prevent childhood obesity and social risk behaviors and increase academic achievement through school gardening. Mabelvale Garden is in its second year of operation. Field trip participants will learn about the development of the garden, the Delta Garden Study’s garden-based science curriculum, how the students are involved both during and after school, and how Mabelvale is transitioning to a self-sustaining garden.

This program is an entrepreneurial urban food access approach to training a diverse group of new farmers and farming enthusiasts in sustainable vegetable production, marketing and farm business operations.

Participants will intern with experienced local and regional farmers to receive practical hands-on vegetable growing and recordkeeping skills.

Who is eligible?

We highly encourage interested applicants to think realistically about the challenges and physical demands of farming before applying.  As a participant, you must be willing to learn the principles and practices of sustainable organic farming, how to grow vegetables on an economically sustainable scale and manage an urban farm business. NOFFN’s Farm Internship Program aims to serve persons with limited resources.

Applicants must be able to volunteer 10 hours per week on a mentor farm, perform physically challenging and repetitive outdoor work. Applicants must be able to work well in a group and follow expectations established by the host farm.

Farm Interns will receive an overview of the following training topics:

• Production Planning
• Healthy Soil Building and Composting
• Irrigation
• Sustainable Pest, Disease and Weed Management
• Plant Propagation, Planting, Harvesting
• Post Harvest Handling: Quality, Safety and Sales
• Equipment for Vegetable Producers
• Small Farm Business Planning

Trainings take place on site and throughout the city via:

• In-field trainings
• Field trips to local and regional farms
• Groups trainings and skill sharing sessions
• One-on-one meetings and in-field consultation with mentor farmers

Please fill out the NOFFN-Farm-Internship-Application and email it to Ariel@noffn.org.

If you have any questions please contact Ariel by email or call 504.483.6967

The New Orleans Food and Farm Network (NOFFN) works to build local and regional sustainable food systems in and around New Orleans.