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Check out my latest Turning Point podcast about the N.C. Farm to Fork Summit taking place this week. The Center for Environmental Farming Systems convened the summit on Monday and Tuesday to finalize proposals to promote and strengthen sustainable agriculture and local foods consumption in the state.

You can track the progress of the summit at the Farm to Fork Web site. There, you can check out highlights from Monday's discussions and find most of the "game changer" and local actions ideas on the Web pages of the specific working issues teams. I heard that speaker presentations will also be added to the site this week.

About 400 people from across the state registered to attend the summit. Some of the Triad area registrants represented Urban Harvest in Greensboro, the Guilford, Davidson and Forsyth County Cooperative Extension Service agencies, the Piedmont Conservation Council, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, Deep Roots Market, Healthful Living Organic Farm, Peregrine Farm, N.C. A&T, city of Greensboro Parks & Recreation, Slow Food Piedmont Triad, and Garden Discovery Tours.

Today, Gov. Perdue is expected to address the summit participants at 9 a.m., with the rest of the day focused on regional proposals. (I couldn't make it as I have another story to work on.)

The Society of St. Andrew requests volunteers from church groups and other organizations to pick leftover produce from local farm fields. The organization also needs farmers willing to allow volunteers to glean their fields after the harvest or to pick up any extra produce. Farmers receive a 10 percent tax credit for donated produce.

The Society of St. Andrew, a national nonprofit hunger relief agency, collects tons of fresh produce each year and distributes it free to the needy. Volunteers collected 5.8 million pounds of fruit and vegetables in 2008 and distributed to local feeding agencies, according to the organization.

For information on how to get involved, please contact Emily Reeve, Society of St. Andrew’s Triad Area Coordinator at gleantriad@endhunger.org.

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church will hold a conversation on Sunday about relieving hunger, sustaining local farms and gaining fair treatment for farmers. The event takes place at 2105 W. Market St., Greensboro, from 7-8:30 p.m.

The conversation will cover the following areas:
• Why people of faith are called to work for fairness for farmers and access to fresh, healthy food for everyone;
• The problems of the current agricultural system - the injustices in contract farming, threats to family farms, and food insecurity in our communities; and
• How congregations can take practical action to support and honor family farmers and to get fresh, local food to those who need it most.

The event is open to the public and will be led by RAFI-USA (Rural Advancement Foundation International), Come to the Table, and The Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. Call St. Andrew's at 275-1651 for more information.

Background on what's happening locally around local foods can be found here and the March podcast below:

Sen. Charles Albertson filed last week a bill that seeks to establish a state food policy council and set a goal of 10 percent of the food consumed in North Carolina coming from within the state. This is part of the work being done by the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (read background here; by the way, the Farm to Fork Summit has been rescheduled for early May).

From the bill:

"The General Assembly finds that the time is right for the State to build its sustainable local food economy. Building a sustainable local food economy will create jobs, stimulate statewide economic development, and circulate money from local food sales within local communities.

Other important benefits of a sustainable local food economy in North Carolina include preserving open space, decreasing the use of fossil fuel and thus reducing carbon emissions, preserving and protecting the natural environment, increasing consumer access to fresh and nutritious foods, and providing greater food security for all North Carolinians."

Update (March 16): Another perspective on the sustainable agriculture/local food trends.

Last year, I interviewed Concord resident Aaron Newton, one of the few people I know who has gone beyond academic conversations about peak oil and climate change to making comprehensive lifestyle changes.

Newton has since co-written a book called "A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil," which is nothing short of a call to arms for local food proponents. Newton and New York writer Sharon Astyk call for a grassroots-led agricultural revolution that would result in 100 million people becoming farmers and millions more becoming home cooks.

It sounds like a radical idea. At first. But reading their book, one comes away with the feeling that this makes plenty sense; without a credible alternative, more Americans will grow food in order to tackle various food-related challenges, including the desire to move away from agriculture's dependence on fossil fuels.

Already, we see the local food movement gaining momentum and converting decision-makers at high levels. Grassroots groups await a vegetable garden at the White House. An official with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has written about peak oil and will be speaking at a health conference at Johns Hopkins University this week (you also have this). N.C. lawmakers Ray Rapp and Charles Albertson are drafting a bill for a state food policy council as part of a local foods/sustainable agriculture initiative by the Center for Environmental Farming Systems. And community gardens are popping up all over the country; I've heard that Guilford College is one of the latest to add a garden this year.

So it seems that food has become a focal point around which people concerned about climate change, fossil fuels depletion and price volatility, the credit crisis and the recession, health and national security rally.

"A Nation of Farmers" fleshes out how this movement can hit critical mass and what American food systems can look like in the future. One proposed concept is the "bulls-eye diet," a perhaps more approachable framework for local eating than the popular "100-mile diet."

Update: Listen to the podcast below; in it Newton talks about the bulls-eye diet.

Newton and Astyk also explain how Americans will need to change the way they prepare meals in order to get full use out of what they grow. This means learning how to cook again -- they are quick to point out that this is not just a woman's job -- and eating more seasonal salads, soups, casseroles and stir fries.

The book is filled with personal anecdotes (both writers garden/farm and are married with young children), recipes and interviews with heavyweights in the areas of peak oil, climate change, and farming: Richard Heinberg, Bill McKibben, Gene Logsdon and Albert Bates. They write about the value of the informal economy, explain their preference for the reduction in scale of government, and present numerous arguments for why the conventional agricultural paradigm will not work going forward.

They write:

"The idea that the same system that depleted aquifers, created the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico and enabled the transmission of mad cow disease will magically cease causing problems and merely create solutions is nonsense, and yet we are accustomed to believing it. It requires a belief in a linear, climactic vision of humanity, in which we are perfected by technology; but, of course, we have been trained in that vision, so we find it immediately accessible."

The writers also dispute the perception among some that the push for small-scale agriculture is elitist and disenfranchises those without access to land:

"It is possible that this may be a fair critique of a few strains of the movement. But what we've seen is the contrary -- thousands of people out there are reaching out to protect their own but also to extend their preserve to include some small piece of the world that belongs to them.... I think most of us, once we begin to move past our immediate panic responses to the changes in front of us, realize that we serve ourselves by serving others, that our communities matter as much as our homes and families, that there is no future in which we merely feed ourselves."

It will be interesting to see how the tensions between conventional, large-scale farmers and small-scale garden farmers are worked out. On a personal note, I know that the number of vegetable gardeners in Greensboro is becoming more diverse - racially and socioeconomically. On the other hand, an established farmer in Forsyth County told me last week that he supports the local food/sustainable agriculture movements because the many failures he believes will occur should give people a greater appreciation for the hard work and dedication farming requires.

You can find much of what Newton and Astyk have written on their Web sites. Newton, a land planner by training, is working in the Concord area to promote local foods. He has started a community garden in his neighborhood and is participating in a farm incubator program. I wouldn't be surprised to see hear his name come up at state and national levels going forward.

The America the Beautiful Fund in Washington, D.C., is giving out grants of 100 to 1,000 packets of flower and herb seeds to community gardening projects. The recipients pay shipping and handling costs.

Greensboro minister Buck Cochran is one of the many people in the Triad who are trying to apply the lofty and sometimes vague "sustainability" label to a real world project. Cochran serves as the executive director of Peacehaven Farm, a burgeoning residential community for adults with disabilities that will feature a community gardening project on an 89-acre farm in Whitsett.

The project is still in its infancy. Cochran plans to hire as farm managers two students graduating from N.C. State in May. Cochran said he expects the farm will need to be up and operating for a while before the 30-35 residents are selected.

Cochran said the project will incorporate sustainable design and practices throughout, from building construction (i.e. solar photovoltaics and hot water systems and rainwater harvesting) to the preference of organic gardening practices over chemicals and large machinery, as the farm is located in a watershed area.

"We want to bring this ethic of sustainability to all areas of the farm...." said Cochran, a former associate pastor at Westminster Presbyterian. "We also think that being sustainable and investing in things like renewable technology will make us financially sustainable over the long term."

However, what Cochran really envisions is a place for people with physical and intellectual challenges to interact with the wider community and reach their full potential. Local food production is a way for them to do that, he said.

I'll check in on Peacehaven Farm once construction and farming begin.

I have added a podcast called "Turning Point" to the features available on goGreenTriad.com. I will continue with this long term if interest exists; let me know what you think and share ideas. The podcast will feature audio recaps of events going on in the Triad as well as Q&A's with people involved in the various sustainability movements.

This first episode is about the UNCG community gardening conference that took place this weekend:

The organizer of the last Sandy Ridge sustainability festival has made available three of the presentations in audio files. Focus is on Stokes County.

By the way, another event on sustainable relationships will take place at the Hare Krishna community next weekend.

N.C. A&T is wrapping up a $300,000 grant proposal to the U.S. Department of Agriculture that would pay for sustainable agriculture projects at the university farm, professor Michael Roberto announced at a community gardening meeting today.

The project idea is an outgrowth of Roberto's work with an IMPACT Greensboro economic subcommittee and it would involve research and demonstration of organic gardening practices on 15 to 20 acres that could be used by community and professional gardeners. The project would also involve public outreach and education components, he said.

"It's very important in proposing this grant to the USDA that the research project that begins at A&T is strongly connected to the community," Roberto said, explaining his attendance at the meeting.

Roberto said grant applications are due sometime this spring with grant recipients announced by July. If the university gets the grant it would begin work this summer, he said.

Roberto said local food production is important for the weathering of the current economic storm
and after. University and federal policies prohibit the university from selling food grown on its farm, he said, "but we can certainly give it away. We plan to expand that production and distribution significantly."

A&T was just one of many groups represented at the second city community gardening meeting, organized by Parks and Recreation employees and the Guilford County Cooperative Extension. More than 30 people attended, representing places like Peeler and Nathanael Greene elementary schools, Greensboro Neighborhood Congress, St. James Presbyterian, Starmount Presbyterian, St. Francis Episcopal, and a landscaper helping the Sheriff's Office and Cooperative Extension expand food production at the prison farm.

The group will next meet at the Agricultural Center on Burlington Road at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, March 4.

By the way, I heard that UNCG will have a free workshop called "Growing to Community: Community Gardens" "Growing in Community: Gardening to Nourish Self and Neighbor" on Saturday, Feb. 28, from 12:30 to 5 p.m. Speakers include Dr. Charlie Headington of UNCG and Michael Schut of Seattle Tilth. The workshop will have break-out sessions on edible school yards, neighborhood gardens, faith-based or university gardens and so on. I'll post it on the GoTriad.com calendar once I verify some information.

Update: The workshop tentative schedule.

I thought I'd pass this along for those of you willing to make the two-hour trip to Boone:

Joel Salatin, whose Virginia Polyface farm was profiled in Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma," will give a theatrical performance at Appalachian State University on March 26. The event is free.

"Ballet in the Pasture is a theatrical performance mixing humor and bomb-shell food system analysis. Joel Salatin passionately defends small farms, local food systems, and the right to opt out of the conventional food paradigm. His stemwinder educates, entertains, and encourages. First rate pictures provide the audience with a virtual tour of the legendary Polyface Farm. Life-changing and ultimately memorable, Ballet in the Pasture is Joel's signature performance."

Below, a video of Polyface farm from our sister paper, The Virginian-Pilot:

Don't forget, the statewide Farm to Fork summit is in March too.

More public-private partnerships could be the key to community gardening expanding in Greensboro. A group of city residents and representatives of public agencies met last week to discuss the topic and a follow up meeting is being scheduled for early February.

I spoke briefly with interested citizen Julie Lapham who is discussing the idea with Mayor Yvonne Johnson. Lapham said faith organizations could play a vital role in opening up land to gardeners and helping to feed the city's poor and homeless.

"I just think there is a movement afoot," Lapham told me today.

The recession is obviously one reason for the interest. Lapham grew up in post-World War 2 England and remembers eating reconstituted milk and eggs during her childhood. She said, "We're going to be faced with what I think are three to four years of really rotten times."

I will be talking more with Lapham and other folks in the coming days, but following are some highlights from the Jan. 12 meeting notes:

Current or Planned Community Gardens in Greensboro:
• Steelman Park in Glenwood neighborhood; 20 raised beds;
• NC Cooperative Extension garden with 70 beds; waiting list for garden space;
• Keeley Park, 30 plots planned as well as a greenhouse for educational instruction and seed cultivation, a picnic shelter for garden use and educational instruction, individual tool sheds for participants, and a restroom facility;
• Brandywine Neighborhood & Pennyburn Retirement Community gardens starting this year;
• Interest/potential plans at N.C. A&T and UNCG;
• Other agencies/organizations with community gardens or edible landscapes: The Children’s Museum, Greensboro Montessori, Guilford County Prison Farm and Servant Garden;
• Other interested meighborhoods: Lindley Park, Westerwood and the future Dunleith Development, Southside;
• Known private efforts in establishing community gardens: an additional garden in the Glenwood Neighborhood and a space made available to gardeners out South Eugene Street

Potential barriers:
• Lack of land in neighborhoods. Potential policy change to require developers to set aside an area of land for a community garden was discussed.
• Public schools were identified as potential garden sites, but school system has liability concerns. Working with individual principals, PTAs and teachers was mentioned as a potential avenue toward success
• Lack of public funding, particularly for the more expensive elements such as water lines and fencing

Available resources:
• Public land may be suitable for gardens;
• Housing & Community Development may be able to help in identifying opportunities through “neighborhood plans;”
• Faith communities and churches may be a source of land, volunteers and interested parties;
• Statewide Extension offers a template for community gardens;
• Parks & Recreation can offer site preparation for gardens on publicly owned lands;
• N.C. Cooperative Extension can provide educational components. They already provide an on-line clearinghouse listing all community gardens in Greensboro and have produced an informational brochure;
• Master Gardeners have offered to match garden advisors with community gardens;
• Opportunities for getting young people involved in community gardens include: the Greensboro Youth Council, the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts; and
• Funding and In-kind donations opportunities may include: Lowes Hardware, Harris Teeter, Building Stronger Neighborhoods, the Community Foundation, garden centers such as New Garden Nursery, Greensboro Beautiful.

The Sustainability Festival makes a comeback in Stokes County as the Hare Krishna community in Sandy Ridge hosts its second event in January, this time focused on food production.

The community held its first event in November and included workshops on everything from solar photovoltaics and sustainable businesses to finding security in uncertain times. Organizer Mitra Das said someone remarked to him that subsequent festivals should elaborate separately on the topics of food, shelter and transportation.

The centerpiece of the upcoming event will be a sit-down with local farmers who will share their agricultural wisdom with whoever desires to listen. Also planned for the agenda are presentations on seed saving, gardening for lazy people, encouraging young and new farmers and harvesting year-round without a greenhouse. Local music and food, to boot.

Who should go?

"Anyone with a mouth and a stomach," Mitra Das said. "Each and everyone of us depends on food everyday."

The festival will take place from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 17, at Prabhupada Village, 1283 Prabhupada Road, Sandy Ridge. The event will be indoors; shoes off in the temple according to tradition so wear nice socks.

A new survey out by the National Restaurant Association ranks locally grown produce at the top of the list of "what's hot" in 2009.

Other trends that made the Top 20 (some of these made last year's list):

* Organic produce
* Nutritionally balanced children’s dishes
* Sustainable seafood
* Organic wine
* Free-range poultry/pork

Local food enthusiasts and newcomers will meet at SciWorks in Winston-Salem tonight to brainstorm ways to encourage and develop local food economies that are based on sustainable agricultural practices in North Carolina. More than 100 people have RSVP'd.

The meeting is being held by the Center for Environmental Farming Systems and is the fifth one held this year after strong participation at meetings in Raleigh, Burgaw and Asheville. The meetings will culminate in a statewide conference in March, to be followed by the creation of a state action plan.

The center has made available the notes from the previous meetings, including questions and comments participants had about defining "local food" and what is needed to develop it.

Triad residents have a chance to provide input for a statewide initiative to build local food economies. A meeting will take place from 5:30-8:30 p.m. on Dec. 10 at SciWorks, 400 W. Hanes Mill Road, Winston-Salem.

RSVP for the meeting by e-mailing amber_polk@ncsu.edu.

The event is one of several being held throughout the state this year by the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, a partnership between two universities that seeks to develop and promote food and farming systems that protect the environment, strengthen local communities, and provide economic opportunities.

The center will incorporate participant feedback into a statewide action plan that it will complete next year. The center also received a $3.15 million endowment from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to help with this effort.

The center intends for the state plan to:
1. describe key elements of our current food system and define key terms;
2. identify the diversity of people, businesses, and organizations involved in and impacted by North Carolina’s food system;
3. highlight specific efforts and partnerships underway across our state and within different sectors of the food system to achieve greater “localness” in our food system; and
4. identify opportunities for action, and propose priorities, both in the short and long term, that will enable us to make progress toward shared goals.

The Green Revolution of the the 20th century is indeed a "green" trend that is financially, socially,and environmentally out of touch. This is a 21st century reality that many people across America and the world are waking up to.

People are rediscovering the joys of eating locally and simply, disillusioned with the technological advancements that brought us petroleum-based pesticides and fertilizers, soil compacting machinery, consolidated farms and processing plants and now, genetically-modified organisms and hybrid seeds with "terminator" genes. Heritage tomatoes brought directly from the farmer is now in vogue, not the tasteless variety plucked off the supermarket shelf.

One such woman working to promote sustainable agriculture in North Carolina is Jennifer Curtis, who spoke about the topic at a Piedmont Environmental Alliance meeting in Winston-Salem on Thursday. She framed the transition from conventional, fossil-fuel dependent agriculture to local, organic production as a means of restoring economic, social and physical health to North Carolinians while also protecting us against foreign terrorist threats.

She defined a sustainable food system as one that satisfies human food and fiber needs, is economically viable, environmentally sound and socially just.

Reporter Jason Hardin writes about the almost inevitable dispute over at the Greensboro Farmers' Curb Market about whether nonlocally-produced foods can be sold there.

On the one hand, we have farmers trying to protect the integrity of the market by guaranteeing that customers get only local products. Other farmers say the market should not make the perfect the enemy of the good by unnecessarily limiting customers' choices and keeping some small businesses from thriving.

So what to do? The market guidelines state that any product grown or produced within North Carolina or adjoining states can be sold, which is a very large territory. And should customers expect to buy butter made in Ohio at the market when one could buy butter produced from North Carolina cows?

I started shopping at the farmers' market last year, and the primary purpose of that was to buy food that comes from farmers in my state or crafts that are at least manufactured locally. It's also fun to shop there and see so many people I know on a weekly basis, but it gets crowded pretty early and I could very well purchase my eggs and zucchini elsewhere, when it's more convenient. My incentive to shop there might be compromised if it became too confusing to figure out what is local and what is not. But I can be flexible.

I guess the question becomes, how can the market, vendors and customers best benefit? Will allowing more nonlocal fare attract or lose customers? You can tell the Greensboro Parks and Recreation Commission your thoughts when it meets about the issue at 4 p.m. Oct. 8 at Lewis Recreation Center, 3110 Forest Lawn Drive.

A revised policy approved by the Greensboro City Council on Wednesday will allow residents on smaller lots to keep chickens and bees, a popular practice and growing trend among families trying to consume locally-produced foods.

Opposition to this practice tends to center around concerns about noise from roosters (whose possession is prohibited by this policy) and cleanliness. I glimpsed urban farming for the first time in June when I interviewed a Concord man for my peak oil series. He had about a dozen hens in his backyard; they were pretty quiet and I couldn't imagine them being any more annoying or dangerous than dogs.

I wonder how much pent up demand exists for urban farming in Greensboro. Do you see expect the council's amendment to motivate slow food newbies or aficionados to order a couple bantams and DIY coops?

Unrelated, but interesting: The Economist hosts an online debate on energy issues.

I've been mulling for the past week whether to participate in any of the various local food challenges going on in North Carolina and across the country. Not because I don't think it would be possible. In fact, I believe North Carolina is one of the best states to do it in. I just don't know if I want to add more rules or guidelines to my life.

I actually thought about participating in the 100 Mile Diet last year and blogging about it for the News & Record, but I scrapped the idea once I became pregnant. Now that my daughter is six months old, I feel comfortable trying it. Plus, eating locally is becoming more popular and I've got to be in the in-crowd, now don't I? (Yeah, right.)

I've been gardening in a small plot and shopping at the farmers markets in Greensboro and Colfax since last spring. Resources such as Slow Food Piedmont Triad and Local Harvest have helped me find sites for all kinds of goods, such as locally milled flour, chicken and herbs. I just need to decide how strict I want to be and how long I want to go. Do I cut out rice and pasta, salt and pepper? Do I go for a week, a month or the rest of the year? What restaurants in Greensboro would be off limits?  

Whatever I decide, I have made the commitment to increase the amount of locally-grown and produced foods I eat. I like feeling connected to farmers and artisans in Guilford County and North Carolina and being able to ask them face to face about their products. But I want my purchases and food preparations to be both a joy and learning experience, not a guilt-ridden chore. 

Read more here.

Update (June 2): Deep Roots Market also kicks off an eat local food challenge on June 10.

All you budding localvores out there can participate in a challenge to eat only North Carolina-produced food during the week of July 7-13. (Why not get an early start by holding an all local Independence Day food fest?)

This challenge is being publicized by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, which has the goal of increasing the number of organic farms in North Carolina and South Carolina. The association wants participants to blog about their experiences.

Food and gardening challenges are all the rave now and have become a popular tool for raising awareness about particular issues or initiatives. Path to Freedom has just started a social networking site called Freedom Gardeners and participating bloggers can add widgets/icons to their sites representing various challenges, including the 100 Foot Diet and Harvest Keepers (for the more radical gardeners out there).

Are any of you out there participating in online challenges or sticking to a local diet, for that matter? Share your stories and/or photos and I'll post them on my blog.

Logo courtesy of Carolina Farm Stewardship Association

Via Winston-Salem Journal and Christian Science Monitor. Plus, Sharon Astyk lays out the case for a revival in victory gardens.