R.I. Farmers Getting Younger; Seafood Staying Local

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

Kenyon's Grist Mill served up johnny cakes at Agricultural Day on April 25. (Tim Faulkner/ecoRI News)PROVIDENCE — A gloomy economy isn’t holding back Rhode Island farmers and food producers from growing their businesses.

During the annual Rhode Island Agriculture Day observance April 25 at the Statehouse, Department of Environmental Management (DEM) director Janet Coit called the local farming and food movement “the bright spot of the economy.”

Gov. Lincoln Chafee said, “During the downturn it was the ag sector that stayed strong and grew.”

Statistics confirming the growth in Rhode Island and across the country are expected later this year, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) releases a new census report. Other data shows small farms increasing across the country for the first time since the Great Depression. A younger segment of the population is choosing the local food movement as a career, according to Rep. Art Handy, D-Cranston.

“This is something they want to get into," he said.

“The numbers are moving in the right direction. I’m more and more hopeful,” said Mike Ryan, 25, who started Mapleville Farm in Burrillville with his three siblings in 2010. The neighborhood farm/bakery grows many of the ingredients for its bread, baked goods and preserves.

Mapleville Farm is one of Rhode Island’s 1,219 farms. In all, the local agriculture and food sector has 13,000 employees  and generates $1.78 billion in annual revenue.

The local seafood sector hopes to achieve the same success. The Rhode Island fishing and seafood industry employs about 5,000 and generates $150 million in annual sales. To help promote the state Seafood Marketing Collaborative, the DEM launched a new website.

The collaborative aims to increase local seafood sales. In-state sales generate more profits due to the reduction of middlemen. Shoppers also get to know the fishermen and the fish and shellfish they offer. The website teaches consumers about the seasonality of local seafood, where to buy it and how to prepare it.

Joe Blum of the Local Catch, a network of local fishermen who sell to local markets and directly to consumers, said the local model has grown during the past three years. “I think to sustain fishing on a small scale this is the way to do it,” he said.

Blum was one of 50 seafood and farm vendors offering samples and literature at the recent event. The program also recognized and honored the Rhode Island Fruit Growers Association for celebrating its 100^th anniversary.

R.I. Farmers Markets Growing ... with Some Pain

Farmers and market managers collaborate at the first Rhode Island Market Managers' Conference on April 16. (Tim Faulkner/ecoRI News)

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

PROVIDENCE — How are Rhode Island's farmers markets fairing? Pretty well if you look at the numbers. The Ocean State had 15 farmers markets in 2004. This year, it has 55. Most communities have at least one farmers market nearby, and new outdoor markets open this spring in Tiverton, Greenville and Central Falls.

Studies across the country show similar growth trends for farmers markets. A 2010 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report (pdf) shows that nearly all of the money spent at a farmers market stays in the local economy. Farmers also keep a larger share of the sales, but have higher expenses for things such as distribution and marketing. So far, however, there is scant data showing the economic and health impacts of these markets.

To share ideas and address some of the growing pains, the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM) recently hosted an informal farmers market conference for the expanding sector. Market managers, along with farmers, fishermen and chefs, discussed the challenges and strengths of markets. They also delved into new and old issues such as food safety, parking, food trucks and social media.

Shoppers. Many managers expressed concern that the volume of customers at farmers market may be reaching a plateau. It was suggested that the increasing number of markets and a limited number of farmers might make it difficult for newer markets to keep vendors. Lisa Browning, manager of the Go Local Farmers Market in Barrington, noted that the future of her market is uncertain after four years because vendors are leaving more quickly than she can replace them.

“It’s a conundrum we have to address at some point,” said Bevan Linsley, market coordinator for five farmers markets, including the Aquidneck Growers’ Market.

To attract a larger audience, consumers also need to be educated about the benefits of shopping at farmers markets, such as the high quality of food. “There’s a big difference between an egg from a farmers market and an egg from Stop & Shop,” said Rose Doughty of the Burrillville Farmers Market.

Location. Market managers prefer uniform paperwork. Some communities require permits and approval from the zoning board, others nothing at all. Attractive amenities include places with good shading, playgrounds and parking.

Meat. Some sales of meat at farmers markets were halted last year due to storage and transportation requirements. Currently, local meat must be processed at a USDA-certified slaughter house and flash frozen or kept at regulated temperatures when shipped to market.

Food safety was a big issue. The University of Rhode Island state Department of Health (DOH) warned of viruses and bacteria outbreaks found on large and small farms across the country. Rhode Island farms and farmers markets have not been associated with any outbreaks. But standards and oversight for handling and inspection needs to be vigilant, according to the DOH. Food storage, handling and sampling practices were highlighted. Training and new regulations from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are anticipated.

Low income. Sarah Lester, manager of eight markets for Farm Fresh Rhode Island, noted that her markets have seen dramatic growth in sales through low-income food-assistance programs. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) increased from $549 in 2007 to $74,000 in 2012. Programs for seniors, infants and children are also more common at the markets, she said. There are still a lot of lower-cost alternatives, Lester said. “We’re fighting against Doritos here, against the corner (convenience) store and Walmart.”

More farmland. DEM director Janet Coit promised that more Rhode Island farmland will be preserved, thanks to the passage of environmental management bonds last November. The largest portion, $4.5 million of the $20 million referendum, will buy farmland development rights.

Learn more about Rhode Island farms, farmers markets and food at Rhode Island Agriculture Day on April 25 at 2 p.m. at the Statehouse.

Grub of a Different Sort

Chrissy Teck, marketing manager at Fertile Underground Grocery and professed vegan, samples a toasted cricket. (Joanna Detz/ecoRI News photos)By JOANNA DETZ/ecoRI News staff

PROVIDENCE — The little girl in the green hat wouldn’t eat one. No way, she said. Her Mom thought about for a bit, but she chickened out at the last minute. 

Finally, Chrissy Teck, marketing manager at Fertile Underground Grocery, who had already eaten one earlier, popped another in her mouth with a smile. In one bite, the toasted cricket was gone. Down the hatch.

On a recent Tuesday evening, a small group was forming at the sample tables at Fertile Underground during the store’s “Alternative Protein Night.” Behind one table, fielding questions from curious shoppers, sat David Gracer, owner of Small Stock Foods and longtime proponent of entomophagy, or insect consumption.

The toasted crickets heaped in the plastic container in front of Gracer weren’t exactly going quickly. People seemed more interested in trying samples of the store-made vegan sausage at the next table.

“The concept of eating bugs freaks people out so much. They are incapable of challenging their assumptions,” Gracer said.

Through public engagements such as this one, Gracer hopes to change people’s misgivings about eating insects. An English teacher at Community College of Rhode Island, Gracer, who could be described as an extreme eater — he claimed to have eaten coyote a week ago — runs Small Stock in his spare time. In addition to giving talks and hosting insect tastings, he also fills roughly five sale orders a week, mostly of crickets.

Gracer’s main argument for consuming insects is environmental.

He is not the only one making this argument. A policy paper presented to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) several years ago focused attention on the cultivation of insects for food.

David Gracer of Small Stock Foods hopes to change people's perceptions about eating insects one cricket at a time.According to professor Arnold van Huis, an entomologist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, “The world population will grow ... to 9 billion by 2050, and we know people are consuming more meat. Twenty years ago the average was 44 pounds [per person, per year]; it is now 110 pounds and will be 176 pounds in 20 years. If we continue like this we will need another Earth."

Insects, on the other hand, require little water and few resources to cultivate. According to van Huis, breeding commonly eaten insects such as locusts, crickets and mealworms, emits 10 times less methane than livestock. Insects also produce 300 times less nitrous oxide — also a warming gas — and much less ammonia, a pollutant produced by pig and poultry farming.

And, insects pack a protein punch. In their dried form, grasshoppers may contain up to 60 percent protein.

Gracer’s own fascination with entomophagy began in 1999, when he received some flavored mealworm snacks for his birthday. This piqued his curiosity, and his discoveries drove him to promote insects as a part of a healthy, sustainable diet. He has given radio interviews and even appeared on "The Colbert Report" in 2008. (For the record, Colbert declined to sample Gracer’s wares.)

At Fertile Underground, the pre-dinner crowd was filling the store, and the vegetarian ecoRI News reporter interviewing Gracer and cataloging customers’ reactions to his sample tray decided to try a cricket herself, out of a sense journalistic duty — and sheer curiosity.

The mouthfeel was shatteringly crunchy, like a potato chip, but a little splintery. The flavor was pleasantly salty and nutty. Gracer said he had seasoned the crickets with some celery salt. Not bad. Intriguing enough to merit trying another.

And while this ecoRI News reporter may be a convert, judging from the reactions of customers at Fertile Underground, most Americans have a lot of psychological hurdles to overcome before they accept insects as food.

At the cash register, the cashier asked a woman buying eggs if she had tried a bug. She replied with a gross-out face that she couldn’t do it.

“Well, enjoy your baby chicken embryos,” the cashier said with a smile.

Sustainable R.I. Report Ignores Agriculture

By KYLE HENCE/ecoRI News contributor

With a booming local food movement, and small-scale agriculture one of Rhode Island’s only bright spots economically, would it not make eminent sense to invest further in the local food system to grow our economy? Isn't it just common sense to be sure policy makers, bankers and investors focus on the thriving local food and farming sectors of our economy?

The answer is no. Not if you are the Pittsburgh-based consulting team paid $45,000 to frame Rhode Island’s economy ahead of a year-long planning process.

Rhode Islanders and its leaders across industry and government are eager to identify and capitalize on what is sustainable, in an effort to address the nation’s highest unemployment rate and a protracted economic downturn.

Last week, however, in the first formal step in a two-year, $1.9 million statewide planning process called “Sustainable Rhode Island,” Gov. Lincoln Chafee and the state Division of Planning unveiled a 104-page report (pdf) from Fourth Economy Consulting that fails to cite the recent and significant achievements within the Ocean State’s agricultural sector, ignoring the opportunity to build on the successes of a growing plant-based “green” industry.

Food is a trillion-dollar industry in the United States. In New England, agriculture generates $71 billion in economic activity and 379,000 jobs, according to a 2012 report (pdf). Rhode Island’s share of this is growing, and our rate of growth of small-scale agriculture is tops in New England and ranks high nationally.

The number of farms in the state swelled from 858 to 1,219 between 2002 and 2007 — an increase of 42 percent that is the highest in New England and 10 times the national average, according to the U.S. Census of Agriculture.

A 2012 report by the University of Rhode Island co-authored by Tom Sproul, an environmental economics professor, found the 2007 U.S. Department of Agriculture figures were grossly underestimated.

“It’s definitely a way bigger sector than anybody thought,” Sproul said.

The report conservatively estimates $170.6 million in annual agricultural revenue, more than 2.5 times the USDA’s 2007 estimate of $65.9 million, and suggests that Rhode Island farmers may produce 60 percent of their economic impact via direct interaction with consumers.

“These findings are consistent with our state’s history of leadership in agricultural value,” according to the URI report.

All told, the state’s plant-based “green” industries — inclusive of nurseries, sod farms and agricultural tourism — have a total impact of $1.78 billion, about 3.5 percent of Rhode Island’s gross state product (GSP), with agriculture representing 17 percent, according to Sproul.

Sproul, who invested several years in the aforementioned report, said prospects for growth in this sector are good. “I think it has an incredibly bright future,” he said.

Where’s the local beef?
Rhode Island should do more to retain and support its home-grown businesses, and the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM) agrees. Last week, the agency announced the availability of $150,000 in grant money to farmers, nonprofits and small businesses working to increase the availability of local produce.

“The growth of agriculture in Rhode Island can be seen across the state, from the explosion of farmers markets to the promotion of local foods in our outstanding restaurants,” said DEM director Janet Coit, who sits on the State Planning Council, part of the Division of Planning overseeing Sustainable Rhode Island.

“Rhode Island’s $1.7 billion green industry – and the 12,300 jobs it supports – is a bright spot in the economy of our beautiful state, thanks to growing consumer interest in products grown locally,” she said. “On top of these economic benefits, agriculture also contributes to tourism, open space, quality of life, and access to local foods and horticultural products.”

Despite the fact that Chafee, Coit and state agriculture chief Ken Ayars have repeatedly and publicly lauded the state’s farm-to-table, farm-to-school and broader agricultural successes during the past few years, the Fourth Economy Consulting report, meant to focus on current strengths in the Rhode Island economy and replete with elaborate graphs and full-color panoramas evoking pride of place, fails to recognize agriculture and local food in any substantive manner.

In fact, the executive summary (pdf) fails to mention the state’s agriculture growth even once. In the 15-page document Rhode Island’s thriving agricultural sector is not identified as part of an economic “cluster” or “market opportunity network.”

While the full report calls for definition and validation of market opportunities, with the exception of a singular unexplained graph citation of “Online Agriculture” (R.I.’s top ranking "sustainability measure"), the report fails to make any substantive mention of the local food and farming economy, neither its recent achievements nor its future growth opportunities.

Rich Overmoyer, president and CEO of Fourth Economy Consulting, declined to comment for this story.

Local means sustainable
As the Sproul report suggests, there are multiple elements within our local food system — urban and rural agriculture, food production and processing, food security, waste management, the environment, pride of place, public health and nutrition. The local food system’s role in filling the needs of thousands of Rhode Islanders who frequently go without a meal (the “food insecure”) make it a moral imperative in addition to the economic one described by Sproul and Coit.

Rhode Island’s Five-Year Strategic Plan (pdf) released in 2011 by the Agricultural Partnership hints at a significant opportunity for growth. As of 2010, Rhode Island sourced only 1 percent of the food that is consumed from within the state, translating to a theoretical 99 percent upside potential that taps consumer demand, but also provides a motivating factor of food security.

On the one hand, Rhode Island ranks high in national rankings in growth of small farms and direct farm-to-table produce sales, but on the other ranks low in New England in at least one measure of food security. The juxtaposition of these two metrics reveals a clear economic opportunity, one entirely missed in the $45,000 economic snapshot presented to the Division of Planning last week.

The consultants' report, among many recommendations, encourages “buy local” campaigns, which have been proven to benefit participating communities directly through the “local multiplier effect.”

“The food system as a whole drains money from the local economy,” according to Sarah DeWeerdt in a 2009 report for the Worldwatch Institute. “Every time money changes hands within a community, it boosts the community's overall income and level of economic activity, and fuels the creation of jobs. The more times money changes hands within the community before heading elsewhere, the better off the community is.”

This is a point of leverage and high return following from a simple shift in spending patterns to keep local dollars circulating within the local economy rather than leaving it. How much of a multiplier varies significantly. One United Kingdom study found that dollars spent on local suppliers worth 400 percent more than those spent non-locally or a 4x multiplier. An Iowa State University study found a 2.6x multiplier where small farms prevail as they do in Rhode Island.

How does this translate to jobs and revenues? According to a study by Michael Schuman, a local food economy expert and author of “Local Money, Local Sense,” if the city of Detroit were to shift 20 percent of its food spending to local sources, 4,700 jobs would be created and the city would receive nearly $20 million more in business taxes a year.

In the counties he assessed in northeast Ohio, about one-quarter Rhode Island’s population, Schuman calculated that a move to 25 percent food localization by 2020 could result in the creation of close to 28,000 new jobs and generate $868 million in additional wages annually.

Food localization on this scale has significant challenges, including accessibility and affordability of farm land for new farms, training for food-based businesses and marketing. In Ohio, Schuman estimated a large requisite infrastructure-building investment of $1 billion would ultimately generate $100 million annually in taxes.

Local benefits
Noah Fulmer is the co-founder of Farm Fresh Rhode Island, a nonprofit that has capitalized on the market opportunity within the local food sector by serving as a distributor using an online ordering system, sourcing from scores of area farms and delivering to restaurants and institutional kitchens throughout Rhode Island. Last year, Market Mobile grossed about $1.5 million, up from $1 million in 2011 and $650,000 in 2010.

“It’s disappointing that there is not more attention paid to local farms and to the seafood industry,” said Fulmer from his office in Pawtucket. “We can certainly produce a lot more food, and if we see an upswing in the economy we could see agriculture benefit in an even more striking way.”

According Fulmer, state leaders in Vermont and Maine look to local agriculture as economic drivers. “It would be nice,” he said, “to see more people at the planning level give more support to this.”

The Farm Fresh story is not mentioned in the consultants’ report. However, in a graph, “Online Agriculture” is shown as Rhode Island’s highest ranking of 22 sustainability measures. While not explained further in the recently released report, data cited by the Agricultural Partnership suggests Farm Fresh’s successful web-based local food marketing and distribution program is responsible for this top sustainability metric, a truly homegrown Rhode Island win-win.

“We are seeing a lot of growth despite what’s going on statewide,” Fulmer said.

The failure of the Fourth Economy Consulting report to draw attention to local agriculture and plant-based green industry is worrying. It begs the question: Is this initial $45,000 investment in economic analysis indicative of what will come from the $1.9 million plan? If so, Rhode Islanders, particularly those invested in local food security and in seeing further expansion of the agricultural sector, might well be concerned.

“This is not intended to be a fully realized snapshot of the economy,” said Kevin Flynn, associate director of the Division of Planning, when asked about the report’s failure to cite Rhode Island’s well-documented and thriving local food economy.

“In retrospect it would have been better if a little more attention had been paid to that aspect,” Flynn said when pressed. “As we begin in earnest to work on the plan over the next year we will be looking at this.”

Food Forum Praises Local Meat and Seafood

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

PROVIDENCE — Meat and fish topped the menu at the recent Farm Fresh Rhode Island's Local Food Forum.

In farming jargon, it’s called "local, sustainable protein," or "strategic protein reserve." But the idea is to get Rhode Islanders to eat more locally raised chicken, beef, pork and fish.

The primary quandary posed by panelists and members of the audience was finding ways to convince the public to pay for a higher-priced, healthful food. In the case of seafood, it’s getting the public to eat local, plentiful fish.

“If consumers don’t know what we do and don’t pay the costs, it’s not going to be sustainable,” said Mel Coleman Jr., a former Colorado cattle rancher and advocate for naturally raised farm animals.

Consumers should be aware, Coleman said, that it’s cheaper in the long run to buy sustainably raised meats. Low-priced products, he said, have external expenses, such as the health problems caused by fertilizers, antibiotics and growth hormones.

Coleman and Pat McNiff, of Pat’s Pastured in East Greenwich, said the biggest barrier to farming is the cost and availability of land. Coleman noted that 3,000 acres of land nationwide were lost to development each day in 2007. McNiff leases land because of high real-estate prices. “It’s a huge barrier to farming in the Northeast.” If we don’t figure it out, he said, the local farm movement “won’t exist anymore.”

Noah Fulmer, executive director of Farm Fresh — the organizer of the annual forum — said the local seafood movement faces its own challenges. It’s difficult to determine where seafood really comes from and how it is caught. Seafood, he said, suffers from a remarkable lack of transparency, “and all those lies that are told along the supply chain.”

Other speakers noted that consumer demand is strong for threatened fish such as cod, while most of the plentiful seafood leaves the state. Eating local and abundant fish such as scup, fluke and squid maintains a healthy stock and promotes the food system, said Janet Coit, direct of the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM).

Ken Ayars, chief of the state Division of Agriculture, said a public-private seafood marketing collaborative, run by the DEM, is already working to promote a local, sustainable seafood system. The DEM also intends to establish a Rhode Island seafood market.

For famers, Ayars said, the state will continue to support local farmers markets through the inaugural farmers market conference scheduled for April 16. New products such as butter and cheese will be offered through the Rhody Fresh label. Other projects include a farming collaborative for Dame Farm in Johnston. Ayars also noted the explosive growth of farmers markets in recent years. Despite being a $2 billion industry with 12,000 jobs, only 1 percent of food consumed in the state is produced locally.

The lopsided local food system illustrated the potential for growth in Rhode Island, but also sparked discussion about a need for sustainability. The term held different meanings for experts and guests at the food forum. McNiff said it was about allowing animals to improve the food cycle through grazing and natural fertilizing. His motto: “How do we leave the land better than we found it?”

Sarah Schumann, a Rhode Island shellfisherwoman and local seafood advocate, said sustainability is more than knowing what’s the best fish to buy at the market. “Sustainability is not about one individual making one choice at one store. It’s something we all have to do together,” she said.

Jared Auerbach, head of Red’s Best seafood distribution network, emphasized progress with seafood. His company connects, collects and markets seafood caught by small fisherman in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Using a web-based tablet system fish and shellfish are identified and tracked from the boat to local markets, restaurants and dinner plates. “This is happening and it’s going to continue to happen,” Auerbach said.

Fifth-grade students from the Jewish Community Day School said they were ready to seek answers and be a part of the local food movement. “I think what they said is very inspiring,” student Annette Milburn said.

Goats Eat Oats ... and Christmas Trees

By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI News staff

Woodstock leads the morning charge out of the barn, with a little encouragement from Melody Reynolds. (Frank Carini/ecoRI News photos)NORTH KINGSTOWN — The end of the holiday season and the taking down of the Christmas tree is the most wonderful time of the year for the Reynolds family … at least for the 34 goats that roam the property where Route 1 meets the beginning of Route 4.

The blinking lights, the glittering tinsel and the dangling ornaments are nothing more than distractions from the tree’s most essential role — dessert after a meal of all-natural grain. In fact, this holiday treat is the gift that keeps on giving — at least until Reynolds Barn neighbors and farmers market customers run out of Christmas trees.

The dairy goat farm’s herd makes quick and efficient work of the dead trees — minus their tinsel and paint free — that are brought to the Reynolds’ Tower Hill Road home/dairy by people who enjoy spoiling the goats and/or don’t want to see their tree go to waste.

The dairy’s sociable goats — they come when called better than my dog — devour the needles, the branches and the bark, leaving behind a naked trunk that Melody and Donnie Reynolds, the husband-and-wife team that has been running the dairy for two decades, chip into mulch and throw on the garden come spring.

So far this winter the goats have gobbled down 30 trees. Since the farm started celebrating the end of the holiday season 10 years ago with a Christmas tree collection, its herd has repurposed a lot of pine.

“Nobody is making them do is,” Melody said, as we watched the goats in their large outdoor pen scoff down green needles and tear off cracking bark. The air smelled of, well, Christmas trees. “It kills the boredom for them and gives them something to look forward to. Green pickings are slim in the winter.”

Nicena munches on some pine needles from a Christmas tree that was dropped off at Reynolds Barn in North Kingstown.Plus, there’s “lots of vitamin C in the pine needles,” Melody, a mother of three, said with a wide grin — the same one she likely flashed when she tricked Miriah, Holden and Hudson into eating their peas.

When it comes to reusing and recycling, the Reynolds goats put the most environmentally conscious of us to shame. Besides giving Christmas trees a second use, the goats gulp down the 10 gallons or so of whey — a byproduct of cheese making — the dairy produces each day during operations.

“They get so excited when they see the stainless steel pail filled with a warm and fresh treat,” Melody said.

The Reynolds, however, don’t let their goats outshine them when it comes to leaving a smaller carbon footprint. Pine sawdust created at a local woodworking company that would otherwise end up in a Dumpster is used as the goats’ indoor bedding. The goats’ sleeping quarters are cleaned at least once a day, and the sawdust, straw and manure left behind is placed in the big, now-empty plastic bags the sawdust came in.

About eight bags are filled daily with these raw materials. These bags are given to local gardeners for free. It makes excellent compost.

“There’s more demand for these bags than we, or should I say, the goats can produce,” Melody said.

Reynolds Barn sells its goat-milk cheeses and goat-milk soaps at the Coastal Growers’ winter and summer farmers markets.

Warm Fall Yields Endless Broccoli

By JOANNA DETZ/ecoRI News staff

As a year-round grower Skip Paul views his hoop house as a savings bank for his winter crop of greens. Because of the warm weather this fall, his hoop house crops are maturing ahead of schedule. (Joanna Detz/ecoRI News photos)LITTLE COMPTON — It’s 45 degrees, a balmy day by December standards, and Skip Paul is showing a visitor around his farm, alternately tailed and led by his spunky farm dog, Dewey.

Standing inside one of the five hoop houses at Wishing Stone Farm, where he has already started his indoor winter crop, Paul says that because of the mild fall he’s actually still harvesting vegetables from his fields outdoors.

“Usually you see temperatures dropping significantly, so by this time during normal years, we would have had all our carrots and beets in,” he says. “This year has been so mild, we’ve postponed harvest. We’re pulling in a half-acre of broccoli. That is unbelievable. It’s clearly a sign of global warming or something to be able to harvest broccoli almost until Christmastime.”

What Paul is seeing in his fields is part of a larger trend, which was detailed in February by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a revised plant hardiness map. The map showed most hardiness zones in the lower 48 states are now about 2.5 degrees warmer.

A shift in average temperatures and warmer-than-normal falls has meant a longer growing season for Rhode Island farmers. In fact, a drive along Route 77 in Little Compton reveals a few still-green fields shrugging up kale and other crops not typically seen outside in mid-December.

Ken Ayars, chief of the Division of Agriculture at the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM), says he too has noted the longer growing season. But, he says, what’s more relevant is that in Rhode Island there is now a market for these late crops, referring to the now six wintertime farmers markets around the state.

Fields in Little Compton, including those at Wishing Stone Farm, are still yielding crops in mid-December.“There was never a reason to extend the growing season before, so now that there’s a market for crops farmers deliberately try to extend growing season. And they can take advantage of warmer falls,” Ayars says.

Even if there had been a longer growing season a decade ago, farmers would still have harvested before the first frost simply because there was no market for their late fall and winter harvests, according to Ayars.

While the winter markets do provide an outlet for late harvest and year-round growing, Paul says they can only absorb so much.

“Winter markets … are flat or slightly down because of the economy or the fact that there’s an explosion of new winter markets sprouting up everywhere,” Paul says.

To supplement sales at winter markets, Wishing Stone is offering a year-round CSA for the second straight year.

There is also the issue of how the warm weather has been affecting the timeline of the plants in Wishing Stone’s winter hoop house, which will sustain the farm’s market and CSA commitments during the winter months.

As a year-round grower, Paul sees his winter hoop house as a sort of a savings bank. Paul explains that he invests by putting plants in the hoop house in late fall. He then withdraws from that savings bank from late December through the end of January, knowing that what he cuts will not re-grow due to the low levels of sunlight during that period.

Standing in the entrance of the hoop house, Paul looks out over rows of salad greens and explains that because of the warm fall, the winter greens in his hoop houses are maturing ahead of schedule.

“These plants are way ahead of where we want them to be. We’re going to have to take more out of this bank account than we anticipated,” Paul says.

The rapidly maturing plants will need to be cut sooner, making it difficult for Wishing Stone to keep enough product growing through the last week of January.

But, like most farmers, Paul recognizes he is at the mercy of forces he can’t control, so he must accept the vagaries of the changing climate. He is not worried. It will just take some planning.

Civic Agriculture Builds Urban Communities

By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI News staff

PROVIDENCE — For nearly two decades urban farmer Josh Slotnick has been growing food to build community. Of course, when he started cultivating fruits and vegetables on 2 acres in a city once known as “The Pit,” he had no idea that something more than food would sprout.

He thought the community garden going in next to a trailer park that housed low-income families would help feed those in need and contribute to the local economy. It did both. But, more importantly, he said the garden has engaged those living in the former paper mill city.

“We were growing food beyond the need for food,” Slotnick said. “That was just icing on the cake. Important icing. But civic agriculture was the compelling part of it. The pretty garden and the collaboration it takes to maintain is why people volunteer. It’s why they get involved.”

Kathryn De Master, a visiting assistant professor at the Brown University Center for Environmental Studies, introduced her fellow Montanan during a Nov. 29 lunchtime talk. She said Missoula, a city of about 80,000 in western Montana, once “smelled” and had “worse smog than Los Angeles.” Today, she said, The Pit is known as the “Garden City.”

“Missoula is a great story about what environmental legislation can do,” she said. “Urban agriculture was a big part of the transformation, and Josh was at the forefront.”

Slotnick, a lecturer in the Environmental Studies program at the University of Montana and co-founder of the nonprofit Garden City Harvest, gave a presentation entitled “Hunger for Community: Why Civic Agriculture Works.” He spoke for an hour about the rationale for participating in local food systems in light of the specific qualities of experience they afford.

“Civic agriculture not only pushes a handful of our evolutionary buttons, but may well be a pre-requisite for a more sustainable future,” he said.

Garden City Harvest is now a 10-acre operation that engages the local population in myriad ways, from internships, school garden curriculum, farm field trips and summer camps to providing 15-by-15 foot community garden plots to working with teenagers in the area’s Youth Drug Court and Youth Homes program.

The work Garden City Harvest does is similar to the services provided here by Southside Community Land Trust and New Urban Farmers. Organizations like these have created a movement nationwide and one that you can measure by the amount of food they produce, according to Slotnick.

“Every city in America has these types of farms,” he said. “Cleveland and Detroit have homesteading — $500 for a piece of land.”

While urban farms grow food, improve soil quality and shrink carbon footprints— all invaluable community assets — Slotnick said he has seen firsthand what these types of operations truly create. They cause people, he said, to become “attached to each other and where they live.”

Slotnick shared stories of college students timidly beginning summer internships and referring to the farm’s tools and produce as "his." In a few weeks, he said, that pronoun changes to "our," and the students start working together as a tribe.

“They become part of a high-functioning group,” he said. “Everyone has a job to do and they count on each other. They form an allegiance with the people they are working with and with the ground under their feet.”

He said he has watched those who work and volunteer at Garden City Harvest gain a better sense of sustainability. “They develop a deep sense of ownership and go to great lengths to maintain the farm.”

Slotnick said it is in our DNA to behave sustainably, but we got too good at meeting our needs. Small groups stopped growing their food, building their homes and clothing their children. Local cooperation became global corporations.

He’s not calling for a return to the 1920s, but Slotnick believes more constructive cooperation would foster more productive attachment to people and place.

Urban/civic agriculture helps nurture that sense of community. It teaches the importance of saving native seeds and eating healthy, local food, and it strengthens sustainable practices.

Cranberries Can't Hide From Climate Change

By SARAH SCHUMANN/ecoRI News contributor

Stephen Ashley is a third-generation cranberry grower. (Sarah Schumann/ecoRI News)TIVERTON and FREETOWN, Mass. — Crimson in color and tart on the tongue, cranberries add both sustenance and symbolism to the Thanksgiving table. As with turkey, pumpkin and other hallmarks of America’s feast day, their historical significance stems from their role in fortifying early New Englanders against the harsh winters once common in this region. But although cranberries remain a Thanksgiving staple, the cold winters that gave rise to this custom are fast becoming a thing of yesteryear.

As warmer winters and less predictable weather patterns become the norm, local cranberry growers are beginning to analyze what climate change means for this classic New England industry.

“It’s changed a lot in thirty years,” said Stephen Ashley, a third-generation cranberry grower and owner of 18 acres of bogs at Puddingstone Farms in Freetown. “You’re irrigating a lot more. You’re frost-protecting a lot more. Now it’s harder, because the weather changes so much now.”

Since cranberries must be cultivated under a specific set of growing conditions, they may be particularly sensitive to the effects of climate change. Native to the lowlands of the region’s glacier-pockmarked landscape, cranberry plants thrive in acid peat soils and require an abundant supply of fresh water and sand.

But most importantly, Ashley said, they require a pronounced and consistent seasonal pattern. “That’s why you can’t grow cranberries around the world. They need winter, spring, summer and fall,” he said.

Last winter’s warm temperatures raised questions about whether cranberry vines, which are perennial, experienced their requisite dormant period. According to extension worker Frank Caruso of the University of Massachusetts Cranberry Station, warm temperatures forced cranberry growers to cut short the usual winter treatment of flooding bogs with water in order to protect vines from wind and frost.

Then last March many growers were taken by surprise when record-breaking 80-degree temperatures plummeted to the 20s. Cranberry vines that had started to bud ahead of schedule were suddenly at risk of freezing, and growers rushed to flood their bogs with water to prevent the abrupt change in weather from ruining a season’s crop.

“In my thirty years, I hadn’t experienced that. I didn’t know how to deal with it,” Ashley said.

Cranberry cultivation requires constant vigilance. Not only must growers intermittently flood their bogs during cool months to protect vines from freezing temperatures and strong winds; in summer, they must irrigate their bogs to protect berries from scalding. This summer’s seven-week drought meant that many growers had to spend more time and money on irrigating their bogs, Caruso said. Some growers have been digging their pond holes deeper in recent years, according to Ashley, to compensate for the increased need for irrigation water.

The warm temperatures that lingered into the fall this year also meant a delay in the cranberry ripening process. Cranberries don’t begin to ripen until nights become cool, and growers, who are paid according to the ripeness of their berries, put off the harvest as long as possible. The result was a compressed harvest season, which can mean higher expenses for growers.

“This year was altogether different,” said Lucien Lebreux, owner of 12 acres of bogs at Middle Acres Farm in Tiverton.

The lack of ice during recent winters also has meant a pause to the traditional practice of ice-sanding bogs. Cranberry vines require a fresh coat of sand every three to five years to maintain healthy roots and promote stem growth. Typically, growers apply sand by driving sand-spreading machines over their frozen bogs. This practice requires a solid sheet of ice, and because of warming winters, it has now been six years since many local growers have been able to ice-sand.

“No ice. We haven’t sanded in I don’t know how long,” Lebreux said. “We’re going to have to drive on the vines, or use a boat to sand.” In contrast, he added, “When I was a kid, you used to go skating on the swamps at Thanksgiving.”

Warmer winter temperatures also are implicated in a growing incidence of insect pests. Populations of the winter moth, which eats the buds and flowers of the cranberry plants, have been on the rise during the past 15 years. No longer subject to a winter die-off, winter moths are now able to survive year-round.

More frequent storms resulting from higher sea-surface temperatures may pose an additional risk to cranberry farms. Last summer, hale storms damaged cranberry vines, causing some growers to lose as much as half of their crop, Ashley said. This fall, Hurricane Sandy flooded several seaside bogs with salt water, causing chemical stress to the vines, according to Caruso.

“The thing about a cranberry grower is that the weather is your boss,” said Ashley, who checks the weather forecast several times a day. “You work for Mother Nature. I watch all of the weather channels, and I plan my work around that.”

Although they are sensitive to weather extremes, cranberries may be better poised than some other crops to adjust to the effects of climate change. “They’re more capable of coping, because they’re a native plant to this area,” Caruso said. “That helps them adapt.”

Despite changes in the weather, some things remain the same. One of those is cranberry growers’ dedication to maintaining their livelihoods and passing down their traditions to future generations.

“It sure beats working in some sweatshop somewhere,” said Ashley, who is teaching his young grandsons to tend the bogs. “It gets into you, because you’re outside, you’re in the rain, you’re in the snow. It’s in your blood.”

Urban Farmer Helping Give Bees a Chance

By SOPHIE DUNCAN/ecoRI News college intern

A backyard beehive doesn’t need much room. This swarming hive soon settled into its new home.BLACKSTONE. Mass. — Natural pollinators such as honeybees are responsible for a third of the food we eat — the equivalent to one daily meal. This essential relationship between pollinators and people makes the recent decline in the honeybee population particularly concerning.

As Chris Combs, beekeeper and founder of the organization Giving Bees a Chance!, explains: “If you like food then you need bees to pollinate your food and flowers.” In addition to being efficient pollinators and spurring crop growth, honeybees also produce wax and, of course, honey.

Even with about 40,000 bees, Combs describes himself as a “backyard beekeeper.” Seven years ago, inspired by a neighbor’s hives, he enrolled in a beekeeping course. Combs started with two hives and two packages, each containing 10,000 bees, and cared for them according to the commercial practices he was taught.

Commercial practices involve harvesting honey both in the fall and spring, which requires beekeepers to substitute sugar syrup for honey, the bee’s natural food source. As the urban farmer — he works for Pawtucket-based New Urban Farmers — learned more about healthy beekeeping practices, he transitioned to only harvesting the surplus honey available in the spring.

“In the summer you can pick a piece of fruit so you don’t need to open a can of peas (until winter … similarly) bees put their honey away for winter for when they can’t collect their honey (from plants),” Combs says.

It didn’t make sense to Combs to introduce an inferior substance to the hive — he describes sugar syrup as the “bee equivalent to McDonalds — when the bees already thrived on their own high-quality, self-produced food. Having access to honey during the winter increases the well being of the hive, he said.

“Don’t bring anything into the hive that the bees wouldn’t bring in themselves,” Combs says. “It’s not about (harvesting) the honey but keeping the bees healthy.”

Still, Combs harvests about 100 pounds of honey from each of his hives.

The pole-vaulting coach for the Tufts University track and field team is committed to increasing the number of small-scale beekeepers and introducing bees to new areas. As a non-commercial beekeeper, Combs understands the challenges aspiring beekeepers face. Among the many services Giving Bees a Chance! provides, it eases the transition from the classroom to building a hive at home.

Managing a backyard beehive is a realistic possibility for many people, Combs says. The hive itself only requires a 4-feet-by-4-feet area consisting of the physical structure, which includes the hive, a hive stand, a bottom board with a screen and an opening to allow the bees to come and go freely. Within the hive there is a brood box containing several frames, upon which the bees build their honeycomb.

Traditionally, these frames come with pre-made wax, but Combs sees no need to introduce a foreign substance when the bees will produce their own. “They have been (successfully) doing it a lot longer than we have,” he says. Combs removes the backing from these frames, replacing it with popsicle sticks on which the bees create their own wax backing.

Beginning beekeepers will generally not see honey until the second year, according to Combs, because new hives spend the first year building wax. However, once the frames are full of honey, the wax cap over the honey must be removed and the honey extracted.

Giving Bees a Chance! offers extraction services to enable beekeepers without extraction equipment to enjoy their honey. The wax can be saved and used for candle making.

As a gardener, urban farmer and beekeeper Combs is attuned to the relationship between both his garden and his bees. Combs and his neighbors have noticed increased productivity in their gardens, and the flavor of the honey reflects the plants the bees pollinated that season. Combs describes spring honey as having a “fruity, wildflower flower” flavor, and fall honey as more “earthy.”

Using agricultural chemicals in home gardens impacts bee health, so Combs opts for chemical-free gardening. Because of the danger of chemicals to hives, according to Combs, increasing the number of beekeepers will result in a widespread “commitment to being more natural.”  Honeybees pollinate within a 3- to 5-mile radius of their hive, so it is particularly important that people, not just beekeepers, avoid using chemicals in their garden, Combs says.

With Giving Bees a Chance!, Combs hopes to inspire local action in response to the global disruption of bee populations. Each new beekeeper represents an entire community benefited by the bees’ presence, he says. Combs has taken the initiative to remind people of the impact that bees have in their gardens and on their plates.

“If people want to eat gruel, ignore the bees,” he says.

For more information about Giving Bees a Chance! call 774-278-0786 or send an e-mail to chriscombs@comcast.net.