February 28, 2010 by Sara Zoe.

We have a major website redesign underway (hurrah!) but in the meantime, if you’d like to get blog posts emailed to you, you can use this! You’ll get the posts emailed to you once a day on days there are posts (so days with no posts, no emails, days with 3 posts, 1 email). You can unsubscribe anytime, and just like our email newsletter, we’ll never share your info with anybody.

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February 23, 2010 by Sara Zoe.

Sustainable/Organic Agriculture Position

The New Hampshire Farm Museum in Milton, New Hampshire seeks a full time farmer/grower committed to sustainable/organic agriculture.  We are looking for someone with experience and education in the principles of sustainable, organic agriculture to establish this first year, a start-up market garden, care for our heritage breed farm animals and assist with our farm based educational programs.  The right person will be enthusiastic, a hard worker and have completed a minimum of one full season internship on an organic farm. This position in 2010 begins in April and runs through December and has the potential to be a one year renewable position if successful. We seek someone who can bring two acres under cultivation with volunteer support.  BA or Associates Degree required and relevant experience.  The NH Farm Museum offers free housing: a three room apartment in an historic farmhouse, including heat and electric for one person or a couple, no dogs permitted~Kitchen and bathroom are shared with resident intern.  This first year we can offer a base salary of $1000. per month, a farm share, and a share of the net profits from sales of farm products.  Please send: resume with cover letter and names of three references to:  Kathleen Shea, NH Farm Museum PO Box 644, Milton, NH 03851 or email the same to: info@farmmuseum.org

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February 15, 2010 by Sara Zoe.

Found via an email from the National Farmers’ Union comes a new tool from the USDA, putting all their statistical data goodness in one map. It’ll take me a bit of playing to become adept at using it, but there is so much to be fascinated by and pour over and delve into. For example, we can look at the number of vegetable acres harvested by county, and the sales of such directly to the public per county, and the at-home consumption of fruits and vegetables per county, and the number of farmers’ markets per capita, and and and! Health, exercise, SNAP program participation, access to food stores .. it doesn’t end! I’ll be excited to see how we can all make use of this data to address some of the concerns it raises -

Food Environment Atlas

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February 14, 2010 by Sara Zoe.

Local is still best because you can ask the farmer what their practices are, but for those times that buying milk/eggs/meat from the store happens, many of us reach for the certified organic option to have some sense of the practices of the growers. Until now, the certified organic label in regards to animals being outside on pasture only meant that the animals needed to have access to pasture, and didn’t quantify or qualify what that might mean. So updated rules in this arena are welcome:

• Animals must graze pasture during the grazing season, which must be at least 120 days per year;
• Animals must obtain a minimum of 30 percent dry matter intake from grazing pasture during the grazing season;
• Producers must have a pasture management plan and manage pasture as a crop to meet the feed requirements for the grazing animals and to protect soil and water quality; and,
• Livestock are exempt from the 30 percent dry matter intake requirements during the finish feeding period, not to exceed 120 days. Livestock must have access to pasture during the finishing phase.

More details from the USDA >

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February 6, 2010 by Sara Zoe.

From the good folks at ATTRA:

Take Action on Food Safety Legislation
While we all cheer this Administration’s emerging emphasis on local and regional food production, let s not forget that the Food Safety Modernization Act (S 510) now on its way to the Senate floor could erect a formidable barrier to those markets for many small and moderate sized farms. The Act would considerably ramp up FDA regulation on farms that even minimally process their crops and sell them to restaurants, food coops, groceries, schools or to wholesale markets. One of the best ideas for improving this legislation has been introduced by Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). The Stabenow Amendment is called the Growing Safe Food Act (S. 2758) and it would create a national food safety training and technical assistance program. If you value safe, local, and healthy food, please call your Senators and encourage them to co-sponsor the Growing Safe Food Act.
Related ATTRA Publication:   Food Safety Act Background and Resources

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January 30, 2010 by Sara Zoe.

 If you live in/near Newburyport and want to get more involved in the local food scene, Transition Newburyport is looking for you! From their website:

Seeking “Local Food” Visionaries

Are you troubled by what you learned about our nation’s food system from Food, Inc., King Corn, The Future of Food, or The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and wonder what you can do about it?  Concerned about the dependence of our industrialized agricultural system on fossil fuels for fertilizers, pesticides, farm machinery, food processing, storage and transport in the face of climate change and fossil fuel depletion?
New Eden Collaborative member, Transition Newburyport is seeking individuals interested in working together to create a vision and a pathway to the food system of the future for our community, to tackle the question of how we can move toward a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient food system that will not only make us more self-reliant but will also serve to strengthen our local economy.

Our local food system includes all the growers, producers, processors, distributors, retailers, restaurants, school food programs, food pantries and every food consumer — in other words, everyone. What is more basic and central to our everyday lives than food?
We’ll be exploring questions such as: Where does our food come from? Could Newburyport feed itself? If not, why not, and what can we do to stimulate local food production? Does everyone who wants to grow food in our community have access to the land to do it?

If you are interested, please email us at transition@transitionnewburyport.org. We’ll be scheduling a get together in February to begin discussing these questions. The meeting will, of course, involve good local food as well as good company.

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January 28, 2010 by Sara Zoe.

You’ll be hearing a lot about Seacoast Harvest from us in the coming months. We update it every year to make sure it is the most accurate guide to the farms, farmers’ markets, farm stands, and CSA’s of Rockingham, Strafford, and York counties. A dozen volunteers, including three fantastic interns!, got together the other evening to strategize and plan for this project.

Farmers - our first efforts to help update your listings should be in your email inboxes right now if you were listed in Seacoast Harvest last year. Please respond as soon as you can! If you weren’t listed last year but meet the criteria to be listed this year, you can email foodguide@seacoasteatlocal.org for more information. Listings are free, and we give Seacoast Harvest out for free!

So how do we make it go with all this free-ness? Support from a wide range of community members, both individual donations and sponsorships.  If you’d like to learn more about sponsorship, email jeff@seacoasteatlocal.org, or donate online via paypal:

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January 24, 2010 by Sara Zoe.

New Hampshire House Bill #1456  proposes to convene a committee of three House members and three Senators to: I. Study the use of pesticides, herbicides, and their alternatives in residential neighborhoods, school properties, playgrounds, and other places children congregate; II. Study the effects of a moratorium on the use of such pesticides and herbicides; III. Determine what areas and properties would be exempt from such a ban; and IV. Study any other issue related to a moratorium on the use of such pesticides and herbicides.

In addition to kids, bees would really benefit from reduced use of pesticides and herbicides on lawns. Bees love lawns - especially the clover and dandelions, as well as the wildflowers often found at the edge of lawns. Bees and other pollinators are in trouble, and the current thinking is that build up of pesticides, a product designed to harm insects, is greatly affecting them. Evidence shows weakening of their offspring physically and in mental/behavioral ways in particular.

You can show your support of New Hampshire House Bill #1456:

1.  Call or write your State Representative. Ask him or her to support NH HB #1456.  Visit the super-handy Who’s My Legislator? page for email address and phone numbers (phone calls are more effective)
2.  Write to Rep. Tara Sad, Chair, Env & Ag Cmte, 82 North Rd., Walpole, NH, 03608.
3.  Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper in support of HB #1456.
4.  Come to the State House Feb. 11th, 8:15 am to show support or appear before committee.

More information on the effects of pesticides/herbicides on children and ways to get involved can be found by contacting:  The LEAH Collective, Ellen Fine (603)236-8269/ellen_bfine@yahoo.com or NOFA NH (603)224-5022.

sent from Nature’s Wonders

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November 24, 2009 by Sara Zoe.

Senator Deb Reynolds, chair of the Milk Producers Emergency Relief Fund (MPERF) Board, invites legislators, farmers, conservationists and consumers to a public informational forum on the Keep Local Farms initiative. The forum will be held in Representatives Hall of the State House in Concord on Tuesday, December 8 at 10:00 am. Keep Local Farms is a new voluntary program that is a joint effort of New England dairy farmers and the six New England state departments of agriculture, with the goals of stabilizing New England’s dairy farms and ensuring residents of a continuing supply of fresh, locally produced milk and dairy products. The December 8^th forum will explain how the program works.

The forum is for anyone interested in New Hampshire’s milk supply and where it comes from, and where it will come from in the future. It is also for all those interested in maintaining the dairy farms that provide additional benefits of the scenic working landscape and rural character to New Hampshire communities, protect ground and surface water supplies, wildlife habitat and open lands enjoyed by outdoors enthusiasts of all kinds.

While the MPERF Board has determined that the state’s dairy industry is in need of assistance due to the depression of farm milk prices throughout 2009, (where farmers have been paid half of their costs to produce milk), the state’s revenue and budget shortfalls have left the fund established by the legislature in 2006 unfunded. The MPERF board is hosting this public forum on the Keep Local Farms initiative to raise awareness of the situation caused by the unprecedented, low milk market prices, and of this new opportunity to compensate farmers more fairly for what they produce and contribute to their communities and region.

The Keep Local Farms program connects consumers with dairy farmers through education and direct support. This is an opportunity for consumers who are interested in purchasing local foods to support local dairy farmers, their community and the local economy. For more information or to contribute, go to the website:  www.keeplocalfarms.org

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November 16, 2009 by Sara Zoe.

This is an update to a post we originally published for our first Holiday Farmers’ Market, in 2007! We hope to see you all this Saturday, November 21, 2009, for our 3rd pre-Thanksgiving Market, 10am-2pm at Wentworth Greenhouses in Rollinsford. More details at www.seacoasteatlocal.org/winterfarmersmarkets!

This Saturday’s Holiday Farmers’ Market is going to be very very awesome. There will be 40+ vendors there, selling everything from cheese to pies to honey to milk, a lot of meats and a lot more vegetables. With all that in mind, here are 10 tips for Saturday’s market:

1. Come with an open mind.  I often arrive at a farmers’ market hoping to find a particular ingredient, and when I do, I feel blessed. And, with a terrific list of what will be available on the website, I can strategically plan for some items I don’t want to miss. But sometimes things do sell out. And when that happens, I let serendipity be my guide - what is at the market is more than pleasantly surprising. Amazingly buttery potatoes alongside heirloom varieties of poultry, winter greens, and more.
2. Don’t like crowds? Don’t feel like you have to come at 10am! The farmers’ markets are open until 2pm, and after 11:30am or so, you’ll find it easier to park and maneuver around. We’ve moved into much larger spaces this year so we can all have more elbow room, but if you’ve got strollers or just want a more relaxed experience, coming a little later in the day might be a smart choice. While we can’t promise an item or two won’t sell out, our vendors are well prepared for a large number of customers and would love to have your business at whatever time you make it!
3. Bring plenty of cash. There is so much good quality delicious food to be had, you might surprise yourself! In addition to food for yourself, you may wish to buy a pie for a neighbor, or a jar of maple syrup or honey as a gift for your kid’s teacher. Some foods naturally add up, like big, delicious turkeys.
4. Bring your checkbook. While farmers and food producers usually cannot accept credit or debit cards, almost every one does accept checks. This is not to say the food at the farmers’ market is very expensive, but the credit card back up isn’t there, so give yourself the checkbook as a back up.
5. Bring bags. Sturdy bags, and plenty of them. Those very inexpensive woven bags you see everywhere these days are awesome because they have flat bottoms, meaning you can get a lot of stuff in there without it crushing everything else. All the vendors will have plastic shopping bags, but a. it is hard to carry a lot of those and b. less plastic = better. I do a 1, 2 combo and bring a bunch of grocery store plastic bags into which I pile anything loose that needs to be weighed. That way, onto the scale goes my already pre-used plastic bag instead of a new one, and then it can quickly and simply go into my bigger totes.
6. Bring a cooler. Or two. There will be an amazing variety of locally caught fish and locally raised meat for sale, which means providing your family with a healthier, more humane product that you can feel safe serving. Since meat is so easy to stock up on (it is all pre-frozen because of the nature of small farms and small processing facilities in New England), I will be making certain I get my share. But there will also be plenty of delicious cheese from Silvery Moon Creamery - cheddar, cheddar curd, maybe some mozzarella, Brie and Camembert, and much more as well as fresh Jersey milk from Brookford Farm. Frozen meat turns into the ice cubes for the milk and cheese, et voila!
7. Take trips to the car. The foods of fall can be heavy. Potatoes, onions, and squashes, frozen cuts of meat, jars of honey. You can make as many trips to the car to drop off heavy things as you want.
8. Give yourself time to scope everything out. This is a big market! There is a lot to see and a lot to buy. Very special and particularly coveted things you might want to snap up on sight, but allow yourself time to make sure you didn’t miss anything on the first pass.
9. Give yourself time to relax. We have live music and a kids table where your youngsters can do a free craft, so grab a hot drink and a snack, and stick around for awhile.
10. Give yourself a pat on the back. Yes, -you- know the food at farmers’ markets is more delicious, more flavorful, and much much fresher, so if those are the only reasons you shop at farmers’ markets that’s more than ok. But buying local food is also a political act, an environmental statement, and a social contract - it’s saying that you care about your neighbors, your community, the health of your family and the environment alike. You are doing great things when you shop at farmers’ markets, take credit for it!

For directions, a list of vendors, and a list of products, visit Seacoast Eat Local’s Holiday Farmers’ Market webpage.

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