Location(s)

Global warming, peak-oil, water shortages, pollution, deforestation, desertification — the list of environmental challenges we face can be overwhelming. Thankfully, we have the technology, knowledge, and resources to overcome these problems, but we must act quickly to turn things around!

Join Mercy For Animals for an eco-friendly vegan dinner and a solutions-oriented presentation on what you can do to create a sustainable world.

For more information about this event, send an e-mail to info@mercyforanimals.org.

Location(s)

The demand for organic food keeps growing, and an upcoming workshop will share with Ohio farmers how they can start to profit from it.

“Organics 101: An Introduction to Organic Crop Production,” sponsored by the Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association (OEFFA) and by Ohio State University’s Organic Food and Farming Education and Research (OFFER) Program, runs from 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. on Thursday, March 20, at the university’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC), 1680 Madison Ave.

Featured will be organic farmers and OFFER researchers together presenting the latest and best recommendations on transitioning to organic production.

Marketing organic crops, the economics of organic production, the organic certification process, organic certification standards and finding approved production inputs will be among the topics. So will crop rotations, pest management and soil biology.

The growing demand for organic food presents a great opportunity for Ohio farmers, workshop organizers say.

Any Ohio farmer who is looking for information on organic crop production is encouraged to attend, they add.

Registration costs $25 per person if received by March 10 and $30 per person after March 10. Lunch is included.

To register, send your name, address, telephone number (optional), e-mail address (optional) and payment to Kathy Bielek, 201 Thorne Hall, OFFER, OARDC, 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster, OH 44691. Make checks payable to OSU/OFFER.

For more information, contact (330) 202-3528 or bielek.4@osu.edu or go to www.oeffa.org.

Location(s)

Summer Farm & Science School at Crown Point Farm and Education Center, 3220 Ira Road in Bath, Township. Offers children 6-8 and 9-11 the opportunity to investigate the interactions of people, plants and animals in the farm community. Children will become members of Crown Point's diverse community engaging in science, art, math, music, language arts and games to develop critical thinking and team-building skills.

Six one-week day sessions: June 16-20, June 23-27, July 7-11, July 14-18, July 21-25 and July 28-August 1.

Fee is $175 per week. Partial scholarships are available for families with special financial needs on first-come basis.

Register by May 15. For more information call (330) 668-8992, ext. 101, or visit www.crownpt.org.

Location(s)

29th annual conference of the Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association, the state's largest conference on sustainable food and organic farming.

Registration information.

One of the most insightful critics of the American food system is Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma. In his latest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, Pollan provides the following 12 steps for healthy eating:

• Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
• Avoid foods containing ingredients you can't pronounce.
• Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot.
• Avoid food products that carry health claims.
• Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle.
• Better yet, buy food somewhere else: the farmer's market or CSA (community supported agriculture program).
• Pay more, eat less.
• Eat a wide diversity of species.
• Eat food from animals that eat grass.
• Cook and, if you can, grow some of your own food.
• Eat meals and eat them only at tables.
• Eat deliberately, wth other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure.

Location(s)

Ever drive by vacant lots in your neighborhood and dream of starting your own business growing healthy food for Cleveland? Come to an information session and learn more about urban agriculture and growing food in the city! OSU Extension will be offering the Market Garden Training Program in January 2008. This entrepreneurial training program provides a foundation in urban agriculture, business development and marketing to help area residents start their own agricultural enterprises in Cleveland. The program meets one evening a week for twelve weeks and is taught by a variety of professionals in the field including researchers and faculty from Ohio State University Extension, Ohio Farmers Union, small farmers, urban growers, and local chefs. This session will provide more about the program and examples of successful market garden enterprises in Cleveland. For more information or to RSVP please call OSU Extension at 216-429-8238.

The Kamm’s Corners Farmers Market (KCFM) will be coming to a close this Sunday, October 21st, 2007.  However, many exciting events and appearances are planned for the day.  John Kolar from Thyme The Restaurant will be the guest celebrity chef and do a cooking demonstration beginning at 11:00 a.m.  Local favorites Brand New Hat will entertain the crowd from 11:30 a.m.- 2:00 p.m. with their musical talents, while the West Park/Fairview YMCA will do a group cycling demonstration beginning around 10:30 a.m.  Family-friendly horse–drawn wagon rides, offered monthly throughout the market season, will also be available one last time this market season by YesterYear Horse & Carriage.

The Kamm’s Corners Farmers Market, a unique farmers market, features weekly health and wellness education, live entertainment, and cooking demonstrations, as well as fresh, local food.  The market is open every Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. through October 21st and is conveniently located off Lorain Avenue at West 168th Street (municipal lot behind Walgreens and Westpark Station).  It is free and open to the public. Come check it out before it’s over for the season! 

See www.kammscorners.com/farmersmarket.html for more information, an event schedule, and a photo gallery of previous weeks at the KCFM market.

On September 30th, the Kamm's Corners Farmers Market (KCFM) will host Mark Donahue of the Delaware North Companies (caterer to the Terrace Club) as its guest celebrity chef around 11:00 a.m. The Stokes Brothers, an inventive blues-rock trio will be perform live music, and staff from River's Edge will do a Tai Chi demonstration beginning around 10:30 a.m. The KCFM will also feature Sue & Bob Tischler of Yarn Knit by Sue who will demonstrate knitting and crocheting techniques around 1:00 p.m. 

The KCFM is a uniques farmers market that features weekly health and wellness education, live music entertainment, cooking demonstrations as well as fresh, local food.  The market is open every Sunday through October 21st from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and is conveniently located off Lorain Avenue at West 168th Street in the municipal parking lot behind Walgreens.  It is FREE and open to the public.
 

On September 23rd, the Kamm’s Corners Farmers Market (KCFM) presents Stino da Napoli (www.stinodanapoli.com) who will be the guest celebrity chef and prepare some Italian culinary favorites, beginning at 11:00 a.m.  Cats on Holiday, a band that plays American influenced roots, country, cajun and blues, will perform as the musical entertainment and Curves Ladies Fitness will also present a free wellness demonstration and be passing out membership literature.  The KCFM is a unique farmers market that features weekly health and wellness education, live entertainment, and cooking demonstrations, as well as fresh, local food.  The market is open every Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and is conveniently located off Lorain Avenue at West 168th Street (municipal lot behind Walgreens).  It is free and open to the public.  

Organic or local food: That's the question, but is there an answer? 

by Darwin Kelsey
Countryside Conservancy

The bad news is there is no single right answer. And that can easily lead to feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and frustration: I give up, forget it! Well don’t. We all can think our way to reasonable, practical, rules-of-thumb for deciding the issue of local vs. organic.

First though, let’s be clear that comparing local to organic is a classic apples to oranges exercise.

It could be worse, I suppose: We could be comparing apples and oranges to cucumbers and raw milk! And why not? I mean, really who’s satisfied these days with merely debating organic vs. local. Those are just two entrees from a much bigger menu:

So many choices. There is local, organic, post organic, beyond organic, naturally grown, real, authentic, ethical, sustainable free-range, grass-fed (& finished), humanely-raised, socially responsible, fair-traded, hormone & antibiotic free, GMO free….

And furthermore, let’s be clear that all of those are supposed to represent desirable and virtuous alternatives to what John Hightower colorfully calls “long-distance, bar-coded, tasteless, nutrition-free, corporate crap food.”

Those of us with lesser literacy skills usually just call this stuff conventional or industrial food – which, by the way, accounts for 96 percent to 98 percent of all the food consumed in America day in and day out, year in and year out. Conventional and industrial are catchall umbrella terms. They encompass not only, say, pretty looking heads of broccoli from California megafarms – they also include what Michael Pollan calls, “edible foodlike substances…which our grandmothers probably wouldn’t have recognized as food.”