Masthead from old e-newsletter winter
News & Events January 2012
 
Berkshire Grown envisions a community where healthy farms define the open landscape, where a wide diversity of fresh, seasonal food and flowers continue to be readily available to everyone, and where we celebrate our agricultural bounty by buying from our neighboring family farms and savoring their distinctive Berkshire harvest.


apples at HFM 2011Berkshire Grown  online

Make a difference -- support local farms!  
 
Join Berkshire Grown here!



Photo of the Berkshire Grown Holiday Farmers' Market in Williamstown by Angela Cardinali

Project Native presents

"Climate Change:  global update & local impact"

 

Sunday, January 15, 2:00 pm

at the Spectrum Playhouse, 20 Franklin Street, Lee, MA

 

Free event open to the public

 

Frank LowensteinFrank Lowenstein, Director of Global Climate Adaptation for The Nature Conservancy, will give a talk on the latest international climate change negotiations and impacts on the Berkshires at the Spectrum Playhouse (former St. George's Church), in Lee, MA, Sunday, January 15 at 2:00 pm. 

 

 

Lowenstein recently returned from the 18th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa, where participating nations agreed to reduce their carbon emissions. But what does that really mean? The convention underscored the tension between industrialized nations whose economies generated most pollution in the past, and developing nations whose growth will generate most pollution in the future. 

 

The Berkshires are a long way from developing nations. How do these negotiations impact us?

 

Lowenstein will put global climate change policy and politics into local perspective, and share strategies for coping with disruptions in water cycles and extreme weather events.

 

Co-sponsored by Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT), Berkshire Grown, Berkshire Natural Resources Council, Green Berkshires, and The Nature Conservancy

 

For more information contact Karen Lyness LeBlanc, Project Native, (413) 274-3433, projectnative(at)verizon(dot)net.



 

NOFA/MASS Winter 2012: Growing Greens for the Winter Market Workshop Series   February and March, 2012    

 

Series Overview:  Systems for growing greens and storing roots during winter are great tools for maintaining year-round local food security, and enabling farmers to sell local and organic produce outside of the main growing season.This workshop series takes place at farms throughout Massachusetts doing commercial winter production. Read more here on NOFA/MASS website.  The first workshop:   

 

NOFA/MASS SIMPLE GIFTS FARMA) Simple Gifts Farm, 1089 N. Pleasant Street in N. Amherst, MA (Commercial Workshop) Saturday, February 4, 9am-12pm

 

- Instructor: Jeremy Barker-Plotkin is co-owner and veggie manager of Simple Gifts Farm. He has been growing greens through the winter since 2000 to extend the sales season and keep good employees around.

  

The cost of all workshops is $30, with discounts for NOFA membership and early registration (14 days before the workshop).  More Details Here 

  • Pre-registration is required unless arranged by phone with the organizer, Ben Grosscup, cell: 413-658-5374.

 The fourth workshop will be in the Berkshires at Indian Line Farm, 57 Jug End Road, South Egremont, MA (Commercial Workshop) Saturday, February 25, 9am-12pm

 

Contact: Ben Grosscup, 413-658-5374. By email, ben.grosscup(at)nofamass(dot)org; put "Winter Growing" in subject. 

 Sweet Brook Farm Hosts a Yarn Tasting
Thursday, Jan 26 5:30 - 7 pm.

Please RSVP to 413-884-4246 

Huh??  This is your chance to get your hands (not your mouth) on all the amazing alpaca yarns Sweet Brook Farmyarn available at Sweet Brook Farm -- Plymouth, Alpaca Yarn Co, Debbie Bliss, Louisa Harding, and more.  Bring a few sizes of needles or hooks and spend the evening trying out yarn, enjoying some wine and cheese, and perhaps planning your next project with a newly discovered alpaca yarn favorite. 
Registration is free, but please let them know you're coming by calling 413-884-4246. 
Sweet Brook Farm, 580 Oblong Road, Williamstown, MA 01267 USA 
WHAT WE'RE READING

"Yet Again, Organic Ag Proves Just as Productive as Chemical Ag" And better for farmers and the land.
By Tom Philpott  in Mother Jones

crop yields Leopold Center
Chart from the Leopold Center published by Mother Jones

"Back in 2000, an interviewer asked
Norman Borlaug, father of the "green revolution" of industrial farming that swept through Asia in the 1970s, what he thought of the idea that organic agriculture could feed the world. The Nobel laureate became apoplectic.... 
 
"...And yet, Borlaug was evidently wrong. It turns out, when you actually compare chemical-intensive and organic farming in the field, organic proves just as productive in terms of gross yield-and brings many other advantages to the table as well. The Rodale Institute's test plots in Pennsylvania have been demonstrating this point for years...."

READ DEBATE  in MOTHER JONES 
 What We're Reading

NY TIMES: "Organic Agriculture May Be Outgrowing Its Ideals" by ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

 

tomatoes"Del Cabo Cooperative, a supplier here for Trader Joe's and Fairway, is sending more than seven and a half tons of tomatoes and basil every day to the United States by truck and plane to sate the American demand for organic produce year-round....

 

"People are now buying from a global commodity market, and they have to be skeptical even when the label says 'organic' - that doesn't tell people all they need to know," said Frederick L. Kirschenmann, a distinguished fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. He said some large farms that have qualified as organic employed environmentally damaging practices, like planting only one crop, which is bad for soil health, or overtaxing local freshwater supplies....  Read more in the NY TIMES HERE

 

   

What We're Watching

  

 

Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan  

 

"Michael Pollan On 'Real Food' vs. 'Edible, Food-Like Substances'

on Huffington Post here 

 

"Environmental and food advocate Michael Pollan has the answer to being healthy: eat food, not too much and more plants than meat.

In the above video, he talks about the difficulty of embracing these practices in a modern, western society, because most of what we are served is what he calls "edible, food-like substances."

Edible Education  
   


If you missed "Edible Education:
The Rise and Future of the Food Movement," you can hear/see the lectures online, click here

Thanks to Atlantic(dot) com it is possible to see and hear Peter Sellars, Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan, Ann Cooper, Raj Patel, Robert Lustig, Alice Waters & others talking provocatively about food et. al.


 

Quick Bites



 

Berkshire Grown Online Farmers' Marketplace


  

Maggie's Round Cheese from Cricket CreekBerkshire Grown created a Facebook page called Berkshire Grown Online Farmers' Marketplace - a central place for Berkshire Grown members to congregate and talk supply and demand. 



 

Self-propelled by Berkshire Grown members, the page benefits those of you who choose to participate in it. Farmers and food producers can post what they have available, and chefs and community members can comment or contact suppliers directly with requests for product or more information.   

Thanks to Chris Blair for the photo of Cricket Creek Farm's Maggie's Round Cheese.  

Berkshire Grown offers this as a networking service and bears no responsibility for transactions.

 

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MASSACHUSETTS GROWN...and FRESHER!  

  

 

 If you are traveling through Massachusetts check out this map, support our local farmers throughout the state!

 


CHECK OUT MAP-O-LICIOUS FOR FRESH
LOCAL EGGS, CHEESE, MEAT & MORE
  



BG logoStay In touch!
Berkshire Grown's e-newsletter will come out once  a month.  Please send information to [email protected], thanks!
Join Berkshire Grown here .   
Barbara Zheutlin, Director
Sheryl Lechner, Outreach Coordinator
413-528-0041