tag:www.naturalawakenings.com,2005:/categories/green-living?page=8Green Living Green Living | Natural Awakenings Magazine Page 8Healthy Living Healthy Planet2022-05-02T16:50:08-04:00urn:uuid:01c22adc-eeb9-4c08-b6f2-9c4e31ad55662019-08-16T00:21:38-04:002022-05-02T16:50:08-04:00Eco-Camping: Keeping It Earth-Friendly2019-08-16 00:21:34 -0400Anonymous<p><span class="dropcap">A</span>ugust is prime time for camping out in the woods or at a music festival. Communing with nature or enjoying the beat outdoors for extended periods can stress the environment—but with proper planning, it doesn’t have to.</p>
<p>The Association of Independent Festivals has launched its <a href="https://www.treehugger.com/culture/festival-goers-are-told-stop-abandoning-tents.html">Take Your Tent Home campaign</a> in the UK, according to <a href="https://www.treehugger.com/">TreeHugger</a>. The group is urging concertgoers to not discard their tents at venues and retailers to stop marketing camping gear as intended for single-use; festival organizers also have been asked to eliminate single-use cups, bottles and straws.</p>
<p>In America, <a href="https://www.mindbodygreen.com/">mindbodygreen</a> reports that carbon credits are being offered to help offset trips to and from Lollapalooza, in Chicago, from August 1 to 4. Pickathon, taking place on the same days outside Portland, Oregon, will have a free bike parking lot, as well as a dedicated shuttle for cars, plus no single-use serving ware.</p>
<p><a href="http://chasinggreen.org/">Chasing Green</a> advises campers to look for tents and related products made with recycled material and natural fibers like hemp, cotton, coconut husks and bamboo. Marmot, Lafuma, Sierra Designs and The North Face all use recycled materials in making their tents, including coconut shells, polyester, water bottles, garment fabrics and factory yarn waste.</p>
<p>The website also suggests carpooling with family and friends, choosing a site that’s closer to home and packing light to reduce weight in the car, thus improving mileage. Also, if we bring trash into a campsite where there are no receptacles, leave with it. Don’t burn it in the fire, as that contributes to air pollution; instead, pack it up and dispose of it properly at home. Set up a method for collecting rainwater to use to wash dishes.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/">EcoWatch</a> recommends bringing unbreakable, washable plates, cups, utensils and napkins, a small basin or bucket, sponge and biodegradable soap, and a bag to store items that are too dirty to reuse. Stock up on batteries to power lights and lanterns or use solar power with a LuminAID light lamp. Follow the “leave no trace” motto: no litter, smoldering fire pits, ripped-up grass, crushed bushes or repositioned boulders. Stay on marked trails, never pick plants, flowers or berries, and never harm or disturb wildlife.</p>
<p class="fineprint"><br>
<em>This article appears in the August 2019 issue of </em>Natural Awakenings.</p>
<hr /><p><small>Original article published at <a href="www.naturalawakenings.com">Natural Awakenings National</a></small></p>urn:uuid:2fdac7ed-dee6-4fc3-b3d2-f8a6b2d56bc72019-08-16T00:19:19-04:002019-08-23T12:46:30-04:00Floating Solar: Catching Some Rays on the Water2019-08-16 00:19:16 -0400Anonymous<p><span class="dropcap">S</span>olar panels currently generate only about 1 percent of our nation’s energy needs, but new research from the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory shows that installation of “floatovoltaics”—floating, electricity-generating photovoltaic panels—on only one-fourth of our manmade reservoirs would generate about 10 percent of U.S. energy needs without taking up valuable real estate. Floatovoltaics cost less to install than traditional, land-based solar panels because there’s no need to clear land or treat soil, and research shows that the natural cooling effect of the water below can boost the solar panels’ power production by up to 22 percent. Of the approximately 100 current floatovoltaic installations, only seven are in the U.S., mostly at wineries in California and water treatment facilities. About 80 percent are in Japan, where limited land and roof space make water-based solar panels especially suitable.</p>
<p class="fineprint"><br>
<em>This article appears in the August 2019 issue of </em>Natural Awakenings.</p>
<hr /><p><small>Original article published at <a href="www.naturalawakenings.com">Natural Awakenings National</a></small></p>urn:uuid:03485f95-adff-4522-87db-f088724510d92019-08-16T00:18:51-04:002022-05-02T16:50:24-04:00Bagging It: New York State Bans Plastic Bags2019-08-16 00:18:48 -0400Anonymous<p><span class="dropcap">O</span>n Earth Day, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags in retail stores that goes into effect next March. It’s estimated that New York uses 23 billion plastic bags every year, with 50 percent ending up in landfills and around cities and waterways. New York is the third state in which plastic bags are illegal, after California and Hawaii.</p>
<p class="fineprint"><br>
<em>This article appears in the August 2019 issue of </em>Natural Awakenings.</p>
<hr /><p><small>Original article published at <a href="www.naturalawakenings.com">Natural Awakenings National</a></small></p>urn:uuid:9f019ba2-3e28-41a6-8651-6857886619a62019-08-16T00:12:10-04:002022-05-02T16:50:28-04:00Beyond Sustainability: Regenerative Agriculture Takes Aim at Climate Change2019-08-16 00:12:07 -0400Yvette C. Hammett<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>ost people have never heard of regenerative agriculture, but there’s plenty of talk about it in the scientific and farming communities, along with a growing consensus that regeneration is a desirable step beyond sustainability.</p>
<p>Those that are laser-focused on clean food and a better environment believe regenerative agriculture will not only result in healthier food, but could become a significant factor in reversing the dangerous effects of manmade climate change. This centers on the idea that healthy soils anchor a healthy planet: They contain more carbon than all above-ground vegetation and regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.</p>
<p>“We have taken soils for granted for a long time. Nevertheless, soils are the foundation of food production and food security, supplying plants with nutrients, water and support for their roots,” according to the study “Status of the World’s Soil Resources,” by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. Most of the world’s soil resources, which also function as the planet’s largest water filter, are in fair, poor or very poor condition, the report states.</p>
<p>Tilling, erosion and chemicals all play significant roles in soil degradation. Regenerative agriculture seeks to reverse that trend by focusing on inexpensive organic methods that minimize soil disturbance and feed its microbial diversity with the application of compost and compost teas. Cover crops, crop and livestock rotation and multistory agroforestry are all part of a whole-farm design that’s intended to rebuild the quantity and quality of topsoil, as well as increase biodiversity and watershed function.</p>
<p class="pullquote">In the U.S., we are depleting our topsoil 10 times faster than we are replenishing it. We only have 60 years of farmable topsoil remaining.<br>
~Diana Martin</p>
<p>“True regenerative organic agriculture can improve the environment, the communities, the economy, even the human spirit,” says Diana Martin, director of communications for the Rodale Institute, in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. Rodale, a leader in the organic movement, has been carrying the global torch for regenerative agriculture since the 1970s, when Bob Rodale, son of the institute’s founder, first began talking about it. “He said sustainability isn’t good enough. In the U.S., we are depleting our topsoil 10 times faster than we are replenishing it. We only have 60 years of farmable topsoil remaining,” says Martin.</p>
<p>The institute is working with corporate brands in conducting a pilot project on farms around the world to certify food as regenerative organic. It has three pillars that were created with the help of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program: soil health; animal welfare; and social justice, the latter because people want to know that workers are being treated fairly, Martin says.</p>
<p>“In some ways, we felt the organic program could do more, so we introduced the regenerative organic certification. It is a new, high-bar label that is very holistic,” says Jeff Moyer, an expert in organic agriculture and the executive director at the Rodale Institute. The pilot phase involves 21 farms with connections to big brands like Patagonia, Lotus Foods and Dr. Bronner’s. “We needed relationships with brands to make this a reality,” Moyer says. Product should be rolling out by this fall.</p>
<p></p><div class="image-with-caption image-align-right">
<img alt="Romolo Tavani/Shutterstock.com" src="//cdn0.locable.com/uploads/resource/file/574120/soil-farming-environment.jpg"><div class="small">Romolo Tavani/Shutterstock.com</div>
</div>“There’s kind of a broad umbrella of things going on,” says Bruce Branham, a crop sciences professor with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “No-till farming certainly is a small step toward regenerative ag, because every time we till the soil, we essentially expose a lot of the carbon dioxide, which burns off carbon.”
<p>Cover crops can be planted right after harvesting a cash crop to help regenerate the soil, adding nitrogen and organic matter, he says. “It is a long-term benefit, so a lot of farmers are hesitant. It takes a while to improve soil fertility through cover crop use.” It doesn’t cost much, but for a corn or soybean farmer making almost no money right now, every expense matters. “The real things we are working on are more toward different cropping systems,” he says, in which farmers are growing perennial tree crops that produce nuts and fruits, absorb carbon and don’t require replanting or tilling.</p>
<p>There’s considerable interest in regenerative organic agriculture in Idaho, as many farmers there have already adopted no-till practices, says Sanford Eigenbrode, a professor at the University of Idaho, who specializes in entomology, plant pathology and nematology. Farmers want to try to improve retention of soil carbon to both stabilize soils and improve long-term productivity, he says. “There are economic and environmental advantages.”</p>
<p> <br>
<em>Yvette C. Hammett is an environmental writer based in Valrico, Florida. She can be contacted at YvetteHammett28@hotmail.com.</em></p>
<p class="fineprint"><br>
<em>This article appears in the August 2019 issue of </em>Natural Awakenings.</p>
<hr /><p><small>Original article published at <a href="www.naturalawakenings.com">Natural Awakenings National</a></small></p>urn:uuid:73ffaa4c-ef02-4243-9f6f-8b0fbbb35a4f2019-08-16T00:54:13-04:002020-05-06T12:29:17-04:00Help For Home Gardeners: Extension Agents at Your Service2019-06-28 14:23:00 -0400Yvette C. Hammett<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>any home gardeners readily list flies, wasps and beetles among the “pests” in their gardens. However, many of these are actually pollinators that help boost production of fruits and vegetables; others are beneficial insects that keep the real plant-killers at bay. A quick call to the local cooperative extension service can help sort out friend from foe—and that’s just the beginning of what this valuable, underutilized resource can offer.</p>
<p>Each year, millions in federal taxpayer dollars help fund county agricultural extension programs administered through the 108 colleges and universities that comprise the nation’s land grant university system. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which supplies the money, also helps fund science-based research meant to reach not only farmers, but home gardeners seeking advice on best practices.</p>
<p>The USDA is trying to do a better job of raising public awareness of assistance that’s readily available, free of charge, especially now that it’s getting more funding.</p>
<h3>Organic on the Rise</h3>
<p>“The good news is that the 2018 Farm Bill provided increases for many of our programs, including the organic agriculture research and extension initiative program for which we received significant funding,” says Mathieu Ngouajio, program leader for the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.</p>
<p>The USDA is eager to see the connections their constituents are making with the research. “We want to identify the needs of organic gardeners, and the best way to meet those needs to get our research into their hands,” Ngouajio says.</p>
<p>County extension agents are on the front lines of this effort, offering low- or no-cost soil testing, handbooks on a variety of local gardening topics and workshops on everything from making rain barrels and creating rain gardens to implementing eco-friendly pest control, cultivating native plants and employing best practices for organic gardening. Master gardeners that volunteer their expertise are central to supporting extension outreach activities.</p>
<p>“We would love more business from the public,” says Weston Miller, an associate professor with Oregon State University’s extension service. “The public service of the master gardener program is to answer questions,” including what and when to plant and how much irrigation is required.</p>
<p>In Oregon, there are 3,500 master gardeners, with 650 volunteers in Portland alone. “We train master gardeners in how to use our resources and interpret the research to the public,” Miller says.</p>
<p>“There are trained volunteers in pretty much every county in the country ready and willing to answer any gardening question,” Miller says. For example, a new organic gardener might not know the correct soil amendments to use or how to start a composting pile to supplement the soil in an organic garden.</p>
<p class="pullquote">The good news is that the 2018 Farm Bill provided increases for many of our programs, including an organic program for which we received significant funding.<br>
~Mathieu Ngouajio</p>
<p>There is also a nationwide network called <a href="https://www.usda.gov/ask-expert">Ask the Expert</a> and questions will automatically go to an extension staff person or master gardener in the area where the inquiring gardener lives.</p>
<h3>Reducing Confusion</h3>
<p>Many of those getting into organic gardening might feel confused as to what connotes organic, Miller says. “Organic gardening is using a naturally formed material for fertilizer and pesticide, from plant, animal or mineral sources.”</p>
<p>The biggest area of confusion is that many people think organic means pesticide-free. But that is not always true. There is organic pest control, Miller says. “In terms of gardening, there are certified organic products you can use and still be organic.” One thing to look for on a label is the seal of the Organic Materials Review Institute, which indicates the product is suitable for organic gardening.</p>
<p>However, there aren’t many good options for weed management, he adds. “You have to do weeding by hand or use an herbicide that isn’t organic.”</p>
<p>Another issue that extension programs can help with is making sure organic gardeners receive only scientifically researched information, says Nicole Pinson, an urban horticulture agent with the Hillsborough County Extension Service, in Tampa, Florida.</p>
<p>“Gardening information is available on websites and on social media. Some information that pops up is not research-based, or they are selling a product and are not unbiased,” Pinson says. “We generally stick to recommendations we have been able to vet through research. When we make a recommendation, we give folks all of the options of what they can do.” </p>
<p><br>
<em>Visit <a href="https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/extension-search">Gardening Know How to find a nearby extension office</a>.</em></p>
<p><br>
<em>Yvette C. Hammett is an environmental writer based in Valrico, Florida. She can be contacted at YvetteHammett28@hotmail.com.</em></p>
<hr /><p><small>Original article published at <a href="www.naturalawakenings.com">Natural Awakenings National</a></small></p>urn:uuid:35795445-3bd8-44c5-90cb-763f3cf0a26c2019-08-16T00:00:41-04:002020-05-06T12:29:07-04:00Eco-Friendly Outdoor Eating: Save Resources, Reduce Food Waste and More2019-06-28 12:38:00 -0400Anonymous<p><span class="dropcap">M</span>idsummer is prime time for outdoor family meals, barbecues and picnics. Selecting the healthiest food, along with eco-friendly materials in preparing for the fun feasts, can fulfill a more environmentally sustainable lifestyle and conserve resources at the same time.</p>
<p>• <a href="https://greenamerica.org/">Green America</a> recommends using organic cloth, reusable mesh or string produce bags when grocery shopping; use bamboo utensil sets and plastic straw alternatives made of stainless steel, food-grade silicone, bamboo or glass.</p>
<p>• To keep uninvited flying pests like mosquitoes, flies and the like away from humans and food, apply natural repellents—many made of natural, essential oil; plant-based and food-grade ingredients can be found at <a href="http://chasinggreen.org/">Chasing Green</a>.</p>
<p>• According to <a href="https://www.webmd.com/">WebMD</a>, charcoal grilling of meat can expose us to two potentially cancer-causing compounds—polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that form when fat from meat drips onto hot coals and are “deposited on food courtesy of flame-ups and rising smoke,” and heterocyclic amines that “are produced when red meat, poultry and fish meet high-heat cooking.” Instead, consider using a closed-flame gas grill to reduce exposure to toxins and cook fresh and organic fruits and vegetables like zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, onions and mushrooms.</p>
<p>• Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warn against eating shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish due to high levels of mercury, and to consume no more than six ounces of albacore tuna per week for the same reason. Some studies point to avoiding farmed salmon due to potentially high amounts of PCBs. Bypass larger fish of the food chain; look for those that have earned the Marine Stewardship Council or Aquaculture Stewardship Council labels.</p>
<p>• The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently estimated that between 30 to 40 percent of all food in the country is wasted. To improve this situation, use glass containers instead of plastic bags to store leftovers. Also consider sustainable food wraps like <a href="https://beeswrap.com/">Bees Wrap</a>. Made from beeswax, organic cotton, jojoba oil and tree resin, they seal and conform to the shape of whatever food is being stored.</p>
<p class="fineprint"><br>
<em>This article appears in the July 2019 issue of </em>Natural Awakenings.</p>
<hr /><p><small>Original article published at <a href="www.naturalawakenings.com">Natural Awakenings National</a></small></p>urn:uuid:ddf730a2-1eb3-46ae-885d-ac9bd5bb5c342019-08-16T00:38:21-04:002021-06-14T14:49:07-04:00Crops in the City: Urban Agriculture Breaks New Ground2019-06-28 12:38:00 -0400April Thompson<p>The average American meal travels 1,500 miles to reach its plate, according to the nonprofit Center for Urban Education About Sustainable Agriculture. Yet, enterprising green thumbs across the country are bringing the farm back to plate’s reach, growing hyperlocal food in backyards, on rooftops, through indoor farms and more. City farming reconnects urbanites to their food sources while bettering the environment, communities, diets and health.</p>
<p>Urban agriculture, harkening back to the Victory Gardens planted to ward off food shortages during World War I and II, is nothing new. While today’s home gardeners have staked out balconies, window boxes and vacant lots in this locavore resurgence, noteworthy pioneers are forging a path to organic urban agriculture on a commercial scale—tapping into new technologies and markets, and turning challenges like dealing with space constraints into fresh opportunities.</p>
<h3>A View From the Roofs</h3>
<p>Take Niraj Ray, whose company Cultivate the City is working to transform urban food deserts in the nation’s capital into thriving local food systems. “We want to get more people interested in growing their own food and show them how they can grow more with less square footage through vertical gardens and sustainable techniques like [soil-less] hydroponic systems,” says Ray.</p>
<p>Cultivate the City manages numerous gardens for clients around Washington, D.C., from elementary school gardens where kids learn to grow, cook and eat nutritious food to corporate gardens inside a new office building for lender Fannie Mae’s employee café. One of its crown jewels is a 6,500-square-foot rooftop garden on the Nationals Park baseball stadium, where edible flowers end up in cocktails and organic produce feeds fine diners and VIP ticket holders.</p>
<p>Ray grew his business organically, fueled by passion and curiosity, rather than any horticultural background. “I grew up in NYC, where I had nothing to grow on. When I moved to Florida for grad school, I had a huge backyard to play around with,” says Ray.</p>
<p>Like many other urban farms, Cultivate the City offers a seasonal farm subscription known as a community supported agriculture (CSA) program that allows city dwellers to buy directly from local producers. Ray’s rooftop greenhouse, located on top of a local hardware store that sells his edible plants at retail, offers all the fixings for a healthy, diverse diet: hydroponic towers of leafy greens, trays of microgreens for corporate clients, specialty varieties of hot peppers for the company’s hot sauce and stacking cubes of an albino strawberry variety that Ray crossbred himself. “There are so many ways to contribute to urban farming, from aquaponics to vermicomposting; it’s about finding your niche,” he says.</p>
<h3>Growing Up With Vertical Farming</h3>
<p>By 2050, it’s estimated that 9 billion people will be living on the planet—7 billion in cities. “City planners need innovative solutions like vertical farming to feed the growing population. We can grow at scale, with minimum space and environmental impact,” says Wendy Coleman, who began her California-based business LA Urban Farms in 2013. Today, Coleman’s team works with chefs, resorts, hotels, universities, greenhouses and corporate clients like Google and Ikea to set up aeroponic tower gardens across the U.S. and Europe. </p>
<p></p><div class="image-with-caption image-align-right">
<img alt="goodluzShutterstockcom" src="//cdn1.locable.com/uploads/resource/file/574631/city-farming.jpg"><div class="small">goodluz/Shutterstock.com</div>
</div>With aeroponics, nutrient-enriched water is pumped through a garden tower to shower the roots of plants suspended in air. “It actually uses 90 percent less water than conventional growing, which is a huge benefit in a place like California, and avoids any kind of agricultural runoff,” says Coleman. In conjunction with urban farming partners, the business churns out 30,000 seedlings a month using aeroponic technology to grow for their diverse client base and working with chefs to plan seasonal menus around their produce.
<p>Aeroponics and other innovative farm technologies are transforming spaces in cities across the U.S., reclaiming peripheral and idle spaces like alleys and warehouses to grow herbs and vegetables in abundance, using 90 percent less land by growing vertically, notes Coleman. “With our gardens, diners can see their food growing at their table; they get such a personal connection with their food. It’s an interactive way for hotels and restaurants to demonstrate their commitment to local, sustainable food,” she says.</p>
<h3>Breaking into Hives: City Beekeepers</h3>
<p>“I had a backyard garden that wasn’t doing so well, and I thought it was the lack of pollinators, so I got bees; but then I realized I was just a bad gardener,” quips master beekeeper John Coldwell, of Fort Lauderdale.</p>
<p>Since this humble beginning in 2012 with a few backyard hives, Coldwell and his wife Teresa have been leading a movement to repurpose public land for “microapiaries” and provide apiary education for youth and adults throughout South Florida. Through their entity The Urban Beekeepers, the Coldwells offer beekeeping classes, consult with local governments, sell equipment and rescue “feral hives” to integrate into managed hives. They’ve worked successfully with parks, airports, golf clubs and country clubs to put honeybee habitats on site.</p>
<p>Urban beekeeping works in synergy with city farms, as honeybees forage up to five miles for food, and in so doing pollinate a lot of crops. Seventy of the top 100 human food crops are pollinated by bees, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “We often hear people say their garden is doing better than it has in years, thanks to the apiaries nearby,” says John Coldwell.</p>
<p>The challenges of growing at scale are a recurrent theme among urban farmers. Ian Marvy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) outreach specialist for the greater New York City area, ran his own urban farm, grossing six figures for 14 years. However, Marvy says most farmers growing in the city aren’t operating at a profitable scale or producing enough for everyone to eat local.</p>
<p>Even so, locally grown produce is a booming market in New York City. Greenmarket, founded in 1976, operates more than 50 farmers’ markets, limited to vendors that grow within a 200-mile radius, some of whom take home five figures on a good day, says Marvy. Interest in growing at the community level has also mushroomed, adds Marvy, who estimates that 90 percent of the city’s more than 500 school gardens weren’t there 15 years ago when he started this work. “The USDA has a huge opportunity here and nationally to make cities more sustainable and feed more people. I’m really excited and committed to that,” he says.</p>
<p>While urban agriculture efforts are sometimes criticized for catering to upper income residents that can afford to pay top dollar for specialty items like microgreens, many businesses and organizations are working on multiple fronts, with lucrative specialty crops helping to subsidize programs serving families lacking access to healthy affordable food.</p>
<p>Grow Ohio Valley takes an integrated approach to food sovereignty in Wheeling, West Virginia, and the Upper Ohio Valley. “This part of the Appalachian Rustbelt has lost much of its population, jobs and economic base over the last generation. We want to promote health and wellness through fresh food, while helping to transform the urban landscape from falling-down buildings and vacant lots into productive community assets,” says founder Danny Swan.</p>
<p>The operation’s food hub aggregates produce from small local farmers, providing a guaranteed market for their produce and the opportunity to reach a larger market, usually only served by food grown thousands of miles away. The produce is supplemented by four urban farm sites run by the organization, including an apple orchard on the site of a demolished housing project.</p>
<p>Grow Ohio Valley also works to reach the “last-mile customers” that lack access to high-quality affordable produce via a mobile farmers’ market that goes to housing projects, senior communities and schools six days a week.</p>
<p>Their latest project, the Public Market, is a retail location on Wheeling’s Main Street that will serve as a year-round farmers’ market. The organization is also building alliances between local farmers and healthcare providers through a project called The Farmacy. A partnership with a local free clinic, it targets people suffering from diabetes and other diseases linked to poor diets with a doctor’s prescription for organic produce offered free through the organization’s CSA.</p>
<p>These urban agriculture pioneers are helping to not only grow food, but community, and are nurturing renewed connections to the Earth. City growing has so many benefits: decreasing packaging, costs and food miles traveled, making it easier to eat organic seasonal food and a more diverse diet. “The connection people feel when they plant seed and get to harvest the mature plant is transformative. Growing food is something we can all do to make a difference, for our health and the environment,” says Coleman.</p>
<p><br>
<em><a href="http://aprilwrites.com/">Connect with Washington, D.C. freelance writer April Thompson</a>.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>Tips From the Pioneers</strong></h3>
<p><img alt="Urban Agriculture Farming" src="//cdn3.locable.com/uploads/resource/file/574632/Urban-Farming.jpg"></p>
<p><em> Joshua Resnick/Shutterstock.com</em></p>
<p>Those that have never nurtured more than a houseplant shouldn’t be intimidated, says Wendy Coleman, founder of LA Urban Farms. “Growing food is easy and doesn’t require any special background,” says Coleman, who was green to growing when she started her business six years ago.</p>
<p>When growing commercially, find a niche, says Niraj Ray, of Cultivate the City. The company grows plants of ethnic or cultural significance to appeal to Asian, African and Latino populations, from the nutrition-packed moringa to okra, a staple of both Indian and African cooking, given it is a growing market for immigrant populations not served by most traditional garden centers.</p>
<p>Seek natural allies like sustainability-minded chefs to bolster an urban ag business. The farm-to-fork chef’s movement has been a boon for beekeepers and farmers, with chefs acting as patrons of the farms, according to beekeeping expert Teresa Coldwell. Sette Bello Ristorante, an Italian restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, funds vertical gardens at a community garden where the Coldwells have hives so its chef can have pure organic food like squash blossoms pollinated by local bees.</p>
<p>Urban farming has its pleasures and rewards, but can also bring hardships. Ray struggles with employee turnover when newbie farmers face the realities of working in the heat and rain, even from a sleek, trendy, rooftop garden.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>LET’S GET GROWING</strong></h3>
<p>For those interested in trying home growing or supporting metro area farmers, here are some resources for eating food grown in and around your zip code.</p>
<p>The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s <a href="https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/urban-agriculture-toolkit.pdf">Urban Agriculture Toolkit</a> walks prospective city farmers through all of the necessary steps to planning a successful urban agriculture operation, from soil testing to accessing financing.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.urbanfarming.org/">Urban Farming</a> features a clickable map of community gardens in the U.S. and beyond where neighbors can connect and grow together.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.csacoalition.org/">FairShare CSA Coalition</a>’s site offers an interactive Farm Search tool to find community supported agriculture (CSA) programs where city dwellers can subscribe to local farms and receive a share of the seasonal bounty.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://communitygarden.org/">American Community Garden Association</a> provides resources for finding, starting and managing community gardens.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.localharvest.org/">Local Harvest</a> has a searchable national directory of farmers’ markets, farms, CSAs and more.</p>
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<em>This article appears in the July 2019 issue of </em>Natural Awakenings.</p><hr /><p><small>Original article published at <a href="www.naturalawakenings.com">Natural Awakenings National</a></small></p>urn:uuid:fd6dd968-618f-48da-937a-4aecf79c746b2019-08-16T00:42:16-04:002019-08-16T00:42:16-04:00Wonder Weed: Hemp to the Rescue at Detox Sites2019-06-28 12:38:00 -0400Anonymous<p><span class="dropcap">C</span>annabis is enjoying a renaissance of sorts, and one new application for hemp, the no-buzz industrial variety used in fabrics, oils and foods, is cleaning nuclear radiation from toxic soil and removing metals like cadmium, lead, mercury and other pollutants via phytoremediation. Allison Beckett, a cultivation expert at <a href="https://www.marijuana.com/">Marijuana.com</a>, says, “Industrial hemp has been used in areas of high radiation, such as Fukushima, [in Japan,] with promising results. Not only does hemp pull toxic, heavy metals from the soil, it actually improves soil structure, making it usable as productive farmland again. Plus, hemp is a vigorous plant that absorbs CO2 rapidly, making it an encouraging solution to climate change.” Hemp phytoremediation has been used in Italy to clean up the small town of Taranto, where a steel plant has been leaking dioxin into the air and soil. The Pennsylvania Industrial Hemp Council and Lehigh University, in Bethlehem, are running a project to test the process in an arsenic-contaminated area in Upper Saucon Township that once harbored a zinc mine.</p>
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<em>This article appears in the July 2019 issue of </em>Natural Awakenings.</p>
<hr /><p><small>Original article published at <a href="www.naturalawakenings.com">Natural Awakenings National</a></small></p>urn:uuid:704de832-8904-49a7-8ee0-2985b93d2f032019-08-16T00:55:44-04:002019-08-16T00:55:44-04:00Sunny Solution: Wastewater Turned into Hydrogen Fuel2019-06-28 12:38:00 -0400Anonymous<p><span class="dropcap">P</span>roducing pure hydrogen is expensive and energy intensive, but a research team at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, at Princeton University, used sunlight to pull hydrogen from industrial wastewater by using a specially designed chamber with a “Swiss cheese”-like black silicon interface. As reported in the journal <em>Energy & Environmental Science</em>, the process is aided by bacteria that generate electrical current when consuming organic matter in the wastewater; the current, in turn, aids in the water splitting. It “allows us to treat wastewater and simultaneously generate fuels,” says Jing Gu, a co-researcher and assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at San Diego State University. The scientists say the technology could appeal to refineries and chemical plants, which typically produce their own hydrogen from fossil fuels and face high costs for cleaning wastewater.</p>
<p class="fineprint"><br>
<em>This article appears in the July 2019 issue of </em>Natural Awakenings.</p>
<hr /><p><small>Original article published at <a href="www.naturalawakenings.com">Natural Awakenings National</a></small></p>urn:uuid:a2555209-3c5f-48a4-8119-ff45075e5f742019-08-16T00:05:59-04:002020-02-19T17:20:58-05:00Green Surfing: Search Engine Company Plants Trees2019-06-04 20:29:58 -0400Rachael Oppy<p>Internet users can help fight global deforestation even while surfing. German online search engine <a href="https://www.ecosia.org/">Ecosia</a>, now used in 183 countries, diverts its advertising revenue from click-throughs to planting trees worldwide to the tune of more than 52 million since 2009. With each search, the company says, it removes around two-and-a-half pounds of carbon dioxide from the air. Christian Kroll, Ecosia’s founder, wrote, “Climate change is a very real threat, and if we’re to stop the world heating above the 1.5 degrees warned about in the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report, we need to plant trees at scale.” Kroll suggests that if Ecosia were to get as big as Google, they could absorb 15 percent of all global carbon dioxide emissions. Users can find it at <a href="https://www.ecosia.org/">Ecosia.org</a>.</p>
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<em>This article appears in the June 2019 issue of </em>Natural Awakenings.</p><hr /><p><small>Original article published at <a href="www.naturalawakenings.com">Natural Awakenings National</a></small></p>