August 26, 2012

What Say You: Cedar Circle Farm


Cedar Circle Farm Field and Paddock
What Say You:  Cedar Circle Farm
SUSAN CLOKE
Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror

“Organic, biodynamic and integrated pest management systems are working all around the world and are the hope not only for food sustainability but for the control of global climate change. Even normally conservative World Bank scientists maintain that 51% of greenhouse gasses come from agriculture. This has to change, and local, organic and sustainable agriculture are the answer.” Will Allen.
Allen is an acclaimed leader in the organic food movement, a public policy advisor, an educator, part of the California Certified Organic Farmers Organization from his days in California, and the author of “The War on Bugs” making a compelling a argument against the use of chemical pesticides.   
Most of all he is a farmer and he and Kate Duesterberg are the co-managers of the 52 acre Cedar Circle Farm in Thetford Vermont.  They met, when Duesterberg worked at the Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Burlington Vermont and Allen was heading the Sustainable Cotton Project.  When they decided to marry they looked for a farm where they could put their beliefs into action and found a beautiful, riverfront farm that already had barns, a farmhouse, greenhouses and a farmstand.
The non-profit Azadoutioun Foundation of Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Duesterberg and Allen’s recommendation, bought the farm.  The Foundation retains ownership with Duesterberg and Allen as farm managers.  The previous owners, the Stones, had sold the development rights to the Vermont Land Trust, so Cedar Circle land, is protected, in perpetuity, as farmland. 
The farm grows blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, melons, flowers, corn, all the brassicas (broccoli and more), beets, onions garlic, leeks, carrots, potatoes, winter squashes, pumpkins and herbs such as basil, parley, and dill.
Produce is sold at their farmstand and at local farmers markets.  They participate in CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) where people buy shares ahead of the growing season and so pre-pay for a share of the coming season’s fruits and veggies, which helps the farmers pay for seed and provides produce at lower prices to members.
Cat Buxton, the Education Programs Coordinator for the farm, and I sat early one morning in the farm cafĂ©, drinking their delicious coffee.  Actually, I was drinking the delicious coffee, Buxton declined, having just finished her usual morning drink, a smoothie she shared in the kitchen. (The smoothie recipe varies with supply and with the seasons. That day it was 1 avocado, 2 bananas, 1 pear, 1 peach, 1 cucumber, 1 head. lettuce, ½ bunch kale, ¼ bunch parley, 1 lemon (all but the rind), water to thin to a drinkable consistency.)

We talked about a recent thunder and lightning storm and Buxton, describing the safety procedures on the farm said, “at the first sound of thunder all field crew know to come in.  Even if that means that sometimes you’ve got to leave what you’re doing and get yourself to a safe house.”
40 of Cedar Circle’s 50 plus acres are cultivated.  Farm buildings, internal roads and trees and a 50’ buffer zone, one of the requirements of an organic farm, occupy the other 10 acres.  On the Connecticut River edge there is a wildlife corridor of oaks and maples and native flora to create habitat and prevent erosion. Buxton told me that  “Deer, fox, groundhogs, raccoons, skunk and bears all use the corridor.”
3 draft horses live, and are used for work, on the farm.  Buxton said, “as part of our ecological mission we are working toward “horse drawn agriculture in order to reduce petroleum use.  Currently, in addition to using the horses we use 9 tractors as well.” 
Buxton works on all the community outreach programs. “We have lots of families that come here to spend the afternoon, strolling, picking berries (on the traditional Vermont honor system).  We have lots of events, Dinner in the Field happens once or twice a year; we have a harvest festival, a strawberry festival and a pumpkin festival.  We’ve had over 1000 people come to the festivals.  The festivals feature music, education tables, horse drawn wagon rides and, of course, food and produce.  There is no entry free for those who come by foot or by bike. There is a $5 parking fee if people come in their cars.  We are also part of the Tour de Taste, a recreational bicycle event with stops for good food at farms along the way.
“We offer gardening and cooking classes, the fees depend on the length of the classes.  We hold free community garden clinics in Thetford and White River and we sponsor the school garden at Thetford Elementary where we teach a ‘food loop’ from seed starting through planting, garden care, and harvesting.  Then the produce the kids have grown goes into the cafeteria and they love eating the food they’ve grown themselves.  Garden waste goes into compost and the compost is used for the next season’s garden, hence a ‘food loop.’  Crispy kale is now a favorite at the school cafeteria!”
In talking about the future, Buxton said, “Our mission is large. We want to stay on the same track but we don’t want to get too big because that wouldn’t be sustainable.”
Alison Baker and Justin Barrett were the chefs of the Dinner in the Field al fresco banquet at Cedar Circle Farms.  Baker is the KitchenManager at the farm  and Barrett is the founder of Piecemeal, a local enterprise in community driven food. Barrett trained in architecture before focusing his talents on sustainable food, working in Portland, Oregon and in Manhattan before coming to Vermont.

Long, trestle tables were placed end to end on a grassy lawn with rows of crops abutting one edge and a horse paddock at the far end.  Draft horses, used for pulling plows on the farm, were munching away on the grass in their paddock. 

Dinner in the Field Menu Boards
About 25 happily anticipatory people sat at the tables; among them a professor from Dartmouth, a banker from the Netherlands, a holistic health coach, volunteers from the farm, the director of online education at Dartmouth Medical School, a local housecleaner, locals and vacationing families, all looking forward to a dinner showing off the splendor of locovore, the name given to the choice to eat local, sustainably grown food.  Alison Baker welcomed us, sharing her pleasure with everyone sitting down together, outside in the light of early evening, and next to the field where the food is grown.
A festive mood, created by the gorgeous day, the glamorous farm where all was perfection. (May I use the word glamorous when talking about a farm?  It’s not the usual adjective for a farm but it fits this farm).  The air was soft, the breeze gentle, the blue sky painted with the pinks and yellows of the coming sunset and the soft whites of occasional clouds.
The dinner, delicious and local and communal represented the antithesis of most of the food grown in the United States.  Will Allen describes that food, “So much of what we eat is at its core fossil fueled. Let's begin with fertilizer. Fossil fuels power the nitrogen manufacturing plants. U.S. farmers use more than 24 billion pounds of nitrogen fertilizer every year. To manufacture that nitrogen more than 660 billion pounds of nitrous oxide are released. Nitrous oxide is 300 times more destructive as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Two-thirds of our drinking water is contaminated with nitrogen fertilizer runoff. More than 400 oceanic dead zones are caused by nitrogen fertilizer runoff. Growing the crops in the U.S., which are mostly for animals, requires enormous amounts of fossil fuel for tractors, swathers, combines, and dryers. After the crops for feed or human food are harvested they are shipped 1500 to 3000 miles, using more fossil fuel. Shipping and storage require cooling and freezing, and more fossil fuel.  Clearly, this is not endlessly sustainable.
“We have organic, biodynamic and integrated pest management systems that are working all around the world and are the hope not only for food sustainability but for the control of global climate change. Even normally conservative World Bank scientists maintain that 51% of greenhouse gasses come from agriculture. This has to change, and local, organic and sustainable agriculture are the answer.”

So the challenge is before us and the danger is clear.  Food that is grown with petrochemicals is harmful to our health and the health of our soil and water.  That is the message.  Now it is up to us to do our part.  We are the consumers, if we let the places where we buy food and go out for food know we want sustainably grown food, food grown without petrochemicals, they will respond and we will be able to complete the farm to table cycle for healthy food.   

Let us support our local farmers, going to farmers markets for our produce, buying locally, supporting restaurants and markets that carry local, sustainable and organic foods. 

Alison Baker, as she and Justin Barrett were being applauded at the end of this summer’s Dinner in the Field, said,There is no end to the deliciousness possible with local food, sustainably grown.”
What Say You?



August 8, 2012

Hometown Hero: Franklin Dean Schwengel


Frank Schwengel
Photo Credit: Recreation and Parks
Hometown Hero: Franklin Dean Schwengel
A True Friend of Santa Monica
September 1, 1933 – July 31, 2012


SUSAN CLOKE
Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror

I feel so lucky to have known Frank. I will miss him and his friendship.  He was decent, honorable, kind, honest, thoughtful, and caring.  I remember the ease of working on the Recreation and Parks Commission with him and I remember the good work we did together. His life was all about making the world, and especially Santa Monica, a better place.
After his 1955 graduation from the University of Iowa with a degree in business he joined the Marine Corps where he served in Okinawa.  He came to Santa Monica in 1962.
Frank began at the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Monica as a basketball coach and was a lifelong volunteer, working with the kids, planning programs and fundraising.  As a member of the their Congressional Relations Committee he traveled to Washington D.C. and lobbied for the successful passage of a 450 million dollar appropriation to fund the world wide work of the Boys and Girls Clubs.  He became of Member of the Board of Governor’s in 1986 and was the Chair of the Board from 2000 through 2002.
When his own children were in school, he joined the PTA, and became one the first men to be a PTA president, a position he was re-elected to for 7 consecutive years.  He was a Member of the Desegregation Committee and District Title One Advisory Board for the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District and the recipient of their Lifetime Achievement Award.
An athlete himself, he played college football at Iowa. Frank brought his love of sports with him to Santa Monica and served as a Board Member of Santa Monica Little League from1980 to1986, coaching the team to three Championships.  He was a Member and Chair of the Santa Monica Sports Advisory Council, an Executive Board Member of Santa Monica Youth Athletic Foundation and the Founder and President of International Youth Baseball Foundation, an organization that sponsored 7 International Baseball exchanges with Japan and Mexico.
Appointed to the Santa Monica Recreation & Parks Commission in 1992, he served as chair of the Commission when the City’s first Recreation and Parks Master Plan was written. He brought his enthusiasm for sports and his dedication to helping children and teenagers to the work of the Recreation and Parks Commission.
Barbara Stinchfield, the long time Director of Community and Cultural Services, remembering him said, “Frank gave more than a decade of service to our community as a member of the City's Recreation and Parks Commission and for many years as its Chair. He reflected the best of what this community stands for. He was devoted to our youth and supported a multitude of youth activities. He never said a negative word about anyone or anything. I delighted in working with this most kind and wonderful member of the Santa Monica community.”
Frank died of cancer on July 31, 2012.  His longtime friend, Councilmember Bob Holbrook, said, “Frank was a wonderful man and a great husband and father. He was devoted to helping his own kids in all of their activities and to coaching other kids who were lucky enough to be on his Little League teams.  He was devoted to this community and set a example with his endless hours of volunteering for kids. He was my friend and I will always remember him.”

When he received the Bank of America “Local Heroes Award” Frank spoke to the audience about his father, who had been a U.S. Congressman from Iowa and a Republican voice against the war in Vietnam, "My father always said life is lived best with a smile and a helping hand. I just try to emulate my own father in my life." Those of us who knew him knew he lived by his father’s creed.
Frank exemplified a respectful leadership that made the people who worked with him feel good about their contributions.  He was a loyal friend, a dedicated participant in the life of the community and a loving husband, father and grandfather.  Our sympathies go to his wife, Gwen, and his sons, Robert, Kris and Kurt, to all of his family and to all who will miss him.  
A public memorial service will be held at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Santa Monica at 4:00 pm on Friday, August 17, 2012.  (Contact Jennifer LaBrie, jen@smbgc.org or call 310.361.8544 for more information.)
The family of Frank Schwengel has established a scholarship in his honor.  Donations may be made to:
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Monica
Schwengel Scholarship Fund
1220 Lincoln Blvd.
Santa Monica CA 90401