Municipal Composting

Just wrote this article for New Entry as well. It's about composting in a city like Boston.

Ever wondered what happens to all the food you don’t eat out at a restaurant or what you throw out from home? Chances are the wasted food goes to one of the many municipal landfills. Once in the landfill, the food slowly anaerobically decays, creating methane, and trapping all the nutrients and resources used to grow that food in a wasteful abyss. Organic waste is the second largest component of our landfills and landfills are the largest emitter of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. (Check out http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2010/03/21/the_case_for_mandatory_composting/ for an interesting article about Boston municipal composting).

And all the food that American’s waste adds up. 30% of the food grown in this country is wasted, and 75% of that food is wasted in restaurants, homes, or the retail sector (over 50% in homes and municipal sector). So how can you play a part in decreasing this waste, making sure nutrients stay inside a usable cycle? The first thing, of course, is to work on not wasting as much food. Only take the amount of food on your plate that you will eat, and save the rest as leftovers. Try not to buy more food than you will eat just for it to go bad in the refrigerator.

But nobody’s perfect. We’re all going to have food waste whether we’re trying to decrease it or not. But composting can help us keep our natural resources out of the landfills, ensuring more sustainable nutrient cycles and making sure the food decays aerobically (producing carbon dioxide and water, two much more benign green house gases than methane). In addition, to you folks that garden or have nice house plants, you will be producing your own garden amendments to improve your plants health and soil.

However, composting can be challenging when we live in urban areas. Many of us don't have a yard, our yard may be small, or we may have neighbors who worry about the odor and possible four-legged creature infestation. Lucky for humans, we’re a very innovating bunch and people have come up with many creative ideas in order to compost in their small backyards or even inside. (Check out the MA Department of Environmental Protection's website on composting to learn more about the basics of good composting http://www.mass.gov/dep/recycle/reduce/compgnt.htm).

The easiest way to compost if you don't have a yard is to vermicompost. With this method, you adopt red wiggler worms as pets and feed them your leftover food waste. They eat it and poop out soil. All you need is a plastic storage bin, newspaper clippings, and some worms. Sommerville sells starter worm kits for $25. Other resources can be found at (http://www.urbanhomesteadersleague.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/UHL-broadside-1.pdf). A major drawback to this method is that the worms are slightly picky eaters and you can't compost all your organic waste.

Another way to compost in very little space is to get a barrel composter or compost tumbler. Though expensive, these mechanical compost turners are very easy to use and don't take up that much space. Once you buy it (or build it if you've got construction savvy), you simply keep adding your organic waste with a mixture of some sort of brown material (such as leaf clippings) and turn the handle in order to aerate and mix the compost.

You can also use a modified garbage can structure for composting in the city. If you build it yourself, use a hammer and nails to punch holes in the bottom, sides, and lid of the garbage can. Compost turning tools are available at hardware stores that work very well for turning the organic waste inside the barrel. These barrels may also be available through your municipality for discounted prices. They also come with the guarantee of being "rodent proof." See the MA DEP for details (http://www.mass.gov/dep/recycle/reduce/compgnt.htm).

A more traditional way to compost is to have a three bin system (http://ceplacer.ucdavis.edu/files/350.PDF). An important aspect of composting is keeping a good temperature to ensure proper microbial decay. Though this is influenced by a number of factors such as the carbon to nitrogen ratio, the moisture content, and the aeration, it is also important that your compost pile be at least a cubic yard for good heat build up. However, as a single family (or even single person) in the city, it is unlikely that you'll produce this much organic waste. To get around this problem of thermal mass, you can build just one cubic yard bin and divide it into 4 partitions. You can treat it similarly to a three-bin system's rotation, but you'll use less space and need to add less organic material for a healthy pile.

As you can see, there are many solutions for composting even when we live close to our neighbors in the city. We can all play our part to reduce green house gases, landfill size, and keep nutrients in a usable cycle.

I didn't actually answer the basics of a good compost pile in this article (ie good C:N ratio, good aeration, good moisture, good temperature, etc) so for more information I highly recommend The Rodale Book of Composting.

Aging Farmers

Who do you think of when I say the word, “farmer?” For many of us who grew up in this country, an image not unlike that of Old McDonald comes to mind- white, male, and middle-aged. In the United States, this stereotypical image is not unfounded. The average farm operator is 57 years old, 83% of them are white, and 86% of them are male. According to the USDA, the population of non-white farmers and female farmers is growing, but the farmers are aging. The proportion of farm operators over 75 years old increased by 20% from 2002 to 2007 and the proportion of farm operators under the age of 25 years old decreased by 30% in that same time period.

Should we be worried about this aging population? Children of farmer’s are moving to the city rather than choosing to farm. Who will be left to farm our native soil? Though the census shows young farmers decreasing in number, there are a number of new farmers entering the scene who are making quite a splash. At least once a week, I find myself reading a new article about an innovative agricultural project in a school garden, on an urban roof tops, or on traditional farmland run by young people. More often than not, these farmers are committed to sustainable agriculture, healthy food, and food justice.

However, if you haven’t been born into the farming industry, there can be many barriers to entry. Land is expensive, many farmers require second jobs to pay the bills, and there’s a lot to learn in order to be a successful farmer. The USDA has recognized these challenges and is addressing them in various ways. More farmer loans issued by the Farm Service Agency are targeted toward beginning farmers. They have also made available $17 million in new grants through the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program for state and local governments, non-profits, and academic institutions to design education, training, technical assistance and outreach programs to help beginning farmers. In addition, networks such as Greenhorns and the National Young Farmer’s Coalition offer support systems for beginning farmers. There’s even a conference for Young Farmers put on by the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture each year.

Locally there are opportunities sprouting up for young people that make farming into a viable job and even career. The Food Project has farms throughout Eastern Massachusetts where youth learn about sustainable farming, food justice, and are given experience working in the many aspects of our food system. Here in Lowell, the United Teen Equality Center (UTEC) has an organic farm site with NESFP where teens can learn, work, and make money. There are also farm training programs like the Farm School where new farmers live and work for an entire year on a farm learning the complete ins and outs of living off the land and managing a farm. In addition, they have programs for school groups in order to expose youth to working with and for the land.

So should we be worried that our farmer’s are getting older? Perhaps. After all, these are the people that grow our food. However, it seems that with the right support, a new generation of farmers can emerge that is hard working, committed to sustainable farming, and makes healthy food available to more people.

end of June Update

I haven't posted in a really long time because finals and then summer and it was all very crazy. I went on a bike trip to ME, I went to CO, I made steamed Chinese buns (thanks Zach for taking me shopping in China town), I've made bagels again (keep forgetting to cut them like a mobius strip, but that will be a blog post soon), and my garden is going nuts, which is awesome.

In the meantime, I have this really cool job as a technical assistant for new farmers at The New Entry Sustainable Farming Project. It is making me realize that I'd love to be an agricultural extension agent when I'm done with school.

So I wrote an article on new farmers that I'm going to post here. I may also start posting my notes from the field that I'm writing, and you may also see an article or two on composting.