Green Living is the Life For Me!
This past weekend, I had the pleasure to volunteer three shifts with Farm Aid 2014. I help with the set up of the Homegrown Village, Volunteer Check-in the morning of the concert and served on the Green Team during four hours of the show. It was a great experience, educational and an example of sustainability.
Farm Aid was started in 1985. It is more than a concert, it is an interactive, fundraising, awareness event aimed at teaching what is going on in the farm industry. During my volunteering, I learned about the importance of local food sourcing, composting, and some the pressing issues facing today's family farmer.
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| John Mellencamp performing at Farm Aid 2014 |
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| Neil Young performing at Farm Aid 2014 |
Local Food
A majority of the food consumed at Farm Aid was provided by local farmers. Food items from peanuts to apples, corn on the cob to beef, chicken to shrimp and usual concert fare such as corn dogs and hamburgers were local sourced. The venue worked with the Farm Aid staff to switch up it's entire concession stand operations to meet the local food criteria. Additionally, there were signs indicating the farm where the item had come from. Wow! It must have been a lot of work, but it sent an important message. Local Food = Sustainability
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| Homegrown Food Menu at Farm Aid 2014 |
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| Concession Menu featuring Homegrown Food |
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| Signage outside The Pit Restaurant Concessions Tent |
Catering for the bands, crew and volunteers was also from local farmers (as well as national sponsors with a commitment to local and organic farming). While the food was delicious and plentiful, it made me realize how much my regular diet has been tricked by national store brands and other foods that are full of preservatives and have been over processed. Additionally, I learned that on the average, food travels 1500 miles before it reaches your plate.
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| Catering Lunch featuring local food |
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| Salad Bar featuring local food |
Recycling, Compost or Landfill?
Everywhere you went throughout the event was recycling, composting and trash containers. The organizers used over 150 volunteers on the Green Team to help people sort their items accordingly. I did this for four hours and found many people were very accommodating. If they weren't sure, they asked.
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| Students from NC State Volunteering on the Green Team |
The biggest challenges seemed to be that the composting bags were very fragile when they got full and the whole cart needed to be taken away and replaced with a new cart and liner. Additionally, many folks were confused about the corn based cups and utensils and tried to put them in recycling or trash instead of the compost bins.
Educational
At the Homegrown Village, I learned about: the importance and complexity of the Farm Bill (most of the farm bill deals with the program former known as food stamps and has little to do with the actual farmer); some very cool farm tours happening locally; micro lending for farmers; how TS Designs creates 100% local organic cotton t-shirts (including the 2014 Farm Aid t-shirt); and numerous programs to promote buying local sourced food.
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| Helping set up the Homegrown Village |
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| Farm Aid shirt was created by TS Designs using local source organic cotton |
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| Eastern Triangle Farm Tour |
Resources
No Farms = No Food
Bottom line was that if there were no farms, there would be no food. It was a very clear message that people need to start looking at where there food comes from, how is it grown or processed or produced, and whenever possible, buy local to support the local farmer and local economy.
What Can You Do to Help?
This sign says it all LEARN MORE and TAKE ACTION
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Rick
apexgardner@gmail.com
@apexgardner (Twitter)
http://apexlazydogblog.blogspot.com/
Rick
apexgardner@gmail.com
@apexgardner (Twitter)
http://apexlazydogblog.blogspot.com/
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