CLF Ventures is working with Wholesome Wave Foundation to offer a complimentary webinar about the Food Safety Modernization Act and implications for food hub operators. The food hub work with Wholesome Wave continues CLF Ventures’ efforts to build capacity and develop resources for sustainable food organizations in New England.

Proposed FDA Food Safety Modernization Act Requirements
for Emerging Food Hub Operators:

Q&A with FDA Representatives
& Perspectives from Local Food Leaders

April 17, 2013
11:00 A.M -12:30 P.M. EDT

 
Comments are due on May 16, 2013 for two proposed rules issued in January under the Food Safety Modernization Act: “Current Good Manufacturing Practices and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventative Controls for Human Food” and “Standard for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption.” This webinar aims to help food hubs and related enterprises to understand the implications of the proposed rules in time for them to submit comments to FDA by the May comment period deadline.

The webinar will target small and early stage businesses/operators that aggregate, distribute and process farm food products. Speakers will include representatives from FDA to provide detail on the proposed rules as well as representatives from non-profit organizations who will speak about the impacts of proposed FSMA rules on growing local food hubs. The webinar will include an interactive Q&A with speakers as well as help in finding additional resources about the proposed rules and the comment submittal process.

To register for this complimentary webinar, go to https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/640965334.

For more information about registration, contact gabrielle@wholesomewave.org.

For more information on CLF Ventures’ sustainable agriculture work, visit CLF’s Food and Farm page.

Local food is all the rage, but how do you affordably and conveniently get that food from the local farm to the local table? It’s a question a lot of people are asking — and one we at CLF Ventures (CLFV) are working to answer.

CLFV explored some emerging models that seek to connect small local farms to customers and allow these agricultural businesses to flourish. After all, farmers need to earn a living wage in order to keep growing the food we love to eat. We sent a survey to restaurants to better understand the experience of sourcing food directly from small, local farms and learned a lot about the opportunities and barriers for small farm businesses.

Some small farms have created Restaurant Supported Agriculture (RSA) models that mimic existing Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Generally, restaurants receive one box of food per week that contains substantially more food than a standard CSA share. However, the RSA model is not necessarily an ideal solution for small growers that want to sell food to restaurants. The typical restaurant purchasing model doesn’t match well with the typical small farm sales model. Additional insight from CLFV’s survey of local restaurants is shown in the infographic below.

Restaurants can be a great market for small farms because they are local and create steady demand. Innovative farmers and restaurateurs continue to seek ways to collaborate to their mutual benefit. However, the complexities of restaurant purchasing and the differences in menu selection and food preparation between restaurants complicate these contractual relationships.

Without innovative solutions it is likely that farm-to-restaurant partnerships will remain one-off endeavors rather than a stable market for small, local farms. That would inhibit growth in an area that we sincerely hope — for the sake of our environment, and our communities — will grow.

CLF and CLF Ventures couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities for innovation in financing that build our regional food system. We’re working to foster greater investment in the innovations that will transform our communities, make us more self-sufficient and resilient to climate change, and build a sector that will sustain us over the long term. That’s why we recently partnered with Federal Street Advisors, a wealth management advisory firm for families and foundations, to co-sponsor a regional summit, Financing a Sustainable Food System for New England. Together with Federal Street Advisors, we gathered a select audience of interested investors and invited both seasoned and emerging entrepreneurs and experts from around New England to tell their stories, focusing on the critical issues in growing and financing sustainable food businesses. The room was full of excitement, stories, and passion for food, and several important themes emerged:

• GROWING DEMAND FOR SUSTAINABLE FOOD:
  

  (L-R) Mass. Agricultural Commissioner Greg Watson and Ed Maltby of Adams Farm Slaughterhouse

  Greg Watson, Massachusetts Agricultural Commissioner, explained that supply currently can’t match demand. He proclaimed that this is not a trend, “this is the future of agriculture!”

• NEED FOR ALTERNATIVE FINANCING:
  Several entrepreneurs, including Ed Maltby of Adams Farm Slaughterhouse and Bill Eldridge of Maine’s Own Organic Milk, spoke of the need for alternative financing that allows the organic growth of their business and matches the timing and return expectations of their business models. While some models do create high value, others are challenging to do profitably, because the value of the sustainable dimension is not yet captured in the economics. For example, farming organically creates the need to certify, but for smaller growers, the “local” advantage can’t compete with large national businesses.

• CONTRIBUTION TO CLIMATE RESILIENCY: 
  

  Dorothy Suput, The Carrot Project

  Many panelists discussed the role of sustainable agriculture in addressing resiliency to climate change, including Roger Berkowitz of Legal Sea Foods, who mentioned fish ranching as a strategy to address the declining coastal fish populations resulting from warming waters, and Henry Lovejoy of EcoFish, who explained, “We don’t need to raise any food that’s bad for the planet.”

• NEED FOR AGGREGATION: Aggregation was a theme — farmers and investors alike can benefit from pooling resources to make innovations, and investments in them, sustainable.

There were many key ideas conveyed, but I have to commend Chuck Lacy of Hardwick Beef for delivering two memorable take-aways:

• “You can’t just show up and get my tenderloins!” (Relationships are critical)

• “If you’re lucky, you will plant a seed that will help change an industry” (to potential investors)

Raw bar, courtesy of Island Creek Oysters

Of course, no sustainable food summit would be complete without good eats, and the Financing Sustainable Food System summit showcased an abundance of local and regional treats, including grass-fed beef stew with panelist Chuck Lacy’s Hardwick Beef, fish and seafood from panelist Jared Auerbach’s Red’s Best, and many donated items, including an Island Creek Oysters raw bar, desserts from Henrietta’s Table of Cambridge, an assortment of prepared foods produced at Boston culinary incubator CropCircle Kitchen, and dozens of other tempting New England products.

CLF has a long history of work on sustainable agriculture issues in New England, including efforts to improve the sustainability of our fisheries.

• In our current Sustainable Farm and Food Initiative, CLF and CLF Ventures focuses on issues of growing urban agriculture, developing innovations to overcome market and policy barriers, here in Boston and throughout the region.

• CLF Ventures is working to regionalize a fish permit investment fund in the Gulf of Maine, aiming at the triple bottom line of social, environmental, and economic benefits.

• And through our partnerships with Federal Street Advisors and others, we are evaluating the sustainability claims and working to bring structure and discipline to the innovation and excitement of social entrepreneurship.

CLF and CLF Ventures have a vision for reinventing our food supply that

• builds on our region’s history and tradition of self-reliance and our roots in fishing and farming;
• leverages our culture of innovation as a firm foundation for our regional economy;
• creates healthier ways to feed ourselves;
• combats climate change; and
• rebuilds the health of our environment.

CLF Ventures co-organized the Sustainable Food System summit to discuss the benefits of investing in this growing economic sector, including greater food security and higher quality food, job creation, and improved quality of life for our urban and rural communities. The need to build capacity and sustainability in our food supply creates an opportunity to invest in sustainable economic growth for our region. Key to this growth is an understanding of the barriers — such as the need to aggregate production and distribution to scale, the need for effective financing models, for policy changes, for new public and private partnerships, for market development — and understanding the extent to which the emerging alternatives unlock the potential.

By design, there was a lot of expertise and activity in the room — from seasoned entrepreneurs and investors as well as from the next generation of innovators. We were fortunate to have generous co-sponsors: Goodwin Procter, Pinnacle Associates, Trillium Asset Management, and Eastern Bank. We are not the inventors of the idea, but we are the ones to carry it forward.

Stay tuned for updates on our urban farming work, triple-bottom-line funds, links between climate change, resilience, and sustainable farming practices, as well as entrepreneur stories, expert advising and more.

Burying our garbage in landfills is a waste of resources, but it’s also a convenient way to get rid of stuff we don’t need or want. If there were clear alternatives to trashing our resources, would we use them? The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) believes the answer is yes.

The DEP has finalized new rules that provide a permitting pathway for operations that process source separated materials – stuff like food waste or recyclable plastics that are not mixed with other wastes in the general trash stream. Source separated materials are distinguished from “waste”, so qualifying facilities will not be permitted as solid waste facilities. Previously a facility that sought to collect discarded material for recycling or some other reuse was considered a solid waste facility. This created barriers to the productive use of materials like food waste. The new regulations are a good step toward better management of our discarded materials.

Under the new rules, finalized November 23, DEP has created three size-based categories:

1. Small facilities (no permit required)
2. General permit facilities (certain activities permitted by-right)
3. Facilities that will require a new Recycling, Composting, and Conversion (RCC) permit

The good news is that these rules create a permitting pathway for anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities. AD is a process in which organic material, like food waste, is processed in an airtight container to create a gas similar to natural gas (high in methane). AD facilities can use the gas to fuel energy generators to create electricity and heat that can be used onsite or sold in the energy market.

AD facilities, if properly sited and appropriately operated, offer a win-win by managing food waste and generating a renewable gas for energy production. Rather than putting our food waste into a landfill where it does more harm than good, the energy in the food can be efficiency recovered for productive use.

“But what about composting?” you may be asking. DEP’s goals, as stated in the current draft Solid Waste Master Plan, include diverting 350,000 tons of organic waste per year from landfills. Some of this will be accomplished by AD facilities, but some diversion will be accomplished by composting. The new rules clarify which operations are permitted by DEP and which are permitted by the Department of Agricultural Resources (DAR).

Whether we create high quality fertilizers and soil amendments through composting, or energy and fertilizer through AD, we will be diverting organic material from landfill disposal. DEP’s new rules are a step in the right direction to better manage our resources for economic advantage and environmental gain.

With every innovation in the 20th century, one pattern stands out: where technology advances, a rise in public concern follows. From HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey to wireless devices, new technology gives rise to new questions and new concerns. This is certainly true of nanotechnology – a topic on which I’ve written extensively, and which has been the subject of vigorous debate.

Last month, at the first ever conference of the Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization in Washington DC, Michail Roco of the National Science Foundation, and architect of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative provided a response. He said, “every industrial sector is unsustainable…and nanotechnology holds the promise of making every one of them sustainable.”

It’s my belief that that is true: nanotechnology, or the ability to manipulate matter at a scale of one billionth of a meter, has far-reaching implications for the improvement of sustainable technology, industry and society.

Already, it is being used widely to enable more sustainable practices. Safer manufacturing, less waste generation, reusable materials, more efficient energy technologies, better water purification, lower toxicity and environmental impacts from chemotherapy agents to marine paints are all current applications of nanotechnology. There is no reason for this technology to develop in an unsustainable manner.

In the past, a lack of foresight has resulted in costs to society – people, businesses, and governments, and— that could have been avoided by proactive efforts to manage risks. Today, the tools to develop safer technologies and less harmful products exist. Let us not miss this opportunity.

The opportunity for emerging technologies and cutting edge materials to improve our quality of life, and decrease our impact on the planet is compelling. However, we know from past experience that novel materials can have unforeseen impacts. Brominated flame retardants, for example, added to consumer products to reduce their flammability have been detected in household dust, and in people and polar bears. We now have to phase out these chemicals, and introduce new ones.

My just released book, Nanotechnology Health and Environmental Risks Second Edition explains how we can manage the risks while gaining the benefits of this exciting enabling technology with applications that sound so whiz bang they could be science fiction, not current technology. Through a combination of screening risk analysis, life cycle thinking, and iterative analysis, better decisions can be made early in the product life cycle. Chapters contributed by esteemed colleagues in fields of nanotoxicology (Richard Pleus), exposure assessment (Thomas Peters), environmental assessment (J. Michael Davis), and risk perception (Ann Bostrom and Ragnar Lofstedt) describe the cutting edge science and emerging approaches in the field. The developments in the field since the first edition, in 2008, are many and our understanding has improved significantly.

CLF Ventures is working with a variety of public and private organizations to guide their efforts to be proactive in addressing the risks of emerging nanoscale materials and nanotechnologies, while our understanding continues to grow, and our regulatory structures develop. As with all types of innovation, the need for confidence about the safety of the products and demonstration of the benefits is critical to adoption. The potential benefits of nanomaterials and nanotechnologies are transformative and mission-advancing; their impacts must be addressed in order to achieve their benefits.

In 2011, CLF Ventures, the strategy-consulting arm of CLF, received a grant from the EPA to help two New England fishing/whale watching vessels replace the aging, inefficient engines on their vessels with cleaner-burning, more efficient four-stroke diesel engines. In this video, Captain Brad Cook of the Atlantic Queen II and Captain Chris Charos of Captain’s Fishing Parties reveal how the EPA grant and CLF Ventures enabled them to update their vessels’ technology, reducing emissions and substantially cutting their fuel use:

The EPA’s National Clean Diesel Funding Assistance program is designed to reduce air pollution and exposure to diesel fumes by covering up to 75% of the cost of an engine upgrade or repower. Replacing an outdated engine with the clean-burning technology used by Captain Brad and Captain Chris reduces asthma-causing particulate matter emissions by 63 percent and smog-producing nitrogen oxide emissions by 40 percent.

The program also cuts down on greenhouse gas emissions by improving efficiency and reducing fuel use by up to 14 percent. Fuel use is a serious concern for the fishing industry. A 2005 report published in AMBIO revealed that in 2000, the industry consumed about 13 million gallons of fuel, or 1.2 percent of global consumption. If the fishing industry were a country, it would be the world’s 18^th-largest consumer of oil—on par with the Netherlands. Fishing is also one of the only industry sectors to consistently become less fuel-efficient in recent years. With declining stocks sending fishermen farther from shore, this problem will only become more severe without significant investments and improvements in technology. Programs like EPA’s Diesel Emissions Reduction Program play an important role in greening the fishing fleet and helping to make fishing more sustainable.

The program isn’t just good for the environment; it’s also good for fishermen. A more efficient engine can save a fisherman 9,500 gallons of fuel per year, cutting fuel costs and increasing profit margins. Crew aboard these vessels reduce their exposure to harmful diesel fumes, which were recently classified as carcinogenic by the World Health Organization and placed in the same category as deadly toxins like asbestos and arsenic.  Consumers asking for sustainable options will appreciate the reductions in emissions and fuel use, too, and recreational fishermen and whale watchers aboard vessels with new engines can enjoy a quieter, cleaner ride.

Still, new engines can only go so far in cleaning up the fishing fleet. The industry is built on technology that made sense decades ago, when fuel was cheap, fish were more plentiful close to shore, and consumers weren’t demanding sustainable seafood choices. Down the line, greening the fleet will mean rebuilding it from the water up and introducing lighter, safer vessels that inherently use less fuel.

How does a community balance the potential costs of siting clean energy projects with the economic benefits they provide? What are the local economic realities of hosting distributed clean energy generation facilities and energy efficiency projects in a community? CLF Ventures explored these questions and others in a recent webinar we co-sponsored with the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) and the Massachusetts Municipal Association’s (MMA) Massachusetts Municipal Energy Group.

The first in a three-part series CLF Ventures is co-hosting this summer and fall, the August 15 webinar featured a presentation by James McGrath, Park and Open Space Program Manager for Pittsfield, a Massachusetts Green Community that has hosted several large-scale solar projects and implemented robust, community-wide energy efficiency programs. He spoke about how to initiate clean energy projects, the advantages of clean energy at the local level, and strategies to manage the most common roadblocks in implementation.

The webinar series is targeted to municipal officials and volunteers who are already engaged in clean energy and energy efficiency issues or interested in learning more about how to site and finance clean energy facilities and programs in their communities. Building on themes explored in CLF Ventures’ earlier work with MassCEC on siting land-based wind energy projects, the webinar series gives participants an opportunity to learn first-hand from municipal leaders and technical experts as they share their experiences implementing clean energy and energy efficiency projects across Massachusetts.

Upcoming webinars on September 12 and October 24 will explore how to engage the public when siting solar and wind energy projects and the ins and outs of financing clean energy through power purchase agreements. For more information or to register for upcoming webinars, email liz.carver@clf.org.

Warren (where I live) has become the first municipality in the state of Rhode Island to lease town-owned land to a farmer. The Warren Town Council unanimously agreed to lease two acres of land at the Community Farm and Gardens to Bleu Grijalva, founder and executive director of New Urban Farmers. The New Urban Farmers is a non-profit organization that works to preserve and restore the environment by creating sustainable agricultural systems by increasing healthy food access while nurturing minds in the cities of Pawtucket, Central Falls, and surrounding areas by eliminating barriers to healthy food and empowering low-income individuals, families, and at-risk-youth with education and collaboration. It believes that a community that grows together grows together.

Urban agriculture can play an important role in creating a more livable, carbon resilient, healthier, economically vibrant, and environmentally sustainable town — when smart policies are put in place — and this is just what CLF is doing now with the announcement of the Growing Green report. By addressing New England’s regional food system, CLF can begin to make New England more resilient to the impacts of climate change already underway. CLF and CLF Ventures are working together to shape and foster the development of a robust New England regional food system.

What exciting news for urban farmers! Mr. Grijalva will spend the next decade growing berries, setting up an orchard, making honey, and start growing mushrooms (a wooded, dark area is perfect). Part of the vision is to teach young children about local farming, sustainability, and organics.

This is real boon for urban agriculture in our state!

Urban agriculture holds great promise for Boston.

This post was coauthored by Melissa Hoffer & Jo Anne Shatkin.

We are excited to share with you the news that today CLF and CLF Ventures released a report that, for the first time, details the economic development potential for urban agriculture in Greater Boston, assesses its environmental and health co-benefits, and examines current market and policy barriers to expanded food production in Greater Boston. The report‘s findings confirm that urban agriculture can play an important role in creating a more livable, carbon resilient, healthier, economically vibrant, and environmentally sustainable city—if we put smart policies in place and encourage market development for Boston grown foods.

Download a free copy of the report here.

The City of Boston has taken important steps over the past two years to advance urban agriculture, and new businesses are taking root, including City Growers, a Mattapan-based farming business that is featured in this report. There is a palpable sense of excitement about the potential of this new urban vision for agriculture for communities; possibilities abound. But CLF and CLF Ventures believe it is more than possible— it is a necessity, and an urgent one at that as we face the challenges of climate change, an obesity epidemic, lack of availability of healthy foods in many communities, and a fragile economy.

The report found that converting as few as 50 acres of vacant or underutilized land around Boston into agricultural production would spur job creation, improve access to healthy, local, fresh food, and reduce environmental harms. Key findings of the report include:

• Land is available. 50 acres – an area the size of Boston Common – is a small portion of the vacant or underutilized land available in Boston.
• Urban farms would stimulate the economy by creating jobs. 50 acres of urban agriculture in Boston will likely generate at least 130 direct farming jobs and may generate over 200 jobs depending on actual business characteristics and revenue.
• Healthy, local and affordable food. 50 acres in agricultural production would provide enough fresh produce to feed over 3,600 people over a six-month retail season. If the produce is used to prepare healthy school lunches in Boston Public Schools, 50 acres could provide more than one serving of fresh produce for each lunch served to a student eligible for free or reduced school lunch over a six month period. If 800 acres of potentially available City-owned land were put into agricultural production, the food needs of approximately 10 percent of Boston’s total population could be fully satisfied during a six-month retail season.
• Significant environmental impacts. Urban agriculture in Boston will result in a net reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. 50 acres of properly managed soils would sequester about 114 tons of cabon dioxide (CO2) per year and may result in an additional CO2 reduction of up to 4,700 tons per year.
• Community adaptation. No less than 6,000 new temperature records were set during the recent March 2012 heat wave, and more than 40,000 have been set for the year-to-date. Meanwhile, the July 2011-June 2012 period was the warmest 12-month period of any 12-months on record for the contiguous U.S., with the first half of 2012 being the hottest ever recorded. The International Energy Agency’s recent projection of a 10.8 degree F temperature increase over pre-industrial levels by the end of this century underscores the fact that a more decentralized food system will be necessary to enable our communities to better adapt to changing climate conditions, including the impacts of more frequent severe weather. Urban agriculture is a part of this solution.

As Jo Anne said in the press release announcing Growing Green, it’s clear that even 50 acres of sustainable agriculture on available land would be an economic stimulus and environmental resource for Boston. While we focused on a 50 acre test scenario, these conclusions are scalable across New England. Imagine how vibrant New England would be like with a robust and sustainable regional food system.

In addition to the potential benefits, the report also considers the policy and market barriers to fully realizing the potential of urban agriculture, examining the ways in which promoting urban agriculture will require city and state involvement and key needs for such involvement. Such barriers include the need for policies that provide affordable access to land, one of the key market barriers for both new and experienced farmers; strategies to reduce the risks associated with the Commonwealth’s hazardous material cleanup law; improved access to high quality compost; and better financing options to overcoming prohibitive capital and operating costs, amongst other findings.

Our ongoing work seeks to link urban agriculture to the larger regional food system, and focuses on how to overcome some of the barriers we have identified.

Boston is ideally positioned to play a lead role in coordinating with the Massachusetts Food Policy Council, other New England states, and cities around the region to build a vision for a New England regional food system and make it happen. Boston is emerging as a national leader in urban agriculture innovation, and can be a voice for the benefits of urban agriculture and as one of the region’s largest consumers, help to build the market for regionally grown food.

Download a free copy of the report here.
Find an infographic detailing the report here: http://bit.ly/clfgrowinggreen
To read more about CLF’s Farm & Food Initiative, click here: http://www.clf.org/our-work/healthy-communities/food-and-farm-initiative/