Superior Grown Food Summit discusses our role in what we eat

Caption: Rick Dale spoke about his experience as a blueberry farmer near Bayfield Wisconsin. He owns Highland Valley Farm, Bayfield, WI. Website: http://www.bayfieldblues.com/

Today I attended the Superior Grown Food Summit. The topic was food security and how we might do that with locally grown foods. I truly believe in consuming locally grown foods. I try to do that and also try to eat organic foods. Last summer we had a community garden. It was interesting for me to listen to the people who wanted to get into farming, as what I would say is a small-time farmer, not a huge mega farm, because many of my relatives left the farm. Farming is very hard work.

I stayed until 2 p.m. I took lots of notes, but I am getting tired now. I hope to post something more about this event.

You may also visit the site www.superiorgrown.com

Caption: The keynote speaker was Darrin Nordahl. He talked about growing food in public spaces like boulevards and landscaping around parking lots. This photo shows graphs of the obesity epidemic in the United States since 1990. Some states have a good size of their population at over 40 pounds overweight. He is the author of Public Produce: Building a New Urban Agriculture. He currently works at the Design Center Davenport, IA

Website: http://www.darrinnordahl.com/

Here is a list of the guest speakers along with weblinks.

The Lure of the Local: What's Happening in the Local Foods Movement and Why?" (30 min.)

Maggie Adamek, Executive Vice President, Fourth Sector Consulting

Website: http://www.fourthsectorconsulting.com/

A Locally Adapted Food System Assessment (30 min.)

David Abazs, David Syring, and Stacey Stark, University of Minnesota, Duluth

Website: http://www.round-river.com/ AND http://www.d.umn.edu/cscd/projects.html

11:00am-12:15pm: Panel II: Building Blocks for Locally Adapted Food Systems

Family Farms and Locally Adapted Food Systems (30 min.)

Rick Dale, Highland Valley Farm, Bayfield, WI

Website: http://www.bayfieldblues.com/

Integrated Farming Systems for Adding Value: The Case of Free Range Poultry (30 min.)

Reginaldo (Regi) Haslett-Marroquin, Rural Enterprise Institute, SE MN

Website: http://www.mainstreetproject.org/programs/rural_enterprise_center.html

12:30-2:00pm: Keynote Speaker during Lunch

Public Produce: Building a New Urban Agriculture

Darrin Nordahl, Design Center, Davenport, IA

Website: http://www.darrinnordahl.com/

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Reducing CO2 with a Green Midday Lunch

Caption: James Merle and Tressa Erickson are members of the College of St. Scholastica's Earth Action club. The club provided a locally procured meal and encouraged students to compost food waste in their dorms with these tiny buckets. (See below.)

Three-hundred fifty, that's an important number. It is the number of the upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that our earth can sustain before we have damaging effects. Right now we are at 390 parts per million. But it IS POSSIBLE for us to reduce this. There are many things you can do. For example, did you know that the biggest culprit of fossil fuel usage in agriculture is fertilizers and pesticides? (Learn more at Sustainable Table.)

Today my daughter, Rebecca, was visiting, and we decided to participate in the Earth Action Green Midday Lunch at the College of St. Scholastica. Everything that the students provided for this lunch was locally grown or raised.

The lunch, held in Tower Hall at the Multicultural Center, was served on ceramic plates, and tumblers were provided for people to get water from the drinking fountain. We got there a little late, so we missed out on the lasagna, but we did get the vegetarian rotellini and blue corn chips. Our dessert, the apple crisp, was great.

Learn more about the International Day of Climate Action which is Oct. 24 at 350.org.

See more photos of the Green Midday Lunch here.

See the Twin Ports 350 blog here.