Sustainability Conference Day One
CSU Chico's third annual celebration of sustainability started today. I jotted down notes, but they are still disorganized. But here are some of my initial reflections:
Sierra Cascade Blueberry Farm: To pollinate the blueberries, don't kill the gophers. Problem with beetles? Change the irrigation system. Rabbits chewing your plants to the ground? That's okay, those plants were a weaker variety, and probably shouldn't have been planted anyway. Oh, and by the way, this is how you run a successful organic blueberry operation for 20 years. John Carlon (who is also the president of River Partners) demonstrated that the next generation of farmers will need to be ecologists, working with the land to find solutions, rather than working against it. And the gophers? Their numerous holes are the perfect habitat for bumblebees, which are the key pollinators for his crop. This benefit offsets the damages incurred by the gophers' appetite.
Massa Organic Rice Farm: We are blessed in Chico to have not one, but two organic rice farmers in this area. Greg Massa is the little guy (Lundberg is the big guy). While Lundberg can stock Whole Foods, I let Greg stock my kitchen. I buy directly from him at the Farmers' Market--as far as he knows, he is the only organic rice producer in the U.S. who sells in this manner--and his rice is really good. I was raised on basic white Safeway rice, and never even knew that rice had a taste before I sampled rice grown at his farm. The San Francisco Examiner goes as far as to call his rice "sexy." But most important, his rice is our rice--the home team's rice--it is yummy, healthy and sustainably grown just 20 minutes from town. That picture on the the bag of rice is his house (I've seen it). I've seen the oak tree too. And the egret. And his house, his kids, and his family live yards from his crops. That tells you something about the health of his land.
Keynote Speaker--Ann Cooper: Chef Anne Cooper has transformed the school lunch program at all 16 of Berkeley's public schools. In her presentation she shared the scary facts about school lunches in this country, and then described Berkeley's program, which integrates School Gardening, nutrition education, and the school lunch program featuring fresh, locally grown, organic food. I imagined myself standing up and playing the devil's advocate, by stating: "Excuse me, you live in Berkeley, perhaps one of the most liberal cities in the U.S., where one out of every three new cars purchased is a Prius. How can Chico's budget-challenged schools ever imagine getting to where you are?" Of course, I want it all, yesterday--school gardens, Pyramid Farm organic broccoli and Massa rice stir-fry in the lunch menu, everything. Local nutritionist Gina Sims had to remind my that positive change must come with small steps, but just because those steps are small doesn't diminish the fact that they are improvements. But I counter--will we make enough small steps over the next few years to keep 1 of every 3 U.S. kids born after the year 2000 from getting diabetes, as predicted by the CDC?
Keynote Speaker--David Orr: He did not mince words--he is the camp that says in order to deal with the issue of Climate Change, we need to take action, now. I liked him. Despite getting into Oakland at 12:30 p.m. and arriving in time to speak at 4, he came across as well-spoken and as passionate as his writings (I have a college text that he wrote). I have heard quite a few speakers talk about climate change now, either directly or indirectly--Orr, Paul Hawken, Tom Wessels, Al Gore (or rather, his film) and David Suzuki among them. I have found you need to find a careful balance of telling people the bad news about climate change, but then also empowering folks, regardless of who they are, of what they can do about it. The report of U.N. intergovernmental panel will be able to give information that is useful to heads of state, but what part of that report is useful to me? With this in mind, I have found the best climate change presenter to be CSU Chico's own Jim Pushnik, who gave a talk at CARD last year.
Off to bed. More tomorrow.