Tonight I presented my experience at Slow Food's Terra Madre 2014 Conference at the Wolfville Farmers Market. Here is my presentation with links and notes- flip through and enjoy.
Links and Discussion Points
Introduction
Hello I am Duncan Ebata, it is my mission in life to promote good, clean, fair food in order to sustain, healthy and resilient communities. I believe that new media technology, combined with authentic, community marketing, can transform food production, distribution, consumption, and community. By leveraging new media technology and building community, we can decentralize commerce so that farmers and rural communities can make living wage. We started HarvestHand Community Platform last year to strengthen local food communities through new media after two years of building software for CSA farms. It's now my full-time job to promote CSA Farms and build food communities HarvestHand. If you like what we're doing, we'd love to connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, and or with one of our food community projects.
What is Terra Madre Conference?
Terra Madre is Slow Food's international conference bringing together slow food delegates from around the world in Turin, Italy. Its purpose is to celebrate, share, educate, explore, and build capacity around good, clean, fair food and biodiversity. Learn more
Terra Madre Day- December 10th
This year's theme was highlighting local foods at risk of disappearing and small family farms. All over the world, traditional food products are disappearing, along with the knowledge, techniques, cultures and landscapes related to their production. This is where Slow Food’s Ark of Taste comes in – a project to catalogue and protect these foods. Learn about or nominate local foods at risk in Canada here: arkeoftaste.slowfoodcanada.ca
Tackling Food Waste
FoodSharing.de - German network of citizens for redistributing food that would otherwise be wasted. Participating farms and food purveyors put the word out that they have food about to go to waste and people pick up the food and redistribute it. To handle legal issues, the redistributor signs a contract with the business or individual that transfers the safety and legal responsibility to the the redistributer. All types of food purveyors, farmers, and citizens are part of it. Regular pickups are scheduled with businesses (bakeries, cafes, supermarkets, farmers markets, farms, restaurants etc.) and people use the website as a forum to post if they have good food that needs a new home.
CropMobster -started by the wonderful and brilliant Nick Papadopoulos. Nick is a farmer, CSA farm manager at Bloomfield Organics, and Food Waste Superhero. Sometimes Nick writes articles for the Huffington Post. How CropMobster works: "By leveraging social media and “instant alerts” we spread the word quickly about local food excess and surplus from any supplier in the food chain, get healthy food to those in need, help local businesses recover costs, prevent food waste and connect our community in new and fun ways" Read more
Economics Of Happiness Notes:
Joel Simo, Vanuatu said, "according to the rest of the world we are poor (referring to his home country Vanuatu). This is because we are 168th in the world ranking of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by country (GDP being the way most countries measure their wealth). But... when we asked our citizens (around 1 million people) if they feel poor, they all say they are happy. They said that they have roofs over their heads, they have enough food, and they are happy. So then why does the world the world think we are poor?"
Manish Jain, India- if you are in search of happiness, go look up anything you can find on this man, he’s legendary and inspiring. Manish elaborated on various ways in which people find/of finding happiness. Near the end of his talk he said, "do you want me to tell you my grandma's secret to happiness?" Naturally everyone said "yes!" He said, "So one day I was sitting with my grandma and she told me what the secret to happiness is. She said, "#1 Touch. #2 Forgiveness. #3 Silence. #4 It's a secret." (insert cheeky smile).
At the end of the talk, Manish convinced 50 people who attended the session to hug both of their neighbours, and everyone hugged each other without exception. In case you want to do this with a big group of people, here's how:
1. First ask everyone if they want to try an activity that is proven to make you happy. Even if people are unsure, no one ever says no.
2. Ask everyone to stand up and put their hands together.
3. Ask everyone to turn to their right or left.
4. Ask everyone to open their arms and then close them around their neighbour
5. Then say to turn to their other neighbour and do the same.
That's it. Now you have a group of happy people. This may very well be the best icebreaker in the world. Imagine the power of 50 complete strangers hugging each other, smiling, and laughing at a conference with over 10,000 visitors from 158 countries.
Happiness Links:
The Economics of Happiness Documentary featuring Vandana Shiva and Manish Jain.
Economics of Happiness Facebook page, the content is so good, I read every post.
Real Food in Schools with Jamie Oliver and Alice Waters
Watch this talk! The work and knowledge in this talk is amazing.
Sustainable Trust also has other videos from Terra Madre 2014: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmX-D9mfdlbRkyxC_UzGhxw/videos
Impact Campaign Advice
Featuring: Nick Papadopoulos and Tristram Stuart (Food Waste Hero, Author of FOOD WASTE- Uncovering the Global Food Waste Scandal, Feedback Global Founder)
Nick Papadopoulos: How to break big unnecessary food contracts:
Target decision makers
Get the mom's board
Start alliance with farmer associations
Create impact stories! With clear metrics:
2,000,000+servings of local nutritious food saved from going to waste in Sonoma and Marin counties.
1,000,000+ pounds of premium local food saved from going to waste in Sonoma and Marin counties
5% average increase in sales bottom line for small farms
"That’s the impact, that’s powerful!" -Nick Papadopoulos
Tristram Stuart
Show people the real reasons there is a problem and show people how they can make change. The problem and change activity must be linked. If people do not understand the values behind what they are doing, it's impossible to create sustainable change. If people shift behaviour for values then you can take them on a further journey of other issues. Cultivate the values!
http://feedbackglobal.org
Slow Food Youth Network
I met people of all ages who are involved in it. I met a delegate who was 12 years old and actively organanized events in her community. The message Slow Food Youth was "Do you feel young?"
Disco Soup
I was fortunate enough to attend one in Essen, Germany, that, my super awesome slow food leader and workshop facilitator friend, Anne Stieger organized. We cooked and redistributed 2 metric tonnes of food from local farms that would have gone to waste. In attendance were people from all walks of life from homeless people to bankers to activists.
The event was hosted in a low income neighbourhood in a pedestrian only street.
Get Involved with Slow Food
Become a Slow Food member or attend an event, all events are public: slowfoodns.ca
It seems this fall season has been even faster than last year, who knew it was possible.
Community Updates:
Frank Cochrane at Cochrane Family Farm's asked us to add his logo to our CSA Software page, if you'd like your's added please send with your preferred logo.
Taproot Farms just posted Spicy Fennel Spaghetti Recipe and The State of the CSA. Here are Patricia's thoughts after reading the State of the CSA:
One: I want to arrange another farm visit time
Two: I really want to have a think tank session with members before we move into next year - what is working, what is not working, from all perspectives
Three: I hope our CSA members know the impact the impact their commitment has on the farm and farm team and agriculture."
What do you think? Join the discussion here
We're loving the choice of inspirational quotes from Shanis Farm. Thanks Scott and Cheryl!
Here's a sneak preview of SchurmanFamilyFarm.caIt's a custom design by Raina Noël. we'd love your feedback, please send to
Check out Tebogt's new cold storage.Congrat's Emily! Emily has awesome Facebook updates, make sure to "like" herFacebook page
Strawberry Hill farm got hit by snow last week.
From Tim's blog: "I had to plow a path into the Brussels sprouts. The truck still got stuck and needed to be pulled out but at least the crew did get everything harvested that we need."
See full blog, there are lots of other cool photos.
The International CSA Directory and Mapis now live. We've partnered with theInternational Network of Community Supported Agriculture (URGENCI) to make this happen. If you'd like to be added to the map or you'd like information changed, please send us a note through the form.
Local Food Community News
It's ACORN Conference Week! ACORN just published the At-A-Glance Program which makes it easy to see all the concurrent workshops. Very handy for planning. If you are on Twitter, this year's hashtag is #2014ACORN (click to see discussion)
Food Secure Canada's (FSC) National Assembly is November 13th-16th at the same location as ACORN Conference. Fun fact: If you are registered for ACORN Conference, you can go to FSC on Friday for free.
Vandana Shiva is in town for Food Secure Canada conference and she is doing a talk on"The Politics of Food" on November 12th at 7pm at Ondaatje Auditorium, Dalhousie University. Suggested donations: $20 (waged), $10 (unwaged).
More details
NS 50% Local Club = Huge Success!
Over 3000 Nova Scotian's participated in this club for the month of September and shared their experience. That's 2800 more than last year!
Check out and join the Facebook group, it's still active!
FarmWorks Upcoming Events
Investment Info Sessions, see calendar for dates.
Nov. 22: Meet Your Farmer Dinner Feat. Rupert from Ironwood Farm at Flying Apron Cookery
Nov. 30- FarmWorks Market at Just Us! Grand Pre
Devour Food Film Fest is on in Wolfville this week.
There are over 100 events- films, workshops, and events. Check out the program here
If you want to share something in next month's newsletter, please email
Support Updates
Facebook Tip
Create a "username" for your Facebook page! It takes 1 minute and allows you to claim a custom link like this:http://facebook.com/harvesthandcsa
This makes it shorter and much easier to share. Without a username, a Facebook page link looks like this:
www.facebook.com/
yourfarm/123485762p129384
We recommend making it your business name!
Duncan is now in the office 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Hooray!
He'll be out November 12th-14th for ACORN conference. You can reach him during those days at: 1(866)-542-4305 or in person at ACORN.
Any other day, just call Duncan at:
1 (902)-542-5310
Note: The toll-free forwards to Duncan's cell so it's the best number to call in emergency.
Development Updates
We'd like to officially welcome Justin Bezanson to our community. Justin has worked on a number of HarvestHand CSA software features and websites over the past year and we're fortunate to have him with us.
Justin was born and raised in Nova Scotia, has 3 young children, and works with Mike Caplan in Wolfville.
Justin's favourite past projects include premium marketing services with analytics, coupons for Digital Dental Exchange (DDX) cases, buildingLabnext from the ground up, invoice management for DDX cases, and building setup wizards to help practices and labs easily setup their information. Justin brings a wealth of knowledge when it comes to software development.
Welcome Justin!
Thank you for your feedback email about HarvestHand CSA software. We'll be sending around a survey soon to gather specific feedback to determine the next developments.
Please continue to keep us updated about how you are doing and what you need help with. We are here to help you reach your business and community goals.
Celeriac and Apple Slaw-inspired by Devour Food Film Festival by Aubergine Aube Giroux
Seasonal Recipe Directory by Selah Koile. Selah spent 1 year creating recipes for Ted Hutten at Hutten Family Farm. She's also the Wolfville Good Food Hub Coordinator. Here's a sample of a few of her recipes:
Baked Sweet Potato Stuffed with Fennel and Goat Cheese
Description from Devour website: "What do you do when your city is broke, its citizenry is underpaid and undernourished, and its youth have next to no support? You farm." 3 Acres beautifully captures the essence of resilience, grassroots movement, and the power of sharing stories.
Homeward from The Perennial Plate on Vimeo.
Homeward- Story Oregano Growing in Mexico
The story of a oregano family farming and eliminating "the middle men"("coyotes"). Reminds me of fair trade coffee farming communities and their issues of profit seeking middlemen.
Hands in the Dirt: The Film , Richmond BC
Vancouver is becoming "the greenest city" while 20 minutes away in thousands of acres of Richmond's farm land is polluted by real estate development waste. Do you know of farm land being polluted from development waste where you live? Pick up your camera or smartphone!
Green Bronx Machine
Stephen Ritz is a garden and slow food education hero. I enjoyed this talk immensly as it covers a wide range of topics related to why food education and why it is vital. Stephen demonstrates how health awareness, food security, getting children excited about food, managing disabilities and growing food, education system shift, and teaching children entrepreneurial skills (risk taking, creativity etc.) all co-mingle.
ReDane (Full Film)
Factory farming is everywhere. Less and less people live in rural areas. Why would they, who wants to live in a factory? A story of Denmark, farming, and proposal for a new quality focused economy.
Remembering what vegetables and fruits are in season is difficult if you are not farmer. To quickly find out what's in season we usually just look at what is in the deliveries of CSA's (Community Shared Agriculture) using HarvestHand CSA Software or we check our poster on the fridge. For example, you can see Taproot Farm's (in Nova Scotia) latest vegetable harvest here. If you want a what's in season poster for your fridge, here are the best free "Eat in Season" charts and "Eat Seasonably" infographics that we could find for Canada and the United Kingdom. Please share other charts with us on Facebook, Twitter, or via email.
Select Nova Scotia, Canada, What's in Season Chart:
Download the print version here and view Select Nova Scotia seasonal recipes here.
Ontario Canada's Vegetable Availability Chart
Download Ontario chart created by the Ontario CSA Farms Directory- for print here or view online here.
