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Spring 2010 Newsletter
Dear Ecology,
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 1.
Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative News
Kenney Cottage, 1906  | The Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative is a fiscally
sponsored project of the Ecology Center. Beebo Turman, Director of the
Gardening Collaborative, shares some exciting updates:
Years go by without additions to our list of 12 community
gardens in the Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative, but suddenly we have
a new community garden at 1631 5th Street, in West Berkeley. The lot
is owned by the City of Berkeley and leased to the Northern California Land
Trust, for the express purpose of placing the Kenney Cottage there,
along with a community garden. The
Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association will assist in the renovation of
the landmarked Kenney Cottage, which will become an art gallery
space. A group of concerned
neighbors and community members have been meeting for over a year, and we have
already created and placed some raised beds in temporary positions.
The Berkeley Community
Gardening Collaborative and Berkeley Partners For Parks have joined
forces to develop the Sante Fe Right-of-Way into pathways and
alternative green spaces. South of
University Avenue, cutting diagonally from the old railroad depot (now the
Montessori School) to Sacramento & Oregon Streets, is an area of about 6
blocks that has sat empty for 30 years. We want to see something positive-something that the south Berkeley
neighborhood would want. Besides a
path, perhaps we could have community gardens, a tot lot, a demonstration
garden, a small dog park, an orchard, or just benches surrounded by native
plants. The Rails To Trails Conservancy helped us with community meetings and in creating a vision document. Now the National Park Service, through
its Rivers, Trails, & Conservation Assistance Program, has joined
our group. We aim to finish the
Ohlone Greenway so that a person could walk or bike from Richmond, El Cerrito, and
Albany to Berkeley. A mural
project of eight panels will be hung on the fence of the Santa Fe Right-of-Way,
depicting what the area looked like in the past and what it could look like in
the future. The Berkeley Parks
Department is taking part in of all this and being very supportive, in spite of
the fact that these are very difficult financial times.
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2. All About Seeds: Sources and Selection at the Ecology Center Store
 For many of us, spring is the time to start planning and planting our vegetable gardens. You can start by selecting your seeds from the racks at the Ecology Center Store. We have carried packets from Seed Savers Exchange for many years now, but you may have noticed that last year we added a new line, Larner Seeds, and this year we have added the Sustainable Seed Company to our racks. How do we select which seed lines to carry? Below are some of the questions that we ask and the factors we consider: - Are the seeds genetically modified? We feel that GM seeds have been insufficiently tested and may pose biological risks. In addition, we oppose the control that GM companies, like Monsanto, are seeking to gain over the world's food supply. We believe that ordinary people, not corporations, should have fair access to the seeds of the traditional foods we have eaten for centuries.
- Are the seeds open-pollinated(OP), non-hybrid seeds? OP seeds will breed true to type through the next generation, which means that you can save the seeds you've planted for the next year instead of having to re-buy your seeds from a company year after year. If you save and plant the seeds from a hybrid plant, the resulting plant will not resemble the parent, and in fact, may.... Buying and growing OP seeds also means you are helping to preserve the natural genetic diversity within the gene pool.
- Are the seeds organically grown? Conventional crops are raised with many chemical inputs (fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides) that can harm the environment and leave residues on the fruits and veggies we eat. By supporting organic growers, you're helping to maintain a safer environment for future generations.
- Are the seeds locally grown? By now we are all familiar with the benefits of supporting our local economy. When you support local businesses, more of the money spent stays in your community. Lower transportation miles means both lower costs and lower carbon footprints. And when it comes to seeds, those that are locally grown are more likely to be adapted to your region, which means happier, healthier plants!
- Are the seeds native to California? Native plants need less water and fertilizer and can usually fend for themselves against unwanted pests. They provide food and homes for native and endangered insects, birds, and amphibians. Growing native plants helps us to connect with our own bioregion.
Our Seed Lines Presently, the Ecology Center Store stocks seeds from the following companies, which provide seeds that meet several or all of our criteria: Seed Savers Exchange - A non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of heirloom seeds. Not local, but all of their seeds are GM-free and open-pollinated, and many of them are certified organic. We carry a wide selection of their herb and vegetable seeds. Sustainable Seed Company - A new, local, for profit seed company in Petaluma that carries only GM-free, open-pollinated seeds, 90% grown on the West Coast, 40% of that grown in Sonoma County. Most of their seed is organically grown. They produce many unusual vegetable and herb seeds. Larner Seeds - A company located in Bolinas, California that sells only California native plant seeds, all GM-free and open-pollinated, many of them collected in Marin County. We carry a selection of their annual wildflower seeds and seed mixes.
The Ecology Center Store is also home to BASIL, the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library. The library contains healthy vegetable, herb, and flower seeds that are available free to the public. Local gardeners and farmers can "check out" seeds with the agreement that they attempt to grow them out and "return" some seeds of the next generation at the end of the season. BASIL hosts a fantastic annual seed-sharing event each spring, and the Ecology Center typically offers seed-saving classes.
Glossary of Seed Terms GM - Genetically modified, also called GE, genetically engineered. The result of artificial transfer of genetic material outside of natural reproductive methods and between genera, families, or kingdoms. Hybrid - The result of a cross between parent varieties that are genetically different. The seed saved from hybrid crops will not breed true to type, so hybrid seeds must be purchased every year. Open-Pollinated (or OP) - Non-hybrid plants produced by traditional selective breeding. The seed save from OP crops will grow into plants very similar, though not identical, to their parents. Seed can be saved year after year. Heirloom - A favorite open-pollinated variety that has been handed down from generation to generation. Organically grown - Produced without the application of certain chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Certified organic seeds have met all the criteria of a rigorous and expensive certification process. Standards of organic growing are determined by the National Organic Program, a division of the USDA. Not all organic growers choose to be certified. Local - For the Ecology Center in Berkeley, local means grown in Northern or Central California. Native - A species already growing in California when the Spanish first arrived in 1542.
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3. Urban Farms Versus Urban Zoning
Terraced into the uphill slope of a backyard in a quiet neighborhood in North Berkeley, Sophie Hahn's vegetable garden looks like many others in the city: planter boxes bursting with kale, lettuce, and cauliflower, a compost bin for green waste, chickens clucking in their coop. The garden produces eight garden beds worth of veggies and sixteen chickens' worth of eggs-much more food than Hahn's family could possibly eat.
The oversupply is intentional: while the yard belongs to Hahn, she does no gardening herself. Instead, she hires two professional urban farmers to plant, weed, harvest, and deliver the bounty to her family's doorstep-and to her neighbors' doorsteps-once a week. "I don't even go down there," the attorney and community activist said one morning last fall. "I'm busy!"
To Hahn, this arrangement makes perfect sense. Instead of hiring a gardener to tend her roses, she hires a farmer to tend her vegetables, thus putting her land to productive use. "If I turn my backyard into edible food plants, that means five or six other families don't have to," she says, as the chickens, which produce four to five dozen eggs each week, cluck in apparent agreement. "I spread the benefits to more than just my family."
But feeding six families costs money, and Hahn has shouldered the set-up costs alone, installing garden beds and drip irrigation, buying seeds, and paying the farmers to coax the land to produce. To recoup those costs, Hahn wants to charge her neighbors a small fee for their weekly food baskets. This exchange, she says, would be similar to a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, in which people pay a subscription fee to a farm in return for regular deliveries of seasonal food. Since she lives in Berkeley, a city that just last year made building a local food system part of its long-term Climate Action Plan, Hahn figured she would have no problem getting a license from the city to run her small farm.
She was wrong.
Read the rest of the article in Terrain Magazine.
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4. Making the Case for Raw Chocolate
 Joining the mix at the Tuesday Berkeley Farmers' Market is Coracao Confections - one of a growing number of raw chocolatiers that are making the case for the health benefits of raw, unprocessed chocolate. "Cacao is one of the most antioxidant rich foods in the world. And one ounce contains 314% of the iron you need per day," says Daniel Korson, who founded Coracao Confections with Matthew Rogers after the two left their positions at Caf=E9 Gratitude, a local eatery specializing in raw foods. "Roasting the cacao destroys nutrients and creates caffeine," Korson emphasizes.
In the world of raw chocolate, Coracao Confections is unique. Nearly all of the other raw chocolate companies simply make chocolate bars. Coracao Confections is making artful chocolate confections in the form of truffles, cups, and heart shapes, but what makes them truly special is a diverse range of additions that includes an amazing gooey kaffir lime filling, goji berries, or a new take on the classic "Almond-Joy." While the additions are delicious, they are chosen not just for taste, but also to blend the chocolate with complimentary "superfoods" according to Korson and Rogers.
A look over their website reveals ingredients like l=FAcuma, yacon syrup, and maca, all described as "superfoods" and annotated with information about their exceptional nutritional content. The term "superfood" is generally used to describe food with high phytonutrient content, though there is currently no legal definition for a "superfood" in the United States.
Rogers, the chocolate wizard behind all of the amazing flavors, is a pioneer of raw confections, having started the chocolate line at Caf=E9 Gratitude and co-authored Sweet Gratitude, the Caf=E9 Gratitude dessert cookbook. All of Coracao Confections' offerings were developed in-house. "There really are no resources out there for raw chocolate," Rogers says. "I've pretty much had to create it all on my own, through trial and error. Sometimes I'll go on the internet for general chocolate questions, but a lot of it doesn't apply to what we do."
It isn't just that Coracao Confections is using raw chocolate that leads to the challenge. Their products are entirely raw, vegan, wheat free, and are made without any refined sugars or hydrogenated oils. They also use fair trade and organic ingredients wherever possible. All of the cacao they use is fair-trade and organic, mostly from Ecuador and some from Peru. Coracao Confections avoids purchasing cacao-derived products from Africa, both because of the large carbon footprint and because most of it is produced using slave labor.
As for many of the other ingredients, they are hard to find in any form, let alone organic. Coracao Confections uses sweeteners with a low Glycemic Index (GI). The chocolate uses exclusively coconut sugar, which is made by collecting and evaporating the sap of coconut flowers. In addition to having a low GI and being more nutritious than most sweeteners, the production of coconut sugar is reviving a traditional technique and supporting small farmers in Asia.
Despite starting the business in the midst of a recession, Coracao Confections has grown impressively since its foundation two years ago. While the chocolates are primarily sold through farmers' markets, they are also available at Whole Foods and a few specialty shops in the Bay Area. Korson points out one advantage of buying chocolate from Coracao Confections at the farmers' market, and that is freshness. "We don't add any stabilizers or preservatives, although through good production practices our products are designed to be shelf stable for up to a month, but like anything, they are best when fresh," he says.
Rogers adds, "What we sell at the farmers' market is all made within the prior week, and in some cases the day before."
While Coracao Confections acknowledges that many of their ingredients come from a long way away, they point out that people eat chocolate and are going to keep doing it. "We want to help make sure that we are offering people the most antioxidant rich, nutrient packed, and highest quality confections in the world."
Please visit Coracao Confections at the Berkeley Farmers' Market every Tuesday from 2pm - 7pm.
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5. GAIA Planning June Action to Shut Down Detroit's Incinerator
 At the 2010 US Social Forum, which takes place June 22-26 in Detroit, community-led environmental justice groups, supported by the GAIA network will lead a mass non violent civil disobedience action against a U.S. Goliath of climate and community pollution. GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives) is a fiscally sponsored project of the Ecology Center.
Detroit's Municipal Solid Waste Incinerator is the largest incinerator in the world, operated by the world's largest incinerator company. Covanta manages over 40 waste incinerators in the U.S., and despite Covanta's efforts to green-wash "Waste to Energy," waste incineration remains the "primary source" of dioxins in the world and produces more climate pollution (per unit of electricity generated) than coal power plants.
The week after the U.S. Social Forum, Detroit's Mayor David Bing is faced with a choice between renewing Detroit's incinerator contract and opting for the Zero Waste Detroit coalition proposal for green jobs. The coalition have presented the city with a business model that would create three times the number of long-term jobs (than currently employed at the incinerator) through recycling the waste currently being burned. This plan would also serve to end the toxic legacy of the incinerator and reduce future climate pollution equivalent to the emissions of over 100,000 cars every year.
Please join GAIA in helping Mayor Bing side with Green Jobs, Clean Air and Climate Stabilization! For more information, contact: ananda@no-burn.org.
Zero Waste Detroit Coalition
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
Ruckus Society
Design Action Collective
In collaboration with the U.S. Social Forum National Planning Committee
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6. Compost Confidential
 In 1999, Berkeley launched a pilot project that took food waste from the city's restaurants and grocery stores and sent it to a composting operation. By 2007, all Berkeley residents were given the opportunity to compost their moldy produce, bones, and greasy napkins by tossing them in the green rollaway carts the city provides for yard debris collection. The food waste composting program proved wildly popular from the start; the city received thousands more requests for five-gallon kitchen green bins than it had anticipated. By 2009, the city was diverting over 12,000 tons of food and yard debris from residences and nearly 6,000 tons of commercial food scraps per year to Grover Environmental Products, a composting facility located in Vernalis, near Modesto.
Berkeley's gardeners have been especially pleased with the program, as the food and green waste is transformed into rich - and free - compost for schools, community gardens, and residents. Once a month for most of the year, a huge heap is given away at the marina, where residents fill their trunks and truck beds with boxes and bags of WonderGrow, Grover's black gold.
Yet as popular as the program is, the large-scale composting of city food and yard waste faces growing challenges, some related to the materials that city dwellers toss in their bins, others to the evolving competition for food scraps. Good ideas - like enriching the soil of organic farms with compost made from urban food waste - are not necessarily meshing with other good ideas, like using compostable plant-based plastics rather than disposable petroleum-based plastics. Pesticides approved for use on lawns are persisting all the way through the industrial composting process and contaminating the end product, making it unsuitable for organic agriculture. And the development of alternative composting technologies - namely biogas digesters - is provoking a debate over what food and yard waste should be used for.
Read the rest of the article in Terrain.
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Did you know that you can call us with your environmental questions? Our Information Desk staff will give you referrals and provide information to help you make sound ecological choices. Email erc@ecologycenter.org or give us a call at 510-548-2220 x233. To subscribe to or unsubscribe from this newsletter, send a note to newsletter@ecologycenter.org. This newsletter can also be found online at http://ecologycenter.org/newsletter
The Ecology Center is a membership organization providing environmental information and direct services to promote sustainable living and a healthy, socially just world. Please support this community resource for the environment by becoming a member or by making a donation. Support our work on-line at http://www.ecologycenter.org/donate/
[Banner photo credits: great blue heron - Jack Wolf; poppies, EcoHouse, peach, Grover compost - Beck Cowles]
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