In his recent book “The Wisdom of Small Farms and Local Food: Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic and Sustainable Agriculture,” author and University of New Hampshire professor John Carroll explores the notion of sustainable agriculture. His book coincides with a growing interest in the subject. A number of local citizens, institutions and politicians are currently working to promote local, sustainable food.

Raymond Burton, a Grafton, N.H., County Commissioner and Governor’s Executive Council member recently proposed the reopening of all county farms to grow fruits and vegetables for distribution to low income New Hampshire citizens. Five Seacoast residents are in the process of establishing a local chapter of the Slow Food Movement, while some markets and restaurants are working harder to work with local farmers.

understanding sustainable agriculture

Although Carroll’s book has a somewhat academic appearance at first glance, closer inspection reveals beautiful watercolor illustrations by New Hampshire artist Karen Busch Holman, as well as essays, poetry and a general literary approach.

“We invested a lot into (these elements) for the explicit reason that it should be attractive to the average person ... and not restricted in any way to only a person who’s interested in agriculture, science or farming,” Carroll explains. His efforts have paid off and the book—although by no means a light read—is indeed accessible, providing insight not only into what sustainable agriculture is, but into what it isn’t.

Carroll begins his book by profiling the philosophies of early 20th century conservationist Aldo Leopold, famous to many for having penned “A Sand County Almanac” and for pioneering the idea of a “land ethic.” Simply put, having a land ethic means including land as a member of the community and thereby extending to the land the same considerations that you would extend to any member of a community.

Using Leopold’s theory and teachings as the backbone for his book, Carroll goes on to illustrate ways in which four land grant universities—Wisconsin, Iowa, Maine and Vermont—are working to bring the theory and practice of a land ethic to the public, and how this translates into sustainable agriculture, “a socially responsible and economically viable agriculture so designed and implemented that it can be continued indefinitely, without exhausting its resources, corrupting its environment, or impoverishing its practitioners,” Carroll writes, quoting from the book “The Fate of Family Farming,” by Ron Jager.

A key element in understanding sustainable agriculture is to understand how it differs from unsustainable agriculture, or industrial agriculture. In a nutshell, industrial agriculture is comparable to industrial factories: it strictly commodifies food, with the result being that productivity and efficiency are prized while natural biological systems are repressed, more or less. Carroll compares the two in a clearly laid out chart (at the end of Chapter three) that offers point-by-point descriptions of each approach’s take on issues like erosion, water conservation, organic waste management, biodiversity, pest management, profit-versus-risk to farmers, and so on.

Of particular interest to local readers might be the chapters on the University of Maine and the University of Vermont. Maine is noted for having all but done away with programs representing the chemical/industrial agricultural model and for having incorporated the first degree-granting Sustainable Agriculture Program in the country. In fact, this is now the only agriculture degree an undergraduate can earn at Maine. This chapter also profiles the Maine Sustainable Agriculture Society, The Women’s Agricultural Network, the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and more.

Vermont is noted for having founded the UVM Center for Sustainable Agriculture. Anchored in the university’s Extension Program, the center works “to help to support, to inspire, Vermont farmers and those who would become such.” Specifically, the center works to help farmers increase profits and protect the environment, works to help keep land in farming (as opposed to being developed) and supports emerging agricultural enterprises. Of special note is the center’s efforts to promote sustainable grazing, or rotational grazing, which is of particular importance to a state known for its dairy industry. Grazing has been known to decimate thousands of acres of land (particularly in the west) when practiced unsustainably. 

Overall, says Carroll, “These four universities provide a model for the way the nation can go, the way our public land grant universities can go, and the way our farming should go.” Specifically, he says, there should be a direct connection between farmers and consumers, with no middleman. This, he says, “enables the farmer to make sufficient money to stay on the land and to succeed.” Carroll’s book does not cover the ways in which the University of New Hampshire is working to support sustainability (a sequel is in the works that will profile only New England land grant universities, including New Hampshire’s). However, there’s plenty of activity in this area in Durham, too (see sidebar).

While no one will argue against promoting sustainability as a morally sound endeavor that’s also good for the environment, Thomas Kelly, director of UNH’s Office of Sustainability Programs, wants to make sure people realize that the most compelling reason for individuals to support sustainability is that it makes for a better quality of life. For starters, he says, sustainably-produced food tastes better. Also, he says, it’s better for you nutritionally because food that has to travel a long distance from the field to your table loses valuable vitamins and nutrients in the process. This is particularly true of fruits and vegetables. Then there is the fact that transporting food from far away adds to the depletion of fossil fuels and to the buildup of greenhouse gasses, both of which have a direct negative effect on all of us. In addition, he says, locally grown foods ensure more jobs in the community, which can translate into a stronger local economy.

Of course, both Kelly and Carroll agree that shopping locally will cost more at the register. Carroll estimates that he and wife Diana, as well as their grown children, spend about 20 percent of their income on food (compared with the estimated national average of 10 percent) but, he says, this is unavoidable. “All of us need to spend a bigger percentage of our income, no matter how much money we have or don’t have, on food.” This is necessary, he says, “in order to have any kind of health, any kind of sustainable agriculture, to avoid the obesity issues, diabetes, and on and on and on.” He continues, “...People pay a small fortune for potatoes, in the form of potato chips, and other such foods. Those foods are not cheap, they’re expensive from the point of view that you’re getting very little nutritional value for quite a bit of money.”

There are, however, still those who can’t afford to buy food, no matter how conscientious they are. Carroll agrees that an important function of sustainable agriculture is to ensure that everyone has food, and he says Commissioner Burton’s proposal to reopen county farms would be a perfect example of sustainable agriculture at its best.

When recent federal budget cuts reduced funding for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, an estimated 711 qualified elderly New Hampshire citizens were cut from the program. Burton would like to replace the food that these seniors would have received from the CSFP with food grown on county farms.

back to the county farms

Beginning as early as the 1700s and continuing up to the 1970s, all New Hampshire counties owned and operated county farms. These farms were staffed largely by inmates of the county jail, and the fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy items they cultivated were used initially to feed the poor and later to also feed the inmates themselves and residents of county nursing homes. Eventually, however, the farms were no longer used for these purposes, and today, while most counties still own the land from these farms, they either lease it to private farmers or, if the county still uses it to produce vegetables, dairy, or livestock, they sell the goods at county-run farm stands and use the proceeds to fund county programs.

While much of this land has been placed in conservation districts and is therefore protected from development, the county officials who currently manage the land are not optimistic about the prospect of the return of the county farm. 

Julie Clough, executive director of Grafton County, explains that Grafton county does still use the land to sustain a dairy herd, to raise livestock and to grow fruits and vegetables. The farm is still staffed, at least in part, by inmates of the county correctional facility. But the items produced on the farm are then sold: the milk to a commercial processing plant, the vegetables at a county-run farm stand, and the meat products directly to consumers.

The revenues—$25,000 from the farm stand alone—cover basic operating costs. Any profits are funneled into the county budget. The current model, which offers historical and educational value to the community, says Clough, depends on these revenues to keep operating. To change the model would require a vote by county delegates and the operating costs would have to be covered somehow.

Here on the Seacoast, in Rockingham and Strafford Counties, there are obstacles as well. George Maglaras, chairman of the Board of County Commissioners in Strafford County, says that of the 285 acres the county still owns, 60 acres have been set aside for government uses (municipal buildings, nursing homes and the like), 180 acres are leased to private farmers who use it to grow silage corn and hay, and 45 acres are lying dormant as woodlands. The cost of converting it back to a working farm would be astronomical, says Maglaras, perhaps even billions of dollars. “You’d need to build all new barns, buy all new equipment,” he says,” and he adds that the reason the farms closed in the first place was because, “for about 30 years, the numbers just didn’t work.” Like Clough, Maglaras doesn’t discount the notion completely, but says it would have to be subsidized.

Maglaras’ sentiments are echoed almost verbatum by Rockingham County Director of Facilities Jude Gates, who manages the 350 acres of land the county owns, part of which is used for hay production. On a personal level, Gates supports Burton’s plan completely and says “To be sure, there is a certain amount of regret, but there is no escaping the reality that operating these farms is extremely cost-prohibitive.”

In spite of the obstacles, Burton feels strongly about his proposal and remains optimistic. “One of the purposes of government,” Burton says, “is to provide food for people who are in need.” Burton believes that vegetables, meat and dairy products grown on county farms could replace, at least in part, the boxes of cereal, rice, cheese and canned goods that the seniors will no longer be receiving from the program. “A 50-pound bag of potatoes, properly stored, could go a long way.” He has presented his proposal to the Governor’s Executive Council and has garnered the support of Senator Lou D’Alessandro of Manchester. In the end, says Burton, the only way these changes will occur is if citizens get involved. “Contact your county officials,” he says, “and let them know how you feel.”

Community involvement is, of course, crucial for the success of sustainable agriculture, and residents of the Seacoast may soon have a new forum in which to pursue just such involvement, in the form of a Slow Food Convivium.

slow food comes to the Seacoast

The Slow Food movement—imagine the opposite of fast food—began in Italy around 1986, when a man by the name of Carlo Petrini became concerned with what he viewed as the homogenization of flavor and the erosion of the world’s culinary heritage. He brought together a group of like-minded people, and together they created the Slow Food Movement. Its mission statement reads, in part: “Slow food links pleasure and food with awareness and responsibility. The association’s activities seek to defend biodiversity in our food supply, spread the education of taste, and link producers of excellent foods to consumers through events and initiatives.” Petrini founded the movement partly in response to the opening of a McDonald’s in Piazza Spagna in Rome.

Since its founding, it has grown to 83,000 members and has chapters in over 50 countries. A United States Chapter—Slow Food USA—was founded in 2000 in New York City and oversees all North American memberships. The network of members is organized into local groups, known as convivium, which are established by local citizens who organize tastings, dinners and classes, and who locally promote campaigns launched by the international association. There are 140 convivium in North America, including one in Portland, Maine, founded in 2005, and one in New Hampshire’s Monadnock region, founded in 2003. Here on the Seacoast, five local citizens are in the process of establishing a Portsmouth Convivium. They include John Forti, curator of historic landscapes at Strawbery Banke Museum, Alison Magill, member of the working group of the OSP’s Food and Society Initiative, Serita Frey, of UNH’s Environmental Sciences Program, Peter Bixby, a local middle school teacher, and founding member Michelle Moon, director of education for Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth.

So far, the group has met the basic criteria required by Slow Food International and has filed an application for permission to start a convivium.

Moon is optimistic that permission will be granted sometime before this summer, and she says once the convivium is established, a public informational meeting will be held. Individuals who become members of a convivium can attend monthly meetings and can volunteer to run for office or serve on committees, while anyone can attend the annual public events organized by local conviviums.

The group will maintain a Web site with information on local restaurants and shops that supply local, sustainably produced items. The focus of the group, says Moon, will be on education, sustainability and biodiversity. She says there is sometimes the misconception that Slow Food is “just for foodees,” and while taking pleasure in food is certainly something the movement encourages, it’s not the primary agenda.

shopping locally: where and how 

As for shopping locally, the ideal approach, says Carroll, is to buy directly from farmers. This is certainly made easier in the summer months when farmers’ markets are in full swing, but Carroll says he is able to buy meat, dairy, eggs, and stored vegetables from a number of farmers year round, many of whom deliver right to his door. The Web site of the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture, www.agriculture.nh.gov, includes an impressive list of local food producers. Click on the links to find direct sources for dairy, meat, fish, fruits, vegetables and more.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) cooperatives are another alternative. A CSA is a system in which members, called “shareholders” or “subscribers,” invest in a local farm and in return receive weekly or monthly boxes of produce throughout the growing season. Investors benefit from a constant supply of fresh, local produce, and the farmers receive a higher percentage of each crop dollar because there is no middleman.

Each CSA, depending on its acreage and crop selection, establishes a set number of shares that can be accommodated. The best known CSA in the area is Wolf Pine Farm in Alfred, Maine, but local farmer Jay Malouin recently founded the Leeks and Bounds CSA in North Hampton. The farm still has 25 full shares available (of a total of 40 full and 20 part shares). Malouin says a part share will provide a weekly supply of produce for a family of 2-3, while a full share will provide for a family of 4-6.   

Proponents of these practices recognize that it’s not realistic for residents in the Northeast to maintain a diet strictly comprised of locally produced foods, but Carroll says it’s not the goal of the sustainable agriculture movement to achieve 100 percent self-sufficiency. As an example, he explains that he buys orange juice not because he thinks it is essential to his diet, but because he and his wife enjoy it. But he drinks less of it than he might like, and more apple cider and apple juice, which are local, and which are nutritionally comparable. “I would never advocate that a person give up orange juice or grapefruit juice, things like that,” he says. “We should be able to enjoy foods from other parts of the world; just don’t have your basic dependencies on them.”

As for the items Carroll is not able to buy locally, he says he insists on at least buying them from locally owned shops. He names several throughout the area that he believes support local agriculture—Tuttle’s Red Barn and Janeto’s in Dover, Calef’s Country Store in East Barrington, and others—and notes Durham Marketplace owner Chuck Cressy in particular as an example of someone who is dedicated to supporting local agriculture.

When Cressy opened Durham Marketplace in 1991, supplying locally produced items was not part of his agenda. Having worked for Hannaford Brothers for 17 years, he simply wanted to be his own boss and he fully intended to run a mainline grocery store. But within a year of his opening, he learned that a Market Basket would soon open only four miles away.

“At that point,” says Cressy, “I knew I was going to have to make some changes, that I was going to automatically lose 25 percent of my business.” He redrafted his mission statement and began to search out the finest local growers he could find. The first November he was in business, he waited for the major chain groceries to advertise their turkey prices, then advertised his for less—around $.39 per pound—in the hopes it would attract shoppers who would then do the bulk of their holiday shopping in his store. He sold only 50 turkeys. The following year, he tried a new tack: he purchased all-natural, free-range turkeys from Vermont, for a formidable $1.90 per pound. This time he advertised not just the price of the birds—$1.99 per pound—but the quality as well. He sold 400 birds.

Cressy also helps fund UNH’s Composting Program (part of the OSP’s Food and Society initiative). Cressy pays the agricultural department a fee to pick up compostable produce, which then gets processed at the university’s Kingman Compost Technology Center. The following year, Cressy buys it back, in the form of nutrient-rich compost, which he then sells to his customers.

“I don’t know of another store in the country that follows the cycle completely,” says Cressy, and this, of course, is as much a part of sustainability as anything else.

As Leopold proposes, and as all these people and programs embody, sustaining a healthy food supply is not just about taking from the land. It’s also about giving back to the land, and thereby to the community.

investing in sustainability at UNH
In 1997, the University of New Hampshire established the Office of Sustainability Programs.
“Our role is as a university-wide education program. We are charged with working to integrate sustainability into all aspects of the University,” says director Thomas Kelly.

OSP is organized around four basic educational initiatives: Climate Education, Food and Society, Biodiversity Education, and Culture and Sustainability, and each initiative encompasses a variety of projects and partnerships. The Climate Education initiative, for example, has implemented the Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventory, a tool that calculates how many metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents the university emits each year, how much emissions are increasing each year, where they are coming from, and what the university can do to reduce them. The Food and Society initiative encompasses the Organic Garden Club, which maintains a two-acre farm as part of the 30-acre USDA certified organic Campus-Community Farm. Items raised on the farm are used for programs like Durham Community Dinners, where members of the Organic Garden Club work with other members of the Durham community to prepare and serve organic meals to people in need of a free, nutritious meal. The Food and Society initiative also sponsors the New Hampshire Farm to School Program (NH FTS), which, among other things, encourages school food programs to buy locally grown apples and cider. Schools are provided with information on where to purchase New Hampshire-grown apples and cider and are given access to educational workshops, brochures and more. Other ground-breaking programs, either directly or indirectly facilitated by the Food and Society initiative, include a switch to using cage-free, certified humane eggs in the dining halls, and the establishment of the first organic dairy farm operated by a land grant university in the country.

The list of programs goes on and on, and a tour of the OSP Web site, www.sustainableunh.unh.edu, provides endless links and information for folks looking to learn more about sustainability—not just in terms of agriculture, but in every aspect of their lives.