The Environmental Journal of Southern Appalachia
2 Zero Hunger

2 Zero Hunger (10)

End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

Monday, 09 December 2024 23:42

Edible Abundance Foodscapes @ Green Drinks Knoxville

Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024, 5:30 p.m. at Albright Grove Brewing Company (2924 Sutherland Ave, Knoxville TN). RSVP on Facebook

To round out this year of great guest speakers we are thrilled to bring on Daniel Aisenbrey, the founder of Edible Abundance Foodscapes. Come hear why every landscape can and should be a foodscape! 

Edible Abundance LandscapesGet inspired by the story and experience of this great local initiative.  Edible Abundance Foodscapes

For Daniel, it all started back in 2012 with a hatchback full of lumber, some borrowed tools and a passion for helping people grow food. In the decade since, Daniel has built on that passion by establishing farms and community gardens, fighting for food access in local government and even managing Knoxville’s top farmers’ market. In 2023, the culmination of that passion and experience burst from the soil as Edible Abundance Foodscapes! When he’s not building your new garden, Daniel (and partner, Beth) run Hey Moon Farm, a family farmstead for sheep, chickens, heirloom produce and two feral children. His favorite weird fruit are kiwiberries.

Green Drinks Knoxville is a social and professional organization that convenes open-minded folks to encourage education and conversation about the environment, green technologies, sustainable lifestyles and more.

Our events are free and open to the public. We welcome all and support racial diversity, gender equality and LGBTQ inclusivity.

Last modified on Monday, 06 January 2025 15:30
Saturday, 21 September 2024 23:21

CANCELED Rural Resources 2024 Incredible Farm Dinner Downtown

Rural Resources The Incredible Farm Dinner DowntownThe annual Incredible Farm Dinner Downtown is a Greeneville tradition celebrating local farms and community. Hosted by Rural Resources Farm & Food Education Center, many local sponsors, business, farms, churches and the Town of Greeneville make this grand event possible. This dinner sells out every year — a testament to its success and the value of the Rural Resources programming it supports.  Rural Resources

 

With the devastation across Greene County, we have decided to cancel this evening’s Incredible Farm Dinner Downtown.

Thanks to your support, we will donate the meals to those displaced, as well as first responders. 

Please join us in praying for Greene County as we all help each other get through this difficult time.

Our Sincerest thanks for your continued support of the Rural Resources Farm Education Center.

Warmest Regards,

The Rural Resources Staff & Board of Directors

GREENEVILLE — This year the superlative annual fundraiser for the Farm & Food Education Center of Rural Resources will benefit Rural Resources’ Teen Training Program. The event will start at 6 p.m. on Saturday Sept. 28 at 615 West Main St. and feature Chef Elise Clair. She is creating a colorful seasonal menu sourced by our Greene County and East Tennessee neighbors.

Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, and a graduate of East Tennessee State University, Clair has a solid 25 years of experience in the culinary industry and scratch kitchens. Now with 15 years as vice president of JDD Enterprises, Clair maintains operations for The Main Street Pizza Company locations in Johnson City and Kingsport, River Creek Farm based in Limestone, River Creek Catering, and County Line Pie in Chuckey.

Claire focuses her menus and garden on seasonal Appalachian standards, highlighting local products from other Central Appalachian region growers and producers. On the farm, Clair and her partner maintain a non-certified organic practice fruit and veggie garden across multiple acres.

We invite you to desire, smell, taste and experience the quality of the freshly harvested meal prepared for you at The Rural Resources Incredible Farm Dinner. Hurry to secure your seats at the table!

Last modified on Wednesday, 23 October 2024 14:09
Tuesday, 10 September 2024 01:04

Growing a Food Forest

Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, 5:30 p.m. at Barrelhouse by Gypsy Circus (621 Lamar Street). RSVP on Facebook

Green Drinks Knoxville will host an in-depth discussion with Dave Maasberg on how he maintains his food forest including some rare heirloom apple varieties, figs, pears, blackberries and more. He will bring samples to try and fruits for purchase to savor at home.

Raised around agriculture and the vanishing small-scale, midwestern family farm, Dave has always held a special place for fruit trees and perennial plants. After a Foraging and Wild Edible Plants class at Indiana University, his desire to create a food forest and sustainable homestead quickly turned into a reality. After over 20 years of planting and maintaining various fruiting plants on a reclaimed hillside, he is excited to share his journey with us. He currently helps others with plantings, from small scale to larger projects.

Green Drinks Knoxville is a social and professional organization that convenes open-minded folks to encourage education and conversation about the environment, green technologies, sustainable lifestyles and more.

Our events are free and open to the public. We welcome all and support racial diversity, gender equality, and LGBTQ inclusivity.

Last modified on Thursday, 12 September 2024 00:17

BushslowfoodSlow Food Tennessee Valley co-founder Sarah Bush picks heirloom tomatoes at Vuck Farm in Riceville.  Élan Young/Hellbender Press

Slow Food ramps up regional food resilience efforts

RICEVILLE On a hot summer day in late June, Sarah Bush, co-founder of Slow Food Tennessee Valley, slices some varieties of tender heirloom tomatoes freshly picked from tall rows of plants strung up in a giant, covered hoop-style greenhouse before serving them on a cutting board with a bit of farm-fresh chevre and basil.

The tomatoes span hues of yellow, red, green and purple, some a solid color or slightly striped and bearing intriguing names not found in grocery stores: striped Heart, Cherokee evergreen, chocolate stripe and Valencia. The flavor combinations explode into farm-to-table bliss. 

The tomatoes are especially terrific for a reason: Bush, 46, has practiced regenerative farming since she was 28.

Mentored by other small farmers around the country who taught her how to exist and thrive in an economy that favors Big Ag, she now splits her time between Vuck Farm, a biodynamic farm in Riceville owned by her partner TJ Teets, and managing the produce department at Three Rivers Market in Knoxville — Tennessee’s only cooperative grocery.

She also serves on the planning committee for CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training), which is run by the Southeastern Tennessee chapter of the National Young Farmers Coalition 

Not a bougie supper club

Founded in 2008, the Tennessee Valley chapter of Slow Food is the only chapter in the state that has remained active since its founding. 

A little more than two decades earlier in 1986, thousands of Italians gathered at the base of the sprawling Piazza di Spagna in the center of Rome to protest the country’s first McDonald’s restaurant. Slow Food’s founder, Italian journalist Carlo Petrini, was among them. Instead of bringing a sign with a slogan, Petrini brought a big bowl of penne pasta to share with the crowd chanting We don’t want fast food. We want Slow Food! Three years later the movement became an official organization and today spans 160 countries

Last modified on Tuesday, 27 August 2024 21:50

imageA new paper reveals the important role that inland fisheries play in providing affordable nutrition around the world.  Illustration courtesy of Lakshita Dey via Virginia Tech

Under-reporting of economics of sustenance fishing is a social justice issue

David Fleming is a Virginia Tech writer and communications specialist.

BLACKSBURG  It is a sight of summer: Along the banks of rivers and streams throughout the Southeast, recreational fishers will cast lines into the water, hoping that a fish will take the bait. In urban towns and cities such as Roanoke or Charlottesville, the same lines dangle from bridges or freshwater wharfs.

All of these activities are currently catagorized as “recreational fishing,” but for many fishers in the U.S. and around the world, the act of fishing in freshwater is not a leisurely pursuit but a way to provide critical sustenance and nutrition for individuals, families and communities.

An expansive new paper, co-authored by Virginia Tech Assistant Professor Elizabeth Nyboer of the College of Natural Resources and Environment and published in the journal Nature Food, reveals the underrecognized extent that inland recreational fisheries provide food and nutrition to people as well as offers insight on their vulnerability to future climate challenges. 

Last modified on Friday, 19 July 2024 19:44

Pollinator Pathway signPollinator Pathway signs on the Tennessee Aquarium Plaza in Chattanooga lead guests on a self-guided tour highlighting native plants, pollinator behaviors, and unusual pollinators. Courtesy Tennessee Aquarium

TDOT joins with Tennessee Aquarium to pollinate our pathways

CHATTANOOGA — With their distinctive orange and black patterns, gossamer wings and harrowing 3,000-mile migrations, few insects are as charismatic or beloved as the monarch butterfly. 

Just imagine how tragic it would be if they disappeared.

So it was with alarm in 2022 that the world received news that the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had declared the monarch an endangered species, citing population numbers that had fallen 80 percent since the 1980s. 

Similar anxiety met reports in the mid-2000s of colony collapse disorder. This sudden phenomenon dramatically imperiled the survival of European honey bees, whose activity directly or indirectly affects roughly one of every three bites of food we eat, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Pollinators are undoubtedly critically important to plants and humans alike, whether they’re investigating our Irises, calling on our Columbine, or buzzing our Blueberry bushes. This week, June 19-25, the world celebrates Pollinator Week, which recognizes the wondrous, vital contributions of butterflies, bees, moths, bats, and other pollinators.

Last modified on Saturday, 01 July 2023 14:59

Canopy Nexus Hotel after floodingFlooding is seen outside a popular hotel in Pakistan following historic and devastating flooding linked largely to the melting of highland glaciers.  Wikipedia Commons

Global population growth promises a drastic spike in public health emergencies

This story was originally published by The Conversation. Maureen Lichtveld is dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. 

There are questions that worry me profoundly as an environmental health and population scientist.

Will we have enough food for a growing global population? How will we take care of more people in the next pandemic? What will heat do to millions with hypertension? Will countries wage water wars because of increasing droughts?

These risks all have three things in common: health, climate change and a growing population that the United Nations determined passed 8 billion people in November 2022, which is double the population of just 48 years ago.

Last modified on Thursday, 22 December 2022 00:47
Monday, 24 October 2022 17:55

Praying for rain as the Mississippi breaks

Written by

MississippiLow-water challenges on the Mississippi River are evident at Memphis.  Dulce Torres Guzman/Tennessee Lookout

Despite the pump from Appalachian rainforests, the drought-stricken Mississippi River is the lowest it has ever been

This story was originally published by the Tennessee Lookout.

MEMPHIS John Dodson’s corn, cotton and soybean fields are fewer than 10 miles from the Mississippi River, the key transportation artery for West Tennessee grain farmers. But they might as well be a thousand miles.

Historically low water levels on the river are coming at the worst possible time for him. It’s peak harvest season, but he can’t get his crop to market. 

West Tennessee farmers have long relied on proximity to the Mississippi, delivering their crops directly from the field to the river. The ease of access has meant many farmers lack large grain storage silos that farmers in the Midwest and elsewhere rely on.  

While drought strangles transportation on the Mississippi, many of these farmers are now being forced to leave crops in the field and pray for rain to fall anywhere and everywhere else but above their harvest-ready crops.

Last modified on Sunday, 30 October 2022 21:35

Food myths hurt Mother Earth

 Save money and our planet with tips from  Cheddar News

The average American family of four annually spends more than $2,000 on food they never eat!

Nearly one in nine people suffer from hunger worldwide.

Agriculture contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and soil degradation.

Climate change increases crop losses.

One third of all food produced in the world is lost or wasted.

It’s not just the food that’s wasted.

Consider the energy wasted to grow, process and transport it.

That all contributes to climate change, food shortages and to the rising costs of food, energy and health care.

Food waste stresses our environment, humanity and the economy.

— EarthSolidarity™

The Economist The global food crisis explained
The global food crisis, explained. a 12-minute video by The Economist raises awareness of how global crises combine with intricate national and international issues to precipitate local predicament.
(It is unclear why this video has become age-restricted by YouTube — after being available unrestricted for quit a while. Some facts and brief clips of destitute people or riots seem little more disturbing — not just to young minds — than what’s often seen on daily TV news. Parental guidance is recommended.  — Ed.)
 

MOTHER EARTH — Scarcity of food, lack of safety nets and paucity of solidarity lead to famine. This explainer by The Economist elucidates much of the detrimental interdependencies of the global economy which resulted in bottlenecks that can not withstand unanticipated shifts in supply and demand.

Last modified on Saturday, 06 May 2023 17:45