Food Alliance has come to mean a lot to me in the last few months, but the first I had heard of it was when Dickinson College Farm got the certification last year. Coming to college from the suburbs of Columbia, MD, I never expected to become interested in agriculture, but during my freshman year, I began volunteering at the college’s production and educational farm, and I was hooked from there. I started working at the farm during my sophomore year, studied various environmental studies subjects abroad in Costa Rica and Israel during my junior year, and by the time I had resumed my post at the farm during senior year, Food Alliance had entered the picture. The non-profit sustainable agriculture organization had just certified our college farm for using progressive practices that protect both the farm ecology and the people who work there. Still, I toiled away, getting back into the swing of things both on campus and at the farm, focusing my efforts on compost in particular in both my work and through my yearlong scientific research project on various compost applications. In the following video clip, I am mixing up a batch of potting soil from worm compost we produce on-site.

I began to develop an interest in agroecology from the shade-grown (forest-based) coffee farms I had visited in Costa Rica, my readings of all the benefits of applying compost in various ways, and from learnng about Cuba’s agroecological farming system that has prevailed in its urban areas (in preparation for a trip with a school program during spring break of this year). Thus, I was drawn toward Food Alliance as I longed to support environmental and social responsibility in agriculture in any way that I could.

I signed on to complete an academic internship with Food Alliance for this semester, and I thank Roberta Anderson, Food Alliance Business Development Director, and Jenn Halpin, Dickinson College Farm Manager, for the terrific opportunity. Food Alliance was looking for help growing its new Partner Farm Program, in which research and education based farms achieve certification and creatively partner with Food Alliance to spread the word about sustainability in practice. The video clip below gives a brief introduction about the internship and myself:

Part of learning about the Partner Farm Program was grasping what made Dickinson College Farm the first one. The following video clip, featuring Jenn Halpin, provides some background on our operations:

Dickinson College Farm not only educates its student farm workers and volunteers, but also welcomes students from various fields through course activities and tours. Furthermore, we hold programs open to community members such as our monthly Sustainability Series workshops, which are part of a statewide educational programming initiative with the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA). The workshops have such titles as Landscaping for the Birds and the Bees and Ins and Outs of Renewable Energy Options for Homeowners. For the Partner Farm Program, Food Alliance is especially interested in reaching “food-focused” students or future farmers. Dickinson College Farm’s apprenticeship program, open to student farmer recent graduates like myself, does just this by giving us the opportunity to work a full growing season while we lead student farmers and educational programs.

Thus, our status as a Partner Farm supports our mission, allowing us to educate our campus and local community about sustainable agriculture through this meaningful eco-label and its valuable evaluation tools. Through my Food Alliance internship, I found that numerous farms across the country could contribute to the Partner Farm Program, non-profit educational farms, demonstration farms and college- or university-affiliated farms alike. I reached out to the potential Partner Farms in the Mid-Atlantic region, putting Food Alliance on their radar to return to in the less busy winter months. Their receptivity of the program, both from those already holding other certifications and those without, demonstrated its potential in this region, which will contribute tremendously to consumer and producer awareness of Food Alliance and its associated sustainable agriculture practices. Lastly, I was involved in organizing the first Food Alliance Partner Farm event, a mock inspection, on Dickinson College Farm. My internship blog provides further information.

The PASA-sponsored Mock Inspection field day, welcomed folks from Ayrshire Farm in Upperville, VA, Trickling Springs Creamery in Chambersburg, PA, Four Seasons Produce, Inc. based in Ephrata, PA, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and more. The eclectic group displayed various levels of previous knowledge of Food Alliance, which sparked interesting conversation throughout the day’s events. The two main elements were a farm tour with Jenn in the morning, throughout which Bill Marose, the inspector, would ask questions as if he were conducting the inspection, and a “classroom” review in the afternoon using the Whole Farm Inspection Tool with Bill, Jenn, and Susan Beal, PASA’s Ag Science Advisor. Dru Peters of Sunnyside Farm and Ben Wenk of Three Springs Fruit Farm, both already certified for-profit farms, contributed to the conversation with their experiences throughout the inspection process. Andy Andrews from Pennypack Farm & Education Center in Horsham, PA, the second Partner Farm was also in attendance in preparation for their inspection. The Dickinson and PASA hosts and attendees alike enjoyed the event a learned a lot about Food Alliance certification processes and its potential for growth in the Mid-Atlantic region. As Bill so eloquently advised, “You have to be your own advocate in the inspection process.” The video clip below shows some highlights from the field day:

Stay tuned for more Mock Inspections and other Food Alliance educational events as more Partner Farms are established.

This week, I developed ideas for how partner farms might use the standards, certification process and/or relationship with Food Alliance to support their programmatic work and achieve their mission. Here are a few of my proposals:

• FA-themed workshops for the farm’s typical audience. For example, a short workshop series could use each FA criteria category as separate topics. If the target audience is children or elementary school students, a potential activity could put the kids in the role of the FA inspector, walking around the farm and checking off criteria. This would not only introduce them to the certification process and the value of the third-party assessment, but also highlight the sustainable aspects and possibilities for improvement. Other programs could include farm business planning workshops, including third-party certification benefits, and soil and water quality monitoring workshops.
• Presentation on FA in relation to other third-party certifications (in a non-competitive, informative way). FA’s ecolabel issues page would be a helpful resource for this.
• Participatory forum for stakeholders and employees on maintaining certification. This event would encourage active involvement and promote the employee input criteria, giving them a say in the prioritization of 1-, 3-, and 5-year goals for improvement.
• Create an online forum for partner farms to share experiences and practices (especially for research-based farms to share results of their and other studies).

I also brainstormed ideas for how partner farms could help spread the word about FA certification to increase awareness of the holistic approach to sustainability, increase the number of farms applying for certification, and increase marketplace awareness and demand for certified products:

• Certification process workshop series: application-writing, mock inspection, maintaining certification.
• Custom FA-focused farm tours.
• Picket signs to place around farm at locations demonstrating soil and water conservation, safe and fair working conditions, wildlife habitat conservation, waste and energy efficiency, humane treatment of animals, etc.
• Outreach to markets in order to encourage them to consider processor/buyer certification.
• Forum for both consumers and interested farmers together to voice their interests and see where they align.
• All FA certified meal. This would be an environmentally and socially responsible and delicious event, which would furthermore promote FA through one of its most important aspects (that I tend to forget about at times): the food!
• Information session for staff at local markets that could potentially sell FA products. This way, if a consumer asks a question about the FA label, they could be better informed to answer it.

FA-themed picket signs.

I hope that FA can implement a few of these suggestions in the future!

I continued with the cold calls this week, and I am really happy with how they are going. Perhaps my hopes were not high enough to begin with, but I am delighted that the majority of the people I have spoken to have said that the Partner Farm Program aligns soundly with their farms’ missions. This tells me that my preliminary research was pretty effective. And even though most of them likely can’t make to the Mock Inspection due to the busy season, FA is on their radar now. Hopefully they will be able to attend the next event that the Dickinson College Farm or Pennypack Farm will have, hopefully at a different time of year.

Unfortunately, I did not have much success when I used this phone.

One of the farming organization directors that I talked to suggested that I looked into the Farm-Based Education Association in order to find more potential partners. The FBEA is a  network that aims to promote the work of agricultural educators and administrators providing public access to their productive working farms. If you scroll down on their homepage, you will find a fantastic, interactive map of all their farm-based educator members all over the world. Most are in New England, which is not too surprising to me given their stereotypical “greenness” and the small town commitment to local products that New Englanders tend to display (in my experience). Nevertheless, using this map to observe the spatial aspects of this network of educational farms and to discover new farms is very intriguing, so I will definitely revisit this resource and hope that the folks at FA do, too.

I started making cold calls this week to potential partner farms in the mid-Atlantic, and I will say that this kind of communication is harder than I thought! At first I was pretty shaky, but I think it just takes practice. Jenn did a practice call with me, which helped me to iron out the details, anticipate questions, and sound more natural. I have had a couple of good conversations with farmers who were very receptive to Food Alliance and the Partner Farm Program, so I am pretty satisfied so far.

Unfortunately, we do not have a exact number to tell them for the cost because it depends on how many products are being inspected and how far the inspector has to travel. Although the reduced cost of certification for partner farms is just an incentive and not one of the more important aspects of the program, the cost of anything is significant to any farm or business, so I wish I had something more concrete to say to them on this point. One farmer even told me that they did not get the organic certification because of the cost, so I hope that FA would be more reasonable for them.

Additionally, the calls have so far felt like me lecturing to the callee. I hope to strike up discussion with more feedback on his/her side in my next calls. I will always be their first impression of Food Alliance; thus, I want to represent well so that the next person who becomes their contact doesn’t have to make up for my missteps. Since I know how busy farmers are, especially this time of year, I can’t help feeling somewhat guilty that I am taking up a few valuable minutes of their day (during daylight so far–but I may start making some calls at night if I get the sense that evenings are preferred). I do ask them if they have time to talk, but still, the impression is lurking in the back of my mind that if they weren’t talking to me right now, they would be planting, seeding, preparing beds, to which I can’t object. I am a worrier in general, so I aim to control these sentiments to the point at which I am 100% focused on the conversation. However, I do want to be as short and sweet as possible, so that the farmers can go back to doing what they do best–growing good food.

I enjoyed all the forward motion of this week, including looking over Roberta’s rankings and prioritization categories of the potential partner farm master list, speaking to Margot from soon-to-be-certified Pennypack Farm & Education Center, and scripting a draft for outreach phone calls to mid-Atlantic educational and research-based farms. With respect to the rankings, some farms scored better than others, as I was expecting, according to Roberta’s point system, which was based on location, audience, suitability, commitment, and connections. More specifically, the best locations, determined by where the most inspectors are, include the mid-Atlantic, certain parts of the midwest, and Oregon and Washington. The target audience members, in terms of the educational programming, are farmers or future farmers rather than consumers. Suitability addresses how the farm fits with the criteria as they stand currently. The commitment focuses on how well the farm stated values align with those of Food Alliance (i.e. protection of soil and water, employee safety, etc.). And lastly, for connections, the farms’ stakeholders and partners may help to develop contacts and network further. These ratings will be invaluable to me as I jump into the outreach section of the internship, as I will contact the highest scorers first. I have to start somewhere, so why not the ones that see the most eye-to-eye with the FA Partner Farm program?

I was delighted to learn that FA will be/has already started applying for grants to work with certain farms that may not fit perfectly with the current criteria, or are simply unique types of farms, such as urban, land trust, minority, and shellfish farms.

Today, I had the privilege of speaking to Margot Bradley, Administrative Director of Pennypack. Unfortunately, I did not have the privilege of actually visiting Pennypack like Megan from PASA did, but now I know that I need to go to see all the fantastic things they are doing there. They run a really amazing program despite the “scrappy” infrastructure–to me, a farm without some imperfections, some weeds, some “improvised” mechanisms. is a bizarre sight anyway; I support working with what you’ve got. Pennypack hosts kids from impoverished communities, corporate work groups, community service learners, and more. Margot provided us with some terrific quotations from kids who have come out to learn in their “edible classroom” such as, “Why did you bury these potatoes?” and “These tomatoes look as good as the real ones in the store!” What struck me most, however, was Pennypack’s commitment to conscientious farm labor practices, which is one of the main reasons they value FA certification. For example, their seasonal employees get 50% paid health insurance, but they try to create as many full-time positions as possible, with 100% health insurance. Also, they support retirement plans and if the farm has a good year, BONUSES, as Margot put it so eloquently. These practices aim to make farming a viable career choice and change the way we see farmers in this era; in my opinion, farmers should be seen as professionals. Regarding FA, using the certification tools, Pennypack aims to set their bar higher in terms of sustainability initiatives. In fact, just by completing the FA online assessment, they have already incorporated new items into their employee manual, which shows just how dynamic this place is. Thus, I foresee a fruitful relationship between Pennypack and FA.

I concluded the week by drafting a script to use when I call the mid-Atlantic potential farms. I feel confident in my abilities to promote the program and emphasize the mutual benefits without sounding like I am trying to “sell” it per se. I am really looking forward to talking to some farmers and getting their feedback. Searching for and studying the websites provided an interesting and valuable research experience, but I am ready to converse with these pioneers of the sustainable agriculture movement, whom I greatly admire.

My pictures this week feature a specialized Food Alliance Partner Farm seal that is in no way official (I made it on PowerPoint), but which I think would be a good idea, and a photo of the Three Springs Fruit Farm stand before the Local Foods Dinner at Dickinson.

Maybe the Partner Farm program could have its own seal!

Food Alliance certified Three Springs Fruit Farm stand at the farmer's market before the Local Foods Dinner

Check out our calendar for more info about how to sign up for the mock inspection.

What happens when 20 professional farmers convene on one farm to hear about a certification process? Will they be taking copious notes or will they wander off through the fields (there was talk of using a hay wagon–sometimes people need to be herded, too, especially on a farm with so many wonderful distractions)? I will soon find out at the Mock Inspection in late April. Two people have already registered! It will be interesting to see how many of the participants follow through and go for the certification and successfully get certified, which will serve as an accurate evaluation of the effectiveness of the event. I expect that PASA will ask the participants to complete an evaluation of the field day, additionally. The only slightly negative aspect I can foresee is that we will not have produce growing on the fields of the farm yet, due to the time of the season. However, Jenn and the inspector, Bill, will be able to cover all the topics in the greenhouse. Farmers are extremely busy in the fall, too, so we will likely have an easier time motivating people to come in the spring, even if the fields are a little empty, than if the event were scheduled for the fall.

Regarding the relatively minor Partner Farm component of the field day, we have decided to invite 5 potential partner farms. They will see the first one, DCF, in action, which will hopefully give them a comprehensive understanding of the program. I am currently looking over the Parter Farm materials from Food Alliance (mainly one brochure) and the Mock Inspection description from PASA in order to add a little more flair, specificity, and updated information about the Partner Farm program.

Finally, this week I was involved in the planning of the lunch at the Mock Inspection event. We will feature Food Alliance certified products from Sunnyside Farm and Three Springs Fruit Farm, on the menu, which looks amazing, by the way. This cyclical element of FA farm-to-plate demonstrates how the the certification can create a community or network of sorts, as each farm can support and develop relationships with the others through the common interest in this holistic designation. I think that the participants will appreciate this.

Before I left for my trip to Cuba, I helped out with the farm’s first tomato grafting experiment, which I just wanted to show because it demonstrates our move to more research-based initiatives.

Learning to graft tomatoes as one of DCF's research initiatives.

My favorite element of my trip to Cuba, as I anticipated, was the organic urban agriculture! The organopónicos (raised beds surrounded by walls and filled with soils amended with organic material) were quite impressive not only in their extreme precision, but also in imagining the vest amounts of forthcoming food that will soon be harvested from these beds as the transplants continue to grow. Instead of certifications, the Cuban government designates the best urban farms as doble or triple coronas (double or triple crowns), depending on their achievement in a variety of subprograms, such as vegetable production, animal raising, soil conservation, and organic fertilizers.

Organopónico Vivero Alamar, a 28-acre organic garden in Havana, Cuba

I compiled a preliminary list of potential Partner Farms that we should consider inviting to the Mock Inspection event (taking proximity into account). The list includes college farms/facilities, urban farms, and nonprofit organizations.

I found more potential Partner Farms by searching “teaching farm” and “demonstration farm” (idea brought to you by Roberta). Even by casting such a wide net, I was able to catch some winners. I also identified an educational ranch out west and a few shellfish aquaculture research facilities on the east coast.

I will be on spring break next week (in Cuba–studying urban agriculture among other things!), so I plan to develop the Mock Inspection outreach (for potential partners) on the week of March 19. I think that emails/cold calls would be a good place to start in order to gauge interest. Also, I can prepare other materials like testimonials and a fact sheet about the Partner Farm Program.

Lastly, I have been looking into videotaping the mock inspection, or at least parts of it–it won’t be invasive to the presentations and it could be used for future outreach. I took out a portable PA system from our media center to test it out, brought it home, and promptly found out that it was broken, so when they fix it, I’ll try it out again!

The master list of potential Partner Farms is really coming together. I have documented 30 sound candidates from all over the country, 21 of which are associated with a college/university and 9 of which are nonprofit organizations. Five are on the west coast, three are in the midwest, six are in New England, two are in the southeast, and 12 are in the mid-atlantic region (and one each in Oklahoma and Montana). Evidently, the list is heavy on college farms in the mid-atlantic, but there are a lot of liberal arts schools in this area and the proximity to Dickinson will likely make it easier to share information and offer outreach.

Some obstacles I have come across include:

• Urban farms: How can they conserve wildlife habitat? Food Alliance has already had an urban farm apply for certification without success due to the wildlife habitat conservation criteria. Urban farms likely can address invasive species issues with integrated pest management, provide information about threatened/endangered species, and work with state agencies, nonprofits, and nearby landowners to generate large/connected wild habitats. However, when it comes to natural habitats on the farm itself, urban farms are at a setback. One of the fundamentals of urban faming is the proximity to areas of high human population densities, which does not allow space for much pristine habitat, Yet, it decreases the distance the food has to travel. If Food Alliance could put more weight on conservation of energy for urban farms, then they would have more of a fighting chance.
• Farms that are deliberately not certified organic: I am currently reading the “Big Organic” section in Omnivore’s Dilemma By Michael Pollan, so I understand why one may not want to be associated with the term, or what it has become, in terms of industrial organic. It is hard to say if these farms are avoiding all certifications in general or just the organic label. Regardless, if we can specifically demonstrate how FA is different from organic, citing certified farms, I think we can get these folks on board.
• Safe & fair working conditions: Online information is generally not available on this topic. It is possible possible that several of the potential Partners have employee policy documents, but less established farms may not have these kinds of records prepared.
• Community gardens: The certification assesses how the manager is caring for the farm. Thus, if there is no overall manager or if the manager(s) is/are changing every year or two, along with the methods each one uses, FA may not be a good match.

Fun fact: Bees are one of the most, if not the most, common form of livestock present on the list of potential Partner Farms! We haven’t yet cured colony collapse disorder, so I am appreciative of the small farms’ support. Naturally, they get the benefit of the pollination of their fields in return.

Honeybees on a frame with pollen and nectar (Mike Sheridan).

This week I focused on various college/university farms around the country for my research of potential Partner Farms, specifically non-land-grant schools that practice small-scale sustainable/organic farming. Farming has returned to higher education with a bang. Although Berea College’s farm was established in 1871, this is largely a more recent movement, peaking in the past decade. From community colleges, like Central Carolina to universities, like Yale, if the student initiative is present, a college farm can be born. And if that college farm is born, it must prove to the school’s administration that it can pay for itself in terms of educational opportunities and efficiency of land productivity.

I would like to address briefly the matter of student-run versus staff-run operations. The complete grassroots, bottom-up approach would be ideal in some cases, but for longevity purposes, at least a faculty or staff mentor is required. Especially at a school like Dickinson, where most of the student body goes abroad during junior year (some, like me, to study agriculture in other countries), difficulties would arise with all of these interruptions, comings and goings if the students were responsible for planning a farm. My question now, in terms of Food Alliance communications, is whether we should contact the student leaders first, or the faculty mentors? For these student-run college farms, I think it would be idea to reach out to the student leader(s), perhaps in addition to the faculty mentor. If the FA certification idea takes with the students, and they have a lot of the pull in the operation, then we are more likely to start a partnership.

If you are interested in learning more about the college farm movement, Fields of Learning: The Student Farm Movement in North America, editied by Laura Sayre and Sean Clark, is a terrific resource, with case studies of several college farms.

Also, please take a look at these articles regarding the recent initiative of Bon Appetit, a restaurant company that offers corporations café and catering services, to source all its pork from producers who do not use gestation crate systems. Food Alliance certification will come in handy for these producers and at least one has already been certified (Miller Livestock in Kinsman, Ohio).

• http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-we-can-eat/post/bon-appetit-announces-animal-welfare-reforms/2012/02/17/gIQACPPARR_blog.html
• http://grist.org/sustainable-farming/beyondporkwashing/

What I’ve learned this week: lots of potential farms exist out there! With websites ranging from exceptionally helpful, to “getting there,” to somewhat incomplete. Granted, it is difficult to imagine a farmer sitting down at a computer to design a fancy website (I am currently learning website editing, and it’s not so easy), so I completely understand the shortcomings and commend them for taking the time out of their busy schedules to get online or work with administrative assistants or website coordinators. I am seeing a lot of links to social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter, of course, which is fantastic. Also, several have blogs and the ones with CSAs usually have newsletters. However, the less information available on the website, the less I have to go off of for my preliminary filtration of all the education or research-based farms in the target regions.

Nevertheless, I looked closely at a few college/university-affiliated farms and other nonprofit farms dedicated to training young farmers. I am no marketer, but I need to start thinking how to reach out to the the staff members of these places other than just through a brochure. I will definitely collect some testimonials from the folks involved and/or impacted by the certification at Dickinson and hopefully from more farms already in contact with FA.

I came across a couple of biodynamic farms, which will probably need to hear how Food Alliance can compliment biodynamics. According to the What Is Biodynamics? page on the website for the Pfeiffer Center (a biodynamics teaching farm), biodynamics “combine[s] novel techniques of building up healthy soil with a renewed awareness of all the forces at work in the farm organism: among and between the soil, plants, animals, and humans, as well as the cosmos itself.” It involves applying overlooked trace elements to plants through compost and liquid teas and following lunar cycles, among numerous other philosophies. FA generally aligns with the fundamental ideals of biodynamics, especially with the inclusion of the human element and can likely complement the Demeter Biodynamic Farm Standard Certification, or for those farms that don’t wish to go all the way for the biodynamic certification, FA could serve as a valid alternative. The same goes for organic.

I am not finding too much information on the farm websites regarding their specific practices, such as pesticide usage reduction, soil, water, and energy conservation, safe and fair working conditions, wildlife habitat conservation, and humane livestock management. This could be because farms are constantly changing, trying new methods, so it may be difficult to keep up. Most of the information I have been finding involves energy saving initiatives, such as solar panels, biodiesel operations, and using horses instead of tractors. This makes sense, as energy is such a hot topic and we should be moving toward alternative energies, but this doesn’t mean we should overlook water usage or employee safety, in terms of farming.

Now onto finding more farms within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, which collects runoff from every farm within the 64,000-square mile area, and delivers it to the Bay, home to the best crabs and oysters (I am from Maryland, so I am just slightly biased). I am very connected to this watershed, so I can’t help foreseeing the positive impacts that more FA certifications in the region could have on the Bay.

Chesapeake Bay Watershed road sign (Nicholas_T).

Sediment in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed after Tropical Storm Lee in 2011 (NASA Goddard Photo and Video).