2012 Farmbook [#035 Special]

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2012

Meet members of the pennsylvania association for sustainable agriculturE, working to bring fresh, delicious food to local eaters

pennypack

farm Jessica Gerani

and her fellow farmers connect families with local food

also inside

Spring wood farm

Tradition meets technology at a fourth-generation farm

Why We Farm

PASA members share their passion for farming

The School of Sustainability and the Environment (SSE), established in 2009, provides the necessary expertise in social justice, economic development, and environmental studies to support sustainable goals and practices from the individual to the global level. The vision of the school is in keeping with the legacy of Rachel Carson, Chatham’s most distinguished alumna, whose work led to the founding of the modern environmental movement. Currently based at Chatham University’s historic Shadyside Campus, the school will eventually be housed at a new, 388acre carbon-neutral Eden Hall Campus in Richland Township, PA, which is just 33 minutes north of Pittsburgh.

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chatham.edu/SSE

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Visit us at facebook.com/sseatchatham and twitter@sseatchatham

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Recipe for a Sweet and Savory Philly Homegrown™ Weekend KlYjl oal` Y nakal lg l`] J]Y\af_ Khjafcd] af klghk Yl j]klYmjYflk L]jeafYd EYjc]l Yf\ l`] AlYdaYf ogoaf_ \af]jk¿ lYkl] Zm\k oal` ^Yje% EYjc]l$ log g^ H`addq¿k egkl ^Yegmk ^j]k` [makaf] kgmj[]\ ^jge 9eak` eYjc]lk$ ^gj qgmj af_j]\a]flk ;gmfljq lg l`] 9ldYfla[ G[]Yf :d]f\ af \]da[Y[a]k ^jge gf] g^ K]Ykgf lg lYkl] o`ad] kYlak^qaf_ qgmj H`addq¿k ,-# hjg\m[]j%gfdq ^Yje]jk ko]]l lggl` oal` j]^j]k`af_ _]dYlg$ eYjc]lk _gmje]l [`g[gdYl]k gj Y dg[Yddq hjg\m[]\ [Yf]d K`Yc] l`af_k mh Yl Y ^]o g^ gmj eYfq oaf]ja]k Yf\ Zj]o]ja]k ob ot Ph

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Choose from 12 pick-up sites including Fair Food—Reading Terminal!

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570/729-8103 www.CalkinsCreamery.com

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from PASA’s e xe c u t iv e

Feeding the future

d i r e c to r

These days, politics and mass media are

all full of warnings about things we must do, or else face dire consequences. If you pay attention to everything that comes over the Internet regarding how to improve your health, save the environment or increase your child’s scores in math, you’re likely to start each day with an entirely new strategy.

Figuring out what must be done to solve any problem can be frustrating, which is why it’s so nice to find things that tend to help solve a whole list of our society’s most difficult issues. Buying food produced and processed in your local community is one such thing. When you buy local, you’re eating more nutritious and better tasting food.

It improves your sense of community, the environment and your local economy. Put simply, almost every aspect of your life will benefit from purchasing food sustainably grown by a local farmer.

How do you know food has been “sustainably” grown? It’s not a black and white determination. Sustainability begins with the concepts of transparency and accountability, whether you’re talking about food or anything else. Do you know who grew your food and under what conditions? Do you know how it was processed, and what

may have been added? Do you know the ways in which your community will benefit if you buy this food? When you buy food directly from a farmer, you can ask for yourself.

It’s hard not to be worried about the future right now. Our national and international economies are severely challenged, dramatic climate change is all but a scientific certainty, and the threats to our food supply seem to increase with each passing year. But it’s nice to know that something you do three or four times every day can have a significant impact in every one of these areas.

And who knows, the food choices you make may increase your child’s math score to boot!

Brian Snyder, Executive Director Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture pasafarming.org

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GridPasa.indd 1

1/17/12 11:00 AM

PH!LLY LOVES READING TERMINAL MARKET

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“Great food, great people, in the center of everything, every day.

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at 12th & Filbert garage with $10 purchase and validation from any merchant. Limit 2 hours.

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THE BREWER’S PLATE March 11, 2012

National Constitution Center Fair Food once again brings you a celebration of our region's craft breweries, restaurants, farmers, and artisanal producers - all independently owned and located within 150 miles of the city!

Join us for an 8th year of The Brewer's Plate: a one-of-a-kind tasting event that pairs craft beer with local gourmet food for eaters of all kinds.

Featuring Philly’s own IRON CHEF, Jose Garces All proceeds benefit Fair Food, a 501(c)3 dedicated to promoting and sustaining a healthy local food system for the region!

Demonstrating Symbiosis between Sustainable Agriculture and Nature

Educating Youth and Future Farmers

Feeding Our Community Seeking interns for 2012

a program of

WILLISTOWN

CONSERVATION TRUST

www.wctrust.org

fairfoodphilly.org

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Wisdom and technology power Lancaster County’s fourth-generation Spring Wood Farm

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oman Stoltzfoos emerges from the barn where his cows are milked and is faced with dozens of turkeys waddling aimlessly towards his driveway.

A gate has been left open, and he calls to his eight-year-old daughter, playing nearby, to help herd the wayward birds back into their pen.

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Stoltzfoos’ youngest is hardly the only one of his 11 children working on this mid-September afternoon. His oldest, Dwight, 31 (assisted at the moment by his 13-year-old brother Raphael), is managing the dairy operations that are the focus of Stoltzfoos’ Spring Wood Organic Farm, the main supplier for Lancaster County’s Natural by Nature milk. Joshua, 19, is gathering eggs from the four mobile, solar-powered coops used for laying by the farm’s 2,400 chickens. Clifford, 21, transforms a small percentage of the milk and eggs into gelato and yogurt.

And their 15-year-old sister Althea rides by on a tractor, which she’s been using to turn the farm’s compost heaps.

“I want them to experience what I did,” says Stoltzfoos, 54, of his children, who are the family’s fourth generation to work on Spring Wood Farm. “They aren’t all going to want to stay here, but I want to give them the opportunity.”

ve too I think we ha ans who many Americ stand der don’t quite un es from that food com e grocery farms, not th ufacturing n a m a r o e r sto here.” plant somew —roman St

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The Spring Wood Ideal

Roman Stoltzfoos tends to the compost piles.

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There’s certainly no shortage of opportunities for work on Stoltzfoos’ 220-acre farm, near Kinzers in Lancaster County. In addition to the cows, turkeys, chickens and a handful of pigs, Roman and his wife Lucy operate a small rental property, the “Little Stone Cottage,” just up the road. Visitors are welcome to a farm tour, which Stoltzfoos hopes will help spread his philosophy to those accustomed to getting their meat and dairy from supermarket aisles.

“We want to get the message out to people about what really happens on farms,” says Stoltzfoos. “I think we have too many Americans who don’t quite understand that food comes from farms, not the grocery store or a manufacturing plant somewhere. Normal agriculture has done farmers a bad turn by separating them from their consumers, so they don’t even know what Americans really want. And Americans don’t really know what they want either because they’ve been sold a bill of goods. It’s amazing how many people enjoy that aspect, understanding a little bit more where food comes from and what some of the hassles are with it.”

The quaint cottage is for married couples only; with one bedroom it’s too small for families, and those living (or only visiting) in sin aren’t welcome. That restriction is a reflection of the Stoltzfoos’ Mennonite faith, which plays into Roman’s decision to farm organically and sustainably.

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“We feel the whole idea of soil stewardship goes with an appreciation of who we believe created it,” he says. “Large-scale agriculture and using chemicals for every answer is ignoring the fact that there is a feeling and a soul for this whole thing.

We believe that we can actually do things the way they should be done rather than the way they’re dictated to us.”

A 21st Century Farm

Anyone expecting Spring Wood to be a throwback, frozen in time as it was run by Roman’s grandfather when he bought the farm in 1941, is in for a surprise. There are solar panels on four roofs at Spring Wood, almost eliminating the Stoltzfoos’ electric bills for the year. There is also a panel apiece on the four mobile coops in which the farm’s hens lay their eggs. All four are moved on a daily basis to follow the grazing cows, which benefits both the chickens and the fields.

“If you don’t manage things right, the chickens can damage pasture, just wear it down and destroy the grass,” explains Joshua, who runs the family’s chicken business and designed the pens. “We move them every day. They also help fertilize, coming along behind the cows and spreading the manure all over the place. They’ll pick through it for grain or anything

that runs through the cows. And they reduce the fly population.”

Every afternoon, Joshua wades through the thicket of chickens clustered around the four pens to collect six to seven dozen eggs. The eggs are not certified organic; while their feed is GMO-free, a particular passion of his father’s, organic feed is too great an expense to justify. “If we were organic, we probably couldn’t have as many chickens,” says Joshua. “I’m not sure people want to pay quite that price.”

In addition to his solar panels, Stoltzfoos also puts the sun to work composting manure and hay into fertilizer. “It’s a very healthy way to dispose of manure,” he says. “It moves the nutrients into the matrix of the carbon so that they become very stable; the plant roots can get them out, but water can’t. You end up with a product that is extremely homogeneous and has very little of its original smell or composition.”

Only days after Hurricane Irene and the torrential rains

Joshua, 19, gathers eggs from a solarpowered chicken coop.

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I was told it’s t possible absolutely no turkeys. No to do organic d drugs to do way. You nee long story turkeys. But s later we’re r a e y 4 2 t, r o sh nd have still doing it a ney.” never lost mo

that surrounded it, Stoltzfoos points out the value of compost, which, unlike other fertilizers, won’t be washed away in a downpour. The composting also helps to transform the waste materials any dairy farm has to deal with.

“All these Lancaster County farms, the soil oltzfoos —roman St is filled up to the max with raw manure,” says Stoltzfoos.

“Phosphorous and nitrogen are too high, and tons and tons have to be hauled for miles to get it far enough away from the source. Whereas this system is so redemptive to the soil and so kind to the whole environment.”

A vigorous proponent of grass-fed cattle (he rents an additional 280 acres of grazing land in the area), Stoltzfoos was an early adopter of organic approaches. He took over what was at the time a conventional dairy farm from his father in 1982, finding it infested with weeds.

“It was so bad that in many fields we couldn’t even get corn to make an ear,” he recalls. When chemicals couldn’t provide the solution for the farm’s issues (and carried unnecessary toxins), Roman turned to organic methods. “[W]e decided for the safety of our family and the safety of our neighbors, we were going to do organic. We were betting that there were enough people who appreciated organic food that we could survive on that. And there really were.”

More Than Corn and Chickens

Within his first few years, Stoltzfoos began diversifying the farm’s output, beginning with the turkeys. “I needed something to make more cash income. The dairy price was really low at the time.

But number one, I thought cows were a little too boring.”

His initial decision to raise organic turkeys was met with considerable skepticism, Stoltzfoos recalls. “I was told it’s absolutely not possible to do organic turkeys. No way.

You need drugs to do turkeys. But long story short, 24 years later we’re still doing it and have never lost money. There’s quite a bit of demand for organic turkeys, but these days there’s a lot of so-called organic where they never get green grass like our turkeys do.”

Spring Wood’s nearly 12

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5,000 turkeys are rotated among six pens on a two-week cycle. They’ll grow to roughly 20 pounds before being sent to market, chiefly through four outlets based in Pennsylvania and New York.

The family’s most recent enterprise is their partnership with Washington, D.C.-based Pitango Gelato, which has five stores in Baltimore and the D.C. area. The farm’s milk and eggs go into the mix which is turned into gelato at the retail outlets.

They’ve since expanded from gelato to yogurt and Icelandicstyle skyr, a very soft cheese, similar to a strained yogurt, which goes into B’More Organic brand smoothies. He would also like to sell raw milk, and sees a demand, but regulations are simply too onerous at present.

“Most of our milk that leaves this farm goes in a truck, just like a normal farm,” says Stoltzfoos, walking around the pasteurizing and separating machines in a small building between the dairy and the family’s home. “Only about 10 percent goes through this plant. But there will come a time when that will be 50 percent. We’re only five years into it.”

The Future for Farming

While he protests that the time is coming for him to slow down, it’s apparent that Stoltzfoos still has a vision for the future—and fears for his family’s continued involvement in it. He praises eldest son Dwight’s aptitude for managing the dairy, but regrets he doesn’t share his father’s passion for sustainability. “He does a good job managing the farm, but he doesn’t quite have the vision for organic that I do. He’s a little more profit-driven, but that’s partly where he’s at in life.”

For the most part, though, Stoltzfoos’ family seems to have taken his lessons to heart and embraced the farm, perhaps more than many in the county. “Most of my friends’ children want nothing to do with their farms,” he says. “I’ll be honest, I have a couple of boys who think it’s absolute drudgery. But they don’t know how much drudgery’s out there in the real world. Once they find that out, this will look a little simpler to them.” 

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Andy Andrews, Pennypack’s farm director, prepares the fields

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K id s a n d pa c ro p s a re n t s f lo c k to t Pe n n y t p a c k Fa h e rm s to r yb pho y s h au n b r a dy tos by e m i ly w r e n

On spring, summer and fall afternoons, Pennypack Farm is the hot spot for local families. Parents gather at the Montgomery County nonprofit to examine the selection of crops laid out farmers market-style in the harvest house.

Kids head straight for the U-Pick crops and start on rows of green beans, raspberries and other coveted produce. But fresh fruits and vegetables are not the only goodies these member families will return home with, says Margot Bradley, the administrative director and one of Pennypack’s founding members. “Every time somebody sets foot here, they’re going to learn something. We look at every visit to the farm as an education.”

Pennypack’s suburban location in Horsham has been a key to fulfilling this mission. Convenient to Ambler, Fort Washington, Willow Grove and even Chestnut Hill, the 24-acre site, hosted by The College Settlement of Philadelphia, provides locals an opportunity to visit their food at its source without spending more precious time or gas money than they would on a trip to the supermarket.

Not Your Average CSA

“We don’t box up and deliver,” explains Bradley, drawing a distinction between what Pennypack offers and conventional CSAs (community-supported agriculture). “We get to do that because we’re right here in the ’burbs.”

For Bradley, the difference this makes comes with families not only eating healthier, but

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understanding where that healthy food comes from. “I like it when people really connect to the soil and realize just how much work it is to get your food,” she says, strolling through the farm on a chilly September afternoon. “I want them to know that strawberries are in June, they’re not now. I want them to know that there are predators and that when food is grown organically, sometimes it’s got some holes in it. I like it when they know the farmers and appreciate how much labor it is to harvest and wash.”

That knowledge comes firsthand at Pennypack, as each CSA member family is asked to contribute four hours of volunteer duty per season. With roughly 400 families receiving shares, that makes for a lot of amateur agriculture, which can prove a challenge to Pennypack’s full-time farm staff.

“You never know who you’re going to get,” laughs farm manager Katie Fotta. “Any time that you’re saying, ‘Come volunteer whenever you want to,’ you take whatever comes through the door.

Sometimes we might get amazing work out of that person, sometimes it’s interesting to see how they’ve interpreted my instructions. Suddenly, there’s a bunch of turnips that aren’t there anymore.

But as much as it’s a challenge, it’s at the same time so beautiful.”

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An Unlikely Beginning

Pennypack Farm began in 2000 when Bradley and like-minded locals responded to a letter to the editor in the local Ambler Gazette newspaper touting the CSA concept. “There were 30 people…with lots of different interests,” she recalls. “Sustainability, eco-people, people like me who were just into organic food. And we decided we just plain wanted to see a farm like this happen here. We had no money, no farmer, and no land, but we were very persistent.”

That persistence paid off when the Natural Lands Trust connected the group with The College Settlement, who owned the largest tract of open space in Eastern Montgomery County and wanted to promote community-based farming

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on the land. The lease was formalized in 2003, when Pennypack’s 11-member board of directors was formed, a farm manager was hired, and the farm was chartered as an educational nonprofit corporation.

The program has expanded exponentially over nine growing seasons; now the waiting list for a summer/fall CSA share numbers 600 names. A recently-initiated college-age internship program last year boasted 22 applications for three positions. What was at the time nothing but “unrelenting field corn” is now 15 cultivated acres, and there’s hope of doubling the acreage with more land in the area.

Pennypack’s ongoing evolution and the board’s dogged fundraising is apparent all over the farm. “We’re continually working on figuring out the best way of doing things here with the equipment that we have,” says Andy Andrews, Pennypack’s farm director. “Hopefully we’re getting a little bit better at it each year.”

One example is the farm’s latest innovation—a movable hoophouse. The metal, plastic-paned frame built on a roller and track system essentially allows for cover over successive patches of crops, with the ability to easily shift the covered area to speed crop rotation. “You can’t do that in a typical greenhouse,” explains Andrews. “We typically plant the same thing in the winter and in the summer, and we can’t give that land a break.

This way we have three possible spaces.

There’s lots of advantages to this thing.”

The Learning Curve

Afternoons are busy times at Pennypack as community families pick up their CSAs.

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Across a pathway from the new hoophouse is Pennypack’s “edible classroom,” a microcosm of a farm where children’s educational programs are held. Here, farm educator Raina Ainslie helps kids plant and tend their own crops, and leads farm-centric lessons, like teaching students to dance like bees to guide their classmates to hidden items. Education happens off the farm as well. Pennypack holds cooking and knife skills lessons

for teens in the nearby kitchen of a local church. And at times, the kids aren’t the only ones learning.

“When I first started doing education programs here, a lot of the parents who brought their children were very much into CSAs and understood what that meant for them, their family and their community,” says Ainslie. “But as time went on, we had more families coming that didn’t really understand food. There were a lot more parents that were learning just as much as the kids.

I enjoyed the fact that we were reaching further into the community.”

Families arriving for their CSA shares all had stories of how coming to Pennypack changed their families’ approach to eating. “I had been trying to find a way to get more fresh and local food into our diets,” said Socorro Rivas, a volunteer greeter in the harvest house. “Now we have a lot more access to fresh and organic vegetables, which our budget wouldn’t permit us before. And my girls come here, they know exactly where their food is coming from, and at home when it’s time to eat there’s no ‘I don’t want to eat my veggies.’ We’ve gone from being a conventional packaged-food type of family to making almost everything from scratch. It’s changed everyone’s health for the better.”

Mary Tobkin, an internal medicine doctor at Abington Memorial Hospital who also serves on Pennypack’s board, has seen her own practice impacted by spending time at the farm. “I didn’t know what a Jerusalem artichoke was,” she says, referring to the time it showed up in her CSA share. “I often challenge people who are vegetable-inhibited to go to a grocery store every week, buy something new and figure out what to do with it. I got that from the way you live here.” 

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FRESH, LOCAL FOOD

Slow Food is a grassroots movement that unites the pleasure of food with responsibility, sustainability and harmony with nature. To learn more, visit www.slowfoodphilly.org.

SEASONAL CUSTOM MENUS

We provide educational seminars, a website resource, social events, and we strongly support activities from other organizations that do great work, especially PASA, and post their events on facebook and our website calendar.

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The Farmin h g exh ours a isn’t e k n o a u s t i n r e l o n g a s y. w g, ,t Nat what c and yo he wo r u u r r e v why e b u neve k wil farm would l throw all Mot r her ?W nex any to s e a s ke b o d y w t . S o, o d a th nt t Pen me fa o rm at qu ns wha ylvania ers her estion e in t th , an ey h d ad t here’s o sa y.

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e chose to farm not knowing how really difficult a job it is. It is threecentered… involving your intellect, your body and your heart. The activities of farming… are very intellectually stimulating and demanding work, [and] tending living beings, both plants and animals, produces an open, receptive and balanced effect on one’s heart.

Mark and Judy Dornstreich

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farm for the joy of it. I love the physicality, the emotional intensity and the mental challenges. Plus we create one of the most indisputably useful things around: food!

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y interest in farming first came from the economic side. […] I once went to hear a famous investor, Jim Rogers (who started the Quantum Fund with George Soros), speak at Wharton. In answer to a question about career advice, he told the group of mostly MBA students to quit school and become farmers… I may be the only person there who took his advice.

Dean Carlson, pasa member since 2010 Farmer/Owner • Wyebrook Farm • Honey Brook, Pa. farm favorite: I think the most interesting animal to raise is the pig. I feel like the outcome of the meat produced can be affected by the farmer’s decisions more than with other animals. I find it exciting to experiment with different breeds and with different feeds.

PASA Members Since 1996 Farmers/Owners • Branch Creek Farm • Perkasie, Pa. Judy’s Farm Favorite: My current love is baby turnips. They are seriously delicious. The aphids also think they’re seriously delicious.

Jeffrey Frank & Kristin Illick PASA Members Since 1999 Farmer/Co-Owner • Liberty Gardens • Coopersburg, Pa. Jeffrey’s farm favorite: My favorite veggie to grow is tomatoes. So much anticipation. So much reward.

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’ve been working in nonprofits and I was very interested in communities for a long time. I was very interested in the built environment, and the biggest point of impact on a community is food and where it comes from. And that’s what started my interest in farming.

Jennifer Brodsky, pasa member since 2003 Chief Operating Officer • Greener Partners - Longview Center for Sustainable Agriculture farm favorite: For me perennial crops…so tree fruit, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries, because they have a long life and feed for such a long time. They’re also totally delicious, which is a bonus.

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farm because I like hard work, good food, and building community. I think that farming can play an important role in reviving communities and creating a better future.

Stephanie Roberts, PASA Member since 2009 Farmer • Hemlock Creek CSA - Skoloff Valley Farm • farm favorite: I love growing vegetables, but if I had to pick a favorite, I’d pick our Dutch Belted dairy cows.

e are called to farming as a way of life; called by the soil that nurtures and manifests health and goodness in people. We farm to give back to our community by deepening their relationship to the earth and food. We farm to nurture ourselves, the elemental spirits in nature who guide us and for those after us.

Heidi Secord and Gary Bloss PASA Members since 2000 Farmers • Josie Porter Farm farm favorite: Hands down, garlic is our favorite crop on the farm!

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he reasons we farm have to do mostly with enjoying livestock, especially the sheep, and wanting to eat fresh, local, responsibly-raised food. We actually don’t eat very much meat, although we produce a relatively large amount of it on this small farm. Still, when we do eat meat, we want to eat it knowing that the animals that provided it were well cared for, and even loved.

Philip and Dorcas (Dee) Horst-Landis PASA Members Since 2004 Farmers/Owners • Sweet Stem Farm • Lancaster, Pa.

farm because I think it’s one of the most important and meaningful things for a person to do with their time! I believe in supporting a local food economy, preserving open spaces, fostering community, encouraging good nutrition by growing and marketing real food, etc. I like the way my mind has to work in this job, troubleshooting all the different aspects of growing, from the fields to the tractors to the office. It is fun (except for when it’s not, haha!). You work outdoors, it’s great exercise, you meet amazing, interesting people as the years go by.

Mira Kilpatrick, pasa member since 2002 Co-Manager • Red Hill Farm • Aston, Pa. farm favorite: Right now, I’m loving cooking greens!

The ones that are still holding on in our fields, or the tender ones in the tunnels. Asian greens, broccoli raab, collards, kale, spinach, bok choy, etc. So delicious.

farm favorite: The sheep are the best!

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first got into farming for environmental reasons. The link between a healthy ecosystem (air, soil and water) and its ability to produce healthy [fruits and vegetables] is a very concrete and clear connection between the health of the earth and the health of humanity. I was hoping I could inspire social change in regards to environmental protection with my sustainable agricultural operation.

Now my reasons for farming have become much more spiritual. I need to farm in order to be happy, as simple as that sounds.

Claire Murray, pasa member since 1995 Farmer/Owner • Inverbrook Farm • Kennett Square, Pa. farm favorite: I like growing beans, especially haricot vert.

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farm for many reasons: It is physically demanding, has tangible results, provides endless opportunities for learning and problem solving, and most importantly, allows our family to use our land to provide healthful food for our community.

Liz Anderson, pasa member since 2002 Farmer/Founder • Charlestown Farm and Broadwater CSA, Phoenixville Farmers Market • Phoenixville, Pa. farm favorite: I love our whole farm, but I particularly enjoy raising our hens. These comical creatures give us eggs with the brightest orange-yellow yolks day after day.

There is nothing like a pasture-raised farm fresh egg.

s w eet s t e m f arm photo by Jen n a S ta m m P h o t o g r a ph y, i n v er b r o o k fa r m p hot o by Ca r l os A l e j a ndr o

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PASA launches land leasing program for farmers and landowners

Farming statistics in the U.S. are

grim. Less than two percent of the country actively farms. And the average age of these farmers? 57. For new farmers, the number one barrier to breaking into the business is lack of access to affordable land.

In the past, young farmers grew up in or married into a farm family, then inherited some or all the land. But today, the cities and suburbs are giving rise to a new generation of farmers.

Young, educated and concerned with the health of their environment and communities, these farmers need land.

Make It Certified Food Alliance has teamed with PASA to bring their third-party certification to the region’s farms, food buyers and consumers.

The certification ensures local food is grown and processed with socially responsible and sustainable practices. Learn more about the certification, including how your business can become a Food Alliance Ally and download a pocket guide for making informed purchases at foodalliance.org.

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Since 2009, PASA has been developing a land leasing program based on research by Temple University’s Fox School of Business. The Farm Lease Connection, launching in early 2012, is a web-based program to link landowners with new farmers—“a blend of eBay and eHarmony,” explains PASA. Enrolling your land is free and carries no obligation. Once enrolled, PASA helps determine what farming your land is best suited for and what farmer has the qualifications and business plan to meet your goals.

Whether you own a sunny, flat, half-acre of good soil, or 350 acres of rolling, partially wooded hills, PASA can help. Learn more at farmleaseconnection.org and join today to contribute to Pennsylvania’s sustainable agriculture movement.

Back to School Learn the necessary skills for homesteading, homemaking and backyard conservation with Sustainable Schools, a new initiative under PASA’s community outreach program Good Food Neighborhood. The courses, taught in communities throughout Pennsylvania, will include composting, backyard poultry and beekeeping, home energy efficiency, food preservation, and even homebrewing and fermentation.

“These courses are about learning how to do more things for ourselves,” says Katherine Watt of Spring Creek Homesteading, a Sustainable Schools partner. “In this time when families are feeling so stretched from a contracting economy, rising energy prices and the impacts of extreme weather conditions, building a safety net using local resources of time, skill and land can make all the difference.”

To find out what’s being taught in your community and to register for workshops, visit goodfoodneighborhood.org/ sustainabilityschools

How you eat today can make a better tomorrow.

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Protect soil, water, wildlife, and biodiversity.

No GMOs or artificial ingredients.

Healthy, humane animal treatment.

Safe and fair working conditions.

Conserve energy, reduce and recycle waste.

Reduce pesticides and hazardous materials.

Transparent and traceable supply chains.

Continual improvement.

Food Alliance partners with the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) to deliver its trusted, third-party certification to farms, food companies, and consumers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

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FoodAlliance.org

Determine if Food Alliance certification is right for you.

Contact PASA: (814) 349-9856 certification@pasafarming.org

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