Mushroom Power

Posted on March 14, 2010 with 1 Comment

Rafter Sass knows mushrooms. A graduate student at the University of Vermont who teaches sustainable farming practices, he can list Latin names of different varieties without a moment’s hesitation. His love affair with the edible fungi began as a forager. “I can’t even count the number of times when I told people that was a hobby of mine,” he said, “and I was told ‘You’re going to die.’”

Sass led two workshops on mushroom cultivation at Growing Power’s Milwaukee headquarters in late February. Will Allen recruited Sass when he recognized that mushrooms could be grown with materials already available onsite: food waste, straw, wood chips, waste paper, and spent grain from breweries. Sass managed to make the sessions both useful and amusing. “It’s important to eat fungi,” he told his students, “because they are competing with us for air.”

Click to see photo gallery on Flickr

Sixty people attended Growing Power’s hands-on training workshops on February 20th and 21st. They joined forty students in Growing Power’s Commercial Urban Agriculture program who were returning for the second of five weekend sessions. Will Allen mentioned the addition of mushrooms to the hundreds of other crops at the Milwaukee headquarters when impressing upon the participants the necessity of building their farming projects a step at a time. “We’re always adding pieces that assist other pieces of what we do,” Allen said. “The main thing we want to see is for you to get started. Don’t stand around for two years doing some planning.”

Allen also stressed the necessity of perseverance, and he told participants not to be shy about taking a single workshop on composting or aquaponics multiple times. “You have to practice the art of farming,” Allen said. “It took me five years to learn vermicomposting before I took it out to the public. Repetition is really important; it’s like learning how to shoot foul shots. Farming is an art form that should be respected.”

Register online for workshop. www.growingpower.org/workshops.htm

Seattle City Council announces “2010: Year of Urban Farming”

Posted on February 5, 2010 with 2 Comments

During a productive two day trip to Seattle, Washington; Will Allen bears witness to the declaration of 2010 as the Year of Urban Agriculture by Mayor Mike McGinn and Seattle City Council members. This campaign was announced to promote urban agriculture efforts and increase community access to locally grown food. Seattle has 68 urban gardens in 2009, the most number of  gardens in the nation run by volunteers of 3800 gardeners on 1900 plots of land.

About 500 people gathered in the auditorium on the first day of the visit hosted by Creatives4Community.

Will in Seattle

Midwest Value Added Ag Conference,January 21 2010

Posted on January 22, 2010 with No Comments

For 12th year now, the Midwest Value Added Ag Conference served as a meeting and gathering ground for farmers, producers, educators, policymakers, and local food enthusiasts. Will delivered  his opening keynote at 9AM on Thursday January 21st,2010 . There were many familiar “local Ag” as well as new, young faces and it was a perfect way to start off 2010 . Will spoke to a diverse crowd of government employees, university faculties and farmers from the Wisconsin and Minnesota region.

Driving back to Milwaukee, Will managed to jumped in on a radio interview with the Wisconsin Public Radio on the West Side Program. Listen to the interview with guests include State Agriculture Secretary Rod Nilsestuen; Diane Mayerfeld Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Statewide Coordinator; Kelly Cain is Director of the St. Croix Institute for Sustainable Community Development; Rich Purdy the President of the River Country Resource Conservation and Development Council.

http://wpr.org/regions/eau/twsarchive.cfm

Listen now using RealPlayer 47:20