Annotated Bib

Winne, Mark. Closing the Food Gap. Boston: Beacon P, 2008.

This book is a fantastic resource that will be very helpful to my research. There is a chapter on farming, and “growing your own” as they call it. Basically it begins with a woman telling her story of how she began gardening and then became serious about it and has been a gardener for 34 years now. She has run over 10 farms in that time and she explains how each one had its own trials and tribulations.
This is going to be such a great resource because I have not been able to go visit an actual farm. I will be able to use the information she provided in this chapter as a sort of interview to get details of one persons experience with local farming. This is exactly the information I have been searching for and hope to find more of before our presentation next week. Although the story in this chapter is not about a woman from Syracuse she is gardening in Massachusetts so the climate is fairly similar and the experience probably not all that different. The biggest difference might be the culture and types of customers but I cannot really report on that information because I am unfamiliar with local farming in Massachusetts.

Individual Proposal

I am going to be looking at the farms where produce is grown and harvested. I will be looking at issues such as how the farms are started, where the initial start up money comes from before there is produce to sustain a cash flow? How big are these sorts of farms when they are started? What crops are grown locally in Syracuse? Are local farmers receiving any sort of government loans or other funding? I will also be looking into competition of these farms, do they fight over share holders, are there other precedents in this local area of farms being run for local consumption? There are many issues that will be looked at when discussing these farms. My piece of the overall group project with be in the beginning of the overall arc of our project.

How to get involved with CSA's

https://login.libezproxy2.syr.edu/login?qurl=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1452660721&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=3739&RQT=309&VName=PQD

http://youtube.com/watch?v=DUBf_a3EtQU

The two links above show different ways to become involved with CSA's. In the first link, a father in Oregon is looking to bring a desire to his family of being part of the local agricultural market and is therefore joining a local CSA to bring local produce into his home all summer. He is joining a well established CSA that will cap its membership at 40 families for the upcoming summer but will help out others that are interested by selling his produce at a corner store that is open limited hours. In the you tube video the narrator has found a slightly different way of becoming involved with CSA's. she started her own farm with her close friends as her only members to begin with. This let he find a rhythm of growing and selling and also let her see if she enjoyed this kind of work. Her farm has grown considerably since she began and now employees 6 full time staff members and has 100 members. While these two stories show very different sides to CSA's it expresses the range of ways to become involved with CSA's in your area. Whether you just want to eat fresh food that looks and tastes much better than food in your grocery store or if you want to make CSA's your profession, anyone can get involved with community supported agriculture in their area.

Center of Excellence

There is a new building being constructed alongside I-81 in Syracuse. The building will be the location of the Center of Excellence, an organization dedicated to research and development in environmental and energy systems. Their goals include providing new local jobs, providing innovations in technology to improve human life, and earn international recognition for leading developments in sustainable systems in the urban environment. Center of Excellence projects focus on one of the three following options, clean and renewable energy, indoor environmental quality, or water resources. The new building will be a landmark for the city as it will be the most dramatic building visible to people as they drive through the city on the elevated highway. For more information about the Syracuse Center of Excellence go to http://syracusecoe.org/