Microbiologically safe produce - local or otherwise
The Obama’s – meaning Michelle – have started a gardening craze. Robert Kenner, the director of Food Inc., told Vanity Fair the solution to so-called industrial food issues was “to go to a farmers’ market whenever possible … it kind of feels like a religious experience.” And on rolls the bandwagon.
Massive rainfalls and 100F days has lead to some ideal growing conditions here in Manhattan (Kansas) but also presents some challenges in the form of floodwater (I’m convinced there’s just no drainage around here).
The microbiological safety of water sources is critical when growing fresh produce that is not going to be cooked. Did that floodwater come downstream from any sort of livestock operation (or human outhouse)? Did the water provide a vehicle for bird or rodent or lizard poop and pathogens to contaminate produce, inside and out? Will those pathogens now flourish in heat?
Those issues and more are discussed in the latest video from the SafeFoodCafe, the bites.ksu.edu digital video subsidiary. The new video guy, Evan, did his best to make me look cool with what he had. He needs better source material.
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/admin/trackback/141531
Nothing like a little hen poop on your garden - especially when it is the garden of an assisted living residence!
(A news article that I found today - wow, I hope they are teaching the little kiddos how to wash their hands)
Urban Hens is the Boulder-based group that brought them and eight chickens together on Tuesday at the Shawnee Gardens Assisted Living Residence. The coop housing the chickens was built by University of Colorado at Boulder students. Urban Hens is working with the Children, Youth and Environments Center for Research Design at CU and a private grant to help teach sustainability to children by placing chickens near neighborhood and school gardens.
"How can you be truly sustaining and that is by reusing the waste in any system and keeping it inside the system instead of continuing to consume and throw it off," said Wynn Martens, the co-founder of Urban Hens. "People become interested for different reasons. Some people are concerned with the humane treatment of the chickens. Other people are interested in the nutritional value. Other people really are interested in the educational component, so we want to support all those."
The children like Noah go to the Blossom Pre-School across the alley from Shawnee Gardens. Their curriculum will include responsibilities such as feeding and partly taking care of the chickens. Many of their lunch and dinner scraps will go to the chickens. The chickens' waste meanwhile will help fertilize the Shawnee Gardens garden. That garden's products will be eaten by both parties as will the eggs the chickens lay.
"By involving children in a hands-on, practical solution that addresses issues related to local food, climate change, peak oil and conservation, we put them in a position to control a piece of their own world," Martens said. "Backyard hens open the door for broader understanding of these critical issues. The hens help us think about what we eat, what we throw away, where the rest of our food is coming from and how a closed-loop system works at the most basic level."
Urban Hens has already erected a coop in a neighborhood in Boulder. Numerous cities around the metro area have restrictions against backyard chickens but Martens says those positions may be softening as prices rise and people look to become more conscious about their own efforts to protect the earth. They are currently working with parents in the Park Hill neighborhood in Denver to set up a garden and a chicken coop there.