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Localizing Our Food System in Northeast Ohio
Efforts are underway to prepare for the Post-Carbon Economy due to concerns for the environmental, social, political and economic ramifications of global over-reliance on dwindling, non-renewable fossil fuel energy resources.

By: Brad Masi, New Agrarian Center

Garden
Volunteers converted a vacant asphalt parking lot, near Ridge Rd. & Denison, into gardens that provide produce for the community and helps absorb stormwater. Organized by community nutritionist Kate Thomas with the Neighborhood Family Practice, these gardens also teach basic nutrition for clients and neighbors.

I have spent a lot of time wandering the urban wilds of Cleveland, Lorain and Youngstown. As a testament to the resilience of nature, many of these industrial landscapes are turning back to natural environments. Vines make their way across old factory facades, slowly crumpling those old bricks back to clay. Once the greenhouse capital of the U.S., acres of abandoned greenhouses are returning to forests. Tree branches punch their way through the metal gridwork of old greenhouse frames and broken glass mixes with ground cover. As nature reclaims swaths of old urban landscapes, what can we observe about the elegance of natural systems compared to old industrial landscapes based entirely on fossil fuel energy and the rapid consumption of natural resources?

Residents visit the City Fresh Stop in Slavic Village near Broadway & E. 55 St. City Fresh helps build a more just and sustainable local food system in Northeast Ohio by meeting the needs of both urban and rural communities by improving access to fresh locally grown food for urban residents and opportunities in the city for local farmers.

These landscapes speak to the temporary nature of an extractive economy. Abandoned buildings, rusting equipment and overgrown lots crumble as stark relics from an economy that came and went without any regard to the longevity of the community. As much as the industrial process shaped the urban landscapes of Northeast Ohio, a heavy reliance on fossil-based energy coupled with the high mobility of investment capital reduced the sustainability of this kind of development.

Similarly, our entire industrialized food system, the source of how most people eat today, has historically been supported by the availability of cheap fossil fuel energy. Large amounts of this energy are needed to power farm equipment, manufacture chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and create packaging, refrigeration and long-distance transport for food products. At the other end of this cycle, food waste accumulates in landfills and becomes methane, a greenhouse gas that traps 20 times more heat than carbon dioxide. If you took cheap fossil fuels out of the equation, this entire food system scenario becomes impossible. Without the use of this energy, a corn or soybean field would quickly be overtaken and, within a few years, would once again start to resemble a forest.

We face today what David Holmgren, an Australian and co-originator of the permaculture concept, refers to as “energy descent.” Worldwide, we may well have passed the peak of oil production, which will be followed by a permanent decline. The other major carbon-based fuels—natural gas and coal—are projected to peak and decline in production over the next 25 years, according to recent reports. Rising fuel prices, increased political volatility and the specter of climate change all point toward the end of a carbon-based era that has relied on burning these carbon dioxide spewing fossil fuels. Some people regard this end with a great deal of trepidation and fear of collapse.

But does energy descent have to be negative? As we confront these challenges, can we begin to move toward what Holmgren refers to as “creative descent”? Descent is a natural part of any process. In nature, every organism has its cycle of growth and its cycle of decay. These cycles are what lead to the longevity of the system. Can we tap into the best of our creative capabilities to proactively seek out alternatives to carbon based systems?

As we look for alternatives to the carbon-based economy, we can begin by observing the natural systems all around us. Without any outside inputs of energy, nutrients or water, natural systems are highly productive, very efficient and do not generate any waste that cannot be utilized by another organism. All waste becomes food and, over-time, the system becomes more resilient to such disturbances as disease, flooding or periods of drought.

How can we begin to pattern our human settlements around the principles that guide natural systems? How can we utilize current solar income, harvest and re-use water, and cycle nutrients through our systems? How can we mimic the designs of nature to create food, energy and material pathways that actually enhance rather than deplete environmental quality and community vitality?

Answering these questions can begin to point toward the framework for a regenerative economy that will lead us toward a post-carbon future. A regenerative economic system has the capacity to reproduce its own assets. Like nature, it eliminates the concept of waste, where every by-product feeds another process. It maximizes the free services of nature, including such resources as wind, sun and rain water. Through a diverse web of local connections between individuals, businesses and institutions, the system has greater resilience through diversity.

Northeast Ohio captured the natural imagination when the Cuyahoga River burned in 1969. Even though earlier river fires were more severe, the 1969 fire became a tipping point for the national environmental movement and led to some of the most significant changes in legislation for protection of the natural environment. Today, Northeast Ohio stands poised to once again capture the national imagination as a center for regenerative economic systems.

The rising interest in local food systems presents perhaps one of the best opportunities to put into practice the development of a regenerative economic system. Because food can be grown just about anywhere (from an urban rooftop to a large open field), local food systems can invite high levels of community participation and invention.

In recent years, we have seen groups like Neighbors in Family Practice, Wonder City Farm and Gather ‘round Farm in Cleveland actually utilize the abundant organic wastes available in cities (wood mulch, leaves, food waste compost, newspaper) to construct gardens on top of asphalt. Even Full Circle Fuels, a gas station in Oberlin that distributes vegetable-based fuels, has its own asphalt garden behind one of its garages. If these are the beginning signs of an energy descent future, then what is there to fear?

Through a partnership with Oberlin College, Case Western Reserve University and food service company Bon Appétit, Full Circle Fuels helped to convert a diesel box truck for the City Fresh program to run off of waste vegetable oil. City Fresh connects area farmers to institutions and urban neighborhoods (several of which have lost grocery stores). City Fresh utilizes vegetable oil or recycled waste grease to operate its own distribution system independent of petroleum-based fuels.

The George Jones Farm and Nature Preserve in Oberlin utilizes food waste coming out of the dining halls and cooperatives at Oberlin College to enhance its topsoil, feed its pigs and even heat greenhouse beds. Students enrolled in a course on Contemporary Agrarianism at Oberlin College helped to build an experimental compost pile inside one of the greenhouses with radiant tubing going through it. Not only is the compost created right where it will be used, but waste heat can be utilized in the system. Students last fall constructed a “worm tractor” which includes a mix of food waste, brewery wastes and wood mulch. Strawbales help to filter leachate and provide temporary walls for the pile. Worms are added to the pile to over-winter. A large pile of waste represents “Daytona Beach” to the worms where they spent the entire winter indulging and making worm castings. The worm tractor was built on top of a new market garden site for the farm.
The New Agrarian Center (NAC), based at the George Jones Farm, is working to grow a regenerative food system in Northeast Ohio. The organization is based in the loft of a strawbale building. This high performance green building is heated with a solar
hot water system installed in partnership with the Ohio Farmers Union. The primary materials for the building (wood, straw, clay, sandstone, and brick) all came from within about a four mile radius of the building. Once the building’s useful life has expired, it can be composted and become a garden, the ultimate form of adaptive re-use.

City Fresh, Full Circle Fuels, and the George Jones Farm all point toward small
examples of what a regenerative regional economy can begin to look like. They all provide some of the basic needs of food, energy and shelter while utilizing local waste products (food waste, waste grease, salvaged building materials), building regenerative assets (soils, gardens, forests and motivated communities), and running off of current solar income (solar hot water systems, food crops). Restoring regenerative assets (forests, gardens, farms, etc.) can also help to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. Supporting organic farms in the region may be one of the best steps we can take to sequester atmospheric carbon.

Bill Mollison, one of the co-originators of permaculture, had an epiphany when working on forest conservation in the 1950’s. He realized that the forest provided for
all of its own needs without any outside sources of energy or nutrients. His thought was how could we begin to pattern human settlements around some of these same principles. Permaculture stands for “permanent culture.” It provides a framework for building more self-reliant local systems that are insulated from the fickle whims of the global economy. How can we begin to graft international innovations such as permaculture with initiatives taking place in grassroots communities across the region to set the stage for a regenerative economic system for Northeast Ohio? Like just about every other major innovation in the U.S., it begins with small inventions in our backyards, neighborhoods or institutions. These many small inventions can grow to whole-scale change. To keep the process rolling, start with yourself and ask what you can do today to take a small step toward a regenerative future in your own life. Then start linking with others in your own community and the broader region. Before you know it, a few small steps will add up to whole-scale change and the post-carbon future will be here.

For more information contact Brad Masi at the New Agrarian Center at brad@gotthenac.org or visit www.gotthenac.org. Visit the Post Carbon Institute’s website at www.postcarbon.org for additional information on the Post Carbon Economy.

Localizing Our Food System in Northeast Ohio Efforts are underway to prepare for the Post-Carbon Economy due to concerns for the environmental, social, political and economic ramifications of global over-reliance on dwindling, non-renewable fossil fuel energy resources.

By: Brad Masi, New Agrarian Center

Localizing Our Food System in Northeast Ohio
Efforts are underway to prepare for the Post-Carbon Economy due to concerns for the environmental, social, political and economic ramifications of global over-reliance on dwindling, non-renewable fossil fuel energy resources.