EFC's efforts towards sustainability
One of our guiding principles is to operate the Co-op in a way that has the smallest possible environmental impact. While we are constrained by our small size and modest financial means, we have taken a number of steps toward improved sustainability in our operations and our community:
1. Plastics Recycling.
Eastside Food Co-op was the chosen site for the City of Minneapolis's pilot plastics recycling program, which began in 2008. When the City's initial funding expired, we elected to continue to fund the program on our own. In August 2009 the Co-op purchased a commercial baler so that we can compress and better manage the mounds of plastic that flow into our parking lot each week.
Click here for more information on our Plastics Recycling Program.
2. Participation in Eureka Recycling's Commercial Composting Program. 
Through Eureka's "Make Dirt Not Waste" program, the Eastside Food Co-op composts almost all of the food and paper waste that the store generates, including the compostable plates and silverware that we use in our deli. The short but growing list of Twin Cities restaurants that participate in the program includes several other Northeast establishments: Sen Yai Sen Lek, Brasa, the Red Stag Supper Club, and Chowgirls Killer Catering. For more information, read Eureka Recycling's full report, "Recycling, Composting, and Greenhouse Gases in Minnesota.
Naturally, we also recycle all of our cardboard, as well as all paper, glass, metal cans and aluminum that we use as part of our store operations. After all the compostable and recyclable items are removed, our actual waste is just a residential-size unit (95 gallons) that is picked up three times per week.
There are many ways you can become more involved in local efforts to reduce the waste stream, including:
- Support businesses that "walk the walk"
- Champion curbside composting initiatives
- Build a backyard compost system
- Make a commitment to reducing your household's carbon footprint by taking the Minnesota Energy Challenge.
3. Support for Locally and Sustainably-Produced Foods.
Consistent with our mission and our Ends policies, our management team has adopted purchasing guidelines that support local, organic and sustainable products. In 2007-2008, local foods accounted for around 30% of EFC's Grocery Department sales, and we are working to increase that number all the time. This commitment to purchasing locally and sustainably-produced goods spans across every department, and we intend eventually to track our progress in every area of the store.
We are engaged in continued discussions with the Local Fair Trade Network, which is working on a domestic designation for fair trade, and works closely with area farmers who employ immigrants for harvesting. We have participated with Equal Exchange to promote Reverse Trick-or-Treating, a program that educates consumers about practices in the chocolate growing and processing industry.
In 2009, EFC participated in the Eat Local Challenge for the fourth year in a row, hosting an all-local cookout, a member potluck featuring local foods, and an all-local Samplin' Saturday.
4. Slowing down our meter.
While we do not yet have the resources to undertake large-scale, alternative energy projects, we monitor our energy use and find practical, affordable ways to reduce our consumption. None of them is especially flashy--no solar panels or geothermal heating yet--but taken together they have helped us to be more mindful of our carbon footprint and to better manage our multiple bottom line, even in our 1950s-era, cinder-block building.
5. Greening Up the Avenue.
The Co-op has created a little belt of green on our busy, urban commercial corridor, and maintains both bike parking and a landscaped patio area. In the summer of 2009, under the guidance of native plants specialist and member/owner Ann Mueller, we planted all natives in our landscaping. We removed all landscaping plastic and landscaping rocks, bringing in topsoil to nourish the plants and providing natural mulch. By spring 2010, we should have thriving natives all around the Co-op!
Permaculture Cold Climate Spring Class Schedule
PCI Cold Climate’s spring calendar includes many classes on different aspects of and strategies for urban farming.
We are also making an effort to strengthen connections between people who want to explore healthier, saner ways to live in cold climate regions.
February 17, 24 7-9:30 PM and
March 3, 10, 17 7-9:30 PM
Learn small-scale techniques for growing food in urban areas, for your own family’s use or for urban markets. Our Urban Farming series is back by popular demand, with two new classes this year. Learn abouta::
* SPIN Farming,
* Basics of Organic Growing,
* Biointensive Growing,
* Field Layout & Design for Production, and
* Marketing Strategies & Options
… you can choose any or all! $15 per class ($20 at the door) or all 5 for $60. (Click a course topic for more details and registration.)
February 20 9 AM - 4 PM
Get an intensive orientation to the business of urban farming in one day. Limited space, $40 per person (25% discount if you pay before Feb 10).
Permaculture Cold Climate
PRI Cold Climate
PO Box 22508
Robbinsdale, MN 55422
651.451.1716
New USDA Rules Establish Strong Organic Standards for Pasture and Livestock
Family Farmers Call Rule a Victory for Integrity of Organic Food and Agriculture
Swift and Judicious Enforcement of Abuses Now Expected by Obama Administration
WASHINGTON, DC – After over 10 years of lobbying, family farmers across the country, who produce organic milk, are celebrating the release of strict new USDA regulations that establish distinct benchmarks requiring the grazing and pasturing of dairy cows and other livestock. Many hope that the new rule will put an end to the abuses that have flooded the organic market with suspect milk from a handful of mega-dairies generally confining thousands of animals in feed lots and barns.
“We are delighted by the new rules,” said Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst at the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute. “The organic community has been calling for strong regulations and its enforcement for much of the past decade. Cheap organic milk flowing from the illegitimate factory farms has created a surplus that is crushing ethical family farm producers.”
The issue has been a lightning rod for controversy in the organic community. At least five times during the last decade, the National Organic Standards Board – a key USDA advisory panel made-up of industry stakeholders – passed guidance or recommended regulatory changes clarifying the requirement that dairy cows and other ruminants must be allowed to exhibit their native behavior and consume a meaningful amount of their feed from grazing on pastures.
New rulemaking had been delayed by the Bush administration, using a myriad of tactics, some of which are being scrutinized in an ongoing investigation by the USDA's office of Inspector General.
The Cornucopia Institute, on behalf of its family farmer members, also filed numerous formal legal complaints with the USDA’s National Organic Program calling for investigations into alleged violations of organic livestock management practices occurring on many of the 20 largest factory farm facilities.
The biggest scandal in the history of the organic industry centered around one such USDA investigation with the regulators finding “willful” violations of 14 organic regulations on factory farms operated by Aurora Dairy, a $100+ million company based in Colorado (Aurora produces private-label, store brand milk for Wal-Mart, Costco and large grocery chains).
"The public controversies concerning Aurora, and alleged improprieties by the largest milk processor in the country, Dean Foods (Horizon Organic), put increasing pressure on the USDA to rein-in the scofflaws in this industry," Kastel added.
“I am confident that the new rule, along with a commitment to rigorous enforcement by certifiers, will put an end to these abuses and restore fairness to the organic dairy sector,” said Kevin Engelbert, a dairy farmer from Nichols, NY who milks 100 cows. “Consumers will be able to purchase organic dairy products with confidence, knowing that regardless of the label, the animals who produced the milk were on pasture, as nature intended,” Engelbert added.
The USDA has announced that they will begin this month hosting a series of workshops around the country with the nation’s 50+ organic certification agencies and other industry stakeholders. The sessions are intended to clearly define the meaning and intent of the new rule so that certifiers, who conduct annual farm inspections and review organic system management plans, will understand what the regulations require from farmers and only approve management practices that strictly conform to it.
Specifically, the new rules require that dairy cows and other ruminants be out on pasture for the entire growing season, but for not less than 120 days. It also requires that the animals receive at least 30% of their feed, or dry matter intake (DMI), from pasturing. In addition, organic livestock will be required to have access to the outdoors year-round with the exception of temporary confinement due to mitigating and documentable environmental or health considerations.
“These minimum benchmarks will assure consumers that industrial-scale dairies don't just create the ‘illusion’ of grazing and continue producing illegitimate organic milk," said Kastel. He continued by emphasizing to consumers that, "Based on Cornucopia's research 90% of all namebrand dairy products are produced with high-integrity— the handful of factory farms are bad aberrations and will now be dealt with."
The 120-day/30% DMI benchmarks were negotiated reference points agreed-upon by organic community stakeholders and arrived at after a series of meetings and discussions, nationwide, over much of the last half dozen years. The rules were also a carefully crafted consensus aimed at ensuring that legitimate organic dairy operations could truly provide meaningful pasture for their herds across the wide range of climatic zones in the U.S. It is estimated that the rule will impact upwards of 2000 organic dairy farmers.
Cornucopia, a farm policy research group, along with agricultural producers and other organizations, are carefully scrutinizing other impacts on the most sweeping rewrite of the federal organic standards since their inception in 2002. In addition to dairy cattle, the standards will assure humane animal husbandry practices in eggs, poultry, beef and pork production. The USDA will also be accepting public comments for 60 days on one exclusion from the pasture minimum, that for "finish feeding" on grain for ruminants, including beef cattle — an issue that proved controversial and elicited a wealth of public comments when the original draft rule was published.
“I, along with many other family farmers, watch with intense frustration as the seemingly unprincipled mega dairies continually bend the rules and engage in unfair competition with me,” said Rebecca Goodman, a certified organic dairy producer who milks 40 cows in Wonewoc, WI. “I am thankful that the USDA is now standing with us to preserve the integrity of the organic food label.”
"When Secretary Vilsack met with organic dairy farmers in Wisconsin this past summer he told us that he would ‘level the playing field’ for small and medium producers," Goodman added. "These new regulations appear to be the first of what I hope will be many steps by the Secretary following through on this important commitment."
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EFC Discontinues Reverse-Osmosis "RO" filtered water
In December, the pump for the reverse osmosis water filtration system broke down. Because our system is quite old (it was a refurbished system from another food co-op that was rebuilt for EFC in 2003), it took us some time to locate a pump online, and even longer for that pump be shipped here to the store.
During that time, we investigated other options, as we realized our current system is in that stage of life similar to that of many used cars: how much do we pour into maintenance and repairs for an obsolete system? When talking to different companies about reverse osmosis, we kept hearing about its wastefulness, but we really didn’t understand what or how that waste was generated. We then went online and found an article from the North Dakota State University extension service that explains both how wasteful reverse osmosis systems are and why.
Essentially, the process begins with water softening. There is always a little wasted water when softening the water, but it is the next step where most of the waste occurs. The softened water is pushed at high pressure into a semi-permeable membrane filter. Most of the water bounces off the filter and down the drain. A small portion (5-12%) of the water makes it through the filter, and is purified at a level of 0.001 parts per million. That is the water we’ve been selling for $.39 a gallon. A analogy to use: image squirting a garden house at your hand with the fingers held together. A small portion of the water will be forced between your fingers and out onto the other side of your hand. The rest will cascade down your arm or bounce off your palm.
As our system is obsolete, it is one of the more wasteful of the RO systems, losing at least 12 gallons to every gallon filtered, perhaps more. So the co-op is paying for 12 gallons to come into our building, and paying for 11 to go right down the sanitary sewer, paying coming and going so to speak. But the biggest concern for us was the waste of a natural resource. The Co-op operates with Ends Policies around five interest areas, one of which is the Environment.
The policy states “Our environment is minimally impacted by our presence and practices.” There are so many impacts our business has on the environment that we can’t control. We can’t control our high usage of fossil fuels for vehicles to bring product here from all over the world. We can’t control the cost of natural gas and electricity to pull heat out of our coolers and freezers, and to heat up and light the store. But trying to control the amount of water we waste is within our control, and we don’t believe we can justify a commercial RO filtration system, when home units are much more efficient. Even if we were to spend thousands for a top of the line commercial RO filtration system, the best efficiency we could hope for is 8 gallons of waste water to 1 gallon of RO. We will continue to filter the tap water that comes in contact with food, in the produce case, in the deli, and in the drinking fountain, that comes into the building, using a water refining system. While this removes a lot of potentially objectionable contents of tap water, including 100% of the chlorine, 75% of the fluoride, hard minerals, and metals, it is not statistically more pure than tap water to the extent that we feel it has retail value.
Because of this, we will not sell the filtered water to our customers. We do offer a line of home water filtration products that remove many of these same materials. Under the counter and countertop systems will be offered at $20 below margin until March 31 to offset the inconvenience and provide alternatives. (If you wish to see a system in use, ask to visit our break room!) If you are interested in one of these system, email kristina@eastsidefood.coop.
Additionally, Atlantis Water Systems in Brooklyn Center, with whom we are working to set up our new filtration system, sells home reverse osmosis which are much more efficient than commercial ones, with waste ratios of 3 gallons to 1 filtered gallon up to top of the line models with a 1:1 waste ratio. Nick Galanos at Atlantis will offer EFC members a 10% discount on a home RO filtration system, free installation and 10% off future filter purchases. His phone number if 763-560-0103.
We know our RO customers will be disappointed, but, as environmental stewards, we feel we can’t continue with a commercial RO system knowing the waste it generates. We sold 12,000 gallons in 2009, meaning we paid for 145,000 gallons to come into the store, we softened those 145,000 gallons, and then paid for them to go right down the drain! If you have comments, questions or concerns about our decision to discontinue RO filtration at the co-op, please call general manager Amy Fields at 612-843-5401 or e-mail amy@eastsidefood.coop.
Unique Opportunity to Work on a Family Farm
From Jessi Wood and Joey Stout, owners of Humble Roots Heritage Farm in Lac qui Parle County:
Hello all: we are looking for a small group of people (ie; a family, a few friends, etc) to come and stay with us for a couple weeks this summer, right after school lets out, say June 12-27th. We will be fencing in our entire grove and setting up a rotational grazing system for our American Mulefoot Hogs, renovate a barn so that we can house more heritage turkeys next year, and move another barn to house our Poulet Rouge (slow growing) meatbirds.
We will provide all food, a fully equipped camper that comfortably sleeps 4, and a Bourbon Red turkey come Thanksgiving. Naturally, we can't help but share our fresh air, prairie nights complete with stars and constellations, local and "fowl" entertainment (heritage turkeys, rare breed ducks, laying hens, meat birds) bonfire and gatherings. We hope to work hard during the day and enjoy great company in the evenings.
Bring your instruments or hobbies; we have tons of room for you to express yourself. We would really like to encourage a family with young kids who wants to get out of the city for a while and have a different experience but would be gracious for anyone. If two weeks is hard to commit to but you would like to come out for a weekend or a couple days, bring your tent and make yourself at home (just call to let us know when your coming). The more the merrier. We plan to move the barn over a weekend when we can get the most help (this will also be the weekend of our annual potluck/bonfire).
Please pass the word as it would be great to get to know some people that are interested and field any questions. Check out our blog, HumbleRoots Heritage LiveStalk, call us at the farm 320-752-4276 or email us at HumbleRootsHeritage@gmail.com. Thank you!
U of M's Living on the Land Workshop Series
U of M's Living on the Land workshop series is back
U of M Extension offers workshops for small-acreage owners
Do you have the dream of owning acreage in the country? Do you have an existing acreage that is need of a plan and strategies for the best possible results? The Living on the Land Workshop Series, offered this spring by University of Minnesota Extension, can help you and your family.
The eight-week course is designed to arm landowners with agricultural information to enable them to be good stewards of their 40-acre (or less) tract. The course will begin with goal setting and individual property inventory, then address soil, plant and water basics. The Living on the Land curriculum addresses a growing need for information regarding small acreages. The class series incorporates knowledge and experience from a team of instructors to address topics including: what do you have and what do you want, what you can do with your land, water quality, protecting household drinking water, how plants grow, what to do about weeds, lawn and pasture maintenance, getting down and dirty with soils, and a farm tour.
The series will be taught by Extension educators and natural resource professionals at two locations. Register for only one location. Tuesday evenings will be held at the Monticello High School in Monticello from Mar. 2 – Apr. 20 from 6:30-9:30 p.m. Thursday evenings will be held at the Ranchero Supper Club in Webster from Mar. 4 – Apr. 22 from 6:30-9:30 p.m. Early registration is $150 until Feb.24 and all registrations received after will be $175. The registration fee includes participation of two people, for example a husband and wife team or two siblings, who may attend together and share materials. Benefits include numerous educational publications, opportunities to network with peers and professionals, an educational farm tour and dinner, a site visit consultation from a University of Minnesota Extension educator in your area, as well as the tools to help you succeed with your goals and dreams on your country acreage.
Register now because space is limited at each location. For more information or to register, click here. or contact Brenda Postels, Wright County Extension Educator at 763-682-7381 or Laura Kieser, Scott/Carver County Extension Educator at 952-466-5306.
Media Contact: Catherine Dehdashti, U of M Extension (612) 625-0237.
Isle Royale Botany Workshop June 14-19
Experience four days in Lake Superior's Isle Royale National Park and learn to identify the diverse plants that live on this incredible island!
HOURCAR - It's the Smart Way to Drive!
HOURCAR provides all of the convenience of owning a car with none of the trouble. For just a few dollars an hour, you can reserve a car in seconds, drive it immediately, and let someone else worry about parking, maintenance, and insurance. It’s the smart way to drive! With 21 cars in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, HOURCAR is convenient to many neighborhoods.
Find out where your nearest HOURCAR lives, and sign up to drive today. HOURCAR is a program of the Neighborhood Energy Connection, a local non-profit dedicated to reducing pollution, conserving resources and improving quality of life by offering tools for energy-efficient living.
