First, by “nutrient dense” I mean two things.  The amount of nutrition in food measured by vitamins and minerals compared to calories. The most nutrition-packed foods are typically fruits and vegetables.  “Energy dense” foods are normally high in calories and low in vitamins and minerals, including most cereals and grains, products with added sugar and inputs that are high in carbohydrates, and alcohol. Foods with high nutrient density provide relatively more of the nutritional needs of our bodies, and usually provide a more complete and balanced nutritional package.  Good news: of these healthy foods we can grow in our gardens!
 

The second meaning has to do with how foods are grown.  Just because a food is nutritional-packed does not always mean it’s healthy.  Some fruits and vegetables with high nutritional density may be unhealthy because of how they were grown.  Toxic pesticide contamination is the main reason foods that normally have high nutritional value may actually be unhealthy.  According to the Environmental Working Group these are the “Dirty Dozen” foods with the highest pesticide residues:

Peaches, Apples, Sweet Bell Peppers, Celery, Nectarines, Strawberries, Cherries, Pears, Grapes (Imported), Spinach, Lettuce, Potatoes

These nutrient dense foods can be far healthier if we eat them WITHOUT the added poisons.  How do we find these 12 crops without pesticide residues?   By buying them from organic sources (and the more local the source the more nutritional value, usually). OR, by growing them at home.  Half of these “Dirty Dozen” are perfect candidates to grow in Kitchen Gardens, raised beds and containers where you control how they are grown.

This tomato seedling is surrounded by our "magic spinach". 

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Almost 20 years ago my wife Lynette began making an extract from elderberries growing wild at the edge of our woods.  These were mostly black elderberries (Sambucus niga) but also the native American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis).  We harvest the clusters of berries every fall and let them steep in alcohol (we used cheap vodka).  Here is Lynette’s’ recipe and experience:

“I made my own tincture (incredibly easy —cover the ripe berries with 80-100 proof alcohol and steep and shake occasionally; in 6 weeks it’s done!).  Could it be true that elderberry tincture taken at the first signs of a cold had the power to banish the virus?  In my experience, and now in that of countless friend’s experience (I cannot help but share what I learn) it does in fact work for colds, flu and other viral attacks as well!”

Elderberry extract, juice and wine have been used traditionally to support the immune system, especially during the winter season or when experiencing extra stress. We make a gallon or so of extract every year and then whenever we feel those logy early symptoms of a cold we down a teaspoon of the elderberry goodness every few hours and almost invariably we stop the cold virus or head off the full impact.  Elderberry is our magical cold remedy.

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We do most of our gardening in Vermont from April through November. But now, Lynette and I are also gardening in Costa Rica from December through March. There, in addition to the usual vegetables, we also harvest pineapples, coconuts, mangoes and some amazing wild edibles. In this photo I’m in our yard holding the amazing fruit cluster of the pinuela (pineapple family). In recent years, Lynette has become the Euell Gibbons of our communities in both Vermont and Costa Rica, discovering “super foods” provided every day by nature.  I asked Lynette to tell her tropical super foods story:

“For 35 years, Will and I have called Vermont home and have accepted the seasonality of gardening under northern climate conditions. Five years ago, we became official “snowbirds” and began to also sink roots in the country of my maternal ancestors: Costa Rica. With this change came new joys, opportunities and challenges of gardening in the tropics. Even though the ambient temperature seems hospitable to year round gardening, there are many other factors in play that dictate a seasonal aspect to gardening there as well! With drip irrigation, shade structures (natural shade from high trees and constructed from durable shade cloth), and some wind protection, it is possible to enjoy many of the veggies that thrive in Vermont, such as tomatoes, peppers (of every color and heat), eggplants, cucumbers, summer and winter squash and some herbs.
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Vermont’s unemployment rate is about 5%, one of the lowest in the country. In September, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that Vermont is also the only state that saw household incomes grow in the past year. One reason for these positive trends during recessionary times, is our State's economic base, which is dominated by small, locally-owned businesses. Vermont is not as buffeted by national and global booms and busts and we have a more steady-as-she-goes economy.

In recent years, Vermont has also created the most growth per capital in jobs related to the ‘green economy’, including energy efficiency, renewable energy, waste management, water and land conservation…and sustainable agriculture. This success in ‘green job’ creation results from conscious efforts to build sustainability into statewide policies for energy, food, the environment and land development. As our world's natural resources (water, soil, fossil fuels, predictable climate, etc.) become more limited, such policies should enhance Vermont's competitive economic advantage.

Changes in our country's food system show how this advantage can work. For the first time in 90 years the number of farms in the U.S. is increasing. The demand for locally grown, healthier, fresher and better-tasting food grown with fewer pesticides, herbicides and genetically modified ingredients is a key factor in the success of family farms that are serving markets where they are located. In Vermont, the number of new diversified farms has been growing for years even as we continue to lose dairy farms. (more…)

Answer: More than all the food that has been produced by farmers, foragers and gardeners over the past 8,000 years! That’s right, to feed the world’s growing population we will need to produce as much food in the next 4 decades as was produced since the dawn of agriculture. This means doubling calorie production from all the land that is currently under cultivation. How will this be possible? Increasing local food production – including home gardening – will be a big part of the solution.

For most of my life, I have been observing the shift from family farms and local food production to centralized, industrialized agriculture fueled by cheap oil and federal subsidies. I started Gardener's Supply and the Intervale Center thirty years ago to form beachheads in my hometown and in backyards across America that proclaimed “local, organic food grown here.” It is encouraging to see that finally, real progress is being made. The amount of local food being grown with sustainable practices is now increasing faster than the amount of food produced on industrial-scale farms thousands of miles from dinner tables.

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For a short and engaging explanation of why the industrial food system that our nation and the world has been promoting and subsidizing since WWII is not the long term solution we need, check out the video What’s on Your Plate, just released by the University of Vermont (also available HERE).

While our country’s food policy has produced an abundance of cheap calories, it has also had huge consequences:

*Control over our food system is now in the hands of a few   mega-corporation
*Millions of small family farms have failed
*Tens of thousands of rural economies have failed
*Half of our country’s topsoil has been lost
*Our rivers, aquifers and oceans have been despoiled
*We have unprecedented diet-related health epidemic

But new winds are blowing here in Vermont and around the country as consumers choose more local, healthy, sustainably grown food. Even a few people in Washington DC are beginning to recognize the failure of six decades of “Big Ag” policy. With Congress on summer recess and a new election season upon us, this is a great time to encourage your elected representatives to support a more balanced food policy. Find out how to contact them HERE.

When I first began working on food issues, it was the early 1980s. At that time our worries were primarily environmental (loss of top soil, contaminated aquifers from agricultural chemicals, monoculture desertification of the Great American prairie) and economic (a growing reliance on industrial agriculture and the loss of family farms to a USDA policy of “get big or get dead”).

Today we have even more worries. How will we feed the 7 billion people already on the planet today, much less the projected 9 billion who will be here in 2050? How will our oil-based food system adapt to rising energy costs? How will we curb industrial agriculture’s climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions?

The challenges we face are greater, but the balance may be tipping.

In New England, Vermont’s Intervale Center has been a pioneer in food system transformation. When the Intervale Center was founded 30 years ago, Vermont was producing about .1% of the calories we consumed. We are now approaching 5%, a 50 times increase, and there’s a statewide plan to reach 10% by 2022.

How did this happen? Our plan was simple (though not easy!). We identified three key steps to stimulating more local food production and then we worked on those steps for three decades.

Could the same strategy help transform local food systems in Costa Rica? The answer appears to be yes. We are just 5 years into that effort and already see changes.

How to Launch a Local Food System Transformation

1. Access, improve and gain long-term, cost-effective control over productive land so local farms can sprout.

The Intervale Center accomplished this on several hundred acres of essentially abandoned floodplain in the middle of Burlington. As a non-profit organization, it was able to gain long-term access to the land and make it available to farmers at very reasonable rates. One of the Intervale Center’s first initiatives was to improve the fertility of the soil by establishing a community composting facility nearby.

In Guanacaste Costa Rica, our demonstration farm, Mi Tierra, operates within an eco-development called Tierra Pacifica. We also operate a Mi Tierra "forest farming" project within another eco-development called Pueblo Verde. Both Mi Tierra farming projects partner with a local non-profit organization (Restoring Our Watershed) in service of its mission to restore a 28,000 acre watershed.

Mi Tierra and Restoring Our Watershed recently established a new no-interest micro-lending program. In its first 6 months, the program has provided loans to a honey producer, egg producer and another vegetable grower to help them employ their land more productively.

2.  Grow the market incrementally by boosting supply, then demand, then supply and so forth. 

In Burlington, we started with CSAs (the first ones in VT), which were followed by farmers markets, local restaurants, a hospital and university, and most recently the Intervale Food Hub. 

In Costa Rica, we are following the same strategy. The first outlets for local produce were Supermarket Junquillal and the Tierra Pacifica Welcome Center. Then came Los Pargos farmers market, and now local restaurants and hotels in our area of Guanacaste. Micro loan producers have secured contracts with local restaurants. E-newsletters are reaching new customers. This year, demand for local food is outstripping supply. Next year, more local farms!

3. Help new and existing farmers access skills and resources to serve the local market. 

The Intervale Center attracted new farmers by establishing the first and largest urban farm enterprise incubation program in the US. Over the past 3 decades, more than 100 small farms have been supported with business and farming education and consulting, peer-to-peer exchanges, loan programs and cooperative market access tractors, greenhouses, refrigeration, compost, etc.

In Costa Rica, we are expanding the micro-loan program and are beginning to plan for farm education and consulting, peer-to-peer exchanges, and cooperative infrastructure. Gardener’s Supply Company in Burlington is supporting research to find new seed varieties, improve soil fertility and develop custom container growing mixes.

While the climates of Vermont and Costa Rica are very different, the challenges to strengthening local food systems and creating new farms and farm employment are similar. Lessons are transferable. Local food systems can compete with industrial agriculture. Increasing local economic resilience is happening!