Vermont Garden Exchange

food for Vermonters

You Gonna Eat That?

by Eileen Weber, CT GreenScene

Shapeimage_5 Ever feel like there are just too many tomatoes and not enough time? Come August, there will be plenty of backyard gardeners who would agree with that statement. And that’s where food trading comes in. Home growers are sharing their produce in a free trade system online and in communities across the country.

According to an article in The New York Times on June 10th, there are a growing number of participants in food trading. The concept is based on the fact that “it’s a shame to let fruit go to waste” and “neighborhood fruit tastes best when it’s free.” Well, really, doesn’t everything taste better when it’s free?

Among others, the article listed web sites like VeggieTrader.com and NeighborhoodFruit.com as a place for traders to post what they have in exchange for what they want.

If you, like the founders of Veggie Trader, had excess lemons from your lemon tree, wouldn’t it be nice to see someone else make use of them? You could trade those lemons for, say, herbs or zucchini. You get to give what you have more of and take what you have less of. It’s a win-win.

In the New England area, Brian Alcorn, Founder of the Vermont Garden Exchange, wrote that many times a gardener has too much to use himself and doesn’t have the time to preserve the excess.

“The idea is to open it up so that you can trade anything,” said Alcorn, who founded the site with his wife. “You could even trade a cord of wood if that’s what you had. I just don’t want it to become an online grocery store. That’s not what it’s about.”

Lynn Seigel-Boettner, Founder and Organizer of the Santa Barbara Food Not Lawns chapters, agrees. “It’s more than just sharing food. It’s about bringing a community together and connecting people. We’ve forgotten how to do that.”

Shapeimage_4 Seigel-Boettner said that she’s always surprised when someone looking for a particular item locates it only a few houses away. “I find it curious that neighbors are meeting each other over the Internet. Two neighbors live only a few doors down from each other and they don’t know they both have chickens.”

Her food sharing idea started in March 2007. It has since grown from one Sunday a month in the Mesa area to 13 different community chapters spanning over several miles. The organization emphasizes the importance of edible landscaping. Seigel-Boettner is quick to point out that she doesn’t oppose lawns so much as she opposes the use of chemicals on the lawns going down the drains. Organically growing fruit or vegetables and sharing them with friends and neighbors sounds like a much better alternative.

She said the community exchanges are like Kindergarten for grown-ups. She sees it as an opportunity for everyone to come out and play. “Let’s get back to the ‘Can I borrow a cup of sugar?’ mentality with our neighbors.”

But what Seigel-Boettner considers an opportunity for neighbors to bond, Kaytea Petro and Oriana Sarac, Co-Founders of NeighborhoodFruit.com, hope to see some future revenue in their online fruit trading.

“Down the road, we’re hoping to charge a small finder’s fee of about $4,” said Petro. “The revenue will be strong during the summer and weak in the winter. But we’re planning on having the site up all year round.” For now, it remains free of charge.

Having both graduated from the Presidio School of Management in the San Francisco Bay Area with an idea and a dream, Petro and Sarac did a soft launch of the site on April 1st. But they really hit the ground running on June 5th. They have grown to a few hundred registered users in just a matter of weeks.

While they planned on initially focusing on the Bay Area, they have already grown pockets of traders across the country. There are users in Washington, Utah, Texas, Florida, Minnesota, New York and New Jersey. Even a few from Canada want to get in on the action.

“We’ve gotten a lot of attention,” said Sarac, who not only co-founded the company with Petro but is also the Technology and Operations Manager. “When one person finds out, they seem to pass it along to their friends. It seems to be growing in a really interesting way.”

Word of mouth can be worth its weight in gold. Perhaps that gold can pave its way into Connecticut. I’ve got some extra thyme in my herb pots. Anyone interested? Call me.

Images courtesy of Santa Barbara Food Not Lawns.

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Transition

The world seems out of whack.  Global warming, economic crisis, energy depletion, population growth, unsustainable government spending.  How do we resolve these issues?  What’s the way out?  Nobody knows.  Even the most positive thinking among us know at some deeply recessed level that things are not as they should be.  Will hunger, poverty, resource depletion and wars be the future?  Probably for a large number of the world population this will be the future.

A generational transition has begun which will deal with and partially resolve these issues.  The world will be vastly different than it is today.  Just as the button down 1950’s didn’t look like the wild 1960’s, which didn’t look like the conservative years which followed; the following 20 years won’t look like the last 20.  Americans view time as a continuum divided into small incremental changes leading to an always better future.  That view is wrong and is part of the reason why people feel paralyzed to be able to act on these issues.  The phrase “history doesn’t repeat but it rhymes” is appropriate here.  Life is cyclical, and by studying history’s cycles we can have some insight into the future.  By viewing time linearly we fall into the trap that things will somehow just plod along and we’ll get through somehow.  Well we will get through somehow because there really isn’t any alternative, but by learning from the past we can take a proactive position in dealing with the future.

Having faith in governments to deal with these issues meaningfully is naïve at best.  It is rather obvious that if governments dealt with any of these issues before we wouldn’t be in the position that we are now.  Hurricane Katrina showed that we cannot always rely on our government.  Katrina was a short term event;  imagine a global or national multi-year event which is what we are currently facing and you see what would be expected; inaction.   This isn’t all bad, though.  Relying on governments or any institutions gives them power over us.  By taking control of our own destinies to the extent that we can, is both meaningful and productive.

Americans tend to view anyone which doesn’t have a positive view of the future as some sort of a wacky doomsdayer.  So many peoples utter lack of realty in facing what lies ahead is disturbing.  Whether wrapped in the flag and having utter faith in American exceptionalism or basing your worldview on some select scripture the result is the same.  Inaction; someone else will solve the problem.  Bad things only happen to other countries.

People accept that they have to strip in front of a TSA employee in order to safely fly to Dubuque, but try convincing them that we have a fragile food supply train and you get a stare like you’re crazy.  Two thirds of our oil is imported and therefore only partially under our control.  Our excessive spending and deficits are financed by foreign countries.  This can’t and therefore won’t continue forever.  If for whatever reason our oil supplies were disrupted for any length of time we could quickly find our supermarkets empty of food.  If anybody thinks we will keep our store shelves stocked with radicchio from California by fleets of electric powered semis is delusional.  Alternative fuels won’t fill the gap to continue living the lifestyle we’re currently living.  This isn’t good or bad in and of itself, its just reality.  Barring any rapid unexpected drop in oil imports, we are assured of the gradual decline from peak oil.

The years ahead are going to be bumpy and discomforting in many ways.  They are also going to be a time to reevaluate our relationship with each other and the earth.  I feel that ultimately we will be living a healthier more meaningful life.  It won’t be one with as many material possessions or with as big of houses or as many of cars.  This is positive; we need to consume less for both the health of the earth as well as our own psychological well being.  Segments within our population have started dealing with this both individually and as groups.  Vermont has a local food movement which is an extremely positive sign.  There are also several active charities which distribute food donations.  Vermont Garden Exchange hopes to be another piece of this food puzzle.  VGE is meant to build networks of backyard gardeners which trade food, fuel, and fiber.  The intention is to foster reliance on ourselves as producers and our neighbors.

This allows as many people as possible to participate in whatever form they choose.  An elderly or disabled   person could participate by canning or baking in exchange for produce.  Somebody with a woodlot could trade a cord of wood for an agreed upon amount of produce or dairy products.  Somebody may trade wool for twenty pounds of deer meat.  Whatever anybody chooses.  I personally have never been a group participant or a joiner.  VGE is meant to allow anybody to exchange and participate individually with anybody else to whatever extent that they choose.  If VGE succeeds in its intent, participants will help build a self reliant network of food producers so food isn’t wasted, variety is increased and community spirit is fostered.  If truly hard times do come, we will be in a better position to deal with them.  If hard time never comes, we will still be eating healthy food and saving money and hopefully get to know people in our community.

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