Coming up is the not to be missed PV Sustain Annual dinner in which local resident Nancy Hazard will be recognized for all her hard work and Hampshire College's president and global sustainability expert, Jonathan Nash, will be the featured speaker.

Also, please take a moment to check out CISA's report on scaling up our local food systems. Thoughts on eating locally in the deep winter from Kirsten Bonanza might also be an interesting read for those interested in Local Food.

If perchance you haven't yet heard about locally spawned R Credits, you should.  This alternative money system is likely to affect the Pioneer Valley and beyond.  But first things first... Greenfield.

Go Green!

From the Team at EarthThrives.com

While Deep Winter is typically a time of rest, especially for local foods, this year I've seen an increase in activity. Many local food CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture) have stepped up to creating a local food system by offering Deep Winter Shares, some going as far as freezing the bounty of the harvest for winter distribution. Various local communities (Greenfield, Northampton, Amherst, Springfield, etc.) sponsored Winter Fairs to connect growers with the community.

My household gets our Deep Winter CSA from Red Fire Farm every two weeks and we've been thrilled with the offerings. To be fair, everyone I know, whether they are getting their winter share from Enterprise, Mountain View, or another local farm, has been happy with what they've gotten. I personally appreciate Red Fire's variety; while we might have sweet potatoes each share they are various types and offer different flavors to the palate as well as increasing (or at least maintaining a little piece of) bio-diversity of our ecosystem.

Looking for real life examples on how to scale up our local food systems?  Interested in how this is being done in the Pioneer Valley?

Look no further as the local food gurus at CISA has just realeased a new report on this very topic.  Check it out here.